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9. mars 2003
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Interview with Dr Henry Heimlich
 Could anything be a greater way to attain fame than having your name associated with a medical technique that saves hundreds of thousands of lives?
Dr Henry Heimlich is currently 83, and still doing strong, as does his technique that is 29 years old. BBC News honours the man who has made many life-saving inventions in an interesting interview.
The Heimlich Manoeuvre is not only helpful for choking victims, recently it has been applied by asthmatics on themselves.
11:10:33 PM 
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Govgle
You learn something new every day. I was not aware of Google's function for only searching US govt sites: www.google.com/unclesam. Perhaps a link shows up if you're searching from a US-based client?
Yes, I made up the pun in the headline myself. I agree it sucks, but it's stuck.
10:58:48 PM
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Macromedia warns of flash security flaw
 Macromedia warns that they have discovered a potentially dangerous security flaw in the Flash player, which is installed in up to 75% of the world's computers. The flaw could permit a malicious script to circumvent the flash system's "sandbox" and allow somebody access to the system.
The company recommends you immediately download an updated flash player at Macromedia's site.
10:05:32 PM
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Bin Laden "Pinned Down"
 US officials are getting optimistic about catching Osama Bin Laden (picture) in the near future.The CIA and the Pakistani army are currently tracking a large caravan of people on foot and horseback moving slowly through the mountain area of southwestern Pakistan.
Supposedly Saad, Bin Laden's son, made a mobile phone call from Tehran recently, which was traced to the exact location. While voice recognition picked it out as Bin Laden's voice, US intelligence officials are well aware of the risk that he has pulled a similar trick as he used to get out of Tora Bora: making accomplices play a tape recording with his voice over monitored phone connections.
Unlike the recently apprehended Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Bin Laden is believed to stay in mountain regions with very limited accessibility. The only way to get to the caravan would be through helicopters, but it seems the governments are reluctant to launch an aggressive operation before he is more reliably identified.
Recently, reports were made that two of Bin Laden's sons had been caught in Pakistan, but officials refused to confirm the reports. On the other hand, they did not flatly deny it either.
9:36:40 PM
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W.A.B.
 I am still pondering whether the support group Women Against Blowjobs is a joke or not.
This website aims to offer support for women who are tired of being bombarded by requests to fullfill their partners' blowjob needs.
The linked discussion forum doesn't exist anymore (lack of interest? I hope!), but there is actually some -cough- interesting links there.
I have to admit it does worry me if somebody would make such a support group.
The picture is chosen entirely on random and has no connection whatsoever to this posting. Yeah right!
8:36:56 PM
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German official fires off another salvo
Walter Kolbow, junior minister (is that like vice minister?) in the German Defense Ministry, issued a new statement likely to detoriate the transatlantic relationship further:
"The Americans look more and more like dictators with their unilateral decisions"
Kolbow said he was thinking about the Iraq crisis as well as environmental issues, and specifically Bush's infamous "anyone who is not with us, is against us" statement. Some press reports said he had called Bush a dictator, but he denied that charge.
German conservatives, traditionally more US-friendly than the ruling social-democrats, have demanded his resignation over the statement.
7:09:00 PM
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Arrest in "Dirty trick" NSA memo leak
An employee at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British counterpart to the NSA, has been arrested. The 28-year old woman is suspected of having leaked the memo to the Observer in violation of the Official Secrets Act.
Thus confirming that the memo was genuine, contrary to a lot of speculation reported here and elsewhere. The original accusation of fraud came from the infamous Drudge Report.
US mainstream media typically reported the story only with the fraud accuisation spin. I will allow myself to be pleasantly surprised, but don't really expect them to admit the memo was real, as they will have to do now if they write about this arrest.
Let's keep an eye on how this story propagates.
Douglas at The Agora beat me to this story.
4:50:28 PM
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130 million years ago: feathered dinosaurs
 Massive finds in Jehol Biota in northeast China promises to throw light on a significant number of evolutionary mysteries. A series of volcanic eruptions in the area 130 million years ago served to preserve a rich flora and fauna in fossilised form, giving us a unique chance to learn about the early Creteceous world, an exciting era for anyone who wants to learn about dinosaurs and the origins of birds.
The new species discovered has already lead to older theories being reviwed. Perhaps most interestingly, scientists have found a number of feathered dinosaurs, meaning the theory that birds evolved from early dinosaurs is even more solidly founded. The fossils also include a number of early mammals, and some very well-preserved fossils of plants.
It will take years for paleontologers to go through these amazingly rich finds, no doubt leading to increased knowledge of the history of life.
The finds are described in a longer article in the Feb. 20 issue of Nature (article not online for non-subscribers).
Picture: Sinosauropteryx, a feathered dinosaur discovered in China in 1997.
3:29:47 PM
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Will issue bomb threats for nude women
A man in Ulyanovsk in Russia phoned in a prank bomb threat to a public spa because he wanted to see panicked naked women run into the streets. It was women's day at the public bath house.
After making the phone call, he stood outside the bath house, just to be deeply disappointed to find out that the women had calmly gotten dressed before leaving it.
The man confessed to police that he had made the prank bomb threat to see nude women. Now he faces 3 years without seeing naked women for "deliberately giving false information about an act of terrorism."
1:54:10 PM
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Fundie gleefully compares Great White blaze to hell
A Christian fundie, appaled by the sex and drugs in rock and roll music, has made his own little religious hate site on the Net, RockTragedy.com. In between all the other hateful trash on the site, the site owner Brian Snider hardly manages to hide his glee at the horrible deaths suffered by the nightclub goers at the Great White concert:
The club-goers entered the bar looking for drinks, rock-and-roll and a good time, not suspecting that it would be their final night on earth. In seconds, revelry and abandon became terror and death.
Of course, this is what is awaiting all of us heathens anyway:
What's even more disconcerting is the fact that many who will read this article will go to a place that will for all eternity be exactly like that flaming club - full of darkness and eternal smoke and torment.
This hateful miserable little fanatic has taken Christian Debate Techniques 101, that's for sure.
When I first read the excerpts from this site on BlogCritics, I thought he'd fallen for a hoax. Alas, real fanatics are pretty much beyond parody. "America's own version of the Taliban" is alive and well, and supported by the White House I may add.
12:38:10 PM
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Two silly conspiracy theories
About the US: "No blood for oil" - The theory that Bush's drive for war with Iraq is driven by US desire to get their hands on Iraqi oil
About France: The idea, put forth recently, that France wants to avoid war against Iraq because they are afraid it will be revealed that France has been selling arms to Saddam Hussein in violation of UN sanctions.
12:03:41 PM
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Serious consequences
 The peace movement has fallen into the same trap it did before the Kosovo war. There was silence, even support, when the western world issued its ultimatum. Then to Milosovic, now to Saddam Hussein.
What they have failed to realise is that when you have already given an ultimatum, you can't back down. An unanimous Security Council, not only the US, told Saddam Hussein in resolution 1441 that he had to disarm immediately or "face serious consequences."
Not even Germany, France or Russia are arguing that Iraq has complied. It's been three months, and that is not immediate, and still Blix is quite clear that Iraq is not complying, it is not cooperating fully. For every new report, there is a little bit of progress, and that, apparently, is good enough for France.
The current debate is not even really about Iraq. France in particular is smelling blood, American, and it wants to put a break, if not a stop, to increasing US dominance on the world arena. If the US (and its "alliance of the willing") goes to war unilaterally, America's opponents will use this propaganda ploy endlessly to portray the US as the aggressor.
However, if France and Russia really meant that Iraq should not be disarmed, they should have vetoed resolution 1441 instead of threatening to veto a coming resolution that tells an absolute, undeniable factual truth: Iraq has not complied with 1441.
In fact, the peaceniks were so relieved when the Bush administration chose the UN route (coerced, it appeared, by Powell and Blair) that they were willing to go very far. Their only insistence was that the Security Council retained the right to call the shots.
Of course, with France at the wheel, they will not call any shots.
 The recent French adventures in the Ivory Coast shows this is not about opposition to dangerous military adventures with uncertain outcomes. It is about the US being the de facto world cop, and Russian and French pride not being able to stomach it.
I wonder how many of those who now protest Bush's drive to war with Iraq were protesting Jacques Chirac (pictured with de Villepin) some years back over France's nuclear tests in the paciifc? I am sure that the French rightist leader enjoys his time in the sun, and perhaps he savours the irony of suddenly being a hero of the radical left. It's amazing what an overt display of stubborn nationalism can get you in this age of growing anti-Americanism.
11:33:39 AM
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New era of cancer treatment
A very optimistic article about new, powerful drugs against cancer in the Observer. Powerful computer technology and intimate knowledge of genetics is combined to make it possible to design drugs that target specific cancer cells directly, reducing the design, test, test again cycle of the medical research in the past.
9:00:05 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.04.2003; 01:32:57.
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