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28. mars 2003
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Rumsfeld warns Syria
 US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued a stern warning to Syria about military equipment being passed into Iraq. He said
"We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments"
but refused to elaborate on whether this was a threat.
Rumsfeld really was in the mood today; he also warned Iran, which is an enemy of Iraq that has decided to stay neutral in this conflict, against allowing the Badr corps to interfere in the conflict, saying its activity would be "unhelpful."
11:34:10 PM 
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Israel worried about Blair
Israel's Ariel Sharon could not hide his joy over the split between the US and many of its allies, hoping this would lead to Israel only having to deal with a largly sympethetic US administration and ignore the EU and Russia. However, Tony Blair's linking of the Palestinian conflict with the Iraq war, and Jack Straw's understanding of western hypocrisy in allowing Israel to ignore UN resolutions, has made hardline Israelis very uneasy.
Still, when push comes to shove, Sharon's administration still hopes their lobbying power in Washington will help the roadmap to a Palestinian state being postponed into infinity, again.
11:15:29 AM
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Sample that!
When Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, received a phone message on his answering machine that supported him in his feud with rap mogul Suge Knight, he sampled it and used it on his album.
The caller is not amused, considering that Suge Knight is suspected of having links with gangs and is just getting out of jail, reputedly not a guy to mess with. So he is of course doing the all-American thing and suing Snoop Dogg for "intentional infliction of emotional distress."
8:32:18 AM
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Do we need to worry about designer babies?
The dramatic progress in our understanding of the human genome has raised a number of ethical concerns. Some have worried about "designer babies," where parents can change genes of their children to create or improve musical talents, intelligence, and get rid of undesirable traits like proneness to violence. The idea of genetical engineering of human beings have brought eerie associations with nazi projects trying to create a racially pure 'super race.'
In a very interesting speech, Dr. Steven Pinker argues that what we know about genetics today suggests it will be unfeasible over the foreseeable future to design specific human traits. Here is a excerpt:
I'm going to present a skeptical argument about designer babies to give you an overview. I'm going to suggest that genetic enhancement of human nature is not inevitable. Indeed, I would be willing to venture that it's highly unlikely in our lifetimes.[...]
There's a widespread assumption that we have discovered or soon will discover individual genes for talents such as mathematical giftedness, musical talent, athletic prowess, and so on.
But the reality is considerably different, and I think an Achilles heel of genetic enhancement will be the rarity of single genes with consistent beneficial psychological effects. I think there's a myth that such genes have been discovered or inevitably will be discovered, but it isn't necessarily so.
Indeed, I would say that the science of behavioral genetics at present faces something of a paradox. We know that tens of thousands of genes working together have a large effect on the mind. We know that from twin studies that show that identical twins are far more similar than fraternal twins who, in turn, are more similar than unrelated individuals, and from adoption studies that show that children resemble their biological parents more than their adopted parents.
But these are effects of sharing an entire genome or half of a genome or a quarter of a genome. It's very different from the existence of single genes that have a consistent effect on the mind, which have been few and far between.
Anyone who has kept up with the literature on behavioral genetics has noticed that there's been a widespread failure to find single genes for schizophrenia, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and so on. And those, by the way, are the areas where we're most likely to find a single gene simply because it's easier to disrupt a complex system with a single defective part than it is to install an entire complex ability with a single gene. The failure to find a gene with consistent effect on, say, schizophrenia means that it's even less likely that we will find a gene for something as complex as musical talent or likability.
Read the whole thing. It provides a good overview of the subject, and dispels a few misconceptions about the state of genetics and how specific genes relates to human behaviour and hereditary traits.
6:31:10 AM
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Chief Seattle, fictitous environmentalist icon
 In December 1854, Chief Seattle, on signing a treaty with the US government, held an impassioned speech to a group of fellow natives of the North-West, of which no reliable record is known. There are at least two well-known renderings of his speech. One is the version that Dr. Henry Smith wrote down 30 years later and had published in 1887 in the the Seattle Sunday Star. While its flowery language seems very foreign for a Puget Sound indian, we have at least some reason to believe it represents the gist of his message.
Another version is much more famous, and has been immensely popular among environmentalists in the past decades. It has been printed in booklets. There, Chief Seattle argues for environmental awareness, stresses the unity between humans and nature, and chides the whites for slaughtering buffalo and roughsledding through the environment. A number of prominent (and wanna-be) environmentalists, including then-vice president Al Gore in his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, has made references to this speech.
Stirring, maybe, but hardly authentic. A careful reader will perhaps wonder how Chief Seattle could make the following statement:
I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie left by the white man who shot them from a passing train.
Not only did Seattle live in the north-west, hundreds of miles from the nearest flock of buffalo, the speech was made in 1854, when the railroad was years from making it to the west.
In fact, it was written to be a stirring speech for today, by screenwriter Ted Perry, for a 1972 film about ecology, and attributed to the famous leader. It is so stirring, in fact, that it has become an icon of modern environmentalist consciousness, propelling Chief Seattle to the position of a wise prophet that never was. But as prophets go, that is hardly unique.
4:51:17 AM
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Danish football player showed genitalia
 The Danish football star Thomas Gravesen pulled aside his shorts and showed his family jewels to his collegues during an argument while training. He was not aware of the Rumenian photographer.
The Danish team is in Rumania for an important European Cup qualifier, but this incident has overshadowed discussions about sports. National team coach Morten Olsen has excused Gravesen's childish behaviour.
Gravesen himself is not too happy about the attention, and regrets his stupidity. However, "It is not a world sensation," he adds. "We all have one of those."
(From a Norwegian article in VG. If you insist, you can go there for a larger picture)
3:22:31 AM
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Mob suspects killed by police in Serbia
Two Serbian mob-suspects were killed in a shoot-out with police Thursday night. The two, Dusan Spasojevic and Milan Lukovic, were wanted in relation to the assasination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, and reportedly opened fire on police officers sent to arrest them.
Under former Yugoslav president Milosovic, there were a close relationship between organised crime syndicates and the security forces. The police crackdown after the prime minister's assassination has targeted both the mob, in particular the so-called Zemun Clan, and members of special police forces.
After the assassination, there has been a state of emergency in Serbia, and about 1,000 people have been arrested. Djindjic had earned the emnity of Milosovic' supporters by giving him and other war crimes suspects up to the Hague tribunal, and the organised crime networks by starting a crackdown on mob rule.
2:23:01 AM
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Today's pinch of salt award goes to...
"British military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting on the side of Saddam Hussein's forces against allied troops near Basra." (SMH)
I'm not saying it can't be true, just that especially given the poor reliability of the coalition's propaganda so far in this war, such a claim gets caught by my "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" filter.
1:05:24 AM
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Prince of Darkness resigns
Richard Perle, an important right-wing ideologue and the man widely believed to have been the architect behind the current war on Iraq, has resigned from his position as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. He will remain a member of the board, which is an important advisory panel for defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld..
Perle has recently been accused of mixing business and politics. While rejecting the accusations, he has argued that the negative attention has made it difficult to do his job.
Perle was a staunch opponent to any arms reduction treaties with the Soviet Union during the Reagan years, giving him the nickname "Prince of Darkness."
Picked the lead up at Kriselda of different strings.
12:50:04 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.04.2003; 01:34:50.
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