8. april 2003

Meow! West Hollywood in California has banned declawing of cats in a strike for animal rights, a US first. 11:06:50 PM    comment []

Russians angered by diplomatic convoy shooting The Russian embassador to Iraq has accused the US of firing at their convoy deliberately. The US has rejected the claim, and states that the convoy was endangered because it chose a different route than what it had told US authorities. The US has a talent for firing at the wrong diplomats. I remember one Chinese embassy in Beograd. 9:40:48 PM    comment []

Where are my comments? I just noticed that some reader's comments appear to be lost. It appears that for postings where I had more than two comments, only the first two show up (even though the number is correct). For example, I know I had six comments to my piece about Paul McCartney, but only the first two shows up now. I really, really hope that is fixed. And just when the blog server started to behave again... 7:49:40 PM    comment []

SARS may have spread through cockroaches It's been a bit of a mystery how the SARS virus spread through an apartment block at Amoy Gardens in Hong Kong. Some of the around 300 inhabitants infected had not even had personal contact with each other, and yet they had been infected with the potentially deadly virus. This raised fears that the disease not only spread through droplets as previously believed, but had gone airborne.Yet, other evidence suggested that luckily that was not the case. The city's Deputy Director of Health Leung Pak-yin has suggested that the disease spread through a well-known route: cockroaches. The virus may have spread through cockroaches moving through the drainage system. 7:34:43 PM    comment []

Cross burning constitutional or what? I admit I find myself utterly confused by the ruling from the US Supreme Court on the constutionality of the Virginia law against cross-buring. More on Kyro5hin. 6:43:48 PM    comment []

Housing officials mistook teddy bear for live-in partner Bureaucrats are the same everywhere, a woman in Victoria, Australia, recently found out. As a joke, Estelle changed her telephone answering machine to invite callers to leave messages "for Barnaby and Estelle". Housing officals heard it, and concluded she had been cheating, cut her rent rebate and sent a stern letter requesting bank statements, income receipts and identification for Barnaby, Estelle's teddy bear. She did see the humour of the situation, but it put Estelle through a lot of stress before a tenant's advocacy group finally managed to get the housing office to back down. 6:16:32 PM    comment []

World War III just about over It is rather astonishing that a war can rage for four and a half year, involved seven foreign armies, half a continent, kill an estimated 3.3 million people, and attract so little attention. The Democratic Republic of Congo has been the stage for the world's most vicious and mortal war after WW2, and another tragic chapter in it were written last week when almost 1,000 civilians were killed during a few hours. Let's hope it's the last one. 4:33:00 PM    comment []

Middle Ages warmer than present "Claims that man-made pollution is causing "unprecedented" global warming have been seriously undermined by new research which shows that the Earth was warmer during the Middle Ages." (The Telegraph) This may have been unknown to environmentalists and even some earth scientists, but it's not new to any historians. This has been the main reason I have been deeply skeptical to claims that humans cause global warming. Such climate changes have been common all through human history. It is also the case that the current warming falls into a long-term trend of recovery from the so-called "little ice age." I wrote about this on this blog quite some time ago. 3:38:46 PM    comment []

What if Fox News were there...? Check out these hilarious examples of what Fox News would report if they were present at the Boston Tea Party, Normandie, civil rights struggle, Jesus' crucifiction, Pearl Harbour, you name it! Will take some time to load, but it will be worth it! 3:24:41 PM    comment []

McDonald's brand new plan McDonald's has been severely damaged by sales slumps, and reported a quarterly loss for the first time Q4 2002. Now they plan to refocus on bringing customers into existing outlets instead of opening new 'restaurants' at the same fever pitch rate as in the past. I bet it hasn't even occurred to them to try to make good hamburgers. 3:11:28 PM    comment []

Sue the world Theodore J. Rout is obviously a few cards short of a full deck, something the Australian High Court learned the hard way when he came in to challenge... eh, it's not entirely clear what he was arguing. If you didn't think a court transcript could be funny, read it and change your mind. The justices no doubt had a good laugh when they got into the back room. Highlight (if that is the right word): No, it does because the dividing and multiplying by zero, the set that they are adhering to, enables me - it causes things to cease to exist. Now, I have proven everything is on nothing so if everything is on nothing and you multiply it by zero, then the entire universe and the world does not exist. I am impressed with the patience of the justices. There's a sort of lesson here, folks: The word "law" in science does not mean the same as the word "law" means in legal matters. You can't take the law of gravity to court. Violating it is more a matter of instant justice. 1:18:38 PM    comment []

Bush: UN will play role in Iraq George Bush stated today that Iraq should move towards an interrim government consisting of Iraqis as soon as possible, and that the UN would play a "vital role" in this process. He wasn't more specific, and neither did he specify what conditions the UN had to meet to play that role (and who would write the script, he didn't need to say). 12:59:24 PM    comment []

Occoquan Inquirer A flashy, smoking new edition of the Virtual Occoquan is out, and you definately should not miss this. It contains highlights from the past week in Salon blogging as Mark sees it, including yours truly's article dissing the second superpower. 7:20:54 AM    comment []

Hypochondriacs' favourite sites If you worry that you or somebody you know might have SARS, you are unlikely to be much wiser after visiting the World Health Organisation's SARS site or the Center for Disease Control's FAQ (= Frequently Asked Questions and their answers). These pages will tell you the symptoms for SARS, and you can easily see they are very similar to the common flu, tonsilitis and countless ailments and allergies. If we don't get a good SARS test soon, the growing panic will just threaten to overwhelm health care around the world. 12:59:31 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.05.2003; 02:59:01.