7. mai 2003

Touch and feel "A touch football game between suburban Chicago high school girls turned into a brutal hazing in which players were slapped, punched, doused with paint and splattered in the face with mud and feces." (San Francisco Chronicle) Kinky! 9:45:45 PM    comment []

The evil world of the blogsphere When I try to follow the Big American Debates, it is hard not to notice how throughly bipartisanship permeates every debate. If someone is in the conservative corner, he is expected to hold a whole package of opinions, and usually he does. I see no rational reason why being religiously conservative should be combined with promoting tax cuts, wanting the strictest punishments for crimes imaginable, be dodgy on race and wanting to invade whatever country it is fashionable to want to invade. As I see it, this is rather arbitary and could just as well be the other way around  Historically, it has been. Stanley Kurtz belongs firmly to the conservative camp. When fellow conservative William Bennett was exposed as a passionate gambler, he naturally feels like he has to run to his defense. As defenses go, Kurtz' are among the better, but of course he can't convince anyone outside the choir he's preaching to. A loud-mouthed moralist must be squiky clean himself, and Bennet simply isn't. Kurtz' statement did not remain unopposed, of course. In a recent entry, he loudly whines about bloggers' lack of manners and tact: Venom is no substitute, either for argument or for a good accounting of an opponent’s argument. It has come to serve as a way for bloggers to assure themselves that people who are not, say, libertarians, have no points worth listening to. And at some level, I think bloggers know that their insults actually protect them, by making their targets less likely to respond. When I read this piece, I was mildly sympathetic. I agree it should be possible to debate issues without making insults. However, when I went back to read Kurtz' original article, I found that his original article was basically a personal attack on his opponents Kinsley and Saletan are the real hypocrites here. They're giving up their own libertarianism to destroy someone they don't like. They haven't bothered to consider that one-size-fits-all arguments can't be applied to every moral issue. Or maybe they're just too busy trying to destroy Now, there is a subtle but distinct difference between calling someone a hypocrite and saying that something he or she wrote was hypocritical. The first is a personal attack, the second is an attack on the arguments. It is the same as the difference between saying "you are stupid" and "that is a stupid argument." Kurtz, in his most recent entry on the subject, goes on beating his chest: The blogosphere offers a welcome antidote to the safety and blandness of the academy. But sometimes the failings of the blogosphere show why we developed those academic conventions of respect in the first place. This would have been a well made point if he followed these "acedemic conventions" himself. Namecalling and pop-psychoanalysis of opponents, however common, was never a part of rational debate. If one should borrow a weapon from Kurtz' arsenal, one could ask if he used these tactics as camouflage for his arguments being obviously insufficient. 9:34:05 PM    comment []

You never have to leave the Net again Click for enlarged version. "Loo" is a Briticism for toilet. FYI. 7:16:25 PM    comment []

P2P: Arms race is on Users of peer-to-peer (p2p) file sharing systems like Kazaa and Gnutella have every reason to be nervous, as the recording industry seems bent on attacking individual users. So far losing the legal battle against the creators of file sharing software, they go for the targets they can find: individual users who offer copyrighted files for download. When you share files, everybody, including the snoops at RIAA, can see your IP address and get your name and address through your provider. One possible solution? A personal firewall like PeerGuardian which blocks people from known snooper networks from seeing your IP or downloading your files. Of course, this product requires that the IP addresses of snoops are known, and that the lists are updated regularly. Those of us who have followed the spam wars know that this often allows the bad guys to remain one step ahead. Rather, consider this product just one of the first weapons in the coming arms race between the recording industry and we the people. 5:39:56 PM    comment []

Baseball against abortion A group of fundie baseball stars are organising a group called 'Battin 1000' which is dedicated to raise money from sales of baseball memorablia and autographs to fight against abortion. The money goes to American Life League's Campus for Life, a Catholic extremist organisation headed by Judie Brown, who broke with National Right to Life Committee because the latter accepted abortions in cases of rape and incest. Brown, the league's president, says a "single cell zygotic child" is not a potential human being, but "a complete human being." She also terms birth control "dangerous" and "a gateway to abortion." In August 2001, when President Bush announced that federal funds for embryonic stem cell research could be used, but only on a few already existing cell lines, Brown denounced him, saying: "He can no longer describe himself as pro-life." The group plans to channel money from baseball fans into work for an extremist cause. 4:58:18 PM    comment []

Sars death rate 20 per cent Professor Roy Anderson of Imperial College in London has done a study of Sars mortality, "the first to be based on a statistically sound sample of 1,425 cases," and it appears that WHO has underestimated the mortality rate seriously. According to this study, Sars mortality is 20 %, breaking down to 40 % for those aged sixty and over, and 13 % for under 60s. 7:18:08 AM    comment []

If you lose, sue! David Williams squandered his life savings into the slot machines at a casino in Indiana. Naturally, it's not his own fault. He is just a victim, a self-proclaimed gambling addict, so now he sues the casino for not denying him access. A U.S. District judge saw that the casino had no obligation to protect an adult against his own stupidity, but the case has been appealed. Anti-gambling groups hope such lawsuits will finally prevail. 5:16:07 AM    comment []

Saddam's bank robbery According to the US State Dept, Saddam Hussein and his family took $1 billion from Iraq's central bank shortly before the coalition attack began. Sounds about what some 'rogue state' would demand to accept Saddam & his crazy sons. 3:18:41 AM    comment []

Amina Lawal appeal An email is being passed around claiming that the Nigerian Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence for Amina Lawal, and that she is to be executed on June 3. I just noticed the story on Rayne and Filchyboy, and was about to report it to you, but I did a google just in case... The story is false! Amnesty International, the alleged source of the story, says: "All our web pages contain up-to-date information on Amina Lawal's case. Our public material mentions 3 June 2003 not as the date for carrying out a sentence of death, but as the new date set by the Sharia Court of Appeal of Katsina State for the hearing against her sentence," Apparently, a misunderstanding is being propagated here. But attention to this case is a good thing, and signing the online petition for her, available at Amnesty International's Spanish site, is still a great idea! Lawal was condemned to death for adultery by an Islamic sharia court after she gave birth outside wedlock, and has been kept alive until her baby is weaned. The case is still undergoing appeals, and she now has excellent legal representation. 12:49:05 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.06.2003; 03:29:32.