11. mai 2003

Approaches to the North Korea threat Interesting article in the NYT on how Bush administration officials differ on how to tackle the North Korea crisis. 11:21:41 PM    comment []

Australia's Governor-General steps down After being under intense pressure to step down after accusations of mishandling sex cases while he was an Anglican archbishop, Australian Governor-General Peter Hollingworth is finally conceding defeat and steps down. A recent allegation that he raped a woman in the 60s, which is now being dealt with by the courts, was the final straw. Hollingworth has denied the rape allegations. 10:18:01 AM    comment []

Life in the fast lane My ISP has kindly quadrupled the bandwidth for its customers this weekend, of course hoping we get used to it and shell out the extra $$$ for an upgrade. Well, I could get used to 4Mbit/sec. Heck, I could get used to ten times that. 4:47:23 AM    comment []

Green light for UK Euro lobbying British Prime Minister Tony Blair is about to allow cabinet members to start campaigning for the UK to join the Euro zone. So far, Blair has not openly advocated joining the single European currency, but this may be a first step towards a referendum, maybe in 2005 or 2006. The country is deeply divided over that issue already, as many are opposed to given up the traditional British Pound. 4:16:14 AM    comment []

Bush and Blair nominated for Nobel Peace Prize A Norwegian parliamentary has nominated George Bush and Tony Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize for accomplishing regime change in Iraq. Jan Simonsen (picture) is the only independent currently serving in the Norwegian parliament (Storting). He was not elected as such; he was a member of the right-wing Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) but was kicked out as part of some serious housecleaning some time back. Simonsen had misused his position to try to obtain an alcohol permit for a criminal friend. The friend in question, Ivar Berge, had been sentenced to four years' imprisonment in Germany for pimping out boys down to the age of 14 for prostitution. A criminal record makes it considerably harder to receive a permission to serve alcohol in Norway. For this favour, Simonsen had been promised free drinking in the bar. The party has had its share of crackpots over the years, and once in a while they feel like cleaing up their image to not look too much like certain extremist right-wingers in Austria and France. Politically they are more populist than really right-wing these days. They are as always pretty consistently anti-immigration, but try to balance the line to not flirt too openly with racist sentiments. Now, the Nobel Peace Prize has had some odd laureates over the years, e.g. Richard Nixon and Rigoberta Menchu, but with the climate in Norway being pretty anti-Bush the chance of this prize is virtually zilch. Also, the deadline for the 2003 nominations are past, so the twosome would only come into consideration for 2004. If they had a snowball's chance in hell to begin with. All members of national parliaments, professors of history, law and politics and former laureates can make nominations for the Nobel Peace prize. The secretive committee making the selection consists of individuals that are appointed by the Norwegian Storting, but they do not answer to it. Being on the Nobel committee is typically a cookie given to retired politicians for services rendered. It's not very unlike being "kicked upwards" to the House of Lords (or worse, to Brussels) in the UK once they get too old or too emberrassing for the establishment. 3:33:37 AM    comment []

Kissing Hank's ass One absolute classic piece explaining the con typically involved in Christian proselytizing is the hilarious dialogue kissing Hank's ass. If you want to share this with someone rather sensitive, there is even a toned down version called kissing Hank's butt "for distribution to your church-going aunt." As someone once said, if at the end of eternity you're still dead, you will not get your wasted life back. No matter how many sacred butts you try to kiss. 1:26:05 AM    comment []

Bush administration allows faith based groups to use "sacred texts." The Bush administration has quietly dropped the requirment for faith based organisations to not use "sacred texts" in job training in federally funded programs. While the requirments still doesn't allow proselytizing or prayer sessions, it is an obvious move in that direction. Also, note that it will be difficult to prove in any court that someone proselytized. The use of sacred texts (read: the Bible!) is a clearly defined activity. This move makes the provision to not proselytize become accompanied by a wink and a nudge. 12:52:18 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.06.2003; 03:29:45.