21. mai 2003

Change of sex, change of heart One rather unorthodox way to reduce the risk of a heart disease is to change your sex, at least if you're male. Dr Erik Giltay, who conducted research over two years at Wageningen University, was not surprised by the finding. Men who undergo sex change receive synthetic estrogens to block out testosterone, and we already know that women are less likely to have heart diseases before menopause. Still... I'll take my chances with what I have. 11:53:09 PM    comment []

Why al-Qaeda singled out Norway Bjørn Stærk has an interesting theory about why al-Qaeda may have singled out Norway specifically in its latest threat. My guess is that we've been included either because of something very specific we've done in Afghanistan, or because al-Qaeda has thought of a very specific way to harm us. I don't like it either way. Me neither. The possibility that this was an announcement of a specific operation in progress is real, and hopefully taken more seriously by the powers that be than it appears. We have a particularly spineless government right now, and that doesn't promise well. The impression BBC's corrspondent has of Norwegian readiness doesn't bode well: Our correspondent says the Norwegians are hoping al-Qaeda simply got its geography wrong but they are nonetheless taking the threat seriously. I wouldn't count on al-Qaeda getting its geography wrong. The example with the two British suicide bombers shows that Muslim immigrant communities in Europe contains elements that are willing to commit atrocities. The spineless way Norway has dealt with (or, rather, not dealt with) Mullah Krekar shows this country is not at all ready to deal with the terrorist threat in a decisive way. 10:22:14 PM    comment []

Scientists try to reintroduce Darwin fish in a hostile environment "While mature Darwin fish are typically vigorously defended, the fry are often confused by distressingly weak arguments or are choked off by insufficient circulation before they can become established. "Competing species can grow in much murkier waters," said Dr. E.O. Sagan. "Weeds like astrology, scientology, religious fundamentalism, occult beliefs and so on create a very hostile environment. Reintroduction plans include seeding of mature individuals as well as efforts to clear out weed species using industrial-strength evidence and reasoning. Weed-control efforts have proven difficult in the past, however, as many species have developed dazzling resistance to even the simplest, most powerful rational thought." [Read it all at Daily Probe] If you wonder what the heck Darwin Fish is, check out this page. 9:59:59 PM    comment []

Living with SARS Still Pretty. A street poster advertising for a cosmetics shop in Hong Kong (Source: Aftenposten) 8:46:02 PM    comment []

Excuse of the day An "extremely drunk" Norwegian lawyer managed to crash his car twice before a passers-by confiscated his car keys. He can't have been a particularly good lawyer, considering the excuse he made in court. The lawyer claimed that he could not be punished for drink-driving as the alcohol had made him unconscious. The court did not buy it. He was given 36 days in prison and a NOK 10,000 (~$1,500) fine. 7:13:05 PM    comment []

That elusive AIDS vaccine A vaccine against AIDS may be one step closer thanks to the discovery of a small group of Ugandans who seem to have natural resistance to the HIV virus. 5:37:56 PM    comment []

Bin Laden's deputy urges new attacks In a tape recently played on al-Jazeera, a man identified as Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, urges renewed attacks at the embassies and commercial interests of the United States, Britain, Australia and Norway. Norway? The unexpected mention took the Norwegian foreign department and armed forces by complete surprise. Nobody has any clue why Norway has been singled out. The US, Britain and Australia had troops in Iraq. Norway opposed any military action without a UN mandate. So why single out Norway? That is anybody's guess. I can imagine two reasons: 1) Norway has been involved with special forces and warplanes in Afghanistan. 2) Norway is closely associated with the previous peace initiative for the Middle East, aka the defunct Oslo accords. It would be an exaggaration to say that Norwegians are panicking at the news, but I don't think they are sleeping that well at our embeassies in the Middle East. PS: Perhaps rather significant, the tape records Bin Laden's deputy not the man himself. The mass murderer didn't look too good on the previous tape. Expect new speculation that he's dead or severely wounded. 5:36:42 PM    comment []

Plan B for post-war reconstruction The war plan may have been brilliant, but it is getting more and more obvious that the peace plan left something to be desired. In interviews here and in Washington, and in testimony on Capitol Hill, military officers, other administration officials and defense experts said the Pentagon ignored lessons from a decade of peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Somalia, the Balkans and Afghanistan. Sure, the pundits whined about the war when nothing happened for a few days, too, but the swift decision to replace the retired army general Jay M. Garner,with diplomat L. Paul Bremer was a clear admission that something was not working according to plan. Increasing the total number of coaltion troops in Iraq to 200,000 also demonstrated that the administration realised that something was wrong. The good part is they decided to do something about it. I guess we should give the new Iraq leadership some time before we start complaining again. 4:10:28 PM    comment []

Debunking the blog-whiner Neil McIntosh in the Guardian debunks the whining about how blogs "clogs up" google. The claim that Google is planning to take weblogs off its main search page is just wishful thinking from blog-haters. 3:28:17 PM    comment []

Did the Iraq war strengthen al-Qaeda? Some war opponents have claimed that the Iraq war has strengthened al-Qaeda and its sympathisers. Christopher Hitchens points out there was no love lost between the Islamists and Saddam Hussein in the first place. Anti-western sentiments are already ripe in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries. Ironically, the recent terrorist attacks is more likely to alienate sympathisers than sway them to jihad. Let us skip over this obvious point and inquire about what they managed. In Saudi Arabia, which is a fertile place for anti-Western feeling of all sorts, they managed to kill a number of Saudi officials and bystanders while inflicting fairly superficial damage on Western interests. Widespread and quite sincere denunciation of this has been evident across Saudi society. While in Morocco, where the evidence for an al-Qaida connection is not so plain, whatever organization did set off the suicide attacks in Casablanca has isolated itself politically. Please try to remember that al-Qaida and its surrogates are engaged in a war with Muslims as well: They boast of attacking the West in order to impress or intimidate those Muslims who are wavering. But they are steadily creating antibodies to themselves in the countries where they operate. There is a die-hard belief that the anti-western sentiments of the terrorists are grounded in any imperialistic evils committed by the US or its allies. As I have pointed out earlier, religious fanaticism and the terrorism it has spawned is not built on a careful examination of historical facts, and neither on concern over social ills. Like the leftist terrorists in 1970s Europe was on the wrong side of history, so is the Islamist terrorists of today. Eradicating them is a military and law enforcement problem. Correcting any ills (perceived or otherwise) committed by the west is at best tangential to winning the war on terror. 3:14:00 PM    comment []

Anti-smoking treaty adapted The world's first global anti-smoking treaty is a reality, the brainchild of outgoing director general of the WHO, Gro Harlem Brundtland. It was long expected that the US would make such a treaty impossible, but at the last minute even the superpower gave in to pressure. All 192 member states are now committed to strict curbs on the advertising, marketing and sale of tobacco products within five years. At least one third of the space on cigarette packets will have to be devoted to health warnings, including pictures of diseased lungs. The WHO says around 4.9 million people die each year from smoking-related diseases, and as the number of smokers in the developing world increases dramatically, the deaths are expected to exceed 10 million by 2020. 2:09:27 PM    comment []

US heightens terror alert The terror alert is heightened from yellow (elevated) to orange (high) in the US. A number of other countries, including Britain, Germany and Italy, also takes precautionary steps, following a number of warning signs. 1:50:18 PM    comment []

Genetically modified trees give meat instead of fruit It doesn't grow on trees, you say. But thanks to genetic engineering, meat can grow on trees. Fruit from the new Meat Trees, developed by British scientists using gene-splicing technology, closely resembles ordinary grapefruit. But when you peel the large fruit open, inside is fresh beef. Well, not really. Again, Yahoo! Entertainment is mistaken for Yahoo! News, and it's one of those crazy stories from the Weekly World News that has made it into the blogsphere where it's discussed seriously. But a funny idea, for sure! 1:08:46 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.06.2003; 03:30:16.