31. mai 2003

Homegrown American terrorist taken The American terrorist Eric Rudulph has been arrested by deputies who mistook him for a homeless. Rudulph was wanted for the 1996 Olympic bombing in Atlanta and bombings of a gay night club and an abortion clinic. He is believed to adhere to so-called Christian Identity, a movement that mixes fundamentalist Christianity with neo-nazism, and is opposed to Jews, gays and foreigners. He was on the FBIs ten most wanted list, and has eluded massive manhunts for years. 10:09:52 PM    comment []

— Bush administration skewed intelligence on Iraq A number of US security professionals accuses the Bush administration of distorting facts and hijacking the intelligence system to get reports that justified a rush to war with Iraq. The claims focus on a four-team Pentagon team that allegedly filtered intelliegence material to make it look like Iraq was an imminent threat, which it wasn't. This team, self-mockingly called the Cabal, "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat, said Patrick Lang, a former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence. The DIA was "exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he added in a phone interview. He said the CIA had "no guts at all" to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating U.S. foreign policy. Another charge was that the Pentagon put too much trust in Chalabi and his group of exiles, leading them to believe chemical weapons was an imminent threat to coalition forces. Central Intelligence director Tenet and the all-present Richard Perle defended the role of the "cabal" and denied that intelligence was skewed. 9:26:44 PM    comment []

Meow TV Cats are getting their own TV show in, of course, the US. Meow TV, broadcast for the first time last night, offers them half an hour of prime time entertainment, including Cat Yoga, Cat Haikus and Squirrel Alert. Got to be purr-fect for advertisers of cat food. 7:16:41 PM    comment []

— Marlboro even worse for you The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has released a study saying that the US cigarette brand Marlboro has a higher content of the carcinogen nitrosamine than most other brands, possibly making it even more dangerous. 6:44:06 PM    comment []

McSue II - Revenge of the cardboard fries Remember those obese people suing McDonald's for fattening them up? Beginning to feel a little bit of emphathy for the junk chain? No worries. Now McDonald's has sued Edoardo Raspelli, one of Italy's top food critics, for defamation after he wrote that their burgers tasted like rubber and its fries like cardboard. "To me this looks like the usual, very American effort to destroy criticism and destroy people," Raspelli said. "I didn't defame anybody, not even their French fries." No, because they do taste like cardboard. 5:20:44 PM    comment []

The Birds II - The humans strike back After a number of people, and also livestock, have been attacked by crows in the German city of Hamburg, the authorities have now decided this is a problem that calls for drastic measures. Saxony's Environment Minister Steffen Flath has lifted the ban on shooting crows and is calling on gun owners to shoot the crazy birds. I expect downtown Hamburg to look and sound like an Afghan wedding any time now. 2:56:47 PM    comment []

Annular eclipse of the Sun Picture taken here in Bergen, 05:45 AM local time. Source: Bergens Tidende. See a number of amazing pictures from various places at BBC News. 1:41:25 PM    comment []

What is a blog anyway? If you are a blogger, you've probably been asked countless times what a blog or weblog is. And that's not a very easy question to answer. What distinguishes it from a normal webpage? Dave Winer gives a detailed, comprehensive and easy-to-follow answer in the article What makes a weblog a weblog?. Next time somebody asks, give them that url. 1:08:01 AM    comment []

...but fear itself Just when you thought it coundn't get worse, Norwegian scientists have discovered that worrying can cause cancer. The new findings, based on a study of more than 60,000 people, were presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association by researchers from the University of Bergen. Psychiatrists led by Dr Arnstein Mykletun followed up 62,591 Norwegians who had participated in a medical survey from 1995 to 1997. The Norway National Cancer Registry was used to identify people in the survey who had developed cancers or pre-malignancies – abnormal cells that can turn cancerous. Those who had scored highly in an anxiety test in 1995 were found to be about 25 per cent more likely to have pre-malignancies. My question: if this is the case, why tell us about it? 12:18:58 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.06.2003; 03:32:10.