3. juni 2003

Krone dropping The Norwegian Krone has been strengthened through this year, helped by a high domestic interest rate. Critics of the monetary policy has said the central bank is overfocused on low inflation, and the export industry is suffering from the high exchange rate, retained despite a number of earlier rate cuts. In a speech at the business college BI today, head of the central bank Svein Gjedrem suggested the bank would take "stronger steps" to address this. This was immediately interpreted as the central bank intending to lower the rate by a whole percentage point, as opposed to the universally expected 0.5 cut, and the Norwegian krone has dropped substantually through the day. Yesterday, you could buy  about 6.70 kroner for 1 US$, this afternoon it would buy you 6.82. Good news for the tourists, too. 11:56:37 PM    comment []

Sex and demons in the sect The Jehovah's Witnesses, who have received a lot of negative publicity over the last year because of the sect leaders' unwillingness to deal with sexual abuse of children, is basically founded on a publishing industry. Its output in books and magazines is impressive. The content of the printed products is, as anyone who has even been persuaded to actually read a Watchtower will know, not that impressive. The sect also has published a lot of publications targeted at the children so unfortunate as to grow up in the sect, a grisly display of nightmare-inducing propaganda that should give psychiatrists work for decades (see e.g., this page and scroll down to look at the pictures and text of the 1958 book From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained). This summer, the sect published Learn from the Great Teacher, a new book directed at young children. The book is designed for thorough indoctrination, as explained in the foreword (p. 7): You will notice that the book calls for a response on the part of children. Many well-placed questions are provided in the printed material. When you come to these, you will see a dash ( -- ). This is a reminder to pause and encourage the child to express himself. Children like to be involved. Without the involvement, a child will quickly lose interest. So what do they want to teach young children? Like many other sects, the Jehovah's Witnesses have an unhealty obsession with sex (especially, not having it) and demons. In this latest work, they combine the two, hoping to scare the children into leaving their sex organs alone by putting the fears of demons in them. In chapter 10, pp 60-61, we find the following chilling paragraphs: It is important that we know what bad things the demons will try to get us to do. So think about it. What bad things did the demons do when they came to earth? -- Before the Flood, they had sex relations with women, something that was not right for angels to do. Today the demons like it when people do not obey God's law about sex relations. Let me ask you, Who only should have sex relations? -- You are right, only married people. Today some young boys and girls have sex relations, but this is wrong for them. The Bible talks about the male "genital organ," or penis. (Leviticus 15:1-3) The female genital parts are called the vulva. Jehovah created these parts of the body for a special purpose that should be enjoyed only by married people. It makes the demons happy when people do things that are forbidden by Jehovah. For example, the demons like it when a boy and a girl play with each others' penis or vulva. We don't want to make the demons happy, do we? -- I grew up in this sect, and I remember very well the chapter in the 1976 book Your Youth -- Getting the Best Out Of It that told me that if I masturbated, I would turn gay. Luckily, where I grew up, parents and other adults were about as emberrassed by the tripe as us children. Others were not that lucky. And I, remembering how badly affected I was at the generic demon scare stories I picked up in the JW environment, shudder at the thought of children growing up associating their genitalia with demons. How can anyone expect them to ever grow up and have a healthy sex life with their mates later in life? 8:51:32 PM    comment []

"Amateur" bloggers John Naughten shoots back at arrogant journalists who decry the prominent placing of 'amateur' blogs on google searches. True, bloggers are an impressive outlet for anybody's free speech. And journalists are professionals in the sense that they are paid to write, while most bloggers are amateurs in the sense that we are not. However, that misses the point. People who search for a topic wants accuracy in reporting. They want, presumably, facts. They don't care if the writer put the words in print to pay his mortgage, as opposed to just having a strong desire to share his ideas with people. And bloggers may be amateur writers, but they tend to be educated and experienced professionals in something else. Some few mainstream media outlets actually use e.g. writers with a real science background to write about science. Mostly, however, journalists are jack-of-all-trade writers who know a little (often very little) about a wide range of subjects. On the other hand, quite a few science bloggers are professional scientists or students of science. The blog community concists of historians, lawyers, military people, health professionals and of course a large number of computer experts. Amateurs? When these people write about topics they are highly educated to write about, they are much more likely to provide good insights than a journalist with no specific background who has a looming deadline preventing him or her to really become familiar with the topic at hand. 8:16:00 PM    comment []

Iraq: the right place for your dream vacation The Telegraph's Mark Stevyn went to Iraq by himself to find the chaotic human powder egg just waiting to explode, and found something entirely different. In fact, it would be a perfect place for a nice holiday. Not next year, but now! For most of the Iraq war and its immediate aftermath, it was easy for any relatively rational person to dismiss the media doom-mongering. Hundreds of thousands of dead civilians? Never gonna happen. Hand-to-hand street-fighting as Baghdad morphs into Stalingrad? Dream on. Even that Iraqi National Museum "disaster" was an obvious hoax, though I was sad to see my friends at The Spectator fall for it and add their own peculiar twist that it was all a conspiracy of a sinister US antiquities lobby. But, when the naysayers started moving on to claim that the whole post-war scene was going disastrously for the Yanks, I honestly didn't know what to make of it. As a general rule of thumb, when two non-government organisations, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, the BBC and the New York Times agree that the whole powder keg's about to go up, it's a safe bet that things are going swimmingly. But who knows? Even these guys have got to be right once a decade or so. So I decided to see for myself. Don't miss his report. It's at least a nice counter-balance to the regular armchair doomsayers. 7:57:36 PM    comment []

Cow power An unusual fuel is used to power computers in the Mtabila refugee camp in Tanzania: cow dung. Thanks to this unusual project, some of the most deprived people in Africa can learn basic computer and internet skills. 5:19:03 PM    comment []

Blix ponders about possible bioweapons trucks Hans Blix, former head of the UN weapons inspectors to Iraq, says they had "leads" on chemical and biological weapons that they were prohibited from checking out when the war started. Since UN are not requested to assist, this information seems to not be forwarded to coalition forces. Blix finds the two laboratory trucks interesting, and makes some comments about them in his final report to the UN. Mr Blix said in his 40-page report that Iraq denied any such units existed and provided UN inspectors "with pictures of legitimate vehicles." He noted, however, that none of the vehicles in the pictures looked like the trucks found by the US. The discrepancy raises questions, said Ewen Buchanan, Blix's spokesman. "If the two trucks in question had legitimate function, why did Iraq not declare them or include them in the photo identification guide given to us in March?" Buchanan asked. There are many such questions that could be asked. 4:54:43 PM    comment []

More Matrix Reloaded stuff Here is a transcript of the conversation between Neo and the Architect (spoiler alert), with a number of notes and comments. If you're into the Matrix, well worth a look! 6:39:06 AM    comment []

Did you google me of your own free will? I have been googled a number of times today by some canucks wanting to know the answer to the eternal question about free will vs determinism. The search gives this article on that very subject a rather prominent ranking. 5:02:53 AM    comment []

King of Swaziland: women in pants cause of world's problem Swaziland's supreme king Mswati has an original explanation for the world's ills: women wearing trousers. "The Bible says curse be unto a woman who wears pants, and those who wear their husband's clothes. That is why the world is in such a state today," Mswati, ruler of the impoverished feudal nation of about one million, said late on Thursday. Since he was on the roll, he went on to denounce the human rights movement. To the king, there is no such thing as a human right. "What rights? God created people, and He gave them their roles in society. You cannot change what God has created. This is an abomination before God," the king told an audience of conservative church leaders. Mswati is otherwise known for his excentric statements and medieval life style. He has currently nine wives, and has chosen the tenth bride from a video of maidens dancing topless. Women in the poor state has enraged the monarch earlier, and the distaste is mutual. In 2000, a number of women demonstrated against him by showing their naked behinds in public. One Swazi woman, Thob'sile Dlamini, gets the last word in a rebuttal of the king's nonsense: "The king says I am the cause of the world's problems because of my outfit. Never mind terrorism, government corruption, poverty and disease, it's me and my pants. I reject that." 2:48:32 AM    comment []

Congress may roll back FCC decision A bipartisan group of US Senators think they have the votes to force ownership caps of television networks. There is a growing worry that allowing owners to consolidate power over the airwaves is not in the interest of consumers and endangers the free press. 12:49:10 AM    comment []

Hardliners strengthened in Burma The military rulership in Burma (Myanmar) consists of two fractions, explains BBC's Larry Jagan. One hardliner group, focused on top leader General Than Shwe, who doesn't want to hear mention of Aung San Suu Kyi, and another, organised around military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt, that realises that the leadership have to engage the opposition in negotiations. The recent crackdown shows that the hardliners are now in charge. 12:32:44 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.07.2003; 00:25:01.