12. juni 2003

The Secular Prophet Obviously this didn't take any supernatural predictive powers, but I was a bit satisfied to find that I wrote this just before the Iraq war started: Just get used to it: there's going to be an endless amount of false and unconfirmed rumours in the days to come, and also outright false propaganda from all sides, as there is a real news blackout and the audience is more hungry than ever for any scrap of news. And it's not over yet! The fog of peace seems no more penetrable than the fog of war. 9:01:30 PM    comment []

Bush on the job A rather amazing picture of how George Bush handled the negotiations in the Middle East in the Israeli leftist paper Ha'aretz: According to the source, Dahlan gave an excellent five-minute synopsis of the situation, and concluded by saying to Bush: "There are some things we can do and some things we cannot. We will do our best. But we will need help." Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz burst in at the end of Dahlan's presentation and said: "Well, they won't be getting any help from us; they have their own security service." You could see that Bush was irritated, the participant said, and Bush turned on Mofaz angrily: "Their own security service? But you have destroyed their security service."  Mofaz shook his head and said: "I do not think that we can help them, Mr. President," - to which Bush said: "Oh, but I think that you can. And I think that you will." Read the whole thing. Pretty amazing if it is a true report of what went on. Clearly Bush is irritated with Sharon and his intuition (right or wrong) has told him he can trust and work with Abu Mazen.  Thanks to Tom Fox of Paris for bringing this to my attention. 8:41:08 PM    comment []

Postmodernism and the speed of light I have heaped a bit of scorn on postmodernism in this blog in the past (see, e.g. here and here) and I really have no plans to stop. A bit of googling for prominent (!) feminist airhead Luce Irigaray, brought me to this nice article about the famous "Sokal affair." Irigaray became the subject of some remarkably well-deserved ridicule for the following statement about the sexism in modern physics: Is E=Mc2 a sexed equation? Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possibly sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest ... Intellectually honest people will, if hard facts and the real world prove them wrong, change their opinion. Postmodernists have, on the other hand, seriously argued that the whole universe is just a mental construction, so, literally "anything goes." It is a sad fact of affairs that postmodernist thought is vastly popular on the political left. The political right has its version of anti-intellectualism, too, in particular the widespread opposition to evolutionary biology. 6:20:59 PM    comment []

Sex ed gives fewer abortions Nordic studies demonstrate that increased and better sex education in school gives a decline in abortions, says Lisbeth Knudsen at Ålborg university in Denmark. Finland, which reduced sex education in schools, experienced an increase in abortions. 'The more you know about a topic, the better than chance you change your behaviour,' she explains. On Friday it is 30 years ago these days that Denmark abolished the legal restrictions on abortion, and since then their number has declined substantually. In 1973 Denmark had 27,900 abortions, while today the number is about 15,000 each year. (from a Norwegian article on NRK) 4:26:13 PM    comment []

End of the road map? After a Palestinian suicide attack and Israeli helicopter gunships killed 26 people in one day, it is not an exaggaration to say that the "roadmap" peace plan is in a crisis. Of course, crisis have been the normal situation in the Middle East for years. Ariel Sharon both insists on eradicating the group Hamas, fiercly opposed to the peace plan, and to pursue peace. As he sees it, Abu Mazen doesn't have the power to fight Hamas, so Israel would have to do it for them. Interestingly, Tony Blair agreed that the terror groups had to be eliminated. But I suspect that he, like George Bush, is both furious and suspicious at the timing of the attempt to kill Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi with an airstrike. Israel has a tendency to launch such attacks just at the time when peace talks are at a critical point. Palestinians have, like Israel, a strong feeling of us vs them in this conflict. Even those opposed to the violent activity of Hamas is likely to be far less sympathetic to Israel. Thus, the assasination attempt will polarise the populations further, towards more hatred and away from peace. The same happens on the Israeli side, after the deadly suicide attack on a bus. And it has surely undermined Abu Mazen's position, which wasn't too strong to begin with. 12:53:50 PM    comment []

Oldest humans found in Ethiopia The fossilised emains of two adults and one child has been found in Ethiopia, estimated to be 160,000 years old. This makes it the oldest find of modern humans, Homo sapiens, ever found. The exciting thing about this discovery is that the fossils is in the right place and lived at the right time to confirm the "Out of Africa" theory of human origins. Earlier, genetic studies have suggested that all humans living today are the descendants of a group of humans in Africa, who should later spread to all parts of the world. These fossils confirm that modern humans lived in Africa at this time. 11:21:53 AM    comment []

So what does Iran have to hide? Iranian authorities have refused UN IAEA teams access to some of its nuclear facilities, in a move that is likely to increase tensions with the US and other countries. Iran has been under pressure to demonstrate that its nuclear project does not include nuclear weapons. It has been difficult to believe that a nation so rich in oil needs a nuclear programme for power production. 10:09:26 AM    comment []

The coaltiion strikes back In what has been described as the largest military operation since the invasion, more than 3,000 US troops have arrested almost 400 Iraqis that are described as Saddam loyalists. More than 30 US soildiers have been killed in guerilla attacks since the official end of the war. 9:47:46 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.07.2003; 00:25:17.