18. juni 2003

I think I can kill! You shouldn't miss this "cute" little flash movie called The Little Tank That Could. Req. sound. Not too sure about that Aussie accent, though. I noticed that the author has read Sandman, btw, and even borrowed a little face from it. 11:41:54 PM    comment []

Jehovah's Witnesses and blood As some of my regular readers will know, I grew up in the Jehovah's Witnesses. I eventually became a card-carrying member of the sect, literally. The card essentially said that if I was seriously injured, medical professionals should rather let me bleed to death than giving me a blood transfusion. As I grew up and left the movement, I conducted a bit of research into the background and history of the blood prohibition. This was in the very early stages of the world wide web, approximately middle jurassic, and I put up a bit of my research on a now long-gone website. This is the historical background of the Jehovah's Witnesses' blood prohibition, a strange tale of superstition, medical quackery and the belief that you'd be better off committing suicide with a case knife than allowing a doctor to perform a tonsillectomy on you. 11:09:58 PM    comment []

Powergen Italia There is a website for the genuine company Powergen Italia. They apparently make "charger batteries for lift truck." That's not particularly funny before you reorganize the word by moving a whitespace. Do they make batteries for other tools, too? 8:20:12 PM    comment []

Comment Claim: There is no "me" in "team." Actually, there is. It is just garbled and made unrecognisable. 8:10:16 PM    comment []

Finland's prime minister resigns The Iraq crisis has had its first political casualty in Europe: Finland's first female prime minister Anneli Jaatteenmaki, who has been accused of using leaked state intelligence to discredit her opponent in the election campaign. She denies the charges, but resigns from her job only weeks after starting it. 7:40:51 PM    comment []

James ossuary 'a fake' Israel's Antiquities Authority have, after consulting with many experts who have investigated the alleged burial box or ossuary of James, the brother of Jesus, declared that it is a forgery. "The inscriptions, possibly inscribed in two separate stages, are not authentic," the Antiquities Authority said in a statement. The James inscription cut through the ancient limestone box's patina, a thin coating acquired with age, the experts said, proving the writing was not ancient. "The inscription appears new, written in modernity by someone attempting to reproduce ancient written characters," the Antiquities Authority statement said. Looking back to what I wrote when the box first surfaced, and reiterated later, it feels good to say "I told you so." It always does. 7:01:09 PM    comment []

Up north Sophisticated travellers go to Norway, according to the New York Times. More specifically, NYT journalists go to the "wild western isles" by which they mean the northern isles in Lofoten. Quite spectactular, I am sure. Personally, I tend to believe I already live far enough north as it is, and go south on vacation. Besides, there is no need to go north (or anywhere) for the scenery. 4:38:20 PM    comment []

I have a theory... ...that pharmaceutical companies have a special well-funded research department responsible for coming up with foul-tasting ingredients they can add to all sorts of medication. Example: cough-mixture. Yech! 3:41:58 PM    comment []

Matrix Reloaded, The Abridged Script This is just too funny. Lots of spoilers, but almost Mad'esque quality over this parody. 3:13:02 PM    comment []

How to entertain the brats "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling knows how to keep children reading her books: "You are writing children's books, you need to be a ruthless killer." I could have guessed. 2:11:56 PM    comment []

What to think of this? The Sars Art project. I guess it just had to happen. 4:48:29 AM    comment []

Why Bush is not in trouble over WMDs "A third of the American public believes U.S. forces have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. Twenty-two percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons." (Philadelphia Inquirer) Yes, I am also sick and tired of "stupid Americans" news-items, but this is nothing short of astonishing, shocking and sad. And probably a godsend for the Republicans. 4:42:55 AM    comment []

— al-Qaeda will succeed with a WMD attack Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, the British security service, gave a chilling warning to listeners at an anti.terror conference in London, arguing it was "inevitable" that al-Qaeda would make a deadly attack on the west using biological, chemical, radicological (aka "dirty bomb") or even crude nuclear weapons. She added: “That could include a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) attack. Sadly, given the widespread proliferation of the technical knowledge to construct these weapons, it will be only a matter of time before a crude version of a CBRN attack is launched at a major Western city.” She pointed to evidence that scientists, especially in Pakistan, sympathetic to the Islamist extremists had been aiding al-Qaeda, and that the group had experimented with crude, but potentially deadly, weapons of mass destruction. 4:05:06 AM    comment []

How lap-dancing ruined the striptease With a headline like that, I of course had to click it. 1:54:17 AM    comment []

Very 80s I can't believe this. Yahoo! News' top comic is Garfield! Obviously not given priority to comics... 12:53:48 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.07.2003; 00:25:28.