11. juli 2003

Low-budget Japanese Matrix-style table tennis You absolutely should not miss this hilarious little movie from Japanese TV! (If it doesn't work, try this link for Media Player) Req. sound and a decent connection and all that. Now go see it! 10:34:37 PM    comment []

Rice: CIA cleared Niger-uranium claim Yesterday, CBS claimed that the CIA had advised that the reference to Iraq trying to buy uranium in Niger be removed from the State of the Union address. However, today Condoleezza Rice says that the highest level in the CIA actually approved the address before Bush delivered it. "The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety... If the CIA Director of Central Intelligence, had said 'take this out of the speech', then it would have been done," Rice told reporters flying to Uganda from South Africa on Air Force One with Bush Actually, the CIA had looked particularly careful at that sentence: "There was even some discussion on that specific sentence, so that it reflected better what the CIA thought and the speech was cleared," Rice said. "Some specifics about amount and place were taken out... with the change in that sentence, the speech was cleared." This has predictably led to accusations that the White House is now setting up CIA Director George Tenet as a scapegoat. Obviously to counter this claim, Rice said that the administration "absolutely" had confidence in Tenet. 8:45:02 PM    comment []

Pollution leads to better tree growth in the city Not exactly what you expected: trees grow much faster in New York City than in the surrounding suburbs, according to research recently published in Nature. The explanation is pollution, but not what we should think. One of the most dangerous pollutants for trees, and also problematic for humans, is ozone. When in the stratosphere, ozone is good, as it protects against UV radiation. On ground level, it is a poison. Ozone is generated when sunlight reacts with other pollutants, so you'd expect there to be more of it in the city. Not so. Ozone is also very reactive, and in the city there is an abundance of other pollutants it can react with. In less-polluted areas, the ozone hangs around longer, causing damage to tree growth. 6:21:36 PM    comment []

Indian students riot after crackdown on cheating "More than 3000 students of 20 law colleges in the eastern Indian state of Orissa have boycotted their final university examination and demonstrated in protest against a ban on copying. The students turned against teachers when they were stopped from copying inside examination halls this week. " (The Courier-Mail) And this is India's future lawyers and judges! 5:48:30 PM    comment []

Quick answer Kriselda at different strings asked a question: what is the adjective to "Niger" (in these days often mentioned in relation to Iraq and uranium)? Obviously, it is not "Nigerian" since that refers to a different country. Indeed, most journalists have no clue either, since they tend to reword their sentences to avoid tackling that question. Enter the CIA World Factbook. Your tax money at work and all that. For some arcane reason, I did remember that this book contains that information for every country, no doubt in case George Bush has to visit one of these countries. The noun is and the adjective for Niger is Nigerien. You haven't seen too much mention in the press of Nigeriens, you say? Me neither. But someone from Niger is a Nigerien, and there has been a lot of debate about the Nigerien connection to Iraq's alleged WMD programmes. 5:45:57 PM    comment []

You googled me in the weirdest way Ok, this was a new one. Somebody googled for "how do you beat the condom machine." I am quite confident I never wrote about that (well, before now). And, indeed, the page google directed my condom machine wannabe beater to had two different stories, one mentioning beating a spam filter and the other about a kidwho struck his hand in a condom machine. 2:11:09 PM    comment []

Muslim school teaches children that the Earth is flat John Andreasen was employed as a teacher in a Muslim school in Odense in Denmark, and ran into peculiar problems with the curriculum. "There were rules for what I had to tell the children. Everything had to fit with Islam, and it's quite difficult to teach physics when you aren't allowed to tell the children that the Earth is round." After a year he couldn't take it anymore and quit. (From a Norwegian article in Nettavisen) 1:32:35 PM    comment []

Self-fulfilling prophecy? Here's a mindless rant: The internet is shit How to spell irony: writing on the Internet about how bad it is. 4:44:38 AM    comment []

Something about trouble One more example, as if that is needed, that the Norwegian opinion gets a totally warped picture of American politics, especially as it relates to the Iraq war. The Norwegian online-only newspaper Nettavisen, which also has a small English edition, has the following headine (my translation): - We are in trouble in Iraq The use of a dash indicates a rendering, rather than a direct quotation, from George Bush's statement made in Botswana. What Bush said, according to Reuters, and this is actually from the referenced source for the above headline, was quite different: "There's no question we've got a security issue in Iraq." Hardly a controversial statement! While a 'rendering' unlike a quotation gives a journalist some freedom to change the exact wording, it is pretty obvious that the meaning conveyed by the headline and the text of the Norwegian newspaper is highly distorted. This is not just a single isolated example. It is part of systematic propaganda through significant parts of the European leftist press. Bias is hard to avoid, but quite often what we see is thorough distortions and blatantly dishonest misrepresentations. 2:08:24 AM    comment []

It's all in the testosterone Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, of the University of Canterbury on New Zealand has let the cat out of the bag. He says that everything men do, ranging from the perfect crime to the most important scientific breakthrough, we do to impress women. He said: "They do whatever they do in order to get laid." You don't really need a PhD in psychology to know that. 1:52:47 AM    comment []

Danish soldiers to Iraq with arctic equipment The 380 Danish soldiers in Iraq have some bones to pick with their logistics experts. In their camp, around 100 kilometers from Basra, the temperature reaches 60 centigrades, the air is dry, there is sand everywhere. Among their equipment for this environment the soldiers find lawn mowers and snowploughs, and their vehicles are equipped with snow treads which would be perfect for a Danish invasion of, well, Norway. The tents were equipped with double-decker beds for children, too short and fragile for the Danes' toughest men. The beds found use as fire wood, though. The tents lack poles, and the bulletproof vests are in the size extra small. Denmark has not really been at war for a very, very long time. (From a Norwegian article in Aftenposten) 12:00:30 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.08.2003; 01:51:44.