12. juli 2003

Uffda! There is a growing opposition to the expansion of Wal-Mart supercenters across America, among people who are not otherwise adverse to the retail giant's smaller stores. I found an article about this, using the little town Stoughton in Wisconsin as an example, rather fascinating, as it shows that Norwegian-Americans are proud of their heritage. The town's main street is lined with Norwegian flags, and the anti-supercenter group calls itself "Uff-da Wal-Mart" with an obvious reference to a particular Norwegian expression of 'displeasure.' The term uffda (as it's spelled in the old country, sometimes in two words "uff da" but never with a hyphen) has become the archetypical Norwegisism (heh) in American English. And indeed, us Norwegians use it a lot. "Uffda" corresponds partly to the meaning of the exclamation "ouch," except it is not a reaction to pain. If a friend has slipped and fallen, "uffda" can be an appropriate response. If he kills himself, it really isn't. 10:32:50 PM    comment []

Sars post-mortem The Sars epidemic appears to have been contained successfully, the global death toll was not much higher than 800 people, so it's time to see what we can learn from this. Was the health scare overblown? Health experts are "unaniumous" in rejecting that the precautions went over the top. With the limited initial knowledge, it was surely better to be safe than sorry. As it happened, Sars doesn't spread as easily as we first feared. That is possibly the reason there weren't millions of fatalities. Also, the "panic" no doubt lead to the rapid containment: Thankfully, it seems that SARS isn't sufficiently infectious to cause a re-run of the 1918 flu pandemic. Even so, the relatively low death count can probably be attributed in large part to the surveillance and patient isolation rapidly introduced in most of the countries that imported the disease. And a kick to past errors: Experts agree that it is better to be accused of overreacting than of allowing the disease to run out of control. If a similar fuss had erupted in the early days of AIDS, suggests epidemiologist Megan Murray of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, maybe HIV would not now be killing three million people each year. We know why AIDS was not taken as seriously as it should have been: because it was associated with gays, and right wing nuts considered it "god's punishment" for moral depravity instead of a serious challenge to be met with sufficient resources. Is the Sars outbreak really over? With luck, the answer is yes. Are we prepared for the next killer virus? So, in the light of our experience with SARS, are we prepared? Scientifically, the answer is a qualified 'yes'. In terms of public health, it's a resounding 'no'. We are not reassured. 8:29:10 PM    comment []

Exercise Here's an interesting page about exercise: how to train so you burn a maximum of fat. Dr Serena Reese has a lot of interesting articles on her site; don't be put off by the amateurish web design. 6:44:20 PM    comment []

Slow news week, I guess "Rubber ducks head for land after more than a decade at sea" (Front page of BBC News!) 3:48:42 PM    comment []

Santorum again Rick Santorum, aspiring for the position of bigot par excellence in the US senate, has tried to explain why gay marriage will somehow undermine and destroy marriage between man and woman. Fellow blogger World Wide Rant does an excellent job picking apart the argumentation. 2:31:44 AM    comment []

The biggest fraud in history, or yet another scam Not to sure about this story, and it's a bit hard to do serious fact checking from here. Take this with a healthy bit of skepticism. This NZ site claims the story is bigger than watergate, and the allegations are surely serious enough: The voting boxes, or election systems, that are widely used in the US have a serious security problem, maybe even a deliberate "backdoor," which will allow dedicated individuals to rig US elections largescale. The site also points to alleged evidence that election fraud has already taken place. If you want to look into this, also check out the Black Box Voting site. These articles have some of that sensationalist flavour that is typical for conspiracy theorists. Alternative hypotheses are not investigated, there appears to be some jumps from "can be" to "is" in the argumentation, and there is of course a lot of data that would require some dedicated investigation. Also, it appears to be a bit too many people that would need to be involved in massive voting fraud and the corresponding coverup. As the saying goes: two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead. Such large scale secret conspiracies simply don't work. For sure, the allegations are so serious they should be looked into even if you smell something fishy: a group (read: those evil republicans) can illegally and fraudulently take power in the world's only superpower. 12:28:00 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.08.2003; 01:51:46.