14. august 2003

Power out! A large area of eastern US and Canada has experienced a sudden power failure. Power blackouts were reported in the New York metropolitan area and Detroit, as well as in Toronto and Ottawa, authorities said. Officials have emphasised there is no evidence the power outage is related to terrorism, and that the cause is "electrical overload" in the Niagara Mohawk power grid. This means that at the moment, Baghdad has a better power supply than New York. 11:29:30 PM    comment []  trackback []

Me, a centrist Advocates for self-government, a libertarian group, has made a short and sweet quiz to place you in the political landsccape. It explains that Centrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize practical solutions to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on new issues. Many centrists feel that government serves as a check on excessive liberty. which sounds pretty much like me. The quiz does seems slightly bent to favour libertarianism (thus more than 35% of those who took it are labeled libertarian), as we should expect, but appears to be reasonably fair for the few issues it touches. It found my Personal Self-Government Score to be 70% and my Economic Self-Government Score is 40%. 7:48:40 PM    comment []  trackback []

For his next lunch, presumably "Idi Amin seeks kidney donor" (BBC News headline) 4:53:29 PM    comment []  trackback []

European heatwave The heatwave in Europe (which hasn't reached this far north, I have to add) has caused serious problems. The French Health Ministry attributes 3000 deaths in the country to the heat. The British have a serious problem of their own: thirsty pub guests drink up all the beer, and breweries can't meet the 'unprecedented' demand. 3:17:24 PM    comment []  trackback []

We're fair! We're balanced! (and Fox isn't) The fair and balanced Fox-bashing has spread all over the blogsphere. Obviously, the majority of participating blogs lean left, but quite a few centrist or rightist bloggers chime in, thinking the lawsuit against Al Franken is utterly ridiculous and an abuse of the legal system. 2:49:28 PM    comment []  trackback []

SCO execs sell SCO stock Since the infamous lawsuits started, SCO executives have sold more than $1.2M in shares in their own company. The legal action against IBM and threats against practically everybody else has taken the SCO stock up four-fold. Now, if the SCO executives really believed they would win the cases, they would rather buy stock, right? 1:36:34 PM    comment []  trackback []

Finally an Iraqi victory! Iraq's newly reorganised national football (soccer) team today won 1-0 against arch-rival Iran in the opening game of the LG Peace Cup in Tehran, after a 52nd minute goal by Abdul Fayaz. This is a tremenous accomplishment, considering that Iran has usually been the better side of the two, and knowing the conditions the team has had to prepare for the four-country tournament. Also participating in the cup is Cameroon and Uruguay U23, which played 0-4. German Bernd Stange is coaching the Iraqi national side. Uday Hussein used to be the manager of Iraq's national football team, being notorious for torturing players after losses. The players obviously do better without his "motivation." 12:44:57 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.09.2003; 14:08:51.