15. august 2003

Blame game in power outage Power has not fully returned in the affected areas, but everybody is already very busy putting the blame somewhere else. The US blames Canada, and Canada blames the US. What to do without good neighbours? In reality, both may be right. The original cause may have been one power plant shutting down, but that is not supposed to knock out the whole grid. I suspect there are several components (and organisations) that will have to share the blame for this fiasco. 6:53:14 PM    comment []  trackback []

Debunked BBC has a nice article about the brilliant urban legend site snopes.com (the first place to check if you receive an unlikely story in email). I think this blog has written about, and debunked, most of the recent false stories mentioned in the article. 4:47:53 PM    comment []  trackback []

Israeli law prevents Palestinians access to Israel through marriage Israel's new marriage law, which refuses Palestinians married to Israeli citizens residency or citizenship in Israel, has drawn international protest. About 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs, and there are two concerns that has prompted Israel to create this controversial law. One is long-term security concerns; the fear that the Arab population in Israel eventually will be larger than the Jewish, meaning an end to the Jewish state. The second, more immediate fear is that terrorists can obtain access to the state through marriage with arab-israeli women. Both fears may be understandable from a purely pragmatic point of view, but what is effectively an apartheid law instituting racial segregration cannot be descrived as anything but a significant violation of human rights. The law is unashamadly racist. The law is challenged in the Israeli supreme court. 1:54:22 PM    comment []  trackback []

Some painkillers increase miscarriage risk A study seems to confirm earlier claims that painkillers like aspirin and ibuprofen (but not paracetamol) may increase the chances of miscarriage. Pregnant women and those planning to become pregnant are now advised not to take these. 12:56:33 PM    comment []  trackback []

France threatens to block Lockerbie deal Just as it looked like the Lockerbie conflict with Libya could be heading towards a solution, France had to start making hurdles. A French UTA airliner was blown up over Niger in 1989, and France has earlier stuck a deal with Libya for $34.3m in compensation, but no admission of Libyan guilt. Now the US and UK has reached a $2.7bn agreement with Tripoli, where Libya admits the blame for the terror attack. France is now threatening to use its Security Council veto to prevent the sanctions being lifted, unless France receives the same deal. In short, France settled for far less, because they were lousy negotiators and were willing to compromise. The US and UK has refused to do so, and now finally Libya is backing down to lift the devastating sanctions against it. France has started whining it wants a part in the compensation it did nothing to work out, and threatens to use the veto powers it should never have been awarded in the first place as blackmail. France has once again angered the US/UK coalition, and this time there is little respect for the French stand anywhere in the UN system. 4:34:09 AM    comment []  trackback []

— Power outage caused by lightning According to the latest reports, the power outage that still leaves the NE US and parts of Canada in the dark was caused by a lightning strike on a power plant in Niagara, New York state, which started a fire in the plant (though some reports deny this). The shutdown caused a reaction in the power grid and knocked out nine nuclear reactors in four US states. Currently power is about to be gradually restored to the affected regions, according to the authorites. New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, later told a news conference that power was starting to be restored. He appealed to people to turn off electrical appliances to ease the load on the grid. "Power is starting to come back from the various facilities," Bloomberg said. "And with a lot of luck, later on this evening we will look back on this and say, "Where were you when the lights went out?" but nobody will have gotten hurt." The sudden outage caused fear and panic among many New Yorkers trapped in darkened shopping malls, subway trains, traffic jams and offices, being reminded about the 9/11-01 terror attacks. Authorities were very quick to emphasise that there is no evidence of terrorism, but of course, with PCs, radios and TV sets not working, many anxious people did not hear those reassurances. 3:32:52 AM    comment []  trackback []

Fake part II In January, I wrote about Michel at GiveBoobs.com who asked the net to contribute to her planned breast augmentation surgery. Apparently, thanks to the generousity of many big boob loving netizens, she's now had her breasts enlarged, and she shares the result with her fans. These breasts belong not only to me, but to the countless anonymous web surfers out there who contributed- if you gave money and spot these on the street, you are welcome to stare. But not to touch. 2:27:01 AM    comment []  trackback []

Fake part I You wonder how many of the people you see on glossy photographs are real when you take a look at what Greg has done to airbrush blemishes from model pictures. I also find myself wondering why we consider plastic faces to be more beautiful than real human beings. 1:44:07 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.09.2003; 14:08:54.