19. august 2003

How to get 14 Scotsmen into a phone booth Fourteen people in Edinburg set a new world record by sqeezing themselves into a classic British red telephone booth. I bet somebody threw a penny on the floor. 10:16:27 PM    comment []  trackback []

Blast in Jerusalem A bus has been blown up by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem, killing at least 15 and injuring more than 70. Among the fatalities we are likely to find the "road map" peace plan. 9:18:37 PM    comment []  trackback []

Baghdad truck bomb kills top UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN's special representative in Iraq, was among the 17 killed when a car bomb exploded outside his office window in Baghdad, indicating he might have been the primary target. Dozens were injured. This concludes a time of increased terror attacks against civilian and infrastructure targets in Iraq. Apparently, the extremists and Baathists who are still fighting against the coalition have switched to attacks set to hinder the recunstruction of Iraq. The Americans will ultimately be blamed for the delays and security problems anyway. 8:03:54 PM    comment []  trackback []

I'm mad as hell... ...so why should I take this anymore? Apologies to any readers who tried to access this blog, or any Salon hosted blog for the last 8 hours or so. The whole server went off the Net, and none of us received any response from the Radio Userland (or Salon) people. Finally, some minutes ago, this was the "explanation" we received: Sorry, the Web server for blogs.salon.com stopped responding overnight and was restarted. Not good enough, RU, not good enough at all. Us Salon bloggers have been the most patient group of paying customers in existence. The rcs server, which handles all comments, statistics and updates, has always been about as reliable as the power supply in Baghdad. Complains have been consistently ignored, or at least nothing is done to improve the service. Now the whole friggin server goes down for a whole day, and nobody finds out about it before after eight hours. 7:48:32 PM    comment []  trackback []

Foxy power speculation Here's how to get a frontpage news story out of nothing, courtesy of Fox News. They ask a "source" in the power industry if it is possible that the major power blackout could have been caused by sabotage or computer hacking. When asked if the random outages could have been the work of a computer hacker, a source told Fox News: "I'd be lying to you if I told you it was not possible." He added that a hack attack was something he had "been worried about." So what does Fox make of this? A headline saying Sources: Sabotage Cannot Be Ruled Out in Blackout on the frontpage. How about this headline: "Little green men cannot be ruled out." At least Fox had the sense to not put the ludicuous claim from some alleged al-Qaeda associated wannabe that Osama Bin Laden had been behind the blackout in the headline. The claim deserved a laugh, and got it. 4:29:06 AM    comment []  trackback []

Alzheimer's surge predicted Population projections predict that the number of people with Alzheimer's will increase much more dramatically than previously expected. The number of people with Alzheimer's could treble by 2050, say US researchers, as the population surges and existing patients live longer. This disease places the national health care under considerable burdens, in additon to the toll it takes on the patients and their relatives. Harry Caton, chief executive for UK's Alzheimer's Society, could still remain somewhat optimistic: "So the likelihood is there will be effective treatments, prevention or even a cure in fifty years' time." That, however, depends on research being intensified. 2:18:30 AM    comment []  trackback []

Killing for sex slaves When reading about the suicide terrorists being motivated by something as crude as a promised afterlife with 72 virgin sex toys, I have often thought this is just too silly to be true, or at least for being the whole story. In fact, evidence says that this is a very important part of the story, at least. Young people are trained to become living guided missiles by being indoctrinated to place their trust in an afterlife doctrine that appears to be invented by 14-year-old boys who had watched a bit too much porn. In the late 1990s, Pakistani journalist Nasra Hassan interviewed nearly 250 prospective bombers, their families, as well as their trainers, from within militant Palestinian camps. In remarkable accounts, members of the Palestinian fundamentalist group Hamas described how potential bombers came to believe that paradise was on the "other side of the detonator." Candidates for martyrdom were told the first drop of blood shed by a martyr washes away their sins. They could select 70 of their nearest and dearest to enter Heaven; and they would have at their disposal 72 houris, the beautiful virgins of paradise, Hassan recounted in the New Yorker. Some of the descriptions of how Indonesian JI recruited members are eerily similar to my own experiences and those of other former members of high control sects (I grew up a Jehovah's Witness): During that time they were taught "JI-speak." Those who believed in the "truth" of JI doctrine became closer to Allah. They learned the "true" JI knowledge of jihad -- that innocents, both Muslim and non-Muslim, could be sacrificed. They were promised martyrdom if they died in the cause of jihad. And anyone who left the group was called an infidel. Not only did these teachings foster a sense of superiority over outsiders and a strong group mentality that made it difficult to quit, the Singapore report said, but the psychologists interviewing the detainees said many JI members turned to the leaders to find a "no-fuss" path to Heaven. They wanted to be convinced that they had found "true Islam" and free themselves from the endless searching. Especially since they believed they could not go wrong, as the JI leaders had quoted from holy texts. The goals are different, but the methods are very similar. 12:54:55 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.09.2003; 14:09:05.