16. september 2003

New "Swedish scare" against mobile phones Those of us who follow medical media scares have developed a word for it: Swedish scares. There seems to be an unlimited amount of scientists in Sweden who conduct research that is published in more or less well-renowed journals, pointing out the possible dangers of some everyday activity or device, research that often fails to be reproduced elsewhere in the world. Case in point: the recent study claiming that mobile phones can make you senile. Mobile phones and the new wireless technology could cause a "whole generation" of today's teenagers to go senile in the prime of their lives, new research suggests The study - which warns specifically against "the intense use of mobile phones by youngsters" - comes as research on their health effects is being scaled down, due to industry pressure. It is likely to galvanise concern about the almost universal exposure to microwaves in Western countries, by revealing a new way in which they may seriously damage health. Professor Leif Salford, who headed the research at Sweden's prestigious Lund University, says "the voluntary exposure of the brain to microwaves from hand-held mobile phones" is "the largest human biological experiment ever". And he is concerned that, as new wireless technology spreads, people may "drown in a sea of microwaves". The study - financed by the Swedish Council for Work Life Research, and published by the US government's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences - breaks new ground by looking at how low levels of microwaves cause proteins to leak across the blood-brain barrier. In fact, it is more a matter of threading the Swedish path than breaking new ground. Salford indeed published very similar results a few years back. Again, in January this year, he published a study that elaborated on the topic. His methodology was subject to serious criticism from other scientists, because the results were so sensitive that there were many sources of errors. As is customary, Salford's study was full of careful words and warnings against jumping to conclusions. That, of course, never deters the press from doing just that. Salford follows in the footsteps of another Swedish researcher, Dr. Lennart Hardell, who notoriously warned against mobile phones being a possible cause of brain tumor, or at least that was how his work was interpreted. The scientific community was not impressed, and even the Scandinavian press seems to be immune to him crying "wolf" these days. In fact, you could subject pratically everything in our environment to similar studies and end up with alarming results, partly because it's statistically impossible to prove anything safe. Until somebody comes up with more solid results than the Swedes have so far, these press reports are better greeted with a yawn. PS: Do you remember last year's cancer scare related to fried food, which also ended in nothing? Guess which country that study originated in. Bingo! 11:25:01 PM    comment []  trackback []

RIAA prank Have a good laugh at the expense of the recording industry here. ...but remember that the last laugh is on you... 10:10:04 PM    comment []  trackback []

Ringo Who? Brian Lee, a 19 year old music technology student who never heard of Ringo Starr, is being blamed for the demise of New York's legendary music club Bottom Line. Well, almost. 9:27:28 PM    comment []  trackback []

— Arrest in Lindh case The police have the knife, the killer's cap, his DNA samples, camera footage of the alleged killer from the shop security cameras, they apparently have the name, they have an arrest warrent, and now finally they allegedly have the man. Swedish author Jan Guillou said earlier today that with all this evidence, even Donald Duck could capture the killer. We'll see. The Swedish press said this morning that a man had been arrested. The police denied that. The press also said that the police hunted a specific person, who was associated with neo-nazis and had mental issues. The police refused to comment, which in press-speak means yes. Just now the police confirms a 35 year old man, drug addict, previously involved in violent and other crimes and possibly associated with the neo-nazis, have been arrested. (From a Swedish article in Aftonbladet) Update: Never trust the Swedish press. He is not arrested. The article I link to above still exist, but it is yanked from the front page. Instead the front page says a warrent for his arrest is out, but that the police is starting to doubt he even is in Stockholm. He has had a lot of time to leave the city, or even the country. Update 2: Now they have arrested him, honestly. He was taken by the police Tuesday night, when he was recognised watching a football game in a restaurant. 8:08:33 PM    comment []  trackback []

Flat Earth society There actually is a real, serious flat earth society, but this brilliant web page is not it. The original flat earthers I know about could hardly write a single sentence without a dozen typos, far less set up a web site. No, this is a brilliant and funny parody site you shouldn't miss. Start with the FAQ, and learn why 5=6, why gravity is a lie, that Idaho or England does not exist, and why you should be worried about going to the South Pole. You will also learn about the Springfield effect, which states that there is just one Springfield in the universe, even though many places connect to it. I am not sure how this ties into the conspiracy of cartorgaphers, but I am sure it somehow does. 7:56:47 PM    comment []  trackback []

— Atkins diet not driving the economy Slate's Charles Duhigg is not convinced that the low-carb Atkins diet is having such a big impact on the economy and on people's dietary habits. It is convenience rather than diet that changes people's eating habits, he argues. 3:05:17 PM    comment []  trackback []

Patriot Act used against normal criminals The controversial Patriot Act, giving US law enforcement new powers to help them track down terrorists, is increasingly being used by police and prosecutors to target common criminals. Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car. A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months. Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which defines chemical weapons of mass destruction as "any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury" and contains toxic chemicals. Certain lawyers must have their brains wired in a unique way. By that definition, any gun with lead bullets is a chemical weapon. And surely, by the above definition of WMDs, the whole of Iraq is filled to the brim with them. I wonder if the courts will allow this abuse of the Patriot Act to pass. 2:43:15 PM    comment []  trackback []

From 1945 to 2003, and back again Can the situation in postwar Germany and postware Iraq be compared? There surely are differences, but Doug Saunders draws some interesting parallels. The United States has always been good at removing dictators from power, but the tedious, dirty work we now call "nation building" has never come naturally, or quickly. The enormous success of European and Japanese reconstruction did not even begin to emerge until long years of pain and disorder had passed. Six months after V-E Day, The New York Times reported that Germany was awash in "unrest and lawlessness." More than a million "displaced persons" roamed the country, many of them subsisting on criminal activities. The heavy-handed presence of American soldiers was deeply resented by many Germans, especially young men, who had come to believe that the G.I.s were stealing their women. [...] Nobody in the army had expected to be thrust into the position of running a country, certainly not for months after the war ended. The army is "ill-fitted by training, experience and organization for civil government," wrote The New York Times, describing "confusion and chaos" in the leadership. Berlin still didn't have even its most rudimentary infrastructure running in its American-occupied quarter. "It is impossible to plan for the future and a little less difficult to act in the present," one senior U.S. officer complained. That sounds like something we've heard quite recently. 4:17:47 AM    comment []  trackback []

Have the left and right swapped? Ian Buruma remains skeptical of the war in Iraq and the neocons' radical ideas for democratisation of the world at gunpoint, but in a brilliant Financial Times article he shakes his head over the rabid anti-Americanism of the European left. It is becoming increasingly obvious that a blinding hatred for the US, and for the Bush administration in particular, has totally thrown off the moral compass of even the moderate left in Europe. The moral paralysis of the left, when it comes to non-western tyrants, may also have a more sinister explanation. The Israeli philosopher, Avishai Margalit, calls it moral racism. When Indians kill Muslims, or Africans kill Africans, or Arabs kill Arabs, western pundits pretend not to notice, or find historical explanations, or blame the scars of colonialism. But if white men, whether they are Americans, Europeans, South Africans or Israelis harm people of colour, hell is raised. If one compares western reporting of events in Palestine or Iraq with far more disturbing news in Liberia or Central Africa, there is a disproportion, which suggests that non-western people cannot be held to the same moral standards as us. One could claim this is only right, since we can only take responsibility for our own kind. But this would be a rather racist view of world affairs. Again, there appears to have been a reversal of roles between left and right. The conservative right (I'm not talking of fascists), traditionally, was not internationalist and certainly not revolutionary. Business, stability, national interests, and political realism ("our bastards", and so on), were the order of the day. Democracy, to conservative realists, was fine for us but not for strange people with exotic names. It was the left that wanted to change the world, no matter where. Left-wing internationalism did not wish to recognise cultural or national barriers. To them, liberation was a universal project. Yet now that the "Bush-Cheney junta" talks about a democratic revolution, regardless of culture, colour or creed, Gore Vidal claims it is not our business, and others cry "racism". It has also been noted, but mostly on the right, that leading intellectuals in countries that had experienced the horror of despotic regimes, were much more likely to support a military intervention in Iraq. In comfy Europe and the US, radical leftist ideas has mostly been the product of economically well-off intellectuals and artists. Their deep sympathy for the poor and oppressed people in the third world can, at least, be questioned, especially in light of the lack of a sense of proportions, in e.g. arguing that Bush is a worse dictator than Saddam Hussein. More significant, by far, is the backing for Bush received from Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, and especially Jose Ramos-Horta, the Nobel Peace Prize-winner from East Timor. These are men, who, unlike most commentators in London or New York, know what it is like to live under the cosh. They paid the dues of voicing dissent when it was a matter of life and death. Havel and Michnik were subjects of Soviet imperialism. But the case of Ramos-Horta is more interesting, since he opposed a US-backed government, General Suharto's Indonesian regime. East Timor was a cherished cause for Chomsky and others on the left. In an article published just before the Iraq war started, Ramos- Horta recalled the suffering of his people. He wrote: "There is hardly a family in my country that has not lost a loved one. Many families were wiped out during the decades of occupation by Indonesia and the war of resistance against it. Western nations contributed to this tragedy. Some bear a direct responsibility because they helped Indonesia by providing military aid." Thus far, none of our left-wing critics would disagree. The split comes in the conclusion. Ramos-Horta remembers how the western powers "redeemed themselves" by freeing East Timor from its oppressors with armed force. Why, then, should the Iraqis not be liberated too? Read the whole thing. Surely, there were legitimate reasons to oppose the war in Iraq. But the total silence of the left on the brutal oppression of local dictators like Saddam Hussein is almost deafening. It seems to be the case that the left only has moral outrage over crimes against people in the third world when it can be used as a stick to beat the US (and, previously, the colonial powers Britain and France). All the ink spent on, say, the massacres in Rwanda has heaped a lot of guilt on the western powers for not interfering, and in particular on old colonial powers for having set up a system of inequality that "caused" these atrocities. But the actual perpetrators of the crime seem to be ignored. An expression of moral outrage is certainly no less a weapon for scoring political punches on the left than it is on the right. 1:09:34 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.10.2003; 02:24:47.