23. september 2003

'Brat' will serve two years for false terror threats Do you remember Kelley Marie Ferguson (picture), the 20 year old girl who was so bored on her cruise that she planted terrorist threats against the ship? The silly prank launched a massive investigation, before she had to admit she wrote the 'terror note' to cut the cruise short, so she could return home to her boyfriend. When Kelley was arrested, Kelley's mother Debra had no words of comfort. She said she would not "risk the rest of my family's life because of a brat. She is going to have to stay in jail and learn her lesson." The judge agreed. Monday she was sentenced to two years in a federal prison. It was noted she expressed no word of regret when the sentence was read out. Wonder if the boyfriend will still be waiting for her in two years? 11:12:37 PM    comment []  trackback []

Sorry, guys, girls can't drink you prettier It is well-known that men tend to evaluate women as prettier the more alcohol they have consumed. Research carried out at the University of Vienna, however, reveals that when women are drinking, men are just getting uglier. Mr Mittermair said: "Without fail, drunken men rated girls several grades up the ladder in comparison with men who had graded the same pictures but had not been drinking." However, drunken women consistently gave pictures of men lower ratings than women who were sober. "We have to conclude that there is a significant connection between the alcohol level and the perception of beauty for men and women it just works the opposite way for both sexes." However, Mittermair drew a conclusion that is not really supported by his evidence: "But it was interesting that alcohol makes a man seem even less attractive to a woman and contradicts popular belief that alcohol will encourage a romantic mood for both sexes." He is wrong here. The reason men want to get women drunk is not because it makes him look better. It will make her less inhibited, and that tends to work. 8:58:38 PM    comment []  trackback []

Oldest human remains in Europe ignites old debate Human fossils found in a bear cave in Romania is dated to be between 34,000 and 36,000 years old, making them the oldest human remains in Europe. At that time, ancient humans were not the only hominids in the area. Neanderthals, a species that later disappeared, and there has been a lot of debate about what happened to them. Earlier evidence has suggested that the two species interbred to some degree, but genetic analysis seems to have ruled out that modern humans have genetic material from the Neanderthals. This find, however, reignites that debate. They are detailed by Professor Erik Trinkaus and colleagues in two journals: the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Human Evolution. The team says the fossils, while undeniably modern (Homo sapiens), display some features that are very primitive in nature, such as large molars. "Both the lower jawbone and the upper jaw of the face have the same pattern in the cheek teeth - the wisdom teeth in particular are simply huge. They are bigger than just about anything else we have from the last 200,000 years," Professor Trinkaus told BBC News Online. "The best explanation I can put on it is that when modern humans spread out of Africa, they interbred with local populations of archaic humans, including the Neanderthals," said the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St Louis, US. "It shows us that the earliest 'modern Europeans' were considerably less modern than we normally consider them to be, and that significant human evolution in details of anatomy has taken place since they became established across Eurasia." It will be interesting to see if this discussion can ever be settled, one way or the other. 8:36:24 PM    comment []  trackback []

Appeals court: the California show must go on An eleven judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a decision by a three-judge panel of the same court, and decided to affirm the decision of the district court that the recall election will go on. The decision was unanimous. We recognize that there may be a stronger case on the merits for delaying the initiatives than the recall, because the initiatives were originally scheduled to be voted upon in March 2004 and would not take effect until at least 2005, while the result of the recall would be immediate. Because votes are already being cast on both the recall and the initiatives, however, moving the initiatives to a later election creates the same problem as moving the recall; an election would be halted after it has already begun. Although the claimed state electoral law violations do implicate the public interest, and the voters and ballot proponents anticipated a later election based on earlier certification, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in balancing the harms. [...] We must of course also look to the interests represented by the plaintiffs, who are legitimately concerned that use of the punch-card system will deny the right to vote to some voters who must use that system. At this time, it is merely a speculative possibility, however, that any such denial will influence the result of the election. For these reasons, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that plaintiffs will suffer no hardship that outweighs the stake of the State of California and its citizens in having this election go forward as planned and as required by the California Constitution. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. Here is the full decision (PDF). 7:15:42 PM    comment []  trackback []

The season for power outages Power outages have been plagueing the western world the last months, and today a storm caused a massive outage in the Danish capital Copenhagen (picture) and surrounding areas, which also spread to affect large parts of southern Sweden. A storm had swept over the area, bringing down trees and, apparently, power lines. Reportedly the power outage reached as far as Sweden's capital Stockholm, where the underground was without power for half an hour. In Sweden, also, two nuclear power plants were knocked out. The outage caused problems for the rest of Scandinavia, too, as Copenhagen airport Kastrup was shut down, being a major hub for the region. Train traffic stopped almost entirely in the affected region. At the most, two million in Sweden and 1.8 million Danes were without power. Some areas recovered its power within a few hours. The power is still not restored to all affected. 4:19:02 PM    comment []  trackback []

Are you a bright? Richard Dawkins supports the introduction of the meme "bright" as a general designation for atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, humanists or whatever people who are not religious are called. I must say I met the new term with skepticism, since it sounds obviously arrogant. Not so, argues Dawkins. I am a bright. You are (quite probably) a bright. Most of the people I know are brights. The majority of scientists are brights. Presumably there are lots of closet brights in Congress, but they dare not come out. Notice from these examples that the word is a noun, not an adjective. We brights are not claiming to be bright (meaning clever, intelligent), any more than gays claim to be gay (meaning joyful, carefree). Whether there is a statistical tendency for brights (noun) to be bright (adjective) is a matter for research. I would dearly like to see such research undertaken, and I know the result I am betting on, but it is no part of the definition of the noun. While atheism is prevalent in Europe, in the US it is mysteriously still associated with a stigma. A Gallup poll in 1999 asked American voters the following question: "If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be an X would you vote for that person?" X took on the following values: Catholic, Jew, Baptist, Mormon, black, homosexual, woman, atheist. Six out of the eight categories secured better than 90 percent approval. But only 59 percent would vote for a homosexual, and just 49 percent would vote for an atheist. It has long been noted as a paradox that the most powerful nation in the world, and most scientifically and technically advanced, has not been part of the general long-time trend towards secularisation in the western world. In religiousity, Washington DC seems to have more in common with Tehran than London. And while I am softened in my stance on the term "bright," I am not sure that the introduction of this meme will do much to change this. 4:08:33 AM    comment []  trackback []

Iran to reduce cooperation with the IAEA Iran has reacted angrily to the demand from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to prove that its nuclear projects are peaceful by October 31, and now the country's representative Ali Akbar Salehi has stated that it will reduce its level of cooperation with the nuclear watchdog. In the west, many will see the refusal to fully cooperate as an implicit admission that Iran plans to develop nuclear weapons. On the other hand, knowing how important it is to save face in Middle Eastern society, it is also a factor that the IAEA demands have been seen as nationally humiliating to Iran. While the country has insisted on not having nuclear ambitions, its continued rhetoric against Israel's arsenal leaves few illusions that Iranian leaders, moderate and conservative, desires a nuclear arsenal both for deterrence and as a prestige symbol. 2:25:11 AM    comment []  trackback []

Chirac will not veto UN resolution on Iraq In an interview with the New York Times, Jacques Chirac said he would not veto the US-proposed Security Council resolution on Iraq. We don't have the intention to oppose. If we oppose it, that would mean voting no, that is to say, to use the veto. I'm not in that mindset at all. The resolution would have to be a provocation, and that is not what we are talking about at the moment. We can either abstain or vote yes. To vote yes, we need a clear long-range political vision and a key role for the U.N. A clear long-range political vision is one that sets out first, a precise deadline for the transfer of sovereignty, and second a timetable for transferring responsibilities, and a key role for the U.N. The French president seems to stand firm on his position that there should be an "immediate" transfer of power to the current Iraqi government, which is appointed, not elected. The interviewer, not Chirac, uses the expression "symbolic transfer," but the president does not seem to object to the choice of words. It is more than unclear what exactly is meant by this expression. Q. But there is no reason to wait for the immediate symbolic transfer? MR. CHIRAC No. It's psychological, it is a political act, to tell the Iraqis, "Your destiny is in your hands. Now we shall help, but you are responsible. You are not under the authority of a governor who is Christian and foreign." To me, the word "symbolic transfer" sounds like what has happened already. There is a governing council, but the ultimate power rests with the occupying powers. How will Chirac's "symbolic" transfer of power be different? Either the council will have real, political power, or they will not. Presently, they do not, and I don't think they ever should, before there has been a democratic election in Iraq. It sounds more and more like Chirac just wants a symbolic victory in the UN to take home. 1:23:36 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.10.2003; 02:25:12.