22. november 2003

"Penis enlargment" spam victim charged with making death threats Computer programmer Charles Booher has been arrested charged for serious threats against a Canadian company that allegedly were responsible for bombarding him with spam about penis enlargement. Call it "spam rage," a reference to the more traditional "road rage." Booher threatened to send a "package full of Anthrax spores" to the company, to "disable" an employee with a bullet and torture him with a power drill and ice pick; and to hunt down and castrate the employees unless they removed him from their e-mail list, prosecutors said. Similar thoughts have occured to me. If they select jurors who have email accounts, I doubt he'll ever be convicted of anything. I for one, will express my understanding, and I sometimes hope somebody, somewhere will make good of such threats. The object of the Californian's anger was Douglas Mackay, president of DM Contact Management, which works for Albion Medical, a firm advertising the "Only Reliable, Medically Approved Penis Enhancement." [...] He said his firm does not send spam but blamed a rival firm which he said routes much of their unsolicited bulk e-mail through Russia and eastern Europe. Mackay said such firms gave a bad name to the penis enhancement business. [bold added] Now that is today's funny quote! 11:43:34 PM    comment []  trackback []

Islam slam or just a bad joke? Cartoonist Johnny Hart is being accused of slamming Islam in this B.C. cartoon. Decide for yourself. I am undecided. Hart himself denies it, and while he's known as a devout Christian cartoonist, I can't say I have noticed him using subtle symbolisms, and neither to slam religions. Some of the "analysis" reading an anti-Islam message into this cartoon looks almost comically speculative. On the other hand, it is the only understanding that makes the joke, eh, work. At any rate, it is a rather lousy cartoon, but then I've never been a big fan of B.C. to begin with. 9:20:01 PM    comment []  trackback []

Michael Jackson accusation If you are interested in the serious child abuse accusations aganst Michael Jackson, you can read the declaration by J. Chandler, the 13 year old boy who earlier accused Jackson of fondling him, at The Smoking Gun. Update: I thought at first this was the recent accusation. D'oh! 6:50:58 PM    comment []  trackback []

Winning hearts and minds BBC's correspondent in Iraq, Jonny Dymond, is heaping loads of praise on the American 101st Airborn Division and its commander Major General David Patraeus for how they handle the rebuilding in the city of Mosul. It used to be a Saddam Hussein stronghold, in the so-called Sunni triangle, but there "is hardly a word to be heard here against the Americans who run the city," according to the article. There is relative peace, businesses are flourishing, and the city is being rebuilt. General Patraeus' approach gets a lot of the credit: "Everything is about hearts and minds," he says, as the engines and rotors of his helicopter roar deafeningly overhead. "Not just tonight's activities, but everything that we do is hearts and minds. "Even when you're taking down bad guys you've got to do it in a way that does not create more bad guys than you're taking off the street. "There's actually a sign in our command post," he adds, "that says 'We're in a race to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. What have you done today?" Is the Beeb working to win the "hearts and mind" of a readership alienated by constant US-bashing and leftwing bias? 4:03:15 PM    comment []  trackback []

England wins Rugby World Cup England has beaten defending champions Australia 20-17 in a Rugby World Cup final that went into, and almost beyond, extra time. This is the first world victory for England in an international team sport since the football world cup win at home in 1966! 2:05:18 PM    comment []  trackback []

Why Turkey? Turkey is trying to come to terms with being in the frontline of the war on terror, and it is particularly disturbing to them that apparently all the suicide bombers were Turks. The primary targets may have been Jewish and British, but one main reason for choosing Turkey as the battlefield is that the country is everything the Islamofascists hate: an emerging liberal democracy in an ancient Islamic stronghold. Turkey is emerging as a model Muslim country. Its leaders come from an Islamic background but they have embraced western values and made good progress forging ahead with economic, political and human rights reforms. That is clearly a threat for the likes of al-Qaida," said Professor Ihsan Dagi, who teaches international relations at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. "Everything about Turkey is the antithesis of what these groups presumably seek," said Soli Ozel, professor of international relations at Bilgi University in Istanbul. "It has an Islamic-rooted party that came to power with democratic means and is now pushing ahead with reforms." "Turkey is a crucial ideological threat to al-Qaida," said Soner Cagaptay, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "It is a pivotal showcase of the other side of the Muslim world that they hate." Any country showing the Muslim world that democracy and human rights, not religious extremism, is the way to prosperity, will be a threat to al-Qaeda. 1:32:41 PM    comment []  trackback []

Insane defence The defenders of Lee Boyd Malvo, charged with doing the actual shooting in the sniper cases, base their defence on the idea that the young man was "brainwashed" by John Allen Muhammad. It is a form of insanity defence. "Brainwashing" is a very popular myth, but it remains a fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that brainwashing ever existed, nor that it woks. 2:26:51 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.12.2003; 12:12:39.