2. desember 2003

Rumsfeld gets "Foot in Mouth" award The Plain English Campaign, a British group trying to stamp out cliches, gobbledygook and general nonsense in texts and speech, has given this year's Foot in Mouth award ("for a baffling quote by a public figure") to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the following statement: Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know. I do fear, however, that Donald is actually secretly flattered by the award. If he knows about it, that is. Perhaps that is one of the unknown unknows.  ''We think we know what he means,'' said Plain English Campaign spokesman John Lister. ''But we don't know if we really know.'' Careful, or you'll get next year's award yourself. 10:15:02 PM    comment []  trackback []

Betlehem "miracle baby" draws crowds A baby with a mysterious birthmark has been born in Bethlehem, and thousands of people are flocking to see the now 11 day old boy. The birthmark forms a crude representation of the Arabic letters for Ala, which was the name of the boy's uncle, a Hamas activist who was killed by Israeli troops after being accused of having planned a suicide bombing. Palestinian muslims are proclaiming the birthmark a divine sign in support for their struggle with Israel. This is just too thick with symbolism. How long will it take before some Christian fundamentalist proclaims the poor child to be the Antichrist? 8:41:59 PM    comment []  trackback []

Come back, Bill! Bill Watterson abruptly ended his wildly successful Calvin and Hobbes cartoon a few years back, and nobody knows what the man has been doing since. Is he burned out? Planning the perfect comeback? Becoming a painter? Enjoying his retirement? Who knows, really. 7:55:05 PM    comment []  trackback []

Here's something to annoy your neighbour! The Buckle virtual drum set! Just turn the sound volume up high, and there you go. 5:23:08 PM    comment []  trackback []

Dog Food ads Check out these hilarious dog food ads from Butch in New Zealand! They are so unbelievably bold I had to check out if these could possibly be real, and apparently they were, even though they only ran in girlie mags. 5:13:30 PM    comment []  trackback []

Dean criticised for sealing his records Howard Dean, who has criticised President Bush for his secrecy, has himself sealed a number of his own Vermont gubernatorial records for ten years, assuring they will not be made public before his (theorietical) reelection campaign. I wonder if Dr Dean has watched Yes, Minister: Bernard Woolley: "Well, yes, Sir...I mean, it [open government] is the Minister's policy after all." Sir Arnold: "My dear boy, it is a contradiction in terms: you can be open or you can have government." No relation to the California governor, btw. 12:22:26 PM    comment []  trackback []

Checking out their brains at the college campus Evangelical Christianity is making inroads even in New England's temples of secular education, like MIT. There are 15 evangelical Christian fellowship groups at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology alone. This is a pretty stunning development for a university where science has always been god, where efficiency and rationality are embedded in the DNA of the cold granite campus. Hundreds of MIT students are involved in these fellowships -- blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians, especially Asians. Some of the groups are associated with powerhouse national evangelical organizations, like Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Others are more home-grown. Either way, the ranks are multiplying. Partly this is a result of diversification. Young students from the Bible belt, and also evangelicals from south-east Asia, find their way to New England's prestigious colleges, and bring their beliefs with them. But it is also a result of a fact that is obvious but not widely recognised: people join religions for social reasons. People are not converted as much as socialised into religions, sects and cults. The converts may later argue they joined because the doctrines or teachings appealed to them. Let's get real. Nobody sane would be attracted to a dead god hanging on a tree who is expected to return to torture all non-believers for eternity. Once people are attracted to a group of people, however, they are much more likely to accept whatever practices and beliefs the group promotes. Belonging to a social group is crucial for humans. And hardly anyone is more lonely and vulnerable than a new student, so even the brightest young people can be attracted to evangelical Christianity, which is the very antithesis to rational thought. 1:36:31 AM    comment []  trackback []

Geneva Accords If it continues like this, I fear that new peace initiatives will continue to soil the names of European cities until they are all the names of some failed peace plan for the Middle East. Oslo is already associated with failure across the region, and now it's Geneva's turn. 12:04:45 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.01.2004; 02:46:13.