28. desember 2003

Do as we say, not as we do Just as the US Congress unanimously passed an anti-spam law, members were themselves sending out spam! 11:01:01 PM    comment []  trackback []

Dean the optimist? The battle plan for the Bush reelection campaign, assuming Howard Dean really becomes the democratic party candidate, is to portray him as "reckless, angry and pessimistic," but with emphasis on pessimistic. Some liberal bloggers are trying to counter this strategy by making the Google search term "optimistic" point to Dean's site, in the same way they made the term "miserable failure" point to Bush's bio. We'll find out if it works. I am more worried that a plague of campaigns to manipulate Google can force it to implement updates that ultimately punish bloggers. 9:44:59 PM    comment []  trackback []

Terror threat to US, West Europe remains high The threat of al-Qaeda attacks against the US mainland using commercial passenger or cargo planes as guided missiles remains high, even as the french denies having found any evidence that any passenegrs on the cancelled Air France flights were terrorists. US intelligence officials are still watching the sky carefully. Some of the information - much of it gleaned from electronic intercepts and human sources - indicate that terrorists are interested in using commercial or cargo jetliners as guided missiles in an assault on urban areas, symbolic targets or parts of the critical infrastructure of the United States, including nuclear plants and petroleum facilities, according to several U.S. officials interviewed yesterday. The officials say several independent lines of evidence point to this threat being serious and imminent. There appears to be a rift between US and French officials on anti-terror, and that is potentially very serious. French authorities are dismissive of the threats, clearly implying (to the public at least) the Air France flights were cancelled after a false alert. US intelligence, on the other hand, says that some of the suspicious people failed to turn up for the flights, and are not to be found. Somebody made the cancellations public knowledge too soon. Britan, Spain and Italy are also on high alert. Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi recently is supposed to have said there was a specific threat to attack the Vatican with passenger planes (other news reports have Berlusconi claim he was misquoted, but in such an elaborate way that it requires a lengthy explanation of Italian idioms).. The letter bomb attack against European Commission President Romano Prodi does not appear to be related to Islamist terrorism. A previously unknown group called Informal Anarchic Federation has claimed responsibility. Militant anti-globalists are not formally allied with Islamists, but fall more into the "useful idiots" category. Maybe understandable, considering that al-Qaeda also reads newspapers, the public is kept on a "need to know" basis about the progress (or lack thereof) in the war on terror. 8:53:38 AM    comment []  trackback []

PETA anti-mom propaganda revisited The Raven Banner has found the online propaganda outlet for PETA's campaign to tell kids that their fur-wearing mothers kills cute animals, that I wrote about earlier. Kids will see the bloody truth behind their moms’ pretentious pelts. Accompanied by graphic photographs of skinned carcasses and animals languishing on fur farms, children will read: "Lots of wonderful foxes, raccoons, and other animals are kept by mean farmers who squish them into cages so small that they can hardly move. They never get to play or swim or have fun. All they can do is cry-just so your greedy mommy can have that fur coat to show off in when she walks the streets." Even worse than I thought.  6:40:50 AM    comment []  trackback []

Blame Canada US agriculture officials have blamed Canada as the source of the "mad" cow. Canadian authorities reject the conclusion as "premature." We have a sense of deja vu. 5:25:03 AM    comment []  trackback []

Man has himself shot to impress girl A Sicily man persuaded his friend to shoot him in the groin with a hunting rifle, hoping his ex-girlfriend would feel so sorry for him she'd take him back. Apparently, he will recover. She had left him because of his "violent character". She did not change her mind. 4:17:26 AM    comment []  trackback []

You are tired, you are falling asleep... Emily Yoffe, Slate's freelance human guinea pig, has allowed herself to be hypnotized to solve her sleep problem (and get material for a new article). Hypnosis seems to have worked, and it also looks like her sleep problems are grounded in childhood issues (isn't everything?). I have always had a totally messed up sleep pattern. Maybe hypnosis is an idea? 2:23:31 AM    comment []  trackback []

Atheism vs agnosticism Last year at this time Slate printed a "Christmas challenge" to atheists, full of misunderstandings and sloppy thought. I think I met the atheism challenge, and then some. I've now added the posting to my articles section. 1:19:51 AM    comment []  trackback []

Co$ vs WWN Here's an amusing test: guess which statements come from the supermarket tabloid the Weekly World News, and which come from scifi author turned religious guru Ron L. Hubbard's nasty Church of Scientology. I thought I knew the Co$ pretty well, but I didn't do better than chance. Should tell us something, right? Anyone made a Church of the WWN? Looks like there is a good recipe to get rich just there. 1:15:54 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.01.2004; 02:48:54.