7. februar 2004

Sum of all Fears indeed Paris nuked by Islamic terrorists in 2009? Well, that is the scenario behind Timothy Garton Ash's article, "looking back" to how the fallout from the Iraq war hurt western intelligence cooperation and political trust in the agencies, leading to a nuclear explosion in a major western city. There are at least two important lessons that this article draws out: First, the WMD intelligence failure before the Iraq war may have hurt the credibility of the agencies considerably. Next time somebody, anybody, cries about WMD wolves, there may be no Bush or Blair around to dare act on it. Second, a growing distrust between the anglo-saxon powers on one side and Germany and especially France on the other can only hurt all involved parties, and benefit al-Qaeda. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the boosts to the anti-proliferation work over the last month or so can be credited mostly on the uncompromising stance of president Bush and prime minister Blair. PS: It was quite cute to have Hillary Clinton be president of the US at the time of this event, but I think it mostly served to distract the reader from the main point of the article. 11:50:08 PM    comment []  trackback []

...but my smile still stays on Here's a good test: Spot the fake smiles. Considering that there are real differences between real smiles (spontanous) and fake ones (consciously created by our brain), it is maybe surprising how bad people are in seeing the difference. Or maybe it is just as well. I got 15 right out of 20. 10:16:20 PM    comment []  trackback []

Mars rover "Spirit" back in good health Engineers are confident they have identified the problem with the Mars robot Spirit and have installed safeguards against the glitch on both the rovers. Spirit and Opportunity are now busy examining the surface of the red planet. 8:39:41 PM    comment []  trackback []

Halliburton lists Cheney as "risk factor" You'd think having a former manager in one of the highest political positions in the country is a dream come true for any corporation, but Halliburton has certainly found out that it has its downsides as well. When listing the company's "risk factors", the connection to vice president Dick Cheney is mentioned as a liability. "Since [Cheney's] nomination as vice president," the company said in a recent SEC filing, "Halliburton has been and continues to be the focus of allegations, some of which appear to be made for political reasons by political adversaries of the vice president and the current Bush administration. We expect that this focus and these allegations will continue and possibly intensify as the 2004 elections draw nearer." Many months ago, I pointed out that the intense scrutiny over the relationship between Cheney and Halliburton may actually hurt the company more than the connection benefits it: However, in a recent development, Haliburton lost out on a contract for a massive U.S. government contract for reconstruction in Iraq. It is unclear whether they are out of the contract for business reasons or because of the political fallout of awarding such a huge contract to a business that has close ties to the administration. Pretty obvious really. 6:58:57 PM    comment []  trackback []

Emergency aid 100 years ago The National Archives of Norway are being digitilized and put on the Net, and provide a lot of fascinating historical pictures and documents. The above, the "document of the month", is a bank cheque from Cape Town, sent in emergency aid to the town of Ålesund (Aalesund) in 1904. On the night before January 23, 1904, the entire town of Ålesund burned to the ground, exposing the 10,000 survivors to harsh winter climate. A massive aid campaign was initiated, which rapidly became an international one. Of note is that Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany publicly supported its rebuilding, and took a lot of the credit when the town was rebuilt. The above bank cheque for 46 pounds 14 shilling was sent from Cape Town in South Africa on April 17 by one Karl Lithman. 4:40:42 PM    comment []  trackback []

I-crash differently A hilarious Mac ad spoof, telling the truth... 3:23:24 PM    comment []  trackback []

Tony the blogger British prime minister Tony Blair is considering setting up a blog for his reelection campaign. The Labour party is considering giving Tony Blair a weblog as part of its attempt to make its general election campaign an "engaging dialogue with the British people". Douglas Alexander, Labour's election coordinator, told Guardian Unlimited he is considering "all means to communicate with the voters directly" for the campaign, including an election blog. The Labour party strategists, and Blair himself, has already been looking at how the democrats are conducting their campaign. Mr Alexander was particularly impressed by how the Dean campaign translated "virtual activism into real activism" in the early stages of the primaries. But he stressed that Mr Dean's failure to win a single primary, despite being once seen as the frontrunner, shows that the message is more important than the media in an election campaign. Tony Blair has always understood how important it is to control the message. I think the democratic hopefuls, weblogs aside, would do better learning from him. 1:28:52 PM    comment []  trackback []

Is that you, Sauron? "Hubble spies 'Evil Eye' galaxy" (CNN headline) 12:00:46 PM    comment []  trackback []

Spanish flu started as avian flu Not very reassuring: New evidence shows that the 1918 "Spanish" flu, which may have killed 50 million people to become the swiftest killer of humans in history, originated as a bird flu in Asia thet evolved the ability to spread from human to human. The avian flu virus has been detected in pigs, yet another possible sign that it is learning to transcend the species barrier. What, me worry? 2:23:56 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.03.2004; 14:41:39.