7. mars 2004

Driving on the edge The 18 year old who drove this car had received his driver license just the day before, and is unlikely to see it again in a while (obtaining a driver's license in Norway typically costs you $2000). With four other people in the Volkswagen Golf, the young driver tried to change CD when he lost control of the vehicle. The car blasted over the reiling and ended up balancing on the edge, 3-4 meters above a pedestrian subpassage. Luckily, everybody got away with only minor injuries. Bjørn Mørk was a witness to the accident, and he also had a MMS and camera-enabled mobile. Thus this picture, printed in VG. 8:32:46 PM    comment []  trackback []

Ticking vibrator caused bomb scare An Austrian bomb squad had a good laugh when they opened a suspicious package at a car stop feared to be, literally, a ticking bomb. Inside they found a number of pornographic movies and a vibrator that had been turned on. Peter Freudelsberger, local police spokesman, said: "When our experts opened the suspicious package, it turned out that it was full with all sorts of sex articles. "The vibrator had been switched on but the batteries had run down and it was not vibrating any more, just making a sort of ticking noise." Police took the items away, but say they are not expecting the owner to turn up to collect them. I'd still worry that some lady out there is so frustrated she might blow up. 7:19:25 PM    comment []  trackback []

Ethiopian farmers drop coffee, plant khat Farmers in Ethiopia have been living off coffee production for generations, but those who can no longer make a living from falling coffee prices are changing to khat, the amphetamine-like stimulant that is extremely popular in many third world countries. There have been proposals of a system that will keep the international coffee prices stable, to avoid the horrible consequences for third world farmers when the prices drop. The world market demand does not vary so much, but the supply - production - is very sensitive to climate.To make matters worse, countries like Brazil and Viet Nam has lately increased production of low-grade coffee, flooding the market. So how to solve this problem? The charity Oxfam wants big coffee firms to agree to a list of demands: To buy fair trade coffee, (where a minimum price is guaranteed to farmers and no middle man exists to reduce their profits) To only trade in coffee that meets International Coffee Organisation standards and To reduce the current coffee surplus by destroying five million bags. Such a commitment, Oxfam claims, could help up to 25 million coffee farmers worldwide. None of the big coffee companies have yet given any indication that they are prepared to follow all, or in some cases, any of these rules. That would all be good and well if there were mechanisms in place to enforce such minimum prices worldwide. The problem is that any buyer who went into such deals would be outcompeted by the companies that did not. This goes all the way down to the individual consumers choosing the cheap coffee over the expensive one in the shops. Of course, a minimum price system will have to mean production limitations too, a la Opec. It would be meaningless for producers to insist on a minimum price if the market was drowning in coffee. Then the products would just find ways around the minimum price, as any price would be better for consumers than not selling at all. I have no idea what system could work to avoid these unfortunate variations in price. I think a necessary solution would be for countries to increase variation in their product lines. And, perhaps more importantly, become less dependent on pure raw materials and more on manufactured products based on their own resources. But before that happens, really free trade agreements have to be extended to the third world too, and that includes especially agricultural products. 4:15:54 PM    comment []  trackback []

Putting the bitch in her place? Originally, I did not follow the Martha Stewart case, as she is certainly not a household name in my neck of woods. I did find it rather surprising, however, to find out what she was convicted for, and how. Stewart was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators after she had been accused of insider trading. She was not charged with insider trading. So essentially a jury found her guilty of lying when she denied a crime the prosecutors didn't even attempt to get her convicted for. If there is a high-profile case demonstrating what is wrong with the legal system, this is surely it. In any common sense system, the accusers should have the burden of evidence to build up a convincing, complete case fact by fact. Not so here. Following the case in the media, it is hard to understand what evidence exactly made the jurors conclude Martha Stewart was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I fear this is yet another case where jury psychology dictates a guilty verdict when the accusation is deemed to be "probably correct," not almost certainly correct, as it should be. It is an interesting fact that the stock market, when it learned that the jury had a verdict, predicted it would be an acquittal. The market is not always right. I think Rocketman has a very good point when he argues that this follows from a general resentment towards rich and successful women. Can anyone come up with a similar court case against a man ending in a conviction? It will take some good persuasion to convince me that Daniel Glick is not correct in his assessment of this case: This is not a victory for the legal system. This is a victory for the notion that, if the government decides to investigate you, they will find something to charge you with. It is a victory for legal nit-picking and bureacratic ass-covering. And it is a defeat for the presumption of innocence.  I will also suggest that the Enron and WorldCom scandals have made people cry out for blood, and this is it. If Enron had not happened, Martha Stewart would not have seen a courtroom in this case. Martha Stewart has appealed, but most experts think it will be a long shot, even though the trial judge strangely refused the defense to discuss the insider trading law.. 1:40:30 PM    comment []  trackback []

...and I hope you had a bloody crappy birthday Spam is ten years old. It is widely agreed that on March 5, 1994, the first spamming of the Internet took place. US law firm Canter and Siegel, run by husband and wife bloodsucking ambulance chasing lowlife lawyer scum Laurence A Canter and Martha S Siegel, sent Usenet messages to a large number of irrelevant groups to advertise its services related to US green crad lotteries. Spamming soon rendered the non-moderated parts of Usenet more or less useless, and then the unscupulous scum went over to email. You know the story. 1:41:46 AM    comment []  trackback []

Wake me up before... Oh, and why do people think it makes sense that just because somebody can sing and have sold a few million albums, they are experts in international politics? Or anything else. Stick to your music, George Michael. 1:31:23 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 31.03.2004; 03:01:15.