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28. november 2004
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Support the people of Ukraine!
An orange? Here is an explanation. Thanks to Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice and Dean's World for boost.
I hope this idea spreads. Planetickets to Kiev would no doubt give us an experience to remember, but it's hardly a real option for most of us.
More Ukraine news:
- Parts of Europe's hard left sides reflexively against whatever side the US is on, even if it means supporting a mafia-run authocracy. Well, it's not like it's the first time.
- Buses of special police forces have arrived in Kiev. Hopefully this is not a prelude to violence.
- Eastern regions who support the current administration threatens to go for autonomy if Yushchenko is elected president. Personally, I'd say let them have it, but there can be something here I have overlooked.
It's now been a week for the protesters.
11:41:18 PM 
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Boost for stem cell research
Switzerland, a special country with a very unique form of direct democracy, today overwhelmingly accapted stem cell research in a referendum. The Catholic Church and the left-wing Greens opposed the measure, but 66.4% still voted yes to a limited plan for research on stem cells from human embryos.
A semi-direct democracy where the parliament has a secondary role is normally a recipe for a very conservative country. Switzerland didn't allow women to vote before 1971! In this case, however, the huge importance of the country's pharmaceutical industry no doubt played an important part.
It has been an overall good day for stem cell research. Newsmedia reports that a paralyzed South Korean woman, Hwang Mi-Soon, now walks thanks to stem cells from umbilical cord blood. So far, stem cell research has offered many promises and very few real results. Assuming this report is correct, I hope that is now about to change. It is also important to note that this research avoids the controversial issue of doing research on stem cells from embryos.
11:18:37 PM
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Ukraine voter fraud
We've all heard about voting fraud in Ukraine. The Telegraph outlines the solid evidence for widespread, systematic voter fraud by the government.
Maya Syta, a journalist working at polling station 73 in a Kiev suburb, witnessed ballot papers destroyed with acid poured into a ballot box. "The officials were taking them out of the box and they couldn't understand why they were wet," she said.
"Then I saw they started to blacken and disintegrate as if they were burning. Two ballots were wrapped up into a tube with a yellow liquid inside. After a few moments they were completely eaten up."
In her polling station, 26 ballots were destroyed and had to be invalidated. Six other cases were recorded of ballots destroyed by acid.
The most common trick was "carousel" voting, in which busloads of Yanukovich supporters simply drove from one polling station to another casting multiple false absentee ballots.
In another brazen fraud recorded by observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, voters were given pens filled with ink that disappeared, leaving ballots unmarked and invalid.
There is lots more, of course, including violent attacks on voting booths and massive voter intimidation.
The corrupt leaders of many former Soviet republics committed election fraud as routine. This time, however, the people has had enough.
Despite talk of an East-West showdown, many Ukrainians protesting about the election result say that Mr Yanukovich's criminal background is unacceptable, not his bias towards Russia.
The prime minister was twice convicted for robbery and battery in his youth and is seen as the protege of a group of business oligarchs known as "the Donetsk fellas" from the eastern region where he was once governor.
"How could they dare try to impose such a bandit on us?" asked Yuri, who was ferrying protesters to Kiev's Independence Square yesterday in a car festooned with orange streamers. "We will never accept it."
The arrogance of power. It happens even in stable democracies, and then the voters can throw the offending party out. In dictatures, the tendency is even stronger. Eventually the authocrats think they can get away with everything.
1:53:14 PM
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Murder: One way to get blog attention
The author of this blog is accused of having her mother murdered. In her blog, the last entry, for November 18th, says:
Just to let everyone know, my mother was murdered
I won't have computer acess until the weekend or so because the police took my computer to go through the hard drive. I thank everyone for their thoughts and e-mails, I hope to talk to you when I get my computer back.
On Oct 19, there is this entry:
oh and I now have pure benzoic acid. Unfortunately it's not leathal
And there is a lot of complaining about the mother, a lot more than I have time going through.
Links via Dean's World.
For some time I wondered if this is some sort of blog hoax, but apparently it's real. Sad and tragic.
12:55:03 PM
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Blogger to fight for drug rights in Supreme Court
Volokh co-conspirator Randy Barnett will on Monday for the first time argue a case for the US Supreme Court, and what a case! He will argue against the federal government's constitutional right to restrict medical marijuana under the interstate commerce clause.
I will not pretend to understand much about US constitutional law, but whatever I do know, I have learned from their excellent blog.
And I will say I think that if Barnett wins such a case in the full Supreme Court, it will be close to sensational. But I really hope he does.
PS: Full court? Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, earlier diagnosed with thyroid cancer, will be absent from the court for the next session, and probably the rest of the year.
PS 2: Here in Norway, Health Minister Ansgar Gabrielsen has ruled out the use of medical marijuana for multiple sclerosis sufferers. Disappointing, but not surprising
PS 3: An editor should do some work on TV2 Nettavisen's English-language pages. It is "Health Minister" or "Minister of Health" not "Minister of Medicine." And "is opposes the issue" is not a phrase I recognise. Yeah, stones and glass houses, I know.
PS 4: Oh, the English pages of the Ministry of Health could do some work, too. Norway "banns" smoking, indeed. There is also no shame in shortening sentences until they are readable, even for a government webpage.
1:10:38 AM
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© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.12.2004; 07:28:46.
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