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29. april 2005
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Rock, paper, scissors decide $20M art sale.
Takashi Hashiyama, president of Maspro Denkoh Corporation, an electronics company based outside of Nagoya, Japan, could not decide whether Christie's or Sotheby's should sell the company's art collection, which is worth more than $20 million, at next week's auctions in New York.
He did not split the collection - which includes an important Cézanne landscape, an early Picasso street scene and a rare van Gogh view from the artist's Paris apartment - between the two houses, as sometimes happens. Nor did he decide to abandon the auction process and sell the paintings through a private dealer.
Instead, he resorted to an ancient method of decision-making that has been time-tested on playgrounds around the world: rock breaks scissors, scissors cuts paper, paper smothers rock.
Christie's won the game, and the auction, by taking it seriously. And taking it seriously means asking children how to play the game.
Kanae Ishibashi, the president of Christie's in Japan, declined to discuss her preparations for the meeting. But her colleagues in New York said she spent the weekend researching the psychology of the game online and talking to friends, including Nicholas Maclean, the international director of Christie's Impressionist and modern art department.
Mr. Maclean's 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, turned out to be the experts Ms. Ishibashi was looking for. They play the game at school, Alice said, "practically every day."
"Everybody knows you always start with scissors," she added. "Rock is way too obvious, and scissors beats paper." Flora piped in. "Since they were beginners, scissors was definitely the safest," she said, adding that if the other side were also to choose scissors and another round was required, the correct play would be to stick to scissors - because, as Alice explained, "Everybody expects you to choose rock."
Until too many people have read this article. Or perhaps even then.
9:48:51 PM 
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A British PC manufacturer has developed a PC that needs no other power source than the network cable:
UK firm DSP Design has made a PC that gets electric power via a network cable rather than through a wall socket.
Before now power via a network system has only been used for devices such as wireless access points, CCTV cameras and (Voip) internet telephone handsets.
Just don't try to hook it up to a wireless net.
1:16:34 PM
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A veterinarian thinks he has the answer to why as many as a hundred toads have exploded in Germany:
Animal welfare workers and veterinarians had reported that as many as 1,000 toads had swelled to bursting point and exploded in recent days, propelling their entrails up to a metre (three feet) into the air.
Now a veterinary surgeon, Frank Mutschmann, who has examined the remains of the toads, said they had been pierced with a single peck by crows trying to eat their livers. This in turn caused the toads to explode.
"The toads swell up as a form of self-defence. But when their livers are taken away and their stomachs are punctured, their blood vessels explode, their lungs collapse and the other organs come out," Mutschmann said.
What a waste! When I was younger, crows used to eat all of the toads.
1:09:36 PM
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I earlier wrote that Putin's Russia does not appear to see it in its interest that there is a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. On the contrary, as part of its plan to check US influence in the Middle East, Russia will want to make sure the road-map plan (which it is party to) will fail.
It is interesting, in this light, to note Vladimir Putin's historic visit to Israel. Both sides naturally tried to put a good spin on the visit, itself a positive development, and cover up the controversies. Israel's official reaction to anything Putin said or did, however, strongly suggests the country's suspicion, and this indicates the Israeli government has come to the same conclusion I did.
The sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, which Russia insists poses no threat to Israel, is a point of concern. Russia's aid to Iran's nuclear programme is even more so. It must be remembered that the Soviet-aided Arab states came dangerously close to destroying Israel in its infancy, and Putin's badly veiled Soviet-nostalgism leaves a bad feeling far beyond Israel.
Putin's proposed Middle East peace conference in Moscow this autumn was a strange spectacle. The road map calls for a conference whenever the Palestinian Authority has curbed the militants and put an end to all terrorist groups. That is not going to happen by the fall, no matter how generously we interpret Mahmoud Abbas' intentions and powers. Thus, when Putin made the proposal which he would know Israel and the US would turn down, it can only be seen as an attempt to embarrass his hosts and make it appear as if Sharon is hawkish and opposed to peace talks on principle.
5:08:23 AM
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Iraq finally has a new government:
Iraq's parliament approved a cabinet of ministers on Thursday, forming Iraq's first democratically elected government in more than 50 years.
By an overwhelming majority, the 275-seat National Assembly approved the list of names put forward by Shi'ite Islamist Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
However, several of the 36 ministries will be occupied by acting ministers until final names are decided. Jaafari will be acting defence minister and Ahmad Chalabi will be acting oil minister, the parliamentary speaker said.
The interior ministry will be headed by Bayan Jabbor, a Shi'ite Muslim. The finance minister will be Ali Abdul Amir Allawi, also a Shi'ite.
It must be pointed out, however, that endless parliamentary heckling is part of the democratic process. It is not always pretty, but it's prettier than other forms of power grabbing.
1:51:37 AM
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Sheik Saleh Al Luhaidan, chief justice of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Judicial Council, has been caught on video encouraging Saudis to go to Iraq to fight the Americans:
In an audiotape secretly recorded at a government mosque last October and obtained by NBC News, Luhaidan encourages young Saudis to go to Iraq to wage war against Americans.
"If someone knows that he is capable of entering Iraq in order to join the fight, and if his intention is to raise up the word of God, then he is free to do so," says Luhaidan in Arabic on the tape.
He warns Iraq is risky because "evil satellites and drone aircraft" watch the borders. But he says going is religiously permissible.
"The lawfulness of his action is in fighting an enemy who is fighting Muslims and came for war," says Luhaidan.
The sheik also says those donating money to the fight in Iraq should be sure it actually helps the cause.
Unfortunately, this is not even a surprise. The Saudis have for years dealt with their extremist problem by exporting it. Apparently, they haven't learned.
1:29:10 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.05.2005; 01:58:03.
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