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20. mai 2005
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WaPo's Molly Moore writes a quite glowing article about how the terrorists in Hamas is winning hearts and minds by running social services and taking out the garbage.
SoccerDad is decidedly unimpressed: I'm sure the trains run on time too. Maybe those who voted for Hamas in the local elections weren't doing it over the garbage collection, but it's fascist practices? Perish the thought.
On a more positive note, sometimes Hamas' version of social work and garbage collection is a dangerous occupation (video).
11:32:31 PM 
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German's National Democratic Party (NPD) has been campaigning on a strong anti-immigration and anti-foreigner policy, even though it successfully fought the government's attempts to shut it down as a neo-nazi party. Much of its anger has been directed at workers from Eastern Europe, especially Poland, allegedly stealing jobs from Germans by dumping wages.
Now, where did the NPD go to print its newspaper Deutsche Stimme?
That's right. They went to a have the anti-Polish newspaper printed in Poland.
Police in the eastern state of Saxony seized 21,000 copies of Deutsche Stimme (German Voice) two weeks ago when checking two Polish lorries.
Incidentally, Norway's left is adopting many of the same positions on Polish and other East-European workers. Being leftists, of course, they call it "social dumping" and hides behind concern for Polish workers being exploited.
11:19:21 PM
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In 1982, Italian banker Roberto Calvi, called "God's banker" was found dead. hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London. Inquests first ruled his death suicide, then ruled it open and now the police has ruled he was murdered. At the same time, four people are being charged with his murder in Italy.
Police said they believe Mr Calvi was probably strangled by two or possibly more people and then hung from scaffolding. When his body was found there were bricks in his pockets, along with thousands of pounds in cash.
The 62-year-old was president of the struggling Banco Ambrosiano, which later collapsed. [...]
The four people due to stand trial in Italy are Flavio Carboni, his ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinzig and Pippo Calo and Ernesto Diotallevi.
This is the time to make The Godfather part IV [please! -- ed. Relax, it was a joke!].
7:43:04 PM
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Researchers are able to read mathematical theorems by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes from 10th century parchments using advanced x-ray technology.
Using state-of-the-art circular particle accelerators called synchrotrons, the scientists shone ultra-fine light beams onto three pages of the aged texts. Tuned to a specific energy, the light caused traces of iron in the ink to fluoresce, revealing for the first time the wispy outlines of Archimedes' 2,000-year-old ideas etched onto a goatskin document known as the ``Palimpsest.''
Though much of its text has been deciphered over the years by visible or ultraviolet light, about a quarter of the 174-page document remains unread, said SLAC scientist Uwe Bergmann. Efforts have been hampered by a form of medieval recycling in which parchment pages were erased and written over, allowing the rare material to be reused -- in this case replacing mathematical theorems with prayers.
A clear case of intellectual rot, if you ask me.
Scientists say it is especially fitting that these ancient texts can now be read thanks to cutting-edge technology:
It may be slow going, but in a strangely satisfying way, scientists say the project has allowed science to come full circle. Much of Archimedes' ancient work -- including the creation of calculus methods -- underlies present-day science, and now -- 2,000 years later -- physicists are applying some of their most sophisticated tools to get back into the head of this legendary mathematician.
``We're like the great-great-grandchildren of his own mind,'' Bergmann said.
Wonder if anything new will come to light about Archimedes' work.
7:33:21 PM
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The US military expresses anger that somebody has violated the Geneva convention by giving humiliating pictures of Saddam Hussein to British tabloid The Sun.
"We thought long and hard about publishing, and took the decision that they're such incredible pictures of the world's most brutal dictator... they were a compelling image that any newspaper or broadcaster would publish," the paper's managing editor, Graham Dudman, told the BBC News website.
Yeah, they thought long and hard for all of three seconds.
The US military believes the pictures are over a year old.
Update: Saddam will sue The Sun and the US military:
Lawyers for Saddam Hussein said today that they have started legal action against The Sun after the newspaper published a front-page picture of the deposed dictator wandering around an Iraqi jail in his underpants.
Ziyad Khasawneh, who heads Saddam's 20-strong defence team based in Jordan, told The Times that he would also be starting legal action against US forces in Iraq and Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, for allowing Saddam to be photographed in jail in breach of international law.
That's chutzpah.
2:21:50 PM
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Remember, suicide bombings are not the domain of religious extremists only.
2:03:57 AM
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John Hawkins interviews Marc Danziger, one of the partners in Pajamas Media, about the emerging blogging network.
If you're a blogger, sign up by sending a mail to join-at-pajamasmedia.com and give your name and the name and url of your blog. Tell them I sent you!
1:59:21 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.06.2005; 06:45:10.
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