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25. oktober 2005
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Can a fish diet make criminals less violent? A Norwegian researcher is apparently fishing for an Ig Nobel.
Researcher Anita Lill Hansen wants to see whether there is a connection between the amount of oily fish that people consume, and problems such as controlling impulsive actions, violent outbursts and lack of concentration.
Those are traits commonplace among prisoners in Norwegian jails, the University of Bergen researcher said.
The project is being planned in cooperation with the national center for seafood research, and the Norwegian prison authorities in western Norway. [...]
Hansen said earlier studies have indicated a link between the human heart rate and a person's ability to plan their actions, and that omega-3 fatty acid, a fish fat extract, is good for the heart.
"I want to see whether there is a connection between low omega-3 levels and problem behavior," she told ANB.
"The plan is to have two test groups," among inmates who volunteer for the study, Hansen said. One will be given extra omega-3 and the other group will not. She will then look for any differences in behavior.
The funny thing is I read this in The Mercury News first, and the story is from a University 10 minutes' walk from my home.
10:51:35 PM 
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Banning words is bad enough, but banning individual letters?
A Turkish court has fined 20 people for using the letters Q and W on placards at a Kurdish new year celebration, under a law that bans use of characters not in the Turkish alphabet, rights campaigners said.
The court in the southeastern city of Siirt fined each of the 20 people 100 new lira ($75.53) for holding up the placards, written in Kurdish, at the event last year. The letters Q and W do not exist in the Turkish alphabet.
George W. Bush could be in so much trouble if he went to Turkey.
Obviously the banning of these letters is a creepy, weasely way of banning the Kurdish language from public display.
9:24:32 PM
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The US Senate subcommittee that has investigated the British renegade MP George Galloway says it has found the smoking gun connecting him to illegal Iraqi oil-for-food money.
The Palestinian-born wife of George Galloway, the Respect MP, is accused today of receiving $149,980 (about £100,000) derived from the United Nations Iraqi oil-for-food programme.
A report by an investigative committee of the United States Senate says the money was sent to the personal account of Amineh Abu Zayyad in August 2000.
The report, compiled by Republican and Democratic staff, contains detailed information gleaned from Iraqi archives and bank accounts in Britain and Jordan.
The investigators concluded that Mr Galloway knew about the payments and that "through his wife was personally enriched" by them. They say that he "knowingly made false or misleading statements under oath before [a Senate] sub-committee".
Galloway was infamously heavy on rhetoric and short on answers when he livened up the US Congress some months back, but it's quite possible the senators have the last laugh. Perjury carries a quite stiff prison sentence.
The report includes bank records showing a paper trail from Saddam's ministries to Mrs Galloway. It states that the Iraqis handed several lucrative oil-for-food contracts to the Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat, an old friend of the Galloways. A month later, on Aug 3, 2000, Mr Zureikat allegedly paid $150,000 minus a bank commission of $20 from his Citibank account number 500190207 into Mrs Galloway's account at the Arab Bank in Amman.
The senate team also says that a $15,666 payment had been made on the same date to a Bank of Scotland account belonging to Mr Galloway's spokesman, Ron McKay. Last night Mr McKay said he had no recollection of the alleged payment.
Galloway's old "dear, dear friend" Tariq Aziz has also witnessed against him.
Three senior Iraqis in American custody, including the former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, told the Senate investigators that the oil-for-food contracts were intended to benefit the British MP's political campaigns.
Mr Aziz, who met Mr Galloway on the MP's "Big Ben to Baghdad" bus tour in 1999, said: "The proceeds from the sale benefited the cause and Mr Galloway."
The report says: "Aziz recalled that Galloway requested the Iraqi government to provide financial support for the Mariam Appeal [to send medicines to Iraq] to defray the expenses associated with conducting the campaign. Aziz recalls that Galloway said he had also asked for money from the governments of the other countries through which his procession had passed."
Galloway, previously expelled from Britain Labour party, is emphatically denying everything. What else can he do? Whoever believes Galloway these days would buy into any conspiracy theory made to defend him anyway.
Galloway won the first round of a libel suit against The Telegraph over very similar allegations.
PS: I am getting some google traffic today for my earlier mention of Galloway's ex-wife Amineh Abu-Zayyad.
PS 2: The Times has more coverage, including the Senate report in PDF.
9:08:48 PM
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The final tally showed the Iraqi constitution has passed the referendum.
The constitution was widely expected to pass, but there was speculation until the very last minute that it may have been defeated by a three-province rejection. Under the electoral law, if two-thirds of voters in three provinces had turned down the constitution, the document would not have passed.
Officials said on Monday that two Sunni-dominated provinces had rejected the document; the results for a third province with a Sunni majority, Ninevah, were not released until today.
Officials said that, after an audit of the tally for Ninevah, they had determined that many people there had voted "no" on the constitution, but the number of rejections did not meet the two-thirds threshold.
That's a relief. If it had failed, the process would have to start again, to elect a new parliament to write a new referendum.
Under compromise legislation passed just before the contitution went to the people, new amendments can be passed by a simple majority in parliament before it goes to the people in a referendum again.
Hopefully, all Iraqis, including Sunni Arabs, will go out in force to elect their own representatives into the new parliament in December.
6:43:45 PM
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Rosa Parks, the hero who stood up to racial discrimination, has died, 92 years old.
Nearly 50 years ago, Rosa Parks made a simple decision that sparked a revolution. When a white man demanded she give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the then 42-year-old seamstress said no.
At the time, she couldn't have known it would secure her a revered place in American history. But her one small act of defiance galvanized a generation of activists, including a young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and earned her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."
Mrs. Parks died Monday evening at her home of natural causes, with close friends by her side, said Gregory Reed, an attorney who represented her for the past 15 years. She was 92.
Progress doesn't happen automatically. It requires people standing up and daring to speak out. The rights we take for granted, was once hard-fought by people like Rosa Parks.
PS: La Shawn Barber has a great roundup of blog coverage, and some nice words of her own.
3:36:50 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.11.2005; 20:37:31.
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