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9. november 2005
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Judith Miller is out of the New York Times.
The New York Times and Judith Miller, a veteran reporter for the paper, reached an agreement today that ends her 28-year career at the newspaper and caps more than two weeks of negotiations.
Well, she can always work for Pajamas Media...
11:55:23 PM 
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After being apparently sidelined for days while the French government was paralyzed, Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be back in charge in the fight against widespread riots. The government passed new emergency powers, including curfews, which appears to have had some effect.
Police said overnight violence had fallen significantly - although trouble still flared in more than 100 towns.
The government has declared a state of emergency in Paris and more than 30 other areas to help quell the unrest.
The northern city of Amiens was the first to impose an overnight curfew under the new powers, which came into force at midnight.
Sarkozy didn't stop there. He has now stated that non-citizens convicted of taking part in the riots would face expulsion from France.
It was almost surreal listening to coverage of France on Swedish state radio earlier today. Its correspondent raved on about how Sarkozy's decision to expel rioters was done on the far rightist Le Pen's bidding, and predicted that it would in effect be equivalent to the tear gas grenade thrown into a mosque and provoke more riots! Even the Swedish prime minister was quoted as chiding the French government for choosing a hard-line position instead of going into "dialogue" with the rioters. What should they talk to the rioters about, I wonder. The optimal mix for Molotov cocktails? Which cars are the easiest to burn? Maybe the proper firing range for shotguns aimed at police officers?
I'm sure a lot of good can be accomplished in cooperation with constructive leaders in immigrant communities. France and other European countries have chosen a disastrous integration policy, and changes need to be made. But the criminals and thugs who burn down their own neighbourhoods, devastating the very communities that have become so backwards, are certainly not ideal partners for civilised dialogue.
Sweden is, I think, pretty much top of the list of likely places where similar riots may happen in the future. With its naive faith in dialogue as the solution to every problem, it would be interesting to see how Sweden handles a similar crisis.
11:48:54 PM
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Top bomb-maker and terrorist leader Azahari bin Husin appears to have blown himself up after being cornered by Indonesian anti-terror forces.
Azahari, accused of masterminding a series of attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Indonesia, has eluded police for years by moving from one rented home to another in densely populated areas.
When anti-terror police moved in on Azahari's latest hide-out in Malang, a town about 850 kilometers (528 miles) east of Jakarta, with snipers stationed on rooftops nearby, he realized it was his last stand, national police chief Gen. Sutanto told reporters at the scene.
They set off at least 11 explosions and fired at police.
"The last one, the big one, was a suicide blast, that is the one that killed them," he said, adding police were afraid the house was still booby trapped and would wait until Thursday morning to retrieve the corpses.
DNA tests are needed to confirm Azahari's death. If true, it would be another major blow to al-Qaeda affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah.
11:22:20 PM
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Jordan's capital Amman has been hit by three or possibly four simultanous bomb explosions, targeting western hotels and reportedly a night club. Fifty-three people are so far reported killed, and over 300 wounded.
"Three terrorist operations targeted the Radisson SAS, the Grand Hyatt and the Days Inn hotels," police spokesman Bashir al-Daajeh told Jordanian news agency Petra.
"They could be suicide operations," he said.
Jordan has been a major target for Jihadi-Salafist extremists for a long time, but the country's well-functioning security services have so far been able to avert major attacks. This time, the extremists slipped through the net.
The al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, al-Zarqawi, is a Jordanian national.
King Abdullah was visiting Kazakhstan at the time of the blasts, and have hurriedly returned home.
While Jordan has been a reliable western ally in the war on terror, a large part of the country's population is Palestinian and a scary amount of them supports the goals and methods of Bin Laden.
Nothing official yet on whether these were suicide attacks.
PS: According to Norwegian media, four Norwegians left the Radisson hotel 15 minutes before the blast. The hotel chain is Scandinavian-owned and would be a natural place for Norwegians, Swedes and Danes to stay in Amman. The targets were picked to maximise western casualties and attention, and target business ties to the west. The same Radisson hotel was tageted by a foiled terrorist plot in 2000. Again, like the World Trade Center in New York, a reminder that al-Qaeda does not give up a target after one failed attack (or even a successful one, as on Bali).
Update: Andrew Cochran keeps posting updates:
jihadists used Jordan as "safe haven" but apparently concluded Jordan should now be target; this tarnishes Jordan's image of stability and begins "difficult time" for Jordan. Al-Zarqawi the primary suspect; a native Jordanian and already sentenced to death in absentia there - police already detaining possible suspects.
Now it says "at least 60 dead." More mindless carnage from the jihadists.
I wonder if the significant extremist support among Jordanians will decline now their own country has been a target? Judging by what happened in Morocco, that is likely. Then again, Pakistan has suffered many attacks, and the support for terrorism is still significant.
10:53:29 PM
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Up to the Norwegian election in September, I did some very serious blogging on the opinion polls (Norwegian opinion poll summary here). The exit polls, which shouldn't normally suffer the same problems as the phone polls (after all, everybody polled has actually voted), were surprisingly off the mark. I had really intended to follow up on this, but I suffered from serious post-election fatigue not to mention having some other re$ponsibilities. At any rate, George at Seixon has written a good summary of the exit polls, also comparing them to the errant US presidential election exit polls a year ago.
As you can see, some of these are very wildly inconsistent with the final result, especially Frp. Frp is typically like the Republican party in the USA, so that they also got screwed over in the exit polls in Norway may be an indication of polling bias. In other words, Republicans or people in Frp are typically those who despise the mainstream media, and might avoid them when they are polling. If that is not the explanation, then there is possibly a selection bias by the pollers, that they unconsciously seek out liberal-looking voters (such as women, minorities, hippies, etc). In the case of the Norwegian election, it just looks like a bias against Frp since most of the other parties all seem to be within reasonable error ranges.
It'd be interesting to see if these results are systemic.
4:12:35 PM
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From Queensland, Australia, where brothels are legal and licensed:
A teacher finds a colleague working in a brothel. She is suspended. He keeps his job (The Times)
Typical!
4:00:03 PM
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 The last of my wisdom teeth has now been removed. My dentist said it would only cause me grief in the long run, since it has no opposing tooth to bite against, so out it went. Since this tooth was in the upper jaw, the operation was swift and quite painless, but then again, the anesthetics is still working.
It's just a sad fact of life that humans have too many teeth for the size of our mouths. Over evolutionary time, the human jaw has become smaller, but the number of teeth has not been reduced accordingly. Thus, we have an overcrowded mouth and all sorts of problems that follows from it. No intelligent designer would think, gee, let's see how many teeth we can squeeze in here.
12:03:56 PM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 29.11.2005; 04:08:58.
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