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26. desember 2005
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A very interesting interview with Daniel Dennett in Der Spiegel, where he discusses Darwin, evolution and 'intelligent design' - and how Darwin essentially did away with God.
SPIEGEL: Evolution, in other words, leaves no room for God?
Dennett: One has to understand that God's role has been diminished over the eons. First we had God, as you said, making Adam and making every creature with his hands, plucking the rib from Adam and making Eve from that rib. Then we trade that God in for the God who sets evolution in motion. And then you say you don't even need that God -- the law giver -- because if we take these ideas from cosmology seriously then there are other places and other laws and life evolves where it can. So now we no longer have God the law finder or the law giver, but just God the master of ceremonies. When God is the master of ceremonies and doesn't actually play any role any more in the universe, he's sort of diminished and no longer intervenes in any way.
That god of the gaps is getting very tiny now.
11:52:45 PM 
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Reports are coming in that dozens have been taken to hospital after being affected by poison gas in Russia's second largest city St Petersburg.
The Russian emergency situations ministry said the incident happened in at least one of the shops belonging to the Maksidom chain.
The victims were reportedly "poisoned" after breathing in the gas.
Details about the late morning incident in Russia's second-largest city are still coming in.
More details from the Associated Press, but still sketchy:
At least 78 people were sickened by the release of unidentified gas in stores in St. Petersburg, the Emergency Situations Ministry says.
Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said Monday those who sought medical care came from four stores of the Maksidom chain and he said he did not have further details.
From four different shops? This is deeply disturbing.
Update: Timers and ampules were found:
Andrei Aylabiev, another spokesman for the ministry, said customers in another Maxidom store reported smelling some kind of gas. At two other stores, boxes containing timers and ampules were found, he said.
If true, this is a coordinated terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction, and as far as I remember, only the second terrorist poison gas attack.
In 1995, members of the religious cult/terrorist organisation Aum Shinrikyo attacked the Tokyo subway system with sarin gas, killing 12 people.
Update 2: Still not many more details. Reuters reports much the same.
"Some of the them have been hospitalized. In one of the Maksidom shops, an unknown gas was dispersed," said Andrei Alyabyev, the ministry spokesman.
"Suspicions containers with pipes were found in two other shops, they are being defused," he said.
Russian media reported the containers had been set up with timing mechanisms to go off as time-bombs.
No reports of fatalities, luckily.
Update 3: It seems this was not a case of terrorism. It is notable that Russian authorities, normally eager to blame Chechen terrorists, have not mentioned that in this case.
A police spokesman told AP news agency that the Maksidom chain, which sells furnishings and hardware, had received letters threatening to disrupt sales during the holiday period.
Officials said 78 people sought medical care as a result of the gas, 66 of whom were taken to hospital. More than 50 were released soon afterwards.
No serious cases have been reported.
Victims of the attack reported an unusual, garlicky smell.
Preliminary reports said the substance used was methyl mercaptan, a compound of carbon, hydrogen and sulphur.
The substance is added to natural gas to give it its odour and is poisonous in large quantities.
It sounds a bit elaborate for a disgruntled ex-employee, so I'd guess it is mafia-related.
2:08:47 PM
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The Associated Press appears surprised that the US Supreme Court is not haunted.
The traditional Supreme Court Christmas party went on without the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who was well-known for his love of the annual event.
11:34:59 AM
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It is now one year ago that we watched, and blogged, in horror, the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. The death toll of the wave that swept across the Indian Ocean was an estimated 200,000 people - some say it can be double that. The tsunami is being marked today in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and many other countries hard hit by the disaster. Hundreds of tourists from western countries were also killed and thousands more affected by one of the most globally devastating natural disasters ever.
As it were, exactly one year earlier, Boxing Day 2004, was also a horrible day, where an estimated 26,000 people were killed by an earthquake in Bam in Iran, as well as many comparatively smaller tragedies.
You know there has been a horrible day in the world when both a targeted killing and a new suicide bombing in Israel gets buried. Indeed the day after Christmas was a bloody one, with at least 20,000 being killed in an earthquake in Iran, a gas leak accident killing 200 in China and a deadly plane crash in Benin taking at least 113 lives.
In the year that has passed, news of natural disasters have at time dominated the media, ranging from the Hurricane Katrina to the October earthquake in Kashmir, the latter killed 87,000 people and the recovery effort is still not complete.
Hopefully today will be a peaceful one.
9:30:07 AM
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Judge Jacques Baillet, the prosecutor at the army tribunal, has opened up an investigation into the role of the French army in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. France, unlike the other western powers who chose to look the other way as an estimated 800,000 people were brutally murdered, actually had troops in Rwanda. Instead of trying to stop it, allegations are the French army conspired to aid the murderers in both committing the atrocities and escaping after the fact.
Although Michèle Alliot-Marie, the French Defence Minister, described the claims as outlandish, the prosecutor decided that two witnesses were sufficiently credible to warrant an inquiry.
One is Auréa Mukakalisa, who was raped by Hutu militia in a refugee camp set up and controlled by the French Army. “The Hutu militiamen entered the camp and designated the Tutsis, who were forced to leave the camp by French soldiers,” Miss Mukakalisa, who was 27 at the time, said. “I saw the militia kill the Tutsis who had left the camp. I saw French soldiers themselves kill Tutsis using knives.” Her brother, Felicien, was one of the victims at the Murambi camp. His body has never been found.
The second witness, Innocent Gisanura, who was 14 at the time, was among thousands of Tutsis who fled into the Biserero forests in the hope of escaping the violence. “We were attacked and chased by militiamen,” he said in his statement. “French soldiers watched what happened from their vehicles without doing anything.”
Then-president Francois Mitterand had a significant role in having France train and supply the forces that were to form the backbone in the Hutu militia that committed the genocide. When the horrors started, the French forces were even worse than passive, Rwanda now says.
M Mitterrand then authorised the French peacekeeping mission, known as Opération Turquoise. Rwandan Tutsis say that French troops first failed to stop the killings, and then established a buffer zone which enabled the killers to escape. These claims have poisoned relations between Paris and Kigali. Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s President, has accused France of failing to tell the truth about Opération Turquoise.
Previous attempts to investigate these charges have been blocked by the French army and government.
9:05:36 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 31.12.2005; 03:33:51.
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