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26. desember 2006
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What is it with this day and disasters? An oil pipeline explosion in Lagos, Nigeria have killed at least 200 people.
More than 200 people have been killed in an oil pipeline explosion in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, the Red Cross says.
Officials say they are still counting bodies and it is feared the death toll could be much higher.
The blast in the Abule Egba area happened as hundreds of people were scooping fuel from a pipeline punctured by thieves, officials said.
Some 2,000 people have died in similar incidents in the past decade.
A Reuters photographer said he had personally counted about 500 bodies, and many places were inaccessible due to the heat.
2:16:20 PM 
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It's Boxing Day, so everybody is understandably nervous about earthquakes. A 7.2 magnitude quake has just been recorded off Taiwan.
This area is well covered by tsunami warning systems, and I doubt that is powerful enough to cause one. No damage reports yet.
Meanwhile, In Indonesia, they mark the second anniversary of the Asian Tsunami with emergency drills.
PS: The Associated Press says it was a 6.7 magnitude quake. Still, I trust the USGS over AP every day.
PS 2: The ever-improving Google Maps gives this quake location.
Update: So much for my knowledge of earthquakes. A tsunami is reportedly heading for the Philippines.
Japan's Metrological Agency says the quake has triggered a 1-m (3.3 ft) tsunami heading for the Philippines, the Associated Press reports.
That's more dangerous than it sounds.
PS 3: And, in case you wondered, the USGS has just adjusted the magnitude to 7.1.
Update 2: More details from AP, which now covers its bases when it comes to magnitude.
The quake, with a magnitude of between 6.7 and 7.2, was felt throughout Taiwan, Japan's Meteorological Bureau said. It swayed buildings and knocked objects off the shelves in the capital, Taipei.
The bureau said the 3-foot-high tsunami was expected to hit Basco in the Philippines.
"There is a possibility of a destructive local tsunami," the bureau said.
Hopefully everybody is safe.
Update 3: The tsunami warning has been called off.
"The danger has passed," said Hiroshi Koide of the agency's earthquake section. "We predicted tsunami based on the depth and magnitude of the earthquake. But ultimately, it appears no large tsunami were triggered."
It would be quite extraordinary to have highly destructive earthquakes on December 26 in both 2003, 2004 and 2006.
2:05:11 PM
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Coming to a mailbox near you:
In the closing months of 2006 spam volumes jumped enormously. According to e-mail filtering firm Postini, spam volumes increased by 73% in the three months to December.
"92.6% of all e-mail messages are spam," said Dan Druker, spokesman for Postini. "That's the highest it's ever been."
Other e-mail security specialists have not reported such big leaps in junk mail volumes, but all say that they are seeing more spam than ever before.
Tell me something I don't know.
I will honestly say that I feel like if I ever personally met a spammer, I would instantly kill him in the most hideous way possible. I would sleep very well the next night, knowing I had done humanity a favour.
1:54:06 PM
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The Local, a great English-language source for news about Sweden, has a roundup of the funnier newsitems of 2006, and there is a bit to choose from. Here's one I missed:
With Christmas marking the birth of Christ, it would only be appropriate to remind readers that this was the year that a Swedish hospital told Jesus to change his name. The Jesus in question, a nurse, was asked to make the change as patients had tended to worry when told 'Jesus will soon be with you'.
Most of the other stories have a less sacred theme, living up the the Swedes' reputation for sin.
12:05:55 PM
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British Channel 4 goes with an "alternative Christmas message" to rile people up a bit:
A veil-wearing Muslim convert today claimed the way she chooses to dress makes her feel "liberated" as she delivered an alternative Christmas message.
Khadija, the great-granddaughter of a suffragette, rejected claims that the niqab that covers her face is a mark of separation.
Deeply religious people, especially in proselytizing movements, will always say that they feel "liberated" and are oh-so so happy in their faith.
Back in a previous life, when I was a Jehovah's Witness, I always dreaded receiving questions about women's position in the movement (obviously, rock bottom), and was always relieved whenever one of the female JWs would rescue me by telling the person they were not at all oppressed and were just so happy that the men had all positions of power, responsibility and leadership. I was on the inside, and in private, women weren't all too happy about this male leadership thing, I can tell you (and good for them)!
If women are to teach and pray publicly among other JWs, they must cover their heads, and this humiliating spectacle was one reason this hardly ever happened. Yes, if even a senior JW woman is to teach in the presence of even an underage baptised male JW, she must cover her head as a symbol of subordination. And, compared to even moderate Muslims these days, JWs are quite liberal!
It is simply stupid to say that rules that severely restrict your options are "liberating." A face veil much more than a headdress has the effect of cutting off women from any meaningful social interaction with anyone outside their close families. That, of course, is the whole idea. Radical Muslims would rather face a firing squad than a free woman (how obsessive this is, recall the example with Mullah Krekar being lifted by Shabana Rehman). Boys normally get over their fear of cooties by age six or so.
Khadija continues:
"To look at me you would never guess that my great-grandmother was actually a suffragette," she said.
"One of the great things about Britain is that it is very, very tolerant and I believe it's the best country to live in if you want to be able to freely practise your religion."
If the face-veil fraction of her faith had their way, there would be no freedom to practice religion in the UK.
11:42:27 AM
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Iran's oil infrastructure is crumbling:
Iran is suffering a staggering decline in revenue from its oil exports, and if the trend continues income could virtually disappear by 2015, according to an analysis published Monday in a journal of the National Academy of Sciences.
Iran's economic woes could make the country unstable and vulnerable, with its oil industry crippled, Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University, said in the report and in an interview.
Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10 to 12 percent annually. In less than five years exports could be halved and then disappear by 2015, Stern predicted.
It may appear that the threat of economic sanctions will have more leverage than earlier suspected, then. If Iran's mullahs run out of money to finance their terrorist shenanigans abroad, as well as their corrupt racket at home, they will have a serious problem keeping in power.
8:48:41 AM
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Remember Able Danger, the alleged data mining and analysis program that was supposed to have tagged Mohamed Atta as an al-Qaeda operative well before 9-11? Well, there has been some signs earlier that it didn't happen, and now the Senate Intelligence Committee says the story is untrue.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has rejected as untrue one of the most disturbing claims about the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes — a congressman's contention that a team of military analysts identified Mohamed Atta or other hijackers before the attacks — according to a summary of the panel's investigation obtained by The Times.
The conclusion contradicts assertions by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) and a few military officers that U.S. national security officials ignored startling intelligence available in early 2001 that might have helped to prevent the attacks.
In particular, Weldon and other officials have repeatedly claimed that the military analysts' effort, known as Able Danger, produced a chart that included a picture of Atta and identified him as being tied to an Al Qaeda cell in Brooklyn, N.Y. Weldon has also said that the chart was shared with White House officials, including Stephen J. Hadley, then deputy national security advisor.
But after a 16-month investigation, the Intelligence Committee has concluded that those assertions are unfounded.
"Able Danger did not identify Mohammed Atta or any other 9/11 hijacker at any time prior to Sept. 11, 2001," the committee determined, according to an eight-page letter sent last week to panel members by the top Republican and Democrat on the committee.
I certainly am not inclined to believe something just because a Senate committee says so, even though this body must be given some weight, but the fact remains that the claims were pretty dubious to begin with.
After initially falling for the hype, I expressed some serious doubts about Able Danger in August of last year, when it was obvious no records of this alleged intelligence brainwave actually existed. It would be scary if the identification of a top terrorist was ignored by the top brass, but even more scary if advanced intelligence data analysis programmes are actually executed with no record-keeping whatsoever.
Those who assert that this actually took place, need to provide evidence. This is a quite extraordinary claim, and it requires better evidence than hearsay.
12:38:46 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.01.2007; 08:22:52.
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