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4. april 2007
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Half the Irish government, six senior ministers, was uncomfortably stuck together in a small lift. In the end, the army was called in for the rescue.
Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, who spent 30 minutes cooped up with cabinet colleagues, including Finance Minister Brian Cowen, said they had passed the time with "all sorts of jokes" but the atmosphere soon soured.
"Literally it's only standing room. You can't move, to be honest," Ahern told RTE radio on Wednesday.
"After about 20 minutes it wasn't very nice, it was getting quite hot," he said of his time spent with Cowen and the ministers for health, education, agriculture and communications.
Having fruitlessly sounded the lift's alarm and used mobile phones to try to reach a civil servant, the ministers called a colleague who had not squeezed in with them as they left a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
"One or other of us thought we'd call in (Defence Minister) Willie O'Dea ... We decided we might as well call in the army," Ahern said.
Irish comedians and tabloids will have fodder for weeks of fun with this story.
9:44:25 PM 
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The 15 British hostages are to be freed.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says 15 British naval personnel captured in the Gulf will be freed.
He repeated allegations that the British sailors and marines "invaded" Iranian waters, but said they would be freed as a "gift" to Britain.
He made the announcement at a news conference, in which he also awarded medals to the commanders who captured the British personnel in the Gulf.
He said the Britons would be released immediately and taken to an airport.
"They are free after this meeting and can go back to their families," Mr Ahmadinejad said.
I wonder what backroom deal was made leading up to this. Then again, there wasn't much to gain for Iran with some long drawn out hostage situation, reminding everybody in the world what thugs the Mullahs still are.
Update: And Syria steps in to take the credit.
"Syrian efforts and the Iranian willingness culminated with the release of the British sailors," said Information Minister Mohsen Bilal.
He said Syria had been asked "to help positively in the issue of British" crew members since their March 23 seizure by Iran in the Persian Gulf.
Ho-hum.
3:56:34 PM
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The long term weather forecast for the US east and Caribbean coast is: windy!
If you live along the USA's hurricane coast, brace yourself: The nation's most prominent tropical storm forecast team predicts a "very active" season this year.
The outlook released today by the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University is for 17 tropical storms, nine of them hurricanes and five of those "intense" — Category 3, 4 or 5 storms with winds of at least 111 mph.
The team, led by researchers Phil Klotzbach and William Gray, says the chance of one of those major storms hitting the USA is 74%.
The year 2005 was pretty intense. 2006 was unusually quiet, contrary to confident predictions. That was an El Nino year, and it was pretty much a no-brainer to predict some pretty extreme weather from the world's most powerful weather-influencing force, a phenomenon known to have destroyed civilisations in the past. Yet, it did not happen.
Apparently, the tail of El Nino now in 2007 is supposed to result in a record hurricane season. It's easy being a weatherman in the global warming panic age: nobody remembers your misses, but your hits get headline coverage (compare: Texas sharpshooter fallacy).
I still think it may be interesting to revisit this prediction in half a year or so.
2:11:15 AM
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John Kerry claims that John McCain's staff came to him to negotiate a party switch for McCain if he could get the VP slot for the 2004 run.
If this is true, the 2008 run for McCain is probably over.
Update: McCain's people denies this claim strongly, and in fact says it was Kerry that raised the idea, and was rebuffed.
They contend that Kerry pursued the maverick McCain repeatedly but was rebuffed decisively on each approach. “Each conversation, McCain would say, ‘No, John, no,’ and raise objections,” said Mark Salter, who was McCain’s Senate chief of staff then and now is senior adviser to his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.
McCain will have to deny it, of course. We know that Kerry has previously demonstrated a rather flexible recollection of past events, so he may not be the most credible source.
1:52:04 AM
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CNN journalists didn't have to go far to report on this tragedy.
A man shot and killed a woman inside the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Tuesday afternoon before being shot by a security guard.
The gunman was dragging the woman by her hair minutes before shots were fired, said one witness, who tried to intervene and was told to get out of the way by the attacker.
The witness, who had gone to get help from a guard, then heard the gunfire immediately outside CNN.com's newsroom at about 1:30 p.m.
John Helton, a CNN.com producer, had a direct view of the gunman through glass doors. "I saw him coming down the escalator pulling her along, around the corner. He ran into the plant and that's when they started struggling," he said.
"She seemed to be trying to wrestle free of him," he said.
Helton said the woman appeared to be shot at point-blank range. "He looked like he had the gun right on top of her head and shot her."
Capt. Odell Adams from Turner Security shot the gunman in the face. The victim, 22-year-old Clara Riddles, is dead. The gunman, apparently an ex-boyfriend of the victim, is in "severely critical condition" after surgery. After what he did, it's probably the best if he doesn't come out alive.
1:47:42 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.05.2007; 04:52:03.
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