7. juli 2003

Today's metablogging Susan shares her lesson from borrowing money for an apartment. She has learned, as the rest of us once did, that money lenders are evil sociopaths. But at least she's gotten a very funny blog entry out of her ordeal. 8:32:20 PM    comment []

Light diet scam can be deadly I have written a bit earlier about the recent media scam claiming that Hira Ratan Manek survived on a diet consisting entirely of liquid and sunlight, and that NASA had verified the claim. The Indian is not the first to make such claims. Other fraudsters have claimed to live on air alone, so-called breatharianists, and even made a nice buck from selling books about it while sneaking down to McDonald's for their real lunch. These aren't just harmless hoaxes designed to earn a penny on the gullible; at least one person is known ot have starved herself to death while trying to become a breatharian. I wonder how many seriously injure their vision trying to mimic Hira Ratan Manek. 5:23:47 PM    comment []

Virtual Occoquan #35 A fresh, new edition of the Occoquan Inquirer is out, with some of the best of the past week in Salon blogging: writings, art and even some weird sounds. This week's guest editor is Paul Hinrichs who along with Mark Hoback has done a brilliant job. Bet that doesn't surprise you. I am also glad that my article about the shocking private youth prison at Tranquility Bay got some more coverage. 1:50:34 PM    comment []

Who armed Saddam? Some leftists have made the claim that the US originally armed Saddam Hussein's regime, which is surprising considering all the old Soviet equipment he fielded. The dissident frogman has obtained the statistics and a nifty graph. Top arms suppliers to Iraq 1973-2002 were the Soviet Union (57%), France (13%) and China (12%). The US, otherwise the world's largest arms supplier, supplied no more than 1% of Saddam's arms, a bit less than little Denmark did. 8:08:48 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.08.2003; 03:03:08.