168 Hindu pilgrims die in stampede at temple
• Cause unclear but police blame broken barrier
• Crush in Jodhpur is third religious disaster this year

* Randeep Ramesh in Delhi
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday October 1 2008
* Article history

At least 168 devotees were killed and more than 100 injured in a stampede at a Hindu temple in Jodhpur, in India's western state of Rajasthan, officials said yesterday.

The disaster occurred as the doors were opened to the Chamunda Devi temple in the hilltop Mehrangarh fort complex. More than 25,000 worshippers had gathered there at the start of the Hindu festival of Navratra, a nine-day celebration of the nine incarnations of the Hindu mother goddess, Durga.

Doctors said that most of the dead were men. There were few if any visible injuries. Many died of suffocation and witnesses said that some slipped on temple floors wet with coconut milk, a traditional offering to Hindu gods.

Television images showed bloodied bodies being ferried to ambulances. A number of devotees had also been spread on the temple floors while friends and relatives appeared to attempt to revive those who had lost consciousness. One child cried over her father's lifeless body, wailing: "Daddy, please get up".

The cause of the stampede remained unclear, but Gulab Chand Kataria, home minister of Rajasthan, told reporters that a long line of devotees had been waiting to climb a hill when one of those queueing fell from the stairs, causing a panic.

One report said that the stampede was set off by the collapse of a wall, while it was also widely reported that it was caused by false rumours of a bomb, at a time when tensions are still high after recent attacks in India. The latest explosions were on Monday night in the western cities of Malegaon and Modasa, killing six people and wounding 45.

One witness, who called himself Santa, told Reuters that the crowd began to run because authorities tried to stop pilgrims from entering to make way for a VIP.

Police gave a different account. "The stampede started after a barricade near the temple broke and there was huge confusion and people started running down a steep slope and fell on each other," said Rajiv Dasoth, an inspector general.

Deadly crushes have occurred many times before at Indian religious festivals, when thousands of people gather to pray, and safety precautions are minimal.

Last month, a stampede outside a mountain-top Hindu temple in northern India killed at least 145 pilgrims. On that occasion, rumours of a landslide spread panic among pilgrims who ran down a narrow mountain trail from the Naina Devi temple in Himachal Pradesh state, where thousands of people were walking up.

The worst disaster occurred in January 2005, when about 265 pilgrims were killed in a stampede near a temple in the western state of Maharashtra.

It is the third disaster this year at religious events in India.

Prime minister Manmohan Singh, on a state visit to France, expressed "shock and grief".

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) called on the government to begin regulating the flow of pilgrims at places of worship.

Anthropologists for Imperialism

from the September 07, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0907/p01s08-wosc.html
US Army's strategy in Afghanistan: better anthropology
Counterinsurgency efforts focus on better grasping and meeting local needs.
By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Shabak Valley, Afghanistan

Evidence of how far the US Army's counterinsurgency strategy has evolved can be found in the work of a uniformed anthropologist toting a gun in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Part of a Human Terrain Team (HTT) – the first ever deployed – she speaks to hundreds of Afghan men and women to learn how they think and what they need. [Editor's note: The orignial version gave the incorrect initialism for the Human Terrain Team.]

One discovery that may help limit Taliban recruits in this rough-hewn valley: The area has a preponderance of widows – and their sons, who have to provide care, are forced to stay closer to home, where few jobs can be found. Now, the HTT is identifying ways to tap the textiles and blankets traded through here to create jobs for the women – and free their sons to get work themselves.

"In most circumstances, I am 'third' gender," says Tracy, who can give only her first name. She says that she is not seen as either an Afghan woman or a Western one – because of her uniform. "It has enhanced any ability to talk to [Afghans]. There is a curiosity."

Such insight is the grist of what US forces here see as a smarter counterisurgency. "We're not here just to kill the enemy – we are so far past the kinetic fight," says Lt. Col. Dave Woods, commander of the 4th Squadron 73rd Cavalry. "It is the nonkinetic piece [that matters], to identify their problems, to seed the future here." Nearly six years after US troops toppled the Taliban, the battle is for a presence that will elicit confidence in the Afghan government and its growing security forces. "Operation Khyber," which started Aug. 22, aims for a more effective counterinsurgency – using fewer bullets and more local empowerment.

US commanders have doubled US troop strength in eastern Afghanistan in the past year. They are also fielding the HTT – a "graduate-level counterinsurgency" unit, as one officer puts it – to fine-tune aid and to undermine the intimidating grip of militants in the region.

"This battlefield has changed," says Colonel Woods, from Denbo, Pa., whose 450 or so troops are working with 150 Afghan police and 500 Afghan Army soldiers to bring security to three districts along the Khost-Gardez Pass, a key trade route. "I think the enemy has changed. He has to work harder to gain popular support. He can't work openly any longer."

Militant influence is palpable

US and Afghan officers estimate 200 to 250 Taliban, foreign fighters, and members of local criminal networks operate in the three districts – Gerda Serai, Swak, and Waze Jadran.

Several key Taliban leaders have been killed in Paktia Province and neighboring Paktika Province in recent months, and an expected Taliban spring offensive never took hold.

But this week in Chawni, as Afghan and US forces pushed deeper into territory steeped in Taliban influence, two 107-mm rockets fell close by on either side of their camp one night. No third shell came, and while the attack was small by the standards of Afghan violence, it illustrated the challenges of rooting out militants.

One villager in Chawni, where the high, dun-colored compound walls are divided by tall trees and irrigation ditches, recounts how, the night before, he had seen a Taliban convoy of six cars and two motorcycles pass through, preventing him from watering parched fields.

"I was very scared and didn't go outside," said the man, his white beard brilliant against his dark-green silk turban.

"The problem is at night, when the Taliban walk here," says another villager. "The government told us not to come out at night. The Taliban tell us the same thing."

US and Afghan officers say the militants meet after 11 p.m., make plans, then leave by 4 a.m. The fighters have been forced into the mountains, where radio intercepts reveal uncertainty and hunger.

"A lot of the counterinsurgency fight is to deny the insurgents the ability to feed and shelter themselves by the local populace," says Maj. Craig Blando, head of a team working alongside Afghan police.

But intimidation remains. A one-day US military medical and veterinary service this week in the Shabak Valley, in which doctors and veterinarians stood ready to help, was nearly vacant.

Local police officer 1st Lt. Taj Mohammed had predicted that many hundreds of people would show up at the clinics – up to 400 have visited ones elsewhere – but only 100 men and a handful of women came to this one on Monday.

One reason, US officers said, may have been because they arrested six Taliban in the area the previous week. Rumors had spread that suicide attacks might target the clinics. A roadside bomb was discovered two nights before.

"They are afraid of the Taliban," confirmed one black-turbaned elder, Maligul, who walked through the ring of US and Afghan security only to argue his tribe's case in a land dispute. "Already the Taliban beheaded one elder a month ago. They told people he was a spy of the coalition."

"The young people don't come. They are all Al Qaeda; they're up in the mountains," says Lieutenant Mohammed. "All young people have no jobs, so they join the Taliban ... to get clothes and hashish."

"Al Qaeda has influence all the time over people," he says, estimating the "enemy" in his district at between 10 and 40, perhaps one-third of them from Pakistan or the Arab world. "We don't have government people here. Whenever we [Afghan and US forces] leave this place, they will come down and it will be just like it was before...."

Operation Khyber has yielded promises from 73 families in three districts to provide auxiliary police recruits, but this officer says none have come forward.

"When the Afghan Army and coalition leaves, the Taliban will come back down," says Maligul, who has only one name.

An anthropologist at work

Finding ways to challenge that fear – and learn what makes Afghans choose to support the government or its enemies – is the job of the HTT. The key ingredient is a "senior cultural analyst," in this case, Tracy, the anthropologist in uniform.

She has interviewed hundreds of Afghan women and men, sometimes for hours on end, hearing how most are "so tired of war." In nine months, Tracy has gained deep knowledge, she says, aimed at helping "fill the vacuum that the Taliban and other nefarious actors want to fill."

Tracy tells Afghans that she wants to "enhance the military's understanding of the culture so we don't make mistakes like in Iraq." But the bar is high, and this village with the medical clinic shows signs of militant influence, such as being "coached."

Still, Tracy says that she sees real progress, "one Afghan at a time." And the US military's views are evolving accordingly, away from firepower to a smarter counterinsurgency.

"It may be one less trigger that has to be pulled here," Tracy says of the result. "It's how we gain ground, not tangible ground, but cognitive ground. Small things can have a big impact."

That was the case in learning about the idle young men in Shabak Valley.

"I would have never known that was a problem in that community; they wouldn't tell me about that," says Woods. "[She] is taking the population and dissecting it, and giving us data points to improve or help solve other problems. It's not the end-all, but it's a tool."

The strategy has been refined since it was first applied in Afghanistan last year. When this reporter traveled to Nuristan a year ago, around Naray, US officers spelled out the new fight-and-build strategy of winning trust in remote villages with projects, and staying on in grim, wet, and barely-resupplied conditions throughout the winter to deny militants a haven.

"In counterinsurgency, you can't lead with a rifle," Lt. Col. Mike Howard said last year. "You must lead with actions, with reconstruction."

But the goodwill was undermined by a couple incidents last November, in the outpost of Kamdesh. In one case, a Special Forces strike netted a high-level Al Qaeda operative and killed another after a wedding ceremony.

Days later, according to an American on the outpost, casualties from an Apache helicopter strike "made people angry and bent on revenge."

Building better understanding

Still, the new counterinsurgency template was passed on, and is likely to reach beyond US efforts in Afghanistan to Iraq.

"Across the armed forces, there is a desire to build this capacity and field it," says Tracy. "Because of the turn of events in Iraq, it made it extremely clear that we had to have a better understanding.

"I'm amazed at the soldiers, they get it," she adds. "And the receptivity of the commanders – they know we need to get it right." "

And

October 5, 2007
Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones
By DAVID ROHDE

SHABAK VALLEY, Afghanistan — In this isolated Taliban stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, American paratroopers are fielding what they consider a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations here: a soft-spoken civilian anthropologist named Tracy.

Tracy, who asked that her surname not be used for security reasons, is a member of the first Human Terrain Team, an experimental Pentagon program that assigns anthropologists and other social scientists to American combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her team’s ability to understand subtle points of tribal relations — in one case spotting a land dispute that allowed the Taliban to bully parts of a major tribe — has won the praise of officers who say they are seeing concrete results.

Col. Martin Schweitzer, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division unit working with the anthropologists here, said that the unit’s combat operations had been reduced by 60 percent since the scientists arrived in February, and that the soldiers were now able to focus more on improving security, health care and education for the population.

“We’re looking at this from a human perspective, from a social scientist’s perspective,” he said. “We’re not focused on the enemy. We’re focused on bringing governance down to the people.”

In September, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates authorized a $40 million expansion of the program, which will assign teams of anthropologists and social scientists to each of the 26 American combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since early September, five new teams have been deployed in the Baghdad area, bringing the total to six.

Yet criticism is emerging in academia. Citing the past misuse of social sciences in counterinsurgency campaigns, including in Vietnam and Latin America, some denounce the program as “mercenary anthropology” that exploits social science for political gain. Opponents fear that, whatever their intention, the scholars who work with the military could inadvertently cause all anthropologists to be viewed as intelligence gatherers for the American military.

Hugh Gusterson, an anthropology professor at George Mason University, and 10 other anthropologists are circulating an online pledge calling for anthropologists to boycott the teams, particularly in Iraq.

“While often presented by its proponents as work that builds a more secure world,” the pledge says, “at base, it contributes instead to a brutal war of occupation which has entailed massive casualties.”

In Afghanistan, the anthropologists arrived along with 6,000 troops, which doubled the American military’s strength in the area it patrols, the country’s east.

A smaller version of the Bush administration’s troop increase in Iraq, the buildup in Afghanistan has allowed American units to carry out the counterinsurgency strategy here, where American forces generally face less resistance and are better able to take risks.

A New Mantra

Since Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the overall American commander in Iraq, oversaw the drafting of the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual last year, the strategy has become the new mantra of the military. A recent American military operation here offered a window into how efforts to apply the new approach are playing out on the ground in counterintuitive ways.

In interviews, American officers lavishly praised the anthropology program, saying that the scientists’ advice has proved to be “brilliant,” helping them see the situation from an Afghan perspective and allowing them to cut back on combat operations.

The aim, they say, is to improve the performance of local government officials, persuade tribesmen to join the police, ease poverty and protect villagers from the Taliban and criminals.

Afghans and Western civilian officials, too, praised the anthropologists and the new American military approach but were cautious about predicting long-term success. Many of the economic and political problems fueling instability can be solved only by large numbers of Afghan and American civilian experts.

“My feeling is that the military are going through an enormous change right now where they recognize they won’t succeed militarily,” said Tom Gregg, the chief United Nations official in southeastern Afghanistan. “But they don’t yet have the skill sets to implement” a coherent nonmilitary strategy, he added.

Deploying small groups of soldiers into remote areas, Colonel Schweitzer’s paratroopers organized jirgas, or local councils, to resolve tribal disputes that have simmered for decades. Officers shrugged off questions about whether the military was comfortable with what David Kilcullen, an Australian anthropologist and an architect of the new strategy, calls “armed social work.”

“Who else is going to do it?“ asked Lt. Col. David Woods, commander of the Fourth Squadron, 73rd Cavalry. “You have to evolve. Otherwise you’re useless.”

The anthropology team here also played a major role in what the military called Operation Khyber. That was a 15-day drive late this summer in which 500 Afghan and 500 American soldiers tried to clear an estimated 200 to 250 Taliban insurgents out of much of Paktia Province, secure southeastern Afghanistan’s most important road and halt a string of suicide attacks on American troops and local governors.

In one of the first districts the team entered, Tracy identified an unusually high concentration of widows in one village, Colonel Woods said. Their lack of income created financial pressure on their sons to provide for their families, she determined, a burden that could drive the young men to join well-paid insurgents. Citing Tracy’s advice, American officers developed a job training program for the widows.

In another district, the anthropologist interpreted the beheading of a local tribal elder as more than a random act of intimidation: the Taliban’s goal, she said, was to divide and weaken the Zadran, one of southeastern Afghanistan’s most powerful tribes. If Afghan and American officials could unite the Zadran, she said, the tribe could block the Taliban from operating in the area.

“Call it what you want, it works,” said Colonel Woods, a native of Denbo, Pa. “It works in helping you define the problems, not just the symptoms.”

Embedding Scholars

The process that led to the creation of the teams began in late 2003, when American officers in Iraq complained that they had little to no information about the local population. Pentagon officials contacted Montgomery McFate, a Yale-educated cultural anthropologist working for the Navy who advocated using social science to improve military operations and strategy.

Ms. McFate helped develop a database in 2005 that provided officers with detailed information on the local population. The next year, Steve Fondacaro, a retired Special Operations colonel, joined the program and advocated embedding social scientists with American combat units.

Ms. McFate, the program’s senior social science adviser and an author of the new counterinsurgency manual, dismissed criticism of scholars working with the military. “I’m frequently accused of militarizing anthropology,” she said. “But we’re really anthropologizing the military.”

Roberto J. González, an anthropology professor at San Jose State University, called participants in the program naïve and unethical. He said that the military and the Central Intelligence Agency had consistently misused anthropology in counterinsurgency and propaganda campaigns and that military contractors were now hiring anthropologists for their local expertise as well.

“Those serving the short-term interests of military and intelligence agencies and contractors,” he wrote in the June issue of Anthropology Today, an academic journal, “will end up harming the entire discipline in the long run.”

Arguing that her critics misunderstand the program and the military, Ms. McFate said other anthropologists were joining the teams. She said their goal was to help the military decrease conflict instead of provoking it, and she vehemently denied that the anthropologists collected intelligence for the military.

In eastern Afghanistan, Tracy said wanted to reduce the use of heavy-handed military operations focused solely on killing insurgents, which she said alienated the population and created more insurgents. “I can go back and enhance the military’s understanding,” she said, “so that we don’t make the same mistakes we did in Iraq.”

Along with offering advice to commanders, she said, the five-member team creates a database of local leaders and tribes, as well as social problems, economic issues and political disputes.

Clinics and Mediation

During the recent operation, as soldiers watched for suicide bombers, Tracy and Army medics held a free medical clinic. They said they hoped that providing medical care would show villagers that the Afghan government was improving their lives.

Civil affairs soldiers then tried to mediate between factions of the Zadran tribe about where to build a school. The Americans said they hoped that the school, which would serve children from both groups, might end a 70-year dispute between the groups over control of a mountain covered with lucrative timber.

Though they praised the new program, Afghan and Western officials said it remained to be seen whether the weak Afghan government could maintain the gains. “That’s going to be the challenge, to fill the vacuum,” said Mr. Gregg, the United Nations official. “There’s a question mark over whether the government has the ability to take advantage of the gains.”

Others also question whether the overstretched American military and its NATO allies can keep up the pace of operations.

American officers expressed optimism. Many of those who had served in both Afghanistan and Iraq said they had more hope for Afghanistan. One officer said that the Iraqis had the tools to stabilize their country, like a potentially strong economy, but that they lacked the will. He said Afghans had the will, but lacked the tools.

After six years of American promises, Afghans, too, appear to be waiting to see whether the Americans or the Taliban will win a protracted test of wills here. They said this summer was just one chapter in a potentially lengthy struggle.

At a “super jirga” set up by Afghan and American commanders here, a member of the Afghan Parliament, Nader Khan Katawazai, laid out the challenge ahead to dozens of tribal elders.

“Operation Khyber was just for a few days,” he said. “The Taliban will emerge again.”

Canadian scientists discover oldest rocks on Earth

Fri Sep 26, 5:54 AM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The oldest rocks on Earth have been discovered in Canada, offering scientists a glimpse at the origins of the planet, announced scientists in a study to be published Friday.

The rocks, found in a belt of ancient bedrock in Quebec, are estimated to be 4.28 billion years old.

The find pushes back the age of the most ancient discovered remnants of the Earth's crust by 300 million years.

"Our discovery (...) opens the door to further unlock the secrets of the Earth's beginnings," said Jonathan O'Neil, lead author of the study and a geologist at McGill University in Montreal, who collected and analyzed the rocks.

"Geologists now have a new playground to explore how and when life began, what the atmosphere may have looked like, and when the first continent formed," said O'Neil.

The rocks also suggest that continents formed very early in the Earth's history, said Richard Carlson at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, co-author of the study, to be published in the September 26 edition of the journal Science.

Estimates of their age were made by measuring tiny variations in the isotopic composition of two "rare earth" elements, neodymium and samarium, in the rocks.

The specimens were found in an area known as the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, along the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec, a region recognized in 2001 as being a potential site for finding ancient rocks.

Iran students unveil book mocking Holocaust

Fri Sep 26, 7:19 AM

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranians chanted "Death to Israel" as a group of Islamist students unveiled a book mocking the Holocaust in an annual parade on Friday to show solidarity with the Palestinians.

Featuring dozens of cartoons and sarcastic commentary, the book "Holocaust" was published by members of the Islamist Basij militia.

Education Minister Alireza Ali-Ahmadi was present in the capital's Palestine Square for the book's presentation during the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day parade.

The cover shows a Jew with a crooked nose and dressed in traditional garb drawing outlines of dead bodies on the ground.

Inside, bearded Jews are shown leaving and re-entering a gas chamber with a counter that reads the number 5,999,999.

Another depicts Jewish prisoners entering a furnace in a Nazi extermination camp and leaving as gun-wielding terrorists from the other side.

Yet another shows a patient covered in an Israeli flag and on life support breathing Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used in the extermination chambers.

Iran does not recognise the Jewish state and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attracted international condemnation by repeatedly predicting Israel is doomed to disappear and branding the Holocaust a "myth."

The commentary inside the book includes anti-Semitic stereotypes and revisionist arguments, casting doubt on the massacre of Jews and mocking Holocaust survivors who claimed reparations after World War II.

One comment in a question-and-answer format reads:

"How did the Germans emit gas into chambers while there were no holes on the ceiling?" Answer: "Shut up, you criminal anti-Semite. How dare you ask this question?"

In 2006, Iran hosted a conference of Holocaust deniers and revisionists and a mass-circulating Iranian newspaper held a cartoon competition on the subject.

On Friday, tens of thousands of Iranians marched in Tehran, chanting "Death to Israel," declaring solidarity with the Palestinians and calling for Jerusalem and Israel to be handed to the Palestinians.

Demonstrators carried placards which read, "Israel will be destroyed, Palestine is Victorious" and "Holy war until victory," and they torched American and Israeli flags.

The protest follows a fresh verbal attack on Israel by Ahmadinejad.

In an address to the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, he said "the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters."

Quds Day was started by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic republic, who called on the world's Muslims to show solidarity with Palestinians on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan.

A mother of six, Zahra Hedayat, 47, said: "It is important to support Palestinians to show the world that Israel is oppressive, and, God willing, one day Muslims will get Palestine back."

The demonstration was held under an official slogan: "The Islamic world will not recognise the fake Zionist regime under any circumstances and believes that this cancerous tumour will one day be wiped off the face of the earth."

PETA's latest campaign is to make ice cream from human breast milk

2 hours, 52 minutes ago

By John Curran, The Associated Press

WATERBURY, Vt. - Mooove over, Holsteins.

PETA wants world-famous Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream to tap nursing moms, rather than cows, for the milk used in its ice cream. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is asking the ice cream maker to begin using breast milk in its products instead of cow's milk, saying it would reduce the suffering of cows and calves and give ice cream lovers a healthier product.

The idea is getting a cool reception from Ben & Jerry's officials, the company's customers and even La Leche League International, the world's oldest breastfeeding support organization, which promotes the practice - for babies, anyway.

PETA wrote a letter to company founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield on Tuesday, telling them cow's milk is hazardous and that milking them is cruel.

A spokeswoman for the animal rights advocacy group says dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies and obesity.

"If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers - and cows - would reap the benefits," wrote Tracy Reiman, the group's executive vice-president.

Ashley Byrne, a campaign co-ordinator for PETA, acknowledged the implausibility of substituting breast milk for cow's milk, but said it's no stranger than humans consuming the milk of another species.

"We're aware this idea is somewhat absurd, and that putting it into practice is a stretch. At the time same, it's pretty absurd for us to be drinking the milk of cows," she said.

Ben & Jerry's, which gets its milk exclusively from Vermont cows, won't say how much milk it uses or how much ice cream it sells.

As a standardized product under federal regulations, ice cream must be made with milk from healthy cows. Ice cream made from goat's milk, for example, would have to be labelled as such.

Presumably, so would mother's milk ice cream.

To Ben & Jerry's, the idea is udderly ridiculous.

"We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child," spokesman Sean Greenwood said in an email. He didn't respond to requests for an interview.

Leon Berthiaume, general manager of the St. Albans Co-operative Creamery, which provides milk products to Ben & Jerry's, called the dairy products "among the safest in the world."

"Milk from cows has long-term health benefits and has been proven to be safe and healthy and an important part of the American diet for generations," he said. "I'm not ready to make that change."

Cow's milk and mother's milk aren't interchangeable, according to La Leche spokeswoman Jane Crouse, who says breast milk is a dynamic substance that's different with each woman and each child and might have difficulty being processed into ice cream.

Then there's the question of who would provide the milk, and whether they'd be paid.

"Some women feel compelled to donate milk to a milk bank for adopted babies, or for someone who's ill or unable to breast feed. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence about sisters who nurse each others' babies. There's a population of women very willing to share their milk. Whether there's enough to do it for a commercial entity, who can say?" she said.

At the Ben & Jerry's factory in Waterbury, consumers gave a collective "Ewww" to the idea Thursday.

"It's kind of creepy," said Jeff Waugh, 42, of Dayton, Ohio.

"I think it's a little nutty," said Rev. Roger Wooton, 83, of Malden, Mass., finishing up a cup of Heath Bar Crunch.

"How would they get all that milk?" said his wife, Jane Wooton, 77.

Jen Wahlbrink, 34, of Phoenix, who breastfed her 11-month-old son, Cameron, said she wouldn't touch ice cream made from mother's milk. She remembers her nursing days - and not that fondly.

"The (breast) pumps just weren't that much fun. You really do feel like a cow," she said, cradling her son in her hands.

Plants Make Aspirin When Under the Weather
Jessica Marshall, Discovery News


Sept. 19, 2008 -- Plants make aspirin when they need an immune boost, according to new research, sending a form of the compound airborne to signal a health problem to the rest of the tree or to other trees.

The finding may help growers more readily identify plants under stress by monitoring for the airborne distress signal.

Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. made the finding over a walnut tree grove in California. They used sensitive instruments to detect the organic compounds in the air over the grove at different locations, including different heights.

The researchers found levels of an unidentified compound that swamped the levels of the compounds they set out to look for.

"It was kind of a surprise to us because we weren't really looking for this product," said study lead author Thomas Karl. "We weren't sure what we were seeing to begin with."

The compound turned out to be methyl salicylate, a volatile form of salicylic acid. Salicylic acid was originally derived from willow bark and shown to have the pain- and fever-relieving effects known for aspirin. A modified form of salicylic acid, acetosalicylic acid, is now sold as the active ingredient in aspirin.

Salicylic acid is produced by plants when they are under stress like drought or attack by a fungus or insect. It travels through the plant's vascular system and activates the plant's version of an immune response.

Until the new study, nobody had detected the high values of the airborne version of salicylic acid, which the researchers believe is a way to send the stress signal farther and faster. Leaves on the stressed tree or on nearby trees can detect the methyl salicylate signal and convert it into the immune-response-triggering salicylic acid.

"It's faster to send the volatile form to the other leaves, rather than sending through the plant," Karl pointed out. "It might be a more effective way for the same tree to signal that's what's going on."

The researchers observed spikes in methyl salicylate over the walnut grove after nighttime temperatures dipped low, suggesting the plants were reacting to cold stress. The peaks were higher during a dry period, pointing to combined stress of cold nighttime temperatures and mild drought.

The researchers published the work in Biogeosciences.

Although the instruments used by the researchers are rare, the team hopes that simpler methyl salicylate measurements could one day be made, giving farmers a simple way to detect the onset of a plant threat.

"Historically, when we've tried to understand whether plants were happy and healthy or experiencing drought or limited by nutrients or being attacked by insects, we have had to go out and do a lot of hard work," said David Schimel, principal investigator and CEO of the National Ecological Observatory Network in Boulder, Colo., who was not part of the study. "You have to go out and collect leaves, or put out hundreds of insect traps.

"If we could substitute for that an analytical measurement that could measure these critical compounds, it would either replace or very strongly complement these traditional measurements that are somewhat indirect," he added.

The research is also important for understanding atmospheric chemistry. Organic compounds in the atmosphere contribute to ozone and particle formation. The new finding identifies a previously overlooked contribution to the atmospheric total.

"People have realized over the years that we are still missing a fair amount of organic material that's not accounted for," Karl said. "In our research community we have almost a frenzy to find out how much we are off and how much we have accounted for."

Study into near-death experiences
By Jane Dreaper
Health correspondent, BBC News

A large study is to examine near-death experiences in cardiac arrest patients.

Doctors at 25 UK and US hospitals will study 1,500 survivors to see if people with no heartbeat or brain activity can have "out of body" experiences.

Some people report seeing a tunnel or bright light, others recall looking down from the ceiling at medical staff.

The study, due to take three years and co-ordinated by Southampton University, will include placing on shelves images that could only be seen from above.

This is a mystery that we can now subject to scientific study
Dr Sam Parnia
University of Southampton

To test this, the researchers have set up special shelving in resuscitation areas. The shelves hold pictures - but they're visible only from the ceiling.

Dr Sam Parnia, who is heading the study, said: "If you can demonstrate that consciousness continues after the brain switches off, it allows for the possibility that the consciousness is a separate entity.

"It is unlikely that we will find many cases where this happens, but we have to be open-minded.

"And if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories.

"This is a mystery that we can now subject to scientific study."

Dr Parnia works as an intensive care doctor, and felt from his daily duties that science had not properly explored the issue of near-death experiences.

Process of death

He said: "Contrary to popular perception, death is not a specific moment.

"It is a process that begins when the heart stops beating, the lungs stop working and the brain ceases functioning - a medical condition termed cardiac arrest.

"During a cardiac arrest, all three criteria of death are present. There then follows a period of time, which may last from a few seconds to an hour or more, in which emergency medical efforts may succeed in restarting the heart and reversing the dying process.

"What people experience during this period of cardiac arrest provides a unique window of understanding into what we are all likely to experience during the dying process."

Dr Parnia and medical colleagues will analyse the brain activity of 1,500 cardiac arrest survivors, and see whether they can recall the images in the pictures.

Hospitals involved include Addenbrookes in Cambridge, University Hospital in Birmingham and the Morriston in Swansea, as well as nine hospitals in the US.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/7621608.stm

Published: 2008/09/18 05:00:51 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Virginia town tries to prove existence of "ghost cats"

Fri Sep 19, 9:04 AM

By The Associated Press

BLACKSTONE, Va. - U.S. wildlife officials are reviewing the matter, but some residents of Blackstone, Virginia, are convinced they've got cougars running around their town.

The local newspaper has run at least 15 stories in the last five years about sightings in Blackstone and a neighbouring Army National Guard training base.

The paper's editor says he gets a sense that game commission people are laughing.

The large cats are also called mountain lions, pumas, panthers and "ghost cats." Wildlife officials say except for a population of 100 in Florida, they were wiped out in the eastern U-S by 1900.

While hundreds of sightings are reported each year from Maine to the Carolinas, only 64 have been confirmed in more than 100 years.

Experts say most are likely cases of mistaken identity - perhaps a bobcat, deer or even a Labrador retriever.

Wax Hitler to return to museum after head repairs
Mon Jul 7, 2008 4:27pm BST

By Madeline Chambers

BERLIN (Reuters) - A waxwork of Adolf Hitler will return to Berlin's new Madame Tussauds as soon as experts have restored the head ripped off by a demonstrator on its opening day, the museum said on Monday.

Just minutes after the museum opened its doors to the public on Saturday, a 41-year-old man scuffled with security guards and leapt over a rope barrier into the dark corner where the dummy of a despondent-looking Hitler was seated. Shouting "No more war!" he proceeded to tear off the head.

The man, arrested but later released under investigation, told Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper he was angry about the exhibit; but in the end he carried out the attack to win a bet.

The Hitler waxwork has unleashed a storm of protest in Germany where public displays of Nazi memorabilia or symbols are generally banned.

Critics argue it is tasteless and inappropriate to display a replica of the man who unleashed world war and ordered the extermination of Europe's Jews in a place mainly aimed at light-hearted entertainment.

Some even warn it could attract neo-Nazis who want to pay homage to the Nazi dictator.

But Madame Tussauds defended its decision to show Hitler on Monday and said it would reinstate the 200,000 euro (160,000 pounds) figure once it had been put back together, a process which could take weeks.

"Hitler represents a significant part of the history of Berlin which cannot be denied," the museum said in a statement.

The museum said it respected other people's opinions and had taken great care to portray the dictator in a sensitive manner.

The figure was depicted at a table in a gloomy mock bunker just a few hundred metres from the site of the original bunker.

"We are now considering structural changes to make sure something like this cannot happen again," said a spokesman for the museum. Erecting a reinforced glass or plastic screen to protect Hitler might be one possibility.

The decapitation attracted some praise.

"At last a successful attack on Hitler," said Henryk Broder, a columnist for Der Spiegel.

(Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Unknown to these people themselves, their government is a pure unadulterated LOGOCRACY or government of words. The whole nation does every thing viva voce, or, by word of mouth, and in this manner is one of the most military nations in existence [...] In a logocracy thou well knowest there is little or no occasion for fire arms, or any such destructive weapons. Every offensive or defensive measure is enforced by wordy battle, and paper war; he who has the longest tongue or readiest quill, is sure to gain the victory - will carry horrour [sic], abuse, and ink shed into the very trenches of the enemy, and without mercy or remorse, put men, women, and children to the point of the - pen!

Mustapha Rub-a-dub Keli Khan

Alleged witchcraft sparks Congo soccer riot, leaving 13 dead: radio report

Mon Sep 15, 1:13 PM

Thirteen are dead after a stadium riot was apparently sparked by accusations that a soccer player used witchcraft during a match in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a UN-funded radio station reported Monday.

Most of the dead ranged in age from 11 to 16 and were suffocated in the fracas Sunday in Butembo, in eastern Congo's North Kivu province, Radio Olapi said.

The Nyuki System soccer club was losing to rivals Socozaki when Nyuki's goalkeeper reportedly ran up the pitch chanting "fetishist" spells in an attempt to change the course of the match, Radio Olapi said. The station provided no more details.

Fighting soon broke out between the opposing teams. When a police officer tried to intervene, spectators pelted him with rocks, wounding him on the head, the radio station said.

Police then retaliated by firing tear gas into the crowd, where 13 are believed to have died in the ensuing rush for the exits.

Many Congolese use charms and other objects to practise witchcraft as part of their traditional animist beliefs, Reuters news agency reported.

Dozens of teenagers marched through Butembo's dirt streets Monday in protest and the regional governor visited the hospital.

North Kivu has been the centre of violence between Congo's army and rebels over the last year despite the end of a five-year war in 2003.

With files from the Associated Press

The Thedodicy of American Policy

Palin will not "blink" in America's 'righteous' cause

1 hour, 41 minutes ago

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AFP) - Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin vowed Thursday she would not "blink" in pursuit of America's "righteous" war in Iraq and insisted she was ready to step in as president if needed.

The Alaska governor parried a string of foreign policy questions in her first high-stakes television interview, and officiated at her son's deployment ceremony before he heads to Iraq with his US Army unity.

As she submitted to a grilling on her views, Palin said she believed in God's "grand plan" for the world and staked out a hard line on Russia.

Palin was asked in the ABC interview whether she thought she was ready to step in as president should something befall her running mate John McCain, if the 72-year-old is elected president on November 4.

"I do ... if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, will be ready. I'm ready," she said.

Palin said she did not "blink" when McCain asked her to join his ticket to take on Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his number two Senator Joseph Biden, two weeks ago.

"I answered him yes, because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, that mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink.

"So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate."

Democrats have warned that Palin, a first-term governor, is woefully inexperienced and is not qualified to serve a "heartbeat" away from the presidency.

In the interview, the 44-year-old mother of five struggled, when asked her views of the Bush doctrine, which states the United States will mount a preemptive strike against a looming threat if it deems itself at risk.

"In what respect?" she asked, and then added the doctrine was the Bush "worldview."

Palin was also asked about previous remarks that US soldiers in Iraq, who will soon include her son, were being sent on a task from God.

"I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good," Palin said in the interview.

"I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given ... and I believe that those are the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Palin also touched on the US mission in Iraq as she officiated at a deployment ceremony for her son's unit which is set to head to the warzone in the coming weeks.

"I am so honored to join with you as your governor as our sons and daughters ... go forth in defense of America's cause and it is a righteous cause," she said at the ceremony at the Fort Wainwright base.

Palin also called in the interview for Georgia and Ukraine to be admitted to NATO, even at the price of being the United States being called to defend them as alliance partners in the event of any Russian invasion.

"We cannot repeat the Cold War," said Palin, when asked if the result of Georgia and Ukraine being in the western alliance could lead to armed conflict with Russia.

"Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help."

Palin, who has been locked in foreign policy cramming sessions with McCain campaign operatives, also said that the United States could not let Iran get nuclear weapons.

"We have got to make sure these weapons of mass destruction, that nuclear weapons are not given to those hands of (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, not that he would use them, but that he would allow terrorists to be able to use them.

"We have got to put the pressure on Iran," she said.

U.S. government oil officials probed about illicit sex and improper gifts

1 hour, 31 minutes ago

By Dina Cappiello, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties engaged in illicit sex with employees of energy companies they were dealing with and received numerous gifts from them, federal investigators said Wednesday.

The alleged transgressions involve 13 Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with - and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from - oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department's inspector general.

The investigations reveal a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by a small group of individuals "wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards," wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney.

The reports describe a fraternity house atmosphere inside the Denver Minerals Management Service office responsible for marketing the oil and gas that energy companies barter to the government instead of making cash royalty payments for drilling on federal lands. The government received $4.3 billion in such Royalty-in-Kind payments last year. The oil is then resold to energy companies or put in the country's emergency stockpile.

Between 2002 and 2006, nearly a third of the 55-person staff in the Denver office received gifts and gratuities from oil and gas companies, the investigators found.

Devaney said the former head of the Denver Royalty-in-Kind office, Gregory W. Smith, used illegal drugs and had sex with subordinates. The report said Smith also steered government contracts to a consulting business that was employing him part-time.

Smith, contacted by e-mail by The Associated Press, said he had not seen the report and could not respond. He and nine other employees in the Denver office are mentioned in the reports.

The findings are the latest sign of trouble at the Minerals Management Service, which has already been accused of mismanaging the collection of fees from oil companies and writing faulty contracts for drilling on government land and offshore. The charges also come as legislators and both presidential candidates weigh giving oil companies more access to federal lands, which would bring in more money to the federal government.

"This all shows the oil industry holds shocking sway over the administration and even key federal employees," said Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) "This is why we must not allow big oil's agenda to be jammed through Congress."

While most government royalties for drilling on federal lands are paid in cash, the government in recent years has been receiving a greater share of its oil and gas royalties in actual product. More of that oil is also being sold on the open market, versus being deposited in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the country's emergency oil stockpile. Congress earlier this year passed a law halting deposits of oil to the reserve to alleviate high gasoline prices.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who was asked about the reports earlier in the day before they were given to him and congressional offices, said the investigation was prompted by a 2006 phone call from employee who said there were ethical lapses in the Denver office.

"I look forward to having the opportunity to review the inspector general's findings so we can take the appropriate actions," Kempthorne said.

A laugh track, laughter soundtrack, laughter track, canned laughter or a laughing audience is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into TV comedy shows and sitcoms. The first television show to incorporate a laugh track was The Hank McCune Show in 1950.[1]

Before television, audiences often experienced comedy, whether performed live on stage, on radio, or in a movie, in the presence of other audience members. Television producers attempted to recreate this atmosphere in its early days by introducing the sound of laughter or other crowd reactions into the soundtrack of television programs.

Sweetening is a technique in which pre-recorded laughter is used to augment the response of the real studio audience if they did not react as strongly as desired. Laugh tracks have been used in some traditionally animated television series, which do not have live audiences. The Flintstones and The Jetsons originally aired with laugh tracks, but later aired with the laugh track removed.[2] Other cartoons that at least originally had laugh tracks include The Pink Panther Show, Scooby-Doo, Josie and the Pussycats, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, and the very first episodes of Rocky and His Friends.

In parts of East Asia, laugh tracks are often loud and exaggerated in comedy-variety shows despite them being filmed with small live audiences. The Hong Kong game show Minutes to Fame is one of the recognizable shows that uses a large number of laugh tracks, which sometimes cover up the singing or dialogue. In Japan the use of laugh tracks is almost unheard of, and is derided as being artificial; comedy and variety shows not taped before a live audience frequently feature the crew behind the camera as the "audience," and they can be heard laughing or applauding.

A well-known gag often used in satirical comedy is the use of a laughter track which cuts off unnaturally abruptly after each burst of laughter or applause, emphasizing its artificial nature and therefore its implied insincerity. Shows such as Monty Python's Flying Circus pioneered this gag. The sound of laughter has even been portrayed as emerging from a can marked 'Canned Laughter' as if it were a product. The sound emerges whenever the can is opened.

In some cases, laugh tracks are used as a source of humor in themselves. For example, the video game, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, features a laugh track after certain lines of text dialog used for humorous effect, particularly since there being a live audience would be impossible for a video game.

Black Friday (in America)
Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States, where it is the beginning of the traditional Christmas shopping season. Since Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States, Black Friday may be as early as the 23rd and as late as the 29th of November. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many employers give the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers. Retailers often decorate for the Christmas season weeks beforehand. Many retailers open very early (typically 5 am or even earlier) and offer doorbuster deals and loss leaders to draw people to their stores. Although Black Friday, as the first shopping day after Thanksgiving, has served as the unofficial beginning of the Christmas season at least since the start of the modern Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924, the term "Black Friday" has been traced back only to the 1960s. The term "Black Friday" originated in Philadelphia in reference to the heavy traffic on that day. More recently, merchants and the media have used it instead to refer to the beginning of the period in which retailers are in the black (i.e., turning a profit).

The news media frequently refer to Black Friday as the busiest retail shopping day of the year, but this is not always accurate. While it has been one of the busiest days in terms of customer traffic,[1][2] in terms of actual sales volume, from 1993 through 2001 Black Friday was usually the fifth to tenth busiest day.[3] In 2002 and 2004, however, Black Friday ranked second place.[4] The busiest retail shopping day of the year in the United States (in terms of both sales and customer traffic) usually has been the Saturday before Christmas.[5] In 2003 and 2005, however, Black Friday actually did reach first place.[6]

In many cities it is not uncommon to see shoppers lined up hours before stores with big sales open. Once inside, the stores shoppers often rush and grab, as many stores have only a few of the big draw items. Electronics and popular toys are often the most sought-after items and may be sharply discounted. Because of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, many choose to stay home and avoid the hectic shopping experience. The local media often will cover the event, mentioning how early the shoppers began lining up at various stores and providing video of the shoppers standing in line and later leaving with their purchased items. Traditionally Black Friday sales were intended for those shopping for Christmas gifts. For some particularly popular items, some people shop at these sales in order to get deep discounts on items they can then resell, typically online.

Black Friday (The Movie)
Karloff plays a famous doctor, Dr. Ernest Sovac, whose best friend, a bookish college professor (played by Stanley Ridges), is run down while crossing a street. In order to save his friend's life, Sovac implants part of another man's brain into the professor's. Unfortunately, the other man was a gangster who was involved in the accident. The professor recovers but at times behaves like the gangster, and his whole personality changes. Sovac is horrified but also intrigued, because the gangster has hidden $500,000 USD somewhere in the city. The doctor continues to treat his friend and, when the professor is under the influence of the gangster's brain, Karloff attempts to have the man lead him to the fortune. Bela Lugosi plays a gangster also trying to get his hands on the cash.

Black Friday (in Iran)
Black Friday was named after the protests that occurred on September 8, 1978 (17 Shahrivar 1357 AP) in Zhaleh Square Tehran, Iran. The Iranian Government declared martial law in response to protests against the Shah's Rule. According to the anti-government sources, the military of Iran used deadly force, including tanks and helicopter gunships, to break up the largely peaceful demonstrators. Unsubstantiated reports at the time put the death toll at 88 to 89 demonstrators (including three women) [1] [2] [3] killed.

The clerical leadership announced that "thousands have been massacred by Zionist troops."[4] Official accounts dealing with the history of the Islamic revolution write of "15,000 dead and wounded". However the non-Persian-speaking troops were later reported to have been Iranian ethnic Kurds, not Israelis, who had been fired on by snipers. According to Emad al-Din Baghi, a former researcher at the Martyrs Foundation (Bonyad Shahid) hired "to make sense of the data" on those killed fighting the Shah's regime, 64 killed were killed in Jaleh Square on Black Friday, among them two females – one woman and a young girl. On the same day in other parts of the capital a total of 24 people died in clashes with martial law forces, among them one female. [5] In the mean time, the appearance of government brutality alienated much of the rest of the Iranian people as well as the Shah's allies abroad.

Protests continued for another four months. A general strike in October shut down the petroleum industry that was essential to the administration's survival, "sealing the Shah's fate".[6] Support for the Shah, in Iran and abroad, dissolved clearing the way for the Iranian Revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, which saw the abolition of the monarchy less than a year later.

Black Friday (in Scotland)
The 1919 Battle of George Square, also known as Bloody Friday and Black Friday, was one of the worst riots on the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, which took place on Friday, 31 January 1919 [1]. The dispute revolved around a campaign for shorter working hours, backed by widespread strike action. Clashes between police and protesters broke out, and led to the British Government sending soldiers to the city to prevent any further gatherings due to their fear of a left-wing workers revolution, described as a 'Bolshevist uprising' by the then Secretary of State for Scotland [2], as had happened the previous year in the 1917 Russian Revolution and was occurring in Germany whilst the 'Forty Hours' strike unfolded .

Black Friday (The Falklands)
On April 2, 1982 Argentine forces mounted amphibious landings of the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas), following the civilian occupation of South Georgia on March 19, before the Falklands War began. The invasion involved initial defence organised by the Falkland Islands' Governor Sir Rex Hunt giving command to Major Mike Norman of the Royal Marines, the landing of Lieutenant-Commander Guillermo Sanchez-Sabarots' Amphibious Commandos Group, the attack on Moody Brook barracks, the engagement between the troops of Hugo Santillan and Bill Trollope at Stanley, and the battle and final surrender of Government House.

Black Friday (The other movie)
Black Friday is a film based on the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai which many believe were organised as retaliation for the Bombay riots which left over 1,500 people dead. The movie was featured at the Locarno Film Festival and received widespread praise.

Black Friday was not released in Indian theaters for 2 years, as on the eve of its release, a petition seeking a stay was filed by the people named in the film, the alleged perpetrators of the crime. Since the verdict was still pending for the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, they argued that the film would bias public opinion against them and affect the courts decision. An argument that was ultimately upheld by the court [1].

Phone number error on U.S. government 'Duck Stamp' sends callers to sex line

Fri Sep 5, 9:01 AM

By Frederic J. Frommer, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - It's clearly a case where the U.S. government failed to get all its ducks in a row.

Now callers are getting their feathers ruffled over a typographical mix-up in a phone number that tells hunters where to call to buy their duck stamps. The Duck stamps, which cost $15 a piece, are required to hunt migratory waterfowl in the United States.

The carrier card for the duck stamp transposes two numbers so, instead of listing 1-800-782-6724, it lists 1-800-872-6724.

The first number spells out 1-800-STAMP24, while the second number spells out 1-800-TRAMP24.

As a result, people calling a federal phone number to order duck stamps are greeted instead by a phone-sex line where they are enticed by a husky female voice to "talk only to the girls that turn you on," for $1.99 a minute.

The U.S. government uses nearly all the revenue from the stamps to purchase waterfowl habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System. In 2006-2007, the latest figures available, duck stamp purchases brought in nearly $22 million.

This year's stamps, which feature a pair of northern pintail ducks, went on sale July 1 and are good through June 30 of next year. The error will not be corrected until next year's duck stamps.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the program, printed about 3.5 million duck stamps attached to cards with the wrong number. An agency spokeswoman, Rachel Levin, said it would cost $300,000 to reprint them.

"I don't know that it would be worth it to do a reprint," she said Thursday. "That's a lot of money we can be using for wildlife conservation. With all of the needs for conservation, it doesn't make sense to divert money away from an important cause."

For those people who like to dial by letter, the card does include the proper 1-800-STAMP24.

"As best we know, it was a typographical error that was not caught," Levin said, stressing that the stamps are still valid.

The agency first learned of the mistake a few days ago, when a duck stamp owner informed them about the glitch. Levin said the agency has not received any complaints.

The error, which was first reported Wednesday by Denver TV station KUSA, is limited to self-adhesive versions of the stamps. The moistened version, which is printed in much smaller numbers, does not come with a carrier card.

The government uses a contractor, Ashton Potter Security Printers of Williamsville, N.Y., to print the duck stamps. Levin said she did not know whether the error was made by the government or by the company.

Ashton Potter's president and chief executive, Barry Switzer, said that the company was provided with the wrong telephone number.

"We reproduced the wrong number correctly," he said. "We regret this whole situation happened, but we did our job properly."

-

On the Net:

Duck stamp program: http://www.fws.gov/duckstamps/

At the end of the press conference following Fukuda’s resignation, a Chugoku Shimbun reporter told the Prime Minister that many people thought he often seemed detached when he spoke, almost as if the problems facing Japan were none of his business. The reporter suggested that Fukuda also sounded distant in his resignation announcement and asked what impact he thought his sudden resignation (which comes just one year after previous Prime Minister Abe suddenly resigned) would have on the country. Seemingly perturbed, Fukuda fired back at the reporter: “You said I sounded detached, but I am able to see myself objectively. I’m different from you.”

Read more about the fascinating growth of marketing around this incident here.

Kids with older dads at higher bipolar risk: study
Mon Sep 1, 2008 4:04pm EDT

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - Children born to fathers older than 30 are more likely to develop bipolar disorder, a common condition sometimes known as manic depression, researchers reported on Monday.

The paternal risk also grows with the age of a father, rising to 37 percent by the time a man is 55 years, said Emma Frans, an epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who led the study.

The brain disorder causes extreme shifts in mood, energy and ability to function. It is marked by high periods of elation or irritability and low periods of sadness and hopelessness that can last months.

The findings published in the Archives of General Psychiatry bolster evidence that children of older fathers are at higher risk of psychological conditions such as bipolar disorder, autism and schizophrenia, the researchers said.

"Advanced paternal age is a risk factor for bipolar disorder in the offspring," Frans and colleagues wrote.

One explanation could be that a man's degraded sperm quality as he ages could increase the likelihood of genetic mutations that may lead to biopolar disorder, Frans said.

"Despite the robust evidence supporting the association between paternal age and severe mental disorders, the association between advanced paternal age and bipolar disorder has not been investigated," the team added.

The findings are another step toward unraveling the mystery of how the condition affecting an estimated 1 percent to 3 percent of adults worldwide arises, the researchers said.

Last month, an international research team linked two genetic variants to an increased risk for the disease, which is often treated with AstraZeneca Plc's blockbuster drug Seroquel. The condition often runs in families.

The Swedish researchers used a national medical registry to identify nearly 14,000 men and women diagnosed with bipolar disorder. For each person, they also randomly selected five people of the same sex and age without the condition.

After factoring for maternal age, the researchers found that children born to fathers older than 30 had an 11 percent higher risk of developing bipolar disorder compared to younger fathers. Children whose fathers were older than 55 had a 37 percent increased risk.

Frans said the findings did not mean that older men should not father children because the overall risk is still low, she added.

"The study sheds light on the negative effect of older fathers but most older men will still have healthy children," she said in a telephone interview.

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; editing by Tony Austin)

Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today.

The Last King of Africa

Bare-breasted virgins compete for Swaziland king

2 hours, 30 minutes ago

By Phakamisa Ndzamela

LUDZIDZINI ROYAL VILLAGE, Swaziland (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins competed for Swaziland King Mswati III's eye on Monday in a traditional Reed Dance.

Walking through the dense crowds in a leopard skin loin cloth, Sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch was expected to choose his 14th wife.

Critics say Mswati, who has courted controversy for his lavish lifestyle while two thirds of his subjects live in poverty, sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where about 40 percent of adults live with HIV.

Some of the women did not seem to mind, hoping to escape from the southern African nation's hardships for the easy life.

"I came here to dance. I wish the king would have chosen me because it's nice at the king's place. The wives live a nice life," said Tenene Dlamini, 16, in a traditional brown skirt.

"Everything is done for them. They don't work. They earn."

The Reed Dance has been a big date on the Swaziland cultural calendar since Mswati began the ceremony in 1999.

But he may not be as relaxed this year among the throngs of young half-naked women.

Political groups seeking democratic reforms have become more active in a country where the opposition has been effectively banned since 1973 by royal decree.

They are critical of plans to hold next weekend's celebrations of the king's 40th birthday in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of Swaziland's independence from Britain.

Still, some of Swaziland's women came to the Ludzidzini Royal Village to show their admiration for the monarch.

"I respect the king and I respect my culture," said Nontobeko Sdidlamini, 16, carrying a shield made of animal skin and wearing an orange bracelet which read "Sex Can Wait."

Some said they would not want to be part of a polygamous arrangement with the king and were taking part in the ceremony to prove their virginity. Others fear they lost out.

"My sister is the king's tenth wife. I don't think he can choose me because he has already chosen my sister," said Zandisile Ntentesa, a 21-year-old prison employee.

The king, flanked by bodyguards with pistols and sticks, may face pressure from emboldened critics. But he can take comfort from the wealth which wins him tributes and songs at the reed ceremony.

Last month, Forbes magazine listed him as the 15th-richest monarch in the world. He was the only African on the list.

During the reed festivities, one of the king's wives drove up in a fancy BMW. Policemen told people to look the other way.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Giles Elgood)