A campaign in France to exterminate frogs may sound like the beginning of a civil war, They said it; I didn't. but these are no ordinary frogs.
Hunters working for the government's wildlife agency will be stalking ponds in south-west France this weekend, aimed with flash-lights, rifles, silencers attack helicopters and night-vision sights.
The aggressive and voracious bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana), introduced illegally 37 years ago, can grow to more than 4lbs in weight and almost 2ft long. Well, in the US, illegal invaders get ranches handed to the them. It consumes other frogs, fish, lizards and even small birds. I tawt I taw a fwog!
Destroying the frogs is not easy, however. The Gironde fisheries protection association attacked a pond full of bullfrogs with electricity a few years ago. The frogs fought back. Fought back? What did they do, bomb the power plant? The hunters battled with them for two hours. They killed just one frog before they gave up.
"Shooting them with rifles is the most effective method we have found," said an environmental campaigner, Luc Gueugneau. It would probably work on Jihadis, too.
#1
Just imagine the frog's legs a gourmet could get from one! Seriosly, when I was about 9 or 10 I saw a bullfrog eat a water moccasin. Danged BIG bullfrog. They will eat almost anything they can catch.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/22/2005 12:44 Comments ||
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#2
The effective solution would be to institute a program where you fly over a few thousand teenage American males for the summer.
That'll clear out the ponds of bullfrogs in a hurry.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
08/22/2005 12:47 Comments ||
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#3
The effective solution would be to institute a program where you fly over a few thousand teenage American males for the summer.
I dunno. Last time that was done, the Americans cleared out the Nazis. The French have never forgiven us for that.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/22/2005 12:58 Comments ||
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#4
shoot'n smelly slimy creatures in France eh. be careful to make sure it's not the women...If you see hairy armpits hold yer fire.
#12
REMARKS Not indigenous to Western U.S. May be responsible for decline of native aurans.
DESCRIPTION: The Bull Frog is the largest frog in North America. It can reach over 6 inches in length. Some of the diagnostic characteristics include the absence of dorsolateral ridges and the presence of a large and conspicuous tympanic membrane (ear drum). Short folds of skin extend from over the eye to behind the tympanic membrane, which will be larger than the eye in males and about the same size as the eye in females. The hind feet are completely webbed except for the last joint of the largest toe. The dorsal surface is usually void of any markings but may have spots or dark mottling. It can range in color from dark olive to pale green. The ventral surface is usually a light cream to yellow color with dark marbling sometimes present. Bull Frog tadpoles have a light ventral surface and the dorsal surface is greenish to yellow with numerous black spots. Bull Frog larvae winter in the tadpole stage.
LIFE HISTORY: The Bull Frog is not native to the Western U.S. but was introduced into several localities in the West where it has been implicated in native anuran declines. In Region 4, the Bull Frog has became established in various locations in Utah, Nevada and Idaho. This frog is highly aquatic, and never strays far from permanent water, whether it be marsh, pond, lake, or reservoir. It sometimes frequents temporary water bodies long distances from permanent water. It prefers water with thick aquatic vegetation such as cattails and can even tolerate brackish water. The Bull Frog is not dependent on rainfall for breeding. It is nocturnal but calling commonly occurs during the day as well. The Bull Frog winters at the bottom of water bodies.
Rana catesbeiana
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/22/2005 15:07 Comments ||
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#7
Mr. Hackett was the victim of one of his own art works early last year. The graphic description in a New York Post story on Jan. 25, 2004, was that Mr. Hackett âblew up part of his faceâ while rigging a propane tank to fire a confetti cannon. Mr. Hackettâs jaw was broken in the explosion.
Is it just me, or is "work accident" the first thing I'm thinking here? Actually, "hoping" would be the better word...
#8
If only 4 more inches up and to the left last year, the art world would be abuzz to why Mr. Hackett would shoot his head out of a propane cannon. Truly a missed opportunity for original art.
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2005 13:33 Comments ||
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OK, this has nothing to do with the GWOT. But it's weird enough to provide some distraction ....
Police in Germany Friday said a 54- year-old man watched television in his living-room next to the decomposed body of his wife for more than a year - because he loved her so much. The 53-year-old woman apparently succumbed to complications from chronic alcoholism in April 2004. Her body was found on the floor next to the living room sofa after the landlord summoned police on a hunch. An autopsy revealed no indication of foul play. The husband said the two had spent their happiest times together in front of the TV set and he could not bear to part with her. Police waived criminal charges, handing him over to psychiatrists for counselling.
"And what's your diagnosis, Doctor?"
"Ja, vell! Da symptoms is all dere!"
"You mean...?"
"Ja, dis guy ist nüts!"
Posted by: too true ||
08/22/2005 09:29 ||
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#1
He watched the same channel for more than a year, too, since the stupid cow wouldn't get up and change it. That ain't a man's job.
#5
Anyone else remember the story of a German man who was found in his apartment (skeletel in a bathrobe) several years after he died. He was sitting in a chair in fronnt of a TV which had gone out. The were able to determine the date of death because the TV listings were sitting open on his "lap".
He was on disability, and had those deposits made, and rent and utilities automatically withdrawn.
However he "spent" slighly more than he "took in", and the bones were discovered when the electric company was going to turn off his power because the bank rejected the payment.
#6
How come it's always germany that turns up with the cannibals or the necropheliacs or the really creepy child killers? What the hell have you guys been doing over there anyway? It's probably those violent video games, if you had a rating system you wouldn't have shit like this going on, er, uh.
An original Albert Einstein manuscript has been unearthed at a university in the Netherlands by a student. Rowdy Boeyink stumbled on the document while he was researching papers belonging to an old friend of Einstein. "It was quite exciting," said Professor Carlo Beenakker, of the University of Leiden. "You can even see Einstein's fingerprints in some places."
The 16-page manuscript, dated 1924, shows the German-born genius working on his last major theory. It took scientists until 1995 to finally prove Einstein right. Einstein's paper laboured under the title "Quantentheorie des einatomigen idealen Gases" (Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas). It examines how atoms of a gas behave at extremely low temperatures, in a theory developed in collaboration with Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. The theory stated that at temperatures near absolute zero, the atoms could reach a state of such low energy that they collapsed into a new state where it was no longer possible to distinguish between them - a state known as Einstein-Bose condensation.
The university, near The Hague, says the newly-unearthed paper will be kept in its Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics. Einstein had strong ties with the university and was a regular guest-lecturer there. The manuscript was with papers belonging to a friend of Einstein, Paul Ehrenfest, who was a professor at Leiden.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized the United States for recent remarks about his role in Latin America, saying in a Sunday broadcast from Cuba that it is the policies of the U.S. government that are harming the world, not his own. Chavez spoke alongside Cuban President Fidel Castro during his weekly television and radio show from the western tip of the island, flaunting the close ties between the two leftist leaders that U.S. leaders say are threatening democracy in the region. "The grand destroyer of the world, and the greatest threat ... is represented by U.S. imperialism," Chavez said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2005 00:00 ||
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#4
CUBA is described by CHAVEZ as a "revolutionary democracy" - its just that the Commies agenda is anti-democracy, aka "Support Your Local Foreign-controlled Rampaging Barbarian, Warlord and Crimicrat"! The people of North Korea, like the Southies, fought for many many centuries ags domination from Beijing , only to end of the Chinese-controlled but always PC Norcoms, i.e. MANDOREANS-NORKINESE! By any other Name or Label except the right, truthful one.
VIOLENT criminals were given a taxpayer-funded skiing holiday this week.
Three inmates from Malmsbury Juvenile Justice Centre spent Tuesday and Wednesday skiing at Mt Stirling in Victoria's high country.
Prisoners involved included Dang Pham, 20, who was locked up for his role in two stabbings.
Pham was one of a group who a judge said "mercilessly" bashed a man unconscious in a cafe, then stabbed in the liver another man who intervened.
While on bail for the first attack, Pham held a man while he was stabbed by an associate in a fight over a bottle of fish sauce. That Damn Dang Pham is at it again.
But this week Pham frolicked in the snow, four months after a County Court judge sentenced him to three years in Malmsbury.
The County Court had been told Pham had psychiatric and psychological problems and a low intellectual ability.
The holiday group, accompanied by three chaperones, began a cross-country adventure on Tuesday, skiing for about 6km before setting up camp in a hut 5km from Mt Stirling. One chaperone said the prisoners camped metres from a group of unsuspecting female holidayers.
Malmsbury's annual ski jaunt was part of a reward scheme that has provided inmates with perks, prison officers said.
Inmates have been given leave from jail to go deep-sea fishing, horse-riding and sailing, as well as on regular cinema and ten-pin bowling excursions, the officers said.
On Wednesday, the inmates returned to Mt Stirling resort, wandering between the ski shop and their bus, near dozens of school children.
The ski trip took place three days after a Malmsbury inmate escaped during a visit to Werribee Zoo and three months after a judge described Victoria's juvenile justice system as a "decomposing body".
A juvenile justice source said it cost taxpayers $160,000 to hold each Malmsbury inmate for a year, a figure that included the expensive perks.
Opposition Community Services spokeswoman Helen Shardey said it was totally inappropriate to send criminals on a ski trip.
"There would be thousands of Victorian children who never have the opportunity to go skiing and taxpayers would be rightly upset that this is what their money is being spent on," Mrs Shardey said. "Being sent to Malmsbury is not meant to be a holiday or a reward for what you have done wrong. Going skiing should not be part of the deal."
The offenders had undergone comprehensive risk assessments and met stringent requirements.Ms Garbutt's spokeswoman, Manika Naidoo, said: "The Government recognises the need to balance the rehabilitation of young offenders with the right of the community to safety."
#1
$160,000 CDN = $132,000 US for 1 year?
3 years for two assaults with injury, 1 man stabbed in the liver who is very lucky to be alive?
Holidays for psychopaths at ski resorts with unsuspecting children around?
What the hell is wrong with the people up there? Have they lost their marbles or have their cojones been removed by their governing masters? Mr. Pham should be locked away in a snow until he well past the age where he wants, or is physically able, to bash or stab anyone ever again. Better yet, send Dang's sweet, sweet ass to Texas for some serious attitude adjustment for 20% what Canadians are currently paying.
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2005 13:16 Comments ||
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#2
snow = snow cave
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2005 13:41 Comments ||
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#3
how about sending them out as avalanch testers
Posted by: bk ||
08/22/2005 13:41 Comments ||
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#4
Canadians? try Aussies...
Posted by: bk ||
08/22/2005 13:42 Comments ||
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#5
My bad. I assumed Victoria mean Victoria British Columbia. $160,000 AUS = $121,000 US. Everything, but the snow cave stands.
Put a few keys of weed in Dang's luggage and put him on a plane to Jakarta. Problem solved for the next 20 years.
Posted by: ed ||
08/22/2005 13:48 Comments ||
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THE United States' role in defending Australia in World War II should be better taught in Australian secondary schools, federal Treasurer Peter Costello said today.
Referring to his weekend comments about the need to stamp-out anti-American sentiment in Australia, Mr Costello said many young Australians did not know how the United States had helped defend their country.
"I think it's important that Australians know that in 1941 and 1942, when Australia faced its gravest security crisis, when our country was being bombed, when we were at threat of invasion, when the sea lanes and the air lanes were being dominated by a hostile aggressor at war with us, Australian soldiers stood in defence of this country and they stood in defence of this country with our ally the United States," he said.
"And if it had not of been for that alliance, then the war would not have turned when it did in 1942 and the war wouldn't have ended in the way in which it did in 1945.
"That is a key event in Australian history and I think that young people ought to know it.
"I don't think the story of the defence of Australia in the Second World War is well enough understood in secondary schools."
Mr Costello said the answer was to ensure the complete story of Australia's defence was taught.
"I think the Anzac story is taught well, I think it's well known by young people, but I'm not sure Kokoda, victory in the Coral Sea, the island campaign of (US General Douglas) MacArthur, the Australian-American alliance is taught as well as it should be, that's my point."
#1
I'm thinking this would quickly be turned into a "Japan would never have attacked Australia if the US hadn't antagonized them" deal.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
08/22/2005 9:44 Comments ||
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#2
Any Aussies on this site? Have the liberals taken over the education system in Australia like the have in the U.S.? Here it is their last bastion of control, indoctrinating the youth with their maligned socialist values and teaching a hatred of liberty and the American way of life. We have rooted them out of nearly every other institution and they have dug into the education system deeper than ticks on a hound.
#4
"THE United States' role in defending Australia in World War II should be better taught in Australian secondary schools, federal Treasurer Peter Costello said today."
Hell, they should teach that in American schools as well!
#5
Here in Australia, the Leftist influence is probably more pervasive than in the USA. The media is more concentrated, the role of government larger and counter views like blogs are fewer and far less influential. An example is that I get 6 free to air TV channels, 3 of which are government funded, which I refer to as the Leftwing news, the really Leftwing news and the channel nobody watches.
The Howard government has been slowly rolling back the traditional Australian Statist model. He has been particularly succesful in education, by allowing government funding of private schools and forcing through clear measures of school performance, such that parents can choose which schools to send their kids to. The opposition Labour party tried to make this an issue in the last election and it came badly unstuck for them.
I'm a little surprised that Costello is pushing this issue. He is considered to be to the left of John Howard, although Howard's nominated successor. Then again parental choice in education is a popular issue here and the Howard government is good at instagating what I call stealth processes that have strong public support and that leave the Left calling for things the public don't want. This may be part of a process to give parents more control over school curriculums.
BTW, Costello maintains that all politics is demographics.
EFL
The last man conscious in the cockpit of a doomed Cypriot airliner made a desperate call for help â "Mayday! Mayday!" â two seconds before the plane carrying 121 people smashed into a mountain near Athens.
The man, apparently a flight attendant with pilot training, twice issued distress calls in the final 10 minutes of Helios Airways Flight 522, chief investigator Akrivos Tsolakis told The Associated Press on Monday.
"The second time was a couple of seconds before the crash," Tsolakis said, adding the man had "a very weak tone of voice."
The report was the most comprehensive statement the government has released on the investigation since the crash. It came after pressure from the media and the airline industry for Greece and Cyprus to start answering questions about what caused the accident.
Still, it remained unclear what caused the loss of cabin pressure. Greek investigators, aided by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, are continuing to probe the crash, the deadliest airline disaster for Greece and Cyprus and considered one of the most baffling in aviation history.
Tsolakis presented his initial findings following analysis of flight recorders and autopsies on all 118 bodies â many still unidentified â recovered from the site. Three bodies have not been found, including that of the plane's pilot, a German.
"The crash is like an explosion and the pilot's body may not necessarily have ended up close to the cockpit," Tsolakis told state-run NET television. "He may be one of the [recovered] unidentified bodies."
The report appears to confirm initial suspicions that people aboard the Helios Airways plane were incapacitated by a loss of cabin pressure early in the flight at about 34,000 feet and that someone tried to save the flight shortly before it crashed.
According to the report issued Monday, a man wearing an oxygen mask, believed to be 25-year-old flight attendant Andreas Prodromou, tried to steer the plane for the last 10 minutes and contact air-traffic control authorities.
In his first appeal, he cried "Mayday!" three times â but the plane's communications had apparently been set to the wrong frequency, Tsolakis said.
The plane crashed in Greece after circling for more than an hour in a holding pattern above the Aegean Sea island of Kea, southeast of Athens International Airport.
"There are indications of technical problems in the pressurization system... There is proof that the engines of the plane stopped working because the fuel supply was exhausted, and that this was the final cause of the crash," the two-page report said.
The full report on the Helios disaster is due in about six months. The government, which has said it will not comment on an ongoing investigation, has promised to make the report public.
#1
Decompression is still speculation and no explanation of what happened for 2.5 hours while the plane was apparently flying on auto-pilot and why did the attendant wake up after that time? I'm not big on coverup conspiracies, but I'm starting to get suspicious here.
#3
If they would only air it out. What does the Govt have to fear? Surely they're not directly involved. Trying to save the airline's reputation - or whatever their motive - is foolish if it drags on so that it creates the atmosphere for conspiracy theories - which will undoubtedly be more negative than the truth. Right? The foot-dragging boggles.
#4
Do any of you know how much Greece depends on tourism? The longer they drag this out, the less likely that the details (like shoddy maintenance or shoddy training) make it to the top ten headlines in your newspaper or on your "My Yahoo" or Google home page. It's in Greece's best interests to have this on the bottom of page 37.
The level of family violence has risen in the past five years, federal police statistics revealed on Friday. Violence committed between former partners has particularly increased, newspaper 'Het Laatste Nieuws' reported.
In 2000, there were 18,239 cases of intentional beatings and injuries within families compared with 21,073 in 2004. The biggest increase in family violence took place among former partners, with 7,084 cases in 2000 compared with 10,137 last year. I wonder how many of these are immigrants, with the woman leaving and the man reverting to home country tactics ...
There was a small rise in the beating and injuring of parents by offspring, increasing from 654 to 793 cases. The same was also true for violence committed by parents against children younger than 16 (rising from 560 to 735). Other relatives, such as grandparents, were also victims of an increasing amount of violence. In 2000, there were 154 cases and 163 cases in 2004.
The only form of family violence that appears to be declining is crimes against the child, such as child abductions.
The number of these crimes fell from 2,356 in 2000 to 2,069 last year.
Posted by: too true ||
08/22/2005 09:24 ||
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Gee ... it's the home of regulations and unaccountable EUrocrats. I can't for the life of me figure out why that doesn't attract businesses .... BRUSSELS â Belgium scores poorly in attracting the European headquarters of internationally active companies, but there is no indication of an exodus, an Ernst & Young study has revealed. The study was commissioned by the Dutch Economic Affairs Ministry in reaction to a warning from the Belgian chief of Dutch banking and finance firm ING, Michel Tilmant. He said in a recent interview that the most multinational firms had departed Belgium in the past decade. Tilmant warned the same fate could befall the Netherlands. However, the comments appear to be an exaggeration, Belgian financial newspaper 'De Tijd' reported on Friday.
"Pooh!"
"Yes, pooh!"
Belgium is a country where the number of European headquarters remained stable between 1997 and 2003, while neighbouring countries witnessed strong fluctuations. However, Belgium scored poorly as a choice of business operations. Of the 579 European headquarters established in seven countries between 1997 and 2003, Belgium attracted just 29 or a 'market share' of 5 percent. The most popular country was Britain, with a 60 percent market share, followed by France (10 percent), Germany (9 percent), the Netherlands (8 percent) and Switzerland (7 percent). funny how the most competition-friendly country attracts for-profit businesses
Companies that have established a European headquarters in Belgium have appreciated the nation's language skills and labour costs. The Netherlands was advised that it should focus on companies active in the Benelux region. But do not yet have a European headquarters. Companies primarily from Belgium, Germany and Britain could be enticed away to the Netherlands, the report said.
Posted by: too true ||
08/22/2005 09:20 ||
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#1
"The most popular country was Britain, with a 60 percent 'market share'"
But those 60% aren't SAFE! Our measley 40% will be protected!!!
WOODY CREEK, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson's grand finale went off as planned: His ashes were blasted into the night sky in an explosion friends and fans agreed he would have loved. But some said the gonzo journalist would have sneered at the Hollywood trappings â champagne toasts by movie stars and former presidential candidates.
Filmmaker Nancy Cohen tried to organize a group of 100 fans outside the gates of Thompson's farm to crash the Saturday night party. "That's what Hunter would have done," she said. "This looks more like a fancy dress ball than a memorial for a counterculture icon," said Cohen, of New York, producer of "My Dinner With Abbie," a film about 1960s radical activist Abbie Hoffman.
Crashing the party would have been difficult with the dozens of black-clad security guards who lined the roads leading to the farm. "It looks like the neighborhood has been invaded by the Viet Cong," friend and neighbor Mike Cleverly said of the guards.
"I am pretty sure it isn't how Hunter would have done it," said longtime friend George Stranahan.
The writer's ashes were fired from atop a 15-story tower modeled after Thompson's logo: a clenched fist, holding a peyote button, rising from the hilt of a dagger. It was built between his home and a tree-covered canyon wall.
The guests gathered in a pavilion next to the platform. Inside were blow up sex dolls and a mask of Thompson's arch enemy, late President Richard Nixon. With drums beating in the background, trays of champagne circulated before Thompson's remains flew.
Thompson shot himself in his kitchen Feb. 20, apparently despondent over his declining health.
The national and most local media were barred from the tribute to the groundbreaking writer who was credited, along with Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, with helping pioneer New Journalism â he dubbed his version "gonzo journalism" â in which the writer was an essential component of the story.
His only son, Juan Thompson, said the hundreds of celebrities, including actors Johnny Depp and Bill Murray, musician Lyle Lovett and former Democratic presidential nominees George McGovern and Sen. John Kerry, wouldn't have felt comfortable with the press around. Depp, who played Thompson in the 1998 film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," paid for the $2.5 million extravaganza. Depp and Juan Thompson embraced as the ashes fell to the ground.
Juan Thompson told the Aspen Daily News that the ceremony not only fulfilled the vision his father outlined in a 1978 BBC video, but it "was bigger than he ever imagined."
Ralph Steadman, who illustrated many of Thompson's works, had a different take on the extravaganza. "He'd probably say it wasn't quite big enough," said Steadman. "We want him back. (Saturday night) was a kind of pleading for him to come back. All is forgiven." Update your Moonbat list accordingly.
#6
Kerry? Wonder if Taryaza was there too. Been nice if they could have shot them both out of the cannon too.
Posted by: Bill N ||
08/22/2005 13:16 Comments ||
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#7
The next time Johhny Depp wants to blow a coupla of million, give him my address, will ya? I'm sure I could come up with something as crazed as building a fifteen story tower, putting a cannon on it, and blasting some lunatic's ashes into space.
TOKYO: Japan will give up its bid to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the time being after it failed to win enough international support, a daily said on Sunday. Japan, the second largest UN donor after the United States, has been jointly lobbying for permanent council membership with Brazil, Germany and India as part of the so-called Group of Four or G4. The G4 proposal calls for increasing council membership from 15 to 25, with six new permanent seats without veto power - one each for Brazil, Germany, India and Japan and two for the African region, and four non-permanent seats.
While Japan will give up its bid for now, the government still sees a permanent UN seat as a major diplomatic goal and plans to expand its UN work through foreign aid and peacekeeping operations, the paper said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/22/2005 00:00 ||
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#5
The PRC always intended to veto Japan's bid. Another step in convince the Japanese that the UN has outlived its usefullness.
That is one reason I've supported expansion of the Security Council, I don't think the other permanent members will allow the expansion so the US looks good for trying and the UN looks bad as attempts are shot down.
When President Bush plunged into the debate over the teaching of evolution this month, saying, "both sides ought to be properly taught," he seemed to be reading from the playbook of the Discovery Institute, the conservative think tank here that is at the helm of this newly volatile frontier in the nation's culture wars.
After toiling in obscurity for nearly a decade, the institute's Center for Science and Culture has emerged in recent months as the ideological and strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in school districts and state capitals across the country. Pushing a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution, the institute has in many ways transformed the debate into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion...
...A closer look shows a multidimensional organization, financed by missionary and mainstream groups - the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides $1 million a year, including $50,000 of Mr. Chapman's $141,000 annual salary - and asserting itself on questions on issues as varied as local transportation and foreign affairs....
...The institute also has support from secular groups like the Verizon Foundation and the Gates Foundation, which gave $1 million in 2000 and pledged $9.35 million over 10 years in 2003. Greg Shaw, a grant maker at the Gates Foundation, said the money was "exclusive to the Cascadia project" on regional transportation. But the evolution controversy has cost it the support of the Bullitt Foundation, based here, which gave $10,000 in 2001 for transportation, as well as the John Templeton Foundation in Pennsylvania, whose Web site defines it as devoted to pursuing "new insights between theology and science..."
H/T Lucianne
One Indian region is striking back against the bandits that have brought fear to the area by sending in wild lions to flush out the gangs from its forested ravines. The Chambal region, which covers the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh - has long been controlled by the gangs, known as 'dacoits'.
With its maze of undulating ravines and dense forests, the Chambal Valley has provided perfect cover for the hideouts of numerous dacoit gangs for decades. The dacoits, who mostly abduct people for ransom, have been blamed for more than 4,000 kidnappings and 180 murders in the last five years.
Now the government in the state of Uttar Pradesh has decided to strike back at the gangs by releasing 25 wild lions. The animals will be taken from a national park in Gujarat and released in the forests of Etawah.
A forest ranger in Etawah said: "The presence of such large carnivores in the vicinity will be frightening for the dacoits. They were never afraid of the hyenas and wolves of the Chambal ravines, but lions will scare them away this time, we are sure."
SK Chaudhary, the chief of police in Etawah, said: "If successful, our government will speak to its counterpart in Madhya Pradesh for an extension of the lion sanctuary - deeper into Chambal."
But Guddu Khan, a 32-year-old Etawah businessman who was kidnapped by a Chambal gang and released after three months for a ransom of £9,000, doubts the lions will pose a threat to the gangs.
"The dacoits are very good hunters as well," he said. "They will shoot down the lions the way they killed many leopards, wolves and other wild animals."
Zimbabwe's finance minister has imposed a string of tax rises to bridge a huge spending shortfall and the effects of drought and slum clearances. First, they bulldoze your house, then raise your taxes to pay for it. Can New London top that?
A tax on drinks and cigarettes has been increased by 50% and mobile phone airtime will also be subjected to a 22.5% tax, Herbert Murerwa said. Zimbabwe is beset with shortages of democracy food, fuel and farmland in competent hands foreign currency, and rampant tyranny unemployment and inflation. From September public transport buses will have to pay a quarterly tax and VAT will be raised by 2.5% to 17.5%, Mr Murerwa announced in a supplementary budget. From the measures, Mr Murerwa said he hoped to raise 6.6 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, which is $356m at the official exchange rate and $146m on the black market rate. A 300ml bottle of Coca Cola was priced at $6,000 on Tuesday. That's about $0.13 in real money.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the tax hikes would bring more suffering to Zimbabweans. Our own Democrats don't believe that, so why should Maximum Bob?
"What the minister has done is to tell us straight in the face that the government is broke and they are prepared to drive the economy to a fatal crash," the MDC's Tapiwa Mashakada told parliament, AFP reports. Some of the money will help with food imports to divert them to party loyalists feed some 4m people which the United Nations estimates are in need of food aid. Some 700,000 people are also trying to cope after their homes or places of work were demolished in a slum clearance programme, the UN says. In a 45-page response, it accused the UN of indulging "in mathematical extrapolation so as to produce the grossly inflated figure of 700,000". It was only 682,375.
Government critics blame Zimbabwe's economic problems on the seizure of white-owned land over the past five years. The government blames food shortages on drought and economic sabotage by Western countries, led by the UK, opposed to land reform. Not the Joooooos?
#1
According to a letter from the MDC's economic advisor, the increase in tax rates was accompanied by widening the list of items that could be freely bought and traded to include wheat and maize. Basically that's going to increase demand for foreign exchange on the black market and drive up the costs for everything else.
I suspect Bob's cronies will be the ones who will benefit.
LONDON - Britainâs Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and another senior official asked the International Cricket Council to consider banning Zimbabwe from the sport as punishment for increasing human rights abuses, a British newspaper reported on Sunday.
And if that doesn't work, they'll lobby to ban Zimbabwe from water tennis.
Straw and Tessa Jowell, head of the Culture, Media and Sport ministry, said an urgent review was needed to decide whether it is âappropriateâ for Zimbabwe to participate in the sport, said The Observer newspaper, citing a copy of the letter. The Foreign Office refused to comment on Sunday, and no one could immediately be reached at the International Cricket Council.
In the letter, Straw and Jowell said the Zimbabwe governmentâs latest campaign, dubbed Operation Murambatsvina, or Drive Out Trash, has led to the deterioration of âan already grave human rights and humanitarian situation,â the newspaper said. The ministers asked the council to not only consider banning Zimbabwe, but also to waive fines now levied against countries who refuse to play Zimbabwe.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/22/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Think of it as the Anglosphere equivalent of banning Venezuela from World Cup competition.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
An original Albert Einstein manuscript has been unearthed at a university in the Netherlands by a student. Rowdy Boeyink stumbled on the document while he was researching papers belonging to an old friend of Einstein. "It was quite exciting," said Professor Carlo Beenakker, of the University of Leiden. "You can even see Einstein's fingerprints in some places." 
Einstein's paper laboured under the title "Quantentheorie des einatomigen idealen Gases" (Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas). It examines how atoms of a gas behave at extremely low temperatures, in a theory developed in collaboration with Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. The theory stated that at temperatures near absolute zero, the atoms could reach a state of such low energy that they collapsed into a new state where it was no longer possible to distinguish between them - a state known as Einstein-Bose condensation. 
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized the United States for recent remarks about his role in Latin America, saying in a Sunday broadcast from Cuba that it is the policies of the U.S. government that are harming the world, not his own. Chavez spoke alongside Cuban President Fidel Castro during his weekly television and radio show from the western tip of the island, flaunting the close ties between the two leftist leaders that U.S. leaders say are threatening democracy in the region. "The grand destroyer of the world, and the greatest threat ... is represented by U.S. imperialism," Chavez said.
BRUSSELS â Belgium scores poorly in attracting the European headquarters of internationally active companies, but there is no indication of an exodus, an Ernst & Young study has revealed. The study was commissioned by the Dutch Economic Affairs Ministry in reaction to a warning from the Belgian chief of Dutch banking and finance firm ING, Michel Tilmant. He said in a recent interview that the most multinational firms had departed Belgium in the past decade. Tilmant warned the same fate could befall the Netherlands. However, the comments appear to be an exaggeration, Belgian financial newspaper 'De Tijd' reported on Friday.
The writer's ashes were fired from atop a 15-story tower modeled after Thompson's logo: a clenched fist, holding a peyote button, rising from the hilt of a dagger. It was built between his home and a tree-covered canyon wall.
TOKYO: Japan will give up its bid to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the time being after it failed to win enough international support, a daily said on Sunday. Japan, the second largest UN donor after the United States, has been jointly lobbying for permanent council membership with Brazil, Germany and India as part of the so-called Group of Four or G4. The G4 proposal calls for increasing council membership from 15 to 25, with six new permanent seats without veto power - one each for Brazil, Germany, India and Japan and two for the African region, and four non-permanent seats.
Zimbabwe's finance minister has imposed a string of tax rises to bridge a huge spending shortfall and the effects of drought and slum clearances. 
![this baby](http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/imgs/128x192/1111_1111/1111/0376.jpeg>this baby</a>... </td>
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Posted by: mojo ||
08/22/2005 15:34 <A HREF="comments.php?D=2005-08-22&ID=127427&HC=3">Comments</A> ||
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<td><a name="339700"></a>#14
I guess they mean <a href=){kind=link}
