Unintended consequences
Bear kills militants in Kashmir
Unexpected benefits
Wildlife experts say the conflict in Kashmir has actually resulted in an increase in the population of bears and leopards.
Following the outbreak of the insurgency people had to hand in their weapons to police – which put a halt to poaching.
Perverse results
As a result, there has been a greater incidence of man-animal conflict, say experts.
There have been many reports of bears and leopards killing or mauling humans in different parts of the Kashmir valley in recent years.
Three years ago, residents of Mandora village near the southern town of Tral, beat a black bear to death which had strayed into the village
Aha! Physics of homeopathy!
Here is something for you to laugh at – Charlene Werner explaining the physics of homeopathy!
She doesn’t like being laughed at, which makes laughing at her even more fun!
Mobile blogging
WordPress has a neat little iPhone app and this is a test post from my iPod touch
Fermat’s Last Theorem, BBC documentary
It was the most important moment in my working life. Nothing I ever do again will be the same.
Simon Singh and John Lynch’s film tells the story of Andrew Wiles
Geithner Confirmed
Nomination that’s too big to fail, did not fail. Notably, Russ Feingold voted against confirmation. Russ Feingold usually gives a wide latitude to Presidents when it comes to his cabinet choices. He was one of the few Democrats that voted to confirm Ashcroft and at that time had said that qualified nominees should be confirmed, unless they are legally or ethically challenged. Geithner’s nomination would have failed, but for the current economic crisis. Clearly, this was a bad nomination. Surprisingly sloppy vetting in an otherwise orderly transition.
IndexOutOfBoundsException
Rick Warren goes out of bounds, in the inaugural invocation
Now, today, we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time.
Of course, Obama being the 44th President, it was only the 43rd transfer of power.
A, really, deep stepwell
One more fascinating photo from fresh pics – “Chand Baori” located at Abhaneri near Jaipur in Indian state of Rajasthan.
Gaza conflict
Washington Post, Letters to the editor, Saturday, January 10, 2009; Page A11
On Jan. 1 and 2, you ran op-eds by four authors — Charles Krauthammer, Michael Gerson, Ephraim Sneh and Robert J. Lieber — all coming down solidly and uncompromisingly on Israel’s side in the current situation. Maybe a wise, objective and well-informed judge would conclude that the preponderance of right is on Israel’s side. I don’t know; I am not wise or objective, and I don’t have all the facts.
I am a 73-year-old Jew living in comfort in America. Yet I can understand that if I were a 20-year-old in Gaza, hearing how my grandparents once had a decent life in what is now Israel, I might take a rejectionist position and be for Hamas. You should strive for balance.
– John Levy
St. Michaels, Md.
9 January: A cluster bomb disperses hundreds of bomblets in the northern Gaza Strip.
From the wikipedia article on Cluster munitions
A varying proportion of submunitions dispersed by cluster bombs fail to explode on impact and can lie untouched for years until disturbed. The sometimes brightly colored munitions are not camouflaged, but have been compared to toys or Easter eggs, attracting interest from children at play. Human rights activists claim that one in four casualties resulting from submunitions that fail to explode on impact are children who often pick up and play with the explosive canisters well after the conflict has ended. The 2006 Lebanon War provided momentum for the campaign to ban cluster bombs. The United Nations estimated that up to 40% of Israeli cluster bomblets failed to explode on impact.
Of course, there is an international treaty, Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), that prohibits the use of cluster bombs. Predictably, several major producers of cluster munitions including the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Brazil have NOT signed the Convention.
Sometime in 2008: The remnants of Qassam rockets that were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel.
