Eideard

Afghan police said they rescued a convoy of 41 children, some aged as young as six, from being smuggled over the border to Pakistan and trained as suicide bombers.

The children were stopped in a convoy of cars driven by four Afghan men in the mountainous eastern province of Kunar, police and interior ministry officials said. They said their parents had been fooled into believing they were sending their children to religious schools across the border, but were instead being sent to be trained to attack Afghan and international forces.

“They were bringing these children in the name of education, but they were not being sent to schools,” a police official in the province said, “They were being sent to be suicide bombers”.

The children were to be taken to a madrassah at Shamshato, close to Peshawar, which officials said was a recruiting ground for militants belonging to Hizb-i-Islami, one of Afghanistan’s main insurgent factions…

Several said they were from the violent Pech and Korengal valleys and had lost their fathers in clashes between American troops and insurgents, or in Nato airstrikes. They told reporters that with their fathers gone, their families could not afford to look after them so they were being sent to private madrassahs where they would receive free food and clothes…

Seddiq Seddiqi, spokesman for the interior ministry, said: “It was obvious what was happening with these boys. They were being taken across the border, without any paperwork or documentation, to Pakistan where there are lots of these madrassahs. They train these children and then they send them back to carry out attacks.”

The shame, the crime of stealing the youth, the lives of these children rests solely on the heads of the base criminals leading the Taliban theocracy. They are as guilty as any thug who steals and kills children for profit.

Using schools, clothing and food for the poor as an instrument to brainwash children is nothing new – in many cultures. Doing so to turn them into murderers is reprehensible.

Men may think about sex more often than women do, but a new study suggests that men also think about other biological needs, such as eating and sleep, more frequently than women do, as well.

And the research discredits the persistent stereotype that men think about sex every seven seconds, which would amount to more than 8,000 thoughts about sex in 16 waking hours. In the study, the median number of young men’s thought about sex stood at almost 19 times per day. Young women in the study reported a median of nearly 10 thoughts about sex per day.

As a group, the men also thought about food almost 18 times per day and sleep almost 11 times per day, compared to women’s median number of thoughts about eating and sleep, at nearly 15 times and about 8 1/2 times, respectively…

“If you had to know one thing about a person to best predict how often they would be thinking about sex, you’d be better off knowing their emotional orientation toward sexuality, as opposed to knowing whether they were male or female,” said Terri Fisher, professor of psychology at Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus and lead author of the study. “Frequency of thinking about sex is related to variables beyond one’s biological sex…”

Before the thought-tracking began, the participants completed a number of questionnaires. These included a sexual opinion survey to measure a positive or negative emotional orientation toward sexuality (erotophilia vs. erotophobia); a sociosexual orientation inventory measuring attitudes about sex and tracking sexual behavior and levels of desire; a social desirability scale to measure respondents’ tendency to try to appear socially acceptable; and an eating habits questionnaire and sleepiness scale. They also were asked to estimate how many times in an average day that they thought about sleeping, eating and sex…

And when all of those thoughts were taken into account in the statistical analysis, the difference between men and women in their average number of daily thoughts about sex wasn’t considered any larger than the gender differences between thoughts about sleep or thoughts about food.

I joke that I don’t differentiate much between food and sex. Folks always chuckle – for the wrong reason. They think I mean food is as important as sex when what I mean is that sex is as important as food.

A man has escaped jail after he secretly added steroids to his wife’s food to make her put on weight and “keep her at home”.

Dalwara Singh slipped steroids into his wife’s dinner, causing her to break out in spots and grow hair on her face. He was only caught out when the couple’s teenage daughter heard him grinding a pestle and mortar in his bedroom.

His now estranged wife then found the steroids hidden in a locked cupboard and called the police.

At Leicester Crown Court, Singh admitted administering a poison or noxious substance with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy. Giving Singh a suspended jail sentence, Judge Ebraham Mooncey said he was fortunate to escape prison.

The judge said: “You may have been doing it to make her give up her job, gain weight and stay indoors and make her want you and rely on you. “It was a well-planned exercise and you say you gave her the steroids at least four or five times. It’s had a terrible effect on her, causing long-term emotional harm…”

Singh was given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered to attend a domestic abuse programme.

He was also made the subject of a restraining order which bans contact with his estranged wife other than through solicitors or social services.

The court has determined the amount of steroids administered were limited and should have no lasting effect on Ms Singh. I would have put a provision in the sentence that made him responsible for any health problems which may show up. She’s suffered enough at his hands not to have to worry about future surprises.

It has come to light that British spies looked at an…audacious way of derailing the man behind the German war machine – by giving him female sex hormones. Agents planned to smuggle doses of oestrogen into his food to make him less aggressive and more like his docile younger sister Paula, who worked as a secretary…

Spies working for the British were close enough to Hitler to have access to his food, said Professor Brian Ford, who discovered the plot.

He explained that oestrogen was chosen because it was tasteless and would have a slow and subtle effect, meaning it would pass Hitler’s food testers unnoticed. He went on: “There were agents who would be able to get it into his food – it would have been entirely possible…”

The oestrogen plan is outlined in a new book Prof Ford has written called Secret Weapons: Technology, Science And The Race To Win World War II.

He said the idea was just one of many strange attempts to bring a swifter end to the war. Other possibilities included dropping glue on Nazi troops in an attempt to stick them to the ground and disguising bombs in tins of fruit being imported to Germany. They also considered dropping boxes of poisonous snakes on enemy troops…

Prof Ford unearthed details of the hare-brained schemes by looking through stacks of recently declassified files.

Anyone who has spent serious time with any military command on Planet Earth will immediately recognize the likelihood of the plots in Professor Ford’s book. There is no branch of government – in any government – that can be as completely convinced of the dumbest Dodo ideas than the military.

Always ready to waste great quantity of national funds on the most lamebrained schemes ever conceived of by one or another madman.

Before you ask. This sort of silliness isn’t limited to California.

For most travelers, peanuts are a favorite snack: tasty, easily portable, and nutritious to boot. But for a growing portion of the population suffering from nut allergies, peanuts represent a potentially deadly threat – especially within the confines of an airplane. For some sufferers with a particularly strong allergy, even inhaling peanut particles in the air can trigger a mild allergic reaction.

Should peanuts be banned from airlines altogether? That’s the center of this ongoing debate, which came to a head last summer when the Department of Transportation proposed a series of measures to protect allergic sufferers from peanuts on planes. While the DOT stated that it would not take any action until a comprehensive, peer-reviewed study on the dangers of peanuts on planes was released, the proposed measures include a complete peanut ban or a “peanut-free” buffer zone around any allergic travelers…

The suggestions came as a surprise to the peanut industry, says Patrick Archer, President of the American Peanut Council. According to Archer, only two carriers still distribute peanuts to passengers, and those that do already have policies in place to make sure that allergic passengers can notify the airline ahead of time.

In addition, Archer said, peanuts were the only food targeted by the DOT. “If they are going to put out regulations on food allergens, we think it should be comprehensive, taking into account all food allergens,” Archer pointed out…

“We have smaller families, do not live on farms, use many treatments to prevent or treat infection,” pediatrician Scott Schirer said. “The thought is that our immune system is ‘looking for something to attack,’ and may erroneously attack harmless foods, pollens, animal danders and the like…”

“If you want to ban peanuts on airplanes, you still would not be able to effectively enforce that regulation, since people often bring their own snacks on board,” Archer said. “A ban might create a false sense of security for allergy sufferers.” According to Archer, the existing policies aimed towards educating passengers about the risk of peanuts for allergic sufferers suffice without any further legislation.

The only folks I know offhand with dangerous allergies are the two classic: bee stings and shellfish. Those folks are bright enough to examine their surroundings, what food they get near and, in the case of bee stings, carry an injectable remedy.

The rest of us probably should continue to have access to peanuts. It’s part of the Southwest Airlines mystique.

Rejection

A restaurant near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington State has refused to serve Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, posting a prominent sign by the door stating they are not welcome. Is this is a good thing…?

First, the action of the restaurant owner is legal. Discrimination against non-protected classes in the United States does not run afoul of the law…

You won’t find the TSA on that list. Refusing to serve TSA employees can be tricky, though. What if a Transportation Security Officer (TSO) in uniform who is black enters the restaurant. Will the owner throw him out? What about a TSO in uniform who is obviously older than 40 years of age. Will the owner throw him out? A female TSO out of costume orders her meal. During the service, the waiter notices the officer’s badge that clearly identifies the officer as a TSA employee. Will the owner discontinue service? Will the owner admonish the female TSO that next time she won’t be served?

I would hope the answer to all those questions would be yes, but if I was running a restaurant I would certainly be uncomfortable turning away a paying customer, especially one who could come back and claim I discriminated on the basis of their age, gender, or race.

Nevertheless, I think the restaurant owner in Seattle is doing the right thing. As long as it made clear that TSOs are refused service because of the organization they represent, I would hope that any lawsuit claiming unlawful discrimination would fail.

Although I do not hold TSA agents in high regard (because they have chosen to aid and abet in eroding civil liberties in the United States), I do not dislike any TSA agents personally. More so than anything, I pity that they must come to work and play a game of charades each day. But I associate the TSA with corruption, incompetence, and un-Americanism. Looking at it through that perspective, I cannot blame the restaurant owner for choosing the course of action he has embarked upon.

Local coppers have aided the restaurant owner – ejecting TSA officers who refused to leave.

Still – as much of my life as I’ve dedicated to open access to public facilities for everyone – I have to appreciate the humor, the sense of turnabout is fair play.

First Lady Michelle Obama joined Walmart on Thursday as the retail giant announced a plan to make thousands of its food products more nutritious — a move supported by her campaign to reduce childhood obesity.

Walmart is promising to work with suppliers to reduce the salt and sugar in packaged foods, cut the costs of healthful fruits and vegetables, and develop a logo that consumers can use to choose healthier items. As part of its five-year plan, the company will also build stores in areas not already served by groceries.

As the nation’s biggest grocery retailer, Walmart has the clout to potentially transform the whole food marketplace, said Obama, whose “Let’s Move” campaign is targeted at combating obesity in children.

“When 140 million people a week are shopping at Walmart, then day by day and meal by meal all these small changes can start to make a big difference for our children’s health,” said the first lady, who was joined by Walmart executives as they announced the plan at a community center in Washington, D.C….

Obama said that when she first decided to take on the issue of childhood obesity, she was skeptical as to whether it could work or whether anyone was interested in making the needed changes.

“But today, when I see a company like Walmart launch an initiative like this, I feel more hopeful than ever before that the answer to these questions is yes,” she said…

Something always welcome. Whether you evaluate capitalist economics as history or global process, the buying power and collateral market effects of a giant like WalMart can be a positive as easily a negative. This is one of the former.

No – not that sort of drunken bird!

There was nothing mysterious about the death of a flock of birds in Romania last week — they were simply drunk, veterinarians said.

Residents of the Black Sea city of Constanta alerted authorities on Saturday after they found dozens of dead starlings, fearing they may have been infected with bird flu, which triggered mass deaths in avian populations in 2004-2006.

“Tests on five birds showed gizzards full of grape marc which caused their death,” Romeu Lazar, head of the city’s veterinary authority told Reuters, referring to a pulpy residue which is a by-product of winemaking.

“This also applies to two dead crows we tested,” Lazar said. Birds are not used to alcohol but harsh winter and snow had prevented birds from finding food. Had they been able to eat some seeds, this would have diluted the poison…”

There have been a series of unexplained mass bird deaths in several countries across the globe in the last few weeks, including in the United States and Sweden.

A predictable number of conspiracy loonies have come forward with outlandish “causes” – most of which are about as out of touch with reality as the prophets offering them.