Stuff below the fold

Mr Blobby says HI-->

Photograph courtesy Kerryn Parkingson, NORFANZ

NatGeo's top ten stories of the year.

and their best photos of the year are HERE.

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Bugs love me.
Heh. Maybe it's not the perfume, but the smelly feet.




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Jane Austen is "in" again.

I thought she was never "out".

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Rep. Kennedy: Addiction 'stigma' fuels mission to help others says the headline.


The last Kennedy standing will play the "victim" card to get back into Congress....must have power, must have power...

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Paying teens to avoid sex works when tried in poor Malawi.
Is it the social reinforcement of traditional morality, or is it because the girls won't have to prostitute themselves to get money?
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StrategyPage describes how sharing information between various gov't organizations made possible the Wikileaks data. But the release actually helped the US:

The leaked documents were meant (according to the Wikileaks leader) to embarrass the United States and expose American hypocrisy and underhanded operations, but the result was quite the opposite. The U.S. was shown trying to do what it said, publically, that it was trying to do. But many other nations were shown to be quite different in their private conversations, than in their public ones.

And then there is this little covered story:

Somalia may starve thanks to the Islamic militants. who attack aid workers and steal supplies...
which is exactly what happened in the Blackhawk Down incident...
.