Behind the headlines

Obama says American soldiers will now become mercenaries for rich Arabs?

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China in Africa: pushing capitalism but maybe just neocolonialists.

since too many NGO's (including church groups) push a green agenda, this is changing Africa...indeed, just their cheap cellphones are changing the culture.

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Girls who never grow up


via TeaAtTrianon

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Lots of anthropology links at ForWhatTheyWereblog.
here are two examples:

East China engravings show first Oriental writing (~5000 years' old, just slightly younger aged as Sumerian cuneiform writing but much more recent than the controversial Tărtăria tablets of Bulgaria) → The Guardian, English People.

North American natives caused lead pollution in Lake Michigan (oldest recorded) → PPV paper (ER&T),  University of Pittsburg.

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Best headline of the week:

How Snakes Move on a Plane.

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Right now, we are between earthquakes, typhoons, floods and the like, so the headlines are about fighting corruption.

and about Chinese violating Philippine sovereignty, as usual. And not just China: Taiwan is doing it again (the Navy shot the last bunch and caused an international incident, so they figure they can get away with it).

the local NEJournal has photos of local flooding from last week, and reports about another shooting of an election official.


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Big Brother alert: People use less energy if they are monitored.

Ah, but is it legal to snoop on people like this without asking their permission?
Nah, they didn't publish the names so they were allowed to ignore that pesky 4th amendment.

Ambrose says the US study was well designed because people were not always aware their energy consumption was being monitored, but he says this presents ethical problems.
"We couldn't really undertake a study like that in Australia because we need to get permission from people to collect their energy consumption data," he says.
 

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When I was a missionary, we usually knew stuff about what was going on that wasn't in the newspapers. That was why our mail was read, our phone calls were monitored, and even our luggage was searched when we left the country.

CWR has a report from behind the lines in Syria by some Catholic nuns, including a letter they wrote to President Obama.

Summary: what is truth?

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YUM! Cuys. Domesticated 5000 plus years ago.

The first archaeological evidence of the human use of guinea pigs dates to about 9,000 years ago. They may have been domesticated as early as 5,000 BC, probably in the Andes of Ecuador; archaeologists have recovered burned bones and bones with cut marks from midden deposits beginning about that time.

The history of guinea pigs.

more HERE.

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Dr. E writes about the reformist struggle in Tehran's local elections.

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