Polygyny

According to the BBC, the old man with 86 wives agreed to divorce 82 of them.

Update here.

Previous: Pick Four

Putin and the Tiger

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin supposedly used a tranquilizer gun to save a television crew from an Amur tiger.

Sorry, I don't believe the story. I had to wait two minutes for a Bengal tiger to fall after I had shot it with a tranquilizer gun.

Governor Palin

Maureen Dowd wrote an amusing column about Sarah Palin:

The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”

I get a kick out of the recent attacks on Sarah. Most of the negative comments come from city slickers.

A country girl can survive.

Related: Palin electrifies conservatives.

Business Heritage

Who Made America?

Rainmakers

Angry villagers beat two old rainmakers to death in eastern Uganda.

"The mob blamed a long dry spell on the victims," a traveler said.

Cat in Kenya

This week a leopard injured five people in Kenya's Eastern Province. Wildlife rangers shot the cat.

Police Horse

A police horse killed a 78-year-old man at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.

Navy Patrols

Staff writer Andrew Scutro of the Navy Times: "Things are about to get even more intense in the Gulf of Aden, already a perennial global hotspot, as U.S. and allied naval forces clamp down on piracy in the troubled waters."

John McCain

Subj: John McCain's decision to choose Sarah Palin

It's a "Top Gun" move. McCain is an aggressive pilot in a dogfight.

Related: McCain's brilliant trap

Sweden's Nessie

Headline at IOL: "Sweden's Nessie caught on camera."

Giant Clam

BBC News: "Scientists have discovered a new species of giant clam in the Red Sea."

Gold Wreath

An astonishing find puzzles Greek archaeologists. IOL has the story.

Sarah Palin

John McCain picked "Sarah Barracuda" as his running mate. Together they seem like a dynamic duo from the fantasies of Papa Hemingway. The two candidates have my support.

Writing about Sarah, American Don Surber says:

She is a sensible, level-headed and successful woman who is pro-life. She hunts. She fishes. She eats moose burgers. She inhaled — when it was legal in Alaska. As the mother of 5, she knows what the stakes are. She is the lioness who will protect this nation and defend the rights of its citizens.

Hat tip: Jules Crittenden

Business Heritage

According to Harper's Bazaar, soldiers gave French fashion designer Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel the nickname Coco.

Blood Spots

A leopard attacked several people in South Africa.

Settlements

University of Florida:

They aren’t the lost cities early explorers sought fruitlessly to discover.

But ancient settlements in the Amazon, now almost entirely obscured by tropical forest, were once large and complex enough to be considered “urban” as the term is commonly applied to both medieval European and ancient Greek communities.

Business Heritage

Burberry introduced the modern trench coat in 1914.

Flies

Why are flies so hard to swat? The answer is here.

Primates in Cambodia

In Cambodia a team of scientists discovered large populations of two globally threatened primates.

Sumatran Tigers and Elephants

Sumatran tiger

Photo: Jessie Cohen, NZP

Indonesia plans to double the size of a haven for Sumatran tigers and elephants.

Monks

Cops are investigating a brutal attack on four Franciscan monks at a monastery in northern Italy. Journalists are comparing the attack to the violence in the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange.

Business Heritage

Inventor Thomas A. Edison electrocuted an elephant to prove a point. A century later, Tom Vanderbilt wrote about the execution.

Krasnoyarsk Krai

RIA Novosti: "Four people were injured when a bear went on the rampage in a village in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, East Siberia, a police spokesman said on Thursday."

Skeleton in the Jungle

Hikers reportedly found the skeleton of a World War II pilot in Papua New Guinea.

Snakes and Mummies

Independent Online has an article about mummies in Peru. The Japan Times has an article about venomous snakes in Tokyo.

Somalia

Voice of America: "New details are emerging of a link between rising piracy off the coast of Somalia and insurgent activities on shore."

Stockholm-Arlanda Airport

A 78-year-old woman went down a baggage chute at Sweden's largest airport.

Rat Meat

The price of rat meat quadrupled in Cambodia this year.

Business Heritage

Read the online version of the definitive book about Bechtel.

Deadly Python

At a Venezuelan zoo a Burmese python killed a 29-year-old man.

Ice

BBC News: "An Arctic hooded seal with an apparent aversion to the cold is overcoming his phobia with the aid of an ice machine."

Garden State

In New Jersey a 15-pound dog boldly confronted three bears.

Smithsonian Magazine

The September issue of Smithsonian magazine is up!

Bonny the Cat

"Bonny the cat is making headlines in Germany after surviving seven weeks walled in under a bathtub," says Spiegel Online.

Insects

Voice of America's Steve Herman reports from New Delhi:

Poaching of tigers, lions and rhinos in Asia is a well-publicized problem. But now conservationists are expressing concern about smaller wildlife being caught in a criminal net.

Many of the region's insects are being killed to satisfy a demand for beautiful and rare bugs encased in plastic key chains and paperweights or enclosed in greeting cards. Extracts of some beetles are used in traditional medicines in parts of Asia and Latin America. Some of the insect species, dead or alive, can fetch thousands of dollars from wealthy international collectors.

Russian Lion

The bulls are searching for a runaway lion in Tartarstan.

Incense

Burning incense increases the risk of respiratory-tract cancers.

Stone Tools

University of Exeter, United Kingdom:

Research by UK and American scientists has struck another blow to the theory that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) became extinct because they were less intelligent than our ancestors (Homo sapiens). The research team has shown that early stone-tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals.

Previous: Sophisticated Neanderthals

War and Remembrance

Subj: World War II

News from the caravan of mass media:

• German prisoners — Georg Bönisch, Der Spiegel
• Nazi doctor — Markus Balser, Wall Street Journal
• Massacre in France — Alasdair Sandford, BBC News

Giant Statue

From Paul Rincon of BBC News: "Parts of a giant, exquisitely carved marble sculpture depicting the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius have been found at an archaeological site in Turkey."

Boar Hunters

RIA Novosti:

A man was shot dead by his drunk friend as they were hunting in the central Russian Penza Region, about 600 km (370 miles) southeast of Moscow, the head of the local hunting department said on Monday.

Nikolai Sodomov said the two friends had gone boar hunting after an evening's drinking, even though the boar hunting season has already ended in the region.

As the two men looked for boars in darkness, one of them heard a noise in the bushes and opened fire. The "boar" was his friend, who later died on his way to hospital.

Olympics

"A squirrel looking for nuts in a power plant inadvertently caused an 80-minute power outage that shut down Switzerland's main television broadcaster just as the final ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was about to be shown," Spiegel Online says.

Pet Cats

Australia's Deakin University:

The fine dining habits of pet cats are placing pressure on dwindling fish supplies that might be better used for human consumption, according to a Deakin University fish nutrition scientist.

Dr. Giovanni Turchini, with colleague Professor Sena De Silva, has found that an estimated 2.48 million tonnes of forage fish — an increasingly limited biological resource — is used by the global cat-food industry each year.

"That such a large amount of fish is used for the pet-food industry is a real eye-opener," Dr. Turchini said.

"What is also interesting is that, in Australia, pet cats are eating an estimated 13.7 kilograms of fish a year, which far exceeds the Australian average per capita fish and seafood consumption of around 11 kilograms. Our pets seem to be eating better than their owners."

Wild forage fish — such as sardines, herring, anchovy, and capelin — are an important link in the marine food chain, forming the diet for larger fish such as cod, tuna, and swordfish.

Background: Forage fish

News release from Deakin University (PDF)

Business Heritage

Fifty years ago, Reader's Digest published a story about the bizarre life of Charles Goodyear.

Coffee

Alfred Peet mentored a generation of coffee entrepreneurs, including the founders of Starbucks.

Shadowy Deals

William J. Broad and David E. Sanger of the New York Times:

A C.I.A. deal with a family of Swiss engineers helped end Libya’s bomb program, reveal Iran’s atomic labors and undo Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear black market, officials said.

Previous: Dark Side of the Street

Penang Island

ABC Online in Australia has a report about the wedding of two ghosts in Malaysia.

Business Heritage

In 1907 young Jim Casey borrowed USD 100 from a friend to start the American Messenger Co. In 1913 the company changed is name to Merchants Parcel Delivery. Six years later, the company adopted its present name, United Parcel Service.

Yo Ho Ho

Somali pirates fired on a Japanese-operated cargo ship today. They failed to capture the vessel.

AP notes: "The attempted hijack comes just days after pirates seized four other vessels — Malaysian, Iranian, Japanese and German — in the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast."

Rich pirates enjoy near-celebrity status in Somalia.

Related:
"The Scourge of Somalia’s Seas" by Jason McLure, Newsweek

Research on Bigfoot

NPR:

Cryptozoologists, people who study unknown animal species, are no strangers to a good Sasquatch hoodwinking. But Jeffrey Meldrum, a professor of anatomy and biological sciences at Idaho State University and author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, doesn't think such pranks should deter academic research on bigfoot.

I didn't link to recent news about "bigfoot in Georgia" because I didn't believe the tall tale. However, I never forget a comment by Dr. Jane Goodall:

Does Sasquatch exist? There are countless people — especially indigenous people — in different parts of America who claim to have seen such a creature. And in many parts of the world I meet those who, in a matter-of-fact way, tell me of their encounters with large, bipedal, tailless hominids. I think I have read every article and every book about these creatures, and while most scientists are not satisfied with existing evidence, I have an open mind.

Spy Swaps

German lawyer Wolfgang Vogel brokered the exchange of more than 150 spies during his life.

Irish Farmer

Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co., 1890s

War Correspondent

Today's pouch from the New York Times contains a noteworthy article by Dexter Filkins.

Loving Dog

Daniel Schweimler of BBC News: "An eight-year-old dog has touched the hearts of Argentines by saving the life of an abandoned baby, placing him safely alongside her own new puppies."

Making a Killing

Ulrike Putz at Spiegel Online:

After Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim was stabbed to death in her Dubai apartment, clues led back to the most elevated economic and political circles in Egypt. The murder is a story of sex, violence, glamor and secrets.

Read the whole thing.

Gonarezhou National Park

Poachers recently killed three black rhinos in Zimbabwe.

"Rangers found the carcasses at Gonarezhou National Park," a trader said. "The horns were missing."

Uniforms

U.S. Army: Dress greens are out.

Ivory Poachers

This year poachers slaughtered one-fifth of the elephants in Africa's oldest national park.

Long Bridge

Here is more about the proposal to build a suspension bridge between Asia and Africa.

Previous: Bridge

Flightless Bird

Lawmen used a Taser to subdue a runaway emu in Florida.

Emus defecate a lot. The zapped bird's name is Plop-Plop.

Fact Sheet: Emu

Luck

Simon Romero of the New York Times: "With farmers and urban dwellers searching for blessings in Bolivia, no month beats August for the yatiris — specialists in divining good luck."

Amur Leopards

"The survival of the 35 remaining Amur leopards of the Russian Far East has been given a huge boost following a government decision to establish a unified, centrally governed protected area," WWF says.

Meat

A crocodile killed a 25-year-old man in Bangladesh.

Tahitian Vanilla

UC Riverside:

The origin of the Tahitian vanilla orchid, whose cured fruit is the source of the rare and highly esteemed gourmet French Polynesian spice, has long eluded botanists. Known by the scientific name Vanilla tahitensis, Tahitian vanilla is found to exist only in cultivation; natural, wild populations of the orchid have never been encountered.

Now, a team of investigators led by Pesach Lubinsky, a postdoctoral researcher with Norman Ellstrand, a professor of genetics in UC Riverside’s Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, claims to have traced Tahitian vanilla back to its true origins.

In the August issue of the American Journal of Botany, Lubinsky and colleagues use genetic and ethnohistoric analysis to argue that Tahitian vanilla began its evolutionary journey as a pre-Columbian Maya cultivar inside the tropical forests of Guatemala.

Read more.

Two Ships

Pirates captured a Japanese tanker and an Iranian bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden.

Parole

BBC News: "The South African man convicted of feeding one of his ex-workers to the lions has been freed on parole, after three years in jail."

Pick Four

BBC News: "Nigeria's Islamic authority has told the man who has 86 wives to choose only four and repent within three days or else he will be sentenced to death."

Previous: Wives and Children

Royal Wives

Nine of King Mswati III's 13 wives left Swaziland on a chartered plane to shop in Europe and the Middle East. Some Swazi women are angry about the trip. Swaziland is one of the world's poorest countries.

Prague Spring

Spiegel Online has a piece about the end of Czechoslovakia's "Prague Spring" in 1968: "Western Spies Were Out in the Cold."

Business Heritage

American poet Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive.

Runaway Cats

In Florida a lion and a Bengal tiger escaped from a wildlife sanctuary. Searchers found and captured the cats.

Big Spender

Nigerian authorities accused a top development official of spending government funds on black magic.

Lost in Laos

Karen Percy, ABC Online, Australia: "A Melbourne man is in a critical condition in a Bangkok hospital after getting stranded in the jungles of Laos for 11 days."

Malaysian Ship

Somali pirates seized a Malaysian tanker.

Slovenia

Girl, Duchy of Carniola, 1897
Photographer: Benedikt Lergetporer

Photochrom: Detroit Photographic Co.

Tree Lover

RIA Novosti:

A Croatian pensioner committed suicide after a tree growing in front of his house was cut down to make way for a highway, local media said on Wednesday.

The 83-year-old man, from Zlatar, in northwest Croatia, shot himself in front of road workers Tuesday shortly after they had cut the tree down, media reported.

The oak tree was cut down to allow widening of a nearby highway.

The pensioner, who was distraught about the tree being cleared, had earlier threatened local authorities with extreme action in an attempt to save his favorite tree.

German Dinosaur

Spiegel Online: "Traces of a dinosaur found a German quarry suggest the creatures may have been 15 million years older than previously believed."

Business Heritage

At the DuPont Heritage Web site you can travel through more than 200 years of time.

Fort Hunt Park

Fort Hunt Park in Virginia was the site of a top-secret interrogation center for German POWs during and right after World War II.

U.S. National Park Service:

One of the reasons that secrecy was so vital was the simple fact that the operations at Fort Hunt were not exactly legal according to the Geneva Code of Conventions. Prisoners from whom the allies felt they might obtain valuable information, particularly submarine crews, were transferred to Fort Hunt immediately after their capture. Then they were held incommunicado and questioned incessantly until they either volunteered what they knew or convinced the Americans that they were not going to talk. Only then were they transferred to a regular POW camp and the International Red Cross notified of their capture.

More: Fort Hunt - The Forgotten Story (PDF)

Pam Fessler of NPR wrote a three-part series about the intelligence operations at Fort Hunt:

1. Breaking the Silence of a Secret POW Camp
2. Former GIs Spill Secrets of WWII POW Camp
3. Fort Hunt GIs Sent WWII POWs Care Packages

Flour People

Spiegel Online: "Every year at the end of Carnival, the Greek village of Galaxidi erupts in a day-long flour war."

News from Nepal

Living goddesses have human rights, Nepal's Supreme Court ruled.

Skeletons

"Archaelogists have made a grisly, fascinating discovery in central Berlin — a giant medieval graveyard containing 2,000 corpses, many of them children," reports Spiegel Online.

Business Heritage

Shell: "How the Samuel family business grew from a shop selling sea shells into a rapidly expanding oil company."

Brooklyn

"A cruel thief swiped a rare two-headed turtle from a window tank in a Brooklyn pet store," the New York Daily News says.

Caves

Mexican archaeologists discovered a maze of temples in underground caves.

Cat in a Cage

Wildlife experts trapped a man-eating leopard in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

"The leopard killed one person and injured three other people before the capture," a trader told me.

Undertakers

"Two German undertakers have been arrested on suspicion of doing in a rival undertaker and then doing away with his body," says Spiegel Online.

Muslims

Mussulmen praying, Holy Land, 1890s

Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co.

Knights Templar

"A group of people claiming to be the heirs of the legendary Knights Templar are suing Pope Benedict XVI, seeking more than $150 billion for assets seized by the Catholic Church seven centuries ago," NPR reports.

Business Heritage

Editor Max Perkins helped push to fame such writers as Ring Lardner, Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Big Tree

At an undisclosed location in California, the tallest known living tree soars more than 379 feet into the sky.

Shroud

The Los Angeles Times has an article about the Shroud of Turin.

Land of the Cobra

A king cobra apparently killed a rhino at Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary in India's state of West Bengal.

Dancing with the Dead

BBC News:

To outsiders, dancing with the corpse of a dead loved one, years after their demise, might seem ghoulish. But as Jonny Hogg reports, to the people of Madagascar, it is a ritual of respect for their departed ancestors.

Bethlehem

Young woman of Bethlehem, Holy Land, 1890s
Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co.

Business Heritage

"One of France's most iconic cars, the Citroën 2CV, is celebrating its 60th birthday this October," the BBC says.

Web site: History of Citroën

Lost Expedition

Canada's government plans to search for the Terror and Erebus, the two ships of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. The announcement is here and the backgrounder is here.

Sir Nils Olav

Norway's newest knight is a penguin.

Bird

Scientists discovered a previously unknown species of bird.

Japan's Longest Day

Japan Times staff writer Reiji Yoshida: "August 15, 1945, a scorcher without a cloud in the sky, is one of the most emotional dates for the Japanese people, as it is considered the day the nation surrendered and ended World War II."

Talker

Dr. Russell H. Conwell, the founder Pennslvania's Temple University, delivered his famous lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," more than 6,000 times before his death in 1925.

Sandstone Coffins

Durham University archaeologists dug up two Roman sarcophagi in the United Kingdom.

Green Sahara

University of Chicago:

The largest Stone Age graveyard found in the Sahara, which provides an unparalleled record of life when the region was green, has been discovered in Niger by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and University of Chicago Professor Paul Sereno, whose team first happened on the site during a dinosaur-hunting expedition.

The remarkable archaeological site, dating back 10,000 years and called Gobero after the Tuareg name for the area, was brimming with skeletons of humans and animals — including large fish and crocodiles. Gobero is hidden away within Niger's forbidding Ténéré Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a "desert within a desert." The Ténéré is the setting of some of Sereno's key paleontological discoveries, including the 500-toothed, plant-eating dinosaur Nigersaurus that lived 110 million years ago and the enormous extinct crocodilian Sarcosuchus, also known as SuperCroc.

The discovery of the lakeside graveyard — representing two successive human populations divided by more than 1,000 years — is reported in the September 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine and the August 14 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

As they explored the site, the team tiptoed among dozens of fossilized human skeletons laid bare on the surface of an ancient dune field by the hot Saharan wind. Jawbones still clenched nearly full sets of teeth; a tiny hand reached up through the sand, its finger bones intact. On the surface lay harpoon points, potsherds, beads and stone tools. The site was pristine, apparently never visited.

"Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don't live in the desert," said Sereno. "I realized we were in the green Sahara."

The rest is here.

Thai Vessel

Pirates hijacked a Thai ship off the coast of Somalia.

Bench Press

IOL:

A "lonely and disturbed" Hong Kong man had to call police to try and free him after his penis got stuck in a park bench he had apparently tried to have sex with, reports said.

Business Heritage

"The HSBC Group is named after its founding member, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, which was established in 1865 to finance the growing trade between Europe, India and China," HSBC reminisces.

Roman Empress

Paul Rincon of the BBC: "Archaeologists digging in Turkey have found the colossal marble head of a Roman empress."

People of the Uplands

Los Angeles Times staff writer Paul Watson wrote a piece about the Torajans of Sulawesi.

Related: "Toraja," a featured article at Wikipedia

Novel

Put Tethered on your list of novels to buy and read.

Ice Cream Killers

In Germany the dying woman whispered, "Please help me, Kosta!"

Kostadinos was unable to help.

Spiegel Online has the story.

Chinese Food

The Los Angeles Times has an article about Panda Express.

Web site: Panda Express

Rat Snacks

Via South Africa's Independent Online: "Eating rats is the best way for rich and poor people to solve the global crisis of rising food prices, an Indian official said Wednesday as he unveiled his plan to put rodents on menus."

Biodiversity Crisis

Rachel Tompa at UC Berkeley: "Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley."

Dog Turd

RIA Novosti has news from Switzerland: "A giant inflatable dog turd created by an American artist blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, wreaking havoc on nearby streets, local media reported on Tuesday."

Business Heritage

Here is the history of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Extinctions

University of Exeter: "New evidence implicates humans in prehistoric animal extinctions."

Pagan Temple

Diggers unearthed the ruins of a pagan temple in Israel.

Stolen Art

"In 2006, a treasure trove of art — some of it stolen — was found in a New York apartment," the FBI says. "The search is on for the rightful owners."

Skunk Bomb

Voice of America:

Israeli security forces have started to use a foul-smelling liquid to disperse Palestinian protests in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli police say the new crowd-control method, which they call a "skunk bomb," was used for the first time Friday in the village of Naalin. Palestinians have been holding almost daily protests against a security barrier that Israel is building in the area.

Israeli police say a water-spraying device showered the liquid on the demonstrators, forcing most to rush off to change their clothes.

A Fight Over Food

From the official Russian news agency RIA Novosti:

A man in East Siberia has been injured after "arguing" with a bear over food supplies, a Russian emergencies ministry spokesman said on Monday.

The bear approached a camp in the Krasnoyarsk Territory where a group of holidaymakers were staying late on Sunday night. Upon seeing the bear, the campers ran away from their tents and returned later to see the animal eating their food.

One of them, a 35-year-old man from the nearby town of Minusinsk, started to shout at the animal and tried to get his food back. Instead of relinquishing the food, however, the bear hit out at the holidaymaker three times before leaving the camp.

The holidaymaker suffered a broken arm and various other injuries in the attack.

Dead Walruses

RIA Novosti:

Border officials in Chukotka, Russia's Far East, discovered over 800 walrus carcasses believed to have been killed by poachers for their valuable tusks, a Russian natural resources ministry spokesman said.

The carcasses were found with gunshot wounds on the coastline of the Chukotka Peninsula near the Chegitun River on Friday. Officials believe that the mammals were killed around two to four weeks ago.

Now You See Him

BBC News reports: "Scientists in the U.S. say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people invisible."

Anchorage

A grizzly bear attacked a 51-year-old woman at Far North Bicentennial Park in Anchorage, Alaska.

Feng Shui

According to feng shui masters, the Singapore Flyer was rotating in the wrong direction.

Web site: Singapore Flyer

Business Heritage

Sharon Ann Holt, Pennsylvania Legacies, 2001:

The story of the Coxe family mining interests in Pennsylvania’s anthracite region began long before there were families craving anthracite to burn in their stoves and fireplaces. And part of the story began far away from Pennsylvania.

Ireland: The Emerald Isle

Colleen, 1890s
Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co.

Voyage

Lina Sinjab in Damascus:

On Arwad Island off the coast of Syria, a group of 20 sailors-to-be are preparing for a voyage their captain believes has not been undertaken for two and a half millennia.

They plan to set off on Sunday on a journey that attempts to replicate what the Greek historian Herodotus mentions as the first circumnavigation of Africa in about 600 BC.

Read the full story at the BBC.

Shelved

From the New York Times:

Random House has reversed a decision to publish a historical novel with Islamic themes, saying the company feared the book “could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

Germans

"Two Germans kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Somalia and held captive for five weeks have been released," the BBC says.

Strategy

In Kenya a small bottler faces stiff competition from multinationals.

My advice to entrepreneurs in similar situations:

Business is war. Almost everything you need to know about strategy you can learn from Sun Tzu and Mao Zedong. More than 70 years ago, Mao wrote: "When guerrillas engage a stronger enemy, they withdraw when he advances; harass him when he stops; strike him when he is weary; pursue him when he withdraws."

Hollywood

Bob Mondello of National Public Radio looks back at Hollywood's Hays Code: "For decades it barred screen vice. But it never kept up with the public — and by 1968, it was done."

Business Heritage

Newspaper Row, New York City, circa 1900

Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co.

Red

"Success has a color, and the color is red," says Holger Dambeck at Spiegel Online.

When I wear a suit, I always wear a red tie.

Navy Interrupts Pirates

The U.S. Navy stopped a pirate attack on a merchant ship near the coast of Somalia.

Fry Me Kangaroo Brown, Sport

University of New South Wales in Australia: "Skippy could be on more menus following a report that expanding the kangaroo industry would significantly cut greenhouse gases."

Previous: More Australians are eating kangaroo meat.

Abduction

At the New York Times, Marc Santora wrote about a pigeon abduction in New York City's Chinatown.

Wives and Children

Andrew Walker of BBC News:

Nigerian Mohammed Bello Abubakar, 84, has advised other men not to follow his example and marry 86 women.

The former teacher and Muslim preacher, who lives in Niger State with his wives and at least 170 children, says he is able to cope only with the help of God.

Read more.

Hungry Guest

RIA Novosti: "A man in southern Russia has been accused of killing his guest with an axe for 'eating too much,' local prosecutors said Thursday."

Milk

Press release from the University of Bristol in England:

Humans were processing cattle milk in pottery vessels more than 2,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new research from the University of Bristol.

Lion Fighter

In Mexico a woman used a machete to fight an African lion.

Toy Story

A toy saved the life of a 3-year-old girl in Russia.

Camel Riders

BBC News: "Six people have been killed and 28 wounded after men on camels attacked a civilian convoy in the Sudanese region of Darfur, the UN has said."

Las Vegas

Bob Maheu died.

"Mr. Maheu was a chief aide to Howard Hughes, and engineered the deals for the Hughes business empire that helped change the face of Las Vegas," the New York Times notes.

Maheu never met Hughes in person. The aide caught glimpses of his reclusive boss twice.

Corruption in Iran

"An unprecedented and highly sensitive investigative report prepared for Iran's Parliament has detailed instances of corruption throughout the country's judiciary," Voice of America reports.

Business Heritage

Jacob Davis (1831-1908) invented riveted pants. Levi Strauss & Co. tells the story.

Carriage

Bulgarian archaeologists unearthed an ancient carriage.

Man-Eater Strikes Again

A leopard took the life of an 8-year-old boy in India's state of Jammu and Kashmir.

"The same leopard killed a 6-year-old girl several days ago," a trader said.

Previous: Young Girl

Oranges

Spiegel Online: "Italy stages its biggest food fight each year in the Piedmont town of Ivrea, where thousands gather each year before Lent to reenact a medieval battle by hurling oranges at each other."

Face from the Past

Sheik at a village in Palestine, 1890s
Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co.

Morgue

RIA Novosti: "An Indian pilgrim who fainted in a stampede that killed 150 people woke up in a morgue among bodies lined up for autopsies, local media reported Wednesday."

Previous: Stampede

Tigers in Missouri

Via the Los Angeles Times: "Three tigers attacked a worker at an exotic animal park in Missouri — the second tiger attack in the state in as many days."

Pangolins

WWF:

Indonesian officers last week raided the warehouse of a suspected illegal wildlife trader in Palembang, South Sumatra, and have uncovered 14 tons of Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica), leading to the arrests of 14 people.

The raid, which is the largest ever seizure of pangolins in Indonesia, is being linked to two operations earlier this year by Vietnamese customs authorities that uncovered more than 23 tons of pangolins.

Pangolins are reminiscent of armadillos with razor-sharp scales for protection, and are found in tropical regions of Africa and Asia, but demand for their scales and skin in traditional Chinese medicines, as well as their meat for eating, is placing heavy pressure on their dwindling populations.

World Trade

Spiegel Online has an article about the fragmented future of world trade.

Weapons of Grass Destruction

Alison Gendar, Veronika Belenkaya and Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News:

Goats grazing on National Park Service land at Staten Island's Fort Wadsworth managed to do what terrorists wished they could: They sneaked under a fence onto a restricted area near the base of the Verrazano Bridge — without triggering alarms, sources said.

Call of the Wild

Spiegel Online: "The mating call of a badger can sound deceptively like a screaming woman — which explains why one of the furry creatures trying to find a mate in a German forest on Monday night sparked a police helicopter search."

Western Lowland Gorillas

"A survey in the northern Congo Republic has revealed the presence of more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas," reports Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times.

Bras

German policewomen get bulletproof bras. Tristana Moore of the BBC has the details.

Boom, Boom, Boom

News from the drums of the mainstream media:

• Flesh-eating fish give pedicures — NPR, USA
• T. rex no match for Big Tooth — ABC Online, Australia
• Tuskers spread terror in Chhattisgarh's forest — Times of India

Dying for a Salad

"Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has apologized after he recommended use of a poisonous plant in recipes," the BBC says.

Business Heritage

Women occasionally slapped Count Marco's face.

Obituary (1996): Count Marco, outrageous advice columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle

Previous: Scott Newhall

Alone

Parents accidentally left a child at an airport.

Algeria

Biskra, circa 1899

Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co.

Gruesome Crime

A man cut off his girlfriend's head in Greece.

World's Smallest Snake

From BBC News: "The world's smallest snake, averaging just 10 cm (4 inches) and as thin as a spaghetti noodle, has been discovered on the Caribbean island of Barbados."

Stampede

In India a stampede killed at least 140 people.

Poland

Via ABC Online, Australia: "Palaeontologists digging in a brickyard in southern Poland have discovered the remains of a dinosaur they say is a previously unknown ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus rex."

Livestock Thieves

Rustlers reportedly gunned down at least 30 people in Kenya.

Pulp Pro

Writers can find Lester Dent's master plot for 6,000-word pulp stories here.

Biography: Lester Dent

Young Girl

A leopard killed a young girl in India's state of Jammu and Kashmir. Villagers chased the cat into the woods.

Career Advice

Career advice from T. Boone Pickens: "You work eight hours, and you sleep eight hours — be sure they’re not the same eight hours."

Mining Magnate

Alexei Barrionuevo of the New York Times: "João Carlos Cavalcanti, the Brazilian mining magnate, meditates for three hours a day and says he draws strength from the 'cosmos' — when he is not collecting expensive cars."

Don't Say a Word

Memo to Republican politicians:

Stop using the word humble.

Examples:

• John McCain, January 2008: "I am humbled by their example, but proud to claim, that their cause is my cause."
• George W. Bush, January 2006: "Every time I'm invited to this rostrum, I am humbled by the privilege and mindful of the history we've seen together."
• Samuel A. Alito Jr., January 2006: "I’m deeply honored to have been nominated for a position on the Supreme Court and I am humbled to have been nominated for the seat that is now held by Justice O’Connor."
• Condoleezza Rice, January 2005: "I am humbled by President Bush's confidence in me to undertake the great work of leading American diplomacy at such a moment in history."

The list goes on and on. Democrats overuse the word, too.

Show some creativity, folks.

Politics in America

An excerpt from my recent political discussion with my 20-year-old daughter:

Daughter: "I don't think there are very many strong political figures for my generation to look up to right now. Everybody seems to be migrating toward the opinions of excessively liberal Hollywood. Not saying there is anything wrong with liberals, but there are very many major low-IQ liberal influences that reach my generation all too easily."

Dad: "You're not supposed to look up to politicians. You're supposed to look down on politicians."

Business Heritage

Scott Newhall (1914-1992) was a great newspaperman. He was the executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle from 1952 to 1971.

In 1999 Carl Nolte wrote:

His aim was simple: to get more readers. It was, he said, a bit like a circus. Once the customers were in the tent, they would see that the Chronicle had something to offer.

To do it, Newhall turned the paper back to its roots — it again became irreverent, it held up a mirror to the West, informed the readers and had a good time doing it.

The Chronicle went after stories with a vengeance, scooped the opposition and ran rings around them with lively writing and imagination.

Unfortunately, only a small number of American newspapers operate that way today. Most American newspapers are boring.

Old Manuscripts

Spiegel Online has a fascinating article about international efforts to save crumbling manuscripts in Tombouctou.

Russia

"There are almost 100 million acres of farmland lying deserted and unfarmed in one of the world's most fertile areas — land that could feed millions of people," says Daniel Fisher of BBC News.

Teen

An elephant injured a teenage girl in Israel.