23 Mar 2009
Dalai Lama refused visa for peace summit

Gosh, maybe we shouldn't have "let the focus shift" to apartheid back in the 80's, eh? It was so distracting from our Super Bowls. Human rights champions, my ass.

South Africa has refused the Dalai Lama a visa to attend an international peace conference in Johannesburg this week, a presidential spokesman said. The Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Laureate did not receive a visa because it was not in South Africa's interest for him to attend, said Thabo Masebe. "We cannot allow focus to shift to China and Tibet," Masebe said.

(link) [CNN.com]

Update:The dustup canned the whole conference.

20:33 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Early agriculture left traces in animal bones

Interesting approach ...

Unraveling the origins of agriculture in different regions around the globe has been a challenge for archeologists. Now researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences report finding evidence of early human experiments with grain cultivation in East Asia. They gathered this information from an unlikely source -- dog and pig bones.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

20:27 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Fla. student suspended from bus for passing gas

In todays world, I would never have made it out of middle school without being jailed ...

AP - An eighth-grader was suspended from riding the school bus for three days after being accused of passing gas. The bus driver wrote on a misbehavior form that a 15-year-old teen passing gas on the bus Monday to make the other children laugh, creating a stench so bad that it was difficult to breathe. The bus driver handed the teen the suspension form the next day.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

20:24 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link