Photoblog: Cattle banditry threatens peace in young country of South Sudan

Cattle raids are not new in South Sudan. But with a gun surplus left behind by two decades of civil war with Sudan, the raids are more violent, adding fuel to long-standing economic and ethnic rivalries?in the herding communities. South Sudan officially became Africa's 54th nation in July, but the young country continues to struggle with internal violence.

Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images

A herdsman from the Dinka tribe is pictured at a cattle-camp near south Sudan's central town of Rumbek.

BBC News describes the importance of cattle to the South Sudanese culture:

In many South Sudanese communities the cow is incredibly important.

It is a source of personal wealth, and young men cannot get married without paying a dowry of cows.

So, in what are very poor communities, cattle raiding has become a way of life for some.

To make matters worse, automatic weapons are everywhere, following decades of civil war.

In the past, cattle raids caused relatively few casualties. Now the guns boom, and scores or even hundreds die in a day - creating a commensurate desire for revenge.?

Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images

A herdsman stands among his cattle at a cattle-camp near south Sudan's central town of Rumbek on Nov. 13. One of Africa's longest-running wars left this land in ruins and battling a bitter legacy that threatens prospects for peace -- a stockpile of weapons spurring cattle raids and banditry.

See more about Sudan's split?into two countries

Source: http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/25/9025528-cattle-banditry-threatens-peace-in-young-country-of-south-sudan

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Light Strike Assault Striker D.C.R-012

The holiday season is fast approaching, and again parents are asking themselves, "What should I get my kid?" The Light Strike Assault Striker D.C.R-012 ($39.99 list) is the at-home consumer version of laser tag. It comes with one gun and a plastic orb for target practice?and batteries are not included. Playing with this high-tech toy is fun, but parents be warned if you have no intention of joining in the fire-fight: This toy is noisy.

The Assault Striker D.C.R-012 has a bright sci-fi pattern on the exterior, and from the box image you may think you're getting a dynamically molded gun, but it's just a bunch of stickers on a flat surface, which may leave the gun prone to looking weathered quickly if the stickers start to peel. The gun has a lot of touch-sensitive buttons, the most important one parents and stealth shooters will want to take note of is the volume button. You can't completely mute the gun, but you can install ear buds into the headphone jack to silence the weapon.

Setting up the Assault Striker D.C.R-012 will require a Phillips head screwdriver and four AA batteries for the gun, and three AAA batteries for the Strike Target.

The Laser Strike isn't that heavy, and it's pretty accurate. It has a range of 30 feet, and when I took the orb out for target practice, the further away I went, the more challenging it was to hit the target, which I thought was well within reason. Booting up the gun, requires only to flip a switch and press the "fingerprint reader" touch button. You can have up to 4 players in an all-out deathmatch and up to 4 teams in a team deathmatch. The features on the gun remind me of a certain sci-fi first-person shooter game (Halo). There's a shield button, which halves any damage that you may take when activated, and the built-in health meter tracks how much damage you've taken (the gun also functions as the tag sensor). There's also a weapon selection button that allows you to switch between several "weapon" modes to help you with your strategy?unless you just like to run-and-gun.

Laser: It's the default weapon mode that doesn't offer a lot of firepower, but you'll be able to get your shots off quicker.

Stealth: This option allows you to shoot with the same power and frequency as the Laser Strike, but your shots will be muffled.

Pulse: This mode with use up your ammo faster and has a longer delay between blasts, but it packs a lot more damage per shot.

Rail: This weapon mode offers even more firepower, but also goes through ammo fast and there's a longer delay between shots.

Sonic: This mode is the biggest "weapon" in your arsenal, packing the largest amount of damage, but you'll go through ammo quickly and there's a long delay between blasts.

The Assault Striker D.C.R-012 also has room for expansion options, like the Enemy Scanner, Scope, Rapid Fire System, and Refractor Launch System that may give wealthier children an edge against their competition.

If there are a lot of kids in your neighborhood, this gift is definitely a good buy especially if it's a coordinated effort among the other parents. I had a lot of fun playing with it, running around the office (after work hours) and essentially skeet-shooting with the plastic orb.

More Toy Reviews:
??? The Hottest Tech Toys for Kids
??? Light Strike Assault Striker D.C.R-012
??? VTech Kidizoom Camera
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/2gaFo7SRrBw/0,2817,2396716,00.asp

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Good Science Always Has Political Ramifications

Features | More Science

Why? Because a scientifically testable claim can be shown to be either most probably true or false, whether the claim is made by a king or a president, a Pope, a Congressperson, or a common citizen. [Book Excerpt]

By Shawn Lawrence Otto ?| November 24, 2011?|

Image: Rodale books

When speaking about science to scientists, there is one thing that can be said that will almost always raise their indignation, and that is that science is inherently political and that the practice of science is a political act. Science, they will respond, has nothing to do with politics. But is that true?

Let's consider the relationship between knowledge and power. "Knowledge and power go hand in hand," said Francis Bacon, "so that the way to increase in power is to increase in knowledge."

At its core, science is a reliable method for creating knowledge, and thus power. Because science pushes the boundaries of knowledge, it pushes us to constantly refine our ethics and morality, and that is always political. But beyond that, science constantly disrupts hierarchical power structures and vested interests in a long drive to give knowledge, and thus power, to the individual, and that process is also political.

The politics of science is nothing new. Galileo, for example, committed a political act in 1610 when he simply wrote about his observations through a telescope. Jupiter had moons and Venus had phases, he wrote, which proved that Copernicus had been right in 1543: Earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around, as contemporary opinion?and the Roman Catholic Church?held. These were simple observations, there for anyone who wanted to look through Galileo's telescope to see.

But the simple statement of an observable fact is a political act that either supports or challenges the current power structure. Every time a scientist makes a factual assertion?Earth goes around the sun, there is such a thing as evolution, humans are causing climate change?it either supports or challenges somebody's vested interests.

. . .

Why did the church go to such absurd lengths to deal with Galileo? For the same reasons we fight political battles over issues like climate change today: Because facts and observations are inherently powerful, and that power means they are political.

Failing to acknowledge this leaves both science and America vulnerable to attack by antiscience thinking?thinking that has come to dominate American politics and much of its news media coverage and educational curricula in the early twenty-first century. Thinking that has steered American politics off course and away from the vision held by the country's founders.

Wishing to sidestep the painful moral and ethical parsing that their discoveries sometimes compel, many scientists today see their role to be the creation of knowledge and believe they should leave the moral, ethical, and political implications to others to sort out. But the practice of science itself cannot possibly be apolitical, because it takes nothing on faith. The very essence of the scientific process is to question long-held assumptions about the nature of the universe, to dream up experiments that test those questions, and, based on the observations, to incrementally build knowledge that is independent of our beliefs and assumptions. A scientifically testable claim is utterly transparent and can be shown to be either most probably true or false, whether the claim is made by a king or a president, a pope, a congressperson, or a common citizen. Because of this, science is inherently antiauthoritarian, and a great equalizer of political power.

AUTHORITARIAN POLITICS

Because this is the case, it's reasonable to ask how science fits into political thought. Science writer Timothy Ferris reminds us that in politics there are not just two forces, the progressive left (encouraging change) and the conservative right (seeking constancy). In fact, there are four. Imagined on a vertical axis, there are also the authoritarian (totalitarian, closed, and controlling, at the bottom of the axis) and the antiauthoritarian (liberal, open, and freedom loving, at the top), which one can argue have actually played much more fundamental roles in human history. Politics, then, can be more accurately thought of as a box with four quadrants rather than as a linear continuum from left to right.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=8df82d052c56c7a1e3fa1c9bf54679b3

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Majority of ex-rebels seek to join national army (AP)

SHAKTIKHOR, Nepal ? For a decade, Maoist rebel fighters waged brutal warfare against Nepal's army. Five years after the end of the war, thousands of former insurgents are now joining that very army.

Government monitors have been interviewing 19,000 ex-fighters in camps to ascertain who wants to join the military and who prefers to take a rehabilitation package of up to 900,000 rupees ($11,500) in cash.

That's enough to buy a small farm or shop, or sustain a family for a few years in rural Nepal.

Still, two-thirds of the former members of the "People's Liberation Army" interviewed by government-assigned monitors in recent days said they favored taking a secure job and joining up with their former enemies in the national army.

"We have forgotten the bitterness we had against the army and now are ready to work together," said Santu Darai, the head of the 7th Division of the Maoist force. "But they should respect us and treat us as equals."

Darai said the integration should not be too problematic because both the former rebel force and the Nepal Army consider their main goal to be defending the country and its people.

Under the agreement reached earlier this month between Nepal's major political parties, the ex-fighters would be part of a new division under the command of the Nepal Army commander and used mainly for noncombat duties like construction and emergency response.

Integrating former insurgents into national armies is seen as an important tool for ensuring trained ex-combatants have stable jobs and a stake in keeping the peace of the nation. South Africa staved off further conflict when it integrated former anti-apartheid fighters into the military in the 1990s.

Nepal's former rebels would still have to go through the normal recruitment tests and health checks before they can join. The army says it is working to accommodate the new additions.

"We can't and won't hold any prejudice against them. We have to move forward and instead of having any negative attitude we have to be optimistic," said army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ramindra Chhetri.

"The main thing is peace. The rest are minor things that we can overcome," he said.

Dil Bahadur Magar, 28, who fought for the Maoists, said he sees his future only in the army.

"Being part of the security force is what I know how to do and what I plan to do in the future," said Magar, who was interviewed at the Shaktikhor camp in the southern Nepal district of Chitwan.

Once enlisted, they would receive an annual salary of about $2,400, plus food, housing and other benefits.

A few who were not opting for the army said they would take a lump sum, return home and open up small business or work on ancestral farms.

Anita Chaudhury, who was with her 1-year-old child, said she planned to resume working on a village farm.

"I have already fought several wars and now they want us to go through recruitment tests. It is like a high school student having to go through kindergarten," Chaudhury said.

The Maoists fought government troops in a bloody, 10-year revolt to demand political reforms and end Nepal's centuries-old monarchy. More than 13,000 people were killed in the fighting.

The Maoists joined a peace process in 2006 under an agreement stipulating that the insurgents be integrated into the army, and that in the interim they would be confined in U.N. monitored camps, with their weapons locked up.

Maoists won the most seats ? though not an outright majority ? in 2008 elections. But political disputes stymied efforts to integrate the insurgents into the military. The Maoists wanted all 19,000 fighters to be inducted into the army, while military leaders and other political parties resisted.

Tensions have eased in the five years since the end of the fighting, and earlier this month, the sides finally reached agreement to induct 6,500 ex-fighters into the 93,000-strong army and to give cash and retraining to the others.

It was still not clear what would happen if more than 6,500 opt for the army and pass the recruitment tests.

Balananda Sharma, chief of the monitors conducting the interviews, said the process was expected to be completed next week.

Former insurgent Bikash Shahi, 28, said he was confident he would pass the tests for recruitment.

"My future is with the army. I plan to move forward in life with the army," he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111124/ap_on_re_as/as_nepal_former_rebels

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Is It Ever Worthwhile to Line Up for Black Friday? [Black Friday]

This year's Black Friday deals look pretty decent, with Best Buy offering a 42-inch LCD TV for $200 and Office Depot selling a 15.6-inch laptop for $400. But are these deals worth waiting in line at absurd hours in the November cold? Let's do some calculations.

I've lined up a few times for Black Friday in the past, waking up while it's still dark and putting on warm clothes?never warm enough, for some reason?to stand outside a store with a couple hundred other people in search for a deal. Problem is, I always make the mistake of thinking arriving for an 8:00 AM store opening at 5:00 or 6:00 AM will be good enough to get me a decent place in line; not first, but maybe 60th or so. I'm always wrong, and no matter how early I get there, it's always already packed with people who have been there since the night before.

Lesson 1: You can never arrive early enough to a big Black Friday sale.

But alright, let's suppose you're committed to this than me. What's the next step?

Where should you line up?

All the best deals (the door-busters) at every store will be sold out within the first twenty people, meaning that if you're lining up, it should be at the store with the thing you want the most. First, figure out what you you actually need, and by need, I mean things that you are going to buy even without a sale.

Let's say you wanted a new TV, a new printer, and a new router. Now look at the deals and figure out how much money you'd save on each item. This year, you're getting a TV from Best Buy at $300 off, a printer at OfficeMax for $170 off, and a new router also at OfficeMax for $30 off. It should be obvious that you should go to Best Buy, because even though Office Max has two of the items you want, you're saving more money in total by buying the TV. So even if you had to pay full price for the printer and router later on?you won't, because there are more sales elsewhere and Cyber Monday is coming up?you've still optimized your savings.

Of course, this is all moot if you're not going to actually line up early enough to get get the deal. See lesson one.

When is the optimum time to line up?

The question of "when you should line up" depends heavily on what store, how good their deals are this year and what kind of people live in the area. It's a little delicate to say, but if your target store is in a neighborhood with a lot of gated communities and high-priced homes, chances are those residents won't be lining up at 4AM to save a couple hundred bucks on a TV or a computer. The rest of us can take advantage.

But no matter what, your driving principle should be to minimize the time spent at the store?which includes all the time spent in the car, waiting in line, shopping, checking out, and on the way home. It's all the time between you pulling out of your garage and going back in. If you leave home at 3:00 AM, get to the store at 3:30, get inside at 9:00, check out at 9:30 and get back home at 11:00, that's a total of 8 hours, or one full work-day.

Adjusting your entry time will naturally affect your exit time. In our hypothetical example, if you line up the previous night at 10:00 PM, which should probably guarantee you a top-10 or 20 slot, your entry time will be 8:00, exit time will be 8:30, and you get home at 9:00. That's 12 hours. Similarly, if you leave your house at 7:00 AM, the line might be so long and checkout so slow that you're not getting back home until 2:00 PM, for a total of 7 hours.

Obviously you want to be as early in the line as possible, not just because it's faster, but because you want the best deals. So as much as it may hurt your body and your soul, to ensure you get that TV for $300 off, you're going to have to spend the whole night standing outside Best Buy.

How much is your time worth?

In our previous Best Buy TV example, you saved $300 on a TV but spent 12 hours doing so, which is the equivalent of working a job for 12 hours and getting paid $25 per hour. That's actually a post-tax number, so you'd need to make $36 per hour in order to make it out the door with $25 (at a 30% tax rate). Now, $36 an hour is a pretty decent pay rate (it comes out to about $72,000 a year), so if you make less than this at your current job, it's sort of like you're working a second job at a higher rate. Plus, you're not doing a whole lot at this gig other than standing outside in the cold?a pretty easy job description for any job, especially one in which you can and are encouraged to fall asleep.

Also, a lot of us work jobs where we get a set pay rate per month, so we can't just go up to our bosses and say, "Hey Bob, I'm gonna put in 12 extra hours today, so I'm gonna expect appropriate compensation at the end of the month." Hence, the $300 savings is an opportunity you wouldn't normally get at your normal job.

On the other hand, how much is your free time worth? Are you willing to postpone a night's sleep for $300? Some people (understandably) aren't. If you're just going to conk out when you get home after Black Friday, you're basically losing a good chunk of that day. Are your relatives in town? Would you rather be spending time with them? Or if it's not spending time with your relatives, would you rather be spending time with people you love? These are all things you should consider when you calculate how much your time is worth on Black Friday.

Furthermore, if at any point during the night you feel like saying, "I would pay them $300 if I could go home and go back to sleep," then you shouldn't line up. It's a similar idea to paying $75 every two weeks for someone to clean your house. If you hate cleaning and would rather be doing anything else, it's money well spent. If you hate lining up and doing nothing for eight hours, it might be worthwhile to pay to NOT do that, which is essentially what you're doing by not waiting getting in on this deal.

But if you have a good group of people with you and turn it into a fun night out, that's worth something as well.

How about Cyber Monday?

On the flip side of this weekend, Cyber Monday is a made-up holiday I can get behind. When you look at Black Friday, you're outside, in the cold (or rain), with a bunch of strangers standing in line being bored. On Cyber Monday, you're at work, sitting in your comfy office chair, in a temperature-controlled environment in front of a computer. And, because Cyber Monday has become more and more popular and the deals are getting better and better?to even Black Friday-ish levels?you don't necessarily have to wait in line to get the stuff you want.

So to recap, on Cyber Monday, you're:

• Not super cold
• Paid to be there
• Saving just about as much money as Black Friday
• Not bored because you have a computer in front of you that has access to THE INTERNET
• Getting out of doing actual work because you're shopping

Unless you have a specific deal during Black Friday that you're unlikely to get on Cyber Monday, it seems pretty clear what you should do.

---

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/EK3XFmtHDN8/is-it-ever-worthwhile-to-line-up-for-black-friday

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PFT: Romo, Cowboys know how to escape

Getty Images

In the past, when Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh has supplied his version of an on-field incident that resulted in a penalty or a fine, he seemed persuasive.

After Thursday?s Haynesworthy performance against the Packers, Suh?s effort to talk his way out of trouble comes off as pathetic.

?What I did was remove myself from the situation the best way that I felt in me being held down in the situation that I was in,? Suh said, via NFL.com.? ?My intentions were not to kick anybody, as I did not.? [I was] removing myself, as you see, I?m walking away from the situation.? And with that I apologize to my teammates, and my fans and my coaches for putting myself to be in position to be misinterpreted and taken out of the game.?

It gets better.? Or, for Suh, worse.

?I was on top of a guy being pulled down and trying to get up off the ground, which is why you see me pushing his helmet down,? Suh said.? ?As I?m getting up, I?m getting pushed so I?m getting myself unbalanced. . . .? With that a lot of people are going to interpret it as or create their own storylines, . . . but I know what I did, and the man upstairs knows what I did.?

What Suh did requires no interpretation.? He aggressively pushed the head of Evan Dietrich-Smith into the ground, and Suh stomped on Dietrich-Smith?s arm as Suh started to walk away.

?I understand in this world because of the type of player and type of person I am, all eyes are on me,? Suh said.? ?So why would I do something to jeopardize myself, jeopardize my team, first and foremost?? I don?t do bad things.? I have no intentions to hurt someone.? If I want to hurt him, I?m going to hit his quarterback as I did throughout that game.?

He needs to quit while he?s not ahead.

?If I see a guy stepping on somebody I feel like they?re going to lean into it and forcefully step on that person or stand over that person,? Suh said.? ?I?m going in the opposite direction to where he?s at.?

It?s an amazingly flimsy, and perhaps delusional, effort to explain what was obvious to anyone with eyes.? Apart from the ultimate penalty that will be imposed on Suh by the league office ? and plenty of people believe a suspension is coming ? Suh needs to be concerned about the impact of his behavior and his lame explanation of it on his marketability.? From Subway to Chrysler to any other company that has chosen to give Suh a lot of money to endorse its products, that money could be drying up, quickly.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/24/romo-cowboys-know-how-to-escape/related

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Climate Change Panel Predicts More Intense Weather Events (ContributorNetwork)

According to NPR, a recent meeting of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which included more than 200 scientists, concluded with a report stating it expects climate change to bring more intense weather events. The panel specifically noted more rainfall, heat waves and other natural disasters are in the forecast as a result of climate change.

The IPCC notes the frequency of heavy rainfall will likely increase this century in many different regions. Additionally, more powerful hurricanes and typhoons are likely to occur, but these events will see a gradual, small increase instead of a steep one. With the debut of this report, here are some facts about climate change:

* Since the industrial revolution, the burning of fuel and constant deforestation has led to the release of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

* These greenhouse gases prevent heat from re-entering space and create a warming effect, also known as global warming or climate change, on the earth.

* The Washington State Department of Ecology notes while climate change can impact weather events, it also has the potential to impact agriculture, human health, water resources, and energy use.

* Despite the fact there is a warming trend, different regions will experience changes differently as well and there is the possibility that a few areas could see temperatures drop instead of increasing.

* In the late 1990s, numerous nations attempted to join together to establish the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty designed to ensure countries would commit to combating climate change.

* The U.S. failed to ratify the treaty over concerns that China and India would not have to follow the outlined changes or commit to reducing their own emissions.

* Nearly a decade later in Copenhagen, Denmark, world leaders met again to discuss and reach agreements on the growing concern of global warming.

* The 2009 summit focused on the dispute between the U.S. and China and if the nations couldn't agree it could have potentially killed any further international agreements at the summit.

* President Barack Obama also attended and spoke at the summit to help work out disagreements over China joining the pledge and although they fell short of expectations, agreements were finally reached.

Rachel Bogart provides an in-depth look at current environmental issues and local Chicago news stories. As a college student from the Chicago suburbs pursuing two science degrees, she applies her knowledge and passion to both topics to garner further public awareness.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111122/us_ac/10476715_climate_change_panel_predicts_more_intense_weather_events

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