SKorea to summon Japan envoy over disputed islands (AFP)

Cut it the fuck out. K?

Yes land is limited, but conflicts over land are so passé. If I had my druthers, Palestinians would have their lands back, but...

Et Tu Vanessa Redgrave you pariah.

South Korea's foreign minister will summon the Japanese ambassador on Monday to protest at what is seen as a renewed Tokyo campaign to claim disputed islands, officials said.South Korea's foreign minister will summon the Japanese ambassador on Monday to protest at what is seen as a renewed Tokyo campaign to claim disputed islands, officials said.

Note: Headline links to source.

Wartime cluster bombs still reap deadly harvest in Laos

Kinda makes ya feel proud to be American, huh? Just asking.

A man shapes a ball of C4 plastic explosive like a child with playdough, carefully inserts it into a hole at the side of the road, attaches an electric detonator, and walks away.

It's all in the name of saving lives.

He's not a soldier -- the war here in Laos ended more than 30 years ago -- but an explosives disposal expert trying to rid his country of the conflict's deadly legacy, which still kills and maims.

During the Vietnam war, neighbouring Laos, something of a sleepy Southeast Asian backwater, suddenly became the world's most heavily bombed country per head of population.

US bombers targeting Vietnamese and Lao communist forces flew about 80,000 missions over the country in the 1960s and 70s.

In fact, more explosives were dropped here than in Europe during World War II, over two million tonnes, according to UN data. And many failed to explode, leaving the poverty-stricken country littered with countless de-facto landmines.

Most of these devices -- some 260 million, experts suggest -- are cluster munitions, tennis ball-sized bomblets that were dropped in loads of 300 to 400 each to kill enemy troops over areas as large as several football fields.

Up to a third of these failed to explode, often because their impact was cushioned by tree foilage and muddy rice fields.

The US kills and then kills again.

Note: Headline links to source.

Must read IMHO

Four Maps from the Federal Reserve System: Where the Foreclosures Are.........

Bill Clinton Switches to Obama................

Big Shot Bob in Texas is really on his game.

Who would have guessed California would have the most problems...moi?

Russian immigrant solves math puzzle

This story sort of provides one with hope that nothing is impossible.

A 63-year-old mathematics professor at Bar-Ilan University, who worked as a guard for about five years after his aliya from the former Soviet Union in 1990, has solved an abstract math problem that has befuddled experts for the last 38 years.

Prof. Avraham Trakhtman finally found the solution, which will be published in a few months in the Israel Journal of Mathematics, solely by tossing it around in his brain and using a pencil and paper. His research, which has already been placed on a Web site for professionals and is available for download, has elicited much excitement among mathematicians in the esoteric field.

Trakhtman solved the "Road Coloring Problem," which was raised by Israeli mathematics Prof. Binyamin Weiss and others in 1970. There are many forms but the most popular one among experts goes like this:

A man reaches a town he has never visited before and drives around trying to find the home of his friend even though there are no street names. The friend says not to worry and that he will provide instructions (left, right, left...) on how to get there.

This is called synchronizing instruction. The problem is whether by using such instructions, the driver could reach his destination no matter where he was lost, said Prof. Stuart Margolis, a colleague and mentor of Trakhtman who made aliya from the US and joined Bar-Ilan the same year as the Russian mathematician.

"He is brilliant with a high IQ," Margolis told The Jerusalem Post. "It's God-given gray matter in his brain. He is shy, reserved and very modest. He intentionally offered his paper to an Israeli journal even though any mathematics journal in the world would be overjoyed to get it. Now he's working on a real algorithm to implement his solution."

There is also a computer version of the problem: One has a big network like the Internet, and an e-mail message is lost somewhere. The systems operator wants to get it sent to the right place, said Margolis. "But he doesn't know where it is. Synchronizing instructions could get it there, like a mouse through a maze. Avraham's work proves that it's always possible to find one's way with such instructions."

Trakhtman's colleagues, who were following his instructions, could quickly see that his solution was correct as he prepared proofs with paper and pencil. Nevertheless, it still must go through the referee process.

Via Jerusalem Times.