When did farming start ?

It seems human beings made their first steps in farming 23,000 years ago, as opposed to 13,000 years ago as previously believed. That would make the date approx 21,000 BC.
bq. Stone Age people in Israel collected the seeds of wild grasses some 10,000 years earlier than previously recognised, experts say. These grasses included wild emmer wheat and barley, which were forerunners of the varieties grown today. A US-Israeli team report their findings in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [“BBC”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3826731.stm]
But then how do you explain this news from Sri Lanka ?

One of the most priceless relics here is a female body remains in Bulathsinhala, in Kalutara district in the Western province, which testifies to the consumption of rice, maize and salt. This body remains embedded in a rock dates back to 30,500 BC and is considered the world’s oldest proof of consumption of rice, maize and salt. The rock cave is named after the famous Chinese Buddhist monk Fa-Hien who travelled in India and Sri Lanka from AD 399 to 414. He stayed in this cave for the major part of his sojourn in Sri Lanka. [“One World South Asia”:http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/88629/1/]

This means that the US-Israeli team which came up with the date of 21,000 BC is not aware of the history of Sri Lanka.

Banning the Hijab

When France banned the hijab and other symbols of religious expression from public schools, there was lot of crying out loud about religious freedom of minorities in secular nations etc. But now in Uzbekistan (88% Muslim Nation), a Government run council has decided to ban headscarves in a school.
bq. The Uzbek constitution already bans the wearing of religious dress for those working in the public sector. Gulnora Salokhiddinova, a 14-year-old girl from the village of Margilan, was sent home from her school for wearing a hijab ? but only after all students were gathered at a general assembly to witness her being publicly criticised. [“Al-Jazeera”:http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/56A1F534-E581-485E-A7B5-D66CFE557039.htm]

More Burrial Urns in Tamil Nadu

Last month there were reports of a “spectacular archaeological discovery”:https://varnam.org/archives/000399.html in Adichanallur, near Tirunelveli when 2800 years old human skeletons were found in urns. These urns also contained writing resembling early Tamil Brahmi.
Now six more such burrial urns have been found in Tirunelveli, in a farm near Kuvalakarai village
bq. The villagers were taken by surprise as one urn brought to the surface contained, among other things, some smaller earthen pots and ?very fragile skeletal bone pieces?, a source said over telephone.
bq. Kuvalakarai village is close to another archaeologically significant site, Girivalamvandha Nallur, in the same district where a ?treasure trove? of Roman and Chinese coins and medallions was unearthed several years ago, the sources said. Sources in the archaeology department said it was common for ?burial urns? to contain smaller earthen pots of grain and food kept there when the dead were interred. The practice was linked to a strong belief in life after death because ?neolithic man believed in the concept of the spirit surviving a man?s death?, they added.
bq. In his book Archaeology of South India ? Tamil Nadu, Ramachandran has said these monuments displaying the ?mode of disposal of the dead and the furnishings within these burials are known to archaeologists as ?Megaliths?, on account of the use of huge stones involved in the construction of these graves?. ?Megalithic graves? are scattered in peninsular India and there is a ?heavy concentration? of these in Tamil Nadu, ?urn burials? being one category of such monuments, Ramachandran said.
bq. The latest find is noteworthy because it lends credence to archaeologists? view that the main mode of prehistoric burial in Tirunelveli was urn burial. The urn burials were not necessarily ?delimited? by a ring of stones, but their distinguishing feature ?is the interment of a big urn in a pit of size just enough to receive the big urn?, he said. ?These urns are huge, varying in size up to 172 cm in height and 272 cm circumference at the belly,? Ramachandran said. According to the archaeologist, ?urn burial sites? in the district include Courtallam, Valiankottai hills and Korkai. [“Telegraph”:http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040621/asp/nation/story_3395697.asp]

The Outsourcing Bogeyman

It seems the Democrats have stopped harping on “Outsourcing is evil” message because the number of jobs lost was only a very small percentage.
bq. THE FUROR OVER “offshoring” of jobs to countries such as India, so pronounced during the Democratic primaries, seems to have faded. With good reason: Last week the Labor Department published the first government effort to quantify the impact of offshoring, which tentatively suggested that it may be responsible for just 2.5 percent of the job losses in the first quarter of this year. [“Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53706-2004Jun18.html]
“Daniel Drezner”:http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001365.html#001365 has a detailed analysis of the Labor Department Report.
bq. So, to conclude — the percentage of jobs lost due to mass layoffs — in turn due to offshore outsourcing — as a percentage of total jobs lost through mass layoffs was not 3% — it was a whopping 1.9%. If you drop out seasonal employment, the figure rises to 2.5%. So my back of the envelope calculations from a few months ago are an exaggeration. My apologies.
bq. The caveats — this data does not cover two other kinds of job loss via outsourcing — 1) Those let go due to ousourcing when fewer than 50 people were let go; and 2) Those jobs created de novo overeas that may have been created in the U.S. instead were it not for the outsourcing phenomenom.
bq. At the same time, this data also does not cover two kids of job gains via outsourcing — 1) Those jobs created via insourcing, when a foreign firm hires U.S. workers; and 2) Those jobs created via the budgetary savings reaped from outsourcing.
bq. The bottom line — offshore outsourcing is responsible for a piddling number of lost jobs. [“Daniel Drezner”:http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001365.html#001365]

I have a GMail account

Thanks to “Ravikiran”:http://www.ravikiran.com/, I now have a “GMail”:https://gmail.google.com/?dest=http%3A%2F%2Fgmail.google.com%2Fgmail account. Now I don’t have to “sell my house”:http://news.com.com/Gmail+accounts+go+up+for+bid/2100-1023_3-5203162.html or “swap my soul”:http://www.gmailswap.com/ to get one. This selfless act of Ravikiran will be remembered by me as comparable to renounciation of the Prime Minister’s chair by Sonia Gandhi.
What’s great about GMail ? Besides the 1GB storage, here are things done the different way, the GMail way.
* Each message you send is grouped with all the responses you receive. Grouping related messages creates meaningful ‘conversations.’ When you open a message in a conversation, all of your messages will be stacked neatly on top of each other, like a deck of cards. We call this ‘Conversation View.’ As new replies arrive, your stack of cards grows. Grouping messages this way allows you to quickly retrieve related messages and view all your messages in context.
* Instead of folders, Gmail uses labels to give you the functionality of folders, but with more flexibility. In Gmail, a single conversation can have several labels, so you’re not forced to choose one particular folder for each message you receive. That way, if a conversation covers more than one topic, you can retrieve it with any of the labels that you’ve applied to it. And, of course, you can always search for it.
* You have a variety of search options that return speedy, accurate results. Gmail features built-in Google search, and as with Google’s keyword-based web search, Gmail returns fast, accurate results. As long as you archive instead of delete, you’ll be able to find any message you’ve ever sent or received. Having reliable search also eliminates the need to create elaborate folder structures. Now you can just stick a label (or two or three) on a conversation and search by label, keyword, date range or a host of other options.

No God in EU

Finally an agreement on the EU Constitution has been reached. One of the contentious issues was, if the new Constitution should include a reference to Christianity. The move had strong support from the “Pope”:https://varnam.org/archives/000371.html, and countries like Poland. But now, the reference to God and Christianity has been dropped.
bq. Over another area, whether or not the text would mention God or Europe?s Christian heritage, Catholic countries (especially Poland) gave way to the secular group (led by France) in leaving out any such reference. [“Economist”:http://economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2783543]

Our Ally

bq. Seoul, South Korea, Jun. 20 (UPI) — Renegade Pakistani scientists may be helping North Korea develop nuclear weapons, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported Sunday. Quoting a report from the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul, the agency said the north might have achieved a higher level of technology for enriched uranium with the help of foreign scientists. “Nine Pakistani nuclear scientists have been missing since they left their country six years ago and we cannot rule out the possibility that some of them are in North Korea,” institute officials said. [“Washington Times”:http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040620-095240-2742r.htm]
A decade after Pakistan created Taliban, a commision investigating the 9/11 disaster “discovered the link”:https://varnam.org/archives/000428.html. Many years down the line, the connection between Pakistan and North Korea will also be admitted by American Officials.

Finally we found out!

The “main story”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-alqaeda20jun20,1,440629.story?coll=la-home-headlines in today’s Los Angeles Times is that both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan aided terrorists in return for not attacking their country.
bq. Saudi Arabia provided funds and equipment to the Taliban and probably directly to Bin Laden, and didn’t interfere with Al Qaeda’s efforts to raise money, recruit and train operatives, and establish cells throughout the kingdom, commission and U.S. officials said. Pakistan provided even more direct assistance, its military and intelligence agencies often coordinating efforts with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they said.
bq. “There’s no question the Taliban was getting money from the Saudis ? and there’s no question they got much more than that from the Pakistani government,” said former Sen. Bob Kerrey, one of the congressionally appointed commission’s 10 members. “Their motive is a secondary issue for us.” “Whether there was quid pro quo with the Saudis, we don’t know. But certainly the Pakistanis believed that there was. They benefited enormously from their relationship with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.”
bq. Pakistanis, meanwhile, were in with the Taliban and Al Qaeda “up to their eyeballs,” said the senior commission staff member. He said Bin Laden, for instance, negotiated his 1996 move to Afghanistan with Pakistan’s powerful military-intelligence leadership, which held considerable influence over the various warlords struggling for control of Afghanistan at the time. “He wouldn’t go back there without Pakistan’s approval and support, and had to comply with their rules and regulations,” the official said. He said Pakistan opened its airspace to Bin Laden and his flying flotilla of operatives.
bq. Pakistani intelligence officers also allegedly brought Bin Laden to meet Mullah Omar soon after his arrival in Afghanistan, and then helped forge an alliance between the men that enabled the Taliban to trample competing factions and take over much of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, also was instrumental in helping Al Qaeda set up an infrastructure in its own country and in Afghanistan, and the two outfits jointly operated training camps along the border where militants were taught guerrilla warfare, the official said. “It started day one,” the official said of Pakistan’s involvement. “They controlled the Taliban; they controlled the border.” [“LA Times”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-alqaeda20jun20,1,440629.story?coll=la-home-headlines]
Why did this become news now ? Didn’t anyone know about this or is this article a reminder to someone who forgot that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were two of the three nations who recognized the Taliban Government in Afghanistan ? If the 9/11 Commision had read Ahmed Rashid’s book “Taliban”:https://varnam.org/archives/000266.html, they would have found most of this information.

Book Review: Deception Point

_Deception Point_, by Dan Brown Pocket Books, 576 pages
It is an election year in United States and President’s opponent is Senator Sedgewick Sexton. Sen. Sexton has focussed his campaign on attacking NASA and has made a promise that if elected, he would open Space exploration to private corporations. Senator Sexton has a daughter, Rachel, who does not have a good relation with her father and also works as a gister for National Reconnaissance Office.
A NASA Satellite finds a meteor burried deep in the Arctic ice. The meteor contains fossilized samples of some bugs which are the first samples of extra-terrestrial life forms discovered on earth. This discovery has deep implications for NASA as well as the President, who has always backed NASA even though they were wasting taxpayers money in many unsuccessful missions.
To verify the authenticity of this discovery, the President sends a team of civilians to the Arctic. One of them in Rachel Sexton, the daughter of the President’s opponent. Soon the civilian teams finds that the meteorite is one giant hoax. They also find that they are being targeted by Special Ops forces who want to just kill them.
This is the crux of the plot of this book. Like his other books, this one too is a page turner. Since I had read “The Da Vinci Code”:https://varnam.org/archives/000340.html and “Angels and Demons”:http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/column.asp?cid=305939, this book was very predictable. All these books have a similar plot structure, but with different locales and themes. The other two books were very clever in the way they combined religion with the plot. But this book for me was, yet another thriller.
“Plot Excerpt”:http://danbrown.com/novels/deception_point/excerpt.html

Containing Iran

The European plan to contain Saddam was to request him not to do anything bad. Now they are trying the same with Iran. The Europeans met with the mullahs and agreed to block any Security Council referrals and in return Iran would stop work on Uranium enrichment. But now
bq. This week, with the world’s attention focused on the troubled situation in Iraq, the European version of preemption is yielding its own bitter — if less bloody — result. Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have reported that Iran never honored its agreement; it has stalled and stonewalled the inspectors while continuing to work on elements of a nuclear program that could soon allow it to produce weapons. The Europeans have responded by drafting for approval by the 35-member IAEA board a stern statement demanding Iranian cooperation; Tehran has replied with threats to restart uranium enrichment and suspend negotiations with the West. [“Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50913-2004Jun17.html]