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A Norwegian further education college is starting a programme for want-to-be Vikings where students will learn essential Viking crafts, such as sword forging, jewellery making, and roof thatching. During the course at Seljord Folkehøgskule 150km west of Oslo, students -- many inspired by TV series such as ‘Game of Thrones’ -- will celebrate even celebrate the Norse rituals of the year, going so far as to make animal sacrifices during the winter feast. “We see a large number of applicants who have applied for different reasons," the school's principal, Arve Husby, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. "Some have become interested through...

With one swipe of his pen, President Barack Obama signed into law a health care reform bill that will cut Medicare's budget by $500 billion over the next ten years. In addition, late in the first year of his presidency, Social Security recipients received a letter notifying them that they would not be receiving a Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) starting January 2010. Since this announcement, there are reports seniors and the disabled will not receive a COLA for two years or more beyond the current year. Yes, the Dept. of Labor's statistics, gleamed from the Consumer Price Index (CPI),...

Fish pirates will be shot, says Australia By Nick Squires Last Updated: 2:37am GMT 07/12/2006 The Royal Australian Navy has been given permission to shoot at pirate fishing boats plundering the country's rich tropical waters. Warships and customs patrol boats operating off Australia's north coast have captured a record 357 illegal fishing boats this year, most of them Indonesian vessels hunting sharks for their fins. "Our patrol boats will be allowed to fire directly to disable a vessel which is ignoring orders and which is seeking to escape apprehension," said Brendan Nelson, the defence minister. "It is extremely important that...

Deconstructing Clinton is a lot easier than parsing sentences. Language has its own structure and rules, what we call grammar and syntax. It is these things that allow us to communicate efficiently with each other, even when we are not schooled in the rules of language. But in Clinton’s post-modernist world there are no rules because there is no reality. Existence is a matter of opinion and reality is what I think it ought to be. In such a world facts are fiction and fiction is reality with each reality being as good as any other. Hence whatever I say...

Former colonial power Britain is one of the biggest donors among nations that contributed almost $850 million to government coffers in 2003-2004, about 48 percent of Uganda's budget. Since 1987, rich nations have bankrolled Uganda's economic recovery, which has been based on stability, market liberalisation and improved security in a country haunted by bloody memories of the late Idi Amin's dictatorship. Uganda's economy has grown by about 6 percent a year for more than a decade. British budget support is linked to reforms, officials say, including setting up rules for multiparty competition and separating state organs from Museveni's "no-party" Movement...

Viking ship cracking upEperts are worried about one of Norway's national treasures. Archaeologists have discovered cracks in the hull of he famed Oseberg Viking ship, which may halt plans to move the vessel to a new museum.The archaeologists have been carefully going over the nearly 1,200-year-old ship, and are concerned about what they see, reports newspaper Aftenposten.Removal of the vessel's top deck has revealed some exciting new details, like graffiti from the Viking age and details of the ship's rigging. But it's also exposed cracks that make archaeologists worry the ship won't tolerate any move to new quarters.There have been...

/begin my translation "Can't Stand Hunger"- Desertion Rampant in N. Korean Military Recently, desertion has become rampant among N. Koraen soldiers, which is a headache for N. Korean authorities. Kim Young-gil(alias), a N. Korean military officer who came to China on a mission to earn foreign hard curreny, told this reporter on June 24th, "The desertion of ordinary soldiers is on the steep rise at military units, due to food shortage and harsh training. In some units, it has deteriorated to the point where they worry that the military formation is in danger of a wholesale collapse." He added, "Up...