The reason Santa?s reindeer can fly has been explained in down-to-earth terms by Dr. Ian Edwards, head of education at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, Scotland. He?s hallucinating on fly-agaric mushrooms.
Dr. Edwards says the story of the flying reindeer spread south to central Europe from Lapland in the 19th century. It originated with the Sami people of Lapland, who have one of the oldest indigenous cultures in the world.
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The Reverend Wesley Marcle was eating dinner when he found a small gold crucifix in the cabbage cooked by his wife Carol. He nearly ate the piece of jewelry, which looks like the setting from a man?s ring.
The crucifix apparently fell into the cabbage while it was growing on a farm in California, says Nick Secrest, produce manager at Roth?s Friendly Market in Salem, Oregon, where Carol Marcle bought the cabbage a couple weeks ago. Secrest says that once in while a piece of machinery or harvesting equipment will fall into a crate, but this is the first time he?s ever heard of a foreign object being found inside some produce. He plans to contact the grower, but doubts they?ll be able to return the crucifix to its owner.
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More than 20,000 American troops have been moved into Qatar and Kuwait, suggesting that the U.S. is about to move the war on terrorism into Iraq. The U.S. moved the headquarters of its 3rd Army to Qatar two weeks ago and defense analysts have reported large numbers of troops being moved into the region since then. The Pentagon says it?s only rotating troops but defense analysts say that about 24,000 troops have been moved in and only around 4,000 have moved out.
The 3rd Army is the ground component of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees America?s military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan. They were in charge of coalition forces during the Gulf war.
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The Earth?s temperature in the year 2001 was the second highest since global records began 140 years ago, according to the UN?s World Meteorological Organization.The higher temperatures led to an increase in the severity and frequency of storms and to droughts and other unusual weather conditions.
Nine of the 10 warmest years in the last four decades have occurred since 1990, and temperatures are rising three times faster than in the early 1900s, he says. This year?s global average surface temperature is expected to be 57.96 Fahrenheit. The record, set in 1998, was 58.24 Fahrenheit.
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