Have Soviet-era bio-weapons infected Afghan refugees? "In Pakistan, at least 75 people have been diagnosed in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever in the largest outbreak of the disease ever recorded. ...in the 1980s the USSR's biological warfare research organisation Biopreparat intensively studied biological weapons and maintained a bank of 10,000 of the most dangerous and exotic viruses known, including smallpox, Ebola and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever. Many intelligence analysts believe that Osama bin Laden acquired biological weapons agents from Kazakh arms dealers."

"This practice of skinny actresses donning fat suits is essentially the new and acceptable blackface in Hollywood." -- Allison Anders, director of Things Behind The Sun and Mi Vida Loca

A correction from the editors of The Economist.

Turkeys pardoned by the President usually don't live to see the next Thanksgiving -- factory-farm turkeys are raised to be juicy, not healthy. As a result, even the bird who got a rare Dubya pardon will probably die within a year.

Hey, is hexamethonium safe to inhale? A professor at Johns Hopkins didn't ask a science librarian -- he decided to just do a few Web searches himself. Ellen Roche, 24, died as a result. This message brought to you by the Librarians Who Say "I Told You So" While Tsking Solemnly.

Student Activist Gets a Visit From Secret Service Because of a Poster: Special Agent Paul Lalley, who did most of the talking, spoke first. "Ma'am, we've gotten a report that you have anti-American material, or something like that, in your apartment," he said, according to Brown. Then the female agent asked if they could come inside... Having seen the poster, Brown says, the agents questioned her further, asking: "Do you have any Afghanistan stuff in your apartment, or anything pertaining to that?..."

"These results show that in every comparison category that CP/M is at least as good as Windows-NT and frequently outperform the Microsoft operating system."

Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: if someone gets in your way, just trample her.