* We get 912 days apart – both in our head and with Microsoft Excel.
   They forgot about leap year.  They could have got it right by saying
   "911 days between."  But still it's close enough to be scary.  – Ed.

The Associated Press  reported  that mice were born
to two female mice but did not report the  sex  of  the
offspring.  One  might  conjecture  that at least one of
the offspring  was  female,  as the article reported that
one  of  them  "grew to maturity and gave birth."   The
AP reported two mice born, but donga.com reported
ten mice born  and that only one – the later mother –
survived,  without reporting the sex of the nine others.
The Genome News Network reported, "The new re-
search resulted in the birth of  two female mice.  . . .
One of the mice lived to adulthood  and mated with a
male, producing offspring" (emphasis added).

The  Seattle  Times  published  photographs of flag-draped GI
coffins,  and the photographer and her husband were  fired  by
Maytag Aircraft,  a U.S. contractor in Kuwait. . . .  A web site
then published more coffin photos obtained in a "freedom of in-
formation" request to the Air Force, and other media published
those (but not Fox TV). . . . President Bush said Iraqis are "de-
ceptive at hiding things." . . . Venezuelan President Hugo Chav-
ez voiced support for Iraqi insurgents. . . . Tax cuts saved Presi-
dent Bush $35,000 last year. .  .  . The Vatican said John Kerry
cannot take communion because he is a politician who favors a-
bortion. . . .  Kerry took communion at his own Catholic church
in Boston yesterday evening. . . . A Virginia preacher was killed
on Easter by a rattlesnake he was handling as a test of faith. . . .
Three South Korean freighter crewmen died after inhaling rotten
squid gas. . . . Twenty-one Indian women died in a stampede for
free saris. . . . A farmer in Alaska injected eggs with dyes to pro-
duce orange, red, green, purple, pink,  and  blue  chicks  (he had
multicolored ducklings also). . . .  A woman in Florida caught her
fiancé raping her rottweiler.

Allende! wrote Mon 12 Apr 2004 14:15:36 CDT:

"Poor Venezuelans were eating flamingos"?  You have to put this
into perspective:  Rich Venezuelans were eating scarlet macaws.

A lion had a vasectomy at a wildlife preserve in Clay County.

Laura Bush announced her opposition to same sex marriage.
She said she hoped George could do something different.

Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum won a 2004 "Jefferson Muz-
zle"  for  barring the press from the Martha Stewart jury selection.
. . .  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said of recent uprisings,
"This is a moment in Iraq's path toward a democratic  and  a  free
system." . . .  Poppy cultivation was up 30 percent in Afghanistan,
and President Karzai declared a jihad on drugs. . . .  A federal air
marshal left her loaded pistol on a shelf in a public restroom at the
Cleveland airport. . . .A study found that teen-age lesbians smoke
too much. . . . Wild hogs were terrorizing east Texas.

                                       [ items 2-6 courtesy Harper's Weekly]

Merrillville High School and middle schools have prohibited
the wearing of pink clothing and accessories.

U.S. Senator Jim Bunning said his election opponent,  State Sen-
ator Daniel Mongiardo, looks like one of Saddam Hussein's sons.
. . . Paul Hornung said Notre Dame, his alma mater, should lower
academic standards to "get the black athlete." . . . Police in Louis-
ville charged a dead man with three crimes (he had been killed by
a policeman, who was indicted for murder  –  the posthumous de-
fendant was a black man, of course, who dealt in illegal drugs).

The 2004 American League baseball season opened in Tokyo.

U.S. soldiers shut down an Iraqi newspaper  in their effort
to build a democracy. . . . Governor Rick Perry said, "The
International Court of Justice  does not have jurisdiction in
Texas."  .  .  .  The day Hamas Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was
assassinated,  a  lamb  was  born  in Hebron  with  "Allah"
spelled out on its flank in Arabic. .  .  .  Poor Venezuelans
were eating flamingos. . . . An Oklahoma City school sus-
pended 125 first graders for raising hell at lunch. . . .  Brit-
ish researchers reported a rise  in  strange  murders.  .  .  .
Benton County,  Oregon,  quit issuing marriage licenses to
heterosexuals. . . .  The crew heard another strange sound
in the international space station. .  .  . India defeated Paki-
stan in a cricket tournament.

                          [items 3-7, 9 courtesy Harper's Weekly]