The twilight Zone

The Outer Hebrides (The Islands of Lewis and Harris) are the best place to meet single men, as they outnumber women three to one!

The borough of Kensington and Chelsea has the highest proportion of single women to single men

Manchester is the singles capital of the UK, with 71% of its population having single status

Blackpool has the highest number of divorced people in the UK. Of its 21 electoral wards, two – Bloomfield and Claremont - are in the top five for divorced people in all 10,000 wards in the UK. With statistical irony, Blackpool is also the capital for Hen and Stag weekends

Harrow, In London has the lowest divorce rate in the UK

Cookstown in Northern Ireland has the highest number of people in the UK in their first marriages

Gretna Green is the busiest town for weddings with more than 5.500 taking place last year. However, hot on the heals of Scotland's Las Vegas was Birmingham with an incredible 3,600 celebrated last year

Hull has the highest number of cohabitant births with 53% of babies born to unmarried couples.

Did you know source: The National Census.

Number of first marriage in 1950 = 330 thousand
Number of first marriage in 2000 = 180 thousand

Number of re-marriages in 1950 = 78000
Number of re-marriages in 2000 = 126000

Total number of marriages in 1950 = 408000
Total number of marriages in 2000 = 306000

Number of divorces in 1950 = 33000
Number of divorces in 2000 = 155000

The provisional divorce rate in England and Wales fell by 8 per cent to 13.0 divorcing people per 1,000 married population in 2005.

Divorce rates for men and women under 40 have fallen most steeply: by 13 per cent and 12 per cent respectively in 2005. For men aged under 40 the divorce rate of 24.9 divorcing men per 1,000 married men aged 16 to 39 is the lowest since 1988. Not since 1990 has the divorce rate for women aged under 40 been at this level: 24.7 divorcing women per 1,000 married women aged 16 to 39 in 2005.

Over the last 10 years the average age at divorce in England and Wales has risen from 39.6 to 43.1 years for men and from 37.0 to 40.6 years for women, partly reflecting the rise in age at marriage.

1 in 5 men and women divorcing in 2005 had a previous marriage ending in divorce. This proportion has been increasing each year and has nearly doubled since 1981 when 1 in 10 men and women divorcing had a previous marriage ending in divorce.

For 69 per cent of divorces in 2005, the wife was granted the divorce, and in 53 per cent of these cases the husband’s behavior was cited as the fact proven. Where divorces were granted to the husband, the most common fact proven was two years’ separation with consent (32 per cent).

In 2005 Most divorces were granted to wives, and in more than half these cases, the husband's behaviour was the reason cited.

For men awarded a divorce, the most common reason was two years' separation with consent.

A fifth of people divorcing in 2005 had already had a previous marriage end in divorce.

Woman - A Chemical Analysis

Element : Woman
Symbol : Wo
Atomic Weight : Accepted as 118, but known to vary 105-175.Woman
Discoverer : Adam
Occurrence : Copious quantities in all Urban areas, with slightly lower
concentrations in Suburban and Rural areas. Subject to seasonal
fluctuations.

Physical Properties :
a) Surface usually covered with painted film.
b) Boils at nothing, freezes without reason.
c) Melts if given special treatment.
d) Bitter if used incorrectly. Can cause headaches. Handle with care!
e) Found in various states; ranging from virgin metal to common ore.
f) Yields to pressure applied to correct points.

Chemical Properties :
a) Has great affinity for Gold, Silver, Platinum and many precious stones.
b) Absorbs great quantities of expensive substances.
c) May explode spontaneously if left alone on dates.
d) Insoluble in liquids, but there is increased activity when saturated in
alcohol to a certain point.
e) Repels cheap material. Neutral to common sense.
f) Most powerful money reducing agent known to Man.

Uses :
a) Highly ornamental, especially in sports cars.
b) Can greatly improve relaxation levels.
c) Can warm and comfort under some circumstances.
d) Can cool things down when it's too hot.

Tests :
a) Pure specimen turns rosy pink when discovered in natural state.
b) Turns green when placed beside a better specimen.

Caution :
a) Highly dangerous except in experienced hands. Use extreme care when handling.
b) Illegal to possess more than one.

Man - A Chemical Analysis

Element : Man
Symbol : Ah (short for Asshole)
Quantitative : Accepted at 7 inches though some isotopes can be as short as 4 inches.
Discoverer : Eve (discovered by accident one day when she had a craving for ribs)
Occurrence : Found following duel element Wo, often in high concentration near a perfect Wo specimen.

Physical properties :
a) Surface often covered with hair; bristly in some areas, soft in others.
b) Boils when inconvenienced, freezes when faced with Logic and Common Sense, melts if treated like a God.
c) Obnoxious when mixed with C*H*-OH (any alcohol).
d) Can cause headaches and severe body aches; handle with extreme caution.
e) Tends to fall into very low energy state directly after reaction with Wo (Snore... zzzzz).
f) Gains considerable mass as specimen ages, loses reactive nature.
g) Specimens can be found in various states ranging from deeply sensitive to extremely thick.
h) Rarely found in pure form after 14th year.
i) Often damaged as a direct result of unlucky reaction with polluted form of the Wo common ore.
j) When pressure is applied, becomes stiff and unyielding; yields only when subtlety, subterfuge, flattery are applied

Chemical properties :
a) All forms desire reaction with Wo, even when no further reaction is possible.
b) May react with several Wo isotopes in short period under extremely favorable conditions.
c) Most powerful embittering and aggravating agent known to Wo.
d) Usually willing to react with whatever is available.
e) Reaction Rates range from aborted/non-existent to pre-interaction effects (which tend to turn the specimen bright red.)
f) Reaction styles vary from extremely slow, calm and wet to violent/bloody.
g) When saturated with alcohols, will be fairly inert and will repel most other elements.
h) Is repelled by most household appliances and common household cleansers.
i) Is repelled by small children clothed in diapers, particularly those of the malodorous variety.
j) Is neutral to common courtesy and fairness.

Storage :
a) Best results apparently near 18 for high reaction rate, 25-35 for favorable reaction style.

Uses :
a) Heavy boxes, top shelves, long walks late at night, free dinners for Wo...
b) Can be used in recreational activities.

Tests :
a) Pure specimen will rarely reveal purity, while reacted specimens broadcast information on many wavelengths.

Caution :
a) Tends to react extremely violently when other Man interferes with reaction to a particular Wo specimen. Otherwise very maleable under correct conditions.

Safriz may not agree with the contents of the following article,but finds it funny

"Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Most men do not want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they sometimes take the apples from the ground, which are not as good, but are easy.

The apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they are amazing. They just have to wait for the right person to come along, the one who is brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

Now men…men are like a fine wine. They begin as grapes, and it is up to women to stomp the shit out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.

I am in the process of writing a story for a fiction movie.(as if )
The story is about fictional creatures,i call "Fire nations".4.5 billion years ago,the earth was a ball of molten lava,and during this period,my "fire nations" evolved.They were made up of fire,and designed to live on molten earth.They thrived all over the globe,until about 3.6 billion years ago,the earth started to cool down,and their habitat was under threat.They modified their way of life and learn t to live on then abundant volcanoes,and permanent lava flows.Bla bla bla yada yada yada.The story goes on,it is in it's infancy at the moment.

Warning: My movie contains strong language and steamy sex scenes .

Giant tsunamis, super volcanoes and earthquakes could pose a greater threat than terrorism, scientists claim.

Global Geophysical Events, or "Gee Gees", as they are nick-named, are not being taken seriously enough, they say.

The global community needs to monitor these risks, and develop strategies to cope in the face of a catastrophe.

However, we are making good progress in reducing the threat of asteroid impacts, the researchers said during a briefing at the Royal Institution, UK.

Battening down

Since 9/11 we have become acutely aware of the threat of terrorism. Governments worldwide are battening down the hatches and ratcheting up the security.

But, in terms of grave threats, are we really looking in the right direction?

Giant walls of water that can devastate coastal cities, volcanoes so big that their ash crushes houses 1,500km (932 miles) away, giant earthquakes and asteroid impacts. These are very rare events and, if we are lucky, nothing like them will happen in our lifetimes.

But in the longer term, Gee Gees may be our undoing if we do not take action. According to researchers, careful preparation could potentially save thousands of lives.
"In any one year the chances of one of these things happening is probably much less than 1%," said Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield Grieg Hazard Research Centre. "But in the longer term it is 100%.

"We need to raise awareness, identify threats and improve surveillance.

"We need to plan what we will do if these things happen."

Super eruption

Volcanoes and earthquakes are relatively common occurrences, but Gee Gees are on an altogether different scale.

The last "super volcanic eruption" was back in April 1815, when Tambora in Indonesia exploded violently, in what was the largest eruption in historic time.

The eruption column reached a height of about 44 km (28 miles), ash fell as far as 1,300 km (800 miles) from the volcano - and an estimated 92,000 people were killed.

Rare though they are, events this catastrophic need to be taken very seriously.

The potential threat that scientists currently have their eye on is an insecure rock - the size of the Isle of Man - in the Canary Island of La Palma.

The rock is in the process of slipping into the sea and Professor McGuire fears that when it finally collapses, the resulting tsunami will cause massive destruction along the coasts of countries like the USA, UK and many on the African continent, within a matter of hours.

"Eventually the whole rock will collapse into the water, and the collapse - when it happens - will devastate the Atlantic margin," said Professor McGuire.

The triggering factor could be the eruption of the volcano on La Palma, called Cumbre Vieja, which could feasibly blow "anytime", according to Professor McGuire.

Many researchers working in the field of Gee Gees would like better monitoring of Cumbre Vieja, so that advance warning can be given for the possible collapse of the rock.

"We need to be out there now looking at when an eruption is likely to happen," said Professor McGuire. "Otherwise there will be no time to evacuate major cities."

Cosmic threat

Global governments are not entirely ignoring the threat of Gee Gees, however.
The greatest danger to humanity comes from asteroids, but work funded largely by the US government is swiftly tackling this threat.

The European Space Agency (Esa) and Nasa are planning missions to test how the course of asteroids and comets can be altered by an impact.

Esa's mission Don Quijote will send a spacecraft crashing into the surface of a space rock to measure the effects. In 2005, Nasa's Deep Impact will monitor the outcome of blowing a hole in comet Tempel 1.

Scientists hope this will help them learn how to destroy or deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

According to Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University, UK, the threat of cosmic mega disasters will be essentially "abolished within 30 years".

"A quiet and largely unnoticed technological revolution is dramatically accelerating the rate at which near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are discovered," he said.

In 1995 we knew about 300 NEAs, today we know about 3000 - and within 20 years we could be aware of 90% of all nearby space rocks, he says.

"For the first time in the history of evolution we are closing this window of vulnerability."

Probably the worst war movie ever made.Wasted a hell lot of time finding the DVD and then watching it.Mad ancient violence,blood and gore,with no logical explanation.
They show 300 men killing 10s of thousands.Pathetic.

I am not too good at narrating stories,but i will try.
I have a very good phone friend from kent.I have never met her in real life,but we talk on phone very often.
Last week the movie "Troy" was being shown on the tele.Both of us were watching it,and talking on the phone at the same time.
In one scene,they show that dude brad pit's arse,and she screamed with joy.Then she asked me "Isn't he sexy" and i replied "no".
The next moment she started a half hour argument with me about brad pit being cute and hot and sexy and...
Unfortunately,i being a man,don't have any sense of seeing beauty or cuteness in men.I can a man is elegant or impressive personality,but i do not have the sense that was telling her that brad pit is sexy.
I kept on trying to make her understand this,but she was so offended that she hung up on me.
Ask me about rehanna,beyonce,or any girl,and i will analyse her on my sexy/not so sexy,cute/not so cute scales and tell you in a minute.But how can i sense these things in a man

By ROSIE BOYCOTT Once upon a time it used to be relatively simple to be a man: your role, as indeed it was my father's role, was to look after your wife and children, provide for them, make major decisions around the house and bring home the bacon.

When I was young and my father was temporarily unemployed after leaving the Army in the Fifties, there was no question that my mother might step into the breach and go out to work. We just went short of money.

I remember my father being depressed and angry during this brief period; later, when we talked about such issues, he told me that much of his unhappiness stemmed from feeling that he was letting down his family.

Thankfully, for him (and for us), the situation was soon resolved and Dad was able to reassert his sense of order and masculinity; he went out to work, Mum stayed at home, he dealt with the bills, Mum dealt with the cooking. It was all very ordered.

Nothing is so straightforward any more. My mother needed my father to keep a roof over her head and food on the table for her children.

Women don't need that now.

Last week, a survey revealed that 39 per cent of women who work full-time believe they earn more than their men.

The word "believe" is important here; work, this last bastion, where men still hold on to the reins of power, is now so fraught with tension and drama that people are unwilling to go on the record about actual earnings.

Translated into numbers, that means 1.8 million women in full-time work across the country now earn more than their partners.

These figures are both important and potentially critical: they indicate a very real change sweeping through the professional ranks of twentysomething men and women.

The one area where men continued to rule the roost - the workplace - where they consistently out-earned women and claimed the lion's share of places at the boardroom table, even that apparently secure male domain has been turned on its head.

So what exactly do women need men for these days?

Evidently, they don't need them to pay bills, to put up shelves, to fix the car, mow the lawn or provide a socially acceptable set-up in which to rear children.

Remember, a munificent benefits system means that single women, with or without children, no longer need a man to provide for them - the state has taken on that role.

Since the Divorce Act of 1969, which made it possible for women to leave a marriage, keep the kids and receive alimony, an increasing number of women are choosing to bring up children alone.

Even the provision of sperm is now something that women can sort out alone, without actually having sex with a man. The internet now boasts several companies which will deliver fertile semen through the mail.

My father's generation defined their wives: nowadays, the role has completely reversed and men are defined by women. As a result, their definition of themselves has faltered and society has been cruel towards their attempts to redefine themselves.

And yet, when the women's movement started in Britain, we all believed it would mean a liberation for men as well as for women.

What could be worse, we argued, than - like most men - working every day from when you left education till you retired at 65, solely financially responsible for your wife and kids, long office hours denying you the chance to spend meaningful time with your children.

That life was as much of a prison as being a full-time wife and mother.

When I co-founded the magazine Spare Rib in 1972, the lot of women was very distant from today's reality.

In those days, a woman couldn't get a mortgage without her husband's or her father's signature. Universities were predominantly for men, as were medical schools and colleges of law.

Women were still meant to be their father's daughters until they became their husband's wives.

But if we started out hoping to bring an improvement to the lives of men as well as women, by the time the Seventies came round, the idea of the women's movement being of possible benefit to men had withered on the vine.

Women's rights became just too urgent and too immediate, and though everyone knew that whenever women change there must be a reciprocal change for men, it was somehow assumed it would all work itself out in the great melting pot of life.

To ensure that women did better at school, committees were formed and studies undertaken and the style of teaching changed.

Thus, in recent years, it has no longer been just the single, terrifying three- hour exam that determined your success, a winner-takes-all mentality generally thought to be more applicable to the male brain.

Continual assessment worked better for women, who, it is thought, respond better to a more considered approach to work.

Meanwhile, the nature of the workplace itself changed. As Western countries shifted from land-based to factory-based and then to knowledge-based economies, so the need for brawn and physical strength diminished.

Physically, men no longer have any advantage over women in professional life; their place has now been taken by machines, and the multitasking skills of human interaction which women do better at are precisely those prized by employers.

So what are men to do? While we applaud a woman who takes on a man's world and succeeds, woe betide a man who strays too far into women's territory.

A man who keeps house, brings up the children and does the shopping is more likely to be considered a weedy loser than an individual who has made a considered stance.

Working at home, we all believe, is something men do only because they've been fired or can't get a good enough job to allow them to afford childcare.

In short, men are being squeezed at every turn. Somewhere along the line towards the liberation of women we have stripped them of all their primary functions and made them miserable.

Their subservient position starts in school. Girls have now overtaken boys in public exams to such an extent that educators now question whether the system hasn't swung too far in their favour by using continuous assessment in preference to one-off exams.

Then there is the fact that the whole notion of learning a trade has been abolished in favour of purely academic studies.

Jobs which give satisfaction, especially for poorer white males - who are now the worst-performing group in our education system - have become almost impossible to come by.

Women, meanwhile, are groomed relentlessly to succeed. How did we get into such a predicament? No feminist I ever knew wanted to see a world in which men were beaten by women: a world in which one dominant group was just replaced by another.

Our problem is, I think, largely to do with the fact that our ideas of success are still derived from making money and being top-dog in the office.

Sadly, women's liberation, which ought to have made it easy for both sexes to choose their roles in life, has actually managed to denigrate the role of motherhood and caring.

So when men dip into our pond, we see them as failures, not as individuals who might have made a skilful and necessary adaptation to a new set of rules.

As long as society continues to rate making money so far above running the home, both men and women will think they have failed if they do not succeed in the workplace.

We are already seeing the consequences of this erosion of men's social position. Our jails are overflowing, predominantly with young men who've lost their way. Male suicide rates are up. Alcoholism rates are up. Not only are boys doing less well at school, they're also dropping out with greater frequency than girls.

While their traditional role in society is being ripped from them, young men are losing the social compass which once came naturally. Women now demand that their men not only succeed in business and maintain a fat bank balance: now they're expected to be emotional, open, caring-and-sharing types, too. That may be fine for some, but for others it is clearly not.

The current crop of teenage men's magazines - most of which are openly hostile to women, regarding them as nothing more than sex objects - seem to me to be a confused cry for help.

Unable to find a place in this new world order, the magazines are taking their readers back to a time when men did rule the roost and women were merely chattels. Their message is angry: a brutal and simple-minded response of many men to the alienation they feel from mainstream society.

For many men, the realisation that twentysomething women now outearn them will only add to their bitterness.

Money, the talisman around which all our ideas of success and failure revolve, causes more marital discord than any other issue: studies at Arkansas State University by Randall Kesslering, who examined 112,740 women, show that for every £10,000 a wife's earnings rise relative to the family's overall income, the chances of marital break-up rise by 1pc.

So who's driving those divorces? Disappointed women who can't bear to be married to a weaker man, or men who cannot abide being in thrall to a more powerful woman? No doubt we will know in time.

The truth is that women - from a position of being able to do very little some 30-odd years ago - can now, literally, do it all.

Even many books for toddlers, with the exception of titles like Bob The Builder and Postman Pat, no longer have men in them.

But the fact is that if women choose to have a baby on their own or walk out on their marriage, the state is there to pick up the pieces. Of course, children's books reflect this.

Everyone needs to feel they have a purpose in life, to be challenged and to be useful. Society has bent over backwards to liberate women and to give them equal opportunities - from taking out a mortgage to a woman's legal right to terminate a pregnancy.

But the agenda of women's rights was based on the premise that you can fix equality for women with no reference at all to men.

And so, in the process, we have unwittingly undermined men, making their role very hard to define. Because ultimately if women can look after themselves, we are forced to ask the question: "What are men for?"

We need, urgently, to start reassessing our priorities. We need to start to rate homemaking as highly as money-making. We need to stop believing - erroneously - that happiness derives solely from money. We need to learn to respect and value the crucial role that parents (women and men) play in their children's upbringing.

As someone who has watched the position of women change so dramatically, I cannot help but be thrilled to see just how well we have done. But our success must never be at the expense of men and their own sense of fulfilment. Otherwise, it will not be any sort of success at all.

New kinda taxi introduced in Blackpool

Engine 4 Stroke, Single Cylinder
Displacement 173.52cc
Max. Power 8.17 BHP @ 5000rpm
Max. Torque 11.5 Nm @ 4000rpm
Transmission 4 Forward + 1 Reverse
Kerb Weight 295 Kg
Qty. in 20'/40' FCL 8/16

Following is an article and some stats from a flower selling website.It shows which gender is more caring about the other.

Who's buying for Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day floral purchases by gender: 65% are made by men; 35% by women. Of rose-only purchases: 74% are made by men; 26% by women.

For whom are they buying?

While men buy mostly for romantic reasons, women use Valentine's Day as an opportunity to show they care to mothers, daughters and friends, as well as their sweethearts. Women even treat themselves on Valentine's Day.

84% men buy flowers and gifts for their beloved women,while only 24% women do this for men.
While men are busy spending on women,22% women are so self obsessed that they buy gifts for themselves on this occasion

SLEEP STATS
* Sleep problems are reaching epidemic proportions, estimated to be the #1 health related problem in America – CNN, May 1997
* Sleep deprivation costs $150 billion each year in higher stress and reduced worker productivity—National Commission on Sleep Disorders, 2003
* Mayo Clinic: Almost all adults don’t get enough sleep and most struggle to get up in the morning. “If we got enough sleep at night we wouldn’t need an alarm clock to wake us.”
* Lack of sleep leads to health problems; fatigue, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, shortened lifespan, suppressed immune systems and depression.
* Recent studies implicate sleep deprivation in diabetes
* We sleep on average 6.9 hours/day, almost an hour less than a few decades ago
* Parents of young children lose an extra hour of sleep each night. NSF 2004
* Childhood insomnia is a high risk factor for adolescent alcohol and drug abuse—children with sleep problems are twice as likely to abuse drugs when teenagers. Univ. of Mich. April 2004 sleep study
* 43 percent of respondents reported that daytime sleepiness interfered with their normal daytime activities, including work. NSF 2000
* 30-40% of heavy truck accidents are due to driver fatigue

* Almost 74% of all Americans do not get enough sleep each night
* Most will feel sleepy or groggy during the week
* 51% of adults say they have problems sleeping at least a few nights each week
* Almost 1/3rd have trouble sleeping every night
* Half of all Americans can not get up without an alarm clock
* Alarm clocks interrupt sleep cycle causing, lack of energy, feeling unrefreshed in the morning
* Those with sleep problems are twice as likely to feel stressed and tired

Yesterday i was reading an article,about major religions and environment.The author was saying that most religions show no concern towards environment.
I can say about my religion,Islam,that there are many
green things in it.
We are expected to have a "minimalist" lifestyle.
No food should be thrown away,and whatever food is served,must be consumed,or preserved.Water should not be overused,even when preparing for the prayers.
We are supposed to use our belongings to their maximum,and instead of buying expensive and unwanted stuff,spare money for the poor.
No animal should be killed unduly.Only for food or if it is a threat to human life.
Planting trees is considered a good deed,specially fruit bearing trees.
Our mode of transport must not be too luxurious,neither should be our houses,and the surplus money should be spent on relatives,neighbors and other needy people.We should prefer walking to the mosque,instead of driving to it.
Creating shelter for animals,and providing drinking water to them is a good deed.So is being kind to sick and injured animals.
Any kind of wastage is forbidden,that includes wasting electricity and fuel.
I believe all this is environment friendly,or am i being biased?

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian woman paid a former convict to kill her 17-year-old son because she was fed up with sharing her small one-room apartment with him, the newspaper Izvestia reported on Wednesday.

The 42-year-old crane operator paid the man a 2,100 rouble ($80) deposit to kill her son, Izvestia said. But the would-be hitman told the police who set up a sting operation and arrested her when she handed over the 900 rouble 'completion' payment.

The woman and her son shared the tiny apartment in the Moscow region with their respective partners and there were frequent rows, which became worse when the son's girlfriend became pregnant.

"The woman decided that by snuffing out her son she could solve her housing problems," the paper said.Prosecutors confirmed the report and said the suspect would be charged soon.

Chronic housing shortages have dogged Russia for decades. The problem has eased slightly since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but many families of several generations still share cramped apartments.

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Woman Grows Nipple on Foot

A 22-year-old woman sought medical care for a lesion in the plantar region of her left foot, a well-formed nipple surrounded by areola and hair. Microscopic examination of the dermis showed hair follicles, eccrine glands, and sebaceous glands. Fat tissue was noted at the base of the lesion. Clinical and histopathologic findings were consistent with the diagnosis of supernumerary breast tissue, also known as pseudomamma. To our knowledge, this is the first report of supernumerary breast tissue on the foot.

Full story?
http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/57096/Woman_Grows_Nipple_on_Foot

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- Nearly a third of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who received care from Veterans Affairs between 2001 and 2005 were diagnosed with mental health or psychosocial ills, a new study concludes.

The study was published in the March 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine and carried out by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

They looked at data from 103,788 veterans; about 13 percent of them women, 54 percent under age 30, nearly a third minorities and nearly half veterans of the National Guard or Reserves.

Of the total, 32,010 (31 percent) were diagnosed with mental health and/or psychosocial problems, including 25,658 who received mental health diagnoses. More than half (56 percent) were diagnosed with two or more disorders. (Watch how the wars are blamed for an "epidemic" of mental disorders Video)

Post-traumatic stress disorder was the most common disorder, with the 13,205 veterans who got the diagnosis accounting for more than half (52 percent) of mental health diagnoses.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, an anxiety disorder that can occur after the experience or witnessing of a traumatic event, can lead to depression, substance abuse, problems of memory and cognition, and other problems of physical and mental health.

Others included anxiety disorder (24 percent), adjustment disorder (24 percent), depression (20 percent) and substance abuse disorder (20 percent).

Of all veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan who sought VA services, post-traumatic stress disorder affected 13 percent, the study said.

That's slightly less than the 15.2 percent tallied for veterans of the Vietnam War, but far above the 3.5 percent reported in the general population.

Differences between genders and races were "minimal," the study said.

But the youngest group studied -- veterans 18-24 years of age -- appeared to be at greatest risk.

"Our results signal a need for improvements in the primary prevention of military service-related mental health disorders, particularly among our youngest service members," the authors wrote.

Still, youth may have had nothing to do with it, the authors acknowledged, noting that active-duty military are typically among the youngest military.

And, "because they are young, they are more likely to be of lower rank and more likely to have greater combat exposure than their older active-duty counterparts," the authors wrote.

In addition, the study's conclusions may not apply generally to all veterans of the wars, since the study included only those veterans who got VA care.

The authors warned, "Our results may overestimate the burden of mental health disorders because veterans with mental health disorders may be more likely to seek treatment at a VA facility than those without."

The findings did not surprise former Sen. Max Cleland, a veteran who was grievously wounded during the Vietnam War and suffered depression.

"This is the price of war," the Democrat from Georgia said. "You can't send young Americans to Iraq and Afghanistan ... and expect them to come home and just fit right in. They bring that trauma with them."

He added, "If you don't intervene with the emotional aftermath of the war up-front and early, it can slide down a precipitous path to hell."

Horsehater.blogspot.com, ihateclowns.com, ihatestarbucks.com, ihatemen.com, ihatewomen.com.

Hate is big on the internet.

Web sites, bloggers, and, worst of all, dreaded hate e-mail.

In this e-world where web \sites can be set up in minutes, where mass mail of any variety can be sent with a single click and anonymity is all but assured, it is just too easy to spread hate.

Type the word "hate" into Google and you get more than 200 million hits. Among the top 100 were those websites mentioned above.

As fast as you can say "High School Musical is great," there is somebody somewhere ready to make a website or a blog entry about how much it sucks.

And then folks with silly blogging names such as "Mr Vixen" and "Miffed" write about how much they hate your idea or think you're an idiot and so on and so on, until nobody can remember what the point of the post was in the first place.

Some websites will even spread your message of hate - for a price, of course. Pay $US5 and one site will send an anonymous note to the person you hate, saying someone hates them.

How did we get here?

In the past, if you hated, say, your dry cleaner, maybe you wrote a letter, or even protested outside their door. If you were particularly industrious, you might even paper your neighbourhood with fliers.

But today, one website, one string of responses on a blog, can reach thousands - maybe millions - instantly.

On ihatewomen.com, posters can write anything they like about how terrible women are, and its creator, Slate McDorman, won't censor it, as long as there are no threats or personal information - addresses or Social Security numbers, for example.

McDorman, a 31-year-old law student in Alabama, started the site and a counterpart, ihatemen.com, in 1998 after a rant session with a female co-worker about their awful exes.

After a series of female web masters for the ihatemen.com site - including the ex-girlfriend who first inspired the ihatewomen site - McDorman now runs both sites.

Like many of the hate sites, McDorman's sites feature forums for public comment - the most popular feature - stories about bad women, quotes, music and links.

McDorman says the sites are an outlet for people who are angry or frustrated about women, but they also are comedy.

"It's a joke. People seem to have a hard time getting that," he says. "How can you hate half the human race? It's just humour and sarcasm. I've put it on there somewhere that if you don't get the sarcasm, then you probably won't get the rest of the site and you should just move on."
In a recent Salon.com article about the growth of hate mail and hate messaging on blogs and the danger to free discourse, writer Gary Kamiya cited the internet's ease and the improvement in the internet's technology as among the reasons hate messaging is growing.

Before the internet, if a reader wanted to respond to something in a newspaper or a magazine, he or she might send a letter. But then it became an e-mail. And now, with the demand for instant news, the readers of many sites can post their comments directly to the site.

Even the hate sites get hate messages.

McDorman keeps a page for the particularly caustic hate emails he gets at ihatewomen.com. He says he gets one intelligent comment for every three silly posts to his site. But he doesn't believe that his site and the internet promote hate; they just reflect society.

"I don't see how my site could really make people hate the other gender any more than they already do," he says.

"Whatever you see on the internet and how the internet has emerged in its content is just a mirror of what people are doing in the real world."

But maybe that mirror is getting a bit too dirty.

The internet was supposed to revolutionise the way we communicate: information at our fingertips, global discourse, every man's opinion could be heard.

But 12 years after I opened my first email account, I have grown weary of the hate littering our e-world.

Perhaps it's time we start policing ourselves. No more hate messages by anonymous posters. Every posting should require a name, address and telephone number.

That information could be shielded from public view, and though some people might make up names and phone numbers, the requirement for submitting them might reduce the number of hate-filled messages left online.

As a reporter, I doubt there's anything I can do to keep the hate mail out of my inbox. But I'm not sure I'd want to anyway. I occasionally enjoy reading how ignorant some of my detractors can be, right down to the reckless spelling and grammar.