Those not up on such things ... meaning our kids were born elsewhere so our learning curve has followed a different course ... will be interested to learn that Ethiopia is just preparing to enter the Third Millennium.

The calendar there runs according to Julian, not Gregory ... two old popes who held a lot of sway over calendars and stuff in their time ... and that puts them seven years behind us year-wise. This being the case, they are really getting behind the Millennium Dream Campaign and doing it up big with the Great Ethiopian Run scheduled for the 9th of September.

The 10K run will see about 30,000 people participating, including some 3,000 children, and the money raised by entrance fees ... and they're hoping for at least one million Birr, that's almost $110,000 ... will go to help Ethiopian orphans and vulnerable children.

UNICEF is involved somehow, but what it's contributing aside from trotting one of their Goodwill Ambassadors into the media spotlight ... this time Olympic Champion Berhane Adere, which is appropriate ... and providing quotes from their people is hard to establish.

Missing the point, as it often happens, officials in Uganda are cracking down on the wrong thing, and threatening to arrest any parent whose child doesn't go to school next term.

Seems they have quite a truancy problem, but lest anyone think these kids are hanging at the mall or playing computer games instead of sitting in class, it's work in a mining quarry that's keeping them busy.

Since that doesn't exactly sound like a barrel of laughs, I think we can assume that the kids are doing this because they have to ... to eat, maybe?

Since the same guy also just asked local councils to pass laws against drug dealing, a habit which he said is becoming rampant in the district, I'm guessing he's a bit out of touch.

And just in case you missed it, there's a report out that an African family has adopted Brtiney Spear's kids ... both of them.

According to the story, the family of one Joseph N'Kai, a nomadic farmer who earned $378 last year, decided someone needed to step up for poor little Sean and Jayden, so their bringing them home to Malawi. Like all adoptive parents, they've been preparing and are ready for the kids to share a twin mattress in the 300 square foot hut with N'Kai's four biological kids.

Although apparently Ms. Spears was unavailable for comment, there has already been some local criticism of the adoption.

“They’re so holier-than-thou with their celebrity babies who they saved from the streets of Beverly Hills,” said a neighbor who asked not to be identified. “I think they just wanted to get publicity for saving the poor children of Britney and K-Fed. They’ll probably have their oldest daughter take care of them while they’re off all day working in the fields.”

The children's father, Kevin Federline, is claiming he was conned into signing away his rights, having been mislead into thinking it was children he'd fathered by other women who were being adopted.

(If it's in the news, it must be true ... )