Elves Under Hoof (direct link to a zipped file of four PDFs) is a free print-and-play solitaire game from Dan Verssen. From the rules: Victory: You win when the last elf is dead. You achieve a Prancing Victory if you have 5 or more surviving reindeer. You get a Spoiled Meat Victory if you have 2 or less surviving reindeer. You lose if all your reindeer are killed and left to rot in the snow. It is included, naturally, in the Games involving Elf Death list at BoardGameGeek.
posted by Wolfdog on Dec 20, 2008 - 4 comments

Wars around the world have killed three times more people over the past half-century than previously estimated, a new study suggests... The researchers estimate that 5.4 million people died from 1955 to 2002 as a result of wars in 13 countries. These deaths range from 7,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 3.8 million in Vietnam. According to Obermeyer, the estimates are three times higher than those of previous reports. Data from this new study also suggests that 378,000 people worldwide died a violent death in war each year between 1985 and 1994, compared with 137,000 estimated at the time.

ABC News: Study: War Deaths Grossly Underestimated
The study: Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme
Related: Measuring deaths from conflict
posted by y2karl on Jun 20, 2008 - 47 comments

On my 19th birthday in 1917, we were in the trenches at Passchendaele... Haig put a three-day barrage on the Germans, and thought, "Well, there can't be much left of them." I think it was the Yorkshires and Lancashires that went over. I watched them as they came out of their dugouts and the German machine guns just mowed them down. I doubt whether any of them reached the front line.
Harry Patch, Private, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. Born June 17 1898.
Of the millions who fought in WWI, only a handful are still alive today -- and all are now well over 100 years old. With the horror of the trenches about to slip from living memory, Max Arthur has tracked down and interviewed these last survivors of the 'carnage incomparable'.
posted by matteo on Nov 1, 2005 - 27 comments

According to UPI, the United States has been offered by coalition partner Morocco its tide-turning force of 2,000 monkeys trained to detonate land mines. It wouldn't be so unbelievable if the U.S. wasn't already training dolphins and sea lions to do the same. Considering the carnage already happening to humans in Iraq, this news doesn't inspire thoughts of happy endings for our animal friends.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Mar 27, 2003 - 28 comments

Thoughtful pieces like these are becoming fewer and fewer.
Danny Schecter of Media Channel gives his take on the unfolding events. I fear the path the US is on, marching headlong into what could very well be a protracted, horrific spiral of war and carnage.
posted by mapalm on Sep 13, 2001 - 6 comments