Preparations are almost complete for Greek prime minister Costas Karamanlis to make the first state trip to Turkey in nearly 50 years. Karamanlis will travel in one of a thousand ships, and plans to call on his opposite number Recep Tayyip Erdogan, bearing the gift of a large wooden

There are a couple of myths told each year at my house on Thanksgiving. One is that Uncle Lou will finally get the hint by Friday afternoon that he's overstayed his welcome and will leave without swiping most of the leftovers. The other is that there's a natural chemical in turkey called tryptophan that makes you sleepy after the Thanksgiving meal.

Democrats are refusing to be made turkeys over the holidays by a lame duck president, a capitol newspaper reports. "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided to keep the chamber in session over the Thanksgiving break to block President Bush from making any unsavory recess appointments while Senators are out of town," Roll Call reports.

Turkish camaker Etox has developed a new model called the Zafer I that it hopes will enter production next year. Still in the prototyping phase, the creators of the Etox Zafer hope to eventually build up to 500 units a year but plan a more modest run of just 20 cars/year initially.

Satellite Imaging Corporation of Houston, Texas has created a 3D terrain model of the so-called “Mt. Ararat anomaly” - making use of stereo IKONOS satellite image data to create a flyover of the site in remote northeastern Turkey.

The different vocalizations of the Wild Turkey are "gobbles", "clucks", "putts", "purrs", "yelps", "cutts", "cackles" and "kee-kees".To reproduce these different vocalizations there are various types of turkey calls available today and a good hunter learns to use several because you never know which type of sound a wild turkey will respond to on any given day. Some days they may like the high-pitched yelps of an aluminum friction calls and the next they prefer the sound of a wingbone.Turkey Box CallsBox calls create turkey sounds with the friction created by sliding the lid across the surface of the box. Box calls are convenient and are capable of producing more volume than any other type of turkey call.Turkey Friction CallsFriction calls may be the most common turkey calls because they're easy to use and create lifelike turkey sounds. Friction calls feature a round (usually) surface, and the user creates sound by drawing a peg, or "striker", across the surface. Friction call surfaces can be slate, aluminum, ceramic or a variety of other materials.Push-Pull Turkey CallsPush-pull turkey calls are the simplest of all turkey calls to use, and create realistic turkey sounds. A push-pull call functions by pushing and/or pulling a button on the end of the call, forcing a surface across a peg.Tube Turkey CallsThe tube call is a popular caller for many of the nation's top turkey hunters. With it, a hunter can make virtually every sound in a turkey's vocabulary from yelps to purrs to gobbles. Tube calls consist of a small hollow barrel with latex rubberbanded across half of the top.Wingbone Turkey CallsWingbone calls originally were made from the wingbones of a turkey, and some still are. They are a suction-type call. Sounds are made with quick, forceful sucking motions, much like kissing the end of the call. Good wingbone calls make a hollow sounding yelp.Diaphragm Turkey CallsDiaphragm calls are inserted entirely in the user's mouth and require practice to learn to use correctly. They create the most lifelike turkey sounds of any other type of call.Turkey Locator CallsLocators are calls used to force a tom turkey to gobble, thus giving away his location. Mature male turkeys will "shock gobble" at loud noises such as an owl's hoot, a crow's caw a hawk's scream - even thunder or a train's whistle.