Society's ChildS


Black Cat 2

Beijing park investigates deaths of stray cats

Stray Cats Deaths
© AP Photo/Ng Han GuanA protester holds up pictures showing cats killed at the Temple of Heaven park in Beijing, China, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2013. A dozen resident gathered outside the park to protest against animal cruelty after discovering dozens of stray cats mysteriously killed since Friday in the park. Chinese character on paper reads "Stop the killing, recall conscience".
Beijing - Officials at a famous Beijing park said Sunday that they were investigating the mysterious deaths of stray cats in recent weeks, as protesters accused park authorities of killing the animals.

The Temple of Heaven park has stepped up patrols in an effort to prevent more deaths and cat carcasses from being dumped inside, said a park spokesman.

The spokesman, who gave only his surname, Xing, said he didn't know how many dead cats had been found, and that it was unclear whether they had died inside or outside the park. He said dead stray cats had also been found in other areas close to the large park, a UNESCO heritage site where emperors in the Ming and Qing dynasties offered sacrifices.

Protesters gathered Sunday morning outside the park's east gate.

Info

Canadian man eats dog who saved him from bear attack

German Shepherd
© Eduard Kyslynskyy/Shutterstock

A Canadian man survived a bear attack and months in the wilderness thanks to his faithful companion, a dog. But at the end of the ordeal, the dog didn't make it out alive.

In July, a 44-year-old man, Marco Lavoie, set off on a two-month canoeing trip in Northwestern Quebec along the Nottaway River. But a bear attacked his campsite, eating all his food and destroying the canoe he needed to travel back home. His beloved German shepherd chased off the bear before the man could be harmed.

Without any food, Lavoie faced certain starvation. So a few days later, he hit his dog with a rock and ate him. When he was late returning from his trip in October, his family alerted police.

When Lavoie was finally rescued late last month, he couldn't speak or eat, had lost about 90 pounds, and was dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia.

"He survived because he made good decisions. Eating his dog was one of them," Andre Francois Bourbeau, author of a survival guide, told the Toronto Sun.

People

How the 'thigh gap' became the latest pressure point on a woman's self-image

model Robyn Lawley in chair
© Jon Gorrigan for the ObserverModel Robyn Lawley, who has appeared on the cover of Vogue, was condemned on social media for not having a 'thigh gap'

Once, only models were determined to make sure that their legs didn't touch. Now it has become a widespread, harmful - and often unachievable - obsession.

She may have modelled for Ralph Lauren and appeared on the cover of Vogue Italia, but when a photo of Robyn Lawley wearing a corset appeared on Facebook the responses were far from complimentary. "Pig", "hefty" and "too fat" were some of the ways in which commenters described the 24-year-old. Her crime? Her thighs were touching. Lawley had failed to achieve a "thigh gap".

The model, who has her own swimwear line and has won numerous awards for her work, responded vehemently below the line: "You sit behind a computer screen objectifying my body, judging it and insulting it, without even knowing it."

She also went on to pen a thoughtful rallying cry for the Daily Beast last week against those who attacked her, saying their words were "just another tool of manipulation that other people are trying to use to keep me from loving my body".

Dollar Gold

Ben Swann: Is Bitcoin real capitalism?




Media doesn't talk about Bitcoin very often. When they do, it tends to be negative. Love it or hate it, is Bitcoin one of the few remaining examples of true capitalism?


If you haven't been paying attention to Bitcoin lately, you should be. If you don't know what Bitcoin is, the simplest way of explaining it: Bitcoin is a digital, decentralized currency, which is traded an an open source, peer to peer network. Kinda confusing , right?

Bitcoin can be bought with dollars or euros or just about any currency and then it's traded and can be sold in any currency. What makes Bitcoin so unique, though, is that it is virtually an anonymous currency. Now to be clear, nothing is entirely anonymous, and there are ways to connect a Bitcoin user with their Bitcoin wallet; but certainly it's more difficult than dollars.

Comment: Be sure to check out the in-depth discussion of Bitcoin in the SOTT Talk Radio show from earlier this year.


Bomb

Ben Swann interviews Dr. Ron Paul


He was a longtime congressman in the state of Texas, known as "Dr. No". Ron Paul will not be remembered for all the bills he worked to pass, he's remembered for all the bills he worked to stop.

He has never been president, never served in a presidential administration, never won a presidential nomination. Never even elected to the U.S. senate. And yet Ron Paul is arguably the most influential polititian in modern American history.

Bizarro Earth

Billion litres of coal-mine muck leaks into Athabasca River

Edmonton - Geotechnical engineers remained at the Obed Mountain coal mine Sunday trying to determine how one billion litres of murky water leaked from a containment pond into the Athabasca River.

A barrier gave way on Halloween, allowing liquid containing coal dust, sand and dirt to flow through two creeks into the Athabasca, said Darin Barter, a spokesman for the Alberta Energy Regulator.

"I haven't seen this happen. Coal mine incidents and pit leak incidents are really rare," he said. "I was surprised this could happen."

The Obed Mountain mine, owned by Sherritt International and now undergoing reclamation since operations were suspended last November, is about 30 kilometres northeast of Hinton.

The dirty water travelled 25 kilometres to the Athabasca, forming a muddy plume now floating downstream, Alberta Environment spokeswoman Jessica Potter said.

Department staff and Alberta Health Services were analyzing water samples to determine if anything in the sediment could cause environmental or health problems, she said.

"There's actually quite a noticeable change of colour (in the river)," she said. "It's like muddy water ... murky, muddy water."

The leading edge of the plume, which is slowly dissipating, was between Whitecourt and Athabasca on Sunday.

Investigators don't know how long the plume is because aircraft needed to monitor the situation were unable to fly in the snowy weekend weather.

Airplane

Testimony of a Former Drone Warrior

us drone
HALA GORANI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Welcome back to the program. I'm Hala Gorani, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.

Imagine this: killing more than 1,500 enemies in war without ever stepping foot on the battlefield. That was Brandon Bryant's life. He was a drone sensor operator responsible for tracking and killing militants halfway around the world from where the trigger was pulled, a ground control station in the U.S. states of Nevada and New Mexico.

Grainy black-and-white videos like this one give us a bird's eye view of this new form of warfare. This attack, for instance, took place on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan back in 2008.

Che Guevara

30,000 people dispersed with tear gas as French riot police break up anti-tax protest in Brittany

Image
© Reuters / Stephane Mahe
French riot police fired tear gas at thousands of demonstrators in north-west France on Saturday, after some protesters hurled stones and iron bars at them in a rally against a controversial green tax and layoffs.

Three demonstrators were arrested while four protesters and a police officer were injured after scuffles broke out during the protest on Saturday afternoon.

Protest organisers said 30,000 people, including hauliers, fishermen and food industry workers, had gathered in the town of Quimper in Brittany to demonstrate against an environmental tax on trucks and layoffs, even though the government had earlier in the week suspended the application of the so-called ecotax.

Authorities estimate that 15,000 people joined in the protest.

Some of the protestors pelted police with stones, iron bars and even pots of chrysanthemum, while others burned palettes. Police responded with water cannons and tear gas.

Colosseum

Sen. John Barrasso calls Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a laughingstock over Obamacare website

Image
© ABC News
As technical problems continue to plague the Obamacare rollout, Senator and orthopedic surgeon Dr. John Barrasso, R-Wy., once again called for Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to resign.

"She's already, as of 'Saturday Night Live' last night, the laughing stock of America," he said on 'This Week' this Sunday. "She's lost considerable credibility."

Sebelius was parodied in the opening segment of 'Saturday Night Live' last night, poking fun at the failures of the Healthcare.gov website.

The Obamacare rollout has been beleaguered by problems since the enrollment system went live at midnight on Oct. 1. By mid-afternoon that same day, around 2.8 million people had visited Healthcare.gov, the federally-run exchange serving 36 states. The resulting system overload meant many visitors were greeted with an error message saying the site was down.

In the following weeks consumers reported problems with system timeouts, creating and logging into accounts and inaccurate information regarding eligibility.

In his weekly address Saturday, President Barack Obama said Healthcare.gov had been visited more than 20 million times since its launch. However, only around 700,000 Americans have successfully submitted applications.

Life Preserver

No takers for Obamacare in one Colorado county: Navigator hasn't signed up anyone because it's too expensive

"Thus far everybody has taken a look at the rates and they've walked out the door."

Al Jazeera finds an Obamacare navigator in Colorado who hasn't signed up anybody for the new program because it's too expensive:
"So far, no one," says the Obamacare navigator. "Thus far everybody has taken a look at the rates and they've walked out the door. There's sticker shock. They just can't afford it."