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Second giraffe named Marius at risk of being put down in Denmark

Lars Eriksen
The Guardian
Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:30 UTC
Copenhagen zoo's giraffe named Marius, before he was killed, dissected and eaten by lions
© Scanpix Denmark/Reuters
Jyllands Park zoo says it may kill male giraffe to make way for female, days after death at Copenhagen zoo sparked outcry

If you are a giraffe and your name is Marius, now might be a good time to leave Denmark.

Days after the euthanasia of a healthy young giraffe at Copenhagen zoo sparked controversy around the world, a second Danish zoo has announced that it is considering a similar fate for another giraffe - also named Marius.
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V

Anger in Bosnia, but this time the people can read their leaders' ethnic lies

Slavoj Žižek
The Guardian
Mon, 10 Feb 2014 13:11 UTC
Image
© Sulejman Omerbasic/Corbis
'The protesters' despair is authentic. One is tempted to paraphrase Mao Zedong: there is chaos in Bosnia, the situation is excellent!'
Last week, cities were burning in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It all began in Tuzla, a city with a Muslim majority. The protests then spread to the capital, Sarajevo, and Zenica, but also Mostar, home to a large segment of the Croat population, and Banja Luka, capital of the Serb part of Bosnia. Thousands of enraged protesters occupied and set fire to government buildings. Although the situation then calmed down, an atmosphere of high tension still hangs in the air.

The events gave rise to conspiracy theories (for example, that the Serb government had organised the protests to topple the Bosnian leadership), but one should safely ignore them since it is clear that, whatever lurks behind, the protesters' despair is authentic. One is tempted to paraphrase Mao Zedong's famous phrase here: there is chaos in Bosnia, the situation is excellent!

Why? Because the protesters' demands were as simple as they can be - jobs, a chance of decent life, an end to corruption - but they mobilised people in Bosnia, a country which, in the last decades, has become synonymous with ferocious ethnic cleansing.
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Smoking

Totalitarian science and second-hand smoke, where 'facts' fit policy.

Simon Hills
The Free Society
Tue, 11 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
Simon Hills gives his reaction to the House of Commons voting, on the back of junk science, to ban smoking in cars when under 18s are present - suggesting it's only a matter of time before our homes are next

So our politicians have finally crossed a rubicon in passing legislation banning adults from doing something in their own private space on the grounds that they don't approve of it. Smoking is to be banned in cars if there are children in the vehicle. Writing an article for The Times about the proposal, the columnist Gaby Hinsliff wrote: "There's little point arguing this one out with hardcore libertarians, although it beats me why anyone would fight for the right to give their children cancer."

This was the headline for the piece: "Who would fight for the right to give kids cancer?" This is the same as writing, surely, "Who would fight for the right to give kids a paralysing spinal injury?" for those parents who might want to take their children horse riding. Or, "Who would fight for the right to let their children freeze to death?" for those who take them walking in the Cairngorms.

In fact, despite the demonic, despotic science on the effects of secondary smoking, there has been the most pitiful evidence that it has done any children any harm at all.

Comment: Passive smoking is another of the Nanny State's big lies,
The devious plan of anti-smoking campaigns to control people and stop them from using their brain.
Smokers' lungs used in half of transplants: Improves Survival Rate!
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer (According to WHO/CDC Data)
Air pollution causes lung cancer in non-smokers (erm, can't it cause it in smokers too then?)
Government Suppresses Major Public Health Report
Air pollution leading cause of cancer, World Health Organisation warns
5 Health Benefits of Smoking
'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!

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Pistol

Border Patrol teaching children to shoot at human-shaped targets that look like immigrants

Rebecca Leber
Think Progress
Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:35 UTC
Image
Controversial photographs from a recent Border Patrol event show agents teaching children to aim and shoot a paintball gun at a human-shaped target. Immigrant activists have accused Border Patrol of using this activity to encourage children how to shoot immigrants in an area where migrants have died.

"The target is dressed to resemble a migrant and is located within 100 feet from Virginia Avenue where actual persons have been killed by Border Patrol gunfire," Immigrants Rights Consortium's Pedro Rios said, according to NBC San Diego News. "While encouraging children to use guns to shoot at a migrant effigy is unconscionable, it is also symbolic of the agency's unabashed culture of violence which has grown from a lack of accountability, oversight and unprofessional standards that rebuke best practices in situations involving use-of-force."

Border Patrol claims it is "standard" practice to use targets dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. It denies, however, that the target was meant to look specifically like an immigrant, and said the "activity was meant to create awareness about law enforcement tools used to address some violent situations without the use of deadly force."
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Bizarro Earth

'Significant' spill of coal slurry taints creek in West Virginia

Meteor Blades
DailyKos
Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:30 UTC
coal slurry west virginia
© Mark Cornelison

The coal slurry spill in West Virginia Tuesday morning wasn't nearly as bad as this one in Inez,
Kentucky, 11 years ago, but the risk is always there, especially when regulators don't regulate. Officials of the state's Department of Environmental Protection don't yet know how much coal slurry has leaked from a facility in Kanawha County, West Virginia. But a DEP spokesman characterized it as "significant."

It has already blackened Fields Creek not far from where it empties into the Kanawha River. State officials and those at West Virginia American Water say the spill is no threat to drinking water supplies. Indeed, Jimmy Gianato, the director of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management at the state's Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, said: "I don't think there's really anything to it. It turned out to be much of nothing."

That doesn't quite seem to mesh with "significant," but if true, it would be good news after more than a month of worries caused by the 10,000-gallon spill of a chemical mixture - Crude MCHM - from Freedom Industries on the Elk River. That spill did taint drinking water. One elementary school, according to the Charleston Gazette, detected low levels of MCHM in water from a drinking fountain Tuesday morning. Authorities say they will flush it out after school.
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USA

10 Prison security techniques being implemented on the American people

Marlon Brock
Police State USA
Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:12 UTC
psychopathy poster
© SOTT
Americans are not typically aware of how their federal and state prison systems work. What we think we know, we learned from watching television.

When I took my first walk through at FCI (Federal Correctional Institution) El Reno Oklahoma as a new employee, I was surprised at how non-Hollywood real prison life is.

Frankly, all I knew about prison life was what I saw on television or at the movies. Not even close.

As I got closer to retiring from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP), it began to dawn on me that the security practices we used in the prison system were being implemented outside those walls.

"Free worlders" is prison slang for the non-incarcerated who reside in the "free world." In this article I am going to compare a number of practices used in federal prisons to those being used today in the "free world."

You might find that our country may be one giant correctional institution.
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Arrow Down

Fingerprint and eye-scanning drones to make deliveries in UAE

Samantha Murphy Kelly
Mashable
Mon, 10 Feb 2014 16:26 UTC
Fingerprint Payment
© Wolfgang von Brauchitsch/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A shopper uses a fingerprint scanner to pay for items at a German grocery store.
Amazon drones may make quick deliveries to your house in the future, but the United Arab Emirates government is looking to add similar technology to its skies much sooner - within a year.

The UAE government detailed a prototype of a drone that would deliver official packages and personal documents such as driver's licenses and ID cards right to citizen doorsteps, per a Reuters report on Monday. To keep the cargo secure, the drones would be equipped with fingerprint and retina scanners to make sure they are delivering to the correct recipients.

"The UAE will try to deliver its government services through drones. This is the first project of its kind in the world," said Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi, the Minister of Cabinet Affairs in the UAE government, according to Reuters.

Gergawi said the drones are battery-operated and measure about 1.5 feet. The casing is white and features a UAE emblem. Drones have been tested in Dubai for the past six months and will likely roll out in the next year, the report said. Eventually, the government plans to make the service available across the country.

But the initiative faces a few challenges. In addition to safety and tech issues, it also must withstand the dessert's summer heat and dust storms.

In December, Amazon announced that it would send a million flying drones into the air to deliver purchases through an initiative called Amazon Prime Air. Although the company said it is anticipating a 2015 rollout, it is still awaiting FAA approval, which could take years.
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Attention

Death penalty suspended in Washington state

Rachel La Corte
Associated Press
Tue, 11 Feb 2014 15:45 UTC
Gov. Jay Inslee Washington

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee
Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday he was suspending the use of the death penalty in Washington state for as long as he's in office, announcing a move that he hopes will enable officials to "join a growing national conversation about capital punishment."

The first-term Democrat said he came to the decision after months of review, meetings with victims' families, prosecutors and law enforcement.

"There have been too many doubts raised about capital punishment, there are too many flaws in this system today," Inslee said at a news conference. "There is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system."

Last year, Maryland abolished the death penalty, the 18th state to do so and the sixth in the last six years. In Washington state, legislative efforts to abolish the death penalty have received public hearings in recent years, but they've never gained political traction. Inslee said he would support a permanent ban from lawmakers.

Washington state hasn't executed an inmate in more than three years. There have been seven inmates executed this year in the U.S., according to the Washington D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center.

Richard Dieter, the center's executive director, said recent state moves away from the death penalty, including Inslee's action, show that support for capital punishment is waning. "The death penalty is being used less," he said.
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Nuke

Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth and the Future


Fairewinds
Sat, 12 May 2012 11:39 UTC
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As part of a presentation in Kansai, Japan on May 12th 2012, Maggie and Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education answered specific questions asked by symposium organizers regarding the condition of the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4. Fairewinds analyzes the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3. Also, Arnie discusses what the future may hold for Japan if it chooses a path without nuclear power.

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Sheriff

Horrifying: Cop shoots man's service dog during his 9-year-old son's birthday party


Source
Tue, 11 Feb 2014 14:00 UTC
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As a 9-year-old boy's birthday party was winding down at an Idaho home on Saturday, a police officer fatally shot a service dog belonging to the boy's father.

At around 5:30 p.m., the officer was responded to complaints of dogs on the loose, which is what he found when he arrived.

Officer Tarek Hassani, of the Filer Police Department, is seen on footage captured by his vehicle's dashcam kicking and yelling at the barking dogs as he attempted to make his way to the front door. When one of the dogs attempted to move around him, the officer shot the 7-year-old black labrador, named "Hooch," at point-blank range.
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