Society's ChildS


Alarm Clock

Killing of zoo giraffe raises questions of science, ethics and education

Richard Steed and Malin Rising
Yahoo! News
Sun, 09 Feb 2014 12:55 UTC
Image
© Scanpix/Denmark/Reuters
Danish zoo kills giraffe to prevent inbreeding, rebuffs efforts to save 2-year-old Marius' life

Saying it needed to prevent inbreeding, the Copenhagen Zoo killed a 2-year-old giraffe and fed its remains to lions as visitors watched, ignoring a petition signed by thousands and offers from other zoos and a private individual to save the animal.

Marius, a healthy male, was put down Sunday using a bolt pistol, said zoo spokesman Tobias Stenbaek Bro. Visitors, including children, were invited to watch while the giraffe was then skinned and fed to the lions.

Marius' plight triggered a wave of online protests and renewed debate about the conditions of zoo animals. Before the giraffe was killed, an online petition to save it had received more than 20,000 signatures.

But the public feeding of Marius' remains to the lions was popular at Copenhagen Zoo. Stenbaek Bro said it allowed parents to decide whether their children should watch what the zoo regards as an important display of scientific knowledge about animals.

"I'm actually proud because I think we have given children a huge understanding of the anatomy of a giraffe that they wouldn't have had from watching a giraffe in a photo," Stenbaek Bro said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

He said the zoo, which now has seven giraffes left, followed the recommendation of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria to put down Marius by because there already were a lot of giraffes with similar genes in the organization's breeding program.

Comment: There is an interesting discussion on our forum here about this very issue.

Read More...
Arrow Down

Warning! Fake funeral notice cyber-scam

Jason Sickles
Yahoo! News
Mon, 10 Feb 2014 10:37 UTC
Image
© Yahoo!Hackers stole the identity of Eubank Funeral Home to send out fake funeral notices.
In his line of work, funeral home director Brian Bass has come to expect the occasional juvenile phone prank.

But the hoax recently perpetrated on the small-town Eubank Funeral Home where Bass works is bigger than any adolescent antics. Cybercriminals hijacked the funeral home's identity as part of a worldwide email phishing scam.

For the past month, inboxes across the United States and beyond have been getting funeral notices that appear to be from Eubank Funeral Home in Canton, Texas, 60 miles east of Dallas.

Without saying who has died, the fake emails invite the recipient to an upcoming "celebration of your friend's life service" and instruct the recipient to click a link for "more detailed information about the farewell ceremony."

"It reaches to people's curiosity and their natural instinct to find out who passed away," Bass told Yahoo News.

But instead of going to Eubank's website, the Better Business Bureau says, the link in the email takes readers to a foreign domain where malicious software is downloaded onto the user's computer allowing criminals access to passwords, financial records, and other personal information stored on the computer.
Read More...
Heart - Black

We can be certain of this

Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
Sat, 15 Feb 2014 16:31 UTC
overfishing
© n/aThe scale of our destruction of this resource is unprecedented and easily visible to all
Just as the addict feels "I can't live any other way," so we continue clinging to a way of living that is equally self-destructive because we too see no other way to live.

Yesterday I discussed the intrinsic uncertainties in complex systems. (Certainty, Complex Systems, and Unintended Consequences). Amidst this sea of uncertainty we can be certain of this: humans will continue down an unsustainable path that inevitably leads to a tragic end until they succeed in destroying themselves or they reach a point of no return and abruptly change course.

That process of clinging to the present arrangement "because I can't live any other way" until that arrangement collapses is the primary narrative of our era. It is truly remarkable how humans will cling to a visibly self-destructive, no-exit arrangement because they see no alternative, and then after the present arrangement crumbles and the wreckage is cleared, we somehow manage to find some other arrangement.

Sadly, we only rouse ourselves to change when there is no other choice, that is, after we've destroyed the previous arrangement. Take the seas, for example: we're losing the oceans. The scale of our destruction of this resource is unprecedented and easily visible to all. The Consequences of Oceanic Destruction (Foreign Affairs) Over the last several decades, human activities have so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now experiencing evolution in reverse: a return to the barren primeval waters of hundreds of millions of years ago.
Read More...
Light Saber

Portland, Oregon: Angry residents wave pitchforks, torches in protest of Mayor's crackdown on homelessness

Eleanor Goldberg
The Huffington Post
Sat, 15 Feb 2014 21:59 UTC
Image
© Huffington Post
A group of fired-up activists in Portland, Ore., who were tired of seeing homeless people being mistreated staged the kind of protest that will be difficult for the mayor to ignore.

An estimated 4,000 people sleep on the streets of Portland, Ore., on any given night and, since last summer, life has become increasingly difficult for them.

So, a group of protesters descended upon Portland City Hall on Tuesday night carrying pitchforks and torches to "shame the mayor into action," organizer Jessie Sponberg told The Oregonian.
peep this shit. stop criminalizing homelessness! #angrymob#portlandpic.twitter.com/pdvWv4SjIj

- jessie sponberg (@ozone2016) February 12, 2014
Portland appears to be gearing up to revive a bill that would allow police to rouse homeless people sitting on sidewalks, The Oregonian reported at the end of last year. In July, Mayor Charlie Hales launched an effort to clear out homeless campsites, according to the Portland Mercury.

Sweeping campsites often exacerbates the situation for people living on the streets because the police discard homeless people's few possessions, which may include their only warm clothing and blankets, advocates noted in a Change.org petition.

Read More...
Nuke

New Mexico nuclear waste site has 'radiological event'


RT.com
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 15:25 UTC
Radiation
© Reuters/Alex Domanski
Officials are monitoring the levels of airborne radiation at the deep underground facility in southeastern New Mexico where the US government disposes of its low-grade nuclear waste.

Air samples were taken around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) after a monitoring system detected traces of radiation on the underground levels of the facility around 11:30 pm Friday night, the US Department of Energy said in a news release.

The 139 workers above ground at the time of the incident were ordered Saturday to remain where they were as a precaution. None of the employees tested positive for radioactive contamination, and all non-essential personnel were released, Department of Energy spokesman Roger Nelson said.

Nelson said the cause of the leak remains a mystery, since inspection crews have not yet gone underground. He added that he was not sure when that would happen.

Surface samples show no sign of radiation, thus suggesting the leak was "not significant," he said.
Read More...
Magic Hat

Reality show snake-handling preacher dies -- of snakebite

Ashley Fantz
CNN
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 15:11 UTC
Jamie Coots
© CNNJamie Coots had said that he believed a poisonous snakebite would not harm believers as long as they are anointed by God.
A Kentucky pastor who starred in a reality show about snake-handling in church has died -- of a snakebite.

Jamie Coots died Saturday evening after refusing to be treated, Middleborough police said.

On "Snake Salvation," the ardent Pentecostal believer said that he believed that a passage in the Bible suggests poisonous snakebites will not harm believers as long as they are anointed by God. The practice is illegal in most states, but still goes on, primarily in the rural South.

Coots was a third-generation "serpent handler" and aspired to one day pass the practice and his church, Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, on to his adult son, Little Cody.

The National Geographic show featured Coots and cast handling all kinds of poisonous snakes -- copperheads, rattlers, cottonmouths. The channel's website shows a picture of Coots, goateed, wearing a fedora. "Even after losing half of his finger to a snake bite and seeing others die from bites during services," Coots "still believes he must take up serpents and follow the Holiness faith," the website says.

On Sunday, National Geographic Channels spokeswoman Stephanie Montgomery sent CNN this statement: "In following Pastor Coots for our series Snake Salvation, we were constantly struck by his devout religious convictions despite the health and legal peril he often faced.
Read More...
Nuke

Radiation Leak in New Mexico: "We've never seen a level like we are seeing"

Kimberley Paxton
The Daily Sheeple
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
A nuclear waste facility near Carlsbad, New Mexico is the site of an airborne radiation leak. The high levels of particles were detected late Friday night at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

WIPP is housed at an old salt mine, and toxic waste like plutonium is housed half a mile underground.

All of the 139 workers were sequestered on site.
WIPP is the nation's first transuranic nuclear waste repository, used to permanently dispose of low-level nuclear waste from government sites around the nation.

"These are radionuclides that are of a hazard if inhaled, but it is not the kind of radiation that penetrates, and so the primary concern for the release of this nature is (through) the ventilation passageway and that's why our employees are sequestered in place," said Roger Nelson, a Department of Energy spokesman. (source)
Read More...
Vinyl

SOTT Focus: Behind the Headlines: Protest Songs for the Revolution

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 19:00 UTC
Sott Talk Radio logo
This week we unwound a little to have a musical interlude and discuss some of the great 'protest songs' that became anthems of liberty during the otherwise bleak 'American Century', inspiring many with hope for Truth and Justice.

What makes a 'protest song' anyway? We also talked about some lesser known songs that didn't quite 'make it', but nevertheless struck a powerful chord with some because they record a truer version of history the victors would prefer we forget.

We were joined by Tim Trepanier, singer-songwriter and travelling troubadour from the prairie lands of Canada. Lead singer and guitarist for folk band Relic, we even convinced Tim to play a couple of his tunes for us live on air!

Running Time: 02:19:00

Download: MP3

Read More...
Control Panel

World's largest solar farm is scorching and killing birds that fly over it


Daily Mail
Sun, 16 Feb 2014 07:23 UTC
Image
© Brightsource Energy'Tower-power': Heat emanating from the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the world's largest solar farm of its kind, has allegedly killed and injured dozens of birds and other wildlife in the Mojave desert
Environmentalists have hit out at a giant new solar farm in the Mojave Desert as mounting evidence reveals birds flying through the extremely hot 'thermal flux' surrounding the towers are being scorched.

After years of regulatory tangles around the impact on desert wildlife, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened on Thursday but environmental groups say the nearly 350,000 gigantic mirrors are generating 1000 degree Fahrenheit temperatures which are killing and singing birds.

According to compliance documents released by developer BrightSource Energy last year, dozens of birds were found injured at the site during the building stage.

Comment: A wonderful example of just how far modern human society is from being "civilized".

Read More...
Pistol

Unbelievable! Fake Blood and Blanks: Schools Stage Active Shooter Drills

Nona Willis Aronowitz
CBS
Sat, 15 Feb 2014 22:24 UTC
Image
© Jim Seida / NBC News
In a cramped, carpeted amphitheater in the basement of Troy Buchanan High School, 69 students are waiting to die.

"You'll know when it pops off," says Robert Bowen, the school's campus police officer. "If you get engaged with one of the shooters, you'll know it."

"When you get shot, you need to close your fingers and keep 'em in," adds Tammy Kozinski, the drama teacher. "When the bad guy and the police come through, they'll step all over you, and who will be saying they're sorry?"

"Nobody!" the students cry in unison.
Read More...