tagged w/ Animals
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"Viral Video Film School" and "Dancing with the Stars" are both back for brand new seasons! In this lesson, Brett has a round up of the internet's best dancing: pandas, birds, gorillas, and dogs.
Viral Video Film School has been a recurring segment on Current TV since 2006. In each episode of VVFS, Professor Brett Erlich teaches you valuable skills in the discipline of viral video making. So sit down, take notes, and try not to piss him off. For more Brett: watch Current TV, visit http://current.com/vvfs, or follow him @BrettErlich.
Current Media, the Peabody-and Emmy Award-winning television and online network founded in 2005 by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, features the very best in commentary andinformation programming. Home to the newly launched "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," as well as the celebrated documentary series "Vanguard," Current is dedicated to providing insightful analysis of important issues -- and digging deep into real stories to uncover how they affect real people. Current shines a light where other networks won't dare and boldly explores provocative subjects - opening minds, sparking conversations and forming deep connections with our viewers. Current creates the commentary and delivers the independent, unexpected point-of-view our viewers want and need to hear. On air and on all platforms, Current is media that matters.
Current is now available via cable and satellite TV in 60 million households in the US through distribution partners Comcast (Channel 107); Time Warner; DirecTV (Channel 358 nationwide); Dish Network (Channel 196 nationwide); Verizon and AT&T. In the UK and Ireland, Current is available on BSkyB (Channel 183) and Virgin Media (Channel 155). Viewers can also find Current online at http://current.com."Viral Video Film School" and "Dancing with the Stars" are both... more
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September 4 2011 - BUTUAN City, Philippines:
Villagers and veteran hunters have captured a one-ton saltwater crocodile which they plan to make the star of a planned ecotourism park in a southern Philippine town. About 100 people had to pull the crocodile, which weighs about 2,370 pounds (1,075 kilograms), from the creek to a clearing where a crane lifted it into a truck.September 4 2011 - BUTUAN City, Philippines:
Villagers and veteran hunters have... more
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Ed note: This photo of Oprah with Elmo has NOTHING to do with the video, but when will I ever get to use it? C’mon!
A genius created a supercut of the big O screaming out celebrity names in her signature inflection, but substituted her voice with a goat yelling.
This is why god invented Internet.
http://www.tabloidprodigy.com/2011/09/02/oprah-vs-the-yelling-goat/Ed note: This photo of Oprah with Elmo has NOTHING to do with the video, but when will... more
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PEASANTS in a Guatemalan village say aliens from outer space are responsible for a PIG born with a HUMAN-SHAPED HEAD!
Horrified locals say the mutant pig was born on the same day strange lights were spotted in the sky – and they believe aliens are to blame.
“I was shocked,” a farmer said. “It was a really terrifying experience. It looked like some kind of alien creature.”
But health officials are citing genetic problems or environmental pollution factors for the piglet’s bizarre face.
The piglet was one of a litter of 11, and health officials are feeding it by hand.
http://www.tabloidprodigy.com/2011/09/02/aliens-blamed-for-piglet-born-with-human-head/PEASANTS in a Guatemalan village say aliens from outer space are responsible for a PIG... more
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sitsi
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This is a short clip of a festival I recently went to where the locals make a giant snake 271 feet long out of straw and bamboo. There are legends of giant snakes throughout Japan that were (or are) big enough to kill dogs, children, and even unwary travelers. There have been unconfirmed sightings even in modern times of large snakes.
This town has its own particular legend of a giant snake which once caused problems with the town.This is a short clip of a festival I recently went to where the locals make a giant... more
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There is another earthquake shaking up Washington Dc this week: the beginning of what will hopefully be the shaking up of the status quo that has kept us from achieving the truly sustainable future we can give to ourselves and our children. Those continuing to sit in to stand up for humanity and all species in the wake of the effects of climate change and the absolute apathy and greed of corporations deserve our support.
And this is without regard to race, creed, or politics. This pipeline will affect ALL of us regardless of labels. Its dirty, toxic ingredients will threaten the water of the Ogalalla aquifer that irrigates our heartland. The burning of its ingredients will set off a carbon timebomb that will make the words "tipping point" all too real.
IT'S TIME TO BREAK THE ADDICTION.
The call to say NO to this pipeline is also a call to say YES to clean renewable energy. Clean energy jobs. Clean water. Respect for the rights of others.
This is the moral challenge of our time!
We cannot betray future generations for a quick buck. The price is simply too high.
So please, let's keep this going on Current. Let's keep giving these brave people our support and with each NO or other sign of encouragement we also tell President Obama that we the people are the voice and his NO is a vindication of his caring about that voice.
Keystone XL-NO!There is another earthquake shaking up Washington Dc this week: the beginning of what... more
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neham
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A federal jury says Chicago law enforcement must pay $330,000 to a family after officers shot their dog during a home raid that turned up no illegal activity.
Thomas Russell, then 18, opened the door to his home in February 2009 to find police officers with their guns drawn. He asked if he could lock up his 9-year-old black labrador, named Lady, before letting the officers inside. The Chicago Tribune describes what happened next:
Police refused the request and came into the house, the lawsuit said. When Lady came loping around the corner with her tail wagging, Officer Richard Antonsen shot the dog, according to the suit, which alleged excessive force, false arrest and illegal seizure for taking the dog's life.
The cops handcuffed Russell and his 16-year-old brother, and eventually charged Russell with obstructing their operation. He was found not guilty. According to NBC, the jury awarded $175,000 to Russell, $85,000 to his little brother, and $35,000 each to the brothers' parents. The officer who shot the dog owes $2,000 in damages, and his supervisor owes $1,000, according to NBC.
A law enforcement spokeswoman told the Tribune that the officers were protecting themselves.
FUCKING COWARDS!!!!A federal jury says Chicago law enforcement must pay $330,000 to a family after... more
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KSirys
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10 months ago
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CNN...
Dolphins in Asia's Mekong River on brink of extinction, group says
A World Wildlife Fund survey found only 85 Irrawaddy dolphins left in Southeast Asia’s Mekong River.
August 16th, 2011
01:48 PM ET
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A group of dolphins is on the brink of extinction in part because their calves are not surviving, the World Wildlife Fund reported.
There are 85 Irrawaddy dolphins left in Southeast Asia’s Mekong River, according to the conservation organization.
“Evidence is strong that very few young animals survive to adulthood, as older dolphins die off and are not replaced,” Dr. Li Lifeng, director of the World Wildlife Fund's freshwater program, said in a statement.
Irrawaddy dolphins are found in the Mekong River, the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar and the Mahakam River in Indonesia. While a survey of the dolphins was done only in the Mekong, the World Wildlife Fund reported that in all areas the species is critically endangered.
“These dolphins are at high risk of extinction by their small population size alone,” said Barney Long, the group’s Asian species expert. “With the added threats of gill net entanglement and high calf mortality, we are seriously concerned about their future.”
The danger of the species' extinction extends beyond the animal itself, the group said.
The dolphins are viewed as sacred by the Khmer and Lao people, the World Wildlife Fund noted.
Dolphin-watching ecotourism also is an "important source of income and jobs for communities" in these areas, the group said.
.CNN...
Dolphins in Asia's Mekong River on brink of extinction, group says... more
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The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has warned the US, the UK, and all tiger-range nations that China has re-opened the trade in wild cat skins—including tigers—ahead of a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting this week in Geneva, Switzerland. According to the EIA, China has reinitiated a Skin Registration Scheme that allows the trade of big cat skins from legal sources, such as captive-bred cats and controversial tiger farms, however the NGOS argues the scheme lacks transparency, providing an easy cover for the sale of skins taken from big cats poached in the wild.
"The Skin Registration Scheme is going in totally the wrong direction. It’s doing nothing to actually help tiger and leopard conservation, instead providing a cover for illegal trade and creating a confused consumer market," says Debbie Banks, EIA Tiger Campaign Head, in a press release.
China is a signatory of the Global Tiger Recovery Program, which ambitiously pledged to double tiger numbers in the wild by 2022 with initial funds of $300 million. However, EIA contends that the re-opening of the Skin Registration Scheme makes a 'complete mockery' of China's promise to conserve tigers.
The EIA states that it has already found examples of cat skins on sale on-line. According to the Hindustan Times one tiger rug cost $124,000, while a stuffed tiger cost $700,000. Leopard skins ranged from $100,000 to $300,000.
snip
Currently, there are an estimated 3,500 wild tigers in the world, down from approximately 100,000 in 1900; during the last decade alone tigers have lost 40% of their viable habitat; and already in the past century, three tiger subspecies went extinct and one may only survive in captivity. These bleak statistics underlie the difficulty of saving tigers. The great cat is threatened by habitat loss (much of which has vanished already), poaching for skins and traditional medicine, declines in prey species, and human-tiger conflict, which includes casualties both of humans and tigers.The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has warned the US, the UK, and all... more
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As suburbs engulfed the rural landscape in the boom following World War II, many family farmers found themselves with new neighbors who were annoyed by the sound of crowing roosters, the smell of animal manure, or the rumble of farming equipment. In defense of family farming, Massachusetts passed the first "Right to Farm" law in 1979, to protect these farmers against their new suburban neighbors filing illegitimate nuisance lawsuits against them when, in fact, the farms were there first. Since then, every state has passed some kind of protection for family farms, which are pillars of our communities and the backbone of a sensible system of sustainable agriculture.
However, in the past few decades, intensive corporatization of farming has threatened both the future of family farming and the ability of neighbors to regulate the development of industrial agricultural operations that have transmogrified many farms into factories. Small-scale farms that resembled Old MacDonald's farm (with an oink oink here and a moo moo there) have increasingly disappeared or been turned into enormous livestock confinements with literal lagoons of liquified manure and urine, super-concentrated smells that could make a skunk faint, or vast fields of monoculture crops grown with a myriad of chemicals and pesticides and sometimes even sewage sludge. For example, the decade before the first right to farm law was passed, it took one million family farms to raise nearly 60 million pigs but by 2001, less than ten percent (80,000 farms) were growing the same number of pigs.
Capitalizing on the sentiment of protecting traditional farming, giant agribusiness interests have convinced some states to revise their Right to Farm laws to stealthily protect the most egregious of industrial farming practices from legitimate nuisance suits. The Center for Media & Democracy has recently exposed and analyzed a cache of bills voted on by corporations and politicians behind closed doors and then introduced in state legislatures without any notice to the public of the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) bill factory in the production of the legislation and no disclosure of the fact that corporations pre-voted on the bills, let alone disclosures of the names of those companies. In 1996, ALEC suddenly took an interest in expanding right to farm laws. ALEC's corporate backers, unsurprisingly, hale from the factory farm side of the equation.
ALEC's Corporate Backers
ALEC's corporate members and funders have included a number of agriculture interests, including Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Cargill, and DuPont, as well as industry organizations like the National Pork Producers Council, the Illinois Corn Marketing Board, and the Illinois Soybean Association. Cargill is the nation's second largest beef processor, third largest turkey processor, and fourth largest pork processor. In three other areas, flour milling, soybean crushing, and production of animal feed, ADM joins Cargill as the biggest in the industry. Chemical giant DuPont is one of the world's largest makers of numerous pesticides, and in 1999, it purchased seed giant Pioneer Hi-Bred, the world's top seller of corn seeds, including genetically engineered seeds.
Unlike the corporations, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) is actually led by farmers ... and lobbyists for multinational pork processors, like Don Butler, past president of NPPC and lobbyist for Smithfield Foods, the largest pork processor in the world. The farmers who lead NPPC tend to own farms similar to that of NPPC president Doug Wolf. Wolf's farm produces 24,000 hogs per year - and it also has a beef feedlot and 1,200 acres of corn, soy, and alfalfa.
Perhaps the most surprising "agribusiness" donor to ALEC is the most powerful of all: Koch Industries. It turns out that an early part of the Koch empire was the Matador Cattle Company, founded in 1952. To this day, Koch Agriculture Company retains Matador Cattle Company, which has about 15,000 cattle. However, in the 1990's, Koch Beef Company was the nation's 10th largest cattle feeder, with feedlots that held up to 165,000 cattle. Koch bought a new feedlot in 1996 and, among other things, decided to expand its capacity by adding 20,000 more cows. The neighbors did not think that was a good idea:
Some businesses and farm owners expressed concerns over the health of their employees, some of whom would be housed within 300 feet of Koch's cattle pens. Other neighbors cited concerns over the potential for groundwater pollution, the amount of dirt, insects, and odors added to the area contributing to health problems, a decrease in the quality of life for nearby residents, and the possible devaluation of land.
Koch overcame their objections with the ruling of a friendly regulator in Texas, winning the right to expand. With all these corporate interests in limiting regulation of factory farming, thank goodness their pals at ALEC approved a model version of a Right to Farm bill in 1996!
Why Corporations Care About Laws For Farmers
While nearly all farms in the United States are technically "family farms" (a tiny fraction are owned directly by corporations), multinational agribusiness corporations have a major stake in how these farms are operated. Often family farms take the form of Wolf L & G Farms LLC, the farm owned by the family of Doug Wolf (mentioned above). Particularly for chickens and hogs, individual farmers often contract with meatpackers like Cargill, Smithfield, or Tyson. In contract farming arrangements, the corporations provide the animals, medications, and feed to the farmers; the farmer is responsible for the animals' housing, manure, and the bodies of animals that die prematurely. When the animals are fully grown, they are picked up by the corporation, which slaughters, processes, and markets the animal and plays the farmer for the weight the animal gained in his or her care. The farmers have most of the debt and risk and the corporation has most of the power and profit.
More at the linkAs suburbs engulfed the rural landscape in the boom following World War II, many... more
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The extreme dry conditions have been made worse by week after week of triple-digit temperatures, which have caused reservoirs to evaporate, crops to wither and animals and fish to die off by the thousands.
"The suffering and desperate need for relief grows with the rising temperatures and record-breaking heat that continue to scorch Texas with each passing day," state Agricultural Commissioner Todd Staples said.
Even the state's feral hogs are hiding from the heat, postponing a new reality TV show about Texans gunning them down from helicopters.
Texas saw less than an inch of rain statewide in July, and more than 90 percent of the state is already in the two most extreme stages of drought.
"Anything below 2 to 3 inches of rainfall would be a fly-on-the-windshield type thing as far as improvement," said Victor Murphy, a climate expert with the National Weather Service. "It wouldn't reverse this continued death spiral we're on."
Also Thursday, the state climatologist declared this the most severe one-year drought on record in Texas. Officials expected to declare soon that it has become the worst drought since the 1950s.
A newly updated weather map showed the drought holding firm — if not intensifying — through at least October.
In Dallas, county officials say at least 13 people have died from the heat this summer. The high temperature Thursday was expected to hit 109 degrees, which would be a record for the date.
Statewide demand for power was expected to approach the maximum Thursday for a fourth straight day. Some large industrial plants were forced off the overburdened electric grid, requiring them to shut down or rely on their own power reserves.
And for the first time this summer, utilities warned residential customers of the potential for rolling outages.
More at the linkThe extreme dry conditions have been made worse by week after week of triple-digit... more
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Written by Brandie Piper
Seattle (NBC) - We all love our animals and want to keep them happy. Since it's hard for them to roll a joint, a Seattle company is developing a medical marijuana patch for pets. Jim Alekson's Medical Marijuana Delivery Systems LLC has patented a patch called Tetracan that he says could be used on dogs, cats and even horses.
But why would a dog need medical marijuana?
"Because dogs suffer from the same maladies that humans do. It's a question of quality of life," said Alekson.
While the patch does conjure visions of pups frolicking in fields of poppies, Alekson says pets suffer greatly from pain, everything from arthritis to cancer. He points to pharmaceutical painkillers that have proven harmful, sometimes fatal in animals.
Alekson, an owner of three Papillons, says the pot patch is far more mellow.
"I'd much rather they were on something holistic as opposed to something chemical that I know is breaking down some of the organs in their body," he said.
http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/269280/71/Marijuana-coming-soon-for-dogsWritten by Brandie Piper
Seattle (NBC) - We all love our animals and want to keep... more
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Here is a document the USDA doesn't want you to see. It's what the agency calls a "technical review"—nothing more than a USDA-contracted researcher's simple, blunt summary of recent academic findings on the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant infections and their link with factory animal farms. The topic is a serious one. A single antibiotic-resistant pathogen, MRSA—just one of many now circulating among Americans—now claims more lives each year than AIDS.
Back in June, the USDA put the review up on its National Agricultural Library website. Soon after, a Dow Jones story quoted a USDA official who declared it to be based on "reputed, scientific, peer-reviewed, and scholarly journals." She added that the report should not be seen as a "representation of the official position of USDA." That's fair enough—the review was designed to sum up the state of science on antibiotic resistance and factory farms, not the USDA's position on the matter.
But around the same time, the agency added an odd disclaimer to the top of the document: "This review has not been peer reviewed. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Department of Agriculture." And last Friday, the document (original link) vanished without comment from the agency's website. The only way to see the document now is through the above-linked cached version supplied to me by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
What gives? Why is the USDA suppressing a review that assembles research from "reputed, scientific, peer-reviewed, and scholarly journals"?
To understand the USDA's quashing of a report it had earlier commissioned, published, and praised, you first have to understand a key aspect of industrial-scale meat production. You see, keeping animals alive and growing fast under cramped, unsanitary conditions is tricky business. One of the industry's tried-and-true tactics is low-level, daily doses of antibiotics. The practice helps keep infections down, at least in the short term, and, for reasons no one really understands, it pushes animals to fatten to slaughter weight faster.
Altogether, the US meat industry uses 29 million pounds of antibiotics every year. To put that number in perspective, consider that we humans in the United States—in all of our prescription fill-ups and hospital stays combined—use just over 7 million pounds per year. Thus the vast bulk of antibiotics consumed in this country, some 80 percent, goes to factory animal farms.
For years, scientists have worried that the industry's reliance on antibiotics was contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. The European Union took action to curtail routine antibiotic use on farms in 2006 (taking Sweden's lead, which had banned the practice 20 years before).
But here in the United States, the regulatory approach has been completely laissez-faire—and the meat industry would like to keep it that way. The industry claims that even though antibiotic-resistant bacteria have been found both in confined animals and supermarket meat, there's simply no evidence that livestock strains are jumping to the human population.
Here is where we get back to that now-you-see-it, now-you-don't USDA research summary, which reads like a heavily footnoted rebuttal to the industry line. Assembled by Vaishali Dharmarha, a research assistant at the University of Maryland, the report summarizes research from 63 academic papers and government studies. Here are few of her findings:
• "Use and misuse of antimicrobial drugs in food animal production and human medicine is the main factor accelerating antimicrobial resistance."
• "[F]ood animals, when exposed to antimicrobial agents, may serve as a significant reservoir of resistant bacteria that can transmit to humans through the food supply."
• "Several studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella showed that [antibiotic resistance] in Salmonella strains was most likely due to the antimicrobial use in food animals, and that most infections caused by resistant strains are acquired from the consumption of contaminated food."
• "Farmers and farm workers may get exposed to resistant bacteria by handling animals, feed, and manure. These exposures are of significant concern to public health, as they can transfer the resistant bacteria to family and community members, particularly through person-to-person contacts."
• "Resistant bacteria can also spread from intensive food animal production area to outside boundaries through contact between food animals and animals in the external environment. Insects, flies, houseflies, rodents, and wild birds play an important role in this mode of transmission. They are particularly attracted to animal wastes and feed sources from where they carry the resistant bacteria to several locations outside the animal production facility."
Naturally, such assertions didn't please the meat industry—and the fact that they were backed up by dozens of peer-reviewed science papers no doubt only sharpened the sting.
More at the link.Here is a document the USDA doesn't want you to see. It's what the agency... more
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We talk about animals all night, The jungle tells us crazy stories of animal attacks, including a monkey starting a bar fight. We then breakdown the top 16 animal threats that you might run into! http://mattandjb.podomatic.com/entry/2011-07-28T06_31_26-07_00We talk about animals all night, The jungle tells us crazy stories of animal attacks,... more
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