April 28, 2016

Vet Who Bragged About Killing Cat Fights For Her License

She is really something
Warning... some of this post can be disturbing

The veterinarian who boasted that her “first bow kill” was a cat has wrapped up two days of fighting to keep her veterinary license.

snip

The photo shows Lindsey holding up the cat, who still had an arrow through him and who might still have been alive when the picture was taken.

snip

Dr. William Folger, a veterinarian arguing for the board, said the picture shows the cat was tense with flexed muscles, indicating he still exerted control over his body. Lindsey took the stand to counter this, but a former coworker agreed with the vet’s analysis.

Vet tech Karen Champion told the administrative judge overseeing the case that at the time of the Facebook post she overheard Lindsey talking to her boss and landlord who told her to “take care of the cat,” KVUE reports.

link:
http://petcha.com/pet_care/vet-who-bragged-about-killing-cat-fights-for-her-license-trending/

April 28, 2016

Guide Dogs warn of risks of distracting working animals in new Respect My Uniform campaign

snip

Most people know they are not supposed to touch a working guide dog in a harness, but what many do not realise is that a well-intentioned pat can undo months of training.

Frequent distractions can cause anxiety or serious injury for guide dogs and their handlers.

snip

"It can lose concentration while walking and if you're crossing a road or walking up and down stairs or escalators it can actually be quite dangerous."

snip

"Anytime that he's working and someone pats him, he won't focus on what he's supposed to be doing and that can be quite dangerous," Mr McLaren said.

link

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/guide-dog-handlers-warn-people-should-not-touch-working-animals/7360480?section=nsw

April 27, 2016

Congrats to the biggest winners in tonight's primaries

the people who voted.
Thank you for voting

Congrats to both Ms Clinton and Sen Sanders on their wins
About 6 more weeks of this and we move on to July

* on note: While I consider Cruz, Trump and Kasich losers. I also consider the Republicans who voted in the winners category. I don't get why, when they can vote, people don't.
In some cases there are Senate primaries, some contested house primaries, local and statewide races and propositions to be voted.

on edit: Yes, this is my monthly (or more) feel-good Polly Anna Post

April 20, 2016

Message in a bottle, promising finder a shilling, bobs up after 108 years

When the distinguished marine biologist threw his message in a bottle into the sea, asking whoever found it to contact him, he wasn’t expecting a speedy response. Which is just as well, because it took just over 108 years – now officially confirmed by Guinness World Records as the oldest such message in the world.

The German woman who found it has been given the reward promised in 1908, by the scientific institution which has inherited the debt of honour: a shilling.

The bottle was among more than 1,000 thrown into the North Sea in batches by George Parker Bidder, as part of his research into the patterns of currents. This one was part of a batch from 30 November 1906, and was found 108 years, four months and 18 days later in 2015 by a retired German postal worker, Marianne Winkler, on holiday on Amrun, one of Germany’s North Frisian islands.

snip

The card promised what had been in 1908 the reasonably handsome reward of a shilling – most were gratefully claimed within the year by fishermen.

link:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/19/message-bottle-washed-ashore-108-years-worlds-oldest

April 18, 2016

Did Phineas and Ferb Foresee a Trump Presidency Ten Years Ago?

Though the video is not really about Trump
The song could easily be by/for Il Douche

on edit - The Lyrics
t's been a charmed life,
Got all I ever wanted,
And I'm not too shy to flaunt it, you see.
It's been a sweet ride,
Everyone is genuflecting
And erecting giant statues of me.

It's like a great lunch
With all you can eat,
And I can leave my wallet at home.
And everyone pays for me,
Because it's compulsory,
Or into the stockade they're thrown.

Still, I'm a nice guy;
How many emperors
Would always remember your name?
How ya doing, Joe?
I must admit, I
May take quite a lot,
But I'll always give you plenty of blame.

It's been a sweet ride;
Life's a bowl of cherries,
And nobody's merrier than me.
Because everyone else is the proletariat,
And baby, I'm the bourgeoisie.
Look it up, Joe!
Baby, I'm the bourgeoisie!
Oh, yeah!

April 18, 2016

UK firm 'employed former child soldiers' as mercenaries in Iraq

A former senior director at a British firm says that it employed mercenaries from Sierra Leone to work in Iraq because they were cheaper than Europeans and did not check if they were former child soldiers.

snip

Aegis Defence Services, which is chaired by Sir Nicholas Soames, a Tory MP and Winston Churchill’s grandson, had a series of contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide guards to protect US military bases in Iraq from 2004 onwards. From 2011 the company broadened its recruitment to take in African countries, having previously employed people from the UK, the US and Nepal.

snip

“When war gets outsourced, then the companies tries to find the cheapest soldiers globally. Turns out that that is former child soldiers from Sierra Leone. I think it is important that we in the west are aware of the consequences of the privatisation of war,” the film’s maker, Mads Ellesøe, said.

snip

Ellery, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity, told the Guardian that it would be “quite wrong” to ask whether people had ever been child soldiers, as it would penalise people for things they had often been forced into doing.


http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/apr/17/uk-firm-employed-former-child-soldiers-as-mercenaries-in-iraq

Iraq the invasion that keeps on giving

April 17, 2016

Man accidentally discovers 'perfectly preserved' Roman villa in his backyard

Luke Irwin came across the well-preserved Roman villa dating back 1,400 years and which may have been home to an emperor

A man stumbled across a Roman villa in his back garden which is being hailed as the most significant discovery of its kind for a decade.

Luke Irwin, from Wiltshire, was laying an electricity cable in his barn when he uncovered a mosaic underground.

snip

After an eight-day dig, archaeologists uncovered more of the ‘elaborate’ and ‘extraordinarily well-preserved’ villa, thought to be one of the largest ever found in the country.

Dating from between AD 175 and 220, the grand home is thought to have been three storeys high, similar to those found at Chedworth in Gloucestershire.

link
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-accidentally-discovers-perfectly-preserved-roman-villa-in-his-backyard-a6987901.html

April 14, 2016

Saenuri Party loses its majority in the National Assembly

Dealing a blow to President Bak Geun-hye, the ruling conservative Saenuri Party took a slight beating in last nights elections.
The Saenuri Party which currently holds a majority of 146 seats and rules in coalition with small independents. The Main Opposition Minjoo Party has 102 seats and the People's Party has 20 with the remainder belonging to small parties, like the far-left New Justice and independent politicians

The Saenuri Party will have 122 seats, the main opposition Minjoo will have 123, the People's Party (which nearly swept the province in which I live) will have 38, the New Justice will have 6 and various Independents will get 11.
Most of the Independents appear to be people who lost their party nominating contest and won anyway. Depending on who they are, they will still likely join with their former party in the National Assembly.

It is most likely that the People's Party will form a coalition with the Minjoo Party. Both parties are left-of-center, but they had a falling out last winter over control. In the end, it's possible this worked well for both since there was some dissatisfaction among voters about how immature, silly and totally lacking in presenting any coherent policies.
Under the combined leadership of Ahn and Kim, the Party lurched from tragedy to tragedy, like the Saewol ship sinking trying to get the public behind them without offering any political platform. Part of the problem (IMO) was that Ahn is a technocrat, while the Minjoo is supposed to be a worker's party. They didn't blend together well.

Ahn's People's Party took the Honam region of Korea (North and South Jeolla), which had been a Minjoo stronghold and the most liberal region in Korea.
The Minjoo made up for that by taking most of Seoul and much of Gyeonggi-do. Gyeonggi-do is traditionally pretty fertile territory for the conservatives. It has at least some fairly prominent U.S. military bases/posts within it's boundaries and provides a lot of jobs and money to the area (Camp Casey/Hovey/Castle - Dongducheon, Uijeongbu, DMZ employs over 3,000 civilians, many of whom are Koreans; USAG Garrison Seoul, also called Yongsan Garrison ;and the Osan Airbase in Songtan) pumping millions into the local economies of the areas buying souvenirs, eating in restaurants, using facilities, etc.
The conservatives also benefit from this area being within easy striking distance of North Korea. People in this region tend to vote for the conservatives because they see them as better nationally for the economy and security. Provocations like what is happening now tend to get them out in droves to vote conservative.
Not this time, with the exception of Hannam and 1 of 2 Uijeongbu districts, they lost every district that bordered Seoul, got wiped out in Bucheon, lost in Suwon and lost Paju among others.

Hani has a nice map to see how everything fared
Considering the Saenuri were expected to hold onto power easily, it was a good night

http://hani.co.kr/

April 11, 2016

The Daily Show - The Trans Panic Epidemic (Destroys Gordon Klingenschmitt)

Jessica Williams Destroys Christo-fascist Gordon Klingenschmitt

The whole things is priceless and aggravating
But from just after 6:20 until around 7:00b it is too sweet

She's my new favorite comedian (male or female)

SPOILER ALERT
transcript for those with hearing difficulty

Jessica: Do you for some reason associate being transgender with being a pervert
Klingenschmitt: That is perversion It's people who label themselves transgender for the purpose of getting that access to violate the rights of others
Jessica: Is it fair to say because you're a priest that you're a pedophile?
Klingenschmitt: Of course not
Jessica: Why of course not? Why?
Klingenschmitt: Because some people are criminals and some people are not
Jessica: Could you take that logic and apply it to the transgender community
Klingenschmitt: They're apples and oranges
Jessica: By apples and oranges do you mean apples and apples?

April 6, 2016

Disgusted and Confused by one thing in Wisconsin politics today

Rebecca Bradley won the state supreme court justice seat today
This is that horrible ass-circus that has written and said horrid things about gays, aids, compared abortion to the holocaust etc

I realize the entire conservative establishment rallied behind this horrid troglodyte
But, I was hoping that Kloppenburg would have prevailed against this 9th century, medieval escapee.
I'd have hoped that a few Kasich or Trump voters would have voted against her
Shocked, disgusted and disappointed at that sad outcome