I'm the cheetah whisperer. They all love me...
BRUSSELS, Belgium An animal lover was mauled to death by cheetahs after entering their cage at a zoo in northern Belgium, authorities and zoo officials said Monday. Karen Aerts, 37, of Antwerp, was found dead in the cage, Olmense Zoo spokesman Jan Libot said. Police said they ruled out any foul play. They did not rule out stupid play...
Authorities believe Aerts, a regular visitor to the zoo, hid in the park late Sunday until it closed and managed to find the keys to the cheetah cage. Monkey cage, elephant cage, three toed sloth cage,...ah! Cheetah cage! Let's go visit! "Karen loved animals. Unfortunately the cheetahs betrayed her trust," Libot said. Yeah. Blame the cheetahs...
One of the cats that killed Aerts was named Bongo, whom the woman had adopted under a special program. She paid for Bongo's food, Libot said. ...and then became Bongo's food. Bongo like humans!
Animal rights group GAIA called for the immediate closure of the zoo, located 55 miles northeast of Brussels, saying it was unsafe for both visitors and the cats. GAIA? She's pissed too?
Rudy Demotte, the Belgian minister responsible for animal welfare, sent a team to investigate. Well, Muldoon. Great detective work tells me it looks like she snuck in the cheetah cage and they killed her...
Posted by: Mike ||
02/14/2007 13:45 Comments ||
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#4
Wild animals - why do they eat us? I mean, what is it with these animals anyway. Always going around eating other animals. Don't they know eating animals is morally wrong?
And don't forget to add Timothy Treadwell to the list of consumables. Watched the "Grizzly Man" documentary the other day. I found it a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the guy with some great animal photography. But he was still an idiot.
He claims to be Anna Nicole's secret lover, and now, in this Extra world exclusive, a heartbroken Alexander Denk drops a bombshell about Baby Dannielynns real father and Annas secret medical condition that may have caused her death.
More at link. Don't want to waste Fred's electrons. Make sure the volume is down if you're at work.
AMSTERDAM, Feb 9 (Reuters Life!) - A Dutch journalist asked an Amsterdam court on Friday to convict him for eating chocolate, saying by doing so he was benefiting from child slavery on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast.
Teun van de Keuken, 35, is seeking a jail sentence to raise consumer awareness and force the cocoa and chocolate industry to take tougher measures to stamp out child labor. "If I am found guilty of this crime, any chocolate consumer can be prosecuted after that. I hope that people would stop buying chocolate and thus hurt the sales of big corporations and make them do something about the problem," van de Keuken said.
Oh goodie, another progressive nutball trying to make a spectacle of himself. That's so unusual these days, haven't seen one of those since, oh, Amanda Marcotte ...
Ivory Coast, the world's No. 1 cocoa producer which has been racked by instability since a brief 2002 civil war, is the target of allegations by international rights groups that children are working as slaves on its cocoa plantations.
Van de Keuken launched his attempt to be charged for eating chocolate two years ago when he had his period the Dutch public prosecutor ruled that it was not a case for the courts and that the journalist was not directly involved with the cocoa business. On Friday, he appealed against the prosecutor's decision before a court which is expected to rule in April.
The journalist traveled to Burkina Faso to track down former child slaves who he said were sold by their impoverished parents or lured by merchants to work on Ivory Coast farms. Van de Keuken said he has now bought brought one of these former child slaves to testify in court against him. "We profit from these people and they get almost nothing in return. As consumers we are also responsible for these atrocities," van de Keuken told Reuters.
The Netherlands is the biggest importer and processor of cocoa beans in the European Union, which accounts for 40 percent of global cocoa processing. He urged consumers to choose fair trade chocolate but warned it was often difficult to trace the origin of cocoa beans.
"I cannot deny that there are issues with child labor but it is totally wrong to call it slavery," said Robert Zehnder, secretary general of the European Cocoa Association (ECA). "We work with governments and NGOs to address the problem."
David Zimmer from the CAOBISCO industry association said boycotts of chocolate would hurt farmers in west Africa as 10 million people depended on cocoa for their livelihood.
But that's not nearly as important as striking the right pose.
Members of the global chocolate and cocoa industry signed an accord in late 2001 for the introduction of a certification system by July 2005 that would enable customers to choose chocolate produced without abusive labor practices. But, to the frustration of rights groups, deadlines have been slipping.
A Tainan court has granted a man's request for divorce because his wife was "too shy" to consummate their marriage, a newspaper said yesterday. The man surnamed Chen, a 38-year-old teacher from Tainan County was introduced to a woman surnamed Lin, 29, also a teacher, by a matchmaker. After the couple dated for three months, they married a year ago, but Lin refused to consummate the marriage, the Chinese-language daily China Times reported.
On the wedding night, Lin slept fully dressed and wrapped with a quilt, the daily said, without citing any sources. When Chen tried to sleep with her, the report said, she pushed him away shouting: "You are ridiculous!" Don't they sell cheap champagne in Taiwan anymore?
The next morning Lin returned to her mother's home saying "I'm going home to Mother!"
she was ill, and would not live with her husband again, the paper said. Through the matchmaker's mediation, Lin signed a contract agreeing to consummate the marriage but only for the purpose of procreation, and demanded to sleep separately. However, she did not live up to the pledge, the paper said.
In June, Chen filed for divorce with the Tainan District Court. Lin contested the divorce, claiming that she refused to consummate the marriage on the wedding night because she was too tired and was ill. But the judge said it was strange for Lin to refuse to consummate the marriage for one year, so he granted the divorce on Saturday and ruled that Lin must compensate Chen NT$300,000 for buying an apartment, giving Lin's family a dowry and losing face because she did not consummate the marriage.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Vermont lawmakers called on Congress and the president Tuesday to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, becoming the first state legislature to do so.
The vote came as the U.S. House of Representatives began debating a resolution opposing President Bush's planned surge of troops into Iraq and Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate prepared to do the same. But the Vermont House and Senate went further, telling Congress and President Bush it was time "to commence immediately the orderly withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Yep, Bill Clinton himself said the US economy was expanding long before he became POTUS, ergo Bush 1 had the worst economy-recession in US history, and D ***ng it don't youse fergit it.
#3
They'll have to get their heating oil from Chavez if I have anything to say about it (and I just might).
This will help acquaint these grandstanding moonbats with a mysterious new (to them) principle, "cause and effect." It is something like karma but it happens in the same lifetime.
#4
Too bad there's no provision in the Constitution for expelling a state from the Union. Vermont would be a good use of it.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/14/2007 6:27 Comments ||
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#5
I'm from Vermont. I'm Republican, conservative, a US Army veteran (disabled) and work for a living. I am glad the Republicans in the House and the Senate voted against it. Too bad we are outnumbered. There are too many Socialists in Vermont. If we are making a short list for expellee states, Massachusetts, NJ, Delaware, etc should top the lit. Too many carpetbaggers in Vermont from the surrounding region, a kind of infection.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/14/2007 7:53 Comments ||
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#6
I think there are more prople in my county then in Vermont we are many times bigger in real estate terms too. Vermont just doesn't matter much, kind of like Vermnot's Bernie Saunders a "progressive" = commie true believer.
#7
The sad irony is that we just might be on the cusp of making major gains in stabilizing Iraq. Moqtada al-Sadr has gone AWOL and the effects of the "surge" have not yet been fully felt.
Could our Donkeys of Defeat just hold off with telegraphing their plans to ensure our surrender for just a wee bit longer?
MULTAN, Pakistan - A desperate Pakistani man who put his three sons on sale to end his impoverishment was arrested and later released on the condition that he would make renewed efforts to make a living, police said on Tuesday.
What, he didn't have any daughters?
The 35-year-old Shaukat Ali was arrested three days ago when he sat outside his home with his three sons -- aged six, eight and 10 -- under a banner which read Children for sale, district police officer Shahid Hanif told AFP.
Ali told police that he ran a bakery in the town of Mian Channu, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) northeast of Multan, and lived a good life, but he spent everything when his wife fell sick and died. Police said they freed Ali after he promised to start a new life by finding some work.
He'll sell someone else's sons.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/14/2007 00:00 ||
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Sixteen-year-old Zahra Ezzo died at the hospital last month after a brutal attack. But it was her brother who confessed to killing her and her family who appointed him to carry out the murder.
Some experts estimate that 200 to 300 honor killings like Zahra's occur every year in Syria. Most receive little or no attention. But Zahra's murder in part because it happened in the capital and not a rural area has compelled Syria's grand mufti, cleric Ahmad Hassoun, to publicly condemn the crime, calling for the first time for the immediate protection of girls at risk and for legal reform on the basis that such crimes are un-Islamic. President Bashar al-Assad has also promised to find a solution.
Among the public, too, debate is rising about the practice and the laws that protect men who carry out such killings.
A key question is whether the brother should go on trial for premeditated murder the family had planned it for months or as someone who had no choice because the clan's honor was at stake.
Syria's law is lenient on a man who kills or injures his female relative if he catches her in "illegitimate sexual acts with another," or in a "suspicious state with another." If Zahra's brother is tried under this law, he might get out of jail in three months.
"This is what we're trying to change," said Yumun Abu al-Hosn, a founding member of the Association for Women's Role Development, one of the few nongovernment organizations in Syria. The association runs the girls' shelter where Zahra took refuge in her final months.
"We may not be able to stop honor killings overnight, but at least if the crime is tried as premeditated murder, then Zahra and others like her will have some dignity in death."
Zahra's case is also compelling because of the events surrounding it.
According to Zahra before her death, say sources who spoke to her before she died, her father was having an extramarital affair. If the clan had discovered this, Zahra's father and his mistress might have both been killed. A friend of Zahra's father, a young man who took a liking to the then-15-year-old, threatened to tell all unless Zahra ran away with him.
She agreed. But when the clan discovered that Zahra had left, they decided to pursue both and kill them. But the police found them first. They put the man in jail, where he stands to serve a 15-year prison sentence for the kidnap and rape of a minor, and where he is safe from the clan's wrath. They put Zahra in the shelter.
But only for nine months. During that time, Zahra's family tried three times to regain custody of her, but the association refused, saying the family could not guarantee Zahra's safety.
The family then asked one of Zahra's cousins to marry her, which according to tradition would restore honor to the family. Fawaz hardly knew Zahra and was not in on the plot to kill her. He agreed to marry her first out of chivalry, then because he fell in love with her.
Her family and the family of her soon-to-be-husband all came to the shelter to formalize her marriage, and her father signed a sworn statement guaranteeing that neither he nor anyone in the family would harm Zahra.
So Zahra, whose name means flower, moved into her new husband's home, an apartment one floor below her new in-laws in Damascus.
But one month later, her brother came to visit. On the morning of his third day with them, when Zahra's husband went to work and Zahra slept in, Fayez stabbed his sister to death.
Violence against women is coming under growing scrutiny in the Arab world. Last year, the United Nations Development Fund for Women sponsored for the first time a study on it in Syria, concluding that 1 in 4 women suffers physical abuse, usually from a male relative.
But honor killings, which happen in many Arab and Muslim countries as well as in Israel and Western Europe, are a touchy subject. Local religious and political leaders are usually reluctant to become involved in a clan's family affair, and authorities in many countries rarely report a crime as an honor killing, making gathering statistics very difficult.
Activists say that lawyers in countries with leniency laws for such killings often advise a male client accused of murder to claim it was in the name of honor to avoid the death penalty.
"There are hidden motives behind these murders. It could be for inheritance or for financial reasons or because the victim wanted to choose her husband or she's been raped or she's a victim of incest," said Rana Husseini, a Jordan-based activist who is writing a book on honor killing.
Reforms are often slow or unusually targeted. Morocco, for example, recently gave women the right to a light sentence if they killed in a fit of fury.
"They said this way we're making our laws 'equal.' But how many women kill men? No one needs a PhD to realize that the impact will be discriminatory," said Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director at Equality Now, a New York-based international human rights organization.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) believes it is his right as a Muslim to be sworn into Congress with the Quran. But apparently, the freshman lawmaker doesnt believe its Rep. Tom Tancredos (R-Colo.) right to smoke a cigar in his congressional office. You don't say. Must not have been CAIR's brand
Ellisons office called the Capitol Hill Police on Tancredo last Wednesday night as Tancredo was in his office smoking a cigar. The lawmakers have neighboring offices on the first floor of the Longworth House Office Building. Fences make good neighbor Muzzie's don't
Tancredo was still stunned a day later. Its very bizarre, said Tancredo, who has never met Ellison. Seemed to me not a good way to say hello. Yes Tancredo Keith Ellison is bizzarre, expect more weird shit
And lets face it. Calling the cops on a colleague takes the cake for the nerviest behavior so far among members of this years freshman class of Congress. No Ellison is a coward, otherwise he would have walked next door himself
This is how it all went down. On Wednesday evening, around 6 p.m., Tancredo was preparing for his trip to Mississippi. And as he so often does, he was unwinding with a cigar.
Soon enough, however, a police officer walked in to check on the smoke. The officer told Tancredo that the officer came because he was required to do so and not because the officer wanted to. The officer had already told Ellison that Tancredo was permitted to smoke in his office. The visit was more a formality.
Tancredo said he would not stop smoking in his office. Heck, no! he said. If he [Ellison] would have [had] the courtesy to say something Im sure I would have been more accommodating to his wishes. Courtesy is something Ellison has always been short on. The Jew bashing, cop killer endorser can now add cigar hater to his credits.
To help keep his office free of impurities, Tancredo has three air purifiers. And he has no plans to meet Ellison anytime soon. Im sure we will, but Im not going to make a point [of it], the presidential hopeful said, adding that he supported Ellisons right to be sworn in with the Quran. And I reserve my right to use the quran in the outhouse.
Ellisons press secretary, Rick Jauert, made the call to the Superintendents office when he noticed the smoke. I called because the smoke was coming through the walls, Jauert said, adding that the Superintendents office referred him to the Capitol Police. Jauert said he then informed his boss what he had done. He said fine, Jauert said. Hes complained of the smoke before. So it wasn't Ellison but one of his Dhimmi robots?
#3
And this idiot wants to be President and stand toe to toe with really bad guys, but cannot walk next door to request a colleague to put out a cigar? what a ball-less POS!
WWHD?
#4
Ellison, not Obama. Ellison hasn't (yet) announced his intention to run.
If I were Tancredo, I'd have a constituent bring in his prize hog. Another day I'd have the winners of the local dog show. Then a delegation from the area's micro-brewers. Then a delegation from the local Jewish community. Then some Hindus. Then...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/14/2007 19:25 Comments ||
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#5
Tancredo was on Roger Hedgecock's radio show today and just laughed at Ellison and his staff for complaining :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2007 20:31 Comments ||
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#6
Hey, Tom. Ya know what smells really good cooking in a microwave? Bacon.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Jail me, chocolate-eater urges
A Tainan court has granted a man's request for divorce because his wife was "too shy" to consummate their marriage, a newspaper said yesterday. The man surnamed Chen, a 38-year-old teacher from Tainan County was introduced to a woman surnamed Lin, 29, also a teacher, by a matchmaker. After the couple dated for three months, they married a year ago, but Lin refused to consummate the marriage, the Chinese-language daily China Times reported.
Vermont lawmakers called on Congress and the president Tuesday to immediately withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, becoming the first state legislature to do so.
MULTAN, Pakistan - A desperate Pakistani man who put his three sons on sale to end his impoverishment was arrested and later released on the condition that he would make renewed efforts to make a living, police said on Tuesday.
