Clipmarks | jklugman's 'animals' clips

The Case Against Meat

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:57:08 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

Ezra Klein said:

Animals also need land. Even if they're penned up in industrial agriculture settings. And it turns out they need a lot more of it than do most crops. The following graph (which comes from this pdf) tracks usable protein yield per acre for a host of foods. Meat doesn't fare well:

Clip Source: www.prospect.org

I've been getting a lot of links along the lines of, "if meat becomes more expensive, everyone will starve! Is that what liberals want!?" The point of talking about meat in an energy context, however, is not simply that it's extraordinarily resource intensive; it's that it's extraordinarily resource intensive compared to other foods. People are starving because so many of us eat meat. If meat were to become more expensive, and folks began trending towards plant-based diets, world hunger would be substantially alleviated.

Annoyingly, animals live for awhile before they become steaks, and that period turns out to require a lot of energy. This means it takes about 16 pounds of grain to "produce" one pound of animal flesh. That's grain, of course, that the poor can't eat, because it's bought by richer countries in order to feed livestock. And what grain remains is pricier, because the market for grain is tightened by the 756 million tons going to animal feed.

Tags: food, meat, animals, energy, environment

The case for granting apes rights

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:19:19 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Via Andrew Sullivan

Clip Source: www.slate.com

GAP is scientifically honest. And science doesn't show mental parity between great apes and human adults. What it shows, as the group's president acknowledges, is that great apes "experience an emotional and intellectual conscience similar to that of human children." Accordingly, the Spanish proposal doesn't treat apes like you or me. It treats them like "humans of limited capacity, such as children or those who are mentally incompetent and are afforded guardians or caretakers to represent their interests."

GAP's mission statement says great apes are entitled to rights based on their "morally significant characteristics."

they

enjoy a rich emotional and cultural existence in which they experience emotions such as fear, anxiety and happiness. They share the intellectual capacity to create and use tools, learn and teach other languages. They remember their past and plan for their future.

Tags: animals, apes, human-rights

How many words do dogs understand?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:44:26 GMT

clipped by: fewstingscorpio
clipper's remarks: For other dog owners, we all know soon we have to say W for walk or C for cookie and so on. This must be done only because they learn words fast. As with the examples above, I would obviously say the 'fast part' is associated with positive things...they're not dumb! For the complete article: http://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/dogs-understand-words.htm

Clip Source: animals.howstuffworks.com

Dog owners love to gush about canine intelligence. So it would come as no surprise to them that research supports their beliefs that dogs have a profound mental capacity. But how much of our language do dogs really understand? It turns out that the langu

Dog Image Gallery

Sure, most dogs understand the basics --"fetch," "sit" and "stay." But if you have the motivation and patience, you will probably be able to teach your dog even more than 100 words. Stanley Coren, a psychologist who has performed a significant amount of research on the subject of dog intelligence, suggests that average trained dogs know about 160 words [source: Coren]. Some dogs even show a vocabulary as vast as a human toddler's.

Animals have the brain power to understand human language and use their own languages in surprisingly profound ways. We all know parrots can be trained to speak human words. And dogs will react to the word "walk" with a knowing, tail-wagging enthusiasm.

Tags: dogs, pets, training, language, animals, "dog lanuage""animal intelligence""dog intelligenc

How the SPCA led to Child Protective Services

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:06:00 GMT

clipped by: bignosemousie
clipper's remarks: Amazing. The police could not intervene in child welfare, so a worker petitioned the SPCA to help.

Clip Source: www.childrenservices.org

In the United States, an early means of caring for orphans was by indenture. The first American child was indentured in 1636, in Massachusetts. Indenture was often free labor rather than protection.

While there were attempts at times, there werent consistent legal limits placed upon the way a child could be treated, until 1875. At that time, Mary Ellen, a very abused child who had been beaten and chained in a room by the couple who took her from a charitable institution, was discovered by a church visitor. To her dismay, the worker found that the police were helpless to intervene. As a last resort, the worker made a plea to the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, stating that Mary Ellen was an animal in need of protection. The SPCA investigated, and took the case to court. The guardian was sentenced to jail and the child was removed.

With this, the New York SPCA incorporated child protective services.

Tags: spca, children, orphans, cps, america, history

'Jewish settler attack' on film

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:57:37 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Via JewSchool

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Footage from a video camera handed out by an Israeli human rights group appears to show Jewish settlers beating up Palestinians in the West Bank.

An elderly shepherd, his wife and a nephew said they were attacked by four masked men for allowing their animals to graze near the settlement of Susia.

The rights group, B'Tselem, said the cameras were provided to enable Palestinians to get proof of attacks.

A spokesman for the Israeli police said that an investigation was under way.

So far, no-one has been arrested.

Tags: israel, palestine, settlements, violence, occupation

Who's the daddy? Swiss zoo in gorilla paternity mix-up

Sat, 31 May 2008 09:01:44 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Just like humans.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Monkey business is clearly afoot in a Swiss zoo after a paternity test revealed one of its gorillas has effectively been cuckolded by a young pretender half his age.

Zookeepers in the northern city of Basel were shocked to discover that Kisoro, a 17-year-old gorilla, is not the father of little Chelewa, instead it is Viatu, another male who is just nine years old.

The situation was "almost unbelievable," and the precocious Viatu has "broken all the rules that apply in gorilla communities," the zoo said in a statement.

Normally only male gorillas aged 12 or over have the right to have sex with females in the tribe.

The facts came to light when the zoo carried out the test as part of the data it keeps on animals born in captivity.

Tags: nature

Black Madonna, Saint Limbania

Tue, 27 May 2008 05:53:04 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

Black Madonna of Częstochowa

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Frey Miguel de Hererra's Saint Limbania the Virgin and Sympathetic Wild Animals- at the philadelphia museum of art.

Tags: art, religion, science fiction

Chicago reverts to barbarity

Thu, 15 May 2008 18:13:21 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: newsblogs.chicagotribune.com

City Council reverses foie gras ban

Tags: animals, chicago

Tracking the Origin of the Cat

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:27:47 GMT

clipped by: Aribeth
clipper's remarks: Cats probably started living close to humans when people evolved from nomadic herding to raising livestock and crops and started storing food, which attracted mice and other rodents. Cats found good hunting there, and humans surely appreciated the sly little predators' help protecting their stocks."There was a mutual benefit," Lyons said.

From there, domesticated cats started to radiate out to different parts of the world, often following humans on their migrations. Today cats can be divided genetically into four broad groups: those from Europe, the Mediterranean, East Africa and Asia.

But Lyons and her colleagues also made surprising discoveries about individual breeds.

The Japanese bobtail, for example, does not seem genetically similar to cats from Japan, indicating the breed may have originated elsewhere.

Despite its name, the Persian, the oldest recognized breed, looks as though it actually arose in Western Europe and not Persia, which today is Iran.

Clip Source: www.wtnrradio.com

Scientists have begun to pull back the feline veil, using the latest molecular tools to get a peek at the origin of the cat.

In one of the most comprehensive explorations of cats' origins to date, Leslie Lyons from the University of California at Davis, and her colleagues spent about five years collecting feline DNA, poking behind the whiskers of more than 1,100 Persians, Siamese, street cats and household tabbies around the world to swab inside their mouths.

The first thing the group did was confirm a report published last June in the journal Science that the domestication of cats about 10,000 years ago appeared to have occurred in an area known as the Fertile Crescent, which stretches from Turkey to northern Africa and to modern-day Iraq and Iran.

"Our data support the Fertile Crescent, specifically Turkey, as one of the origin sites for cats," said Lyons

"Turkey was part of the Fertile Crescent and hence was one of the earliest areas for agricultural development."

Tags: animals

You Want a Man or a Worm?

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:30:47 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

One of the most startling discoveries of the last 15 years has been the extent of sexual infidelity (scientists call it "extra-pair copulations" or EPCs) among animals long thought to be monogamous.

Because sperm are produced in vast numbers, with little if any required parental follow-through, males of most species are aggressive sexual adventurers, inclined to engage in sex with multiple partners when they can. Males who succeed in doing so leave more descendants.

Power-as-pheromone is pretty much the default among mammals. Elk, elephant seal, baboon or chimpanzee, in a wide array of species, females eagerly mate with dominant males while disdaining subordinates.

You want monogamy?

One species that is, and, significantly, perhaps the only one that could be reliably designated as such, is Diplozöon paradoxum, a parasitic worm that inhabits the intestines of fish. Among these animals, male and female pair up while adolescents; their bodies literally fuse together,

Tags: sexuality, human bonding

Meet The Cuttlefish - Science

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:21:34 GMT

clipped by: thinkingblue
clipper's remarks: If you have never heard of the cuttlefish, you are in for an amazing discovery. This animal has evolved some astonishing survival strategies. If this doesn't convince you of the scientific theory of evolution, NOTHING WILL. Watch, Listen and Learn. Carolyn

View Video Here http://www.thethinkingblue.com/swf/maddiecousin.html

Clip Source: thinkingblue.blogspot.com

Click Here or on below picture to watch the video MEET THE CUTTLEFISH.

If you have never heard of the cuttlefish, you are in for an amazing discovery. This animal has evolved some amazing survival strategies. If this doesn't convince you of the scientific theory of evolution, NOTHING WILL. Watch, Listen
and Learn. thinkingblue

WOODS HOLE, Mass. — The cuttlefish in Roger Hanlon’s laboratory were in
fine form. Their skin was taking on new colors and patterns faster than the
digital signs in Times Square.

Roger T. Hanlon

Octopus at Grand Cayman, where another octopus performed the Moving Rock Trick.

Dr. Hanlon inspected the squidlike animals as he walked past their shallow tubs, stopping from time to time to ask, “Whoa, did you see that?”

One cuttlefish added a pair of eye spots to its back, a strategy cuttlefish use
to fool predators. The spots lingered a few seconds, then vanished.

Dr. Hanlon

said

“The first time I stuck my head in the water

‘I’ve died and gone to cuttlefish heaven.’ ”

Tags: science, education, cuttlefish

Kill the cat that kills the bird?

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:30:12 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Interesting article about the conflict between cat lovers and bird watchers. There is good evidence that America's large population of feral cats has decimate bird populations, including endangered species. Bird watchers advocate culling feral cats, which cat lovers do not want to do.

The story focuses on Jim Stevenson, who was tried for shooting and killing a feral cat in defense of some piping plovers, an endangered species.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In the past decade, at least a dozen studies published in top scientific journals like Biological Conservation, Journal of Zoology and Mammal Review have chronicled the problem of cat predation of small mammals and birds. The takeaway is clear: cats are a growing environmental concern because they are driving down some native bird populations — on islands, to be sure, but also in ecologically sensitive continental areas. At hot spots along the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf Coast, cat predation is a growing threat to shorebirds and long-distance migrants. And as wild habitat becomes more fragmented by human development, even some inland species are under increasing pressure from both house cats and their feral cousins.

Tags: animals, cats, birds

Pentagon Admits Use Of White Phosphorous

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:43:42 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: Chemical weapons. How deep into the moral abyss can the US sink? There seems to be absolutely no limit.

WARNING: The video contains very graphic images.
Fallujah - The Hidden Massacre

Clip Source: mwcnews.net

Pentagon Admits Use of White Phosphorus

Pentagon Reverses Position and Admits U.S. Troops Used White Phosphorous Against Iraqis in Fallujah

The U.S. government has now admitted its troops used white phosphorous as an incendiary weapon against Iraqis during the assault on Fallujah a year ago.

Chemical weapons experts say such attacks are in violation of international law banning the use of chemical weapons.

White phosphorous is often compared to napalm because it combusts spontaneously when exposed to oxygen and can burn right through skin to the bone.

Peter Kaiser, of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said, "Chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons."

reporters have noted the use of white phosphorous since the war began

"We fired "shake and bake" missions at the insurgents, using WP [White Phosphorous] to flush them out and HE [high explosives] to take them out."

Tags: chemical weapons, wmd, hypocracy, murder, torture, ethics, usa, war, crime, lies, evil, bush, neoconservatism,

Alex the parrot, zeros, and death

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:07:24 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

Dr. Pepperberg reported the result with appropriate understatement: “That zero was represented in some way by a parrot, with a walnut-sized brain whose ancestral evolutionary history with humans likely dates from the dinosaurs, is striking.”

In a well-known essay, “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” the philosopher Thomas Nagel speculated about the elusiveness of subjectivity. What was it like to be Alex that last night in his cage? We’ll never know whether there really was a mind in there — slogging its way from the absence of a cork-nut to the absence of Alex, grasping at the zeroness of death.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Next to infinity, one of the hardest concepts to grasp is zero. Toward the end of his life Alex may have been coming close.

In a carnival shell game, an experimenter would put a nut under one of three cups and then shuffle them around. Alex would pick up the cup where the prize was supposed to be. If it wasn’t there he’d go a little berserk — a small step, maybe, toward understanding nothingness.

A bigger leap came in an experiment about numbers, in which the parrot was shown groups of two, three and six objects.

the experimenter finally asked, “O.K., Alex, tell me, ‘What color five?’ ”

“None,” the parrot said.

Bingo. There was no group of five on the tray.

Alex had learned the word “none” years before in a different context. Now he seemed to be using it more abstractly.

Tags: alex, parrot, animals, death

PETA exposes animal abuse at AgriProcessors slaughterhouse

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:20:39 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

The investigator's notes went on to say, "The first time I saw a cow stagger to his feet and walk around with his trachea dangling outside of his body, I thought to myself, this can't be happening--but after several days I knew better."

Clip Source: www.goveg.com

When PETA conducted a second investigation into AgriProcessors in May 2007 at the company's Gordon, Nebraska, slaughterhouse, the investigator discovered that animal abuse still takes place inside their facilities.

Experts in animal welfare, veterinary medicine, and slaughter systems reviewed the disturbing footage recorded inside the slaughterhouse and noted the following about the abuses documented by PETA:

Cows remained conscious for as long as two minutes after their throats were cut open.
A worker ripped into a conscious cow's throat with a metal hook in order to make the bleeding process go faster.
Cows were handled improperly, resulting in fear and stress just prior to slaughter.
Workers removed identification tags by mutilating live cows' ears.

Tags: animals, peta