No Lyin'?

From the Denver Post:

BEIJING -- A zoo in the central China city of Luohe attempted to pass off a Tibetan mastiff as a lion, state media reported. The large, aggressive breed has a trademark bushy mane that gives it a lion-like appearance, but its vocalizations are more woof than roar.

The Beijing Youth Daily said Friday the zoo also had a dog in the wolf cage, foxes in the leopard enclosure and nutrias in the snake den.

The Beijing Youth Daily quoted zoo manager Liu Suya as denying any attempt at deception, saying the lion had been lent out for breeding and would be back soon. The dog belonged to a friend of a zoo keeper who was on a business trip and needed a place to keep his pet while away, Liu said.

Liu said the leopard had also been lent out for breeding, while the snake and wolf were merely sheltering from the torrid summer heat. The substitute animals had been drafted because an empty cage would have "looked bad," Liu said. "If visitors require an explanation, we'd be happy to give it to them," Liu said...

Feral Boy wonders whether they bothered to investigate the "chicken" in the zoo cafeteria's chow mein.

How Dumb Is TV News?

Really, really dumb:



It's been reported that the names were given to the local TV station by an wise-ass intern at the National Transportation Safety Board. Apparently Moe changed his career from bartender to fact checker at KTVU News and Bart Simpson is interning at the NTSB.

Flooding in Europe

The Danube River reached its highest level in 500 years. The Elbe, Rhine, and other rivers and tributaries are cresting high as well as swathes of central Europe lie inundated by floodwaters that have killed 12 and displaced tens of thousands. Amazing photos at The Big Picture:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2013/06/flooding_in_europe.html

Tornado Season

I read about the tornadoes that devastated Oklahoma earlier this week, but I didn't appreciate the magnitude of destruction until I saw these photos from the Boston Globe.

Veritas, Indeed

This major cheating scandal may be a bigger story than doping in cycling and steroid use in baseball. Four championships forfeited because of cheating! Yet I don't see Reuters covering the story. Why the silence, Marquis?

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News Flash: China Polluted*

"Pretend you are trapped in a box of communist oppression."

But air pollution in Fuyang, China, doesn't deter students from attending their outdoor mime class, "Marceau in the Park".
More: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2013/01/chinas_skies_toxic_levels_of_p.html

*: Tip of the sarcastic hat to Reuters.

Pacific Bluefin Tuna Stocks to be Replenished *

From an AP story:

A bluefin tuna sold for a record $1.76 million at a Tokyo auction Saturday, nearly three times the previous high set last year — even as environmentalists warn that stocks of the majestic, speedy fish are being depleted worldwide amid strong demand for sushi. The price works out to a stunning 700,000 yen per kilogram, or $3,603 per pound. The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said "the price was a bit high," but that he wanted to "encourage Japan," according to Kyodo News agency. He was planning to serve the fish to customers later Saturday. The best slices of fatty bluefin — called "o-toro" here — can sell for 2,000 yen ($24) per piece at upmarket Tokyo sushi bars.

Stocks of all three bluefin species —the Pacific, Southern and Atlantic — have fallen over the past 15 years amid overfishing. Bluefin tuna populations in the Atlantic Ocean have declined over 70% in the last 30 years. The Southern Bluefin, which swims in the southern Pacific, has plunged to 3-8 percent of its original levels. On Monday, an intergovernmental group is to release data on Pacific Bluefin stocks that environmentalists believe will likely show an alarming decline.

Therefore, all profits from this sale will go towards efforts to repopulate Bluefin stocks, including lobbying for legislation, with stiff penalties, to adopt and enforce science-based, sustainable limits on both the minimum-size and number of Pacific bluefin tuna that can be caught.*

* Feral Boy is just kidding! Bluefin tuna profits will continue to be used for Eastern European prostitutes and panties that have been soiled by teen-aged school girls. Bluefin tuna populations will continue to decline toward extinction.

We're Number One.... Hundred and Sixteen

on the new periodic table, that is.  I wish the word meant something else that made the statement, "I'm living in a Livermorium", meaningful. Or "Don't worry about him. He's just suffering from Livermorium."

Political Analysis Rocky Can Understand

Why does fake news get closer to the truth than straight news these days?

Local News (Colorado edition)

BEAR!

A still from the new David Lynch film? No. In this photo provided by the CU Independent, a bear falls from a tree after being tranquilized by Colorado wildlife officials at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo., Thursday, April 26, 2012. 

MORE COWS?

An update regarding the earlier forecast of Hail (from Exploding Cowsicles):

A team from the U.S. Forest Service hiked and skied the eight miles to the hot springs southwest of Aspen on Friday and discovered additional carcasses buried in the snow outside the cabin. "We've got quite a few carcasses," Kight said. "It's more than six, but I can't give you a number yet." A total of 29 cattle were reported missing by a rancher, according to the Forest Service. It's unknown how many met their fate at Conundrum.

How did the cattle end up in this remote location, and how did they meet their fate? UFOs? Bovine wormhole? The truth is out there... Fun Fact: this story was not in the top five results in a Google search of the phrase "more cattle carcasses found"

The Local Forecast (Colorado edition): 80% Chance of Hail (from Exploding Cowsicles)

From the Denver Post:

It may take explosives to dislodge a group of cows that wandered into an old ranger cabin high in the Rocky Mountains, then died and froze solid when they couldn't get out. The carcasses were discovered by two Air Force Academy cadets when they snow-shoed up to the cabin in late March. Rangers believe the animals sought shelter during a snowstorm and got stuck and weren't smart enough to find their way out. The cabin is located near the Conundrum Hot Springs, a nine-mile hike from the Aspen area in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness area.

Michael Carroll, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society in Colorado, said cattle are often allowed to wander on federal wilderness lands as long as ranchers get a permit from the Forest Service, and sometimes the animals get separated from the herd. The Forest Service said Tuesday the animals came from a herd of 29 cows that went missing last fall from the nearby Gunnison National Forest where the rancher had a permit. An aerial search failed to turn up any sign of the animals.

Forest Service spokesman Brian Porter said rangers saw about six cows inside the cabin, and several dead cows lying around the building. "There is a lot of snow, and it's hard to determine how many cows are there," Porter said.

U.S. Forest Service spokesman Steve Segin said Tuesday they need to decide quickly how to get rid of the carcasses. "Obviously, time is of the essence because we don't want them defrosting," Segin said. Segin said officials are concerned about water contamination in the nearby hot springs if the cows start decomposing during the thaw.

The options: use explosives to break up the cows, burn down the cabin, or using a helicopters or trucks to haul out the carcasses.

But Segin said using helicopters is too expensive and rangers are worried about using trucks in a wilderness area, where the government bars permanent improvements and tries to preserve the natural habitat.

Segin said the Forest Service occasionally uses explosives to destroy carcasses of animals that can't be retrieved. "We've used them as a means of disposal to remove dead horses, elk and other animals in areas where it's impossible to get them out," he said.

———

Information from: Aspen Daily News, http://www.aspendailynews.com

Is Junior Hot for Teacher? Don't Worry, It's Being Discouraged

OXNARD, Calif. — A junior-high schoolteacher was placed on leave as a school district investigates whether she was moonlighting as a porn star, officials said. Meanwhile, students at the Southern California campus were asked not to search Internet sex sites for images of the teacher, the district said in a letter to parents.

"We are asking teachers to discourage the children from searching for and/or visiting these inappropriate sites," Superintendent Jeff Chancer wrote.

[I don't see how this plan could possibly backfire.]

Chancer was asked Wednesday whether the curiosity of 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds might actually be piqued by the notice. "I don't know," he said. Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_20125572#ixzz1oY51Lefh
...

Wonders, Large and Small

An image released by NASA on March 5, 2012 is a view of a X1 solar flare in a new active region on the sun. It has let loose two M-class flares and one X-class so far. The M-class flares erupted on March 2 and on March 4. The third flare, rated an X1, peaked at 10:30 ET on March 4.(AP Photo/NASA)












A McDonald's Chicken McNugget found by Rebekah Speight of Dakota City, which she believes resembles President George Washington is placed next to a U.S. quarter dollar bearing the image of the president. Speight sold the three-year-old nugget for $8,100 on eBay. (AP Photo/Sioux City Journal, Nathan Robson, File)

Megaupload Busted

Say what you will about file-"sharing" sites, but this kingpin is an indefensible douche bag. From Rollingstone.com:

Possibly the biggest anti-piracy bust of all time took place on January 20th, when a global sting operation led by the FBI and the Department of Justice brought down the file-sharing giant Megaupload – and arrested its founder, the 38-year-old German hacker and playboy Kim Dotcom.
...
Born Kim Schmitz, Dotcom was arrested in Auckland, New Zealand, where he lived in what is reportedly the country's most expensive private home. Six other Megaupload executives were also arrested. The crew is charged with "criminal copyright infringement and money-laundering on a massive scale" – an estimated $500 million of pirated content, with a combined $175 million in income. (Megaupload claimed to have 50 million daily visits and four percent of the Internet's total traffic.) Authorities seized Dotcom's mansion and 18 luxury cars, including a 2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé with a GOD license plate.
...

In related news, also from Rollingstone.com:

Swedish Government Recognizes File-Sharing Faith as a Religion

The Church of Kopimism, a new faith focused on file-sharing, has been officially recognized as a religion by the Swedish government. The church developed from the Young Pirates, a young movement of the Pirate Party in Sweden, who have pushed for the free flow of information online.

The Church takes its name from an online movement in which a Kopimi logo - phonetically, "copy me" - can be placed on a website if the site runner is willing to have their information copied and shared by others.
...

Mammoth Mania II: Revenge of the Bone Geeks

As I'd reported previously (see Mammoth Mania! ), in 2010 Snowmass Village was the location for a major paleontological find. The incident is featured in an hour-long Nova episode, "Ice Age Death Trap", and airs tomorrow evening, Wednesday, February 01. From PBS.org:

In a race against developers in the Rocky Mountains, archeologists uncover a unique fossil site packed with astonishingly well-preserved bones of mammoths, mastodons, and other giant extinct beasts. The discovery opens a highly focused window on the vanished world of the Ice Age in North America.

The trailer plays like a promo for Ice Road Truckers, not a dignified scientific expedition, but I'm hoping there'll be some legit science... and that they didn't uncover that hobo's body.

Heavy Petty-ing

Feral Boy finds hot sailor-on-sailor action in Virginia Beach
hardening heartening.

Toro!

Read in the Denver Post:
MADRID — A Spanish bullfighter is likely to suffer facial paralysis and lose the sight in one eye after a terrifying goring, the hospital treating him said Saturday. Television images showed the moment when the bull's left horn ripped into Juan Jose Padilla's lower jaw to emerge beside his eyeball. Padilla is in a stable condition and recovering from a five-hour operation to repair his face, the statement from the Miguel Servet Hospital said.



Bonus goring from last year:

Psychic who led officials on failed search won't face charges

Read in the Denver Post:

HOUSTON — Authorities will not file charges against a woman who claimed to be a psychic and sent the local sheriff's department, the FBI and the Texas Rangers on a hunt for dozens of bodies she said were buried at a home northeast of Houston.Liberty County sheriff's Capt. Rex Evans says the woman will not be charged because she did not act with malice or criminal intent.

No word yet on my lawsuit against Jean Dixon.
...

We Are But Lazy Honkies (rocky excepted, of course)

By John Ingold
The Denver Post

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed suit on behalf of three fired white workers against the owners of a Craig hotel the agency alleges discriminated against them. The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in Denver, claims the owners of the Hampton Inn​ franchise in Craig fired the workers because they are white and "it was their impression that such workers are lazy," the case filing states. "[I]n their opinion Hispanics worked harder," the lawsuit alleges.
...
According to the complaint, the hotel hired the three workers — Wendy Buckley, Ashlee Flannery and Dewetta McKnight — shortly before it opened in 2009 to work in the laundry and housekeeping departments. All three workers were fired later that year and replaced by Latino employees. By the end of the year, all workers in the laundry and housekeeping departments were Latinos, according to the complaint.
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Learning From Iran

You've probably read news stories on how Iran and other repressive regimes have blocked internet and cell phone access to quell public protests. Well its happening in my back yard. Of course the magnitude and stakes aren't as high, but the tactics are the same.

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