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One day shy of her sixth birthday, another elephant has died at Portland's "Oregon Zoo". They've shut the place down "to allow staff to grieve".
That's never been done before; when other elephants died, they just dug a hole out in Clackamas County and dumped them in. Apparently, they're more "sensitive" these days.
Well, these are "animal care professionals" - as though the place didn't have them until recently. So these "professionals" need to be given time to grieve.
Give me a break!
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H. L. Mencken (1880-1950): "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Well, not all - not when the government's involved:
Stonewalled is the title of investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson's first book – and stonewalling is what the Department of Justice is doing to her now. Determined to receive justice, she has a landmark lawsuit against the DOJ for electronically surveilling her computers. Multiple forensics exams have revealed the government-related remote efforts to monitor her. Government agents most likely did it because she had the "audacity" to dig into facts regarding wasteful green energy spending, as well as the Fast and Furious and Benghazi scandals.
In 2013, CBS reported, "[A] cybersecurity firm hired by CBS News 'has determined through forensic analysis' that 'Attkisson's computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson's accounts.'"
She had not just one, but five independent forensic exams that uncovered the remote surveillance, including government I.P. addresses, listening in with her computer microphone and monitoring her keystrokes.
This is one reason why I disable cameras and microphones on my systems - not that I have anything to hide (unless you're a leftist), but just out of an abundance of caution. And encryption is your friend.
What Americans need to understand is that just because the presidency changed from President Obama to President Trump, that does not mean that career government employees change. "I am fighting the bad actors at the DOJ who are still protecting people and who are still obstructing this suit. Many everyday workers and bureaucrats do not change from one administration to the next. They are often the ones who basically run the government, these faceless people. They are the ones that decide what information filters up and down. In this respect, it does not matter who is president."
A father is reading the evening newspaper and his young son says, "Dad, I know what I want to do when I grow up," The father replies, "What is that, son?"
The boy replies, "I'm gonna go into organized crime!" The father wryly replies, "Public or private?"
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Pretty much everything. In brief, you're never home alone. Showerheads, in particular, generally harbor massive colonies of Mycobacteria. So while you think you're getting refreshingly clean, you might want to re-think that.
In essence, the bacteria poop a little indestructible condominium in your pipes, built of hard-to-break-down complex carbohydrates. But when the pressure is high enough, these species are let loose into the fine aerosol spray of water droplets pelting our hair and bodies and splashing up and into our noses and mouths.
Comforting, is it not?
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One Washington state puppy is being hailed as a very good dog for his historic find.
Scout, an 8-month-old male yellow lab, did what dogs do and dug a hole in his family's Whidbey Island backyard. But it's what the dog found he found that's the reason he's making headlines.
“I noticed he was carrying something around in his mouth,” owner Kirk Lacewell told KOMO-TV. Like most owners, Lacewell thought his dog picked up a piece of wood or a rock. But Lacewell said Scout was still carrying around the item the following day.
“On the second day, it made me think, 'This is odd, I wonder what’s going on with this,'” said Lacewell. He said he wondered what might've been special about what he thought was a rock. After taking the item off of Scout, he cleaned it and determined it looked different than other rocks.
“Part of it looked like bone. It looked like bone that had a covering over it and it was partly worn off,” Lacewell said. After sending pictures to experts at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum, it was determined that the item was a woolly mammoth tooth.
The tooth is about 13,000 years old.
That dog's got potential in law enforcement.
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SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) - Over the past few days, an alarming number of dead dolphins have washed ashore along southwest Florida beaches, including in the Tampa Bay area. NOAA says the incessant red tide bloom has been a factor in 109 recorded dolphin deaths throughout southwest Florida.
Personally, I doubt that the Russians had anything to do with it; they're kind of busy invading Ukraine, and that's nowhere near Florida.
In the meantime, scientists from all over Florida are in the Fort Myers area as the death toll continues to climb.
My guess is that the dolphins have simply realized that they are, in fact, in Florida.
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He said the driver was not from the area and failed to slow down when he encountered the elephant. When the vehicle struck the elephant’s back legs, the animal responded by stomping on the car, destroying the engine and killing the driver.
The elephant seems to be okay.
I've been there; beautiful place. You do want to mind the critters, though.
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Fifty-eight Iowa inmates are suing state officials in federal court, seeking $25,000 each in damages, claiming they have been denied a constitutional right to pornography in the state's prison system. The plaintiffs — who are all inmates at the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility — are led by Allen C. Miles, 70, who is serving a life sentence for the stabbing death of Cheryl Kleinschrodt on March 3, 1982, in Des Moines. The suit claims the law was enacted under the guise of "morality," and blames "religious tyrants" who have no regard for the U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence.
Oh yeah. Harsh punishment. How about this: 23 hours a day in solitary confinement and given a choice between bread and water or nothing?
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A Pennsylvania deer hunter spotted an eight-point buck stranded on ice in the middle of a lake, so he rescued it. Humane killing is one thing, but he wasn't going to let it freeze out there. So he lassoed the critter and towed him back to shore, then turned him loose. He had two others helping, although they stayed on shore.
That is kind of typical of most hunters I know.
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Obama in 2012: "We can't just drill our way to lower gas prices."
Obama on Tuesday: "Suddenly America is the largest oil producer, that was me, people ... say thank you."
If I had a failure, it would look like Obama. Wielding his mighty pen and phone, the dork tried to ban fracking, yet now tries to claim credit for lower gas prices that we have due to the very technology he tried to stop.
Nothing he did ever worked out; everything was a failure. I'm still waiting for that $2500 savings each year due to Obamacare.
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Well, they tax tobacco and beer because they're harmful, but that's insufficient; now they're looking at taxing meat, as they've decided that's harmful as well.
The consumption of red and processed meat has been associated with increased mortality from chronic diseases, and as a result, it has been classified by the World Health Organization as carcinogenic (processed meat) and probably carcinogenic (red meat) to humans. One policy response is to regulate red and processed meat consumption similar to other carcinogens and foods of public health concerns. Here we describe a market-based approach of taxing red and processed meat according to its health impacts.
A sin tax or a healthcare tax or a “lifestyle tax” punishes the consumer, usually for something innocuous that they enjoy. It doesn’t help the economy and it doesn’t help increase health. It just makes everyone miserable and poorer.
Rather than taxing meat, you'd think that the "free" abortion crowd would want to give meat away for free, since they view it as unhealthy and therefore will reduce the planetary population of humans. By the way, your cat is a rigid carnivore, and your dog wants steak.
Preferably not "processed".
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