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Humane U.S. Slaughterhouse ban creates new dilemmas

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2007/12/20/opinion/letters/127115_18.txt After 1986 Kentucky Derby contender Ferdinand overcame 18-1 odds to become champion, he was later sold to stud in Japan. Then in 2002, the victor was evidently sent to slaughter, prompting a “ from winner to dinner ” hearkening slogan, used by the outraged thoroughbred community in their successful campaign to ban the last of U.S. horse slaughterhouses, meant for human consumption. They still kill U.S. horses for food you know. And a bad hitch is that many of these once beloved creatures are beginning to face horrifically longer transports to Mexico and Canada, which excludes federal jurisdiction, from our monitoring for humane treatment. Deplorably overcrowded trailers and more obfuscated slaughterhouses continuing with questionable sanitary practices are hot concerns. Another problem facing new west ranchers are higher hay prices, which coupled with the slaughterhouse closures has impelled some to abandon

Twilight of the Books

What will life be like if people stop reading? http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2007/12/24/071224crat_atlarge_crain?printable=true Commentary on this by Ran Prieur: "There's a smart piece in the New Yorker this week, Twilight of the Books , about how reading and non-reading affect human consciousness. In ancient Greece, when reading was new, it was a kind of trance or possession -- people had trouble distinguishing between the reader and the text, the actor and the role. You can still see that today, when fans of TV shows treat the actors like their characters, or a cowardly president can be popular by swaggering like a "strong leader," or activists think protests and petitions can change anything. One of the things we're going to have to do, before we get out of this ugly age of history, is to learn to awaken from the trance of the symbolic -- I don't mean we won't go there at all, but that we won't lose focus on what's symbolic and

The Visible Man: An FBI Target Puts His Whole Life Online

http://teamsugar.com/group/30094/blog/277652 "So it dawned on him: If being candid about his flights could clear his name, why not be open about everything? "I've discovered that the best way to protect your privacy is to give it away," he says, grinning as he sips his venti Black Eye. Elahi relishes upending the received wisdom about surveillance. The government monitors your movements, but it gets things wrong. You can monitor yourself much more accurately. Plus, no ambitious agent is going to score a big intelligence triumph by snooping into your movements when there's a Web page broadcasting the Big Mac you ate four minutes ago in Boise, Idaho. "It's economics," he says. "I flood the market.""

A Persistence of Vision

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A309454 from the Boise Weekly - Not Your Everyday Newspaper website: www.boiseweekly.com POSTED ON DECEMBER 5, 2007: By Tony Evans Artist Richard Lauran Sample in locker No. 8, otherwise known as "Gallery 8." Tony Evans Richard Lauran Sample and Gallery 8 Just across the highway from the airport in Hailey, where Gulf Stream jets blast off regularly, lies the South Wood Self Storage Facility. Row upon row of identical containers are filled with furnishings and cargo, all except for locker No. 8, otherwise known as "Gallery 8," a space used by artist Richard Lauran Sample. Above the door reads a sign: "Art Patrons Association of Idaho," which Sample refers to as "a group dedicated to the arts, music and literature." Just inside is the face of the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby, "... wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door." A cat named Turpentine studies the ghost-like face in a

Bad Rap

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005118204 By TONY EVANS When rap music emerged from the inner city in the 1980s, I had friends telling me this new black art form was going to change the world with its explosive power and poetry. Rap threw a light on the realities of growing up on the streets. I tried getting into it but was already partial to reggae and Motown. Soul was too cheesy and jazz too refined. I liked the blues, but these pounding urban chants called rap were just too hard for me to grasp—too culturally specific. Students were "anthropologizing" the new sound, tracing it back to West African "bragging songs," which were once sung around the fire by men after a hunt. I expected it all to blow over in a few months. In 1993 I heard cowboys shouting gangsta rap epithets at a barn dance in Picabo. A few years later I saw children in the South Pacific island kingdom of Tonga making finger signs on the beach. Their parents were mystified. The signals ar

The 'Winners' of the Wired News Saddest-Cubicle Contest

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/multimedia/2007/11/gallery_saddest_cubicle

Extreme rich -poor divides

http://deputy-dog.com/2007/09/19/extreme-rich-poor-divides/

You can't pray a lie

From Huck Finn: Say, gimme a chaw tobacker, won't ye?" I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him - 282 - a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars. Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd got to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell h

Tunnel vision & hot potatoes

Suggestion for Nate Poppino at the Times-News Hello Nate, Jim Banholzer here again. I have not heard anything back yet from Snopes.com regarding war-blogs and the story of soldiers bringing back their trauma to the States via quickly changing lanes in tunnels. I did think it was interesting though that there was a major crash in an LAX area tunnel the day after the letter regarding this ran in the Times-News. Made me wonder about all of the contributing factors. Anyhow, in case you missed it, I wanted to point out that on Sunday the Idaho Statesman ran a front-page story on Military blogs –“Mil blogs”, as they are known. I cannot find that article online on their site, but the same story about how Iraq changed war veteran Alex Horton, originally ran in the Dallas Morning News: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-armyofdude_22int.ART.State.Edition2.41f5031.html In addition, Alex Horton’s mil-blog is here: www.armyofdude.blogspot.com In the Dalla

Letting go

One cool crisp autumn evening, as I was raking up some pin oak leaves in the front yard, I glanced at the tree above, to see how close it was to becoming bare. Up there, I spied three empty robin nests and instantly collected two of them with a stretch of my long rake. I gently placed the nests on the porch’s knick-knack table, and then looked at the third abandoned nest, forty feet high. This one was going to be more difficult. ~~ Fortunately, I had just purchased a small stepladder from Kings. At Twin Falls prices too. I drug the ladder through the leaves, over to the oak. Since no one was around, I put my cell phone in my pocket, for emergency, in case I toppled out of the tree. I donned my best lumberjack shoes, and climbed the tree, using the teetering ladder to get into the first part. Once ascended to twenty feet, I saw two separate branches as logical routes to the last robin’s nest. One was easy and one hard. But if I climbed the easy route, with my heaviness, I would likely

Finer Game

http://www.mtexpress.com/story_printer.php?ID=2005117543 By TONY EVANS I have an archery target in my yard for when I am trying to figure things out. I suppose this is because I am told there is an ancient hunter in me which seeks nothing more than the thrill of the chase, a bit of danger, and some well-earned bragging rights around the fire in the evening. Yet I also know from the study of primates that I am equally well evolved for lounging around in the bush all day, grooming with my pals and eating bananas. So which of these two tendencies will prevail from day to day? It seems unlikely there will be a trophy head hanging on my wall any time soon. I shot a blackbird off a wire with my BB gun when I was 9 years old and then cried alone as I watched it die. I knew better than to admit my weakness to friends, who were already well indoctrinated into the culture of hunting. When I got a shotgun for my 13th birthday, I started killing all kinds of things, eating most of them. When it ca
Whenever a feeling of aversion comes into the heart of a good soul, it's not without significance. Consider that intuitive wisdom to be a Divine attribute, not a vain suspicion: the light of the heart has apprehended intuitively from the Universal Tablet. - Rumi

Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism

Rand called “Atlas” a mystery, “not about the murder of man’s body, but about the murder — and rebirth — of man’s spirit.” It begins in a time of recession. To save the economy, the hero, John Galt, calls for a strike against government interference. Factories, farms and shops shut down. Riots break out as food becomes scarce. Rand said she “set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them” and to portray “what happens to a world without them.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html?ex=1347508800&en=8fc42c2f2603a791&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Russian Human Genome Project discovers Extraterrestrial abilities to modify DNA through a "biological internet"

In the deep region of Himalayas, people are reporting strange behaviours in children. The children are using sign languages which are unknown to their families and anyone around. Many of the children draw pictures of triangular objects flying in the sky. Many of them do not know what they saw and how they learnt these sign languages. Some in the region of Aksai Chin believe that these children regularly communicate with the extraterrestrials who are only visible to these children and communicate via telepathy. The children learn the sign language to communicate back to these beings. According to UFO research materials, some Mexican children also manifest similar behaviour, when many in the area reported for a long time UFO sightings. … According to some teachers in the schools in that area, young children are extra agile and extra talented these days. Their problem solving skills have increased and they are much more disciplined. They continually use a strange sign language among thems

Thruster may shorten mars trip

TUSTIN, Calif., Sept. 7, 2007 -- An amplified photon thruster that could potentially shorten the trip to Mars from six months to a week has reportedly attracted the attention of aerospace agencies and contractors. Young Bae, founder of the Bae Institute in Tustin, Calif., first demonstrated his photonic laser thruster (PLT), which he built with off-the-shelf components, in December. http://www.photonics.com/content/news/2007/September/7/88894.aspx

Problem with historical marker in Almo, Idaho

There's just one problem with a historical marker in Almo, Idaho, that memorializes 300 pioneers who were massacred by Indians in 1861, said sociologist James W. Loewen. "It never happened at all," he said. It's a product of a period in America's history that Loewen calls the "nadir," or low point, in race relations. Of the Idaho marker, Loewen said, "It tells us that in 1938, a bunch of white folks were so convinced that Indians were savages ... they put this up." Click below for the rest of story: http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695208259,00.html

No Help From Above

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A270851 No Help From Above Firefighting supertanker put on cargo duty BY TONY EVANS Simulated photo of supertanker. Evergreen International Aviation While Idaho is in the midst of one of the worst wildfire seasons in history, one much-touted fire-suppression weapon won't be seen anywere near a fire this year. Despite passing certification with the Federal Aviation Administration and signing a firefighting contract with the U.S. Forest Service last fall, the Boeing 747 Evergreen Supertanker will not be deployed in 2007. Last week, nearly one million acres were burning in Idaho, including the 653,100-acre Murphy Complex Fire on the Idaho/Nevada border, which cut power to the Duck Valley Indian Reservation for a week. Could the world's largest water-bomber, capable of laying down a one-mile-long swath of fire retardant, have played a role in dowsing the largest wildfire in the nation? "The work at NIFC is a kind of ches

The Man with the Multiple Mind

"One day my teacher fired a sudden question at me, and finding that I was not paying attention, hauled me out for corporal punishment. It was really the feeling of his cane that first turned my thoughts in the direction of multiple mind concentration. I did not want to give up my daydreams, but on the other hand, I had a distinct aversion to corporal punishment. So after a while I got into the habit of letting one part of my brain wander into the realms of inventive fancy whilst I kept the other alert for an enfilade fire of questions from the teacher." http://www.rexresearch.com/kahne/kahne.htm "Mr Kahne smiled. "Perhaps you’re right", he said. :It is very hard work. In the two shows of ten minutes duration which I give every evening I calculate that I use up as much mental energy as the average brain worker expends in an 8-hour day. But I soon recover. I spend all the rest of my time in play and relaxation and never allow myself to worry. It’s worry that kil

"We Have To Work On Developing The Heart"

World Tibet Network News Published by the Canada Tibet Committee Thursday, September 8, 2005 Dalai Lama host bares his soul in new memoir By Tony Evans For the Express Idaho Mountain Express and Guide Thursday, September 08, 2005 Following his address to the Wood River Valley on Sunday, Sept. 11, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will give a private address to a group of elite money managers at the home of investment banker Kiril Sokoloff. The title of this meeting on Sept. 12 is "Compassion is Good for Business." Sokoloff is the man behind the Dalai Lama's visit to Idaho and is a close personal friend of His Holiness. Sokoloff's memoir, "Personal Transformation: An Executive's Story of Struggle and Spiritual Awakening," is introduced by the Dalai Lama and features him on its cover, perhaps revealing a link between those working to make a difference in the world and those charged with making a killing in the markets. "Personal Transformation" is a se

The Myth about Boys

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1647452,00.html
http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005116252&var_Year=2007&var_Month=07&var_Day=25 Iraq war veterans gather for river trip Post-war life to include journey on beautiful River of No Return By TONY EVANS Express Staff Writer Army Staff Sergeant Chad Jukes, 23, lost his right leg four months ago after a supply convoy truck he commanded struck a roadside improvised explosive device in northern Iraq. This week he is floating with other Iraq war veterans on the Salmon River. Photo by David N. Seelig The Idaho wilderness could give a few veterans a different perspective this week. "These trips give them a more positive outlook on life," said Wood River Ability Program Executive Director Mark Mast, who began working with Vietnam War veterans 25 years ago. The American Legion Hall in Ketchum hosted a banquet on Monday evening to welcome a group of recently disabled war veterans before they embark on a weeklong float trip on the Salmon River. Mast organized the excu