The Ministry of Defence is to meet an animal rights group to discuss alternatives to the bearskin hats worn by guards at Buckingham Palace.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) has approached Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney to design a new shape for the 18in hat.
The charity has previously called for fake fur to be used, but said the MoD was not happy with prototype designs.
Baroness Taylor, minister for defence procurement, will meet Peta on Tuesday.
The MoD says it is open to alternatives to real bearskin, but that previous attempts to replace it with synthetic fur have failed because the material has not been durable or weatherproof enough.
The ministry also wants to avoid if possible any change in the look of the red-coated sentries guarding Buckingham Palace, whose uniforms have long been one of the top tourist sights in London.
However, Peta is proposing a new hat shape and has also approached designer Marc Bouwer as well as McCartney and Westwood.
Robbie LeBlanc, Peta's director for Europe, said that although the group was proposing a different shape for the hats it did not mean the new design could not become "iconic".
"Most people think it's fake fur and when they find out it's real and it takes one bear to make a hat, they are appalled," he said.
The meeting is the culmination of a media campaign by Peta that has included a naked protest outside Buckingham Palace.
More recently, comedian Ricky Gervais sent an open letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, calling the continued use of real fur inexcusable.
"I understand and appreciate the importance of uniforms, but continuing to use real fur in the 21st century is inexcusable, regardless of 'tradition'," the letter said.
"The public are relying on you to bring about a humane changing of the guards."
Posted by: john frum ||
08/31/2008 18:08 ||
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#1
"right then, we agree that you have an issue, and we suggest you, with all due respect, fuck off"
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/31/2008 18:21 Comments ||
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#2
I'm Meatatarian.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/31/2008 18:32 Comments ||
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Flies always appear to be a step ahead of the swatter. And now scientists believe they know why. According to new research published in the journal Current Biology, flies have a quick-fire intelligence and are good at planning ahead.
Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) filmed experiments using fruit flies and a swatter. They discovered that flies quickly calculated the location of the threat and an escape plan.
Within 100 milliseconds of spotting the swatter they could move their bodies into a position that allowed an extension of the legs to save them.
Caltech Professor Michael Dickinson, who lead the study, said in the journal that it showed how rapidly a fly's brain processed sensory information. "We also found that when the fly makes planning movements prior to take-off, it takes into account its body position at the time it first sees the threat," Dickinson said.
"When it first notices an approaching threat, a fly's body might be in any sort of posture depending on what it was doing at the time, like grooming, feeding, walking, or courting. Our experiments showed that the fly somehow 'knows' whether it needs to make large or small postural changes to reach the correct preflight posture."
And Dickinson had some advice on how to successfully swat the lightning limbed insects. "It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter," he said. Sort of like BO does when he's speaking to a new group of voters.
#1
The key for catching flies is to position the swatter slowly until it is about 10 inches of the fly. Then and only then you go for the kill. You don't need to calculate where the fly will be.
#4
That's because the slow-witted ones were massacred by foliage-wielding cavemen eons ago, which is why I expect the political left to be extinct before too many decades have passed.
Mosquitoes, houseflies, greenheads, sure, but fruit flies?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/31/2008 9:32 Comments ||
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#6
I prefer the Cleveland method, myself. Slowly approach the fly with hands in a clap position about 18 inches apart. Once the hands are positioned on either side of the fly and about a foot above the fly, swing the hands quickly together in a clap motion. In that 100 milliseconds, the fly has to decide between two moving hands. Which one is closer? Which one is faster. Which way do I go? Lots of questions for a micro-brained fly to process all at once. OVERLOAD! Default is this case is for the fly to fly straight up into the clapping hands. Squish. The best part is the pleasure of wippng fly guts off your hands. I am successful about a third of the time. Most times I get too excited and clap faster than the little fly can fly, but it's still fun.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/31/2008 9:42 Comments ||
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#7
I prefer to hit them with a cloud of chemicals.
#8
For amusement value, best method was the dart gun with swatter surface at the end of the dart that we had in my office when I managed a grain elevator in Illinois. It was reasonably efficient if the fly was on a window.
#13
Got to get into their teeny tiny OODA loops, LOL!
Actually, for amusement, we did the following at a log cabin camp in March in northern Alaska. Once we warmed up the log building, the flies literally came out of the woodwork. We would get them all abuzz by the windows during the day. Once they were all preflighted and warmed up, we opened the window, they flew out, to shouts of "Your freedom!!!" and "Godspeed, little fellahs!"
Then they would fly out into the -20F air for 10 feet until their little oil coolers congealed and down they went to a frozen death.
And this is one of the things we did for recreation, 30 miles above the Arctic Circle....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/31/2008 15:18 Comments ||
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#14
ROFL, AP!
You lead such a interesting life. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/31/2008 16:02 Comments ||
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PARIS: A Palestinian-born doctor imprisoned in Libya on charges of infecting children with AIDS has offered new and harrowing details of his incarceration, according to judicial testimony.
In his account to French judges, Doctor Ashraf al-Hajuj describes being raped by a German Shepherd, having his nails ripped off and being given electric shocks.
He was held for more than eight years along with five Bulgarian nurses in a Libyan jail -- mostly on death row -- on charges of infecting 438 children with AIDS-tainted blood. "I admitted under torture that I had contaminated the children that I had collaborated with the CIA and the Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency). I was ready to admit everything. That was after the episode with the dog," al-Hajuj said, according to an account of his April hearing before Paris judges Philippe Jourdan et Yves Madre.
The plight of the six medics sparked international outcry, forcing Libya to commute the death sentences to life imprisonment. Frantic last-minute negotiations, led by former French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, secured their final transfer home in July 2007.
Al-Hajuj told the judges he was blindfolded during the torture sessions, which mostly took place during the beginning of his imprisonment. He was also present when the other medics were being tortured.
All six returned to Bulgaria after being released -- al-Hajuj had been given a Bulgarian passport to secure his freedom.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/31/2008 10:33 ||
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#1
Electroshocks, nails ripped off--yeah, I believe that. Probably par for the course in an Arab prison. Raped by a German Shepherd? That I've got problems with believing. As for being raped by the prison guards, if that hadn't happened numerous times I'd be surprised.
#2
Nobody would invent such a thing, and very very few would ever admit that it happened.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/31/2008 12:57 Comments ||
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#3
I have zero doubt this is true. Rapes by dog were mentioned by the female nurses advocates long before their release, much to the general indifference of the msm. Abu graib, on the other hand, made quite an uproar. Nice. This even makes me more infuriated thinking on the bounty qaddaffy has reaped with that act of modern barbary piracy, or with the total impunity his evil spawns have experience several times in France, escaping justice scot free (without even having diploamtic immunity or something), after being caught carrying handguns, having their bodyguards assault police after DUI driving, domestic abuses,...
Oil money, don't you love it.
#4
Gentlemen, pardon my naivete. I don't have the slightest doubt of the abysmal behavior of the guards or their ill-will toward their prisoners. I just wondered about the actual possibility of a man being raped by a dog. Can such a thing actually be done? To start with I'd question whether the necessary...equipment...was big enough.
#6
I'm really not into that, but 1) it's been done for ever, male and female prisoners, latest western examples I can think of were nazi Germany and dictatorship-era Argentine (I think) and Brazil.
and
2) recreational passive bestiality with dogs, male and female again, has been done for ever, if you feel like dirtying your soul, or psyche, at least, try P2P or navigate the WWW a bit.
#8
At least one wouldn't have to worry about diseases, I hope, or an accidental pregnancy... although that may be another aspect of lycanthropy myths. Not that I offer that as comfort -- rape is particularly distressing to gently reared males.
#13
Normally, the phrase 'gently reared' would refer to a person's upbringing. However, in the context of a thread on doggie buggery, it hints at a different meaning refering to the geometry of the situation.
#14
Ah. Indeed. Thank you, SteveS. I seem to be more literal-minded than usual, today.
tipover, I believe AIDS passed to Homo sapiens from chimpanzees or monkeys of some sort, whether sex or meat preparation. Possibly both, as I think there are several strains of AIDS going through the African population. Syphilis came from the Americas -- possibly brought back by Columbus' crew, certainly by the early Spanish explorers. Where it came from before that, I don't know.
A Nigerian religious leader with 86 wives has accepted an Islamic decree ordering him to divorce all but four of them, local authorities say.
A spokesman for the emir of Bida told the BBC that Mohammadu Bello Abubakar, 84, agreed on Saturday to comply with the decree.
Last week one of Nigeria's top Islamic bodies, the Jamatu Nasril Islam, sentenced him to death.
The sentence was lifted but he was threatened with eviction from his home.
Earlier, Mr Abubakar had challenged Islamic scholars, saying there was no punishment stated in the Koran for having more than four wives.
"I have not contravened any established law that would warrant my being banished from the land... There is no law that says one must one must not marry more than four wives," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.
"All my wives are with children and some of these are people I have married and stayed with for over 30 years, how can they expect me to leave them within two days," he reportedly told local newspapers.
The former teacher and Islamic preacher lives in Niger State with his wives and at least 170 children.
Niger is one of the Muslim majority states to have reintroduced Sharia punishments since 2000.
Several people have been sentenced to death for adultery by Sharia courts but none of these sentences have been carried out.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/31/2008 18:11 ||
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#1
Rangel's a Democrat. Democrat=criminal. The equation is that simple, and has been since before LBJ; probably since FDR.
In an honest country, 95% of all Democrat Party pols would be tried, found guilty of corruption and malfeasance, and imprisoned/shot. 50% of the Republicans would suffer the same fate.
We need a better political class, and we need it badly. We're not going to get it though unless we start screaming every time one of these bastards gets more than one hoof into the public trough.
Problem is, with the craven, corrupt Dems as approx. 50% of the body politic, the crooks will always have defenders. Whenever you hear a Dem whining about how they are being targeted/persecuted because of race, gender or sexual orientation, automatically assume the whiner is, in actuality, a crooked bastard caught red-handed in the commission of a felony. You'll invariably be right.
Hell, they hold the law in such contempt they don't even care about misdemeanors. Ted Kennedy showed their level of "respect" for the law in 1968, and they've gotten nothing but worse since then.
#2
You know, I have thoughtful family members who tend to vote Democrat for reasons they find persuasive. I disagree with them, sometimes hotly, but find your dismissal of them as 'craven' and 'corrupt' to be simply wrong if not offensive.
Let's deal with specific individuals. There's a lot of corruption and laziness and good-old-boy networking to root out on all sides.
#3
The problem is democracy which is what our founders feared. We should start by repealing the 17th amendment. Then we should pass an amendment overturning Baker v. Carr.
#4
"I have thoughtful family members who tend to vote Democrat for reasons they find persuasive. I disagree with them, sometimes hotly, but find your dismissal of them as 'craven' and 'corrupt' to be simply wrong if not offensive."
I can't speak for Jolutch, of course, but I took the statement to mean Democrat politician, lotp - not regular voters.
And unforutately, the percentages for politicians (on both sides) are probably close. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/31/2008 11:11 Comments ||
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#5
Ah - apologies if I got that wrong. And yeah, the percentages are pretty equal I would guess.
Equal opportunity corruption, complacency and entrenched interests.
#6
lotp, you're wrong on this one. Period. The Dems don't dump their crooks; instead, they hug them closer. Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton are the classic examples but "Cold Cash" William Jefferson is just more recent proof (as if any were needed) to show the Democrat skunks haven't changed their stripes.
The Republicans at least make an effort to toss their bums. Even if it is hypocritical, at least that's the tribute vice pays to virtue.
That's the corruption. The cravenness is displayed in numerous ways. It shows in their fervent support for abortion and their frantic hatred for the death penalty. They haven't the slightest qualm about killing the most innocent and defenseless but can't countenance the idea of just punishment for the most wicked.
They hate our military; it's willingness to forcefully defend our country is anathema to them. As far as they're concerned, anyone in uniform is a victim too poor or too stupid to get a job elsewhere. You work at West Point. How many members of our armed forces have you met who think the Democrat Party truly supports them?
They hate guns because they desperately want to believe that if all guns were outlawed there would be no gun crime. They are too afraid to face the fact that in this world you're responsible for your own self-protection. They refuse to recognize the need to make provision for that responsibility because they are cowards at heart. They want all people disarmed so that criminals will have a larger pool of potential victims to pick from when committing crimes, not just those ignore the need to defend themselves.
Dems didn't invent the "let's throw everyone else to the alligator first so I'll get eaten last" school of behavior, but they practice it like true experts. Yes, they're craven and there's no doubt of it.
I think the Democrat Party has no principle other than expediency and their default position on all issues is to foster dependency and perceptions of victimization. They act in this fashion because they truly love nothing but power and will say or do anything to get it.
If you find this "wrong or offensive," we'll just have to agree to disagree. You're not about to change my mind on this issue and frankly, I'm surprised to see you defending them.
#8
JM, I come from a blue collar, hunting/fishing/self-reliant family of pro-military people who think that a certain degree of social safety net is a good thing. That doesn't mean they like Kennedy or Jefferson - but they don't live in those states either and they aren't political activists.
They're just ordinary hardworking people of modest but manageable incomes who have a limited time in their lives to decide how to vote. I try to offer input to that decision. Sometimes I'm effective.
#9
Was I the only one who thought "Cuba" when they saw the headline?
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
08/31/2008 12:07 Comments ||
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#10
LOL "it's a private matter"
Ah, no, Chollie, it's a criminal tax case, beyotch!
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/31/2008 12:25 Comments ||
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#11
We need a better political class, and we need it badly.
We get what we pay for. We pay crap, we get crap. If you really believe in Capitalism, they you accept that good pay will in the end attract good people. Not 100%, but certainly enough to keep the business going. We keep to the 'myth' of the gentleman representative who conducts most of his business during the year and then retires over the winter to assemble in Washington before planting season to do the peoples' work. Then wraps up their duties just enough to return to plant before doing another session before harvest. Just as this world doesn't allow us to have a Swiss militia system [which for 50 years basically were shielded by NATO, i.e. US], it no longer allows for the part time representative at the national level. But we love our myths and prefer to bitch and complain rather than acknowledge reality. And we wonder why socialist can't recognize the obvious failures in their system.
You want these people to be held accountable for a multi-billion dollar budget that include elements that direct, control or influence a multi-trillion dollar national and world economy, the major international security program, and armies [whether you like it or not] of departments and bureaucrats that oversee the infrastructure that makes this society operate, and you pay them squat. So instead, they're bought and paid for by people other than the electorate. Then you wonder why they do the things they do. Time to compete.
Time to pay. One mill a year to every Congressman, SCOTUS, Vice President and President. That's under 550 million a year. That is earmark money funding easily. They don't need any pension plan. They won't need it because one or two election cycles down the calendar you'll have more than enough to choose from in the primaries as far more people compete for their chance at a mill. It is human nature. It doesn't require any constitutional amendment to limit terms. Human behavior will do it on its own.
Now if you have something that is real and not just a wish, something that is simple and matches human behavior, then articulate it. Otherwise, I'll hold to the capitalistic method of improving the stock.
Proc: good idea, though not high enough. At least 3 mil a year to a Rep, 5 mil a year to a Senator. Then have term limits just in case human behavior isn't completely perfect ;-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/31/2008 16:06 Comments ||
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Australian hikers have found the suspected remains of a World War II airman hanging from a tree in dense forest in Papua New Guinea. The moss-covered body appeared to be wearing a harness and goggles.
The discovery was made along the Kokoda Trail, in the east of the country, which was an important battleground during the war.
The Australian Defence Force is preparing to send officials to the scene for further investigations. A force spokeswoman said it was too early to confirm the nationality of the pilot. But he is likely to have come from Australia, Japan or the United States, as all three operated aircraft in the area during the war.
"We had a few police officers on the 19-man trek. One was taking photos with a large lens of the trees and flowers," said the leader of the hiking group, David Collins. "He then discovered what looks like the remains of a body.
"I couldn't make it out at first. It wasn't until the wind blew that you could really see it is in a harness. There are goggles and it appears to be caught up in cables, so presumably it is an airman."
Some 600 Australian soldiers died in fighting around the Kokoda trail in World War II - seen by the Allies as a key point at which to halt the advance of the Japanese military. Unexploded ordnance remain in the thick forest around the trail, and hikers are warned not to stray from the path.
Australia's Defence Department told AFP arrangements were being made to send an expedition to the site. "It's too early to speculate on the nationality of the airman or the circumstances of his death," a spokesman said.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/31/2008 10:24 ||
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#1
A force spokeswoman said it was too early to confirm the nationality of the pilot.
Hint: If there is a 3Made in Japan tag on his uniform it is likely he was japanese.
#4
Depending on what he was wearing and how the harness and lines were tangled some bits might still be in somewhat close formation. Further info required.
#5
IIRC, they had nylon webbing during that time. Nylon was developed in the early 1930s. If there was little UV light, the snagged harness could remain intact. Just don't know about what they used for webbing at the time. Interesting story.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/31/2008 15:28 Comments ||
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#6
Uplands of New Guinea is not your typical tropical jungle.
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.
