Are you looking for the post I made about the Taiji dolphin slaughter?

If you haven’t seen it before it shows a Slow Loris holding a small parasol umbrella. Here is the Slow Loris’ video:

Slow Loris mother and cub

While Slow Loris might be cute they are most definitely not pets, but that doesn’t stop people from taking these strepsirrhine primates into their homes, in Indonesia they are sold as living “toys” to children. While they might be cute they are wild animals. That said certain problems need to be “fixed” prior to them being sold. Since their bite is potenially deadly there teeth need to be removed.

Here are some excerpts from the Wikipedia article.

Slow lorises are sold locally at street markets, but are also sold internationally over the Internet and in pet stores. They are especially popular or trendy in Japan, particularly among women. The reasons for their popularity, according to the Japan Wildlife Conservation Society (JWCS), are that “they’re easy to keep, they don’t cry, they’re small, and just very cute.” Because of their “cuteness”, videos of pet slow lorises are some of the mostly frequently watched animal-related viral videos on YouTube

Cruel Tooth Removal With Nail Clippers

Even within their countries of origin, slow lorises are very popular pets, particularly in Indonesia. They are seen as a “living toy” for children by local people or are bought out of pity by Western tourists or expatriates. Neither local nor foreign buyers usually know anything about these primates, their endangered status, or that the trade is illegal. Furthermore, few know about their strong odor or their potentially lethal bite.

That is the other side of cuteness, the one that most people often do not consider when they bring an animal into there home.

As part of the trade, infants are pulled prematurely from their parents, leaving them unable to remove their own urine, feces, and oily skin secretions from their fur. Slow lorises have a special network of blood vessels in their hands and feet, which makes them vulnerable to cuts when pulled from the wire cages they are kept in. Slow lorises are also very stress-sensitive and do not do well in captivity. Infection, stress, pneumonia, and poor nutrition lead to high death rates among pet lorises. Common health problems seen in pet slow lorises include undernourishment, tooth decay, diabetes, obesity, and kidney failure. Pet owners also fail to provide proper care because they are usually sleeping when the nocturnal pet is awake.

You can read the full controversy about keeping slow lorises as pets.

How much clean water do you think there is on earth? Let’s say that all of the water on earth fits into one bathtub. Okay, I relaize that this is a stretch for some people’s imaginations. But wait just a second. If all of the water fit into that one bath tub the drinkable portion would fill a single glass.

That isn’t very much… And it brings up the question, what are we going to do when it isn’t enough? Now, I know you won’t say this but let me play the devil’s advocate for a moment and say “so what?”

Raw sewage and industrial waste

Currently, 38,000 children die due to unsafe drinking water, and that is in a single week. That means 1,976,000 children die each and every year due to unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions it creates.

Here are some reasons why you may want to pay attention to the topic “clean water.”

Water Wars: Many scholar, researchers and political analysts attribute the conflict in Darfur at least in part to lack of access to water. In fact, a report commissioned by the UN Development Program found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa. More Info

Polluted Oceans: Not only is pollution bad for the environment, it’s also expensive! Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year. More Info

Uninhabitable Rivers: Today, 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life. That’s not surprising considering the fact that 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into US waters annually. More Info

Fashion Footprint: That cotton t-shirt you’re wearing right now took 400 gallons of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 1800 gallons. Not wearing cotton? The dyes and synthetic fibers used to make your clothes create waste that’s among the many contributors to water pollution. More Info

How can you help? Well, first you could sign the UN’s petition for safe clean drinking water. As of July this year the UN has declared that access to clean water and sanitation a human right. Making that declaration a reality will take all of us. At the time of writing nearly one eight of the population is without either of these necessities.

That is almost a billion people, we can do better than that.

Mona Lisa

You can now see the finest details of some of the finest Italian masterpieces with just one click of your mouse. High-resolution images of classic paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Botticelli are now online with that opportunity. You can zoom in to the smallest details, even ones you wouldn’t see when viewing the paintings in person at a museum. The images have a resolution of up to 28 billion pixels, which is about 3,000 times more than a photo from an average digital camera.

Read the full article here.

If you have been keeping tabs on Sintel, the open movie project from the Blender Foundation, you will probably know that the premiere was on Sept, 27. Well, if you couldn’t get a ticket, you can checkout the online premiere. Here is what the producer had to say:

Our short animation film now has been published online for everyone to watch and spread! It’s been an exciting moment for our team, and for everyone who as eagerly awaited this moment. We hope you enjoy it!

Next on our todo is wrapping up the 4-dvd box release, NTSC/PAL discs with extras and documentary, and 2 DVD-ROMs with tutorials, and all the data to reproduce the fim entirely.

-Ton-

You can watch the film on youtube, or if you would like to watch it in all of it’s HD glory, download it from their site.

Watch Sintel

Admiral Ackbar in 3D

Yeah, I know it sounds like a bad game during the mid-90′s where everything had to have 3D added on to the end to be marketable. But the truth is, we’re about to see our favorite galaxy far far away in a new light. 3D light. If you just asked the proverbial “what?”, you’re not alone. How many special editions have there been?

Well, let’s see. Between the original release and the Special Edition there were minor changes, but these really don’t count. 1997 brought the first major reworking with the Special Edition. These theatrical releases of the remastered and pimped out versions of the classics opened the door to other major changes. We’ll count this as one.

After that there was the chance to buy the original remastered trilogy without the Special Edition changes. That’s right this version removed all of the added scenes and special effects. Did you take George up on the box set?

After that we got the 2004 re-pimped out Special Edition of the first Star Wars Trilogy. This fixed a lot of the less than spectacular additions in the first one. This version removed old Anakin’s eyebrows, replaced his force ghost with Hayden Christiansen among other things.

Is it just me or does Hayden come off a little pervy in this scene?

You can get more information about the changes between version here.

However you cut it, there are plenty of editions to choose from. Enter Star Wars in 3D. Sure, it worked great for movies like Avatar, why not the Star Wars universe…. Why not?

“Star Wars creator George Lucas is converting all six films from his iconic science fiction saga into 3D and will re-release them in theaters in 2012. ‘Episode I: The Phantom Menace’ will be released first.”

Finally Stars Wars in 3D

This move has been in the works for a while, around 2007 George Lucas was considering other methods of squeezing more money out of the series. 3D seemed like the next logical step. And so movie goers, get your wallets ready, because 2012 will give you the chance to see something you’ve always wanted… Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D. After that you can die happy.

Dolphin Slaughter Taiji Getty Images

Dolphins, intelligent, friendly, fascinating and heroic. Yes, even heroic, there are countless instances where dolphins have saved peoples lives throughout history.

The Greeks recognized this and went to the extreme to protect them. Anyone caught killing a dolphin was himself sentenced to death. Pretty strong stuff, and we don’t want to get into different ancient Greek extremes, however, you can see that mankind has had a fascination with dolphins for a long time.

Fast-forward several thousand years, dolphins no longer enjoy the same type of protection, and in fact they are being senselessly killed in wholesale numbers every year. Over 23,000 dolphins are killed every year.

23,000 dolphins slaughtered for their meat which isn’t even actively eaten. That comes out to 442.3 dolphins killed ever week to be sold as more expensive whale meat. 63 dolphins murdered every day so their mercury lace meat can be given to school children. How about 2.63 dolphins every hour?

23,000 dolphins? That can’t be right, somebody would do something about it right? And the answer is yes and no. Japan is a whaling/fishing nation, and there is an international whaling commission. They are a great big toothless commission made up from different member nations that gets together and does a lot of nothing. So those in the position to stop the killing of dolphins really can’t do anything.

Japan has its lobby, and they know how to buy votes so that they can continue in their “tradition” but as a whole the International Whaling Commission is a joke.

Only the larger whales are under protection from the commission, so a large number of smaller ones fall out. And that is where you will find dolphins.

If you’ve have the opportunity to watch The Cove you will get a front row seat at one of the commissions conferences. And there you will see how ineffective they really are.

In one such meeting Japan’s representative goes as far to say that dolphins are vermin. Vermin? You mean like rats?

It turns out that Japanese studies have proven that dolphins eat fish. Hum, interesting. And? And there has been a noticeable decline in the fish population year after year. Ahah! SO what you are saying is that dolphins are responsible for the ever declining fish population? You’re sure it isn’t because we’re pulling more and more fish out of the sea every year? No, according to Japan’s whaling spokes person dolphins are the problem, and by senselessly and brutally killing them, they are somehow putting things right.

It is an interesting spin, no wait, it is completely irrational and embarrassing that somebody speaking before a whaling commission could even bring themselves to spread propaganda like that. That alone shows how incapable of solving the problem the IWC is.

So if the official whaling commission can’t stop the murder of dolphins in Taiji what hope is there? You. Me. And whoever else we’re able to make aware of this despicable act of animal cruelty.

Oh and there a couple of other people involved, too. Ric O’Barry and the Oceanic Preservation Society have taken an active role in bring the massacre to light and to an end. Through their documentation The Cove they have made a big step forward. I strongly recommend that you watch the film, and when you do you will want to find a way to help. But you should be warned the film makers were able to capture the pure brutality of the whole situation and there are very graphic scenes of violence in the documentation.

Now, if you want to get involved and help stop the slaughter in Taiji there are somethings you can do.

Here is a list taken from Ric’s Save Japan Dolphins website.

Help support our efforts in Japan to stop the killing of dolphins:
With your tax-deductible donation, we’ll send you the newly-released DVD of the award-winning film “The Cove”, as well as other great gifts!
Click Here to Donate

Help us get the word out.
Send a letter to President Obama, Vice President Biden and the Japanese Ambassador to the US.

Help us reach our goal of one-millions signatures on our Petition to stop the dolphin slaughter.

Press the Zoo and Aquarium Industry to stop the slaughter in Taiji:
The Aquarium industry must take responsibility to stop the drive fishery their colleagues exploit. Take action now.

Sign up to receive our blog updates to get the latest news on our efforts for dolphins around the world.

See the dolphin slaugher in Taiji, Japan (warning video contains graphic imagery).

Watch The Cove PSA

To close, Japan isn’t the only nation to hunt dolphins, Denmark also takes part in hunting dolphins. Not to mention the countless number of dolphins that end up caught in fishing nets each year. But something can be done about it, but it can’t be done alone, that is why we need your help. Get involved today.

Here are the top ten reason why intelligent people fail.

1. 

   Why Intelligent People Fail

   Lack of motivation. A talent is irrelevant if a person is not motivated to use it. Motivation may be external (for example, social approval) or internal (satisfaction from a job well-done, for instance). External sources tend to be transient, while internal sources tend to produce more consistent performance.

2. Lack of impulse control. Habitual impulsiveness gets in the way of optimal performance. Some people do not bring their full intellectual resources to bear on a problem but go with the first solution that pops into their heads.
3. Lack of perserverance and perseveration. Some people give up too easily, while others are unable to stop even when the quest will clearly be fruitless.
4. Using the wrong abilities. People may not be using the right abilities for the tasks in which they are engaged.
5. Inability to translate thought into action. Some people seem buried in thought. They have good ideas but rarely seem able to do anything about them.
6. Lack of product orientation. Some people seem more concerned about the process than the result of activity.
7. Inability to complete tasks. For some people nothing ever draws to a close. Perhaps it’s fear of what they would do next or fear of becoming hopelessly enmeshed in detail.
8. Failure to initiate. Still others are unwilling or unable to initiate a project. It may be indecision or fear of commitment.
9. Fear of failure. People may not reach peak performance because they avoid the really important challenges in life.
10. Procrastination. Some people are unable to act without pressure. They may also look for little things to do in order to put off the big ones.

If you are ready for the rest of the list you can read them on Accelerating Future.

Yellow Red Dread

If you have been watching the 2010 World Cup, what do you think so far? There have been some good games, some bad ones and then there are the referees… Which have mostly been bad.

A couple of them immediately come to mind. One of there is the referee that managed to put himself in center stage of the Germany – Serbian game. And another was the blind/bribed ref that cost the US the win against Slovenia.

As I type this I see that the US won their game against Algeria so at least they’re further.

Hopefully the trend of terrible referees doesn’t continue with tonight’s game between Germany and Ghana… Though he is known by the nickname, “The Sheriff”. We’ll see.

Guinness Storehouse St Patrick's Day sign

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day everyone. Hopefully your celebration was a safe and happy one!