"You know a police force is bent when its officers start dumping their name tags. That's what happened before an illegal traffic stop in Malheur County, Oregon. The Malheur County Sheriff's Department has a sweetheart deal with the infamously cruel Big Loop Rodeo, in the remote and dying town of Jordan Valley, Oregon." Continue reading →
"You know a police force is bent when its officers start dumping their name tags. That's what happened before an illegal traffic stop in Malheur County, Oregon. The Malheur County Sheriff's Department has a sweetheart deal with the infamously cruel Big Loop Rodeo, in the remote and dying town of Jordan Valley, Oregon." Continue reading →
"You know a police force is bent when its officers start dumping their name tags. That's what happened before an illegal traffic stop in Malheur County, Oregon. The Malheur County Sheriff's Department has a sweetheart deal with the infamously cruel Big Loop Rodeo, in the remote and dying town of Jordan Valley, Oregon." Continue reading →
"After 35 years of field research in the Serengeti plains, Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota, has lost all patience with the romance of African wilderness. Fences, he says, are the only way to stop the precipitous and continuing decline in the number of African lions. 'Reality has to intrude,' he said. 'Do you want to know the two most hated species in Africa, by a mile? Elephants and lions.' They destroy crops and livestock, he said, and sometimes, in the case of lions, actually eat people. Dr. Packer’s goal is to save lions. Fencing them in, away from people and livestock, is the best way to do that, he believes, both for conservation and economics." Continue reading →
"A coral-killing starfish has begun infesting a channel of water in the Philippines famed for having some of the most diverse marine life in the world. The appearance of the crown-of-thorns starfish in the Verde Island Passage could cause great damage to the area’s biodiversity, Jacob Meimban, head of the wildlife bureau’s coastal marine management office, told AFP. 'The crown-of-thorns starfish really kills the corals. It eats the polyps of the corals, leaving the bleached, white bodies. Then it moves elsewhere… until it leaves the reef dead,' Meimban said. Environmentalists have warned for years that the passage, a popular dive location, is under grave threat from pollution and overfishing." Continue reading →
"Wildlife officials in Florida are facing an especially stiff challenge this year in saving the state’s manatee population from a poisonous brand of algae that has spread around the coast. CBS News reported on Friday that 207 manatees have died this year after being infected by toxins released by 'red tide' algae. The poisonous materials found in the algae attach themselves to the manatees’ food, and can paralyze manatees after digestion, causing them to drown. 'When you do find them it’s almost too late,' said Virginia Edmonds, director of a manatee critical care facility at Lowery Park Zoo in Tampa. 'They’re out there struggling. They’re going to end up drowning.'" Continue reading →
"This 2010-11 BBC documentary, Predators in Your Backyard, shows how 'Rewilding' is being accomplished in the US and other places. They state up front that this is a dangerous experiment but strangely fail to show the real downsides to the actual project. For instance, the BBC film would leave you believing that the reintroduction of wolves in the west has been an unparalled success. The Predators in Your Backyard gives the viewer the impression that efforts to reintroduce predators such as the wolf, bear and panther, into areas of human habitation are edgy projects but also entirely noble ones." Continue reading →
"Penal battalions in World War II employed convicted criminals and political prisoners and were essentially a taboo subject for decades, although they were used in near suicide missions between 1942 and 1945. The Russian parliament has already passed in an initial reading a bill to ban obscene language in literature and film. Another law that was recently proposed by pro-Kremlin lawmakers imposes fines and jail terms of up to five years for 'justification of fascism,' a broad measure which would punish people who talk about crimes committed by and within the Soviet army." Continue reading →
"From Pennsylvania to North Dakota, a powerful argument for allowing extensive new drilling has been that royalty payments would enrich local landowners, lifting the economies of heartland and rural America. The boom was also supposed to fill the government’s coffers, since roughly 30 percent of the nation’s drilling takes place on federal land. Over the last decade, an untold number of leases were signed, and hundreds of thousands of wells have been sunk into new energy deposits across the country. But manipulation of costs and other data by oil companies is keeping billions of dollars in royalties out of the hands of private and government landholders." Continue reading →
"You’ll see the photos, the footage, the people, the faces. You’ll read the laws and hear the proclamations. You’ll witness just enough horror to understand how easy it is for armed killers to slaughter the disarmed, the powerless, the innocents. Genocide examples from all over the world: Russia, China, Germany, Cambodia, Guatemala, Uganda, Rwanda and more. Examples showing how disarmed people in America have suffered persecution, mass murder, slavery, and terrorist attacks. A fast-moving, modern production, Innocents Betrayed presents the entirely true accounts of how civilian disarmament made possible the killing of millions. The point is made sharply, clearly, unforgettably." Continue reading →