In Partibus Infidelium

[Chip]

Statue Is Defaced in England After Children Were Given Crayons

A memorial and a statue of a water nymph that is more than 200 years old were covered in bright blue crayon marks, officials said.



Amanda Holpuch
April 24, 2023

Bright blue crayon marks were found on a statue that is more than two centuries old at a conservation site in England after activity packs with crayons were handed out to children at the property, officials said. The statue and a memorial were defaced this month at Croome, a 700-acre property that is home to a mansion and two castles as well as violets, tulips and bluebells.

The National Trust, the conservation society that oversees the sprawling grounds near High Green, England, about 135 miles northwest of London, said it did not know how the marks came to be or if they came from crayons that were handed out at the site. “Like lots of other heritage organizations, we regularly run events for families and we often issue pencils or crayons,” the organization said in a statement.

On April 8, Easter weekend, bright blue marks were scrawled across the face, arms and torso of the Sabrina statue, a depiction of a water nymph by the sculptor John Bacon from either the 1780s or in 1802 (the exact date is disputed).



The National Trust said it did not know if the marks were from crayons that were handed out to children at the site.

The stone statue is about six feet long, according to the National Trust. The nymph reclines on her side, resting on an urn, which in the past was used to send water into the banks of the lake below. A memorial to the landscape artist Lancelot Brown, known as Capability Brown, was also defaced with long, messy blue, zigzag crayon marks, the BBC reported. The National Trust said on Sunday that the marks had been removed from the Sabrina statue and that the organization was cleaning the Brown memorial.

The National Trust has not identified who is responsible for the defacements. “Disappointing as they are, incidents like this are very rare considering the millions of visitors who enjoy and respect the places in our care,” the National Trust statement said.

Brown was hired in 1751 to redesign the Croome property’s main house and parklands, then owned by the 6th Earl of Coventry, according to the National Trust.

During World War II, the property was used as a station for the Royal Air Force and housed more than 2,000 personnel and scientists, the National Trust said.

From 1979 to 1984, the house became the United Kingdom headquarters for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or the Hare Krishnas. Later owners tried to turn the property into a golf course, apartments and a hotel before the National Trust acquired it in 1996.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/w...e=articleShare

[Chip]

Did Erdogan poop his pants on live TV? The major symptom of "stomach flu" (gastroenteritis) is watery diarrhea. Being a strongman doesn't neccessarily mean having a strong stomach.

Erdoğan’s Turkish election plans disrupted after being taken ill on live TV

President says he will rest at home as vice-president attends campaign events in his place

Ruth Michaelson
27 Apr 2023

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has had to abruptly cancel election campaign events after being taken ill on live television during an interview.

Cameras abruptly cut away from Erdoğan to one of his interviewers, Hasan Öztürk, who looked perturbed and began to rise from his chair before the broadcast cut entirely. In footage distributed by the president’s Justice and Development party (AKP), shot in the same location, Erdoğan explains that he contracted stomach flu following intense work on the campaign trail weeks before the pivotal election.

He later tweeted: “Today I will rest at home upon the advice of my doctors … with God’s permission, we will continue our campaign from tomorrow onwards.” The vice-president, Fuat Oktay, said he would attend campaign events across central Turkey in his place.

Turkey is holding parliamentary and presidential elections on 14 May, when Erdoğan faces a concerted challenge from a six-party opposition striving to unseat him after 20 years in power. Many polls give his main challenger, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a slight lead, amid discontent with an ongoing economic crisis and the government’s response to deadly earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey, and 8,000 in Syria.

Erdoğan cancelled personal appearances at a number of high-profile campaign events due to his sudden illness, including attending the opening ceremony of part of a Russian-funded nuclear power plant in southern Turkey and a nearby rally. The nuclear plant is the latest flagship infrastructure project that Erdoğan and the AKP are hoping will sway voters at the upcoming election, despite concerns about the relationship between government-led construction projects and collapsed infrastructure following the earthquake.

The AKP deputy chair, Erkan Kandemir, said Erdoğan would attend the ceremony at the nuclear power plant via video link. “Our president will attend the Akkuyu nuclear power plant ceremony, which is planned to be held tomorrow, online. Our Mersin rally is planned to be held at a later date,” he said.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e_iOSApp_Other

[Chip]

Remarkable resemblance. Presently drifting down a bay in Newfoundland. . .



. . .towards the town of Dildo. (Really!)

[Chip]

Field of fresh cow pats welcomes first dung beetles to be rewilded in France

Sixty of the keystone species released near Bordeaux to feast on waste from wild cattle and help restore a vital habitat on the Atlantic coast



Patrick Greenfield
Apr 2023

In a forest clearing filled with cowpats, French history is being made: the country’s first translocation of dung beetles in a nature reserve near Bordeaux.

With the same pomp and ceremony afforded to the release of an Iberian lynx or a European bison, about 60 “ball rolling” insects were brought to the marshy forests of Étang de Cousseau in south-west France on Wednesday to restore a vital ecosystem function on the Atlantic coast.

The dung beetles (scarabaeus laticollis) will feast on the waste produced by dozens of wild cattle that roam the dunes, moors and marshes of the rewilding project, recycling nutrients into the soil. Dung beetle populations have decreased due to intensive farming. Anti-parasite treatments given to cattle leak into the waste the insects eat.

The insects disappeared from the region in the 1960s as the feral cattle population declined. The last herd of free-roaming marine landaise breed was saved from the slaughterhouse by conservationists in the late 1980s. Before the creation of vast pine plantations under Napoléon III, this area of Gascony was famous for its pastoralism, and shepherds would tend to their flocks on 5ft wooden stilts, with dung beetles thriving on the waste. Now, along with the wild cattle, the dung beetles are back, released in a field freshly prepared with cowpats for their arrival.

“The dung beetle population all over the world has suffered a great decrease since the intensification of agriculture. Cattle and other domestic animals have been highly treated by farmers. The anti-worm and anti-parasite treatments leak into the waste and there’s been a huge decrease in dung beetles,” said Christelle Charlaix, an assistant warden at Étang de Cousseau nature reserve.

“Here, we have been working with a local breed of cows to manage the land. We do not treat them with drugs. Even though the cows have parasites, they are part of the cycle of life, they’re part of the biodiversity. Now, with the dung beetle project, the idea is to actually give a chance to this huge family of insects to come back.”

There are more than 5,000 species of dung beetle and they are found on every continent apart from Antarctica. Not all of them are “rollers”, which shape the dung into a ball and roll it to where they want to bury it in the ground. Some dig tunnels in the dung, some steal balls from the rollers, while others dwell on top of the waste. They are considered a keystone species because of their role in decomposition and seed dispersal.

The release of this batch of scarabaeus laticollis, brought from Montpellier in the south of France, was funded by Rewilding Europe’s European wildlife comeback fund, which has also supported projects reintroducing lynx in Poland, Bonelli’s eagles in Sardinia and water voles in Cornwall. Mammals, especially large carnivores, often dominate reintroductions, but conservationists say plants and wildlife must be brought back at every level of the ecosystem for it to be truly restored.

“There is beautiful biodiversity in the cowpats. In a microhabitat like that, it is full of life,” said Sophie Beaujean, an ecology masters student at Bordeaux University, whose job it is to check the piles of waste for beetles for a university project to monitor the success of the reintroduction.

Each dung beetle, released in two phases, is cleaned and a green dot drawn on its back in marker pen for identification. This species lives for a maximum of two years, laying its larvae in balls of dung. A pair was spotted mating almost immediately after being released, the first sign that the dung beetles will reestablish themselves in Étang de Cousseau. “Ah, la classique,” one observer noted of the reproduction technique.

The wider landscape at Étang de Cousseau is filled with birds moving along the East Atlantic Flyway on the parts of the wetlands that remain: spoonbills feed in the marshes on their way to breeding grounds farther north, lapwings can be heard calling, and a chorus of frogs in pools of water is a constant, with the Atlantic waves crashing in the background.

For François Sargos, who has helped manage the nature reserve since 1988, the rewilding project is personal. His own family is split between those that wish to see the pine forest removed in this part of Gascony to restore the wetlands and those involved in the lumber industry. Sargos helped raise money to save the feral cows and has carefully cleared the nature reserve of pine trees, restoring the landscape to how it used to be, and was delighted with the return of the dung beetles. He is inspired by Gascon poet Félix Arnaudin, who was disgusted by the spread of pine plantations in the 19th century and documented the shepherds on stilts.

“He was seen as an eccentric but he was ahead of his time. You might say I am like Félix,” Sargos says, laughing. “He wrote very eloquently: ‘These pines are like the bars of a jail cell blocking the horizon.’ I really align with this.

“In the future, a much larger area would be the ideal for the reserve, where nature can do its own things with as little intervention as possible. A place where nature has been let go to fix man’s mistakes.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...e_iOSApp_Other

[TSherbs]

Each dung beetle, released in two phases, is cleaned and a green dot drawn on its back in marker pen for identification. This species lives for a maximum of two years, laying its larvae in balls of dung. A pair was spotted mating almost immediately after being released, the first sign that the dung beetles will reestablish themselves in Étang de Cousseau. “Ah, la classique,” one observer noted of the reproduction technique.

randy bugger

[Chip]

We've got a pair of hairy woodpeckers playing lovebirds.

They land on opposite sides of a cottonwood tree and circle around, staying on opposite sides and emitting warbles.

[Chip]

Will the real Boris Johnson please stand up (or lean against the car?)

Dutch police arrest fake ‘Boris Johnson’ for suspected drink-driving

Ukrainian man’s licence had picture of former UK PM and correct birthdate – but officers did not fall for it

Agence France-Presse in The Hague
1 May 2023



Dutch police who arrested a man in connection with a drink-driving incident were surprised to find that the name on his driving licence was Boris Johnson.

The Ukrainian driver’s fake licence, complete with the former British prime minister’s picture and correct birthdate, was purportedly issued in 2019 and valid until the end of the year 3000.

A police spokesperson, Thijs Damstra, said officers investigated an incident shortly after midnight on Sunday when a car crashed into a pole near the Emma Bridge in the northern city of Groningen. The car was abandoned but police were later told that the driver was standing on the bridge.

“The person could not identify himself and refused to undertake a breathalyser test,” Damstra said on Monday. The 35-year-old man, from the small town of Zuidhorn, west of Groningen, was arrested and police searched the car. “Inside, police found a fake driver’s licence belonging to Boris Johnson,” Damstra said.

Groningen police said on their Instagram account: “Unfortunately for this person, we did not fall for his forgery.”

Police could not say where the forged document was made, but Kysia Hekster, a former Russia correspondent for the public broadcaster NOS, said in a tweet published by the NOS that fake driving licences could easily be bought in tourist shops in Ukraine.

Damstra added: “As far as I’m aware, the real Mr Boris Johnson was not in the Netherlands at the time.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e_iOSApp_Other

[TSherbs]

Ha

I have friends in Groningen. I will send this to them

[Chip]

Surprise!!!

[Chip]

A New Jersey Mystery: Who Dumped Hundreds of Pounds of Pasta, and Why?

The police and public works employees responded after “15 wheelbarrow loads” of pasta were dumped in mounds along a creek in Old Bridge, N.J.



By Michael Levenson
May 4, 2023

Ever since she met thousands of her neighbors while running for local office a few years ago, Nina Jochnowitz said, she has been fielding complaints from fellow residents of Old Bridge, N.J., a suburban town about 30 miles northeast of Trenton. Typically, they call her hoping she can persuade the town to crack down on fireworks or ATVs or pick up trash left on their curbs.

But last week, a woman she had met during that unsuccessful campaign called her to report an entirely different problem, Ms. Jochnowitz said: “There’s a pile of pasta dumped on the side of the stream.”

A scientist by training, Ms. Jochnowitz said she jumped in her car to investigate. What she found, about 30 feet off the road and less than a mile from her house, confirmed that this was more than an overturned bowl of bucatini.

Someone had apparently dumped hundreds of pounds of spaghetti, macaroni and alphabet shapes in large piles by the side of a stream in a wooded area where, Ms. Jochnowitz said, people often dump construction materials, bed frames and furniture.

“There was literally 25 feet of pasta that had been dumped,” she said.

The scene resembled something out of “Strega Nona,” the classic children’s book by Tomie dePaola about a kindly “grandma witch” whose magically overflowing pot floods her little town in Italy with pasta.

Ms. Jochnowitz estimated that 300 to 500 pounds of pasta had been left to congeal in the woods. She documented the pasta with the camera on her phone, emailed a town official to report the find and posted the photos on Facebook.

Before long, the town was consumed with theories about who might have dumped the pasta and why, especially in a state known for its love of Italian food. Was it a caterer with a last-minute cancellation for a wedding? A restaurant cooking for a football team that never showed up?

In Old Bridge, “That’s all they’re talking about,” said Denise Bloom, an administrator of a local Facebook group, who called it the “Great Pasta-gate of 2023.” Some residents, she said, have been posting photos of a few noodles on the ground and calling their renditions an “impasta.”

When photos of the discarded pasta were shared on a Reddit discussion about all things New Jersey, it became fertile ground for puns and dad jokes. Someone commented: “We should send the perpetrators to the state penne tentiary.”

Anthony Esposito, the owner of Via Sposito, an Italian restaurant in Old Bridge that serves spaghetti, linguine, penne, tortellini and gnocchi, said that he could only speculate about where the pasta might have come from.

“Nothing from over here,” he said on Thursday. “I guess whoever did that is feeding the forest.”

To Ms. Jochnowitz, the pasta, previously reported by NJ Advance Media, was evidence of the lack of bulk-trash service in Old Bridge, which has about 67,000 residents. “It’s been a point of contention for many years,” she said.

In an email on Thursday with the subject line “Pasta Dumping,” Himanshu Shah, the town business administrator, said that after photos of the pasta circulated on Facebook last week, the Department of Public Works visited the site and found “what appeared to be 15 wheelbarrow loads of illegal dumped pasta along a creek in a residential neighborhood.”

The Police Department dispatched an officer, who took a report. Two Public Works employees then cleaned up the pasta “in under an hour, and properly disposed of it,” Mr. Shah said. It was not clear if a large fork had been used.

Although Ms. Jochnowitz said the pasta had been cooked, Mr. Shah said it was uncooked pasta that had been removed from its packaging and had softened amid several days of rain.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/u...e=articleShare

[TSherbs]

The Police Department dispatched an officer, who took a report. Two Public Works employees then cleaned up the pasta “in under an hour, and properly disposed of it,” Mr. Shah said. It was not clear if a large fork had been used.

...

[Chip]

US police running to voice crying for help surprised by sad goat

Police officers in Oklahoma responding to what they thought was a man in need of aid instead found a very upset goat

Lauren Aratani
11 May 2023

Police officers in Oklahoma responding to what they thought was a man crying for help got a surprise on reaching the scene: the anguished cries they heard on a farm near Enid were actually those of a goat. In bodycam footage released by the Enid police department, officer David Sneed told his colleague, Neal Storey: “That’s a person.”

Sneed and Storey ran toward what appeared to be a voice crying for help. Then they realized their error.

“That’s a goat,” Storey said.

“That’s a goat?” Sneed replied.

The officers approached the farm owner. He told them the goat had been separated from a friend and was very upset.

“I’m sitting here, and I keep thinking I hear someone yell, ‘Help!’” Storey said, the goat continuing to cry in the background.

“I’m sitting out here in our back yard, and I hear it, but I don’t know if it’s an animal or a person,” Sneed said, laughing. “But sure enough we were walking over here, and I’m like, ‘That’s a person!’”

Coincidentally, the footage landed online as the internet celebrated the 10th anniversary of a period when goats yelling like humans went viral. In 2013, videos including “Funny Goats Screaming Like Humans”, “Taylor Swift – Trouble (Goat Remix)” and “Living On a Prayer (Goat Edition)” racked up millions of views.



For goats, “yelling” is a common way of communicating distress, ranging from wanting to be fed to young goats calling for their mothers. “In my experience with goats, it does not take much for them to scream bloody murder, as if you are torturing them, when simply handling them,” Jean-Marie Luginbuhl, an animal scientist at North Carolina State University, told Slate in 2013.

In 2013, another pair of cops mistook goat cries for human screams. According to Yahoo, someone in Putnam county, Tennessee, called 911, reporting hearing cries for help which the dispatcher could hear through the phone. When the officers arrived, they found a goat tied to a fence. The episode was detailed in an incident report.

Ten years later, on Facebook, the Enid police department said it appreciated its officers’ diligent response. “Thank you, gentlemen. Your swift actions (although in the end not necessary) are appreciated by us all,” the department said.

“All in all, you really can’t say it was that baaad of a call.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[TSherbs]

it's a fucking goat

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CWMYDbMJGTY/?hl=en

[Chip]

Little pitchers have big ears. . .

[Chip]

Smart kid.

Michigan boy, 13, saves sister by hitting potential kidnapper with slingshot

Boy’s eight-year-old sister was hunting for mushrooms in her back yard in a rural area when she was attacked

Maya Yang
14 May 2023

A 13-year-old boy in Michigan saved his younger sister from a potential kidnapper by shooting the attacker with a slingshot, according to authorities.

Police called the boy’s actions “extraordinary” and said he deserved to be commended after defending his sister with a weapon many associate with the biblical hero David – in his mortal battle against Goliath – and Link, the protagonist of the classic video game The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.

The boy’s eight-year-old sister was hunting for mushrooms in her back yard in a rural area of Alpena township Wednesday when a 17-year-old boy emerged from the woods, according to Michigan state police. “The suspect had come through the woods on to the property and came from behind her, grabbed her like you’d see in the movies – hand over the mouth, arm around the waist – and was attempting to pull her into the woods,” the state police lieutenant John Grimshaw told the local news outlet WGTU.

The girl’s older brother saw the apparent abduction attempt from his bedroom window and proceeded to shoot the assailant in the head and chest with his slingshot, police said. “He really is the one that I believe saved his sister’s life or from something seriously bad happening to her,” Grimshaw said. “For a 13-year-old to see that and to pop into action that quickly is extraordinary and he should be commended for it,” said Grimshaw.

Police said they arrested the 17-year-old they identified as the suspect after they found him hiding at a nearby gas station.

“What [the brother] did also helped us to identify who the suspect was because obviously, he had injuries from getting hit with a slingshot,” Grimshaw said.

The siblings’ uncle posted about the case on Facebook, Newsweek reported. The post read: “Hey everyone earlier today my niece was almost kidnapped out of her own yard here in Alpena on the south end of town, a young 17-year-old with a black mohawk grab my niece and tried kidnapping her my nephew heard her screaming and saw through his window and shot the guy with a slingshot the guy let go cops were called found out that the guy now in custody.

“Our kids are too precious to let somebody try to take them when your kids are outside playing, we really need to pay attention to what they’re doing and who’s around them I’m very proud of my nephew and I know my niece’s traumatized and I’m sending prayers for her they had to be extremely scary for her.”

The boy’s actions have been met with praise online, with one user writing on Twitter, “Big brother for the win.” Another person wrote: “What a brave kid.” “That kid deserves a medal,” someone else said.

According to WGTU, the suspect confessed to authorities that he had planned to severely beat the girl. He was booked into the Alpena county jail on counts of attempted kidnapping, child enticement, attempted assault to do great bodily harm, and assault and battery.

The bond was set at $150,000, and he is scheduled to appear in court on 17 May for a probable cause hearing, according to MLive.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[Chip]

The dog ate my homework. And then he grabbed the steering wheel. . .



US driver pulled over for speeding tried to switch places with dog, police say

Motorist maneuvered inside car before getting out on the passenger side following police stop in Springfield, Colorado

Associated Press
16 May 2023

A driver who was pulled over for speeding and appeared to officers to be drunk tried to switch places with his dog in an attempt to avoid arrest, police in Colorado are alleging.

An officer watched the motorist maneuvering inside the car before he got out on the passenger side on Saturday night in Springfield, a town of about 1,300 people on Colorado’s Eastern Plains, police said in a Facebook post on Sunday.

Clearly showing signs of being drunk, the man said he was not behind the wheel, police said. He ran from the officer when asked about how many drinks he had before being pulled over and was caught within about 20 yards (18 meters), police said.

After being taken to the hospital to be checked out, the man was arrested on suspicion of charges including driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, driving with impaired ability and being wanted on previous arrest warrants.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[Chip]

Couple get payout after water buffaloes fall into Essex swimming pool

Andy and Lynette Smith spent 10 months seeking compensation after animals’ escape from nearby farm

Anna Tims
20 May 2023

An Essex couple have spent 10 months seeking compensation after 18 escaped water buffaloes stampeded through their garden, with eight of them taking a morning dip in their new swimming pool.



Andy and Lynette Smith, who are retired, say that their garden and pool were ruined after the animals, which weigh about 600kg each, got out of a rare breeds farm and on to their property, causing more than £25,000 worth of damage.

Eight of them ended up falling into the £70,000 pool, triggering a stampede that wrecked fencing and flower beds. The animals were rescued unharmed by the farmer.

The incident happened when an electric fence failed last July, allowing the herd to breach a wooden fence and hedge separating their field from the Smiths’ garden.

“When my wife went to make the morning tea, she glanced out of the kitchen window and saw eight buffaloes in the pool,” said Andy Smith. “She called 999 and was told the fire brigade don’t accept hoax calls. It took some persuading to get them to take us seriously. When they arrived, one of the buffaloes, spooked by their hi-vis jackets, headed straight at them.”

The farmer was summoned from next door and helped the animals out of the water.

Water buffaloes, also known as Asian buffaloes, can reach over 1.8m (6ft) in height and males have horns up to 1.5m long. In the wild they spend much of their time submerged in the muddy waters of tropical forests.

The Smiths were mystified as to how the animals ended up in their pool until they examined recordings from a CCTV camera in their garden. The footage shows the buffaloes wandering into the garden early on the Sunday morning. One stepped on to the solid pool cover and fell through it, causing others to run across the lawn. During the next 15 minutes, seven more animals toppled into the pool, turning the water from clear to a dark murk.

“Buffaloes are top-heavy and the porcelain tiles round the pool were slippery so they lost their grip and once they were in they couldn’t get out again,” said Smith. “The previous afternoon, we had had hosted a pool party for our young grandchildren and their friends. If the invasion had happened hours earlier, it could have been very serious.”

The farm’s insurer, NFU Mutual, accepted liability, but failed to agree a settlement for nearly a year. “It took 15 weeks for them to send an assessor round and nearly six months to offer a sum that falls over £8,000 short of the two quotes they themselves obtained,” said Smith. “We accept that they deal with claims far more serious than a damaged pool, but their failure to communicate has caused us countless sleepless nights.

“This pool was our retirement luxury bought when I sold the business, which I’d spent years building up. It was earned by a lot of sweat and toil, but after the buffaloes’ swim it was leaking 75 gallons a day and was unusable.”

However, after being contacted by the Guardian, the insurer eventually agreed to cover the full £25,000 repair bill.

A spokesperson for NFU Mutual said: “We apologise for the delay paying this claim and in particular the initial wait for an inspector’s visit, which took too long and fell short of our usual standards. We have a duty to all of our members to ensure we validate the cost of claims and in this instance, we needed to gain further assurance around the costs involved in repairing the damage.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

[Chip]

I lived in New Zealand. Kiwis (the human sort) tend to be pretty even-tempered. In te reo Māori, Pāora means humble or small and is also a phonetic rendering of Paul.

‘We have offended a nation’: Miami zoo’s treatment of kiwi bird enrages New Zealand

Zoo apologises after videos of a bird being handled and petted by guests under bright lights prompted uproar in New Zealand



Tess McClure

23 May 2023 19.56 EDT

The treatment of a kiwi at a Miami zoo has enraged thousands of New Zealanders, who launched a furious campaign to bring their national bird home and prompted the zoo to apologise.

Videos of Pāora – a kiwi bird housed by Zoo Miami – being handled and petted by guests under bright lights emerged on Tuesday, to almost immediate uproar in New Zealand.

Reclusive and nocturnal, kiwis are beloved in New Zealand to the point that the flightless, rotund, nocturnal ground-dweller has become the country’s national icon.

The footage went viral within hours – sparking a 9,000-person petition, a flood of complaints to the zoo, a government intervention from the Department of Conservation and comments from the prime minister. On Wednesday, zoo spokesperson Ron Magill said the zoo had “made a huge mistake here”. After receiving a flood of complaints, “I immediately went to the zoo director, and I said, we have offended a nation,” he said in an interview on national radio.

Later that day, prime minister Chris Hipkins weighed in on the incident, saying it “shows a lot of Kiwis take pride in our national bird when they’re overseas”. “The New Zealanders who witnessed what was happening there caught it pretty quickly,” he said. The prime minister added that the zoo had “made public statements of regret on what’s happened, and I acknowledge that and thank them for taking it seriously”.

Americans may have been surprised by the immediacy and volume of the fury on behalf of the kiwi – but New Zealand is unusually dedicated to the welfare of its endemic birds. The country’s early breakaway from other land masses means that it has no native land mammals, and is instead populated instead by a vast array of birds. Many are now endangered, and there are ongoing national campaigns to wipe out predators and save them. The kiwi holds a special place in the hearts of New Zealanders. It is considered a taonga (cultural treasure) by Māori.

Pāora, the Miami bird, was hatched in the US as part of a breeding program.

The zoo had begun charging guests US$25 for a “kiwi encounter” to meet the bird. In a video posted to the zoo’s social media, a handler cuddles Paora, scratching his head and showing him off to a group of visitors, who feed him worms. “He loves being pet, he’s like a little dog and he loves his head being pet,” they say.

One viewer immediately launched a petition to “Help Save This Mistreated Kiwi,” arguing that he was “subjected to bright fluorescent lighting 4 days a week, being handled by dozens of strangers, petted on his sensitive whiskers, laughed at, and shown off like a toy”.

Within less than a day, more than 9,000 people had signed. Others launched an email campaign to the zoo, with some calling for prime minister Chris Hipkins to speak directly to the US ambassador and intervene. New Zealand’s department of conservation stepped in on Tuesday, saying a statement “We would like to thank everyone who has raised concerns about Paora, the kiwi at Miami zoo”, and that the department would be “discussing the situation with the American Association of Zoos & Aquariums”.

Less than 24 hours later, Paora was returned to darkness. While the bird would not be repatriated to New Zealand, the “kiwi encounter” would be ended immediately, and Paora no longer exposed to fluorescent lights, the zoo said. “We listened to everyone who wrote to us – and there were a lot,” Magill said.

In a lengthy apology to one complainant, the zoo said they were “deeply sorry” and that the kiwi encounter “was, in hindsight, not well conceived”.

“It is especially painful to all of us to think that anything that has occurred here at Zoo Miami would be offensive to any of the wonderful people of New Zealand.”


https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...e_iOSApp_Other

[Chip]

Makes the Tesla CyberTruck look cheap.


The Ford Nucleon, nuclear-powered car of the future



Ford Motor Company's Nucleon car design (1958)

“Atomic” fever swept America in the 1950s, shaping people’s hopes and fears and inspiring daring new dreams. The “atomic” future seemed boundless when nuclear energy began powering the nation’s cities, and the promise of nuclear medicine was beginning to emerge.

From cars to comic books, few aspects of the American landscape were untouched by the heady promises of the atomic age. Ford Motor Company produced its futuristic Nucleon design study car in 1958, not long after Pittsburgh’s residents began receiving electricity from the world’s first full-scale nuclear power plant.

Designers envisioned that the Ford Nucleon’s nuclear reactor would be located in the rear of the vehicle and that the reactor’s atomic core would be recharged periodically. This “replaceable power package” would be available in various sizes, enabling “the driver to select his own horsepower.”

https://thebulletin.org/virtual-tour...of-the-future/

[TSherbs]

Punch it, Scotty!