Dogs in Jiangmen to be seized and put down to improve sanitation but experts brand plan unscientific and inhumane A southern Chinese city has banned pet dogs, leaving tens of thousands facing a cull unless they can find new homes. Authorities in Jiangmen, Guangdong province, say they are concerned about rabies cases and the general state of the city. But animal lovers have reacted angrily and a disease control expert warned the tactic, which will affect 30,000 animals, is unscientific, inhumane and short-term. Any dogs seen in the Pengjiang, Jianghai and Xinhui districts after 26 August will be seized or killed, city officials say. Guard dogs will be allowed, but only for companies with property worth at least 5m yuan (£474,000). The Jiangmen Daily said officials aimed to “prevent and control rabies, maintain public order and sanitation, and create a sound environment for the people”. The newspaper added that 42 of the city’s 4 million residents had died from rabies in the past three years. “Dogs found with diseases will be euthanised in a humanitarian manner. We will sign agreements with owners before putting down their dogs,” Li Wantong, technology director at an animal disease control centre in Jiangmen, told the Global Times. “We will try to find solutions for healthy ones, as we do not have the capacity to keep a large number.” Some residents back the move, with one complaining to the newspaper: “[Dog] excrement is everywhere in the courtyard and parks, and their barking always disrupts my sleep.” But a poodle owner said: “Banning all pet dogs, taking them away and killing them is a bit too much.” Dog ownership has soared as Chinese incomes have risen over the past few decades and there is growing interest in animal rights , particularly among the middle class. “This [ban] is not scientific, not humane, and it will not last long. In short term, maybe it could be effective, but after that, people still want to keep dogs,” said Dr Tang Qing of the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention at China’s Centre for Disease Control. “People won’t accept it and implementing it will be difficult – you can’t break down doors to seize and kill dogs.” He added that a vaccination programme for dogs would be cheaper and more effective. China has the world’s second-highest death toll from rabies after India, with cases rising sharply in the past decade, possibly due to increasing pet ownership and rising healthcare costs. The health ministry says 3,300 people died of the disease in 2007, although the toll fell to 2,466 in 2008 and experts believe the worst may be over. A 2009 ministry report said only a fifth of China’s 75m dogs were vaccinated against the disease. It added that 40 million people a year were bitten by animals . Dr Kati Loeffler, veterinary adviser for the International Fund for Animal Welfare in China, said: “Decades of research internationally have shown culling is absolutely ineffective in controlling rabies – the only way to control it is through mass vaccination. The second reason that [officials] do it is because people are not taking care of their animals … causing nuisance. That requires education.” In several cases tightened dog ownership rules have led people to abandon pets, resulting in a large stray population that potentially causes more problems. Two years ago, Hanzhong in Shaanxi enraged animal lovers by announcing it had culled 36,000 stray and pet dogs. Additional research by Han Cheng China Animal welfare Animals Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Oprah Winfrey and James Earl Jones to receive honorary Oscars; Charlie Sheen withdraws lawsuit over New York hotel incident; Salon famous for Palin’s up-do gets reality show . (Aug. 3)
Continue reading …Sterling Seagrave – Black Op Radio – Gold Warriors.wmv Yuliana dinner for two Emails on Curing Aging, Living to 1000, Michele O’Bachmann, 2012 Election romer200 says: Safe Payday Loans – Safe And Easy To Borrow Loan Help http://bit.ly/nlASbP
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Rachel Maddow summed up pretty nicely why we saw the reaction we got from Wall Street to the debt ceiling deal that John Boehner was so pleased with “getting 98%” of what he wanted in finally being passed this week: MADDOW: After the debt ceiling deal got signed, that’s what happened on Wall Street — about twenty little green boxes in a sea of about four hundred and eighty red ones. Everybody’s been talking about how the markets would tank if we didn’t reach a debt ceiling deal. Today we got a debt ceiling deal, and the markets still tanked. And the markets tanked because this debt ceiling deal, just passed today in the Senate and was signed into law by a lonely President Obama, signing the law with nobody standing behind him — this debt ceiling deal is essentially telling an economy that has just been run over by a car that now it needs to lay down in the road again, so we can back up over it and run it over a second time. As Rachel noted here, the Economic Policy Institute reported that all in all, this deal could end up costing Americans 1.8 million jobs — What’s missing from the debt ceiling debate? Jobs : The unemployment rate, currently above 9 percent, is projected to remain high for a long time. For example, the current Blue Chip Economic Indicators consensus forecast puts the average unemployment rate for 2012 at 8.3 percent. The agreement to raise the debt ceiling just announced by policymakers in Washington not only erodes funding for public investments and safety-net spending, but also misses an important opportunity to address the lack of jobs. The spending cuts in 2012 and the failure to continue two key supports to the economy (the payroll tax holiday and emergency unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed) could lead to roughly 1.8 million fewer jobs in 2012, relative to current budget policy. The agreement would reduce spending by at least $1 trillion over 10 years through budget caps on non-mandatory programs, with additional reductions under discussion in a second phase. While the bulk of the cuts are back-loaded – coming more in the future – the near-term cuts would still have an immediate impact. Applying conventional multipliers, the reduction of $30.5 billion in calendar year 2012 would reduce GDP by 0.3%, and result in roughly 323,000 fewer jobs (as depicted in the table below). In addition to the immediate cuts to spending, the debt ceiling agreement fails to continue two major policies which had been part of broad agreements in the past. The payroll tax holiday and extended unemployment insurance were passed last December along with the two-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts; but are set to expire at the end of 2011. While Congress could still extend these policies between now and the end of the year, that scenario is looking much less likely today. (Any economic support subsequent to this deal would have to be offset by other tax increases or spending cuts in 2012 or a further increase in the debt ceiling, neither of which seems politically viable.) And as Sec. Tim Geithner noted, even though our politicians finally raised the debt ceiling and averted a default on our debt, he is not sure if the United States still might be downgraded — Geithner unsure if U.S. debt to be downgraded: report . And as the LA Times reported — Moody’s and Fitch keep U.S. triple-A credit rating, but say outlook is negative . Rachel wrapped up her segment talking about how the administration has said they want to shift their focus to jobs now, apparently counting on some type of good will or cooperation from Republicans in doing so, but as she pointed out, we’ve seen absolutely no evidence that there’s any reason to believe that will happen.
Continue reading …Did you know that car buyers in July took “worries” over the debt-ceiling debate in Washington into account when they decided to buy — or apparently decided not to buy? Neither did I. But Dee-Ann Durbin and Tom Krisher rolled out that excuse this evening as one factor explaining why July's car sales were “disappointing,” and then appeared to stuff those words into the mouth of the spokesman for General Motors. Sale were indeed “disappointing,” up less than 1% of over July 2010, which was described at the time by CNNMoney.com as “Best Since (Cash for) Clunkers, But Still Weak” (that's the window title; the article title got sanitized later). Here are several paragraphs from the AP pair's report (the excuse and the word-stuffing are in bold): US auto industry uneasy after weak July sales Auto sales rose only slightly in July as skittish consumers pulled back on car buying and threatened to derail the industry's fragile recovery. With the economy weak, popular cars in short supply and dealers offering very few discounts, carmakers endured a third straight month of disappointing sales. Just over 1 million new cars and trucks were sold in the month, up 1 percent from last July and flat with June. Sales started strong this year but have slowed as the economy faltered and Japan's earthquake left Toyota and Honda dealers short of popular models. Unemployment rose to 9.2 percent earlier this summer, the highest level this year, and consumer confidence is shaky. “We're still not back on the track of recovery yet,” said Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting at J.D. Power and Associates. “There's definitely some weakness kind of looming out there.” Adding to buyers' worries in July was the government debate over the debt ceiling. “Uncertainty, in our business, is always bad for consumers,” GM Vice President of Sales Don Johnson said. … Both Ford and GM have scaled back their annual forecast for the year, saying U.S. sales are likely to be closer to 13 million instead of the 13.5 million they had hoped for. … He said automakers need to accept that the recovery could take longer than they anticipated and shouldn't panic and resort to discounts to sell more cars. The final excerpted sentence made me think of this little clip from “Animal House” — “All is well!” No it's not, and it has nothing to do with the debt ceiling drama which just transpired. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
Continue reading …Ever wonder if the speeds your ISP advertises are actually what you’re getting while reloading Engadget all day? The FCC did, and decided to team up with 13 major broadband providers in the US to test how they performed from February to June of this year. Notably, during peak hours the average continuous download speeds of fiber connections were 14 percent faster than advertised, while cable and DSL were slower than claimed by 8 and 18 percent, respectively. Upload speeds also varied, with DSL again dipping the lowest at 95-percent of what’s advertised — might be time to ask your phone-based ISP for a partial refund, no? In addition to sustained speeds, the FCC analyzed consumer connections’ latency and the effect of ISP speed boost tech on activities like VoIP, gaming, and video streaming. In concluding its research, the Commission noted that it should be easy to get tools in users’ hands for keeping better tabs on ISP-provided services, without needing to contact customer frustrations relations. The study is chock full of even more graphs and stats, which you’ll find by hitting that source link below. Now, if only we could get those speeds on par with our friends across the Atlantic . Continue reading FCC measures US wireline advertised broadband speeds, fiber dominates cable and DSL FCC measures US wireline advertised broadband speeds, fiber dominates cable and DSL originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Dr Muhammad Sharaf offers medical treatment and support to people injured in the struggle for democracy earlier this year Richard Sprenger Mona Mahmood
Continue reading …Footage from 1923 melodrama The White Shadow, one of the first films that Hitchcock worked on, identified in New Zealand film archive It’s the kind of unpredictable twist that even the celebrated film-maker might have found surprising: footage from a lost silent movie featuring work by Alfred Hitchcock has been discovered in New Zealand. The White Shadow, from 1923, is a melodrama starring US actor Betty Compson as twin sisters – one good, one evil – and Clive Brook. It was the first film that the 24-year-old Hitchcock worked on. He was writer, assistant director, editor and production designer on the project. Three reels comprising the first 30 minutes of the movie were left at the New Zealand Film Archive in 1989 by the family of a New Zealand projectionist and film collector, but were only recently identified. No one knows where the remaining three reels are and no other copy of the film is thought to exist. “This is him showing how multi-talented he was at a very young age,” Frank Stark, head of the New Zealand archive, told stuff.co.nz . “There were also stories [that] the named director – Graham Cutts – of the film wasn’t the greatest. To a large degree Hitchcock filled in the gaps, even took over you might say. “So this is a really early sign of just how broadly skilled Hitchcock was. Hitchcock was famous, in his later films for having a meticulous control of all the detail, from the acting performance right down to the sets and costumes. I think it’s an early sign of just how precocious he was.” David Sterritt, chairman of the National Society of Film Critics, told the BBC that the discovery was “one of the most significant developments in memory”. “These first three reels offer a priceless opportunity to study his visual and narrative ideas when they were first taking shape,” he said. The prints were sent to the Film Archive by New Zealander Tony Osborne in 1989 following the death of their owner and his grandfather, the projectionist and collector Jack Murtagh. They were originally included with a number of unidentified American nitrate prints and were only recently identified by nitrate expert Leslie Lewis, who works at the archive. “From boyhood, my grandfather was an avid collector – be it films, stamps, coins or whatever,” said Osborne. “He was known, internationally, as having one of the largest collection of cigarette cards and people would travel from all over the world to view his collection. Some would view him as rather eccentric. He would be quietly amused by all the attention now generated by these important film discoveries.” The reels were originally labelled “Twin Sisters”, and it was only due to Lewis’s diligence that they were identified as part of The White Shadow. The archivist noticed the resemblance in style to Hitchcock’s early work and confirmed her suspicions by trawling through contemporary reviews of the movie. The footage is to be preserved at Park Road Post Production in Wellington. The film will be added to the catalogue at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Hitchcock collection in Los Angeles. Alfred Hitchcock New Zealand Ben Child guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Congress has gone home for the summer without reaching a deal to end a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration . Some 4,000 FAA employees and around 70,000 construction workers have been put out of work by the shutdown, caused by a partisan standoff, the Washington Post reports….
Continue reading …Pretty Little Liars Season 2 Episode 8 Part 1 of 5 Pretty Little Liars Season 2 Episode 8 Part 2 of 5 Pretty Little Liars Season 2 Episode 8 Part 1 of 5 Luckystarr_Chey says: Can’t believe Derrick went home on master chef tonight! !!!!!!
Continue reading …