Saturday, March 1, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Pro-Russian leader in Crimea asks Putin for help
CBS/Wire Services March 1, 2014

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine -- The pro-Russian leader of Ukraine's Crimea region claimed control of the military and police there Saturday and appealed to Russia's President Vladimir Putin for help in keeping peace, sharpening the discord between the two Slavic neighbor countries.

Also Saturday, Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, asked Putin to take measures to stabilize the situation in Crimea, the news agency Interfax cited the speaker of the Duma as saying.

It was the latest escalation following the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russian president last week by a protest movement aimed at turning Ukraine toward the European Union and away from Russia.

Russian forces moved across the border into the Crimea region of Ukraine on Friday, Ukrainian and U.S. officials said, escalating tensions and prompting President Obama to warn against a military intervention.

Armed men described as Russian troops took control of key airports and a communications center in Crimea. Ukraine has accused Russia of a "military invasion and occupation" - a claim that brought an alarming new dimension to the crisis, and raised fears that Moscow is moving to annex a strategic peninsula where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.

On Saturday, Russian forces seized control of a military airfield, the Interfax news agency quoted a Ukrainian military source as saying. The airport, located in the town of Kirovskoye, is used mostly for military transport planes.

U.S. officials said Friday that Russia was flying hundreds of troops, maybe more, into Crimea. The officials stopped short of calling it an outright invasion, but one of them said, "This is history being made."

Ukraine's population is divided in loyalties between Russia and Europe, with much of western Ukraine advocating closer ties with the European Union while eastern and southern regions look to Russia for support. Crimea is mainly Russian-speaking.
Crimean's prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov, declared that the armed forces, the police, the national security service and border guards in the region will answer only to his orders.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk opened a cabinet meeting in the capital, Kiev, by calling on Russia not to provoke discord in Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea.

"We call on the government and authorities of Russia to recall their forces, and to return them to their stations," Yatsenyuk was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. "Russian partners, stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine."
Crimea only became part of Ukraine in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred jurisdiction from Russia, a move that was a mere formality when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the Soviet Union. The Soviet breakup in 1991 meant Crimea landed in an independent Ukraine.

Mr. Obama warned Moscow on Friday "there will be costs" if it intervenes militarily.
Russia has taken a confrontational stance toward its southern neighbor after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country. Yanukovych was voted out of office by parliament after weeks of protests ended in violence that left over 80 people dead.

Demonstrators sought his resignation after he backed out of signing an agreement to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union instead of Russia. Yanukovych took refuge in Russia and still says he's president.

Aksyonov, the head of the main pro-Russia party on the peninsula, appealed to Putin "for assistance in guaranteeing peace and calmness on the territory of the autonomous republic of Crimea."

Aksyonov was voted in by the Crimean parliament on Thursday after pro-Russia gunmen seized the building and as tensions soared over Crimea's resistance to the new authorities in Kiev, who took office this week.

Mr. Obama called on Russia to respect the independence and territory of Ukraine and not try to take advantage of its neighbor, which is undergoing political upheaval.

"Any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing," Mr. Obama said.

He said such action by Russia would represent a "profound interference" in matters he said must be decided by the Ukrainian people.

"The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine," he said. He did not say what those costs might be.

Poland called for an end to "provocative movements of troops on the Crimean Peninsula,"

"Any decisions that will be taken in the coming days, including of military nature, could have irreparable consequences for the international order," the Polish foreign ministry said in a statement.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on Twitter that it was "obvious that there is Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Likely immediate aim is to set up puppet pro-Russian semi-state in Crimea."

At the United Nations, the Ukrainian ambassador, Yuriy Sergeyev, said Friday that Russian transport aircraft and 11 attack helicopters had arrived in Crimea illegally, and that Russian troops had taken control of two airports in Crimea. He described the gunmen posted outside the two airports as Russian armed forces as well as "unspecified" units.

Russia has kept silent on claims of military intervention and has said any troop movements are within agreed rules, even as it maintained its hard-line stance on protecting ethnic Russians in Crimea.

Meanwhile, flights remained halted from Simferopol's airport. Dozens of armed men in military uniforms without markings patrolled the area. They didn't stop or search people leaving or entering the airport, and refused to talk to journalists.
One man who identified himself only as Vladimir said the men were part of the Crimean People's Brigade, which he described as a self-defense unit ensuring that no "radicals and fascists" arrive from other parts of Ukraine. There was no way to independently verify his account.




To the Russian point of view Western Ukraine, following the philosophy of American and other Western forces are “radicals and fascists.” I will defer my comments on this for the day, since I have already said them yesterday or the day before, posting instead the contribution of the masterful Kingston Trio:

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_kingston_trio/the_merry_minuet.html

THE KINGSTON TRIO

"The Merry Minuet"
(Sheldon Harnick)

They're rioting in Africa. They're starving in Spain. There's hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch and I don't like anybody very much!
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud for man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.
And we know for certain that some lovely day someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.
They're rioting in Africa. There's strife in Iran. What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.





Idaho law imposes jail time, fines on people who secretly film animal abuse – CBS
AP February 28, 2014

BOISE, Idaho - Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed a bill Friday that imposes jail time and fines against people who secretly film animal abuse at Idaho's agricultural facilities.

Otter inked the new law swiftly, just two days after it cleared its final legislative hurdle in the House.

The bill came in response to videos released by Los Angeles-based vegetarian and animal rights group Mercy for Animals showing workers at Bettencourt Dairy beating, stomping, dragging and sexually abusing cows in 2012.

Idaho's $2.5 billion dairy industry complained the group used its videos not to curb abuse, but to unfairly hurt Bettencourt's business. Bettencourt operates dairies at numerous locations that include more than 60,000 cows and is one of the largest dairy companies in the U.S.

Otter, a rancher, said the measure will help make agriculture producers more secure in their property and their livelihood.

"My signature today reflects my confidence in their desire to responsibly act in the best interest of the animals on which that livelihood depends," Otter wrote in a statement. "No animals rights organization cares more or has more at stake than Idaho farmers and ranchers do in ensuring that their animals are healthy, well-treated and productive."

Utah, Idaho's neighbor to the south, has a similar law. It's being challenged in federal court on grounds that, among other things, it infringes upon activists' free speech rights to expose cruelty.

Under Idaho's measure that was branded by its foes as an "ag gag bill," people caught surreptitiously filming agricultural operations face up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

It prohibits making audio or video recordings of such operations without first getting permission, and criminalizes obtaining records from agricultural operations by force or misrepresentation. Lying on an employment application for such a farm is also outlawed.

In the Legislature, Democrats opposed the bill on grounds that it made it seem as if Idaho's agriculture industry was hiding something.

Mercy For Animals immediately decried Otter's signature Friday, saying that it transforms Idaho into "a safe haven for animal abuse."

"Gov. Otter has failed Idaho and the American people," said the group's executive director, Nathan Runkle. "By signing this bill into law, he has sided with those who seek to keep Idaho's corrupt factory farming practices hidden from public view and created a safe haven for animal abuse and other criminal activity in the state."
Bob Naerebout, who heads the Idaho Dairymen's Association that promoted the measure, said Runkle has it wrong.

Naerebout contends Mercy For Animals unfairly sought to persuade Bettencourt's customers to stop buying its milk products - even after the farm's owner, Luis Bettencourt, fired five workers filmed mistreating cows and cooperated with their prosecution.

"The purpose of the bill was not to hide anything, the purpose of the bill was to address those who get on agriculture operations under false pretenses, with a predetermination to cause injury and economic harm," Naerebout said. "The dairy producers of Idaho - and dairy producers across this nation - take extremely good care of their cattle."

In the wake of the abuse, the University of Idaho Extension, along with the College of Southern Idaho, worked with the dairy industry to offer a program to help teach dairy workers about proper animal care, milking, calf raising and feeding dairy animals.

At least one of the Bettencourt workers pictured in the Mercy For Animals video pleaded guilty to misdemeanor animal cruelty and spent time in jail.





Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed this bill in what should be a conflict of interest. “Otter, a rancher, said the measure will help make agriculture producers more secure in their property and their livelihood.” He says, “My signature today reflects my confidence in their desire to responsibly act in the best interest of the animals on which that livelihood depends." This contrasts with the evidence of the eye, as shown in the animal rights group's films.

The University of Idaho Extension is setting up a program to teach dairy workers the best way to manage the animals, which could help, but I hate to see a law that criminalizes “whistle blowing,” which is a fine old tradition in American society that points out the need for government action. When the government sets itself up against the people who are reporting unethical or illegal conduct, it makes me think of an abuse of government power. Is it illegal for the farmers to abuse the animals? I hope so, but I don't feel sure of it.





DOJ investigating suspicious death of Alfred Wright – CBS
ByJulia Dahl CBS News February 28, 2014

On Nov. 7, 2013, 28-year-old Jasper, Texas resident Alfred Wright went missing. His body was found weeks later by volunteer searchers frustrated that local law enforcement seemed to have given up. But two autopsies later, there are few answers about what happened to Wright - and now the Department of Justice has agreed to look into the case.

Wright, a physical therapist whose brother Savion was a finalist on the television show "American Idol," was last seen at a grocery store in Sabine County, according to Chuck Foreman, a private investigator hired by Wright's family. Foreman says that Wright called his wife and parents to say that his truck had broken down, but when his parents came to pick him up, he was gone.

Local police searched for Wright, a married father-of-two, for only four days, and CBS affiliate KSLA reports that Sheriff Tom Maddox said he didn't suspect foul play. At the time of his disappearance, Wright was under indictment for allegedly embezzling money when he worked at a bank while attending college in Tennessee.
"They kept saying that it was staged, that he was on the run," Foreman told CBS News' Crimesider.

But Wright wasn't on the run. On Nov. 25, a group of church volunteers found Wright's body. According to Foreman, Wright was found wearing just his boxer shorts, two shoes and one sock. He says Wright's scrubs were found on a barbed wire fence nearby. KSLA reports that Wright was found just 150 yards from where sheriff's deputies originally set up their command post for the search. One of the men who found the body told the station that Wright's eyes were missing and so was part of his ear.

Foreman, who is the president of the Center for Search and Investigation, a Texas-based group that helps search for missing children, says that local police immediately blamed drugs for Wright's death, and a county autopsy reportedly revealed the presence of cocaine and meth in his system.

"They kept saying it was drug-induced behavior," Foreman says. "But nobody ever witnessed him doing drugs, and he has no drug-related criminal history."
Sheriff Maddox did not return Crimesider's call for comment on the case.

The autopsy called Wright's death an accident, but his family didn't buy it. They commissioned a second autopsy by Dr. Lee Ann Grossberg who announced at a news conference that she has "a high index of suspicion that this is a homicide."
"This has been the worst investigation I've ever seen in my life," said Foreman, an Army Special Operations veteran. "The sheriff's department never searched his truck, they never did a neighborhood canvas."

In fact, Foreman says that it was his own neighborhood canvas that eventually led to the discovery of Wright's body. Foreman says that when he knocked on the door of a man who owned about 100 acres of land near the store where Wright was last seen, the man told him police had never asked to search his property. Volunteers did, and they found Wright.

Desperate for answers, the Wright family reached out to Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) for help. On January 23, Lee wrote to the Department of Justice asking them to investigate Wright's death. They agreed, and the U.S. Attorney's office in Texas' Eastern District told Crimesider that they are "reviewing the investigation."

One of Rep. Lee's spokespeople told Crimesider that Lee took interest in the case, in part, because of the history of racial violence in Jasper. In 1998, 49-year-old Robert Byrd was killed near the town after three white men tied him to the back of their truck and dragged him for more than three miles until his head came off.
Wright's sister told KSLA that she believes her brother was kidnapped, tortured and dumped. A $30,000 reward for information leading to a conviction has been offered in the case.




I'm always depressed when local police are either negligent or criminally involved in their botched investigations. All it takes is a member of a wealthy and influential local family who has committed the crime, or a racial incident, which has been covered up. The south has been the cultural environment that has produced too many of these crimes and coverups, as it has continued to incubate racial hatred into modern times. That case in Georgia of the teenager who was found rolled up in a gym mat which the police called an accident just occurred last year. The FBI are investigating that now. I will try to clip any other articles about this that are published.




Wisconsin puppet craftsman makes familiar faces come to life – CBS
CBS News February 28, 2014

Howdy Doody and Pinocchio may be the most well-known marionettes in recent time, but the craft of making puppets that move with strings dates back thousands of years. WISC-TV's Mark Koehn found a Madison man who is keeping this ancient craft alive.

Among the items for sale at the State Historical Society's museum on the square are some familiar faces. Marionettes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Liberace, Hank Aaron and other Wisconsin luminaries. They are all crafted on Madison's east side by Ken Vogel.
Growing up with Howdy Doody and Pinocchio, Vogel makes his living making marionettes. He's being doing so his entire adult life.

"I really, really liked doing it, you know," Vogel said. "I got the itch to be creative, I've never been an art student or painted or worked like that before but it was just really a lot of fun."

Most of his craft is self taught, though a good friend did show him how to use paper mache.

"I used a clay mould that I've used in the past but I've covered it up with paper mache with a newspaper soaked in paste and my next step will be to take the paper mache shell off of the head," he said.

Then he patches the halves back together, paints them and puts the puppets together.
"The heavy tube for the trunk of the body, newspaper tubes for the arms slightly heavier tubes for the upper leg," Vogel said.

Sewing the outfits and painting the faces are Vogel's favorite parts of this and when he's done, these little characters emerge: Vince Lombardi, Mayor Soglin (who's actually a hand puppet, not a marionette), and Harpo Marx. There's Falstaff and Cleopatra, and his bread and butter: Frank Lloyd Wright. He makes more Franks than any other character.

He can make a puppet of anybody really; all Vogel needs is a few photographs.
And when he pulls the strings, they come to life.

Paper mache and tubes and string. That a little imagination and Madison's very own Geppetto makes a whole world come to life.




We don't hear much about puppeteers anymore, with smart phones and video games being so popular with the young people. Such low tech pleasures are no longer interesting to kids. Still this puppeteer, an artist really, pursues his work and has been making a living at it his whole life, so marionettes do still sell. He simply works from photographs using papier mache and reused tubes of several sizes, sewing their outfits himself. I love to see a person step so far outside the mainstream to do something good, using his creativity for the betterment of our culture, immortalizing great people of all stamps. This is a happy news article.




Group warns almost 500 products contain chemical found in yoga mats – CBS
By Michelle Castillo CBS News February 27, 2014

Subway made news earlier in February when the sandwich chain announced it was removing a chemical called azodicarbonamide (ADA), which is used to make yoga mats, from North American formulations of bread. But now, a consumer advocacy group is warning people that almost 500 more food items on the market have this same compound.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a list Thursday of all the foods that have listed ADA as an ingredient. Large companies like Ball Park, Country Hearth, Jimmy Dean, Kroger, Little Debbie, Marie Callendar's, Nature's Own, Pillsbury, White Castle and Wonder are just a fraction of the 130 brands that used the chemical in their products. Most of the items are bread, croutons, pre-made sandwiches and snacks.

"EWG recommends that consumers take steps to avoid the industrial additive ADA in their food. It is an unnecessary ingredient, its use has raised concerns about occupational exposure, and questions remain about its potential risk to consumers," the organization wrote, adding that it urged all manufacturers to stop using the product in breads.

ADA is used to bleach flour and help make dough stronger and more rubbery. The Food and Drug Administration currently approved the use of the chemical as long as it is used in quantities less than 0.0045 percent of the weight of the flour used.
But, the World Health Organization raised concerns about the compound. Case reports have shown that some workers who come in contact with the product on a regular basis have developed asthma, respiratory symptoms and skin problems. Very few studies have been done on ADA, but animal research has shown that if the compound is inhaled or consumed it tends to not be absorbed and is easily eliminated with the body's waste.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest pointed out that ADA forms semicarbazide and urethane when baked, and both have been linked to cancers in mice. They have called for the FDA to ban the chemical since many other breads do not use the compound.

The complete list of food items that contain ADA can be found on the EWG website.


Azodicarbonamide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Azodicarbonamide, or azobisformamide, is a chemical compound with the molecular formula C2H4O2N4.[1] It is a yellow to orange red, odorless, crystalline powder. As a food additive, it is known by the E number E927.
Use as a food additive[edit]

As a food additive, azodicarbonamide is used as a flour bleaching agent and an improving agent. It reacts with moist flour as an oxidizing agent.[2] The main reaction product is biurea,[3] a derivative of urea, which is stable during baking. Secondary reaction products include semicarbazide[4] and ethyl carbamate.[5] The United States and Canada permit the use of azodicarbonamide at levels up to 45 ppm.[6][7] In Australia and Europe the use of azodicarbonamide as a food additive is banned.[8]

Azodicarbonamide as a blowing agent in plastics has been banned in Europe since August 2005 for the manufacture of plastic articles that are intended to come into direct contact with food.[9]

In the United States, azodicarbonamide has been assigned "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) status and is allowed to be added to flour at levels up to 45 ppm.[10]
In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive has identified azodicarbonamide as a respiratory sensitizer (a possible cause of asthma) in workplace settings and determined that containers of it should be labeled with "May cause sensitisation by inhalation."[11] The World Health Organization has linked azodicarbonamide to "respiratory issues, allergies and asthma" for individuals at workplaces where azodicarbonamide is manufactured or handled in raw form. The available data are restricted to these occupational environments. Exposure of the general public to azodicarbonamide could not be evaluated because of the lack of available data.[12]




Congratulations to Subway Restaurants. Maybe I'll go eat there more often. Their removal of the chemical was voluntary, and showed that they are keeping up with scientific recommendations. It is embarrassing that our FDA has not warned against its use entirely, when the World Health Organization has already put out such warnings, and Australia and Europe have banned its use in foods. It causes asthma and skin disorders and one of its byproducts has been linked to cancer in mice.



­
In The Arizona Wilds, Burro Murders Baffle Investigators – NPR
By Peter O'Dowd
March 01, 2014
­
In the desert outside of Phoenix, there have been 18 shootings in the last five years, a series of mysteries that has stumped federal investigators.
Let's be clear, we're talking about donkeys: specifically, wild burros, the federally protected asses of the Old West. In late January, out among the desert scrub and beavertail cactus, two from the Lake Pleasant herd were found dead.
"We consider that a murder scene," says Steve Bird, a burro specialist with the Bureau of Land Management.

Thirty-five miles northwest of Phoenix, the dirt road stops at a gate. This is where someone took aim, with skill.

"One bullet hole per animal, right set in the lungs," Bird says. "It was a good shot."
These burros descend from pack animals that gold miners abandoned more than a century ago. Today, the feral herd drinks from a desert lake each morning and then scrambles back into these hills in the afternoon.

In 2012, five burros were killed in one day. Eleven were shot in a single barrage back in 2009. The last time anyone got caught, Bill Clinton was president.
The shootings baffle investigators. People don't eat burro, and it doesn't look like anyone was harvesting the meat. The Bureau of Land Management believes the motive is nothing more than target shooting.

An Easy Target
In Oatman, Ariz., the burros stick their noses into the tourists' outstretched hands. To nudge the stubbornly tame beasts from the road so that Oatman's staged gunfights can begin, town guides have learned to splash water in the animals' faces. Their passivity makes burros vulnerable.

"It doesn't even move," says Jim Quinn, who rents his home to tourists. "It just stands there and looks at you and then it's like a stationary target."
To Quinn, it's no surprise that people are shooting the animals near Phoenix. He says they do it up here, too.

"Once you're out there, there are no witnesses," he says. "You get people taking potshots."

Quinn points to the mountains around town, with remnants of the many gold mines. The burros are supposed to be protected by federal law because they are seen as symbolic of the American West.

"Without the burros, a lot of things couldn't have gotten done," Quinn says.
Whoever shot the burros near Phoenix faces a year in prison. For now, though, federal authorities don't have much to go on.




This is one of those cases in which pure evil is involved. Killing a living animal as “target practice” is the act of a stupid person, and doing it for the pleasure of it is deeply sinful. Such people may kill humans as well if they are tempted or provoked. I don't like any hunting except for meat. Deer, duck, or turkey hunters do eat what they kill usually, and in many cases they don't have much money for groceries, so it is a much more acceptable thing to do. Besides, deer will eat farmers crops sometimes and can carry diseases when their population gets too large, but burros aren't described – at least in this article – as doing any kind of damage. Horse meat is eaten in some places, but not in the US except in conditions of starvation. Besides, they are simply too cute to kill, and this article says these feral donkeys will eat out of your hand. Apparently nobody lives nearby the herd and snipers can go out there and shoot them unseen. I wonder if a much stiffer prison sentence and a sizable reward for information leading to an arrest would help. I'll bet somebody knows who did that.