October 19, 2015

Moped rider begs mercy from angry elephants who attacked him because they are sick of noisy motorcyc

He got away safely







The national park of Khao Yai shared the video on their Facebook page with a comment: 'Motorbikes have to be banned from Khao Yai before something serious happens.'

The park is the third largest in Thailand. It covers an area of 300 sq km (74,000 acres), including evergreen forests and grasslands.

There are 3,000 species of plants, 320 species of birds and 66 species of mammals, including Asian elephants.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3279528/On-bike-Elephants-attack-moped-rider-tries-past-moments-pack-noisy-motorcyclists-angered-them.html

October 19, 2015

Cops say 'armed' Florida church musician Corey Jones killed by police officer after car breaks down

well-known Florida drummer, who doubled as the assistant manager of the Delray Beach Housing Authority, was shot dead by a plain clothes Palm Beach Gardens police officer in an unmarked car after his car broke down on the side of the road following a music gig Sunday.

Authorities, family members say, have refused to fully describe what happened during the early morning confrontation that left 31-year-old Corey Jones dead.

But a police statement released Monday afternoon said the officer, Nouman Raja, was "suddenly confronted by an armed subject" when he "stopped to investigate what he believed to be an abandoned vehicle" along an Interstate 95 exit ramp around 3:15 a.m. Sunday.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fla-church-musician-killed-side-road-article-1.2402760#


http://m.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/crime-law/family-31-year-old-drummer-was-victim-of-officer-i/nn5jm/

Update, 12:45 p.m.: The last time Mathew Huntsberger saw drummer Corey Jones was after their band finished a gig at a Jupiter bar Saturday night and Jones’ SUV was stalled on the Interstate 95 exit ramp at PGA Boulevard early Sunday morning.

Future Prezidents’ gig at Corner’s Ocean Bar and Grill in Jupiter had finished about 1:20 a.m. and Huntsberger had already made it home when he got a call from Jones saying he was having car trouble, Huntsberger told The Palm Beach Post on Monday.

Huntsberger, 34, met Jones on the exit ramp where Jones, 31, told him the car started having trouble while on Interstate 95, and then he pulled over to the nearest exit. He made it to the ramp and then pushed his car toward the end of it. He thought maybe the car needed oil, so Huntsberger got some for him. It didn’t help.

Jones called for At&T Roadside Assistance, and Huntsberger decided because he couldn’t help he’d head home.

That was about 2:30 a.m., about 45 minutes before the shooting.
What happened in those 45 minutes is not known.

Palm Beach Gardens Police has not commented on what led up to the shooting. Police also have not confirmed the identity of the person who was shot.
“I guess I was the last one to see him,” Huntsberger said. “He was like a really peaceful guy. There’s no way he had a gun. We’re all musicians and stuff. We’re not violent people
http://m.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/crime-law/family-31-year-old-drummer-was-victim-of-officer-i/nn5jm/

October 19, 2015

Hunters shoot two moose before realizing they were firing into zoo

Norwegian hunting party must have been amazed at their luck when they found and shot dead two large moose.

But moments later, a horrible realization dawned on them: They'd shot through a fence and killed two zoo animals.

According to The Local, a Norwegian news site, a group of hunters killed two of Polar Park's five moose (the animals are referred to as elk in Norway, but they're part of the species North Americans would call moose). The zoo is located in the northern Norwegian town of Narvik, and the animals are caged but exhibited in "their natural surroundings."

The hunting party self-reported the incident, calling the zoo to let them know about the unfortunate accident. It seems their hunting dogs snuck into the moose exhibit so the hunters didn't realize there was a fence at all.

http://m.sfgate.com/weird/article/Hunters-shoot-two-moose-before-realizing-they-6577586.php


Comment following article

Imagine how dumbstruck those hunters would have been if the first large 'game' they saw were Siberian tigers or giant pandas.

October 19, 2015

Wild life rescue builds fancy catio: Patio for cats

http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Does-your-indoor-cat-want-a-taste-of-the-6572844.php#photo-8796835










e great outdoors is not a safe place for kitty. There are coyotes, disease and zooming cars. And kitties are not safe for the outdoors. Set free, they'll kill wildlife with impunity.


So one trend is hoping to, ahem, kill two birds with one stone: catios.

A catio is, if you haven't guessed it yet, a cat patio. Dedicated cat owners have been building budget and extravagant versions, and the phenomenon even has spawned sites that sell pre-designed kits. If you've got the budget, it's the perfect solution for pet owners who are cautious about letting Fluffy free in the neighborhood, but still want their cat to be able to experience the outdoors.

Locally, Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue is raising awareness for catios with their own build, which was unveiled recently. Two lucky kittens named Cheddar and Gouda got first run of the indoor/outdoor space. The brothers are considered "educational ambassadors" for the wildlife rescue, demoing the catio for curious visitors.

October 19, 2015

Trump is going to destroy Jeb Bush

trump has figured out Jeb Bush's greatest weakness as a candidate, and it's not his energy level
I don't know if Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination. But even if he doesn't, it's increasingly clear he's going to destroy Jeb Bush before he loses.

Over the past week, Trump and Bush have been in an argument that basically boils down to the question of was George W. Bush president on 9/11/2001?

Trump insists that Bush was president both prior to and during the 9/11 attacks, and he was therefore at least partly responsible for the security failures that permitted the tragedy. And to Trump's credit, there is considerable evidence that George W. Bush was president on 9/11/2001.

Jeb Bush's position is harder to parse: he argues that his brother was only responsible for what happened after 9/11, suggesting, perhaps, that someone else bore the responsibilities of the presidency on 9/11/2001. Or, to be a bit kinder to his position, he argues that the measure of as president isn't whether something like 9/11 happens, but whether it happens again.

The result is this absolutely brutal interview CNN's Jake Tapper conducted with Bush. "If your brother and his administration bear no responsibility at all," Tapper asks, "how do you then make the jump that President Obama and Secretary Clinton are responsible for what happened at Benghazi?"

Bush's response is almost physically painful to watch.

Trump has a bully's instinct for finding someone else's true weaknesses. His continued crack that Bush is a "low-energy" candidate is devastating precisely because it identifies a weakness not just in Bush's campaign style, but in the nature of his campaign.

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/18/9564267/donald-trump-jeb-bush-911

October 18, 2015

Breaking tradition, India's child brides fight for freedom

University student Santadevi Meghwal has been threatened, harassed, ostracised and even fined by a council of male elders in her village in India.

But the 20-year-old is determined to push ahead with annulling her child marriage, and join a small but growing number of youngsters in northern India rejecting the ancient tradition.

Meghwal was only 11 months old when her elders married her to a nine-year-old boy from a neighbouring village in the desert state of Rajasthan, where rates of child marriages have long been high.

She recalls seeing her husband for the first time aged 16, when a friend, whose family had attended Meghwal's 'wedding' when she was a toddler, pointed out a drunk man hurling abuse outside their school.

"My friend turned to me and said 'look, that's your husband'," Meghwal said, describing how her heart sank as she raced home to confront her parents.



----
eghwal was supposed to move in with her husband when she turned 17. But instead she has fought a three-year battle against her council, and turned away her in-laws when they came to fetch her.


____!

police in Rajasthan together with social workers often conduct raids on villages to break up ceremonies, and pressure priests, wedding-card printers, caterers and tent operators to say no to families wanting to hire them.

Such campaigns, along with government cash incentives for families who defer marrying their daughters until they are older, have helped lower the overall numbers.

http://news.yahoo.com/breaking-tradition-indias-child-brides-fight-freedom-051328224.html

October 18, 2015

Feds Fight To Make 65 yr old Bankrupt Man, Unemployed For A Dozen Years, Pay Back Student Loans

James Murphy, 65, can’t pay his student loans. He owes more than $200,000 in federal loans that he took out to pay for college for his three children. After a dozen years of unemployment, Murphy is asking a bankruptcy court to free him from the six-figure obligation to the Department of Education (ED).

---!

Murphy started taking out the parental student loans in 2001. In 2002, the manufacturing company he headed shut down and moved abroad, dropping his annual income from $165,000 to zero. He says he’s been unable to find a job since. He continued taking out the loans on his kids’ behalf through 2007. He’s unable to make payments on them, or on his home, which he says is being foreclosed.

Murphy estimates that even if he found work at $50,000 per year, kept working until he was 77, and made loan payments accordingly, the amount he owes the ED wouldn’t shrink; it would double.
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Murphy’s fate hinges on a court battle over two little words: “undue hardship.” Thanks to successive changes to the Higher Education Act since the 1970s, student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy like credit card or even gambling debts can be. The only exception is in cases where the borrower can show that being forced to repay the loan after bankruptcy would bring “undue hardship” upon them — only lawmakers didn’t define the phrase, so it’s been left to courts and lawyers to cobble together a definition in case law.

ECMC’s lawyers argue that Murphy isn’t facing “undue hardship,” but instead is a freeloading scamp.

http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/10/15/3712871/undue-hardship-student-loan-bankruptcy/

October 18, 2015

Abandoned kitten discovered with child's note claiming: 'My mommy’s boyfriend is mean to me'

Rachel Bjork of Seattle was walking her dog when her pet took a sudden interest in a cardboard box lying on the ground.





Intrigued, the woman opened the flap on the box and to her surprise found a tiny orange and white kitten cowering inside.
er being informed that the kitten was on thin side but otherwise healthy, she took it to the MEOW Cat Rescue in nearby Kirkland for help - and they were more than happy to take her on.

'The baby is now in a foster home with other kittens of similar age and doing very well,' the organization wrote on their Facebook page.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3278182/Kitten-abandoned-Seattle-alleyway-rescued-discovered-child-s-note-claiming-mommy-s-boyfriend-mean-me.html

October 18, 2015

Jeb Bush desperately using racism to revive dying campaign

former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said that if elected president, he plans to induce “a recession in Washington.”

“We have the benefit now of all of this philosophy of offering free things to people not working,” the Republican presidential hopeful told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday. “I think the better message is, let’s disrupt Washington. Let’s create a little bit of a recession in Washington, D.C., so that we can have economic prosperity outside of Washington.”

A campaign spokesperson appeared to confirm to the Daily Beast that Bush meant an actual recession -- at least two consecutive quarters of economic contraction -- and wasn't just using a figure of speech to describe cutting federal government spending.

There's just one problem with Bush’s plan: Many of Washington’s African-American residents are already in dire economic straits.rmer Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said that if elected president, he plans to induce “a recession in Washington.”

“We have the benefit now of all of this philosophy of offering free things to people not working,” the Republican presidential hopeful told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday. “I think the better message is, let’s disrupt Washington. Let’s create a little bit of a recession in Washington, D.C., so that we can have economic prosperity outside of Washington.”

A campaign spokesperson appeared to confirm to the Daily Beast that Bush meant an actual recession -- at least two consecutive quarters of economic contraction -- and wasn't just using a figure of speech to describe cutting federal government spending.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeb-bush-washington-recession-black-people_562179fae4b02f6a900c7e17

October 18, 2015

Jeb Bush Will ‘Never Forget’ That Astronaut Who Died That One Time

http://www.mediaite.com/online/jeb-bush-will-never-forget-that-astronaut-who-died-that-one-time/

Jeb Bush Will ‘Never Forget’ That Astronaut Who Died That One Time

former Florida Governor and future Republican presidential primary concession speech-deliverer Jeb Bush‘s prosciutto-handed penchant for exploiting tragedy was on brilliant display this week in a pair of unrelated yet telling moments.

First, there was his odd decision to bring up a space program disaster without knowing even the most basic details surrounding it. At a Concord, N.H. town hall meeting, Jeb! had just finished praising the idea of Moonbase Gingrich, and probably felt it was time to remind the crowd that he used to be a “Gubner” and knows how to be “Very Serious,” so he completely went off on a tangent about that time he spoke a memorial service for some shuttle, whose name he couldn’t retrieve, that blew up in some year beginning with two-thousand.

The audience tried to help him out, but he couldn’t quite get there:

I was thinking, you were going to bring up the tragedy that took place, I will never forget that, when I went as governor of Florida, to the tarmac for a tribute to the astronauts, that died. I think it was 2005, maybe — um , yeah. [audience: Christa McAuliffe?] No, the other one, 2002. In the 2000s. It was horrible. It’s a reminder that this is a dangerous endeavor, but it is worth us, for all sorts of reasons, to be engaged in it.

The audience was also no help, suggesting that maybe Jeb was governor during the 1986 Challenger disaster, and I swear one of them said “You mean Porkins?'” But the date they were all looking for was 2003. Yes, I had to Google it, but I’m not the one bringing it up at a campaign event, then spinning my tires trying to remember the year it occurred instead of saying “the astronauts who died in that tragic accident.”