Yummy Wakame Weblog

Detroit Zoo to Free Elephants on Ethical Grounds
“The Detroit Zoo will become the first major zoo to stop exhibiting elephants on ethical grounds because they can develop arthritis and stress-related ailments in captivity, officials said on Thursday.”

In the wild, elephants roam vast areas, live in large families, and exhibit some of the same social traits as humans such as forming friendships and mourning for their dead. “Elephants seem to be intelligent and even social in ways that are similar to humans,” Kagen said. “Elephants can suffer from similar things to what we suffer from when we’re in difficult environments.”

Confined to zoos and circuses, elephants develop physical problems and neurotic behaviors such as rocking back and forth and aggressive behavior, he said. “If we don’t feel like we can (keep elephants), then the question is, who can and how?,” he said. “For us, there really is a big question about whether elephants should be in captivity at all.”

(via chapel perilous)

South Africa:
Man fined for drunk-driving donkey cart

Hans du Toit was fined nearly $300 for drunk driving a donkey cart in a small town north of Johannesburg and then telling police he was unconcerned “because the animals knew the way home”.

Traffic officials noticed his donkey cart swerving all over Philipolis main road on Wednesday. He was told not to continue driving, “But when the policeman left, I decided: ‘I know this road and so does my donkeys. If I don’t find it, my donkeys will,” Du Toit said in a statement before court.

Traffic officials and the court took a stern view and sentenced Du Toit to the fine or two years in jail, of which 21 months were suspended for four years.

Cat survives car roof-top journey (photo)
A cat has escaped injury despite clinging to the roof of a car travelling at 60mph for four miles.

A couple of days later the cat had another brush with death after it was attacked by a bull terrier. Joe suffered three cracked ribs and a punctured lung, but survived.

A US student’s been expelled from school for throwing a pie in his principal’s face – during a “pie-in-the-face” event.

The school sponsored even asked students to pay 50-cents to pie their favorite or least favorite teacher or principal in the face!

Naked students in rollercoaster world record (photos)
Thorpe Park, UK
Around 100 students from 15 universities have stripped off to create a new world record for the most naked people on a rollercoaster.

How much of our household rubbish could be recycled?

Friends of the Earth says:
At least 80% of our rubbish could be reused, recycled or composted and if products were made with recycling in mind this could be as high as 100%.

Instead the UK’s recycling average is only about 11% and the Government aims to increase this to just 30% by 2010. Friends of the Earth believes that by then we should be recycling at least half our rubbish. Switzerland and the Netherlands manage this and so should we.

The Government Should:

• Stop building incinerators and put resources into less damaging ways of dealing with the waste crisis.
• Make recycling easier by providing everyone with a recycling collection service from their homes.
• Make manufacturers responsible for the whole life cycle of their products so things are recycleable and made to last.

Most stuff that ends up in incinerators and landfill can be used again:

• 25% Paper
  The day-to-day demand for paper is putting immense pressure on the world’s forests. Instead of using paper once and throwing it away, recycling paper and cardboard is better for the environment.
• 35% Kitchen and garden waste
  It isn’t necessary to use up rare and valuable peat bogs to make compost. Household tips, make your own organic compost from vegetable peelings, tea, coffee and garden waste.
• 11% Plastic
  Most plastic is made almost entirely from oil which takes hundreds of years to degrade in landfill or produces toxic smoke from incinerators. Companies should stop over-packaging items and reduce the amount of plastic they use. The government should ensure we recycle plastic waste.
• 9% Metals
  Two-thirds of the metal wasted comes from steel or aluminium cans and foil. Recycling these is easy, profitable and saves loads of resources and energy. Aluminium cans could be recycled indefinitely saving 95 per cent of energy needed to make new.
• 9% Glass
  The UK glass recycling rate is among the lowest in Europe. But 30 gallons of oil are saved for every tonne of glass which is recycled.
• 11% The Rest
  Many things like old clothes, toys and furniture can be re-used. Other products can be reprocessed if they are broken down into component parts. Manufacturers should be making products that last and are recycleable. Everything could be recycled if companies had high environmental standards that underpinned short term financial gain.

Kenneth’s brand new track -

North Fence (5.71mb mp3)
Kick ass hard uplifting trance from none other than XLR8.

Italian traffic cops given Lamborghini (photo)
Lamborghini has donated a Gallardo to the Italian traffic police (Polizia Stradale). The V10, 375kW 300km/h performance car has been liveried in the colours of the state police and includes a siren and flashing lights on the roof. This is the first time that a Lamborghini will be used by Italian police.

It’s risky being a South African woman
Young South African women are bearing the brunt of the HIV/Aids epidemic with nearly one in four women aged 20 to 24 testing HIV positive compared to one in 14 men of the same age, a new study has revealed.

“Youth reported easy access to condoms and this was borne out in the study that showed significant use of condoms among young people. While 33 percent of youth who had sex in the past 12 months reported always using a condom, 67 percent were still not using condoms consistently.

Denial and the failure to internalise risk were partly to blame, the country’s ‘culture of death’ associated with violent crime, high road accident rates and the cheap cost of life, contributed to this nihilistic attitude. Young people who were surrounded by death felt that taking a risk by having unprotected sex, ‘far outweighed the benefit’ of preventing something that might occur in 10 to 15 years time.”

Ring Ring Ring Ring… It the Banana Phone!!!