Yummy Wakame

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!!!

Laduuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuma!
South Africa is to host the FIFA World Cup 2010
- the first time for Africa. Congratulations!!!

I may have found an adorable kitten called wakame.

wakame [wah-KAH-meh]
A deep green, edible seaweed popular in Japan and other Asian countries. It’s used like a vegetable in soups and simmered dishes, as well as occasionally in salads. The browner versions are more strongly flavored. Wakame is available both in fresh and dried forms in Asian markets.

Here are some delicious recipes:

• Simple Wakame Salad - A vegan / vegetarian recipe
  (Seen on Living and Raw Foods - the largest community on the Internet dedicated to educating the world about the power of living and raw foods)
• Miso and Wakame Soup - This recipe is extremely easy to prepare and can be modified to incorporate anything suitable that you have to hand in the kitchen.
• Wakame Salad with Japanese Style Dressing - ‘Japanese Cooking: Contemporary & Traditional’ by Miyoko Nishimoto Schinner
• Seared Malpeque Oysters with Wakame Gelée and Sea Urchin Butter - Chef Craig Shelton

Congratulations Massachusetts!

First Gay Couples Wed in Massachusetts Today!
The Supreme Court has rejected a last ditch effort to stop same sex marriage from becoming legal in the state of Massachusetts.

Gay couples around Massachusetts began exchanging vows today, marking the first time a state has granted gays and lesbians the right to marry and making the United States one of a handful of countries around the world where homosexuals can legally wed.

Later this year, the Supreme Court of Canada will look at the constitutionality of gay marriage. Prime Minister Paul Martin has promised to introduce a bill to legalize it.

• The Gay Marriage Map - looking at those US states where the issue of gay marriage has cropped up over the years.
• Questions and answers about gay marriage in Massachusetts

Female MPs in Russia have been asked to dress down so male colleagues can concentrate on their jobs.

New York hotel sells $1,000 omelette
An omelette costing $1,000 has gone on sale at the Le Parker Meridien hotel on West 57th St in Manhattan.
The so-called Zillion Dollar Frittata is a mix of six eggs, one whole lobster and 10oz of caviar. Apparently it’s so exclusive, nobody’s ordered one yet. An economy version of the frittata, with one ounce of sevruga caviar, is also available at $100 (about £60).

I found this on CP -
Oh man this is the most adorable kitten!!

Kuwait Approves Draft Law Giving Women the Vote
Kuwait Sunday approved a draft law allowing women to vote and run in parliamentary polls, moving them a step closer to the full political rights they have been seeking for decades in the conservative Gulf Arab state.

posted by IamAWolf on Chapel Perilous

All today’s links found on Geisha Asobi archives:

Decorated Japonese public telephones (photo gallery)

Japan’s chilling Internet suicide pacts
The discovery Sunday of the bodies of four young Japanese men in a car at a vista point near Mount Fuji appears to be more evidence of a grim new trend in the prosperous country - group suicides of strangers who meet over the Internet. The suicide pacts, which have resulted in at least 18 deaths since February, are shocking to experts, even in a nation plagued by an astronomical suicide rate.

Motorbike shop owner Hirokatsu Mikami rides his remodeled scooter, nicknamed Tonkichi (pig fortune), near Tokyo on Friday. He said it took him two months to build his shop’s unconventional advertising medium. (photo)

EatBabies.com
A wise man once said… ” A baby in the hand is worth two in the oven. “

Spotted on the Straight Dope Message Board:

Mice created without fathers
Quote: “The eggs had two sets of chromosomes from two female mice, rather than one from the mother and one from the father as in a fertilised embryo.”

“Quick! Find some new uses for men before it’s too late!

So, not long before we apply it to humans then.

What’ll we do with our men? I mean, it’s already me that get’s the spiders out of the bath, and they’ve been trying for ages to get us to admit that we’re all secretly lesbians.

So, now that they’re no longer needed for pro-creation, what do you reckon we should do with them?

I reckon we should dress them up nicely with ribbons and pearls and those 1950’s black and white pictures and use them as giant handbags. I mean, a girl can just NEVER have enough room in her bag and look fasionable too!”
~ Tir Tinuviel