NEW Michale Moore Doc...."Sicko"

You work three jobs?....... Uniquely american isnt it? well thats fantastic!

also click this link here for Michael Moore's first interview in 2 years:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/#52438

'Noah's Ark' of 5,000 rare animals found floating off the coast of China

· Cargo of abandoned vessel destined for restaurants
· Illegal trade drives species closer to extinction

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Saturday May 26, 2007
The Guardian

Endangered, hunted, smuggled and now abandoned, 5,000 of the world's rarest animals have been found drifting in a deserted boat near the coast of China.

The pangolins, Asian giant turtles and lizards were crushed inside crates on a rickety wooden vessel that had lost engine power off Qingzhou island in the southern province of Guangdong. Most were alive, though the cargo also contained 21 bear paws wrapped in newspaper.

According to conservation groups, the haul was discovered on one of the world's most lucrative and destructive smuggling routes: from the threatened jungles of south-east Asia to the restaurant tables of southern China.

The animals were found when local fishermen noticed a strange smell emanating from the vessel, which did not have any registration plates, on Tuesday, the Guangzhou Daily reported.

When coastguard officials boarded the 25-metre craft, it was reportedly deserted and stripped of identification papers. They found more than 200 crates full of animals, many so dehydrated in the tropical sun that they were close to death.

The animals - which weighed 13 tonnes - were taken to port, doused with water and sent to an animal welfare centre. "We have received some animals," said an office worker at the Guangdong Wild Animal Protection Centre. "We are waiting to hear from the authorities what we should do with them."

According to the local media, the cargo included 31 pangolins, 44 leatherback turtles, 2,720 monitor lizards, 1,130 Brazilian turtles as well as the bear paws. Photographs showed other animals, including an Asian giant turtle.

All of these south-east Asian species are critically endangered, banned from international trade and yet openly sold in restaurants and markets in China's southern province of Guangdong, which is famous for its exotic cuisine.

The accidental discovery highlights the negative impact that the growing power of Chinese consumption is having on global conservation efforts.

According to wildlife groups, China is the main market for illegally traded exotic species, which are eaten or used in traditional medicine. Pangolins are in great demand because their meat is consider a delicacy and their scales are thought to help mothers breastfeed their babies.

As a result of demand, the pangolin populations of China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been wiped out. With traders moving further and further south, the animal is declining even in its last habitats in Java, Sumatra and the Malaysian peninsula. It is a similar story for many species of turtle, tortoise, frog and snake.

Despite China's international commitments to get to grips with this illicit activity, the trade is booming. Border controls are lax, and smugglers know that fines are usually far lower than the potential rewards. As a result, raids and seizures of banned products occur regularly. One recent raid on a restaurant in Guanghzou turned up 118 pangolins, 60kg of snakes and 400kg of toads.

Traffic - an organisation that monitors and tries to prevent the smuggling of endangered species - welcomed the fact that China's authorities had reacted swiftly to rescue the animals but said much more needs to be done to prevent similar cases.

"Unfortunately, this is all too common. This trade is a far bigger threat to these species than habitat destruction," said Chris Shepherd, senior program officer with Traffic Southeast Asia. "The vigilance on the border has to be improved, cooperation with source countries needs to be strengthened, there should be better monitoring of dealers, and the people violating the laws must be penalised severely."

Despite the ban on pangolins, many restaurants offer their meat. The Chaoxing restaurant in Shenzhen said yesterday that pangolin was available but was only suitable for large dining parties.

"The animal is very big - about 10kg," said a waitress contacted by telephone. "We serve it in hotpot. That is the tastiest way."

According to recent reports in the Chinese media, the price of 1kg of pangolin served in Guangdong or Yunnan is between 600 and 800 yuan per kilogram (between £43 and £50).

A Guangdong chef interviewed last year in the Beijing Science and Technology Daily described how to cook a pangolin.

"We keep them alive in cages until the customer makes an order. Then we hammer them unconscious, cut their throats and drain the blood. It is a slow death. We then boil them to remove the scales. We cut the meat into small pieces and use it to make a number of dishes, including braised meat and soup. Usually the customers take the blood home with them afterwards."

FOUND HERE:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2088589,00.html

Eat Drink and be Merry

Eat

Drink

Be Merry

Forty years of National Geographics,,,,

On the drive home on Friday, Red and Jonny stopped by a Church yard sale. The first person we talked to....Looked at Red and said.." youre a Plourde" Turns out Red baby sait his children. Funny. We looked around ..looked at books...then Jonny asked if there was any national geographics. A man named george was called. George then said he had some national geographics for sale...forty years worth. Jonny said.
We'll take em...how much you want for ALL of them?
George said 25 dollars.
Red beamed at Jonny with a HUGE smile on her face...
opened her purse and handed George the 25 dollars.
and told him we would be back tomorrow to come get them.

We showed up the next day, and George had them all in 6 boxes waiting for us in the back of his tan mini van.
We loaded them up, shook his hand and thanked him again.

As soon as we got home, Jonny carried them all up to the living room so red could look them all over...pic the ones she wanted to work with first...and put the rest in the studio/archive....aka Basement..

Two Stormtroopers in love in the Big City

The Decemberists

RedHill Expressways bill over half a billion

Thanks momma for the heads up on this one:

Expressways bill over half a billion

The bill for the Red Hill Valley Expressway and the Lincoln Alexander Parkway has hit $549 million according to figures released this week by the provincial government. Slightly more than half is being paid for by Queen’s Park.

In a letter going before city council tonight, Minister of Transportation Donna Cansfield says the province has spent nearly $300 million on the two expressways and associated interchanges. That includes $80 million for the Linc and $107 million for the valley road that was previously given to the city and included in the official city budget of $439 million for the two roads.

Cansfield, however, also provides figures for the provincial spending at the QEW, including an interchange for the valley expressway, reconstruction of the Burlington Street interchange required to accommodate the expressway, and installation of collector lanes and other QEW modifications.

“The cost to the ministry is about $110 million”, says Cansfield’s letter. “Therefore the total ministry contribution amounts to over $296 million.”

That puts the total price tag for the 8 km north-south road at $357 million or more than $32 million per kilometre. The 12 km Linc cost, including the interchange with the 403, is pegged at $192 million – about $16 million a kilometre.

Cansfield’s letter responds to a January council demand for more provincial dollars for the expressways. Stoney Creek councillor Brad Clark put forward the motion, citing a 75-80% provincial contribution to a Mississauga road project as evidence that Hamilton had been short-changed by the province on Red Hill.

Bob Bratina had suggested the lower subsidy for Hamilton’s expressways was likely because they are a city not a provincial project. Cansfield appears to agree, arguing that provincial funding is “determined on a case-by-case basis” and referring specifically to the Mississauga example.

“The City of Mississauga examples you refer to are provincial transportation projects,” she writes. “The municipality contributed a small portion to accelerate or fund improvements above and beyond those being proposed by the ministry, such as adding a lane on the municipal road or bridge crossing the highway. The province did not contribute to the cost of the project’s municipal component.”

The high cost of building the expressways – which doesn’t include the operational or life-cycle costs of the projects – has been repeatedly cited by city finance staff as a key reason for Hamilton’s high debt levels and restricted capital spending options.

For example, city treasurer Joe Rinaldo has argued that building a new city hall is unaffordable because of the city’s debt load, even though it would be more cost effective in the long run than repairing the existing building.

CATCH (Citizens at City Hall) updates use transcripts and/or public documents to highlight information about Hamilton civic affairs that is not generally available in the mass media. Detailed reports of City Hall meetings can be reviewed at www.hamiltoncatch.org. You can receive all CATCH free updates by sending an email to info@HamiltonCATCH.org.

May 25 1977

i've moved around alot in my life, but never out of ontario. i was 6 when i first saw starwars, and yes i still remember it quite vividly. my parents were just starting their divorce, so my Brother and i were taken to alot of movies...we always chose starwars.

when i was young, my mother encouraged me to read by promising to buy me a starwars figure for every book i read....i've always thanked my mom for that, because i love to read to this day, i have quite a library of my own today...unfortunatly none of my starwars figures made it...like i said, we moved around alot, so my toys tended to get lost in the shuffle..

when empire strikes back came out, my parents were officially divorced from each other. the weekend visits of either my mom or dad again included movies, i swear i saw empire strikes back every weekend for a year, that christmas , my grandmother bought me the greatest present that could ever be given......the millennium falcon.
my hand stayed glued to that landing arm for a whole year. i loved my millennium falcon, funny enough there's only one picture of it from my childhood, me at my grandmothers house, dressed like a moron, it was my mothers idea......

somehow, along the way, the falcon was lost .
then, 3 years ago at a garage sale, at the bottom of a box of junk toys...there it was...same year as mine, beatiful condition, i asked how mauch the lady wanted for it..
she said..." i dunno..........2 bucks? "
my head literally blew off my shoulders as i handed her the money......then started running around her lawn with my hand on the landing arm, like i did when i was a kid.
return of the jedi came out while my mom was in university. my brother and i went to see movies on our own by then....movies only cost two dollars to see....everyday.....we saw jedi so many times it was ridiculous.
the cool local theater ran all three movies for about a
month back to back so we had the dialouge down pact..
me more so than my brother, because i still have knack for movie quoting to this day
we had lightsabre battles on the front lawn, taking turns on who would be han solo or luke skywalker...
we use too turn refridgerator boxes into the millenium falcon and x-wing fighters.

Now that I'm older, I have found the perfect companion to share my love for Starwars with. I didnt force it upon her...infact I hid my massive collection of toys from her for quite a while...till I casually said one day.." hey, wanna see a movie?" ... When red announced that she theought they were great and totally loved them. Then I said...well honey, I have some things I'd like to show you. Red then saw ridiculous amount of starwars toys I owned. Then EP3 was about to come out...and Red became a woman posessed. She conned every store she could find out of their hard to get promotional material. In a few months Red had doubled the collection..with very hard to get stuff...(obviously using the old Jedi Mind trick)

At our wedding, after our vows, when it was time to walk down the isle..we walked under 2 master replica lightsabers to the sound of The starwars theme...
It was the greatest....proudest day of my life.

I love Red.

And I like starwars too.

Happy birthday starwars!!

Awsome new Transformers trailer

WOW.... this one has me SOLD . http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/transformers.html;_ylt=Ant_kxFZrfgnHFILpfouv_JfVXcA Click on EXCLUSIVE trailer.