Not many people realize slaughtering horses for meat has been big business in the U.S. for generations. Yet in recent decades, public sentiment, matched by state and local laws, has risen against the practice, and in 2007 the last three U.S. horse slaughterhouses were shuttered. Since 2005, Congress has also withheld U.S. Department of Agriculture funding for horse-meat inspections to prevent new abattoirs from opening in states where horse slaughter is still legal. No federal law, though, forbids U.S. horses from being sent to slaughterhouses across the border. Which is exactly what has been happening in the two years since horse slaughter stopped here. The number killed in Canada and Mexico doubled to 49,000 in 2007 and rose to more than 72,000 last year, according to trade data.

Sending horses to slaughter in Mexico and Canada has had grisly consequences. They are hauled in crowded trailers as far as 1,000 miles from auctions and feedlots to abattoirs across the border. Many end up in unregulated slaughterhouses, where they are sometimes paralyzed with knife stabs in their backs, leaving them conscious as their throats are slit.

{ Salon | Continue reading }

related { In order to write about seal on Montreal restaurant menus, I would have to try it. }

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.

Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another.

The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.

What’s more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together.

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.

These introduced Argentine ants are renowned for forming large colonies, and for becoming a significant pest, attacking native animals and crops.

{ BBC | Continue reading }

washington, DC craigslist
Actor needed for emotional role – One day high pay
Date: 2009-04-17, 12:52PM EDT

My deceased aunt gave my two kids a Cocker Spaniel a few months back. The dog has been a terror and become overwhelming for me. I am a single father raising two young children. I cannot face telling the kids that the dog must go. I have found a good home for the dog, and just need someone to transport the dog, and play the villain.

Premise: You will be the dog walker hired by daddy (me) to walk Skittles. I will introduce you to the kids, and you will tell them you are going to help Skittles get her exercise when Daddy is too busy to walk her. At that point you will walk Skittles to your car and take her to her new family 20 minutes from my place. Then return holding just a leash. The story will be that Skittles broke free of the leash and took off. At this point prepare for crying, things being thrown at you, and possibly cursing. My kids are young and dramatic, their girls.

Pay will be $500. The job will take roughly 2 hours at best.

This job is ideal for an actor looking to diversify their role base, or someone who genuinely likes to make children cry. Acting experience is a plus, but not necessary. Please inform me of any prior experience in this kind of situation.

photo { Mark Ryden }

{ Rebecca Horn, Small widow, 1988 | crow’s feathers, brass, engine }

{ Brock Davis }

A study of nasty and nice lab rats has scientists on the verge of knowing the genes that separate wild animals like lions and wolves from their tame cousins, cats and dogs.

Unlike their wild ancestors, house pets and other domesticated animals share the trait of tameness, meaning they tolerate or even seek out human presence. New research, which is published in the June issue of the journal Genetics and involved the interbreeding of friendly and aggressive rats, reveals gene regions that influence the opposing behaviors. 

{ LiveScience | Continue reading }

artwork { Roland Cat, La prunelle de leurs yeux, 1985 }

{ Kate MccGwire, Sluice, 2009 | pigeon feathers, felt, glue, polystyrene }

{ Kate MccGwire, Rile, 2009 | pigeon feathers, polystyrene, felt, glue, museum cabinet }

{ Jeff Koons, Rabbit, 1986 | Jonathan Monk, Deflated Sculpture no. II, 2009 | See also: Mark Leckey’s Made in Eaven }

Related:

{ Claes Oldenburg, Soft Toilet, 1966 }

The economic disaster and foreclosures have created the worst crisis for Chihuahuas and Chi mixes in US history. Municipal shelters and private rescues are overwhelmed, the US is on track to euthanize 6,000,000 pets including nearly 1,000,000 Chihuahuas and small dogs.

{ ChihuahuaRescue.com | Continue reading }

photo { North Shore Animal League America }

{ Claire Morgan, Stuck in the Middle with You, 2009 | Various flying insects, taxidermied grey squirrel, nylon, lead, acrylic | more }

{ Fish pedicures pop up in Illinois, Virginia, Ohio. People are paying $25-$50 to plop their feet and/or hands in water tanks and let swarms of the gray, toothless fish work as Neptune’s exfoliators. | Chicago Tribune | full story }

The lobster roll — “the lazy man’s lobster,” Mrs. Marotta said — traditionally consists of a toasted hot dog bun topped by pieces of fresh lobster meat and a little bit of something else. The something else is a subject of disagreement.

“Just a little mayo to hold it together, a little salt and pepper and that’s it,” said Rich Winterberg, a bartender at Alisson’s.

“No mayo,” insisted Larry Reed, a lobsterman from New Harbor, on the tip of the next peninsula east from Boothbay Harbor.

“I’m from Connecticut and down there, a lobster roll is hot and served with butter,” explained a Coast Guardsman aboard a ferry headed to Vinalhaven Island at the mouth of Penobscot Bay. “First time I had a lobster roll up here, I bit into it and said: ‘Whoa. This is cold.’ ”

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

related { Lobster Avocado Martini }