Mumble Herder

Keepers at the Ayutthaya-Elephant Kraal in Thailand gave their elephants a paint job to draw attention from the national frenzy over a newborn panda cub.

India's Forest Department has proposed building the first State-run Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre for captive elephants at Tiruchi. "The centre would have experienced mahouts, veterinary facility, elephant shelter, feeding area, treatment shed, ramp, dung pits, elephant walking path, fodder plot, circular ponds, water facility and a kitchen."

Investigators are using DNA evidence to trace the sources of illegal ivory. "DNA fingerprinting helped investigators three years ago to make the largest seizure of illegal ivory since the global trade ban went into effect in 1989 - 10 tons of ivory contained in two separate shipments. All of the ivory was traced to a small area near the border of Tanzania and Mozambique."

I'm going to try to be regular about this again. Of course, I'm about to head out traveling for two weeks, so "regular" may be a relative term for a bit.

It appears that Indonesian villagers poisoned four rare Sumatran elephants, probably to protect their palm oil plantations. Last month two male elephants were poisoned with cyanide-laced pineapples in the same area.

Kenya--which is still in the midst of a drought--has seen a wave of elephant killings by poachers, who are also killing other wildlife for food. Also in Kenya, work to excavate a rock quarry in Amboseli Park may cut off wildlife migration corridors for elephants and other animals.

Lastly, some good news from Kenya: a pilot study has found that fences made from wire, wood, and beehives can be an effective deterrent against elephant raids on farms. Seems the elephants recognize the shape and smell of the beehives and steer clear: "The bees aren't likely to be able to sting though an elephant's thick hide. But they can and do sting elephants around the eyes and inside the trunk. It seems that this only has to happen once for an elephant never to forget the experience."

You will soon be able to get gay married in New Hampshire.

Via tacithydra.

. . . you might think about Iowa.

Yes, Iowa.

Kenya, one year later:

The tensions that were laid bare during one of the darkest moments in Kenya's history are still festering, a year after its election on Dec. 27, 2007 unleashed weeks of ethnic violence that killed more than 1,000 people.

The evidence is everywhere: in the displacement camps where tens of thousands of people still live; in the divided towns where ethnic groups had lived side-by-side since independence from Britain in 1963; and in growing disillusionment with a coalition government accused of ignoring the roots of the crisis.

I also found this article about activists in Miami moving homeless families into foreclosed homes interesting:

Rameau is an activist who has been executing a bailout plan of his own around Miami's empty streets: He is helping homeless people illegally move into foreclosed homes.

“We're matching homeless people with peopleless homes,” he said with a grin.

I got my first LJ comment spam last night! It turns out, this guy? His wife left him for another guy? And there's video now on the Internet of her doing this stuff with the other guy? That she would never do with the first guy? So this guy wanted me to see the video of his wife and this other guy? . . . Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either. BUT, I figure this is some sort of rite of passage, and I fully expect to have chanting and nude bonfire leaping later.

I am experiencing the fatigue and heartburn that usually presage a cold. (Does anyone else get heartburn pre-cold? I hardly ever get it, so if it happens two nights in a row I can be pretty sure I'm getting sick. I've never heard of this as a cold symptom, but there it is.) I suspect that by tonight, or possibly tomorrow morning, I'll be miserably stuffed up. So I have that to look forward to, which is nice. (Maybe I should pass on the nude bonfire activities.)

It occurs to me that the whole Astronaut weirdness really just signals a new acceptance of the Astronaut people into our culture. Now they really are just like us! Just because they come from space doesn't mean they don't occasionally decide to murder each other. Man, I can't wait until the first Senator plots someone's murder. What? Why are you laughing?

I wonder if Pynchon already knew that the Vikings used crystals to navigate when he wrote Against the Day? (Which is AWESOME, BTW. It has airships and anarchists and journeys through the center of the earth and that's just in the first hundred pages. I'm still reading, though, so please don't spoil me for anything!) (I must say that the linked article is some pretty bad journalism: "Vikings were a seafaring race from Scandinavia who used their longboats to explore and conquer parts of Europe, Greenland, Iceland and Russia." WTF? The Vikings were a separate race? Did they came from space as well?)

Look! Smart people talking!

The fashion must-have for WisCon 50. (Via Warren Ellis.)

Excuse me a second. (What? Really? . . . huh. I, uh--are you sure?!? Well, I just thought . . . OK, fine.) Sorry, folks. Turns out Astronauts don't actually come from space. Turns out they are HUMAN BEINGS. (Vikings too?) Vikings, too.

Now I've got a wiggins.