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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Thursday, September 3, 2015

The Daily Drift

Welcome to the Thursday Edition of  Carolina Naturally.
Our latest comment: 
Best blog I've read.
~ Susan Long
Our week on the mountain was great.
It was nice to see old friends again.
Late last Wednesday we got a call from a friend we had not heard from in several years saying that he and his wife had just bought some land in the mountains next to ours and wanted us to come up and spend some time with them and some other friends at the new place.
We spent the entire week since there.
Turned out they had bought the other side of the river from us so that between us we own over a mile of riverfront on both sides of the river - a private paradise for ourselves and our friends.
Unfortunately we had to return to the work-a-day world and bring this blog up to speed - tomorrow we will be back to our normal schedule.
Oh, Yeah...!
 
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Today in History

1260 At the Battle of Montaperto in Italy, the Tuscan Ghibellines, who support the emperor, defeat the Florentine Guelfs, who support papal power.
1479 After four years of war, Spain agrees to allow a Portuguese monopoly of trade along Africa’s west coast and Portugal acknowledges Spain’s rights in the Canary Islands.
1781 Los Angeles, first an Indian village Yangma, is founded by Spanish decree.
1787 Louis XVI of France recalls parliament.
1790 Jacques Necker is forced to resign as finance minister in France.
1804 USS Intrepid explodes while entering Tripoli harbor on a mission to destroy the enemy fleet there during the First Barbary War.
1820 Czar Alexander declares that Russian influence in North America extends as far south as Oregon and closes Alaskan waters to foreigners.
1862 Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army invades Maryland, starting the Antietam Campaign.
1870 A republic is proclaimed in Paris and a government of national defense is formed.
1881 The Edison electric lighting system goes into operation as a generator serving 85 paying customers is switched on.
1886 Elusive Apache leader Geronimo surrenders to General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Ariz.
1893 Beatrix Potter sends a note to her governess’ son with the first drawing of Peter Rabbit, Cottontail and others. The Tale of Petter Rabbit is published eight years later.
1915 The U.S. military places Haiti under martial law to quell a rebellion in its capital Port-au-Prince.
1941 German submarine U-652 fires at the U.S. destroyer Greer off Iceland, beginning an undeclared shooting war.
1942 Soviet planes bomb Budapest in the war’s first air raid on the Hungarian capital.
1943 Allied troops capture Lae-Salamaua, in New Guinea.
1944 British troops liberate Antwerp, Belgium.
1945 The American flag is raised on Wake Island after surrender ceremonies there.
1951 The first transcontinental television broadcast in America is carried by 94 stations.
1957 Arkansas governor Orval Faubus calls out the National Guard to bar African-American students from entering a Little Rock high school.
1967 Operation Swift begins as US Marines engage North Vietnamese Army troops in Que Son Valley.
1972 Mark Spitz becomes first Olympic competitor to win 7 medals during a single Olympics Games.
1975 Sinai II Agreement between Egypt and Israel pledges that conflicts between the two countries "shall not be resolved by military force but by peaceful means."
1998 Google founded by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Email Etiquette

Conversely, if I have CCd other people and mentioned them in the body of the smoke signal, it is for a reason. Then you should hit Reply All. Dave Coverly of Speed Bump tries to explain this point of office communication practice.

Do Chewing Sounds Make You Crazy?

Misophonia, literally 'hatred of sound,' is a rarely diagnosed disorder, commonly thought to be of neurological origin, in which negative emotions are triggered by specific sounds.The sounds can be loud or soft. The term was coined by American neuroscientists and is sometimes referred to as selective sound sensitivity syndrome.

The Meanings Behind Ten Car Logos


Subaru logo | Image: SubaruMany of us are familiar with the logos of automobile companies. Some people are especially conscious of those of the luxury cars, as their logos are status symbols in certain circles. Yet even if some folks are able to draw or describe automobile logos, how many know the meanings behind them? The article linked below sheds some light on those symbols.
The example highlighted here is Subaru. The logo is an attractive image of six silver crosses against a deep blue background. The word "Subaru" in Japanese means "united." In addition, it's the name for the Pleiades star cluster. This astral formation is the nearest star cluster to Earth and is most visible to the naked eye in the night's sky. In this context, the star cluster is symbolic of the six companies that merged to form Fuji Heavy Industries.
Learn the meanings behind nine more automobile logos here.


Pleiades star cluster

Electric exercise gloves were a thing

Back in 1938 a new portable electronic exercise device attached to gloves was introduced. You simply touched the part of the body that you wanted to improve. I can't imagine why this never caught on.

Ziggy

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Neighbors unhappy with man who is building a three-story cruise-liner in his backyard

The neighbors of a man in Christchurch, New Zealand, who is building a three-story cruise-liner in his backyard have been told there's nothing they can do to make him stop. The Christchurch City Council says anyone can build a boat in their backyard, but the neighbors say this one's far too big.

Quick Hits

Devastating wildfires expected to continue raging across Washington
Texas men arrested after firing shots from roof of elementary school
Bernie Sanders meets with black voters in South Carolina: 'We are going to end institutional racism'
Why women choose birth control -- it's not always about pregnancy

The Fall Of The Middle Class Is Starving The Economy Of Its Most Basic Nee

Getting The Vote Doesn't Nearly Solve Saudi Women's Equality Problem

‘Go Back To Mexico’ Sentiment Is Most Prevalent In States That Used To Be Mexico

go back
Consider the states you associate most with anti-Latino sentiment. You might first think of Arizona, of Maricopa County in …

Clinical psychologist explains how Ayn Rand helped turn the US into a selfish and greedy nation

From the Files:
Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society….To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.— Gore Vidal, 1961
Only rarely in U.S. history do writers transform us to become a more caring or less caring nation. In the 1850s, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was a strong force in making the United States a more humane nation, one that would abolish slavery of African Americans. A century later, Ayn Rand (1905-1982) helped make the United States into one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world, a neo-Dickensian society where healthcare is only for those who can afford it, and where young people are coerced into huge student-loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
Rand’s impact has been widespread and deep. At the iceberg’s visible tip is the influence she’s had over major political figures who have shaped American society. In the 1950s, Ayn Rand read aloud drafts of what was later to become Atlas Shrugged to her “Collective,” Rand’s ironic nickname for her inner circle of young individualists, which included Alan Greenspan, who would serve as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1987 to 2006.
In 1966, Ronald Reagan wrote in a personal letter, “Am an admirer of Ayn Rand.” Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) credits Rand for inspiring him to go into politics, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) calls Atlas Shrugged his “foundation book.” Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says Ayn Rand had a major influence on him, and his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is an even bigger fan. A short list of other Rand fans includes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Christopher Cox, chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission in George W. Bush’s second administration; and former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.
But Rand’s impact on U.S. society and culture goes even deeper.
The Seduction of Nathan Blumenthal
Ayn Rand’s books such as The Virtue of Selfishness and her philosophy that celebrates self-interest and disdains altruism may well be, as Vidal assessed, “nearly perfect in its immorality.” But is Vidal right about evil? Charles Manson, who himself did not kill anyone, is the personification of evil for many of us because of his psychological success at exploiting the vulnerabilities of young people and seducing them to murder. What should we call Ayn Rand’s psychological ability to exploit the vulnerabilities of millions of young people so as to influence them not to care about anyone besides themselves?
While Greenspan (tagged “A.G.” by Rand) was the most famous name that would emerge from Rand’s Collective, the second most well-known name to emerge from the Collective was Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist, author and “self-esteem” advocate. Before he was Nathaniel Branden, he was Nathan Blumenthal, a 14-year-old who read Rand’s The Fountainhead again and again. He later would say, “I felt hypnotized.” He describes how Rand gave him a sense that he could be powerful, that he could be a hero. He wrote one letter to his idol Rand, then a second. To his amazement, she telephoned him, and at age 20, Nathan received an invitation to Ayn Rand’s home. Shortly after, Nathan Blumenthal announced to the world that he was incorporating Rand in his new name: Nathaniel Branden. And in 1955, with Rand approaching her 50th birthday and Branden his 25th, and both in dissatisfying marriages, Ayn bedded Nathaniel.
What followed sounds straight out of Hollywood, but Rand was straight out of Hollywood, having worked for Cecil B. DeMille. Rand convened a meeting with Nathaniel, his wife Barbara (also a Collective member), and Rand’s own husband Frank. To Branden’s astonishment, Rand convinced both spouses that a time-structured affair—she and Branden were to have one afternoon and one evening a week together—was “reasonable.” Within the Collective, Rand is purported to have never lost an argument. On his trysts at Rand’s New York City apartment, Branden would sometimes shake hands with Frank before he exited. Later, all discovered that Rand’s sweet but passive husband would leave for a bar, where he began his self-destructive affair with alcohol.
By 1964, the 34-year-old Nathaniel Branden had grown tired of the now 59-year-old Ayn Rand. Still sexually dissatisfied in his marriage to Barbara and afraid to end his affair with Rand, Branden began sleeping with a married 24-year-old model, Patrecia Scott. Rand, now “the woman scorned,” called Branden to appear before the Collective, whose nickname had by now lost its irony for both Barbara and Branden. Rand’s justice was swift. She humiliated Branden and then put a curse on him: “If you have one ounce of morality left in you, an ounce of psychological health—you’ll be impotent for the next 20 years! And if you achieve potency sooner, you’ll know it’s a sign of still worse moral degradation!”
Rand completed the evening with two welt-producing slaps across Branden’s face. Finally, in a move that Stalin and Hitler would have admired, Rand also expelled poor Barbara from the Collective, declaring her treasonous because Barbara, preoccupied by her own extramarital affair, had neglected to fill Rand in soon enough on Branden’s extra-extra-marital betrayal. (If anyone doubts Alan Greenspan’s political savvy, keep in mind that he somehow stayed in Rand’s good graces even though he, fixed up by Branden with Patrecia’s twin sister, had double-dated with the outlaws.)
After being banished by Rand, Nathaniel Branden was worried that he might be assassinated by other members of the Collective, so he moved from New York to Los Angeles, where Rand fans were less fanatical. Branden established a lucrative psychotherapy practice and authored approximately 20 books, 10 of them with either “Self” or “Self-Esteem” in the title. Rand and Branden never reconciled, but he remained an admirer of her philosophy of self-interest until his recent death in December 2014.
Ayn Rand’s personal life was consistent with her philosophy of not giving a shit about anybody but herself. Rand was an ardent two-pack-a-day smoker, and when questioned about the dangers of smoking, she loved to light up with a defiant flourish and then scold her young questioners on the “unscientific and irrational nature of the statistical evidence.” After an x-ray showed that she had lung cancer, Rand quit smoking and had surgery for her cancer. Collective members explained to her that many people still smoked because they respected her and her assessment of the evidence; and that since she no longer smoked, she ought to tell them. They told her that she needn’t mention her lung cancer, that she could simply say she had reconsidered the evidence. Rand refused.
How Rand’s Philosophy Seduced Young Minds
When I was a kid, my reading included comic books and Rand’s The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. There wasn’t much difference between the comic books and Rand’s novels in terms of the simplicity of the heroes. What was different was that unlike Superman or Batman, Rand made selfishness heroic, and she made caring about others weakness.
Rand said, “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible….The choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequences of freedom, justice, progress and man’s happiness on earth—or the primordial morality of altruism, with its consequences of slavery, brute force, stagnant terror and sacrificial furnaces.” For many young people, hearing that it is “moral” to care only about oneself can be intoxicating, and some get addicted to this idea for life.
I have known several people, professionally and socially, whose lives have been changed by those close to them who became infatuated with Ayn Rand. A common theme is something like this: “My ex-husband wasn’t a bad guy until he started reading Ayn Rand. Then he became a completely selfish jerk who destroyed our family, and our children no longer even talk to him.”
To wow her young admirers, Rand would often tell a story of how a smart-aleck book salesman had once challenged her to explain her philosophy while standing on one leg. She replied: “Metaphysics—objective reality. Epistemology—reason. Ethics—self-interest. Politics—capitalism.” How did that philosophy capture young minds?
Metaphysics—objective reality. Rand offered a narcotic for confused young people: complete certainty and a relief from their anxiety. Rand believed that an “objective reality” existed, and she knew exactly what that objective reality was. It included skyscrapers, industries, railroads, and ideas—at least her ideas. Rand’s objective reality did not include anxiety or sadness. Nor did it include much humor, at least the kind where one pokes fun at oneself. Rand assured her Collective that objective reality did not include Beethoven’s, Rembrandt’s, and Shakespeare’s realities—they were too gloomy and too tragic, basically buzzkillers. Rand preferred Mickey Spillane and, towards the end of her life, “Charlie’s Angels.”
Epistemology—reason. Rand’s kind of reason was a “cool-tool” to control the universe. Rand demonized Plato, and her youthful Collective members were taught to despise him. If Rand really believed that the Socratic Method described by Plato of discovering accurate definitions and clear thinking did not qualify as “reason,” why then did she regularly attempt it with her Collective? Also oddly, while Rand mocked dark moods and despair, her “reasoning” directed that Collective members should admire Dostoyevsky, whose novels are filled with dark moods and despair. A demagogue, in addition to hypnotic glibness, must also be intellectually inconsistent, sometimes boldly so. This eliminates challenges to authority by weeding out clear-thinking young people from the flock.
Ethics—self-interest. For Rand, all altruists were manipulators. What could be more seductive to kids who discerned the motives of martyr parents, christian missionaries and U.S. foreign aiders? Her champions, Nathaniel Branden still among them, feel that Rand’s view of “self-interest” has been horribly misrepresented. For them, self-interest is her hero architect Howard Roark turning down a commission because he couldn’t do it exactly his way. Some of Rand’s novel heroes did have integrity, however, for Rand there is no struggle to discover the distinction between true integrity and childish vanity. Rand’s integrity was her vanity, and it consisted of getting as much money and control as possible, copulating with whomever she wanted regardless of who would get hurt, and her always being right. To equate one’s selfishness, vanity, and egotism with one’s integrity liberates young people from the struggle to distinguish integrity from selfishness, vanity, and egotism.
Politics—capitalism. While Rand often disparaged Soviet totalitarian collectivism, she had little to say about corporate totalitarian collectivism, as she conveniently neglected the reality that giant U.S. corporations, like the Soviet Union, do not exactly celebrate individualism, freedom, or courage. Rand was clever and hypocritical enough to know that you don’t get rich in the United States talking about compliance and conformity within corporate America. Rather, Rand gave lectures titled: “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business.” So, young careerist corporatists could embrace Rand’s self-styled “radical capitalism” and feel radical — radical without risk.
Rand’s Legacy
In recent years, we have entered a phase where it is apparently okay for major political figures to publicly embrace Rand despite her contempt for christianity. In contrast, during Ayn Rand’s life, her philosophy that celebrated self-interest was a private pleasure for the 1 percent but she was a public embarrassment for them. They used her books to congratulate themselves on the morality of their selfishness, but they publicly steered clear of Rand because of her views on religion and dog. Rand, for example, had stated on national television, “I am against dog. I don’t approve of religion. It is a sign of a psychological weakness. I regard it as an evil.”
Actually, again inconsistent, Rand did have a 'god'. It was herself. She said:
I am done with the monster of “we,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of dog, and I raise this dog over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this dog who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This dog, this one word: “I.”
While Harriet Beecher Stowe shamed Americans about the United States’ dehumanization of African Americans and slavery, Ayn Rand removed Americans’ guilt for being selfish and uncaring about anyone except themselves. Not only did Rand make it “moral” for the wealthy not to pay their fair share of taxes, she “liberated” millions of other Americans from caring about the suffering of others, even the suffering of their own children.
The good news is that I’ve seen ex-Rand fans grasp the damage that Rand’s philosophy has done to their lives and to then exorcise it from their psyche. Can the United States as a nation do the same thing?

The Shawshank Fugitive


If you’d like to read a true crime story in less than an hour, you’ll be interested in the case of Frank Freshwaters, who escaped from prison and lived for 56 years under a different identity. He lived in different states, fathered children, and eventually became the subject of “the longest capture in the history of the U.S. Marshals.”  
Frank Freshwaters was a baby-faced 21-year-old newlywed — with no criminal record and a job in the booming rubber industry — when his speeding car slammed into a father of three who was walking home in the pre-midnight darkness on July 3, 1957.
That crash on South Arlington Street in southeast Akron ended one man's life and — for Freshwaters — set into motion a sequence of events seemingly lifted straight from a Hollywood screenplay.
A story whose twists and turns — incarceration at the infamous prison featured in "The Shawshank Redemption," an escape from a prison farm, life on the run using a fake identity, a new shot at freedom personally granted by West Virginia's governor — culminated in a simple knock on a trailer home door in Melbourne, 56 years later.
Captured in May of 2015, Freshwaters is now 79 years old, and awaiting a decision on his fate. Florida Today has a three-part series on his initial crime, incarceration, and years on the lam. Part one is here

Satanic Temple to join Hindus asking to put up statue next to Arkansas State Capitol ten commandments display

Statue of Bahomet via Satanic Temple/ Image of Hanuman offering heart to Rama - public domain
The Hindu society may soon be joined by the Satanic Temple which is preparing to apply for a spot in Arkansas on which to erect an 8½-foot-tall bronze statue of Baphomet — a goat-headed figure with horns and wings — which had previously been planned for state grounds in Oklahoma.

Foo Fighters Rickroll Westboro Baptist Cult

The title may seem like a random string of memes, but this really happened. The professional protesters known as the WBC showed up outside the Sprint Center in Kansas City Friday where the Foo Fighters were preparing to play, and the band decided to go outside and visit them. They didn’t have time to put anything elaborate together like they did once before, so they just rode out in a pickup truck with a sound system blaring Rick Astleys’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
The real star of the show was the psychedelic Speedo. A good time was had by all.  

Denver City Council Saying ‘No’ To Chick-Fil-A In Airport Because The Restaurant Is Run By Bigots

Denver City Council Saying ‘No’ To Chick-Fil-A In Airport Because The Restaurant Is Run By BigotsChik-Fil-A has been out of the news for a while. Three years ago, they were famous for their stance against marriage equality. The then CEO, S. Truett...

Finally!

Catholic priest sent to federal prison for groping sleeping woman aboard airliner

Man robbed of his shoes and Porsche

Detectives in Cleveland, Ohio, are investigating a carjacking in the city's Tremont neighborhood.
The carjacking victim, a 22-year-old Euclid man, was sitting inside his 2004 Porsche Cayenne at about 11:45pm on Wednesday, waiting for a friend to come out of an apartment, according to a Cleveland police report.
As he waited, two men came to his window and ordered him to get out. One man pulled a gun and threatened to kill him if he didn't obey them. The man got out of the car, and the assailants ordered him to take off his Nike Air Max shoes.
The men grabbed his sneakers, jumped into his Porsche and sped off, the report said. Police found the Porsche later that night, abandoned. The shoes were not recovered. There was no description of the attackers in the report.

‘Stop fucking crying’

Marianne Diaz (WBZ)
Marianne Diaz said she was awakened about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday by SWAT officer knocking down the door to her Worcester, Massachusetts, apartment as officers wearing helmets and shields burst inside and pointed “big guns” at her head.

America’s Gun Culture Is Worse Than You Think

America’s Gun Culture Is Worse Than You Think
This is embarrassing and deadly.
Read more 

Boston police arrest two men and seize guns, knife and hundreds of rounds of ammo at Pokemon convention

Image: Three Pokemon cosplayers pose for a photo (Flickr Creative Commons)
Law enforcement officials in Boston arrested two Iowa men on weapons charges Friday after receiving a tip that they were planning an attack on the World Pokemon Championship at the city’s Hynes Convention Center.

The Wizard of Id

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U.S. Counties, Ranked by Scenery and Climate


USDA Economic Research Service crunched a lot of numbers to come up with a rather arguable measure of how pleasant the “natural amenities” are in 3,111 counties in the U.S. The results are available in an interactive map.
…in the late 1990s the federal government devised a measure of the best and worst places to live in America, from the standpoint of scenery and climate. The "natural amenities index" is intended as "a measure of the physical characteristics of a county area that enhance the location as a place to live."
The index combines "six measures of climate, topography, and water area that reflect environmental qualities most people prefer." Those qualities, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, include mild, sunny winters, temperate summers, low humidity, topographic variation, and access to a body of water.
As you can imagine, these rankings have caused some indignity and hurt feelings. Red Lake County, Minnesota, came in last place of the 3,111 counties ranked (Alaska and Hawaii are not included). This has Minnesota crying foul. After all, the importance of temperature, humidity, and topographic variation to an area’s overall “pleasantness” is a matter of opinion. And you can’t put a number on “scenery.” Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what they were thinking. I live within spitting distance of a county line. One of the counties ranks in the top third, while the other is in the bottom third. As far as I can tell, the two counties have exactly the same climate and number of sunny days in winter. Click on your own county to see how it ranks at The Washington Post.

10,000 Year Old Rock Paintings Depicting Extraterrestrials &UFOs Discovered In India

Our ancient world continues to become more mysterious by the day, as 10,000 year old rock paintings depicting possible extraterrestrials and UFOs have been found in Chhattisgarh, India. These can be added to the long list of mysterious and unexplained “ancient art” that seems to lend to the belief that our ancient world and the people who lived at that time had contact with beings that did not originate from this planet. More

Iceberg

Iceberg big enough to cover Manhattan breaks off from Greenland glacier

Suspicious naked man attacked police officer and dog

A police officer and dog called to arrest a naked man at an industrial yard in Christchurch, New Zealand, have been attacked. Police were called to a Hornby industrial yard at about 6am on Sunday, after a member of the public saw a naked man there "acting suspiciously".
A police officer and dog tracked the 20-year-old man nearby, who had by then put clothes on. Upon approach, the man became "extremely violent" and tried to attack the dog and handler, Senior Sergeant Craig Scott said. "He tried to hit the dog, and poke his eyes out and break his legs," Scott said.
"They struggled for quite a long time ... obviously sprays did not work." The offender was bitten a "number of times" by the police dog during the struggle, and eventually arrested. Scott said the police dog had saved the handler from serious injury. The dog was not believed to be injured, but was to the vet for a check-up.
The police officer was also uninjured. The offender's identity is not known, but is suspected to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. "He won't tell us who he is. He's lying on the floor at the moment," Scott said. The man will face a number of charges, and will appear in the Christchurch District Court on Monday morning.

Elderly man banned from sailing model boat in pond in case it scares the ducks

82-year-old Nev Cooper loves boats. As a former RAF man, he has much experience with them and so spent six months building a 2ft replica of a British Vosper RAF crash boat. He wanted to christen it with a maiden voyage in the pond of his native Bottlesford in Wiltshire. But the boat immediately encountered an enemy - Urchfont Parish Council, who forbid its watery operation for fear of scaring the ducks.
The ducks live in Duckingham Palace, which cost £10,000 and was paid for by a housing developer. The boat's electric motor would throw them out of harmony, apparently. Nev got approval to launch his boat from local 'duck lady' Elaine Bancroft (as long as she was present). But two hours later he received a call from the parish council who said Ms Bancroft did not have the authority to give him approval and he needed their permission too.
And they said no. Nev told them he might sail his boat anyway. They sent him a stiff letter: "We accept that this is not enforceable by law but felt you would understand our position and act accordingly and reasonably. I am very disappointed with your attitude to our considered opinion." Councillor Trevor Hill backed the ban and said: "A lot of people spend a lot of time looking after the ducks and the pond.
"The general opinion was that they could disrupt the 15 or 20 ducks and geese in the pond and it wouldn't be in keeping with their general welfare." He added that if children wanted to sail their smaller toy boats in the pond there would be no problem. Urchfont's treasured ducks moved into their 'Duckingham Palace' luxury home in March. The architect-designed dwelling is the size of an average garage with separate entrances and accommodation for the ducks and the goose and an integral grain store.

Border Collie Puppy Teaches Wolf Pup Tug of War

Nikai, a wolf pup at the Wolf Conservation Center in Salem, New York, is seen here in this footage being taught by Faye the Border Collie in the ways of playing tug of war with squeaky toys. Though it appears that Nikai is a bit stronger than Faye and has some pretty large paws to grow into, this video seems to capture the pair's common traits more than their differences.

Animal Pictures