Care2 is working to keep ivory where it belongs & you can help! Ivory belongs on elephants but China has recently been noted as the largest consumer of illegal ivory in the world. This needs to stop, so take action! Go to the Petition Site to protect elephants - it only takes a couple minutes to sign! Below are some of the sad facts and information on why the practice of elephant poaching can not continue. Look how cute! Save them!

The rising demand for ivory in China and the country’s illegal ivory market is driving an increase in elephant poaching.

In just two weeks the governing committee of one of the largest conservation agreements in the world could decide to grant a one-time sale of ivory from South Africa’s stockpile to China.

More ivory on the market, legal or not, will only lead to more killing of elephants.

Despite its considerable efforts, China has been unable to control the illegal trade of ivory across its borders and within its country.

This proposal to allow China to legally import ivory from South Africa’s stockpile will be considered from July 14-18 at the 2008 meeting of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).

Damnit. That’s what you get for not fully fact checking and especially paying close attention to dates. The lunar eclipse and satellite shoot-down madness already happened. No nuclear holocaust (awwwwww.). This slip-up makes this post even funnier and probably more idiotic, and certainly puts distress on my non-existent blogging reputation. I guess I could change my alias, since everyone tries to pronounce it, but can’t (hahaha suckers.). Or I could just take it down in an attempt not to look like a jackass, but Daniel Taylor already knows, so I am basically screwed. (rawr)

Sorry, no Lunar Eclipse or Nuclear War. Didn’t mean to get your hopes up, but it’s not like you’re going to have to wait much longer.

Sometime in 2005 I made a journey to New Zealand. Most of the details of this trip are very irrelevant to the purpose of this post, so don’t mind as I skip to a certain story.

Me and a friend I was traveling with were hitch-hiking from Nelson Creek NZ (after visiting the Nelson Creek Skateboard factory) to a remote town also on the South Island of New Zealand. It was raining, damn hard and freaking cold. A kind, yet eccentric man pulled over and offered us a well-recieved ride. His car was packed, he could barely fit our bags, let alone us and our damp fabrics. He strongly expressed that he would normally never pick up a hitch-hiker, but that this time he had some sort of hunch that we were American.

It didn’t take me long to label him as your run-of-the-mill conspiracy nut, filled with facts, fears and rationalizations about the government. But as time went on intellect and genius began to peak through his fact-less arguments. He talked heavily about the health care scam, false prophecies, the world bankers’ scam and New Orleans (which had happened 5-6 weeks earlier). He explained how humans were to be sorted into categories once martial law took place; green for the fully impressioned (zombies), yellow for those who needed further conditioning (the sell-outs) and red, those who would be a ‘danger’ to society and would need to be terminated (the revolutionaries). After that bit I was sure the guy was crazy, and nothing really sunk in until he made a certain direct prophecy, one that stuck with me all these years.

He predicted that the United States was going to ‘kill’ a spy satellite, and this event would somehow cause a conflict with Russia, thus starting a major conflict, such as a nuclear war. He also said this would happen Early 2008.

(more…)

The Olympic torch relay is at present, struggling it’s way down an alternate route in Downtown San Francisco after protesters scared organizers away from the original planned route:

The procession of the Olympic torch through San Francisco descended into farce today when the flame-holders ran only a few yards before disappearing into a warehouse, then re-emerging on a bus.

After furious clashes throughout the morning between ‘Free Tibet’ protestors and pro-China demonstrators, the authorities seemed to panic, and by 1.20pm, local time - 20 minutes after the published start time - even the TV news helicopters were confused. Then, for a few seconds, the runners were glimpsed, but within seconds they had disappeared from the starting point at McCovey Cove and disappeared into a nearby Pier 48 warehouse. Finally, there were reports of the procession leaving the warehouse on a bus.

However, the protesters are starting to catch up. Keep up with the latest news in pissed hippies and even more pissed cops and Chinese government officials on SFGate’s Torch Page.

As the Olympic Torch is scheduled to make its way through San Francisco on Wednesday, protestors are already gearing up for their message of peace and freedom for Tibet. Today, three people scaled the suspension cords of the Golden Gate bridge with huge banners that read, “One World. One Dream. Free Tibet.” Four others were arrested. Protestors in Paris caused such a disruption that they had to cancel part of the torch’s route. More are expected in the coming days as it passes through SF.

“We want it to be peaceful. But it will be large,” said Dasang, 22, during a phone interview in which he said he was near the bridge. “I heard from Tibetans that now live all over the U.S. and even abroad who are coming here.”

Be careful out there, brave protestors.

The recent conviction of Chi Mak, a Chinese-born engineer working for a US Defense contractor who “slept” for 20 years before being activated in order to swipe sensitive military documents, is bringing to light what US Intelligence insiders have long known, that the Chinese government has a vast network of agents already at work in the US:

The Chinese government, in an enterprise that one senior official likened to an “intellectual vacuum cleaner,” has deployed a diverse network of professional spies, students, scientists and others to systematically collect U.S. know-how, the officials said. Some are trained in modern electronic techniques for snooping on wireless computer transactions. Others, such as Mak, are technical experts who have been in place for years and have blended into their communities.

“Chi Mak acknowledged that he had been placed in the United States more than 20 years earlier, in order to burrow into the defense-industrial establishment to steal secrets,” Joel Brenner, the head of counterintelligence for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an interview. “It speaks of deep patience,” he said, and is part of a pattern.

Peeking duck indeed.