meehawl

Today’s domesticated turkeys are anatomically manipulated to be so heavy and large breasted … that they are now incapable of breeding naturally. Practically all of the turkeys raised commercially in the United States are the result of artificial insemination … Turkeys and other animals exploited for food are excluded from the Federal Animal Welfare Act … and although a majority of states have laws that prohibit sexual contact with animals … farm animals are excluded from these as well. Breeding toms languish for roughly one year in dark crowded pens and are typically handled twice a week during “milking” sessions to collect their semen. Their legs are secured in a clamp on a bench, and then the bird is held over the lap of a worker who induces the turkey to ejaculate … Roughly twice a week, hens are herded into a room, then one after another, they are held upside down, “cracked open” (as termed by industry representatives) and inseminated in assembly line fashion. As with the males, the females’ legs are clamped into metal forceps during the process as laborers race to inseminate an average of 1,200-1,400 hens within two hours.

Collecting semen from a chicken or turkey is done by stimulating the copulatory organ to protrude by massaging the abdomen and the back over the testes. This is followed quickly by pushing the tail forward with one hand and, at the same time, using the thumb and forefinger of the same hand to “milk” semen from the ducts of this organ. Semen flow response is quicker and easier to stimulate in chickens than in turkeys. The semen may be collected with an aspirator or in a small tube or any cup-like container. In turkeys, the volume averages ~0.35-0.5 mL, with a spermatozoon concentration of 6 to >8 billion/mL. In chickens, volume is 2-3 times that of turkeys, but the concentration is about one-half.

Tags: artificial insemination, bestiality, farming, food, industrial farming, semen, Thanksgiving, turkeys by mike
No Comments »

Nouri al-Maliki wants US troops out of Iraq. He leads a Shiite coalition comprised of religious parties, including his own Dawa party, which is committed to making Iraq into a Shiite Islamic state. Like his coalition partners, al-Maliki views Iraq’s Sunnis with deep—and justifiable—suspicion. For four years after Saddam’s fall, Iraqi Sunnis supported an insurgency that branded Shiites as apostates deserving death. Now the Sunnis have thrown their support behind the Awakening, which is portrayed by American politicians, including Senator McCain, as a group of patriotic Iraqis engaged in the fight against al-Qaeda. Iraq’s Shiite leaders see the Awakening as a Baathist-led organization that rejects Iraq’s new Shiite-led order—an accurate description.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, Shiite, Sunni by mike
No Comments »

Last.FM’s recommendation stream is usually pretty good at finding music I haven’t heard before and might like but every so often it goes crazy. Like a few weeks ago when it suddenly started pushing one annoyingly unlistenable track after another at me until I shut it down. They were all, apparently, within the “lesbian deathcore vegan grind” genre. Pressing the “Do Not Want” ban-this-track button apparently does nothing to deflect the algorithm’s temporary psychotic fail mode. Or today, when it kicked in again with around 15 tracks in a row with this delightful set of tags: brutal death metal, cybergrind, czech, death metal, deathgrind, goregrind, grind, grindcore, noisecore, porngrind, pornogrind.

Tags: collaborative filtering, death metal, goregrind, grindcore, Last.FM, noisecore, porngrind by mike
No Comments »

One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast”.

Tags: fashion, Neiman Marcus, politics, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sarah Palin by mike
No Comments »

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state

Tags: Adam Smith, economics, progressive taxation, The Wealth of Nations by mike
No Comments »

By [US] Election Day, $2.4 billion will have been spent on presidential campaigns in the two-year election cycle that began in January 2007, and an additional $2.9 billion will have been spent on 435 House and 35 Senate contests. This $5.3 billion is a billion less than Americans will spend this year on potato chips.

Tags: politics, USA by mike
No Comments »

Billy Electron

Tags: Billy Electron, dnb, drum and bass, dubstep, Milanese, music, Uncategorized by mike
No Comments »