The animals’ skin, teeth, claws and skulls can fetch thousands of pounds, with hunting sending their numbers plummeting along with the effects of climate change and habitat loss.
The annual polar bear hunt in Canada and the illegal sale of poached Russian bears are thought to be two of the biggest threats to the species.
In the last five years there was a 375% increase in the number of polar bear skins offered at auctions in Canada, campaigners said. And according to the US Geological Survey two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will be lost by 2050. There are currently thought to be around 20,000 to 25,000.
Throughout the 28-day period the public is being asked to register its support for the campaign by online at www.ice-warrior.com/polar-bear-campaign and by visiting Boris in person if they are able to. The CITES meeting is being held in Bangkok in March when a vote on whether to ban the international polar bear trade is expected to take place.
BC Bear Hunting Ban Declared By 10 First Nations
Former OED editor covertly deleted thousand of words, book claims
I love the mandate of the Oxford English Dictionary: to be an archive of every word used in the English language. There are at least two important ways in which that mandate is upheld. First, “If a word was used in an English context, it qualified as an English word. After all, from the OED’s beginnings, it was considered to be a dictionary of the English language, not merely a dictionary written by and for the people of England.” Second, “If a word gets into the OED, it never leaves. If it becomes obsolete, we put a dagger beside it, but it never leaves.” (Isn’t that beautiful?)
But apparently some editors of OED do not believe in that mandate and see fit to exclude previously included words, which to me constitutes no less than an offense against the lives lived and stories told that created and used those words.
I kinda hope Arkansas republicans try to reinstate slavery so I can justify killing as many crackers as possible
Here’s the latest white woman to petition the Supreme Court to affirm that she was denied admission to college because of black people. And in her very first news interview, with Adam Liptak of the Times, she says “I probably would have gotten a better job offer had I gone to U.T.” Imagine that! And sure, yes, a plaintiff has to demonstrate injury in order for the court to establish justiciability, but really, from what dark, sequestered, fucked up inner reaches of our national psyche can someone find it in herself to say with a straight face that the reason she didn’t get a better job offer is because she went to one state university instead of another and that because of this highly tenuous leap of reasoning we should therefore dismantle an entire legal framework put in place to ensure that ours isn’t a country where the only people afforded the opportunity to attend college in the first place—and then wonder if they wouldn’t be even better off if they’d been accepted elsewhere—are privileged white people.Anyway, fuck you lady!
I doubt her current employers will be thrilled to read that she is so unhappy with her job that she is going to the Supreme Court to complain?
Also: “She said her college years at Louisiana State had been fine and that she had enjoyed the camaraderie of the bowling team.”
It’s like everyday the NY Times finds some new way to be horrible.
White feminists should be screaming from the mountaintops in condemnation of this beezy. They should be snatching her and other likeminded women up by the ear & dragging ‘em out back to give them a talkin-to about who’s really been benefitting from Affirmative Action and how much they’re hurting WOC with this oppressive bullshit. So where are they?
Doesn’t affirmative action mostly benefit heffas like her ?
I’m tired of folks thinking I got into all seven colleges I applied too because of affirmative action. Nah son, it’s because I’m pretty damn smart.
Everyone is going to college now, making it super competitive.
If affirmative action really affected the amount of white people who don’t get into college, why aren’t there more people of color in college? Huh?
Annoyance of the day…
(via onlyludexists)
Okay the purge is done now. If I’m still following you, it means you won. Yay!
The weird thing is that right after I made that post I got two new followers.
Dear new followers (now and in the future): I will thoroughly inspect your blogs soon and decide whether I want to follow them. I actually do always check out the people who are following me by reading through a few pages worth of posts and that procedure will continue.
PSA
Context:
In September, I will be moving to Toronto to start a college program in the legal field. Yep, after five years of university education, including a graduate degree, I am going to college. I am not bitter about it. I do not regret going to university. I think the university-college combo is going to prepare me very well for the kind of work I want to do. (Also I think I am very attached to this idea of higher education; I have two more graduate degrees and two more college diplomas that I want to get after this legal one- in fact the legal one is partly a means for getting money so I can finance yet more education. I do not have the 4+ year attention span required for a PhD, and getting a bunch of degrees in different things sounds more fun and, I hope, means I will be able to apply for allllll kiiiinnddssss of jobs. I guess I kind of want to be a Renaissance Man rather than a careerist. We shall see how that goes.)
“The Point”:
I’m going to be really busy really soon, and lately my Tumblr dashboard has become really, really active (because I have a mostly-always-follow-back approach and actually do that thing where I like to read everything that’s on my dashboard). So I am going to be unfollowing a bunch of people. If I unfollow your blog, it is not because I do not like you. I still love you. However, if I generally do not like/reblog/comment on your stuff and/or you don’t like/reblog/comment on any of my stuff and we have never really messaged or anything, I’m probably going to unfollow you because it is not really clear to me why we are following each other. If I unfollow you, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk or don’t want you to follow me or won’t ever re-follow your blog in the future. So feel free to follow or message me whether we are mutual followers or not!
If I have followed you, I have probably read a lot of things on your blog. I’m glad I did! I just won’t be able to anymore.
Hearts to all,
Jade
p.s. And congratulations to those who make it on to the focused blogging round?
32,101 —
The number of pregnancies that result from rape every year in the United States
Relevant to both Todd Akin and every pro-lifer who says pregnancies from rape “aren’t that common” or “don’t happen enough to matter.”
The national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.
(via onlyludexists)
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky, a supporter of jailed members of female punk band “Pussy Riot”, looks on with his mouth sewed up as he protests outside the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, July 23, 2012. A court on Monday rejected a request to call President Vladimir Putin and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to testify in the trial of three female punk rockers who derided Putin in a protest in the country’s main cathedral, their lawyer said. REUTERS/Trend Photo Agency/Handout
So not impressed with what is going on in Russia right now with respect to LGBT and other human rights issues.
More info here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/08/17/f-russia-pussy-riot.html
(via criticallymisanthropic)
In the News: Turtles on the Run
SUMMERVILLE, Ga. — They may move slowly, but some 1,600 turtles have run off from a turtle farm outside Summerville.
Turtle grower David Driver called the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office last week to report fences made of metal barn siding had been torn down around his turtle ponds on Harrisburg Road.
“It’s been going on all summer long,” Driver said Wednesday.
The breaches in the ponds’ perimeter have allowed turtles — all native species such as common snappers, Eastern paints and yellow-bellied sliders — to break free and make a beeline to nearby ponds and creeks.
The above article is an update. Her mother went to appeal to keep her out of the psychiatric ward and lost. She will be institutionalized because of her expression of her gender. She will be held until she conforms to male gender and then released to foster care, not her mother who was supporting her.
Please, if you haven’t signed the petition, sign it, reblog it, ask your friends to sign it. We’ve managed to get 40K signatures for a pageant model, we’ve only gotten 11K for a little girl about to have her life ruined. Lets get on the ball and spread the word.
I literally just repeated the f-word until I ran out of breath.
Let me catch my breath. I may go on a cursing spree again as soon as I get it back.
Seriously people…
WHY THE FUCK AREN’T PEOPLE REBLOGGING THIS??
(via thelcb)
“I wish publishing was advanced enough to use colored ink … I’ll just have to save the idea until publishing grows up.”
—William Faulkner had hoped to use different colors of ink to mark the sometimes-confusing chronological shifts in The Sound and the Fury. Now his dream will come true, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the author’s death.
(Source: The Guardian)
Actually so cool. I read this a few years ago and, to be honest, found it quite challenging, but the writing is gorgeous and the colour coding would be a really big help.
(via pitypiie)
