- Camels seem cute in movies, right? Drop an animated camel in a Disney movie, give it some adorable personality traits and you’re golden. But in reality, camels stink, they’re filthy and if you have too many of them, they can become a menace. Just ask Australia, where the Australian outback is home to the world's largest wild camel population. Authorities estimate that there are 1.2 million camels roaming through vast expanses of desert and rangeland in central Australia and those same authorities are now attempting to figure out what to do with their growing camel problem. Why is there an imminent need for action? Because camels are a freaking menace, that’s why. They cause millions of dollars of damage to farms and native wildlife, which is why the Australian government has invested $18.8 million to reduce their numbers, largely through controlled shooting. There are opponents of controlled shooting, camel-huggers who argue that the growing commercial camel industry in Australia is both more sustainable and more profitable. Many Australian farmers are happy co-existing with camels, which came to Australia in the 19th century and used originally as draught animals. These farmers use camels for tasks such as trimming weeds and controlling them in lieu of expensive chemical solutions. Still, the numbers game factors in and there are only so many camels needed to chew up weeds and so other camel farmers are breeding them for export to places such as the Middle East. The profit margin on that sort of enterprise is limited and for now, controlled aerial shooting from helicopters is the choice of those in power. Unfortunately, camels that are shot from above have their carcasses left to rot. Some camels are shot and used for meat by individuals, but the taste for camel meet is seemingly an acquired one in Australia and most people haven’t yet acquired it. So for now, the bulk of the country’s 1.2 million camels roam Australia's desert and wild scrubland, an area of three million square kilometers. The largely desolate area is unfarmed, relatively inaccessible and uninhabited. Simply locating and managing the camel herds in the region is an expensive and time-consuming task, but the camel population is rising by about 80,000 a year and can’t be ignored much longer. The ruined fences, yards and other property left in the wake of these marauding beasts of burden is estimated at $9.9 million annually and with that sort of money on the line, you can bet action is not far off………
- As the NFL has made emphasis on concussions and proper treatment of them a priority, the league has yet to take the next logical step in the process: the hits that cause concussions. Hard hits are still lauded and celebrated around the league, to the point of being glorified. All of that may begin to change if the words of NFL executive vice president of football operations Ray Anderson are to be believed. Coming off a Sunday in which three extremely violent hits led to players being knocked out of games, Anderson admitted that it just might be time for the league to take action. "There's strong testimonial for looking readily at evaluating discipline, especially in the areas of egregious and elevated dangerous hits," he said. "Going forward there are certain hits that occurred that will be more susceptible to suspension. There are some that could bring suspensions for what are flagrant and egregious situations." That description would fit well with the two dirty, excessive hits Steelers linebacker James Harrison put on Cleveland Browns receivers Josh Cribbs and Mohammed Massaquoi in Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh. Both Cribbs and Massaquoi left the game following their hit from Harrison and the hit on Massaquoi was unquestionably the dirtier of the two. But Harrison wasn’t the only defender to deliver a massive knockout punch on the day and not the only guy in the state of Pennsylvania to do so. Atlanta Falcons defensive back Dunta Robinson laid a vicious hit on Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson, leaving his feet to deliver a well-placed shoulder to Jackson’s upper chest, stopping short of hitting the diminutive receiver in the head but nonetheless leaving both men motionless on the field and unable to continue in the game. The problem of big hits and their consequences is serious enough that the league is strongly considering in-season action, with Anderson admitting that the NFL could make changes in its approach immediately. As with all major issues surrounding the game, Commissioner Roger Goodell will have the final say. "The fundamentally old way of wrapping up and tackling seems to have faded away," Anderson said of the trend toward high-impact hits. "A lot of the increase is from hits to blow guys up. That has become a more popular way of doing it. Yes, we are concerned they are getting away from the fundamentals of tackling, and maybe it has been coached that way. We're going to have to look into talking to our coaches." One big hitter who has retired and is a part of the game on the media side, former Patriots and Chargers safety Rodney Harrison, is now an analyst for NBC. Harrison, who was fined more than $200,000 during his career and was suspended for one game in 2002 for a helmet-to-helmet hit, mocked the fines players receive for violent hits as no deterrent whatsoever to players. "You didn't get my attention when you fined me 5 grand, 10 grand, 15 grand," Harrison said during NBC’s "Sunday Night Football" broadcast. "You got my attention when I got suspended and I had to get away from my teammates and I disappointed my teammates from not being there. But you have to suspend these guys. These guys are making millions of dollars." It’s a good point and so far, I’ve yet to hear anyone offer a legitimate reason as to why suspensions for over-the-top, dangerous hits is a bad idea………
- Have you been trying to eat healthier but simply don’t find green food appealing? Maybe you would chow down on more salads or leafy veggies if only their color was more appetizing to the eye. Duda Farm Fresh Foods, headquartered in Oviedo, Fla. just might have the answer to your quandary. The company has a different slant on a familiar friend from the vegetable kingdom: celery. In the past, celery has been that crunchy, boring, green and stalk-centric cousin to broccoli that is only palatable if you jam it into a jar of peanut butter and goober it up with extra flavor. But now, Duda Farm Fresh Foods has gotten to work in the lab and managed to cross-pollinate an existing commercial variety of celery with an old-world heritage celery root to get red celery, which is unveiled late last week at a trade show in Orlando. "It has the same great crisp fresh flavor as regular celery with added crunch that consumers like so much,” said Dan Duda, the president and CEO of Duda Farm Fresh Foods. Sounds like some well-written ad copy to me, Dan-O. Put that line on a glossy photo of your new red celery and we’ve got a winner. For now, the company will only release the red celery to select supermarkets in the western United States. If you want the red celery, you’ll have to find one of those stores and wait until Dec. 1, which is the release date. Whether this will be enough to convince finicky kids to eat celery and join the clean plate club is anyone’s guess……..
- Maybe it’s the idealist in me, but I still hold to the notion that great bands (and even decent ones) exist in large part because they are comprised of guys (or girls) who like each other, love making great music together and want a friend by their side as they travel the tough road from obscurity to musical stardom. Even if bandmates aren’t best friends, it’s nice to think that they don’t exist as a band merely for the money or the fame. Keeping up that illusions is much harder when Keith Richards is out there blasting longtime Rolling Stones bandmate Mick Jagger as being "unbearable.” As with so many “shocking” revelations about adversaries and enemies, this one came to help Richards generate interest for his new book. Richards’ tome, an autobiography called 'Life', will be released on Oct. 26 and in following the script for drumming up publicity for a new book, Richards is running the interview circuit and trotting out a few juicy morsels from his book in the hopes of enticing people to buy it. Thus, his admission that he and Jagger don’t get along and that he has taken to calling the temperamental singer "Brenda" and "Your Majesty" as a joke. "I used to love Mick, but I haven't been to his dressing room in 20 years," Richards said. "Sometimes I think, 'I miss my friend'. I wonder, 'Where did he go?'" Another nugget from the book is Richards’ belief that it was “the beginning of the eighties when Mick started to become unbearable." Richards also revealed in a recent interview with a British publication that Jagger had read the book and made just one request: that Richards not reveal that he once used a voice coach. For the record, Richards rejected that request. He also implicitly confirmed bassist Ronnie Wood's recent claim that the Stones have no plans to retire, by saying: "we'll be on the road again in the future. I think it's going to happen. I've had a chat with Her Majesty. Brenda." The fact that these two men continue to record and perform together despite clearly despising one another definitely doesn’t reinforce one’s faith in the power of music to unite and inspire……….
- Let me know when you start mixing in right turns, turn signals, actual athleticism and something other than an activity tens of millions of Americans do every day, NASCAR. You can announce a decision to use a 15 percent ethanol blend in your racing fuel if you want, but I’m not sure why I should care. So the government gave its stamp of approval to this new fuel mix, allowing you to continue your partnership with Sunoco for the use of "Sunoco Green E15," a fuel mix comprised of 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline. "With Sunoco Green E15, we are leading by example, showing that this renewable fuel, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions, works in the most demanding racing environment in the world," said Mike Lynch, managing director of the Green Innovation division for NASCAR, in a statement. Blah, blah, blah. You may be reducing your gas emissions but the fact remains that if NASCAR would merely do what I’m asking of it - cease operations immediately and entirely - then it would be emitting no greenhouse gases whatsoever. As for the fuel itself, Sunoco will create the 15-85 mix at its fuel facility in Marcus Hook, Pa., but the ethanol itself will be produced at Sunoco's ethanol plant in Fulton, N.Y., using American-grown corn. The final hurdle before NASCAR could begin using the corn-o-fuel was approval by the Environmental Protection Agency, which endorsed the fuel on Oct. 13 for cars and trucks made since 2007. According to ethanol enthusiasts (of which there are surprisingly many), it burns cleaner than gasoline. Now if only it had the power to make NASCAR cars turn right………
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