Who's this nerd?
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/rescue-dogs-shot-dead-by-nsw-council-due-to-covid-19-restrictions-20210821-p58ksh.html
Rescue dogs shot dead by NSW council due to COVID-19 restrictions
Several impounded dogs due to be rescued by a shelter have instead been shot dead by a rural council in NSW under its interpretation of COVID-19 restrictions, alarming animal activists and prompting a government probe.
Bourke Shire Council, in the state’s north-west, killed the dogs to prevent volunteers at a Cobar-based animal shelter from travelling to pick up the animals last week, according to council’s watchdog, the Office of Local Government.
“OLG has been informed that the council decided to take this course of action to protect its employees and community, including vulnerable Aboriginal populations, from the risk of COVID-19 transmission,” a spokesman from the government agency said.
The spokesman said the agency was examining the circumstances of the incident to find out whether companion animal and cruelty prevention laws had been broken.
The Herald attempted to contact the council administration multiple times, but received no response, and a member of Rural Outback Respite/Rescue – the shelter that was supposed to receive the dogs – declined to comment.
A source who is familiar with the arrangement said the shelter volunteers were distressed and had COVID-safe measures in place to handle the dogs, one of which was a new mother.
According to NSW Health, there have been no recent locally acquired COVID-19 cases in Cobar, although fragments of the virus have been found in the area’s sewerage system.
The Office of Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock, who has previously faced questions in Parliament over the shooting of animals in council pounds, did not comment. However, Animal Liberation campaigner Lisa Ryan called for an urgent investigation.
“We are deeply distressed and completely appalled by this callous dog shooting and we totally reject council’s unacceptable justifications that this killing was apparently undertaken as part of a COVID- safe plan,” Ms Ryan, Animal Liberation’s regional campaign manager, said.
Asked during budget estimates in March whether she knew about councils shooting animals to euthanise them, Ms Hancock said she didn’t.
“If it was a practice, I would be concerned about it — if it was a cat or a dog,” she said, before agreeing to answer questions on notice regarding the practice.
A later answer said councils weren’t required to tell the government how they killed animals under their care.
Ms Ryan said, based on the minister’s answers during the hearing, Ms Hancock was “clearly oblivious to the reality of the serious issues involving many NSW council pounds.”
Greens animal welfare spokeswoman Abigail Boyd said the government had undertaken no action since the issues had been raised with Ms Hancock during the parliamentary hearing.
“While the Liberal-National government twiddles its thumbs on animal welfare issues, more animals are being killed,” she said.
“Council pounds are paid for by local communities, and it is clear that shooting lost and unclaimed dogs housed in these publicly funded facilities falls far short of community expectations.”
The OLG spokesman said the agency issued advice to all councils about operating pounds during the COVID-19 outbreak, including changing procedures to ensure those services continued while keeping staff and volunteers safe.
“Councils are also encouraged to continue to work with re-homing organisations and volunteers to care for animals, where that can be undertaken consistent with NSW Health advice,” the spokesman said.
On July 30, the agency said pounds and shelters could remain open to the public and, as people involved in animal welfare, their staff were authorised workers in locked-down areas.
“Accordingly, prospective new owners should still be encouraged to “adopt not shop”, consistent with NSW Health advice,” the OLG stated.
>Rescue dogs shot dead by NSW council due to COVID-19 restrictions
https://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/the-cat-s-out-of-the-bag-lockdown-life-in-the-dog-house-was-best-20210707-p587nq.html
The cat’s out of the bag, lockdown life in the dog house was best
Research has found when it comes to choosing an animal companion to get you through lockdown, people with dogs fare better than those with cats.
James Cook University researchers did a study in May 2020 when pandemic lockdowns were in place across most of the country, to look at the effect of cats and dogs on people living alone during isolation.
Team leader Jessica Oliva said they had previously found in a 2018 study that mindfulness, defined by the researchers as the ability to keep the mind attending to what was occurring in the present moment, was a key factor in preventing loneliness and depression.
Dr Oliva said the survey found that on both mindfulness and loneliness criteria, having a dog appeared to be better than having a cat.
She said dogs required their owners to physically leave their home space for things like walks, and also encouraged routine.
“Dogs give their owners a sense of routine and purpose, and in doing that also afforded them to socialise with people doing the same thing,” Dr Oliva said.
“That was not enforced in cat owners, which is not really surprising because it’s not required of most cat owners to walk their cat every day.”
Dogs also seemed to inspire more mindfulness in their owners while they were in their homes compared with cats, however overall levels of mindfulness did not seem to be affected overall by either a dog or a cat.
“We were expecting that through pet interactions we might increase levels of mindfulness, because it can be a very focused activity - it’s hard to be on your phone and also play with your cat or dog,” Dr Oliva said.
“But we didn’t find evidence to support this, which was surprising in a way.”
However she said when researchers asked pet owners how their pets affected their lockdown experience, they had universally positive responses.
Dr Oliva said the findings boiled down to the fact that having higher levels of mindfulness meant people were less lonely, and being a dog owners were less lonely possibly because they were pushed into more situations where they could get human contact even during lockdown.
“We don’t know for certain why dog owners were less lonely. It could be that they were just more resilient than cat people, or it could be because they were getting out of the house more,” she said.
“But you can also say that both cat and dog ownership offer some benefit, more so than not having either and enduring isolation totally alone.”
Strong take-up of dogs and cats was reported by animal shelters during lockdown, but the shelters and Dr Oliva and her team stressed that taking on a pet was a long-term responsibility, not a short-term solution during lockdowns.
Three-hundred-and-eighty-four participants completed an online survey evaluating their levels of loneliness, mindfulness and mood as part of the study.
That included 111 dog owners, 103 cat owners and 120 people who did not have any pets, all of whom otherwise lived alone.
>Requesting handoff
You might cut me, Corn Pop, but I’m going to wrap this chain around your head before you do.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/27/joe-biden-recalls-lessons-learned-as-the-only-white-lifeguard-at-inner-city-pool-in-1962/
Early in the summer, a gang that called itself the Romans frequented the pool. One of the gang members, nicknamed Corn Pop, was bouncing relentlessly on the high diving board, which was expressly against the rules. Biden, wanting to show that he “wasn’t an easy mark” whistled at Corn Pop and yelled, “Esther Williams! Get off the board, man. You’re out of here.”
The other lifeguards pointed out his mistake though, telling him that Corn Pop would likely be waiting for Biden to walk to his car at the end of the day. And Corn Pop would probably be carrying his weapon of choice, a straight razor.
Biden wanted to call the police, but Wright stopped him. If he did that, he’d never be allowed back in the community. So Biden did as his friend suggested and wrapped a six-foot length of metal chain around his arm, which he then wrapped in a towel.
Corn Pop indeed approached Biden, who said, “You might cut me, Corn Pop, but I’m going to wrap this chain around your head before you do.”
But he also said, loudly for all to hear, “I owe you an apology. I should never have called you Esther Williams. That was wrong. And in front of all your friends, I sincerely apologize. But if you bounce on the board like that again, I’m still going to throw you out.”
The two “put our weapons away, and we ended up being friends. Corn Pop and the Romans looked out for me the rest of the summer.”
>Corn Pop and the Romans looked out for me the rest of the summer.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/08/22/we-are-afraid-canada-wont-be-able-to-save-us-at-chaotic-kabul-airport-desperate-afghan-interpreter-fears-the-worst.html
‘We are afraid Canada won’t be able to save us.’ At chaotic Kabul airport, desperate Afghan interpreter fears the worst
For a third time in a week, Maroof arrived at the Kabul airport hoping to board a Canadian flight — and left disappointed.
On Saturday morning, the 42-year-old Afghan man, a former interpreter for the Canadian forces, came to the Hamid Karzai International Airport with 12 other family members, all with immigration papers, but no one would let them cross the gate.
Under intense summer heat at 34 C with no shade to be found, they sat on dirt with thousands of other Afghans outside a gate near the northwest corner of the airport, begging for the mercy of the locally hired airport guards to let them in.
“There’s no water, no washroom, no food. No one came to open the gate for us,” said Maroof, who was there with his wife and four children, aged 2 to 8, along with his parents and siblings. His father and two brothers all worked as delivery contractors for Canada.
As night fell with the temperature dropping to the low teens, they huddled to keep warm while he and his brothers stood guard in case Taliban insurgents came in the dark when no one was watching.
“They told us to come to this gate and go to that gate. Everywhere we went, no one would open the gate. We have our application numbers and client identification numbers to go to Canada,” said Maroof, who asked his last name be withheld for his family’s safety, as gunshots were fired in the background from airport guards trying to control the crowd.
That’s the kind of chaos on the ground at the Kabul airport as allied forces scramble to evacuate Afghan civilians who worked for them and are being targeted by the Taliban after the militant group overthrew the Afghan government and took over the country last weekend, prompted by the U.S. and NATO military withdrawal with a deadline of Aug. 31.
During a news conference Sunday, Canadian federal ministers again called for patience and trust in their evacuation efforts in Kabul, as seas of Afghan nationals fleeing the now Taliban-controlled country continue to look to the West for refuge.
>No one came to open the gate for us
>Fauci Endorses Mandates — ‘Enough Is Enough, We’ve Just Got to Get People Vaccinated’