Red panda-monium

This cute critter was enjoying a meal with its pals in Japan when a zookeeper stepped into the enclosure, terrifying the furry bundle....

Jaguars and monkeys to be cloned in Brazil

"Experts in Brazil at Brasilia Zoo, who have already successfully cloned cows and horses, are hoping to start creating their first copy of a wild animal next month. The eight at-risk species chosen are the jaguar, the maned wolf, the black lion tamarin monkey, the bush dog, the collared anteater, the gray brocket deer, the Brazilian aardvark and the bison."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/9680968/Jaguars-and-monkeys-to-be-cloned-in-Brazil.html

Generals Gone Wild

There is something tragic about the General Petraeus scandal...a 4 star general and director of the CIA brought down by two "ferociously opportunistic women" as someone described them. I usually try to adhere to that old biblical saying: "Judge Not, That You Be Not Judged" (Matthew 7:1), but this story just keeps getting stranger and stranger...with shirtless FBI agents, threatening e-mails, possible love triangles... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/what-paula-broadwell-tell_n_2130513.html

  
"So-called honey traps are typically used by foreign spy agencies to ensnare top men, such as General Allen and former General Petraeus, in order to try to extract information out of them,” Wall Street Journal reporter Maria Abi-Habib said yesterday in an audio dispatch from Afghanistan posted on WSJ.com. There is no evidence the generals’ female friends are spies, but Abi-Habib says the affair has raised concerns “of a so-called honey trap, which was a very famous spy tactic used by the KGB.”
Wow. Just when you thought the plot couldn’t get any thicker...

Ralph Peters is a blunt-speaking retired Army officer and author. “When a man becomes more reputation than substance, his reputation had better be invulnerable,” he said of Petraeus’ plight. “Every successful man has encountered at least one Paula Broadwell. The smart ones don’t take her calls.”
Read more: http://nation.time.com/2012/11/14/the-rise-and-fall-of-general-peaches/#ixzz2CFyajyEt

Mysterious death of migrating birds

In today's Daily Mail, an article about the mysterious deaths of disorientated migrating birds:

A fisherman grins as a lost song thrush sits on his shoulder

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2232285/RSPB-investigates-mysterious-deaths-thousands-migrating-birds-lost-sea.html

A murmuration of starlings

Migrating starlings visit Gretna in Scotland twice a year, in February and November...Starlings congregate for added security and to share warmth and their numbers are boosted by migrant birds from Europe, the RSPB reports. This group appeared just before dusk on Saturday in Gretna.

War poetry for Remembrance/Veterans' Day

Sean Bean

War poetry for Remembrance Day today, November 11th, by Sean Bean and other actors:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/video/2012/nov/11/sean-bean-first-world-war-poetry-video

The Soldier - Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Attenborough's Ark

Sir David Attenborough highlights the plight of 10 weird and wonderful endangered species, including the Sumatran Rhino. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20219857