Someone asked me what I hate the most?
I see myself as being very rational, and despite having been blessed with a fiery nature I can control my emotions pretty well. This is the result of years in Scandinavia and the UK. But on a deeper thought there are indeed few things that make me explode like a Strombolian volcano; cruelty and hypocrisy, specially the British one.
Cruelty should be bread out of human populations through eugenics. Identify those people who are naturally cruel and sterilise them. Actually, by the state of the world, we should sterilise half the population starting with the Taliban.
Hypocrisy aims conflict avoidance, but the English are exquisite in the cultivation of such art. They call it political correctness and go around babbling things they don’t believe in, just to make them look good in the eyes of others who accept as convenient truths the very same things they don’t believe in.
Take for example the burka. The English are prompt in criticising the French for their suggestion to ban it. The argument presented by the English is that everybody has the right to express their religious beliefs and we should respect it. I am not so sure. Some religious beliefs claim that all the infidels should be killed. Should we respect it? Some religious beliefs force female circumcison.Others that it is fair to stone them to death. Should I respect it? If not who decides which ones should I respect and wich ones should I not?
And who respects my right not to have to live in societies that rule us base on irrational mystical beliefs?
The burka should be banned and people should stop making irrational claims just to look politically correct in public.
Humans are social animals that communicate through sound and visual language. One of the most important cues in communication is facial expression. Without it we miss a great deal of information about the intentions of our interlocutor. If an evolutionary and behavioural reasons wasn’t enough, I can as well argue against religious belief. I do not have to take in other people’ s religious beliefs. Besides, since it seems to be fashionable to feel offended when one's religion is attacked, I woudl like to make a stand and say that I feel offended by the burka. Shouldn’t an atheist have the same right to feel offended as a religious believer? Why is it that rights account only to those who hold irrational beliefs? Shouldn't respect work both ways? Why should atheist moral standing be less important? At least we base our reasoning in facts and evidence, which we can't say about religious belief.
When do the British get the courage to say what they think? More dangerous that the BNP are those who silently cultivate the same beliefs. Those we can't identify. At least with the BNP we know who they are!... You can target your enemy if you know where it is. Identifying silent haters is like fighting a guerrilla war where the cowards hide behind their politically correct nonsense gibber.
The daily thoughts of an alien morphed into a cat (Cat-a-List) running a study on human behaviour on planet Earth. This blog expresses the daily discussions between him and his good friend Rat-a-Lin, a genetically modified rat who escaped from some random University in East Anglia. Both creatures express their views about human morality and ask themselves why humans consider certain types of pure logical reasoning to be politically incorrect.
Tuesday 8 March 2011
Friday 21 January 2011
What is it about the English they never mean what they say?
If there are things that make me sick is hypocrisy. People like to know the truth, however social convention (in some countries) assumes that it is polite to lie. No other country follows this rule so literally as England. People lie all the time. They smile to foreigners and praise them on their outstanding level of English, when the poor guy is perfectly aware he can’t tell the difference between yeast and East.
Females in particular are exquisite in this ritual of good manners. They acknowledge someone with smiles and “dear this”, “dear that”, “dear the other” , and as soon as the victim turns her back she immediately turns into a “dirty cow”. I have been to many countries, but never saw a culture so full of social falsehoods as the English. They are afraid of confrontation and engaging in open debate. If someone is not playing their tune, they just short cut the conversation and shut up, preventing the debate from going on.
I see no problem with disagreement, fro I learn nothing from those who always agree with me. What is the problem with the English then?
In my opinion a person that retreats from a debate is attempting to hide her ignorance, rather than seeking enlightenment.
Females in particular are exquisite in this ritual of good manners. They acknowledge someone with smiles and “dear this”, “dear that”, “dear the other” , and as soon as the victim turns her back she immediately turns into a “dirty cow”. I have been to many countries, but never saw a culture so full of social falsehoods as the English. They are afraid of confrontation and engaging in open debate. If someone is not playing their tune, they just short cut the conversation and shut up, preventing the debate from going on.
I see no problem with disagreement, fro I learn nothing from those who always agree with me. What is the problem with the English then?
In my opinion a person that retreats from a debate is attempting to hide her ignorance, rather than seeking enlightenment.
Friday 5 November 2010
These revelations make Rat-a-Lin very depressed
- Cat-a –List, I am depressed with what you tell me! Why don’t we just kill them?
- Kill whom Rat-a-Lin?
- The humans of course! They are breeding discriminately, they are worse than rabbits, or even us rats. What do they do when they have plagues invading their territory? They kill us, without any mercy. They through poisons from land and air, They shot us, they hunt us to extinction. All this for what, to simply satisfy their sexual urges, with catastrophic consequences for the rest of nature.
Can they ever understand that Earth is not theirs? Earth is a planet that gave rise to a diversity of life not seen anywhere else, and what do these creatures do? They destroy it all... the work of 4 billion years, gone in less than 300 years. They are nothing else than another life form that share the planet with us
-Well, Rat-a-Lin, they have this complicated thing called religion which they built up to reassure them that they are special and have the right to do whatever they like with the life of others, even with themselves. They impose their ideas upon each other and even kill for that.
- Well, at least we only kill for territory and when our territories are overpopulated, our females eat the cubs.
- Well, humans also kill for territory, but they are special creatures who have this tendency to deceive themselves so they claim that they kill for God, which will later pay them back with wealth and territory. As to eating their own cubs, I have not heard anything like that, but they do kill, if not eat, the offspring of other humans, specially after they invading their territories . And they also rape the women.
- Ahhh, just like the lions!
-Yes rat-a-Lin, some observation of lion behaviour has shown that when new males enter a pride, they kill the cubs that have been fathered by the older male and take over the females. This technique ensures that the females get quickly in heat so they can produce new babies with the new male’s genetic pool. This is also why humans rape females of the conquered territories.
- So they are just like us Cat!
-Yes Rat-a-Lin. Nothing in humans is different from other animals, they are, but they like to think they are different because that gives them the right to strip the Earth from what she has produced.
- On what basis do they think they are different? They are no more different from us, than a whale is different from a blackbird.
- Precisely, Rat-a-Lin, but the majority of them believe in this thing they call god, and by believing so, they assume that what they call god gave them carte-blanche to do whatever they please towards other living creatures. I ask myself how can this defect of nature called humans have managed to destroy a whole planet in 2 million years? The dinosaurs rule the Earth for more than 200 million of years and they did not do so much damage.
- Maybe the big Dinosaur god got fed up with them, taking up so much space and sent a big fire ball into the sky to finish them off..
and here Rat-a-Lin fell on his back holding his tummy with his tiny pink hands and laughed with those convulsive hit pitch sounds just like a rat can do.
-But relax Rat-a-Lin, because the way things go and according to my studies, the humans won’t rule the Earth for more than 500 years. They are doomed. When they perish, they’ll take a load of life with them, but Earth is resilient and from those who survived, new forms of life will evolve. They won’t need any of their gods to through a meteorite at them. They are their own stone of fire!
- Kill whom Rat-a-Lin?
- The humans of course! They are breeding discriminately, they are worse than rabbits, or even us rats. What do they do when they have plagues invading their territory? They kill us, without any mercy. They through poisons from land and air, They shot us, they hunt us to extinction. All this for what, to simply satisfy their sexual urges, with catastrophic consequences for the rest of nature.
Can they ever understand that Earth is not theirs? Earth is a planet that gave rise to a diversity of life not seen anywhere else, and what do these creatures do? They destroy it all... the work of 4 billion years, gone in less than 300 years. They are nothing else than another life form that share the planet with us
-Well, Rat-a-Lin, they have this complicated thing called religion which they built up to reassure them that they are special and have the right to do whatever they like with the life of others, even with themselves. They impose their ideas upon each other and even kill for that.
- Well, at least we only kill for territory and when our territories are overpopulated, our females eat the cubs.
- Well, humans also kill for territory, but they are special creatures who have this tendency to deceive themselves so they claim that they kill for God, which will later pay them back with wealth and territory. As to eating their own cubs, I have not heard anything like that, but they do kill, if not eat, the offspring of other humans, specially after they invading their territories . And they also rape the women.
- Ahhh, just like the lions!
-Yes rat-a-Lin, some observation of lion behaviour has shown that when new males enter a pride, they kill the cubs that have been fathered by the older male and take over the females. This technique ensures that the females get quickly in heat so they can produce new babies with the new male’s genetic pool. This is also why humans rape females of the conquered territories.
- So they are just like us Cat!
-Yes Rat-a-Lin. Nothing in humans is different from other animals, they are, but they like to think they are different because that gives them the right to strip the Earth from what she has produced.
- On what basis do they think they are different? They are no more different from us, than a whale is different from a blackbird.
- Precisely, Rat-a-Lin, but the majority of them believe in this thing they call god, and by believing so, they assume that what they call god gave them carte-blanche to do whatever they please towards other living creatures. I ask myself how can this defect of nature called humans have managed to destroy a whole planet in 2 million years? The dinosaurs rule the Earth for more than 200 million of years and they did not do so much damage.
- Maybe the big Dinosaur god got fed up with them, taking up so much space and sent a big fire ball into the sky to finish them off..
and here Rat-a-Lin fell on his back holding his tummy with his tiny pink hands and laughed with those convulsive hit pitch sounds just like a rat can do.
-But relax Rat-a-Lin, because the way things go and according to my studies, the humans won’t rule the Earth for more than 500 years. They are doomed. When they perish, they’ll take a load of life with them, but Earth is resilient and from those who survived, new forms of life will evolve. They won’t need any of their gods to through a meteorite at them. They are their own stone of fire!
What are we going to do about Brazilian wildlife?
Hi Rat-a-Lin, I just found this document on the human female's desk and I think you need to listen to this:
-----------------------------------------
On September 11 WSPA Brazil World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) organised a meeting on the topic “ Wild animals are not pets”. I was invited to the opening ceremony as a keynote speaker to address the many problems derived from illegal wildlife traffic. Usually, my trips to Brazil are both exciting and depressing. Exciting because of the pleasure of meeting old friends involved in conservation and animal welfare, depressing because I am reminded of the inadequacy of Brazilian and international policies intended to put an end to environmental and wildlife exploitation.
On October 3, Brazilians will be voting to elect the president as well as senators and local representatives. Listening to their campaigns reminds me that the rhetoric used by politicians is always the same around the world. Buzz words like “economic development”, “health and education for all”, and “environment”, are part of the vocabulary of every vote chaser in the world. But while buzzwords may capture the voters’ imagination, they do not solve problems. In Brazil, many of the politicians running for public office are people rich in wealth but poor in knowledge and wisdom and one can only describe them as deeply ignorant of environmental issues. Brazil is in danger of losing a number of threatened species as the supposed price for the “development of the country”. But in Brazil this so-called development is something that winds up lining the pockets of a few wealthy members of the country’s oligarchy.
Brazil is politically divided. While the south, populated by descendants of Europeans, is well developed and reminds one of any developed country, the north inherited a colonialist culture where the poor live in extreme poverty in quasi-feudal relationship with the wealthy. For the latter, President Lula´s policies were welcomed. Those below a certain income threshold receive a “cesta básica”, or basic basket, which provides an amount of money to cover their basic food needs educational needs. They also receive a state contribution for each child in school under 16. According to the discontented southerners, this policy is an incentive for the lazy northerners to have big families, supported by the high taxation imposed on those who work. Thus it is no wonder that the north supports the PT (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro), headed by President Lula, in power for eight years. In the view of the middle class, President Lula, an ex-union leader from the metal industry, manipulates the poor by giving them peanuts, while favouring his cronies, big capital, bankers, oil industry and farming monopolies based on sugar cane, soya and cattle. This lobby has an exceedingly destructive impact in Brazilian ecosystems.
Legislation on environmental protection is complex and controversial. Following the path of the big ecological movements of the seventies, the government approved a state-of-the-art set of environmental laws with a strong emphasis on conservation and biodiversity. With the development of large-scale agricultural production, the demand for land increased. In an attempt to prevent full-scale destruction of the natural habitat, the law requires each estate to preserve a minimum percentage of the original vegetation. This percentage varies between 80% for very large properties to 20% for small ones. In the producers’ perspective, any land is cultivable land and in order to minimise the amount of unusable terrain, they divide their large properties into small lots, creating small islands of green surrounded by cultivated land or pasture. This isolates the remaining wildlife populations, and the lack of ecological corridors between these islands leads to a rapid decrease in genetic variability and a fast route to extinction.
After harvesting, uncontrolled fires are used to clear the land for sowing. With the onset of climate change, Brazil has been experiencing longer periods of drought which has lead to the spread of these fires into the surrounding forest. Every year, thousands of wild animals die in these fires and those that are rescued are sent to the many wildlife shelters spread across the country. These shelters are run by small NGOs which do not receive any support from the state. The role played by these shelters in conservation is vital, but few animals are re-introduced into the wild due to the lack of release sites and the bureaucratic impediments imposed by IBAMA, the state organ that regulates environmental issues. The shelters are now full to capacity and cannot cope with any more animals. Facing this, IBAMA has approved the use of euthanasia, even on threatened species.
Many of the people managing these shelters live in relative poverty as all their time and resources are dedicated to the animals in their care. While IBAMA simply takes advantage of the goodwill of these wildlife champions, it overloads the shelters without providing any support. Furthermore, the NGOs are obliged to pay taxes on charitable contributions received. As a result, the majority of people running these shelters are in a state of desperation. When visiting them and learning about their experiences, it is difficult to remain untouched by their difficulties. On top of this, every month thousands of animals rescued from illegal trafficking are brought to these shelters. Shelter managers are well intentioned people, fully dedicated to the causes of biodiversity and animal welfare. In my meetings with many of them I witnessed their tears of desperation and bursts of rage as they feel impotent to fight the corruption in the country. They believe that only international pressure can change the state of things.
Brazil has dreams of becoming the world’s number one in biodiesel production, but at what cost? Destruction of the last beacon of biodiversity for the satisfaction of cheap consumerism? Development without responsibility is a route to self-destruction. Environmental awareness is alien to greedy eyes of Brazilian entrepreneurs. President Lula himself is proud to proclaim that the economic wealth of his country - meaning of his cronies - is more important that any insignificant spotted forest cat. Meanwhile, the wildlife shelters are full of threatened species.
Pumas, involved in traffic accidents because of uncontrollable urban expansion into their territory, Mane wolves and sloths rescued from burnt areas, birds caught in illegal wildlife traffic, monkeys invading populated areas in search for food, jaguars shot on ranches to protect cattle herds or illegally hunted for profit by wealthy American and European trophy hunters are just some of the hazards afflicting Brazilian wildlife.
Brazil’s biodiversity is not restricted to the Amazon. It includes the Pantanal, one of the largest wetlands and biodiversity hotspots in the world, which is threatened by heavy cattle ranching; the Atlantic Forest, now reduced to less that 7% of its original size; the Cerrado and so many other biomes, invaded by exploitation to satisfy the insatiable demands of consumerism.
Deforestation is not due to poverty, but to the greed of wealthy farmers, loggers and corrupt politicians. Forest fires can be easily detected by satellite, a technology available in Brazil which has its very own satellites. However, those in power continue to claim that it is difficult to spot illegal fires in the immensity of the tropical forest. Any Internet user can launch Google Earth to zoom in to the state of Roraima in the north of the Amazonian forest and identify the extent of deforestation and erosion. At this pace, in 50 years we can say goodbye to the Amazon and all the wildlife it supports.
Deforestation is not the only problem that afflicts neo-tropical fauna. Illegal traffic in wild animals is a growing epidemic that is associated with criminal gangs involved in drugs and weapon smuggling. The appeal of keeping wild animals as status symbols is widespread among wealthy citizens around the world, with Europe, USA and the Arab Emirates the worst perpetrators. There are well-known routes and traffickers that could be easily stopped if there was international political will. The Brazilian Federal police on their own cannot act on the criminal networks outside their jurisdiction. There is some co-operation with Interpol, but according to Federal Police insiders, wildlife crime does not top their priorities.
Stopping illegal traffic is not helped by CITES, the international convention that regulates commerce in wildlife, nor by European legislation. The fact that CITES exists, is in itself an open door to trade in wildlife, which should not be allowed in any circumstances. In the UK in 2007, changes to the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 took many species including racoons, emus, sloths and squirrel monkeys off the list of animals for which licences are needed. Not only is this a problem for the welfare of the animals in question, it is also a stimulus to demand. This is now reflected in Brazil, where the Government is attempting to pass legislation to allow the expansion of commercial wildlife breeders. This proposal is based on the assumption that regulating commercial breeders would stop wildlife poaching. Unfortunately data from the Federal Police shows that the majority of these commercial breeders are involved in fraud, taking in poached wild animals and falsifying documentation to legalise them as bred in captivity. A calculation by the Federal Police has estimated that while taking an animal from the wild may cost something like $15, the very same animal may end up in the international market with a price tag of several thousand dollars. A macaw for example could end up being sold for between $5,000 and $20,000. The rarer the animal, the larger the profit for traffickers. A large percentage of the cost is added by these legal breeders during the pseudo-legalisation of the animal.
Many Brazilians are plagued by the question of what are international leaders going to do about this? Fancy words about environmental policies are not enough. We need to enforce sanctions against environmental destruction. There is no lack of environmental education in Brazil, whose citizens are well aware of the devastation taking place in their country. But there is a lack of moral responsibility, especially among the powerful.
Brazilian wildlife is not a problem exclusive to Brazilians. It concerns all of us. The amount of meat we eat, the feedstuffs provided to our livestock, the oil and its derivatives -- everything Brazil exports -- is taking its toll on its biodiversity. Brazilian wildlife does not need buzzwords that embellish political speeches. It needs action and pressure from across the globe. It is our responsibility to help these shelters to continue their work, saving injured and poached wildlife. These animals are the patrimony of the world. They are our responsibility. They are the victims of policies that place a steak on the plate of every citizen in the world. Do you still think you do not owe them anything?
-----------------
-----------------------------------------
On September 11 WSPA Brazil World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) organised a meeting on the topic “ Wild animals are not pets”. I was invited to the opening ceremony as a keynote speaker to address the many problems derived from illegal wildlife traffic. Usually, my trips to Brazil are both exciting and depressing. Exciting because of the pleasure of meeting old friends involved in conservation and animal welfare, depressing because I am reminded of the inadequacy of Brazilian and international policies intended to put an end to environmental and wildlife exploitation.
On October 3, Brazilians will be voting to elect the president as well as senators and local representatives. Listening to their campaigns reminds me that the rhetoric used by politicians is always the same around the world. Buzz words like “economic development”, “health and education for all”, and “environment”, are part of the vocabulary of every vote chaser in the world. But while buzzwords may capture the voters’ imagination, they do not solve problems. In Brazil, many of the politicians running for public office are people rich in wealth but poor in knowledge and wisdom and one can only describe them as deeply ignorant of environmental issues. Brazil is in danger of losing a number of threatened species as the supposed price for the “development of the country”. But in Brazil this so-called development is something that winds up lining the pockets of a few wealthy members of the country’s oligarchy.
Brazil is politically divided. While the south, populated by descendants of Europeans, is well developed and reminds one of any developed country, the north inherited a colonialist culture where the poor live in extreme poverty in quasi-feudal relationship with the wealthy. For the latter, President Lula´s policies were welcomed. Those below a certain income threshold receive a “cesta básica”, or basic basket, which provides an amount of money to cover their basic food needs educational needs. They also receive a state contribution for each child in school under 16. According to the discontented southerners, this policy is an incentive for the lazy northerners to have big families, supported by the high taxation imposed on those who work. Thus it is no wonder that the north supports the PT (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro), headed by President Lula, in power for eight years. In the view of the middle class, President Lula, an ex-union leader from the metal industry, manipulates the poor by giving them peanuts, while favouring his cronies, big capital, bankers, oil industry and farming monopolies based on sugar cane, soya and cattle. This lobby has an exceedingly destructive impact in Brazilian ecosystems.
Legislation on environmental protection is complex and controversial. Following the path of the big ecological movements of the seventies, the government approved a state-of-the-art set of environmental laws with a strong emphasis on conservation and biodiversity. With the development of large-scale agricultural production, the demand for land increased. In an attempt to prevent full-scale destruction of the natural habitat, the law requires each estate to preserve a minimum percentage of the original vegetation. This percentage varies between 80% for very large properties to 20% for small ones. In the producers’ perspective, any land is cultivable land and in order to minimise the amount of unusable terrain, they divide their large properties into small lots, creating small islands of green surrounded by cultivated land or pasture. This isolates the remaining wildlife populations, and the lack of ecological corridors between these islands leads to a rapid decrease in genetic variability and a fast route to extinction.
After harvesting, uncontrolled fires are used to clear the land for sowing. With the onset of climate change, Brazil has been experiencing longer periods of drought which has lead to the spread of these fires into the surrounding forest. Every year, thousands of wild animals die in these fires and those that are rescued are sent to the many wildlife shelters spread across the country. These shelters are run by small NGOs which do not receive any support from the state. The role played by these shelters in conservation is vital, but few animals are re-introduced into the wild due to the lack of release sites and the bureaucratic impediments imposed by IBAMA, the state organ that regulates environmental issues. The shelters are now full to capacity and cannot cope with any more animals. Facing this, IBAMA has approved the use of euthanasia, even on threatened species.
Many of the people managing these shelters live in relative poverty as all their time and resources are dedicated to the animals in their care. While IBAMA simply takes advantage of the goodwill of these wildlife champions, it overloads the shelters without providing any support. Furthermore, the NGOs are obliged to pay taxes on charitable contributions received. As a result, the majority of people running these shelters are in a state of desperation. When visiting them and learning about their experiences, it is difficult to remain untouched by their difficulties. On top of this, every month thousands of animals rescued from illegal trafficking are brought to these shelters. Shelter managers are well intentioned people, fully dedicated to the causes of biodiversity and animal welfare. In my meetings with many of them I witnessed their tears of desperation and bursts of rage as they feel impotent to fight the corruption in the country. They believe that only international pressure can change the state of things.
Brazil has dreams of becoming the world’s number one in biodiesel production, but at what cost? Destruction of the last beacon of biodiversity for the satisfaction of cheap consumerism? Development without responsibility is a route to self-destruction. Environmental awareness is alien to greedy eyes of Brazilian entrepreneurs. President Lula himself is proud to proclaim that the economic wealth of his country - meaning of his cronies - is more important that any insignificant spotted forest cat. Meanwhile, the wildlife shelters are full of threatened species.
Pumas, involved in traffic accidents because of uncontrollable urban expansion into their territory, Mane wolves and sloths rescued from burnt areas, birds caught in illegal wildlife traffic, monkeys invading populated areas in search for food, jaguars shot on ranches to protect cattle herds or illegally hunted for profit by wealthy American and European trophy hunters are just some of the hazards afflicting Brazilian wildlife.
Brazil’s biodiversity is not restricted to the Amazon. It includes the Pantanal, one of the largest wetlands and biodiversity hotspots in the world, which is threatened by heavy cattle ranching; the Atlantic Forest, now reduced to less that 7% of its original size; the Cerrado and so many other biomes, invaded by exploitation to satisfy the insatiable demands of consumerism.
Deforestation is not due to poverty, but to the greed of wealthy farmers, loggers and corrupt politicians. Forest fires can be easily detected by satellite, a technology available in Brazil which has its very own satellites. However, those in power continue to claim that it is difficult to spot illegal fires in the immensity of the tropical forest. Any Internet user can launch Google Earth to zoom in to the state of Roraima in the north of the Amazonian forest and identify the extent of deforestation and erosion. At this pace, in 50 years we can say goodbye to the Amazon and all the wildlife it supports.
Deforestation is not the only problem that afflicts neo-tropical fauna. Illegal traffic in wild animals is a growing epidemic that is associated with criminal gangs involved in drugs and weapon smuggling. The appeal of keeping wild animals as status symbols is widespread among wealthy citizens around the world, with Europe, USA and the Arab Emirates the worst perpetrators. There are well-known routes and traffickers that could be easily stopped if there was international political will. The Brazilian Federal police on their own cannot act on the criminal networks outside their jurisdiction. There is some co-operation with Interpol, but according to Federal Police insiders, wildlife crime does not top their priorities.
Stopping illegal traffic is not helped by CITES, the international convention that regulates commerce in wildlife, nor by European legislation. The fact that CITES exists, is in itself an open door to trade in wildlife, which should not be allowed in any circumstances. In the UK in 2007, changes to the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 took many species including racoons, emus, sloths and squirrel monkeys off the list of animals for which licences are needed. Not only is this a problem for the welfare of the animals in question, it is also a stimulus to demand. This is now reflected in Brazil, where the Government is attempting to pass legislation to allow the expansion of commercial wildlife breeders. This proposal is based on the assumption that regulating commercial breeders would stop wildlife poaching. Unfortunately data from the Federal Police shows that the majority of these commercial breeders are involved in fraud, taking in poached wild animals and falsifying documentation to legalise them as bred in captivity. A calculation by the Federal Police has estimated that while taking an animal from the wild may cost something like $15, the very same animal may end up in the international market with a price tag of several thousand dollars. A macaw for example could end up being sold for between $5,000 and $20,000. The rarer the animal, the larger the profit for traffickers. A large percentage of the cost is added by these legal breeders during the pseudo-legalisation of the animal.
Many Brazilians are plagued by the question of what are international leaders going to do about this? Fancy words about environmental policies are not enough. We need to enforce sanctions against environmental destruction. There is no lack of environmental education in Brazil, whose citizens are well aware of the devastation taking place in their country. But there is a lack of moral responsibility, especially among the powerful.
Brazilian wildlife is not a problem exclusive to Brazilians. It concerns all of us. The amount of meat we eat, the feedstuffs provided to our livestock, the oil and its derivatives -- everything Brazil exports -- is taking its toll on its biodiversity. Brazilian wildlife does not need buzzwords that embellish political speeches. It needs action and pressure from across the globe. It is our responsibility to help these shelters to continue their work, saving injured and poached wildlife. These animals are the patrimony of the world. They are our responsibility. They are the victims of policies that place a steak on the plate of every citizen in the world. Do you still think you do not owe them anything?
-----------------
Sunday 31 October 2010
The sun is shining
When the sun is out I don’t complain so much about this country. It was unfortunate that my space ship crashed in the UK. It would have been better if I landed somewhere near the Bahamas, but the ship lost power when it was just flying over the jet stream and I was dragged here against my will. However, East Anglia is said to be the sunniest place in the whole Great Britain, so not everything was so bad. I could have landed in the Lake District, or worse yet, in Aberdeen.
While I laid in the grass watching the Guinea pigs grazing stupidly happy, Rat-a-Lin emerged from his hole under the hut and got inside to perform his daily inspection. Food had not yet been supplied, so he came back and laid in the sun beside me, certain that I would protect him from the unwanted interest shown by the other four cats of the household enjoying the sun in the garden. Despite being well fed, some of them had a strong sense of humour and enjoyed racing after frightened rats.
Finally I got myself the courage to ask him, which planet did he come from, but Rat-a-Lin was quick to answer with that tiny high pitch laughter that only rats can do.
-Which planet, you ask? I was born in a genetics lab at some research centre far away from here. When I was still a baby they put me in a box and flew me all the way across the ocean to this country and landed in a University near here. I spent my life unwillingly taking drugs. One day a white coated human was preparing to give me an injection of some stuff from a suspiciously looking brown jar. The human handling me was still an human juvenile and while I was struggling to escape her hand, she dropped the jar on the floor. Scared by the impact she opened her hand and I jumped as far as I could, hiding under some boxes ready to be dropped in the recycling bin. Once out of the building I managed to jump inside the boot of some car parked by the wily bins, and that is how I ended up here.
I assumed that Rat-a-Lin was a genetically modified rat purchased from some lab, probably in the US or Scandinavia, and brought into the UK to serve as one of the 6 million animals that are submitted to experiments each year. Luckily it seemed to me that the drugs experimented on him, enhanced his cognitive abilities. How else could his witty sharpness be explained?
I did enjoyed chatting to him, he was a very inspiring rat who provided me great insight into human behaviour. So I was preoccupied about how long the effect of the drug would last. Will it last forever? Will he lose his abilities?
The survival of Rat-a-Lin was important for my project. Not only did he have very useful inside information about what was going on at the University, but he was constantly asking intriguing questions, that kept me thinking.
In order to ask the right questions you need to have a good insight of what you are studying. He knew how humans behaved in their work place, I knew them in their home. Humans at work and home behave in different ways. It is important to get information from both settings to get a better idea of what is real human behaviour.
Also, Rat-a-Lin could give me insights of places where a cat could not go. I could use his motor dexterity to be my eyes in places where I would not be allowed in my cat shape. Besides my biology restricts me to the amount of morphs I can do during a life time. I had already morphed five times in different earth species, and I had only four left, and I had to save the last morph to go back to my original me. So, as long as I could take advantage of my cat form, I would stay that way.
While I laid in the grass watching the Guinea pigs grazing stupidly happy, Rat-a-Lin emerged from his hole under the hut and got inside to perform his daily inspection. Food had not yet been supplied, so he came back and laid in the sun beside me, certain that I would protect him from the unwanted interest shown by the other four cats of the household enjoying the sun in the garden. Despite being well fed, some of them had a strong sense of humour and enjoyed racing after frightened rats.
Finally I got myself the courage to ask him, which planet did he come from, but Rat-a-Lin was quick to answer with that tiny high pitch laughter that only rats can do.
-Which planet, you ask? I was born in a genetics lab at some research centre far away from here. When I was still a baby they put me in a box and flew me all the way across the ocean to this country and landed in a University near here. I spent my life unwillingly taking drugs. One day a white coated human was preparing to give me an injection of some stuff from a suspiciously looking brown jar. The human handling me was still an human juvenile and while I was struggling to escape her hand, she dropped the jar on the floor. Scared by the impact she opened her hand and I jumped as far as I could, hiding under some boxes ready to be dropped in the recycling bin. Once out of the building I managed to jump inside the boot of some car parked by the wily bins, and that is how I ended up here.
I assumed that Rat-a-Lin was a genetically modified rat purchased from some lab, probably in the US or Scandinavia, and brought into the UK to serve as one of the 6 million animals that are submitted to experiments each year. Luckily it seemed to me that the drugs experimented on him, enhanced his cognitive abilities. How else could his witty sharpness be explained?
I did enjoyed chatting to him, he was a very inspiring rat who provided me great insight into human behaviour. So I was preoccupied about how long the effect of the drug would last. Will it last forever? Will he lose his abilities?
The survival of Rat-a-Lin was important for my project. Not only did he have very useful inside information about what was going on at the University, but he was constantly asking intriguing questions, that kept me thinking.
In order to ask the right questions you need to have a good insight of what you are studying. He knew how humans behaved in their work place, I knew them in their home. Humans at work and home behave in different ways. It is important to get information from both settings to get a better idea of what is real human behaviour.
Also, Rat-a-Lin could give me insights of places where a cat could not go. I could use his motor dexterity to be my eyes in places where I would not be allowed in my cat shape. Besides my biology restricts me to the amount of morphs I can do during a life time. I had already morphed five times in different earth species, and I had only four left, and I had to save the last morph to go back to my original me. So, as long as I could take advantage of my cat form, I would stay that way.
In the moonlight
Yesterday evening, under a bright shining moon, Rat-a-Lin asked me what religions are there in my planet. I stared at the moon for a while trying to make sense of what he meant by religion. Despite having learnt many words from several Earth peoples, sometimes it is difficult to me to make sense of them in the same way as humans perceive them.
I revisited my encyclopaedic memory in search for the meaning of the word religion. One of the stored dictionaries spelled out a random definition: “Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe.”
This suggested more questions than provided answers. What is the meaning of belief?, What are gods? Purpose with the Universe? The word purpose has specially activated my recently acquired cat feline neurons. What do they mean by purpose. Surely the Universe has no purpose. Life has no purpose! It just is! Then I understood while browsing some information about how the human brain is built, that they have a tiny programme that makes them look for purpose in everything, as if their life wasn’t enough living just as it is. Being part of a community of other living beings, interacting with each other, trying to negotiate survival between themselves and the environment, that is their life. If survival is not enough purpose, what else would it be?
Then the word belief. What does it mean? I asked Rat-a-Lin if he had beliefs.
“Of course I do!...” he answered intrigued by my question. “Each time I visit the Guinea Pigs’ hut I expect to see freshly laid food. If food is there each time, then I believe that food will be there again in the future.”
Ah.. so belief is nothing more than an expectation for something to happen. Having sampled that thing before, the belief is formed. However humans believe in things they have never sampled, like gods, gremlins, ghosts and fairies. How would you explain this Rat-a-Lin?
-Well, Cat-a-List, it is enough for them to create the images in their own minds, and if these entities exist in their mind this is enough for them to believe that they exist. The mind plays trick on humans. This does not mean that the object of their belief actually exists in the real world.
I wondered that the very trait that made humans so different from the other animals, was also their biggest handicap. The trait that will lead them to their own end.
Some crawling nocturnal insect softly touched the hairs of my tail, and I was prompt to lick it. What bug was that? A spider? I could not see in the dim light of the night. By now a fat dark cloud had obfuscated the moon and we were in total darkness. I realised that I formulated a belief based on a sensation. I could not really see what it was, but I assumed it to be a spider, because I am terrified of spiders. Assuming that the infamous bug was something that could be harmful to me, has actually provided me with a survival advantage. This is the adaptive value of belief. Getting away from what could be dangerous. Even if it wasn’t dangerous, the most I could have lost was time or energy moving away. However if I did not assume it to be dangerous and it really was, I could have lost my own life. So belief does have some survival advantages.
Rat-a-Lin’s eyes shined again in the new light piping out of a crack in the cloud covering the moon. - You got it right Cat!...
Rat-a-Lin was an old sage and I wondered which planet he had come from. I assumed he was nothing else but a common Earth rat, but the wise words that came out of that tiny creature were as large as the world itself. Earth creatures are not gifted with such levels of wisdom , but then I remembered that I read somewhere thoughts that have been produced thousands of years ago in the history of humanity. There were some ancient humans who said pretty wise things once in a while. I wonder if they were inspired by some extra-terrestrial creatures morphed into the shape of rats!!!
I have a problem about accepting that wise thoughts could have come from humans alone, and so many thousands of years ago. From what I have observed of human behaviour since I have landed on Earth, they did not sound like very clever creatures, and to make things worth those who were supposed to be the leaders of their tribes, where perhaps the worse of them all.
I asked myself, why would these hordes of humans follow leaders that seemed to be so ignorant, despite the amount of wisdom available to them? And more importantly, why would intelligent humans, support such leaders? I realised then that all can be simply explained through a simple understanding of evolution and animal behaviour. There are a lot of common features that link humans to other species. Actually the more I look at it in depth, the more difficult it gets to identify any differences between what does it mean to be human.
So I decided to get back in the house, as it started to get cold, and download some information from the human female. By now she would be deeply asleep and it would be easy to dive into her deepest memories.
I revisited my encyclopaedic memory in search for the meaning of the word religion. One of the stored dictionaries spelled out a random definition: “Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe.”
This suggested more questions than provided answers. What is the meaning of belief?, What are gods? Purpose with the Universe? The word purpose has specially activated my recently acquired cat feline neurons. What do they mean by purpose. Surely the Universe has no purpose. Life has no purpose! It just is! Then I understood while browsing some information about how the human brain is built, that they have a tiny programme that makes them look for purpose in everything, as if their life wasn’t enough living just as it is. Being part of a community of other living beings, interacting with each other, trying to negotiate survival between themselves and the environment, that is their life. If survival is not enough purpose, what else would it be?
Then the word belief. What does it mean? I asked Rat-a-Lin if he had beliefs.
“Of course I do!...” he answered intrigued by my question. “Each time I visit the Guinea Pigs’ hut I expect to see freshly laid food. If food is there each time, then I believe that food will be there again in the future.”
Ah.. so belief is nothing more than an expectation for something to happen. Having sampled that thing before, the belief is formed. However humans believe in things they have never sampled, like gods, gremlins, ghosts and fairies. How would you explain this Rat-a-Lin?
-Well, Cat-a-List, it is enough for them to create the images in their own minds, and if these entities exist in their mind this is enough for them to believe that they exist. The mind plays trick on humans. This does not mean that the object of their belief actually exists in the real world.
I wondered that the very trait that made humans so different from the other animals, was also their biggest handicap. The trait that will lead them to their own end.
Some crawling nocturnal insect softly touched the hairs of my tail, and I was prompt to lick it. What bug was that? A spider? I could not see in the dim light of the night. By now a fat dark cloud had obfuscated the moon and we were in total darkness. I realised that I formulated a belief based on a sensation. I could not really see what it was, but I assumed it to be a spider, because I am terrified of spiders. Assuming that the infamous bug was something that could be harmful to me, has actually provided me with a survival advantage. This is the adaptive value of belief. Getting away from what could be dangerous. Even if it wasn’t dangerous, the most I could have lost was time or energy moving away. However if I did not assume it to be dangerous and it really was, I could have lost my own life. So belief does have some survival advantages.
Rat-a-Lin’s eyes shined again in the new light piping out of a crack in the cloud covering the moon. - You got it right Cat!...
Rat-a-Lin was an old sage and I wondered which planet he had come from. I assumed he was nothing else but a common Earth rat, but the wise words that came out of that tiny creature were as large as the world itself. Earth creatures are not gifted with such levels of wisdom , but then I remembered that I read somewhere thoughts that have been produced thousands of years ago in the history of humanity. There were some ancient humans who said pretty wise things once in a while. I wonder if they were inspired by some extra-terrestrial creatures morphed into the shape of rats!!!
I have a problem about accepting that wise thoughts could have come from humans alone, and so many thousands of years ago. From what I have observed of human behaviour since I have landed on Earth, they did not sound like very clever creatures, and to make things worth those who were supposed to be the leaders of their tribes, where perhaps the worse of them all.
I asked myself, why would these hordes of humans follow leaders that seemed to be so ignorant, despite the amount of wisdom available to them? And more importantly, why would intelligent humans, support such leaders? I realised then that all can be simply explained through a simple understanding of evolution and animal behaviour. There are a lot of common features that link humans to other species. Actually the more I look at it in depth, the more difficult it gets to identify any differences between what does it mean to be human.
So I decided to get back in the house, as it started to get cold, and download some information from the human female. By now she would be deeply asleep and it would be easy to dive into her deepest memories.
Saturday 30 October 2010
Who are Cat-a-List and Rat-a-Lin?
With all the gazillions of blogs clogging the wires of the internet, why would I bother to write another one, and why would anyone bother to read it?; This is certainly just a another drop in this ocean of nonsensical mental outbursts. However a blog is our revenge against ideologically controlled media and our opportunity to let our thoughts out of this rubicund bony box of ours, that protects our mind producing organ; the brain.
So, independently of who reads it, I find a freeway to silently shout out loud, what I think. Surely enough among the 6 billion people cramping up our planet , probability theory predicts that at least a handful will agree with me.
So, not as frequently as I would like, I’ll attempt to use this space as the playground of my mind, and if I do not change the ways of the world, at least I have a good excuse to exercise my Anglophone writing skill , since you might have spotted by my accent, English is not my first language. I am not apologetic if I unduly trespass the grammar rules , because I speak 8 European languages, while I know of few English speakers who bother to master more than two. And with all this said I’ll start my ramblings.
I am a foreigner. In fact I am an extra-terrestrial biologist who arrived on Earth to do a study of the life forms of this planet. After I arrived I morphed into a cat and while I wandered around some random houses in some random village, I was kindly taken in by a nice cat loving pair of humans.
My task was then to use the opportunity to access the information sources of these humans and produce a list of impressions about these life forms. Unfortunately, my space ship disintegrated when it hit Earth and I am now stuck here in the shape of a cat. However I have not much to complain since I am well fed, protected from the elements and have a diverse number of life forms of other species sharing the same house. Thus I can study and compare the different cognitive systems and social arrangements that characterise each one of them.
My humans call me Catalyst, because I start up complex arguments . I live in a household populated with many other species. Other real cats, Guinea pigs and even an old Chinese rat who calls himself Rat-a –Lin.
Since I have no hands you may wonder how do I write this blog. Well, I wait patiently until the female human gets ready to work on her computer. I walk softly over her keyboard persuading her to stroke me which induces her into a state of trance. Then I connect my mind to hers, and make her write. When she wakes up I retreat to same original position and she thinks that nothing had happened in between. At night I curl myself very carefully around her head on her pillow, and I download all the information from her mind into my memory system.
Rat-a-Lin gives me insights about human society and constantly compare is with his rodent origins. Since I have the ability to understand animal language, I do not need to resort to trick mind download processes with the rest of the house community.
This blog expresses what I have learn about these complex living creatures on this planet from the point of view of an outsider.
So, independently of who reads it, I find a freeway to silently shout out loud, what I think. Surely enough among the 6 billion people cramping up our planet , probability theory predicts that at least a handful will agree with me.
So, not as frequently as I would like, I’ll attempt to use this space as the playground of my mind, and if I do not change the ways of the world, at least I have a good excuse to exercise my Anglophone writing skill , since you might have spotted by my accent, English is not my first language. I am not apologetic if I unduly trespass the grammar rules , because I speak 8 European languages, while I know of few English speakers who bother to master more than two. And with all this said I’ll start my ramblings.
I am a foreigner. In fact I am an extra-terrestrial biologist who arrived on Earth to do a study of the life forms of this planet. After I arrived I morphed into a cat and while I wandered around some random houses in some random village, I was kindly taken in by a nice cat loving pair of humans.
My task was then to use the opportunity to access the information sources of these humans and produce a list of impressions about these life forms. Unfortunately, my space ship disintegrated when it hit Earth and I am now stuck here in the shape of a cat. However I have not much to complain since I am well fed, protected from the elements and have a diverse number of life forms of other species sharing the same house. Thus I can study and compare the different cognitive systems and social arrangements that characterise each one of them.
My humans call me Catalyst, because I start up complex arguments . I live in a household populated with many other species. Other real cats, Guinea pigs and even an old Chinese rat who calls himself Rat-a –Lin.
Since I have no hands you may wonder how do I write this blog. Well, I wait patiently until the female human gets ready to work on her computer. I walk softly over her keyboard persuading her to stroke me which induces her into a state of trance. Then I connect my mind to hers, and make her write. When she wakes up I retreat to same original position and she thinks that nothing had happened in between. At night I curl myself very carefully around her head on her pillow, and I download all the information from her mind into my memory system.
Rat-a-Lin gives me insights about human society and constantly compare is with his rodent origins. Since I have the ability to understand animal language, I do not need to resort to trick mind download processes with the rest of the house community.
This blog expresses what I have learn about these complex living creatures on this planet from the point of view of an outsider.
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