Bits and Bites from around the World > The Cow and the Leopard

 

Lily Gardner

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The owner of this cow heard dogs barking at night, so he set up a camera and discovered something incredible. Each night, a leopard visits the cow and gently licks her head. After speaking with the cow's previous owner, he learned that the leopard's mother had died when it was just 20 days old. The cow had nursed the orphaned leopard with her milk. Since then, the leopard has seen the cow as its mother and visits her every night.

Image Credit gose to rightful owner.

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Bits and Bites From Around the World > Insurance Co. shamed in Russia; PETA Worries Bovine Baseball Beasts Bullied; More Power for Hapless Harris - Sharpton

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Russian mother ordered to pay for repairs to train that mowed down 15-year-old son

has bill scrapped after public outcry – reports

29 Oct, 2021 18:19

© Unsplash / Sasha Yudaev

A Russian woman was reportedly told to cover maintenance costs after her son was killed by a high-speed train, with insurance bosses’ requests for compensation only withdrawn after the firm came under fire in the press.

In a statement issued to journalists on Friday, insurance company Rosgosstrakh said that it is now looking to return around 400,000 rubles ($5,645) paid by the family of the tragic boy since the 2019 incident. While the company insisted it is legally bound to collect funds on behalf of its clients, the statement said that “unfortunately the automated collection process may not take into account the social consequences for a particular person or family.”

The response, published by Moscow’s TV Dozhd, registered as a foreign agent by Russia’s Ministry of Justice, comes amid a public outcry after details of the case came to light. According to reports, the schoolboy was killed while walking across a ground-level pedestrian crossing at a railway station just outside Moscow. The 15-year-old is said to have been wearing headphones and did not hear the high-speed train coming down the tracks on its way into the Russian capital.

The young man, whose name has not been released, was thrown around 50 meters from the collision and died before emergency workers could get to the scene, sources say. According to Dozhd, Rosgosstrakh compensated the owner of the train, Russian Railways, for maintenance work in the aftermath of the fatal incident, and elected to collect damages from his family, alleging that he had violated station rules by being on the track.

“In order to avoid transfer of collection to the judicial stage and an increase in the amount of debt, you need to pay an amount of 400,972.37 rubles within 10 days from the date of receipt of this letter,” a letter to the family reportedly reads. The company is now looking into the best route to return the funds to the bereaved mother.

It is so good to see that the conscience of Russian people is growing. There have been a few such stories where people have stood up for those badly treated. 40 or 50 years ago, such a thing would never have happened.

‘This can’t be real’: MLB fans in hysterics as animal rights watchdog

PETA deems the term ‘bullpen’ insensitive to cows

And they should have mentioned that "dugouts" are insensitive to dead and buried people!

28 Oct, 2021 18:42

The 'bullpen' could change names to be more respectful to cow rights © Bill Streicher / USA Today Sports via Reuters | © Agustin Marcarian / Reuters

Animal rights group PETA has called on baseball chiefs to change the term 'bullpen' to something a little less offensive to cows, such as 'arm barn', after complaining that the word "mocks the misery of sensitive animals".

And, I'm sure they are really upset about it!

PETA, or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have long positioned themselves as a voice for mistreated animals – something which only the most sociopathic in society would fundamentally disagree with.

But the watchdog has occasionally come under fire for what some see as overstepping their boundaries when it comes to ethics and animal rights.

And judging by the latest decree by the group, this seems to be one of those occasions. 

"As the World Series turns into a pitching duel, PETA is pitching a proposal to the baseball world," they announced.

"Strike out the word 'bullpen,' which references the holding area where terrified bulls are kept before slaughter, in favor of a more modern, animal-friendly term. PETA's suggestion? The arm barn.

"Words matter, and baseball 'bullpens' devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals," added PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman.

"PETA encourages Major League Baseball coaches, announcers, players, and fans to changeup their language and embrace the 'arm barn' instead."

According to RT Sport's analysis, the term 'bullpen' has been used in baseball since the 1870s – and has since migrated to several other definitions, also including holding cells used by police to detain criminals.

It has also been used by Marvel comics to describe their array of writers – 'The Marvel Bullpen' – as well as its original meaning as a holding pen for, well, bulls.

Given that the term has been associated with baseball for around 150 years, it would take a gigantic effort to change the word at this point in time – and surely the term 'arm barn' isn't the one that's going to replace it.

"Does PETA know what baseballs and baseball gloves are made with?" asked one fan in response to the report.

"The cows must have discussed this during their recent town hall meeting," joked another. "Just very upset and finally had enough."

"They got this from [satirical site] The Onion... this can't be real," said a third.

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Democratic agitator Al Sharpton leans on Biden to give

Kamala Harris ‘more positions of power’

Oh, God! Help us!

29 Oct, 2021 00:05

©  Reuters / Evelyn Hockstein

MSNBC host and Democrat power-broker Al Sharpton has called for US President Joe Biden to “use” VP Kamala Harris more effectively going forward, despite her perceived failure to handle her existing responsibilities at the border.

Sharpton, whose National Action Network is a powerful player in Democratic Party politics, has called for Harris to be better deployed within the Biden administration. In an interview with The Root on Tuesday, he expressed dissatisfaction with the “marginal positions” and called for Biden to give the first-ever black and female VP “more positions of power,” suggesting “her being in charge of voting was important,” but that something more was required.

“I would like the president to put her in charge of the voting package and criminal justice. Also, he needs to put Kamala at the forefront of the George Floyd bill that he promised to get through,” he said, referring to a police reform bill that died in Congress last month. Neither party could reach an agreement on the legislation, and Biden has pledged to examine “further executive actions” in the hope of pushing some parts of the package through.

Harris “was a prosecutor and a state attorney general, so she knows the criminal justice system and understands both sides,” Sharpton opined, adding that “she is also a Black woman in the time of Breonna Taylor and other Black women who have suffered racism, so I think that she should have those assignments and be able to get certain things to Congress.”

However, Harris’ tenure as California state attorney general was not exactly kind to black women. They were more likely to be caught up in her infamous anti-truancy campaign, which saw parents locked up when their children failed to attend school. Despite attempting to distance herself from the program, video of her laughing over the initiative surfaced during the 2020 presidential primaries, helping sink her campaign. Harris’ office also attempted to cover up a massive scandal within the state’s crime lab and infamously attempted to withhold DNA evidence that could have exonerated a death row prisoner.

Despite her controversial criminal justice record, Sharpton insisted he wanted to see Harris “thrive,” vowing to “communicate that to the president,” but discreetly. 

“It would be unwise for me to have her at my event and use that as a platform to raise the issue, so instead, I will speak directly to the President,” he reasoned.

Harris was tasked earlier this year with managing the immigration crisis at the US-Mexico border, an assignment she largely ignored for several months as unprecedented numbers of migrants streamed into the country. An all-time record of 1.7 million arrivals have been detained in the fiscal year 2021.

While the Biden-Harris administration initially adopted a welcoming posture toward the crowds of immigrants surging into the US illegally, Harris was forced to roll back the welcome mat, belatedly telling the masses “Don’t come” or “you will be turned back.” However, neither Mexican nor American authorities have thus far been able to halt the human tide, and a thousands-strong caravan broke through a border crossing between Mexico and Guatemala last week, headed for Mexico City and ultimately the US.

The Biden administration has quietly readopted some of its predecessor’s border policies, despite running on a platform that denounced them as “racist.” Next month, the White House will reinstate Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring migrants to wait out their asylum proceedings there instead of being permitted to live freely in the US while awaiting their court hearing. Attempts to revoke it were stopped in court in August, after Texas and Missouri filed lawsuits arguing the reversal had led to an uncontrollable influx of illegal immigrants.

Islam - Current Day - Toronto's Muslim Gangster; Links to Stories From My Other Blog - Some Hardly Believable

Four of the worst stories I've ever posted and they are all from Pakistan and recent:

Today's Global Pervs and Paedos List > 

Pakistan's Evils Astonish Even Me, and That's Not Easy to Do

It's not just Pakistan where Muslims kidnap Christian girls and Islamic police and courts back them up:

'Jihad of the Womb': Watchdog Details Systemic Abduction of Christian Girls in Egypt

Losing the War on Christianity in Egypt

Toronto murder victim dodged earlier assassin's bullet with cocaine bribe

Police wiretaps reveal bounty hunter was paid to fake victim's death in 2013

By Sam Pazzano · CBC - Posted: Sep 16, 2020 

Farogh Sadat was shot outside a bakery in Toronto's Corso Italia neighbourhood on June 23, 2020. Police wiretaps reveal there had been two previous attempts on his life. (Muslim Association of Hamilton)

In a plot twist worthy of a Hollywood crime thriller, the victim of a brazen execution in Toronto this summer escaped an earlier hit attempt by bribing a bounty hunter to fake the target's death.

The revelation came from a police wiretap of a phone conversation between the victim, Farogh Sadat, and another man on Jan. 15, 2015, which CBC learned about after recently obtaining a copy of a 2017 court decision about Sadat's bail conditions.

At the time of the wiretapped call, police were investigating the brutal kidnapping of a drug runner, allegedly by Sadat and others, in September 2014.

In the call, Sadat boasted that he bribed his would-be assassin with half a million dollars' worth of cocaine to stage Sadat's death in the Caribbean. Sadat said he then short-changed the bounty hunter by only giving him half of the promised amount.

Sadat, 37, was shot and killed in broad daylight on June 23, 2020, while he was sitting in his SUV with California licence plates at 1346 St. Clair Ave. W., in Toronto's Corso Italia neighbourhood.

It was the third known assassination attempt on his life.

Two previous murder attempts

In the 2017 judgment dismissing Sadat's bail application on the kidnapping allegations, Superior Court Justice Leonard Richetti noted that Sadat had bad blood with Mexican drug dealers in the Greater Toronto Area.

Police were called to the scene on St. Clair Avenue West near St. Clarens Avenue in June,

where they found Sadat in his car, having suffered fatal gunshot wounds. (Devin Keshavjee/CBC)

It started in 2013, when Sadat orchestrated a home invasion robbery. Sadat sent his henchmen to rob a suspected drug runner, H.G. (CBC is withholding his identity, as his life is likely at risk.) They grabbed $40,000 in cash and $20,000 worth of jewelry, and H.G. also gave them the keys and location of a stash house, where they stole several kilograms of low-quality cocaine.

That home invasion robbery was never reported to police.

A year later, on Sept. 6, 2014, Sadat and others allegedly kidnapped H.G., beat him and held him hostage for 12 hours, seeking information about another stash house. After that, the drug dealers put a bounty on Sadat's head, wrote Richetti.

On Sept. 23, 2014, shooters mistook Sadat's brother-in-law Ghorzang Zazai for Sadat, wounding Zazai and killing a friend, Gul Alakoozi, outside Sadat's parents' home in York region, north of Toronto. At the time, Sadat was living with his parents, who were his sureties for guns and drug possession charges in a Toronto hotel room in June 2014.

'We can't even fight these guys'

The wiretapped 2015 call was a conversation with Alakoozi's father. In it, Sadat told him he "knows" his son's killers, but York Regional Police say no one has been charged for the shooting and the investigation is ongoing. 

Sadat admitted on the call that he had sold up to 20 pounds of cocaine and "bought a couple of houses" with the profits of his criminal activity, but that he wasn't wealthy enough to mount a battle against the heavily armed drug lords.

"We can't even fight these guys, because I don't have the money like these guys," he said. Sadat also said he had a "toy" – meaning a handgun – because he didn't trust anyone at the time.

Sadat also disclosed his first assassination escape, in 2013. 

He said that a bounty hunter kidnapped him in the Dominican Republic, but that he bribed his would-be killer by offering him double the price of the hit — "10 bricks" (kilograms) of cocaine, worth $525,000.

The bounty hunter then staged Sadat's death by covering his "corpse" in fake blood as it lay in a Dominican ditch and photographing the "hit." But Sadat said he only gave him "half the bricks."

Sadat went into hiding on the West Coast and later tried to resolve the dispute with the drug barons.

'I hit a home run'

The drug dealers eventually discovered Sadat was still alive after he and others were busted and charged with possessing guns, drugs, a bulletproof vest and silencer after a maid spotted a man with a firearm inside a Toronto hotel room in June 2014.

Police found evidence on a laptop in the hotel room that Sadat and his partners had placed a tracking device on H.G.'s car, as well as details of a plot to pose as cops, abduct H.G. and force him to surrender the keys and location of a stash house.

Sadat's charges were stayed, however, after another man pleaded guilty. "I hit a home run," said Sadat on the wiretap.

Before H.G. was abducted in September 2014, a Peel Regional Police sergeant warned H.G. his life was in jeopardy and left her business card with him.

When the kidnappers took H.G. hostage that September, they discovered the officer's business card in his personal effects. Fearing H.G. might be under surveillance, the captors let him go after he agreed to give them some cash and the name of another potential kidnapping victim. He provided them $5,000 cash but not another name. Two days later, H.G. went to Peel Regional Police.

'Potential for further violence'

In a 2017 judgment dismissing Sadat's bail application on the kidnapping allegations, Justice Richetti wrote, "Any informed member of the public would be shocked that Mr. Sadat would be released into the public."

Sadat's vehicle at the scene in June.

Police continue to investigate Sadat's death.

(Paul Borkwood/CBC)

"Given the matters described by Sadat in the wiretaps involving shootings, bounty, faking deaths, retaliation and other criminal activity, the potential for further violence looms large," stated Richetti.

The judge quoted a "chilling" conversation between Sadat's wife and a co-accused's brother, in which Sadat's wife said, "If [the kidnapping victim] doesn't drop the charges, then they want to get rid of everyone involved permanently."

The kidnapping charges against Sadat were stayed in 2018 after Sadat's lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, undermined H.G.'s credibility during cross-examination at the preliminary hearing.

Toronto police continue to investigate Sadat's killing.