Moving!

This is the new home of my webpage - http://thegreensquirre1.wordpress.com - blog of the green squirrel. Note that it is a one, '1', and not an 'l', before the .wordpress.com. (Too many existing green squirrels, I guess.)

I've made the move for sundry reasons, most having to do with efficiency, as I outline briefly in the inaugural post of my new blog.

On 228:

• Officials observe 228 anniversary - "Later yesterday when attending another memorial service at Taipei City’s 228 Monument in 228 Peace Park, family members of 228 Massacre victims — in the presence of Ma — said the full truth about the massacre still hasn’t been revealed and urged the KMT government to stop hiding evidence. “The full truth of the 228 Incident still hasn’t been uncovered,” ­Chiang Chieh-yun (蔣節雲), daughter of former Taiwan provincial councilor Chiang Wei-chuan (蔣渭川) who narrowly escaped death during the massacre, said on behalf of 228 victims’ families at the ceremony."
• Are we on the brink of a new 228? - "Taiwan today faces a repeat of the tragic 228 Incident that took place 63 years ago. Following the end of World War II, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government sent Chen Yi (陳儀) to head its occupation of Taiwan. Chen, his underlings and the armed forces under his command plundered Taiwan at will, with no notion of the rule of law. Then came the Jiangsu-Zhejiang banking and commercial conglomerate (江浙集團), which unscrupulously took essential goods from Taiwan for sale in Shanghai and Hong Kong. This resulted in shortages of the goods needed for everyday life in Taiwan, and in unprecedented poverty and hardship."
• Massacre victims, families sue KMT - "A total of 108 people — including 33 victims of the 228 Massacre and 75 family members — yesterday filed a lawsuit against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), demanding it apologize for the massacre and compensate them for their hardship. “Nearly 63 years have passed, still the KMT has never shown any intention to take responsibility and apologize to victims and their families,” Yang Chen-lung (楊振隆), whose uncle was killed by KMT troops, told a press conference at the 228 Memorial Park in Taipei."

On living a healthy life:

• Judson - Stand up while you read this! - "But it looks as though there’s a more sinister aspect to sitting, too. Several strands of evidence suggest that there’s a “physiology of inactivity”: that when you spend long periods sitting, your body actually does things that are bad for you."
• The claim - to cut calories, eat slowly - "For ages, mothers have admonished children at the dinner table to slow down and chew their food. Apparently, they’re onto something."

On animals:

• End animal pain on factory farms - "We are most likely stuck with factory farms, given that they produce most of the beef and pork Americans consume. But it is still possible to reduce the animals’ discomfort — through neuroscience. Recent advances suggest it may soon be possible to genetically engineer livestock so that they suffer much less." - I had high hopes for this article, given the title and the reference to Peter Singer's monumental book "Animal Liberation". I ended up, however, extremely disappointed. Maybe the author's motivations of limiting suffering to animals are genuine. It feels though, more like a cop-out, that we should simply accept factory farms and instead experiment and engineer even more with animals. Obviously, pain has served an important purpose from an evolutionary standpoint, and has evolved the way it has for that evolutionary purpose. Do we really think we can perfect this in such a way that animals avoid painful stimuli but somehow do not feel pain? If so, then why wouldn't we do the same thing to ourselves?
• Fortunately, I do not seem to be alone in my negative view of this article - Letters - Science, ethics, and factory farms - "Adam Shriver applauds the possibility that we may soon be able to reduce the discomfort of the animals we choose to raise in the horrific warehouses of factory farms through neuroscience. I’d like to propose an alternative: that we consider using neuroscience and genetic engineering to modify humans so that they derive less pleasure from consuming large amounts of animal flesh and more pleasure from consuming things like tofu." - Bravo to the last writer.
• Consider this article - Lawmakers consider an animal abuse registry - "Last fall, California became the first state to outlaw so-called tail-docking of dairy cows, where the tail is partly amputated to ease milking. In 2008, voters in the state passed Proposition 2, which gave hens, calves and pigs more room in their crates or cages. That law has upset many in the California egg industry and prompted some agriculturally-minded residents to even talk about seceding from the state." - The quoted section is actually somewhat tangential to the main point of the article, but I selected it because it demonstrates the extent to which some people just don't care about animals. These people would sooner secede from the state rather than even give animals a little more room in their crates. Should we just accept this and now run endless experiments on animals trying to engineer them to somehow accept living in immorally small cages?
• This is how we should be treating animals - Caring for the sick, weak, and injured - excellent work by Farm Sactuary