Thursday, September 23, 2010

Digging Around in Spain

They found Barney.

"Dinosaur with a hump discovered; Full skeleton found in Spain" by Seth Borenstein, Associated Press | September 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — The weird world of dinosaurs has just gotten a tad more bizarre. Scientists found a nearly complete fossil of a new dinosaur that sports a noticeable hump, maybe as possible advertising.

The hump on the dinosaur’s back, which was at least 16 inches tall, may have been used to help this meat-eating theropod communicate among its own species, scientists theorize....

Discoverer Francisco Ortega of Spain said the hump could have been used to store fat or regulate body temperature, but there is also the distinct possibility that it was used by concavenators to somehow differentiate themselves or communicate with one another. But with only one of these dinosaurs, it’s only speculation, he said, and it is hard to figure out what the humps were meant to convey if they were used for communication....

 Who knew the dinosaurs had something in common with AmeriKan newspapers?

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Come to think of it, the corporate AmeriKan media is a dinosaur these days. 


More flaming BS (literally) from them.

"Spanish region backs flaming bull festivals; In July, had voted to ban bullfights" by Daniel Woolls, Associated Press  |  September 23, 2010

 MADRID — Lawmakers who banned bullfighting in Spain’s Catalonia region this summer voted yesterday to endorse other traditions that have been criticized as cruel to bulls, such as attaching burning sticks to their horns as they chase human thrill seekers.

The vote will affect only the Catalonia region of northeast Spain, but it addresses another manifestation of this country’s timeless fascination with bulls and the testing of people’s bravery with the snorting animals.  

Related: 

Spain Slips Out From Behind the Curtain
 
State in Spain Stops the Bulls***

Looks as if the AmeriKan MSM is facinated with it, too.

Besides watching the deadly duel of matador and bull, Spaniards run with bulls in Pamplona every year, spear them to death from horseback in another northern town — neither are in Catalonia — and cordon off town squares to let children dodge feisty calves of the kind used to breed top-grade fighter bulls.

In July, Catalonia banned bullfighting on grounds of cruelty, becoming only the second Spanish region to do away with the centuries-old tradition, after the Canary Islands.... 

The goal of the spectacles is not to harm or kill the bulls, but animal rights activists say the experience is still denigrating and terrifying for the animals and that some of the beasts get burned or even drown during such events.

Catalonia’s dominant party, a center-right nationalist coalition called Convergence and Union, says the bill — which it sponsored — seeks to fill a legal vacuum by establishing for the first time safety norms and other regulations for these festivals, including measures to protect the bulls themselves. But the legislation is widely viewed as a way to enshrine the customs and buffer them against pressure to do away with them.

Francesc Sancho, a party spokesman, insisted the customs are not cruel and can not be equated with bullfighting because the animals do not die. He said the bill seeks to protect bulls by, for instance, limiting how long such spectacles can last and having veterinarians examine the bulls afterward for signs of injury or stress....

Sancho insisted that if the Catalonia region banned bullfighting on grounds of cruelty, it only makes sense to regulate the village festivals to minimize harm to the animals.

But Alejandra Garcia, an animal rights activist who took part in a grass-roots campaign that led to the vote on banning bullfighting, said bulls do suffer in the village parties.

“And it is absolutely unnecessary because the animal is being made to suffer just as a form of entertainment, so people have something fun to do in summer. That’s all it is,’’ she said.

I always thought it was an extreme form of teasing myself.

In some seaside festivals, bulls chase thrill seekers on platforms set up along marinas and usually end up falling into the water. People in boats lead the bulls back onto ground and back onto the platform for another go at it.

Garcia said there have been instances in which bulls simply swam out to sea and drowned.

 I'm drowning in something else, readers -- and blogger's new format for editing isn't helping.

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