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offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

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Human Rights in Ireland
Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Rip The Chicken Tree - 1800s - 2025 [1] Tue Nov 04, 2025 03:48 | Mark

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Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Harriet Harman?s Bullying and Harassment Review Will Harass Lawyers Everywhere Tue Nov 11, 2025 09:00 | Stephen Willmer
Harriet Harman's review of bullying and harassment for the Bar Council has, predictably, found a 'massive' problem and made dozens of nannying recommendations. But less than 1% of lawyers replied, says Stephen Willmer.
The post Harriet Harman’s Bullying and Harassment Review Will Harass Lawyers Everywhere appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The BBC Can?t Be Reformed ? Its Purpose is Propaganda and Disinformation Tue Nov 11, 2025 07:00 | Ben Pile
The BBC has been caught producing Verified bullshit. It may well even be reformulating its position on climate change. But the corporation can't be reformed, says Ben Pile. Its purpose is propaganda and disinformation.
The post The BBC Can’t Be Reformed ? Its Purpose is Propaganda and Disinformation appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Tue Nov 11, 2025 00:44 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Memories of the Way We Were Mon Nov 10, 2025 19:45 | Graham Cunningham
What have 70 years of liberal 'progress' done to us? Graham Cunningham looks back on the England of his youth and sees a society that, while not perfect, had strengths and charms that are now almost gone forever.
The post Memories of the Way We Were appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Olympics Set to Ban Transgender Athletes from All Women?s Events Mon Nov 10, 2025 17:34 | Will Jones
The Olympics is set to ban transgender athletes from all female competition following a science-based review of evidence that reportedly showed there are irreversible physical advantages to being born male.
The post Olympics Set to Ban Transgender Athletes from All Women’s Events appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

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offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

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Female Chimps Spear Bush Babies!

category international | sci-tech | other press author Thursday February 22, 2007 20:37author by R. Isible Report this post to the editors

New evidence of tool use originating from female chimpanzees

Current Biology reports on a population of monkeys which have been observed to use spears in their hunting of bush babies. It seems the tool use is primarily by female chimpanzees. AP have a report that captures most of the info at the link at the bottom of the page. There's also a National Geographic summary and linked video available here:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070222-chimps-spears.html

Action at a distance predation is speculated to be important for hominid evolution [1] because the problem of predicting where/how to throw an object to intercept another moving object requires large computational power in the brain (early attempts to work this out for fire-control systems in anti-aircraft batteries in WW2 led to the development of the statistical approach to communications engineering e.g. time-series and proved to be difficult).

Previous observations with chimpanzees mostly involved throwing stones to distract/scare adults from their young [2]

1. Isaac, B. (1983). African Archaeological Review 5(1), 3-17 "Throwing and human evolution"
2. Plooij, F. X. (1978). Carnivore 1, 103-106 "Tool use during Chimpanzee's bush-pig hunt"

Related Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070222/sc_nm/chimps_hunting_dc
author by pat cpublication date Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:57author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Dunno about the bonobos, they won't fight back. But, hey, try and capture these Chimps for bushmeat and you'll get a spear in the belly! Maybe they will form a guerilla army.

author by Catladypublication date Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:51author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Yep, I saw it on the telly!!!

Crows were given a glass bottle with a piece of food inside, and a straight piece of wire. They figured out (quite quickly if I remember correctly) that to get the food out, they had to manipulate the wire by bending one end before sticking it into the bottle to retrieve the food. Fascinating stuff... Can't give a reference to the programme as I honestly don't remember, but I think it was on Animal Planet, maybe about six months ago.

Time perhaps to open this thread too, on Bonobos - a more peaceful cousin of ours: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77573

author by redjadepublication date Fri Feb 23, 2007 00:01author address author phone Report this post to the editors

This is big news - no, really!

'primitive' tools lead to war, war leads to more tools and more tools lead to war.

the chimps were smart not to start an arm's race and be satisfied with sucking ants off sticks. Other primates made a complex bad choice a long time ago and now the world suffers.

we could make peace now - and aside from not driving chimps and our other cousins into extinction, we could just offer them seats on the UN Permanent Security Council. But, they wont get there until they have nukes - they will have to wait in line after the Iranians.

There is a larger issue here however - there's an athiest meme that comes from the scientific community that what separates 'us' from 'them' is that 'we' developed tools.

true, but this is shallow thinking, me thinks.

Tools are not just sticks and stones that can break another chimp's bones - but it's the babel lunacy that hurts us.

Tools are not tools without the imagination that sees them as tools.

Humans are complex symbol makers - and out of that, we conquered the world and kept the chimps in their place - remember the Hobbits of Indonesia and how we humans wiped them out? We humans don't like competition

Symbols. Making them means making more symbols to explain those symbols - and so it goes.

A rock is just a rock - until someone calls it a hammer or calls it a weapon or calls a pet.

Time to revive this thread from the past?:
Socialists: Give apes human rights
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75708


. .. ... .. .

'Bush Babies' is not only a racist epithet (a.k.a Galago)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galago

Bush Babies: Are they With US or Are They Against Us?
Bush Babies: Are they With US or Are They Against Us?

author by R. Isiblepublication date Thu Feb 22, 2007 20:46author address author phone Report this post to the editors

It's what's wrapped up in a whole load of annoying javascript on the national geographic site.

Related Link: http://fjord.nationalgeographic.com/news/070222-chimp-video.asf
 
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