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November 24, 2008 | Evening Edition |
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Michael Markarian: Animals & Politics |  |
| Sarah Palin’s Fowl Bit of Levity Posted: 24 Nov 2008 09:45 AM CST
It's no secret that animals are killed for food. What we are troubled by is Palin's jovial tone as these creatures are being slaughtered—what she calls "a little bit of levity." Whether you think it's appropriate or not to slaughter animals for food, never should it be treated as a joke, nor anything less than a serious moral matter. Marc Lester of the Anchorage Daily News has video of the pre-slaughter "pardoning," which hasn't been as widely distributed. When reading her Thanksgiving pardon proclamation, Palin says she is a "friend to all creatures great and small"—but elbows the farmer next to her in the ribs as if to emphasize the big joke. As Time magazine's Ana Marie Cox said on MSNBC's "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann, "She does have this very special relationship with animals…it involves blood usually."
If there's any silver lining to the latest Palin interaction with animals, it just might cause people to think about the plight of turkeys. In today's factory farms, turkeys are overcrowded in automated, barren poultry houses, without the ability to engage in natural behaviors. They are bred to grow at an unnaturally rapid pace to unprecedented weights, causing skeletal, muscular, and leg disorders. The U.S. Department of Agriculture currently applies the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act only to mammals, and refuses to extend these basic federal protections to the nearly ten billion turkeys, chickens, and other poultry raised for food each year. The gory scenes in Palin's video are actually much less severe than we'd see at a major turkey factory farm. This Thanksgiving week, The Humane Society of the United States is reminding people about the Three R's of holiday eating: Refine the methods of industrial farm animal production to minimize pain and distress to animals; reduce the amount of meat, egg, and dairy products for a more sustainable diet; and replace animal products with vegetarian options when possible. Only through a combination of public policy reform, corporate innovation, and consumer demand will we reduce the suffering of farm animals. |
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CBS NEWS STS-126 STATUS REPORT: 64
Posted: 2:20 PM, 11/24/08
By William Harwood
CBS News Space Analyst
Changes and additions:
SR-61 (11/24/08): Astronauts gear up for final spacewalk; urine processor troubleshooting continues
SR-62 (11/24/08): Shuttle mission extended one day
SR-63 (11/24/08): Spacewalk begins
SR-64 (11/24/08): Inspection of port SARJ shows signs of wear on bearing race
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2:20 PM, 11/24/08, Update: Inspection of port SARJ shows signs of wear on bearing race
Astronauts inspecting the space station's left-side solar alpha rotary joint, or SARJ, prior to lubrication intended as preventive maintenance, reported seeing signs of wear on a bearing race that appears similar to, though not nearly as extensive as, damage to the right-side SARJ.
The astronauts spent most of the first three spacewalks of Endeavour's mission cleaning and lubricating the starboard SARJ's three bearing races and installing new trundle bearing assemblies to reduce friction and fatigue-inducing vibration. One bearing race, called the outer canted surface, was heavily damaged by pressure-loaded rollers in the bearing assemblies because of a lubrication failure.
The port SARJ has been operating normally and Kimbrough plans to spend most of today's spacewalk applying lubrication as preventive maintenance. But during an inspection before the work began, Bowen reported seeing signs of wear on the port SARJ's outer canted surface.
"If you look at the outer canted surface, you can see two dark lines, one above and one below the track where the trundle bearings are riding, it looks at though there is some wear where the trundle bearings are riding," Bowen said. "You can see ... a little wear pattern in there that's sort of a junior version of what we have on the other side."
The SARJ mechanisms are critical to space station power generation, rotating outboard solar panels to keep them face-on to the sun as the lab orbits the Earth. The damaged right-side SARJ can no longer operate in auto-track mode, but engineers hope the cleaning, lubrication and bearing replacement carried out during Endeavour's mission will permit occasional sun-tracking to improve power output.
The port SARJ has been operating normally, although Bowen's report today would seem to indicate the planned lubrication could be of more immediate benefit than initially thought.
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Quick-Launch Web Links:
CBS News STS-126 Status Reports:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
CBS News STS-126 Quick-Look Page:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html
NASA ISS Expeditions Page:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/index.html
NASA Shuttle Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html
NASA Station Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.html
Spaceflight Now: http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html
GoogleSatTrack: http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/tracking/
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Here are today's top stories from VOA Africa. To listen or watch one of our programs or to read more visit our website at www.voaafrica.com. | ||||||||||||
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CBS NEWS STS-126 STATUS REPORT: 63
Posted: 1:25 PM, 11/24/08
By William Harwood
CBS News Space Analyst
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Changes and additions:
SR-60 (11/23/08): Urine processor shuts down again; troubleshooting continues
SR-61 (11/24/08): Astronauts gear up for final spacewalk; urine processor troubleshooting continues
SR-62 (11/24/08): Shuttle mission extended one day
SR-63 (11/24/08): Spacewalk begins
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1:25 PM, 11/24/08, Update: Spacewalk begins
Astronauts Stephen Bowen and Robert "Shane" Kimbrough switched their spacesuits to internal battery power at 1:24 p.m., about 20 minutes ahead of schedule, to officially kick off a planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the fourth and final EVA planned for the shuttle Endeavour's crew.
This is the 118th EVA devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998 and the 19th this year. Going into today's excursion, the shuttle crew had logged 20 hours and 34 minutes of spacewalk time, pushing the station's total to 739 hours and 23 minutes.
For identification, Kimbrough's spacesuit features broken red stripes on the legs. His radio call sign is EV-3 and views from his helmet camera will have the number 16 in the lower right corner. Bowen's suit is unmarked, his call sign is EV-2 and his helmet cam is No. 18.
After attaching safety tethers, Bowen and Kimbrough will make their way to the station's left-side solar alpha rotary joint, or SARJ, to remove thermal covers around the mechanism's 10-foot-wide drive gear. While Kimbrough works to lubricate the gear's bearing races, Bowen will be working on the opposite side of the solar power truss to install a final bearing assembly in the damaged right-side SARJ and to finish cleaning and lubricating the joint.
See the 9:10 a.m. update for a detailed overview of today's spacewalk.
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Quick-Launch Web Links:
CBS News STS-126 Status Reports:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
CBS News STS-126 Quick-Look Page:
http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/currentglance.html
NASA ISS Expeditions Page:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/index.html
NASA Shuttle Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/index.html
NASA Station Web: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/index.html
Spaceflight Now: http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html
GoogleSatTrack: http://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/tracking/
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