I checked with Norton Anti-Virus, and they are gearing up for this virus!

Little Sarah’s story

Butterball's House of Horrors

Butterball workers were documented punching and stomping on live turkeys, slamming them against walls, and worse during an undercover investigation at a Butterball slaughterhouse in Ozark, Arkansas.

One Butterball employee stomped on a bird’s head until her skull exploded, another swung a turkey against a metal handrail so hard that her spine popped out, and another was seen inserting his finger into a turkey’s cloaca (vagina).

One worker told an investigator: “If you jump on their stomachs right, they’ll pop … or their insides will come out of their [rectums],” and other Butterball workers frequently bragged about kicking and tormenting birds. Read morein the investigators’ log notes.

PETA’s investigators discovered these horrors between April and July, 2006, during an undercover investigation at a Butterball plant that slaughters approximately 50,000 birds each day.

Why Does This Abuse Happen?

Butterball turkeys are killed using a process that involves hanging live birds by their legs, shocking them in an electrified bath of water so that they become paralyzed (though they still feel pain), slitting their throats, and then running them through a tank of scalding-hot water for defeathering.

Because Butterball’s current slaughter method gives workers access to live birds, the animals often suffer when workers become frustrated or bored and desensitized, as was the case at this Butterball plant and the other poultry plants that PETA has investigated.

Even though they constitute more than 98 percent of the land animals eaten in the United States, birds are excluded from coverage under the only federal law designed to protect animals during slaughter, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA).

You Can Help Stop This!

• Automatically send a letter to your member of Congress, asking him or her to ensure that birds are covered by the HMSA. This is a simple form that just takes a minute to fill out.


• Go vegetarian today! Not eating animals is the best way to help them. Order PETA’s vegetarian starter kit full of recipes and health and shopping information today.


• Help spread the word! Send PETA’s undercover footage to your friends, family members, and coworkers.

For related news, check out Animals.

• Posted by Causecast

| http://www.causecast.org/news_items/7565-butterballs-house-of-horrors

How Divorce Wars Take A Toll On Kids

Children Are Often Caught In The Middle Between Feuding Parents

(CBS) Children often get caught up in their parents' divorce battles, forced to take sides. As Tracy Smithreports, "parental alienation" can take a serious toll on kids. 

Experts tell Smith that a child easily picks up the hostile cues of one parent toward another. And whether those cues are subtle or intentional, either way the child suffers and can carry that burden into adulthood. 

One girl who loved both parents very much but got caught in divorce crossfire is Victoria Peters. 

Her parents also loved her — so much that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and five years battling in court to win custody. 

"It was gut wrenching," remembers Victoria's father, Kevin Peters. "The whole thing was strange." 

Franny Carney, Victoria's mom, says, "It's hell. It's like living in hell." 

It was not an ordinary custody case. 

Victoria's father claims that for years, while his ex-wife had full custody, she led a campaign to turn his daughter against him, what some experts refer to as "parental alienation." 

"It's easy to teach a child to hate. Courts are now recognizing this is a serious problem," explains author Richard Warshak. "The children's affections are being poisoned against the other parent." 

Kevin says the alienation campaign began with last-minute changes to his scheduled visits with Victoria. 

"It was always an excuse that, on my weekend, there was some reason she couldn't come," Kevin says. 

But Franny says she did not deny him visits. 

"My daughter was locked in a closet when I called," Kevin tells Smith. Her mother would say, 'Lets go get in the closet. It's your dad.' " 

Months went by. Kevin lost his temper. The police were called. His visits then had to be supervised. But even then, he says, his ex-wife continued to prevent him from seeing Victoria. 

Franny contends that Kevin, who suffers from chronic depression, was emotionally unstable. 

"I was frightened of him, ya know? When he was out of line, me and my daughter hid in the back of the bathroom," Franny says. 

As charges mounted against Kevin, a court-appointed evaluator had to decide: Were these charges real or was there a concerted effort by Franny to turn Victoria against her father? 

"Parental alienation is one of the common dynamics that occurs in high-conflict cases," says Daniel Stockley, a parental evaluator. 

"The mother had difficulty, in this case, of letting go of, almost like an obsessive thought, that the child was at risk," says Stockley. 
(CBS) At 8 years old, Victoria is skilled in the language of diplomacy. "I like living with my mom and I like living with my dad, so ..." she tells Smith. 

But sometimes children are forced to take sides. 

"I couldn't love my mom and my dad at the same time. I felt bad," says Michelle Martin, an adult child of divorce. Michelle says she was alienated from her father as a child. 

"It shocked me how quickly and dramatically I changed my opinion of him. I would have nothing to do with him," she recalls. 

According to experts, Michelle's case is typical because, when pressed, she couldn't tell anyone why she was so angry. 

"He hadn't done anything to hurt me. And so, when I was asked for details, I didn't have them," she says. "I still, to this day, have to live with the mean things I said to him. The letters that I wrote to him. There are things I did purposely to hurt him." 

Victoria, who was caught in a similar crossfire, had been in therapy since she was 3, frequently accompanied by her mother. It wasn't until the therapist's notes were finally subpoenaed that a disturbing pattern emerged that turned Kevin's case around. 

"The telltale one is 'My mom says there's a side of my dad that I've never seen before, real mean.' And the therapist says, 'Have you ever seen that side?' 'No.' 'Do you believe it's there?' 'Yeah, I always believe my mom,' " says Kevin's attorney, Robert Fry. 

Page after page of citations documented Victoria's growing fear and distress. 

"The evidence was overwhelming that the relationship with the father was beginning to suffer," says Stockley. 

In April 2005, in a startling decision, the court found that "an immediate change of custody appears to be in the best interest of the child" and Kevin was awarded full custody of Victoria. 

"I was excited and stunned a little bit at the same time," Kevin remembers. 

Ironically, it is Franny Carney, who now, because of what the court saw as alienating behavior, cannot see her daughter without a supervisor. 

"I raised her for seven and a half years. I was involved in every area of her life," Franny says. 

The court did not deny that she was a conscientious parent but the ruling made clear Victoria needed to see both her parents. The daughter Franny fought so hard to protect is living with her father 

"I just come in to the house and I sit down and I cry," says Franny. 

Victoria is reluctant to talk about any of it now. "I just mind my own business. 
I love them both. It doesn't matter whose side I am on," she says. 

As for Kevin, he's just happy for every moment he has with his daughter. 

"I don't want her to think I'm a Superman or a hero or anything. I just want her to, you know, say 'My dad did what he was supposed to do,' " Kevin tells Smith, crying. 

Experts say alienation can happen with both moms and dads. But this concept is still very controversial because charges of parental alienation have been used falsely in the past to defend fathers who really are abusive. And if the courts believe them, the abusive dads can get their children back. 

---

On Friday, Smith will report on what decades of research have taught us about how to have a happier marriage.

 

©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

See video~ http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2007321n

Obama's green jobs revolution

Obama's green jobs revolution

Democrat will lead effort to curb world's dependence on oil; Plans to create five million new posts in clean energy projects

By Geoffrey Lean in San Francisco and Leonard Doyle in Washington 
Sunday, 2 November 2008

GETTY IMAGES

Obama has pledged to create five million new 'green collar jobs' if elected

•  ENLARGE

• Barack Obama is promising a $150bn "Apollo project" to bring jobs and energy security to the US through a new alternative energy economy, if his final push for votes brings victory in the presidential election on Tuesday.

"That's going to be my number one priority when I get into office," Mr Obama has said of his "green recovery" plans. Making his arguments in a radio address yesterday, the Democratic favourite promised: "If you give me your vote on Tuesday, we won't just win this election. Together, we will change this country and change the world."

The election has come during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but he declared: "We'll invest $15bn a year over the next decade in renewable energy, creating five million new green jobs that pay well, can't be outsourced and help end our dependence on foreign oil." The appeal of the idea that clean energy could help to kick-start the economy is such that Mr Obama's Republican opponent, John McCain, has also promised "millions" of green jobs if he wins.

That was looking less likely yesterday, despite Republican strategists predicting a historic upset victory as they pointed to polls showing Mr Obama's lead narrowing in "must-win" states such as Ohio. Despite the growing confidence of the Obama campaign, Mr McCain's forces are now engaged in a massive final effort, making 17 million phone calls or door knocks at the homes of carefully targeted voters in the dying hours of the election.

Mr McCain's final blitz will see him make stops in seven states tomorrow. As he told a small crowd of voters at the weekend: "The pundits, my friends, have written us off as they've done before. But we're closing... and we're going to win Ohio." A major handicap he faces, however, is a surge in early voting by Democrats – a reversal of the pattern that delivered George Bush his 2004 victory. In Florida alone, 200,000 more Democrats have already voted than Republicans, and a high turnout – predictions are that 130 million Americans will vote, the largest number since 1960 – is thought to favour Mr Obama.

In the mayhem of the election campaign, Mr Obama has yet to deliver a major speech about his renewable energy plans. But he has pledged to create five million new "green collar jobs", largely by greatly expanding the use of renewable energy, which should supply a tenth of America's electricity within four years, insulating a million homes a year and to put a million rechargeable "plug-in hybrid cars" on the road by 2015.

He also wants the US motor industry to take a lead in producing environmentally friendly vehicles rather than 4x4s. He promises to invest in clean engine technology, to increase America's hitherto lax car fuel economy standards by 4 per cent a year, and to boost sales of green cars by giving a $7,000 tax credit to people who buy them. And he has pledged to convert the White House fleet to plug-in hybrids within a year of taking office.

There is growing acceptance from economists in the US that a Green "New Deal" should be a fundamental part of the solution to the financial crisis and to America's long-term security concerns.

At the same time, British ministers are planning a huge increase in environmentally friendly investment as a central part of its economic rescue plan. Japan's Prime Minister, Taro Aso, has called the green economy "a great opportunity for new growth". And plans are being laid in the Australian treasury for a 3,000 per cent growth in green jobs over the next decades.

But it is the American plans that could have the greatest effect in dragging the world economy out of crisis. Mr Obama believes that a new clean-energy economy "can be the engine that drives us into the future in the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades".

The head of Mr Obama's transition team, John Podesta, has called for "a new vision for the economic revitalisation of the nation and a restoration of America's leadership in the world", adding: "We must seize this precious opportunity to mobilise the country and the international community towards a brighter and more prosperous future."

Interesting? Click here to explore further

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obamas-green-jobs-revolution-984631.html

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: The Powerful Cycling Mothers of Japan

Copenhagenize.com - The Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog: The Powerful Cycling Mothers of Japan

Ben Kingsley's new slate of films announced

Plenty for Ben Kingsley to do in the next few years. See what he's doing now, including his portrayal of Vice President Charles Curtis. 

How important are your human rights?

How important are the human rights of people you will never know?

See the film Castro does not want you to see. A film shot unauthorized in Cuba by American filmmakers, see Cuba “in the raw” as you follow this love story through the streets of Havana, you see the condition of the Cuban people as they suffer under communism. Do your part and keep indie voices alive. Expose the truth, keep human rights top priority.

http://www.MoroFilms.com | Love & Suicide the movie.