…for finding this funny?
A horse had to be cut free with a chainsaw after it managed to get its head stuck in a tree.
The young filly needed to be freed from the tree after curiosity got the better of it and it wedged its head between separate sections of the trunk.
Although in my defence, I would have been horrified if it had been unable to free the horse, or if it had been badly hurt (it just suffered a few cuts).
I have a very long way to catch up with Luis Soriano, who brings his mobile library from village to village in Colombia.
“I started out with 70 books, and now I have a collection of more than 4,800,” said Soriano, 36, a primary school teacher who lives in a small house here with his wife and three children, with books piled to the ceilings.
“This began as a necessity, then it became an obligation, and after that a custom,” he explained, squinting at the hills undulating into the horizon. “Now,” he said, “it is an institution.”
I haven’t quite got to the “piled to the ceilings” point, although I do have a few hundred books scattered about the place and in some interesting, if impractical for use, stacks.
Cory Doctrow doesn’t seem too impressed with Britain’s plan to require passports for the purchase of mobile phones; the move is aimed primarily at prepaid/pay-as-you-go phones. His objections are understandable enough, given the implications for civil liberties. As The Times reports:
The pay-as-you-go phones are popular with criminals and terrorists because their anonymity shields their activities from the authorities. But they are also used by thousands of law-abiding citizens who wish to communicate in private.
The move aims to close a loophole in plans being drawn up by GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, to create a huge database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.
The “Big Brother” database would have limited value to police and MI5 if it did not store details of the ownership of more than half the mobile phones in the country.
I understand the concerns, I really do. However, I had to provide a copy of my passport when I went to buy a mobile in the UAE (and had to provide a copy or the original document for just about anything) and didn’t find it a big deal. I’m certainly someone who enjoys his privacy, so I guess I was just rolling with it. That said I’m fairly sure the UAE didn’t keep my details for use by the intelligence services.
I’m not the only one. Techcrunch has been having similar problems with its feeds, although I must report that as of late last night I have been getting error messages only next to one or two, and, although the red exclamation mark of woe is still there, these have still updated until today.
Family faces eviction over Hallowe’en display. (Irish Independent)
Gap widens between British and Irish fortunes — for now. (Slugger O’Toole)
Cork and Cobh are rated dirtiest. (The Irish Times)
Low budget Lollywood zombies invade India. (The National)
A powerful memorial. (Jeff Jarvis)
ArtSunday: The nonlinearity of influence. (Scholars and Rogues)
Yahoo plans cost-cutting moves, layoffs. (CNet)
Some papers in financial trouble are leaving the AP to cut costs. (International Herald Tribune)
Dark Roasted Blend has a really nice selection of castles built everywhen from medieval times to the 20th century. Pierrefonds is one of my favourites, although the German ones have a certain something.