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Saturday, December 13, 2003

Keiko Dies

USATODAY reports :: Keiko the killer whale, star of 'Free Willy' movies, dies

Keiko of Free Willy fame has died in a Norwegian bay. He died after a bout of pneumonia. His caretaker Dane Richards told The Associated Press that the illness struck the 25-foot mammal fairly quickly. He is said to be about 26 years old. Keiko was believed to have ben born in 1977 or 1978. In the wild, killer whales can live an average of 35 years.
Keiko, which means "Lucky One" in Japanese, was captured near Iceland in 1979 and sold to the marine park industry. Keiko's stardom came from the three Free Willy films, in which a young boy befriends a captive killer whale and persuades him to jump over a sea park wall to freedom. The movement to free Keiko started in 1993 after he was found ailing in a Mexico City aquarium. He was rehabilitated at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, then airlifted to Iceland in 1998.
His handlers rehabilitated him for the wild, teaching him to catch live fish in an operation that cost about US$500,000 a month. That same amount paid for a year of care in Norway, according to the Free Willy Foundation in San Francisco.
In July 2002, Keiko, was released from Iceland in the hope that he would return to the wild. But he swam straight for Norway on a 870-mile trek that seemed to be a search for human companionship.
Norway, the only country that hunts whales for profit, Keiko's choice was a shock to many fans, who feared that whalers would go after him. But Orcas are protected in Norway, which only hunts minke whales, and authorities assured the world he was safe.
But now it is time to say goodbye to Keiko for in a way he is finally free.

| ¶ 12/13/2003 08:53:00 PM

Thursday, December 11, 2003

StellaAwards.com

The Stella Awards were inspired by Stella Liebeck. In 1992, Stella, then 79, spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee onto her lap, burning herself. A New Mexico jury awarded her $2.9 million in damages, but that's not the whole story. Ever since, the name "Stella Award" has been applied to any wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits -- including bogus cases!
To find out more and for a free subscription goto SellaAwards.com.
Here's a sample of what you get with the subscription ::

A Dog Eat Dog World
by Randy Cassingham

Doug Baker, 45, of Portland, Ore., said he met "Fremont" while driving four years ago. The German Shepherd was in the road, cars swerving around him. He was limping. Baker says he believes God steered him to the dog, and he stopped to pick the animal up. "Our eyes met, and we connected," he says. "My life's never been the same."
Baker spent $4,000 in vet bills to get the dog well. "People thought I was crazy," he remembers, "but I'm telling you, God wanted me to save him."
Baker, who lived on a houseboat, would leave the dog with Lisa Klein, his girlfriend, during the night and bring him to his office during the day. "He was with one of us nearly 24 hours a day, and he really only trusted us," he says. "He was scared of people." Indeed the dog had a "reputation" for lunging and snapping at strangers.
When he had to go out, Baker would hire a dog sitter. In September, Baker took Klein to dinner and paid the dog sitter $30 to watch Fremont. When they got home, they found a message from the sitter: Fremont had run away. A truck driving by backfired and scared the skittish dog, and he got out of the yard -- through an open gate, Baker alleges.
Baker went far beyond the usual procedure of looking for the dog and putting "Lost and Found" ads in the newspaper. He bought a display ad so he could include a photo. He offered a $1000 reward. He circulated fliers and put up a web site.
Then it gets drastic. He let his auto repair shop go out of business so he could devote full time to the search. To pay the search expenses, he started taking early disbursements from his retirement fund. He says he had planned to ask Klein to marry him by tying an engagement ring to Fremont's collar so he could "deliver" it to her, but since the dog wasn't there to do that he postponed the engagement.
Then it gets weird. Baker hired an animal tracker to follow the dog's scent. The tracker declared the dog had been bducted, so Baker hired four different "animal psychics" to divine where the dog was. Each session cost $55 to $100, and every one of them said they "communicated" with the animal. But when their leads came to a dead end, Baker hired a witch to cast spells to bring Fremont home.
Then it gets scary. "I went out and put my own urine in the area where Fremont was last seen," Baker says, reasoning "he might smell my scent and then stay put."
By day 60, Baker had spent over $20,000 on finding Fremont. Shortly after that, the Portland Oregonian newspaper ran a long story on his search, just as Baker was ready to hire a fifth psychic. The story noted he cries over Fremont every day, and has a hard time going into his dining room because of memories of Fremont being in there.
But Baker got his happy ending: two days after the newspaper article ran someone who saw the story phoned in a tip. Baker went to the neighborhood the tipster suggested and found Fremont in the street, about two miles from where he had disappeared. Baker's vet says the dog very likely roamed the area for the two months he was gone -- he was apparently not "abducted" at all.
Well, that's not really the end -- if it was, this wouldn't be the Stella Awards. That's right: Baker is suing.
Although upon finding Fremont he told the newspaper "All I want to do now is rebuild my life," apparently he wants someone else to pay for that rebuilding. Two days after getting the dog back Baker and Klein hired Geordie Duckler, a Portland attorney who says he's the only Oregon attorney to specialize in representing pet owners. Duckler brags that
he has 50 open cases and has represented animals from birds to alligators.
Duckler has filed suit against Lisa Dunbar, the pet sitter, in Multnomah County Circuit Court demanding $160,000: $20,000 for the cost of his search, $30,000 for the income he lost by letting his business collapse, $10,000 for "the temporary loss of the special value of Fremont based on his qualities, characteristics and pedigree," and $100,000 in "emotional damages".
"I lived a nightmare," Baker says. "Yesterday was the first day I didn't cry, and last night was the first night I didn't go out and scream."
At a news conference, Duckler said he hopes the lawsuit "helps redefine personal-property laws," saying pet sitters should be held to "a higher standard of care" than people watching, say, someone's car.
Dunbar of course has hired an attorney to help defend her, and says her lawyer has told her not to comment on the case. "All I can say is they are lying," she told the Oregonian, "and they're taking advantage of the media." While the suit says she didn't do enough to help find Fremont, she says she "was out looking from the minute it happened. I even took time off from work to help look."
People indeed can form close, loving, even deep bonds with their pets. But who thinks it's reasonable to spend over $20,000 to find a lost dog, and let their business fail in the meantime? Obviously one person did think it was worth it -- and that's his decision to make. Once he made that decision, he needs to live with its consequences. He knew his dog was skittish around strangers. The newspaper reported that the first thing he did when he found the dog was put a collar on him; didn't he take the most basic precaution of having tags on the dog all along so that if he did get lost, his owner could be found? And if it was "God's will" for him to find the dog in the first place, why wasn't it "God's will" for him to lose it later? Perhaps Baker "lived a nightmare," but now he has gone and created a far, far worse nightmare for the woman who tried to look after his cowering animal. Surely that's not part of God's plan.

SOURCES:

1) "Looking for Fremont", Portland Oregonian, 30 November 2003

2) "Love, Search for Dog Priceless in End", Portland Oregonian, 4 December 2003

3) "Owner Sues Pet Sitter in Loss of Dog", Portland Oregonian, 6 December 2003

If you like reading such stories once in awhile, why not take out a free subscription @ SellaAwards.com.

| ¶ 12/11/2003 05:17:00 PM

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

UK Teenagers facing a Health Time Bomb

Sarah Boseley, health editor of The Guardian has this to report on the teenagers of the UK ::

20% of young people aged 13-16 are overweight
25% of 15 and 16 year olds smoke
1 in 5 adolescents may have had psychological problems
10% of teenagers between 16 and 19 may be infected with chlamydia
3% of women conceive under the age of 20
15% or fewer girls aged 13 to 15 eat recommended amounts of fruit and vegetables
11% of those between 11 and 15 in England have used drugs at least once in the last year
10.5 units of alcohol are consumed each week on average by those aged 11-15 in England who drink
4% of young people aged 11-15 say they have used class A drugs in the last year
13 of every 100,000 people aged 15-19 commit suicide each year
26% of 16- to19-year-old women first had intercourse before the age of 16, compared with 30% of men

The figures are very disturbing, though we just cannot extrapolate the UK figures to the local scene. A life of drugs, booze, junk food and sexual promiscuity is leading adolescents towards record obesity and infertility, warn UK doctors. These teenagers are falling through the gap between services provided for those who are younger or older than they are. There is obviously a need for a service which targets these teenage time bombs.

Further comments on BMA report by John O'Farrell

| ¶ 12/10/2003 10:41:00 AM

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

Our drugs do not work on most patients

The above was said by none other than, Allen Roses, the vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), one of Britain's biggest drugs company. This must come as a big surprise for members of the public but it is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients.

Response rates

Therapeutic area: drug efficacy rate in per cent

Alzheimer's: 30
Analgesics (Cox-2): 80
Asthma: 60
Cardiac Arrythmias: 60
Depression (SSRI): 62
Diabetes: 57
Hepatits C (HCV): 47
Incontinence: 40
Migraine (acute): 52
Migraine (prophylaxis)50
Oncology: 25
Rheumatoid arthritis50
Schizophrenia: 60

To read the entire article go here

In a related issue, Bernama reported that USM is Developing a Genetic-based Dosage Test. Studies had shown that not all medicines and their dosages were suitable for every patient and in this case, the genetics factor played an important role in determining the compatibility of the medicine with the patient. The genetic-based dosage test would enable an individual to know whether the dosage of a particular medicine is suitable for his or her body.

| ¶ 12/09/2003 01:54:00 PM

Criticising MINIster - Boleh Tak Boleh

The verbal war between the Entrepreneur Development MINIster Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz.and ACA Enforcement Director Datuk Nordin Ismail has taken a new twist. The MINIster reportedly said yesterday that there is a paragraph in the General Orders which states that a public officer cannot criticise MINIsters. Datuk Seri MINIster, Sir, can you please show us this paragraph. Oh yes, the Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Samsudin Osman, the KSU, said Monday :: "As far as I know, there is none." So may be you need not look too hard, Datuk Seri MINIster, Sir.
The KSU also had these to say :: "However, it is not the practice among government officers to criticise ministers as they were the administrators" and "It was out of place for civil servants to criticise MINIsters as they (MINIsters) have to abide by their own code of ethics and were only answerable to the Prime Minister." This is where you are wrong, Tan Sri KSU, for the MINIsters and even the PM are ultimately answerable to the people, right people? Now we seem to have it right and proper. Also for the info of the MINIster and KSU, most days the people while having their cuppa in the warungs, kopitiams, Starbucks...guess what they are also doing while seeping...they are engaging in their favourite past-time :: MINIster bashing and critisising.
Oh yes, Tan Sri KSU, as you have brought it up; could we, please have, a copy of this code of ethics for the MINIsters in order that we can know when the MINIsters run foul of the "code". And while you are at it, would you like to consider a code of ethics for the people too, on how to relate to MINIsters and not engage in those activities in the warungs, kopitiams and Starbucks. Thank you.
The Entrepreneur Development MINIster reportedly also said that he would raise in the Cabinet the provision that barred civil servants from criticising MINIsters. He said the provision was in force during the administration of the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, Malaysia's second Prime Minister. Now that would be rather difficult for the people to check on.
Read moore about this verbal war here @ mgg

| ¶ 12/09/2003 09:51:00 AM