Be Careful – Firefox + Excite Mail Warning

The interface appears to have a serious glitch when it comes to deletion of messages.

You can accidentally erase messages !

It happened to me a few times. I was impatient with the sluggish interface and clicked on messages to read them only to see them get deleted, instead of the messages I had previously chosen for deletion.

I had chosen to have deleted messages moved to the Trash folder so there isn’t much harm done. But I thought i’d mention it anyway.

A question of math…

336,000 harp seals were hunted in Canada in 2006

224,745 harp seals were hunted in 2007.

206,000 harp seals were hunted in 2008.

How exactly does this add up to “nearly a million in three years” ?

This estimate appears on blog after blog and site after site, most with requests to send letters to our current prime minister. It can even be found on the HSUS and IFAW sites.

(edited Sep 24th, reversed the 2007 and 2008 figures)

To Hell With Manners! The Decline of Civility.

Argh ! This documentary passed and went and I didn’t notice. It aired on September 20th on CTV and I would have liked to see it.

Oh well, I’m hoping it be broadcast again and if I run into scheduling information in advance, i’ll post it.

IFAW’s July 2008 Survey

IFAW hired Environics Research to poll Canadians this year about the seal hunt at now boast a high rate of support against the seal hunt in Canada. And do you know what the first question was ?

“A commercial seal hunt in Canada which has killed more than one million seals over the last four years takes place. Do you support or oppose the commercial hunting of seals off Canada’s Atlantic coast? Would that be strongly or somewhat support/oppose?”

That’s right, they started the whole poll with a statement using a figure without putting it into context by providing the estimated population.

The actual questions that followed the statement were not dependent on people knowing that over a million seals were hunted over four years. The 2160 respondents would have been able to respond without it and 8% claimed they didn’t know or refused to answer even after the statement was included.

BTW, 14% of those polled claimed they “strongly support” the hunt and 25% claimed they “somewhat support” the hunt, in response to that first question.

Source – IFAW Technical Briefing 2008-02, Dated July 11th, 2008

IFAW’s March 2001 Report

IFAW are reworking their site I guess cause I can’t access it via the url I bookmarked.

Click here for another source. I’ve updated my previous links to this source as well.

Half baked questions from the anti-sealing activists on Youtube

“How Would You Feel If You Got Killed ?”

I wouldn’t be alive to feel anything !

“How would you like to be clubbed ?”

Well, seals are rendered unconscious when clubbed according to the EFSA so I’d again feel nothing.

“How would you feel if a loved one was killed in front of you ?”

Harp seal pups are not killed in front of their fathers or mothers during the commercial hunt !

Harp seal males don’t hang around their offspring because they’re too busy mating and harp seal females abruptly leave their seal pups at two weeks because they haven’t eaten in two weeks. These females never return. Marine biologists will confirm this information.

Seals under two weeks of age are also not legally hunted in Canada and according to the EFSA report, 95% of these seals are 1 to 3.5 months of age. They learn to swim and hunt at 4 weeks.

“Don’t you want to protect threatened species ?”

Definitely but the harp seal isn’t threatened according to the IUCN, the body that determines the conservation status of any species – The current conservation status of the harp seal is LC (“least concern”), this being the lowest level.

Youtube Comment Problems

Well, it appears that Youtube is having problems with its comment posting system, outside of the cookie issue i’ve had. I’ve had two comments fail to a specific video and had asumed I had been blocked. I wasn’t.

So keep an eye on your comments. If it hasn’t progressed beyond the “Post Comment” icon, repost it.

My Music Video Fan Blog

Just thought i’d bump my other blog : A Music Video Fan’s Blog

I had thought of randomly adding comments here about my favorite music video DVDs but I prefered Blogger to do that, keeping this blog for general comments, etc.

I might eventually move this blog over to my website to add additional features in the future but it’ll be here for a while.

Excite Mail Woes

There isn’t much to be excited about with the new Excite mail these days.

It has become tediously sluggish. It now takes a few seconds to access and delete individual messages. It is utterly ridiculous.

I think i’ll be moving on to another provider…

American Arrogance

There seems to be another common thread when it comes to the American activists : This belief that Canada needs to have a lesson in “ethics” when it comes to our environment. Well…

• IFAW was founded in the province of New Brunswick in 1969
• Greenpeace was founded in the city of Vancouver in 1971
• The Canadian Environmental Network was founded in 1977
• Farley Mowat was required reading in school when I was a teen (he was my favorite)
• David Suzuki has been a popular television personality for decades here in Canada

There is no lack of environmentalism in Canada. There is no lack of concern when it comes to cruelty either. It’s just that the American lobby groups want a piece of the Canadian pie – They want a share of the donations and political influence that our domestic groups have.

The SPCA and real Humane Societies here in Canada are doing an excellent job handling Animal cruelty cases. We don’t need American lobby groups and their agendas.