Colombian rat to space

By Julián Ortega Martínez
2 November 2006 20:01 COT
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Lab rat (Photo credit: Janet Stephens, public domain)

Hermes, a lab rat, is being trained in Boyacá, central Colombia, by a psychologist, in order to be part of a space mission. Astronomer (and astrologist) Hernán Charry, the leader of the team, said Hermes will be released in a rocket which should reach a height of 85 km.

Besides to getting used to the centrifugal force, the little animal is put under a hard psychological training so it can  "drive a device to open the rocket and [Hermes] can come down to Earth again with a parachute". The launch is set to early 2008, according to Caracol Radio.

By the way, is Hermes being treated well? What are Charry (who founded his research by making astral charts) and his team aiming for? What happened with Libertad I, that Álvaro Leyva (a Colombian politician) rocket? Will Charry join him and National University to the "Colombian space career"?

Friendship is in the air

By Julián Ortega Martínez
25 September 2006 19:24 COT
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Source: elsitiodevicti.blogspot.comWell, well, well. The last few days, in spite of my busy schedule (what schedule?), things have improved a little bit for me, emotionally speaking. I’m finally starting to "unfall" in love with my best friend… hope things keep this way, so we can finally become the best friends of the world, without those "strange" feelings from me towards her…

On the other side, my gorgeous Canadian friend (the "saved by the cold" one) became twenty-something-years-old on Wednesday…  she has been through a lot of things, but she also had a great time on her special day… and, in spite of some depressive thoughts -which assail everyone once in a while-, she realized how happy she is for having such good friends. And that makes me really happy too…

My grandma, my cousin, me, and my uncle

On Friday there was this ceremony of a local internet awards we had been nominated to. We didn’t win, but we had a good time, chatted a while, had some wine and talked a lot of stuff about the future of our project. We’re going "big", but I can’t tell anything yet, hehe…  Definitively, friendship is on the air these days… ah, and the best of all is that today I found some pictures of my graduation last year… (ラッキー!!)

Torture in China, rescue in Lebanon

By Julián Ortega Martínez
10 August 2006 15:21 COT
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Chinese officer throws a just executed dog into a truck (AP)

"There’s always trouble lurking in the shadows", people use to say. Even animals cannot be saved from the horrors of the war nor the cruelty and the paranoia held by the arrogant human being.

In March, a Chinese blogger crusade allowed to know the whereabouts of a woman who appeared in an internet video killing a cat with her shoes’ heels. Nevertheless, the next superpower -for some people- seems not to want to do a thing to improve her animal protection zero history. The kitten killer gave herself up to the authorities, but there are no laws to protect animals from cruelty in China. Two weeks ago, a Southern China county ordered the sacrifice of more than 50,000 dogs because a rabies outbreak which had left as a result three people so far. Not even the vaccined dogs were saved, because in China forging animal vaccines is a common practice. Using the most brutal methods in some cases, government officers, by hitting, electrocuting and kicking them, murdered a lot of pets. In the middle of the night, in order to avoid the pet owners who were hiding them to got their way, officers made noise so the dogs had to bark and, this way, be found and executed. The worst of all this issue is that another Chinese town is considering to commit the same massacre. This is the face of the nation which is intended to "own" the 21st century.

Kitten abandoned in Tyre, Lebanon

On the other side, hundreds of volunteers from everywhere are arriving to Lebanon,  where the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is taking place, in order to rescue the animals which are abandoned, sometimes involuntarily, by their masters, who run away escaping from the war or are simply massacred by the bombs dropped by both sides. Into the rubble of the buildings destroyed by the pilots and the terrorists, thousands of pets, hungry, thirsty, or, at worst, dead, come into the light. Luckily, fellows from environmental organizations (sometimes controversial) as PETA help those helpless who maybe will never understand why humans like to kill each other. Children and animals are the greatest forgotten of the war, even though with the former, press of the worst kind can be published.

PETA volunteer in Lebanon

Amidst sorrow and horror, impotence and desperation, human race reacts of different ways. Some "sacrifice" in the name of public health and man’s well-being, thinking that the massacre of some innocents solves the problem inmediately. Others "sacrifice themselves" in spite of the countless risks for their own lives in places with no hope for no one, without a single penny in their pockets and armed only with a huge affection, a deep conviction and an iron will. These are the contradictions of the human tragicomedy.

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