Mistreated Horses

"On average, 24 horses die each week at racetracks across America." 


"A state-by-state survey by The Times shows that about 3,600 horses died racing or training at state-regulated tracks over the last three years."


"It's hard to justify how many horses we go through," said Dr. Rick Arthur, the equine medical director for the California Racing Board. "In humans you never see someone snap their leg off running in the olympics. But you see it in horse racing."


Horses are being mistreated and mishandled for the purposes of a race. They often endure agonizing pain and extraneous training to do these races. Some trainers have taken it to extreme measures to try to win, some have been caught drugging their horses. They also drug the horses to give an illusion that they are healthy and capable of doing a race.What do the horses get at the end of these races? Massive amount of injuries or worse death.

What about the officials? What do they do when they see an injured horse being put into a race? They give the trainers a slap on the wrist or look the other way.

Asides from the horses being injured mid race, they also put the rider in danger as well. Without stricter regulations, these races are causing serious damage to both animals and human beings.  This is a serious problem that should have the horse racing business shutdown.

A Survey of Horse Deaths

More than 3,000 horses died during racing or training from 2009-11 according to a New York Times survey of 29 racing states. Highlighted States do not require pre-race inspections of horses and do not perform post-mortem inspections on horses that die while racing or training.

STATE	DRUG POSITIVES	DEATHS
Arizona	107	50*
Arkansas	13	No data
California	296	635
Colorado	68	14
Delaware	53	90
Florida	366	150-160*
Idaho	No data	No data
Illinois	171	140
Indiana	58	65
Iowa	50	46
Kentucky	258	86
Louisiana	291	268
Maryland	69	79
Massachusetts	14	53
Michigan	71	14
Minnesota	222	34
Montana	5	10
Nebraska	64	47
New Jersey	105	106
New Mexico	115	349
New York	159	366
Ohio	406	122
Oklahoma	149	119
Oregon	64	45
Pennsylvania	195	243
Texas	168	108
Virginia	38	20
Washington	21	60
West Virginia	210	233

* Estimates. Actual practice and adherence to regulatory requirements varies widely from state to state.

Graph from NY Times.
Story paraphrased from NY Times

Racism by Police Officials

The FBI arrested a sergeant and four other police officers due to them mistreating, arresting, and detaining latinos. This was occuring in East Haven, Connecticut. The residents of East Haven were victims of an abusive group of police officers, who are suppose to protect and serve. Any resident who happened to be latino was targetted by this group.

East Haven has had problems with the police racially targetting minorities in the past. There have been reports of polices conducting unnecessary raids at local businesses. Also, latinos being beaten and intimidated by the police force.

Other civilians would try to videotape the actions, but they would tell them to stop. They would also intimidate them. They stated that the civilians were  interfering with police investigations in their police records.

Story taken from the NY Times.

This comes to show that racism still exists, we need to fight it, and prevent this from occuring again. At least investigations ensued to catch the culprits. We must always strive to show the public of such abuses, so there is a sense of awareness and more to stop this unacceptable behavior.

SOPA and PIPA

These bills, SOPA and PIPA, were suppose to be voted on this week. They were dropped due to the massive protests from the people, mass media sites (facebook, reddit, wikipedia, etc), and various other corporations this past Wednesday. They rebelled by going "dark" for 12-24 hrs. This means no internet accessibility or going online. This was the massive wake-up call the politicians needed, considering protests have been going on for the past two months and they were not actively responding.

The protests showed the politicians that the bills are formatted and phrased in such a way that it infringes on the freedoms we are entitled to. Now they are going back to the drawing board, and are going to fix the problems. They state their  initial intention was to prevent any overseas piracy from other countries who sell stolen American property and innovation back to the American consumers.

This is a major win for us. It showed that the masses can always keep the government in check through perseverance and hard work to get the message across. Always continue on fighting for a better future!

Here is a link to a few statistics of the protest: SOPA Strike

Sources: NY Times: Vote on SOPA/PIPA
                NY Times
                LA Times

Here is an amazing song about Unity by Operation Ivy. Such an uplifting song for a great day! Enjoy.

Obama Signs NDAA

Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act. This act allows for detaining people essentially anywhere. Obama said any reservations he had about it, are mostly resolved and suit his administration.. The main problem with this he is viewing it the way he would interpret it, but is not looking at on how another administration could interpret it. We have seen in the past past administrations interpret laws differently for their benefit.

The Supreme Court still  hasn't ruled on the detention of people. It is up to the court to prevent this.

Story taken from ACLU Blog of Rights and NY Times. Click on links for more information.

This song is from the Anger and the Truth album

Why Not?

This article is awesome from NY Times. It basically tells people to start off slowly into a vegan diet to be healthier. Also, how the classic misconceptions of veganism are not true, and that half the meals people generally eat are vegan friendly without them realizing it.

Another amazing video from Cinema & Spice: Chocolate Pudding Pie.

Here are a few great bands to start off the weekend into the new year!