Yesterday (February 9th 2014), the Copenhagen Zoo murdered Marius, a 18-month giraffe baby by shooting him in the head. They then proceeded to dismember his corpse in front of the zoo visitors and feed the corpse to the lions.

Social networks and news sites are all echoing this crime. Just a few examples:

• ABC.es (Spanish newspaper): El zoo de Copenhagen sacrifica a una jirafa sana pese a una intensa campaña online (The Copenhagen zoo kills a healthy giraffe in opposition to a heated online campaign)
• The Independent: Danish zoo to kill ‘surplus’ young giraffe and feed him to the lions
• BBC News Europe: ‘Surplus’ giraffe put down at Copenhagen Zoo
• The Guardian: Copenhagen zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe named Marius
• TIME: Did Marius the Giraffe Have to Die?
• The Mirror: Zoo bosses who approved killing of  Marius the giraffe should be sacked say campaigners

There was nothing wrong with Marius. He was a completely healthy animal. However, Bengt Holst, Director of Research and Conservation at Copenhagen Zoo, decided that Marius wasn’t genetically valuable enough. Other zoos offered to adopt Marius, but Holst declined the offers and decided that it would be a better show to kill the baby giraffe and carve the corpse in front of the public.

This is a photo of this fucking son of a bitch (it’s the dude on the left, the elephant is innocent):

In my opinion, this bastard, together with all the staff involved in the killing, should be immediately fired, forbidden to ever work with animals again, and put on trial for cruelty against animals. Under his direction, the Copenhagen Zoo sacrifices 20-30 animals per year.

There are several petitions online to get Holst fired or force him to resign. Here are two of them:

• Petition at Change.org for the resignation of Bengt Holst
• Petition at thepetitionsite.com to have him fired

You should sign these, but you know how these things work: online petitions will most likely be ignored. Please share this in all your social networks. It may also be effective to write a letter directly to the Copenhagen Zoo and express your feelings about this killing. Here’s the address:

WARNING: what follows are the photos of the killing and dismembering process. There are lots of blood, so don’t read the rest of the post if you’re sensitive to this stuff.

I’ve been following Scott Adams’ Dilbert comic stripg for many, many years now. I have most of the Dilbert comic strip books, several of Scott’s books (including his just-released How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big) and I’m an early member of the DNRC. Translation: I’m a huge Scott Adams fan.

Usually Scott’s comics are apolitical, but in his February 7th comic strip he takes a very clear stance against homophobia:

Scott, my respect for you has now officially gone through the roof.

The new seats in the Tobu Tojo line.

This is the train I rode yesterday in the Tobu Tojo line. The long rows of seats on the sides of the cars have been replaced by three pairs of seats like these. Apparently these new seats can pivot like the ones they have in long-distance trains.

Look at this video. This is how typical anti-nuclear protesters in Japan react when you try and talk to them.

So violent. How do you reason with someone like this? This is why you hear so much from anti-nuclear protesters, but you don’t hear from us pro-nuclear: anti-nuclear are many, irrational, violent and (most of them) don’t understand what they’re talking about. Because of this, pro-nuclear people feel threatened and prefer not to say anything.

Most of the song is insults, threats and yakuza-speak, but he also manages to drop a nice amount of lies (maybe just because he doesn’t understand what he’s talking about).

Let me clarify a few of them:

With technologies like solar power and other renewables, we can get all the electricity we need without nuclear power… and cheaply, too.

No. This has been discussed again and again in many places. Most of these aren’t economically viable, or just won’t work in a country like Japan that doesn’t have the resources. But hey, maybe I’m mistaken. Show me real data that proves that we can depend on the renewables, and I will happily agree with you.

More after the break.

There are several things going on in the world right now that I consider worrying enough to write about. These are (in no particular order):

• Religion
• WikiLeaks
• Animal abuse
• Nuclear power
• Political corruption in Europe
• Intellectual property

I’ve started writing about a couple of these (nuclear power and intellectual property), but I never seem to be able to finish because there’s always something new happening that changes my priorities: Julian Assange is denied the appeal for extradition, or a new anti-nuclear demonstration, or the political party that got Greece in all this trouble wins the national elections again.

Since I can’t decide what to write about first, I thought I’d just write this post summarizing what my opinions are, and then decide on a subject based on what gets me the most death threats. Please note that I’m not talking about posting a tweet or two, but writing multi-page posts containing real information about the subject.

So here we go.The following are my opinions.

The Japanese music industry sucks. Look at bands like AKB48 or Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ). If you are living in Japan then you must be sick already of seeing them everywhere.

In case you hadn’t heard about them, I’m going to share the pain:

AKB48 is an all-girl band composed by *64* members, whose only talent is being young and cute. They jump around in the stage singing without much grace, but that doesn’t matter much, because their fans (mostly male otakus) only care about their looks.

They started in their own theater in Akihabara, where they performed daily in front of their fans (they still do). The group is actually named after the Akihabara district.