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Hunters Livid Over Apparent ‘Thrill Killing’ Of Wyoming Elk Left To Rot
After a vegan blue cheese won the Good Food Award, panicked dairy cheese makers forced the foundation to disqualify it
MARK FRAUENFELDER 8:47 AM MON APR 29, 2024
Something stinks in the world of cheese, but this time it’s not the product – it’s the sour grapes emanating from the dairy industry as they try in vain to curdle the rise of a plant-based upstart that’s threatening to spoil their future.
In a story that has enough twists and turns and heroes and villains to be a Netflix documentary, The Washington Post reports on scandal at the prestigious Good Food Awards. A plant-based blue cheese was selected as a finalist, shocking high-quality artisanal dairy-based cheesemakers who felt it didn’t belong in the competition.
After initially being named a finalist, Climax Blue cheese was later disqualified by the Good Food Foundation, reportedly due to issues around one of the ingredients (kokum butter) not having GRAS certification. But Climax CEO Oliver Zahn accused the foundation of caving to pressure from the dairy cheese industry and changing the rules after the fact to disqualify his product. The foundation denies this, saying it was due to a complaint from someone in the community.
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The traditional cheesemaking company is freaking out about Climax Blue, especially because the vegan cheese was so delicious that it had slated to win the overall competition before the Good Food Foundation caved to pressure.
Mateo Kehler, co-owner of the Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont told The Post, “One could make the argument that this is like a fraudulent cheese. As a cheesemaker, it’s a fraud. It looks like a cheese. It might taste like a cheese. But it’s not. It’s not connected to our historical understanding of what cheeses are.”
But Climax CEO Zahn argues that Climax Blue is cheese:
To Zahn, the method he’s using isn’t all that different from the one used for centuries. When it comes down to it, he notes, plants fuel the animals that produce milk — and so in concocting a milk made out of plants, Zahn says he’s just cutting out the middleman (or middle-bovine). In his analysis of traditional cheesemaking, a cow is essentially a processing machine — and not a very efficient one at that.
“There’s a lot of energy being used to turn something from one thing to another, and in the case of a cow, 90 percent of the inputs go to just processing,” he says. “There is no factory you could potentially devise that would come with that much processing.”
In the end, the dairy industry’s heavy-handed attempts to keep Climax Blue from the spotlight have only served to amplify its rise, proving the old adage that the more you try to censor or suppress something, the more attention you inadvertently bring to it. Just like the Barbra Streisand effect, the panicked reaction of the traditional cheesemakers has guaranteed Climax Blue far more publicity and notoriety than it ever would have received by simply winning the Good Food Award outright.
How do dogs think about their toys? Study offers insights into canine cognition
in Animals
(Photo credit: Adobe Stock)
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Ever wondered what your dog is thinking when it eagerly searches for its favorite toy? A study from the Family Dog Project at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest brings us closer to understanding the canine mind. Researchers discovered that dogs create “multi-modal mental images” of familiar objects. This means that dogs remember and think about objects, like their toys, in various sensory dimensions such as appearance and scent.
The study, published in the journal Animal Cognition, is a significant step towards understanding the cognitive processes of our canine companions.
Previous research into canine cognition has increasingly shown that dogs possess a surprisingly sophisticated ability to process and interact with their environment. Studies have specifically explored how dogs can discriminate between different objects and react to human language, revealing a complex cognitive landscape. For example, some dogs, known as “Gifted Word Learner” dogs, have demonstrated the rare ability to learn and recall the names of dozens of objects, suggesting they associate specific verbal labels with physical items. This ability hints at a form of mental representation similar to how humans think about the world.
However, despite these advances, questions remained about the extent and nature of these mental representations. Did dogs form detailed sensory images of the objects they interacted with? How did various senses contribute to their understanding and recall of these objects? Previous studies provided insights into the sensory modalities dogs might use, such as vision and olfaction, to identify their targets. Researchers observed that while dogs could rely on sight to distinguish between objects under well-lit conditions, they would switch to olfactory cues in the absence of visual information.
Motivated by these findings, the researchers from the Family Dog Project aimed to further investigate the sensory integration processes in dogs’ brains. They were particularly driven by a desire to ascertain if typical family dogs, as opposed to only the unusually gifted ones, employ multiple senses to form these mental images and how these images might assist in object identification under different sensory conditions. The researchers conducted two experiments.
The first experiment examined the sensory modalities that dogs use to recognize and retrieve a familiar toy under varying conditions of light. The participants included 14 dogs: 10 typical family dogs and 3 Gifted Word Learner dogs.
Initially, each dog was trained to retrieve a specific toy from a set of distractors. This training involved the dog’s owner playing with the designated “target” toy and the dog, which was encouraged with treats and praise to choose this toy over others. This training phase was designed to create a mental association between the toy and its reward. After this, the experiment tested whether the dogs could recall and select this toy under two conditions: with lights on (light condition) and with lights off (dark condition).
In both conditions, the toys were placed in a room different from where the dog and its owner were. The dogs were then instructed by their owners to retrieve the specific toy. The researchers observed the dogs’ ability to find the correct toy, noting the time taken and the sensory cues used—visual or olfactory—to locate it.
The findings revealed that all dogs could successfully retrieve the toy in both lit and unlit settings, though they were quicker to do so when the lights were on, indicating a primary reliance on visual cues. However, in the dark, the researchers noted a significant increase in the time dogs spent sniffing, suggesting a shift to olfactory cues when visual information was unavailable.
These results imply that dogs are capable of using multiple senses to form a comprehensive understanding of their environment. They adjust their sensory reliance based on the availability of sensory data, showcasing a flexible cognitive process.
The second experiment was specifically designed to delve deeper into the cognitive processes of Gifted Word Learner dogs, focusing on how these dogs recall and search for toys using verbal cues under varying sensory conditions. This experiment included the three Gifted Word Learner dogs from Experiment 1, along with an additional female Border Collie.
In this experiment, each dog was tested in familiar environments, either at their homes or a known lab setting, to ensure comfort and reduce variable stress that could influence behavior. The setup was similar to that of Experiment 1 but adjusted to cater specifically to each dog’s familiar setting. The experiment involved the dogs’ existing vocabulary of named toys. Each dog had a collection of familiar toys that they had previously demonstrated they could identify by name.
The procedure was straightforward: the owner would ask the dog to retrieve a specific toy by name, both in a lit environment (light condition) and in complete darkness (dark condition). The aim was to see if the dogs could use their multi-sensory mental images of the toys to find them without visual cues. As in Experiment 1, the toys were placed in a separate room, and the dogs had to navigate to this room to select the correct toy.
The Gifted Word Learner dogs successfully retrieved the correct toys by name in both light and dark conditions, demonstrating no significant difference in success rates between the two. This finding suggests that the verbal label of a toy triggers a recall of a robust multisensory mental representation of the toy, which the dogs can rely on even in the absence of visual information.
Additionally, the experiment showed that while the dogs spent more time searching in the dark, indicating more effort needed to locate the toys without sight, they were still able to perform effectively. This extended searching time in the dark was paired with increased sniffing behaviors, illustrating a switch to olfactory cues when visual cues were unavailable.
The study, while revealing, has limitations. The sample size was relatively small, and the study only included a few dog breeds. Future research could expand to include a broader range of breeds and larger numbers to verify these findings. Additionally, exploring how dogs use other senses like hearing and touch in object identification could offer deeper insights into canine cognition.
Nevertheless, the study provides compelling evidence that dogs, like humans, form complex sensory images of the objects around them. While Gifted Word Learner dogs may represent the upper echelon of canine intelligence, typical family dogs also possess the ability to perceive and remember their world in a rich, multi-modal way.
The study, “Multisensory mental representation of objects in typical and Gifted Word Learner dogs,” was authored by Shany Dror, Andrea Sommese, Ádám Miklósi, Andrea Temesi, and Claudia Fugazza.
Calls for change mount after Wyoming man tortures wolf
Man turns himself in after shooting, injuring turkey hunter
Nevada Allows Moose Hunting
Louisiana Man, Paralyzed In Hunting Accident, Walks Again After 2 Surgeries In Florida
He still goes hunting, too.
“As a matter of fact, I killed a deer two years ago,” he said. “My son-in-law took me hunting. I’ve still got my eye for shooting.”
Kristi Noem’s story of murdering her dog keeps getting worse
Kristi Noem’s story of murdering her dog keeps getting worse
by Mark Sumner for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Monday, April 29, 2024 at 11:00:14a PDT
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Kristi Noem has done plenty of terrible things as governor of South Dakota. That includes disregarding COVID-19 safety rules and being among the first to treat the whole pandemic as a political opportunity. No pencil-pushing scientist was going to tell her what to do, even if that meant citizens in South Dakota had to be airlifted out of state for treatment due to overcrowding.
She’s banned from visiting 10% of the land in her own state because of her continuous disrespect for Native Americans. She insists on staging fireworks displays in the middle of a drought. And she’s currently being sued after doing a commercial for a cosmetic dentist in Texas to pay for her new set of teeth.
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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The Trump trial continues
to make news
With all that, Noem had still barely made a dent in the national news until she told a grisly story of how she shot a family dog and tossed its body in a gravel pit when it failed to perform to her satisfaction. But just because she’s been revealed as an empathy-deprived monster, don’t assume that she’s not at the top of Donald Trump’s shortlist for vice president.
In 2008, I bundled our 17-year-old golden retriever named Tigger into my arms and took her to the vet. Tigger’s parents had been national champions with more initials after their names than a Harvard professor, but she had been born deaf, making her poorly suited for the whistles and voice commands of retriever trials and agility training. Instead, she came home with us, a tiny yellow fuzzball, to be my son’s dog through every level of school, steal slices of pizza from the table, and shed small mountains of yellow fur.
At 17, she was a two-time cancer survivor, missing her tail and with long surgical scars. Now the cancer was back again. For once, she didn’t even want a potato chip. She had been in pain for weeks, trembling, incontinent, and losing weight. But once we were in the room at the vet, she seemed to understand what was going on. She stood up straight, wagged her little nub of a tail, and gave me a look that said, “I’m fine. Let’s go home.”
That was, without a doubt, one of the hardest days of my life. I can’t think of it without worrying that I did something unforgivably wrong.
A lot of people have stories like mine, which can make Noem’s casual admission about shooting her dog Cricket because it failed to meet her performance standards nothing short of horrifying. Truthfully, it sounds like Cricket was a hoot, and the fact that Noem’s child asked about Cricket the moment she stepped off the school bus certainly suggests that this was more than just one of a pack of hunting dogs that hung around the Noem farm.
Following Rolling Stone’s story about Noem’s book, there have been reactions, and reactions to those reactions. That includes Noem defending herself by pointing out that she didn’t just shoot a dog and a goat, she also put down three horses. On Sunday, Noem issued a statement saying that “South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down.” What she means by this is that Noem was silly enough to load an untrained dog into a truck and take it straight into the middle of a bunch of chickens. However, the operative word of that South Dakota law is “can.” Noem didn’t have to shoot the dog, she decided to shoot the dog. Because giving it proper training and attention was too much bother.
That wasn’t her only incomprehensible decision. It’s bad enough that Noem took this action in making her life simpler by murdering an animal that depended on her. But what may be of equal importance is that Noem chose to tell this story. She may now be complaining that “some people are upset about a 20 year old story,” but she’s the one who decided to lift this incident out of her life and plop it on a page.
Did she think that people would not be upset? Did she think this would be seen as an example of her South Dakota toughness? The simple decision to tell this story, along with the way she told it, shows that her perceptions are badly skewed.
At Semafor, one Republican brushes Noem off as a lightweight and says they don’t want a “Kamala problem” (they wish), but anyone who thinks this incident is going to knock Noem from the list of Trump’s VP potentials should think again.
Noem may open her tale of pet murder by saying “I hated that dog”—which more than a little undercuts her excuses—but she’s not alone in that feeling. As GQ noted back in 2020, Trump also hates all dogs. When Trump wants to insult someone, he compares them to a dog. When he wants to demean someone’s death, he says they died like a dog. “In Trump’s tiny mind,” writes GQ, “dogs are venal, treacherous creatures.”
Trump isn’t going to throw Noem away over a dog. He may even give her a gold star. Because what Noem has generated is a lot of discussion and a metric shit-ton of disgust. She’s identified one of those things that would seem to be beyond the boundary of acceptable behavior.
You know, like insulting prisoners of war. Or demeaning Gold Star families. Or attacking the children of a judge.
Trump loves to find those boundaries and rip them apart. He revels in his ability to convince his followers to join in the destruction. It’s not hard to see Trump loving Noem’s story of dog murder.
It may even make him a little jealous.
When man’s best friend becomes a politician’s worst nightmare
Kristi Noem created a firestorm on social media over the weekend and dog lovers from both sides of the aisle condemned her decision to kill her dog.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem became the latest politician to face dog-related backlash after she admitted that, 20 years ago, she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
04/29/2024 08:02 PM EDT
An adorable dog can soften a politician’s image, create viral social media moments and help voters identify with an office-seeker vying for their vote.
But take a misstep when it comes to the family pooch and prepare to face the wrath of dog lovers everywhere.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem became the latest politician to face dog-related backlash after she admitted in her upcoming book that, 20 years ago, she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket. According to The Guardian, Noem writes that she “hated” the “aggressive” dog, who she says ruined a pheasant hunt and attacked her neighbor’s chickens.
The story created a firestorm on social media over the weekend and dog lovers from both sides of the aisle condemned her decision to kill her dog. Noem, who has been floated as a possible contender to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate, still stands by her decision from 20 years ago.
Noem isn’t the first politician to spark anger among critics from treatment of a dog over the years. Here’s a look at politicians who have been condemned for their behavior toward their pet pups.
Joe Biden
President Joe Biden faced fierce criticism after two of the first family’s German shepherds were involved in several biting incidents.
Last year it was reported that Biden’s 2-year-old German shepherd Commander was involved in 11 biting incidents with White House staff and the Secret Service. In February, CNN reported that Commander was involved in 24 biting incidents with Secret Service personnel. Commander was removed from the White House campus in October.
Three years ago, Major, also a German shepherd, was sent to live with friends of the family after his own biting incidents.
The incident spurred action from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who sent a letter to Biden and acting Labor Secretary Julie Su in October seeking to examine workplace safety conditions at the White House.
Foxx told POLITICO that she wrote the letter to remind the White House that it is “not immune to the laws of the land.”
“The President and First Lady care deeply about the safety of those who work at the White House and those who protect them every day,” Elizabeth Alexander, the first lady’s communications director, told POLITICO in October. “They remain grateful for the patience and support of the U.S. Secret Service and all involved, as they continue to work through solutions.”
Andrew Cuomo
After New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned and moved out of the governor’s mansion nearly three years ago, the Albany newspaper Times Union reported that he wasn’t trying to take his dog, Captain, with him.
Cuomo reportedly asked mansion staff members if anyone would be interested in caring for Captain, a 4-year-old mix of shepherd, Siberian and malamute, who had nipped a few people since Cuomo adopted him in 2018, according to the report.
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Democrats and Republicans called out Cuomo on social media for seemingly leaving his pup behind.
“Not only the Worst Governor in America. The Worst Dog Owner in America.” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) wrote in a post. “You can tell people’s character by how they treat their animals.”
“I’ll take the puppy,” Ron Kim, a New York State Democratic assemblymember, wrote on what was then called Twitter.
Cuomo refuted the dog desertion claims, saying on social media that “Some people just can’t get the facts straight.”
“Yes, I was downstate monitoring storm response for a few days, but Captain and I are a man and his dog,” Cuomo wrote in the post. “He is part of our family and that’s the way it will always be.”
Ted Cruz
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) caught heat three years ago after a journalist posted a photo of his family’s white, fluffy dog Snowflake looking out the window of the senator’s dark house while Cruz and his family traveled to Cancun during a statewide emergency.
The photo of the seemingly sidelined poodle immediately added to the backlash Cruz was already facing for flying his family out of the country during a storm that left millions of Texans without power.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a jab at Cruz on X after the photo began to circulate, saying, “Don’t vote for anyone you wouldn’t trust with your dog.”
Cruz denied that Snowflake had been left to fend for itself, saying that the dog had a sitter “and actually the heat and power was back on.”
“I spend too much time on Twitter, so I see apparently I’ve literally fed Snowflake to the wolves,” Cruz said at the time.
Pam Bondi
Before Pam Bondi was elected as Florida’s attorney general in 2010, she was involved in a custody battle with Hurricane Katrina victims over a St. Bernard.
Bondi adopted the dog in 2005 after he was separated from his family during Hurricane Katrina. But a Louisiana family had been trying to find their dog, originally named Master Tank but renamed by Bondi to Noah, and located his whereabouts in 2006.
Bondi refused to return him and accused the family of neglect because the dog had been facing longer-term problems like heartworms. The family said the dog had heartworms since he was 10 months old, according to St. Petersburg Times.
The family sued, and the dispute lasted 16 months as it played out on CNN and Fox News. Both sides settled the case just before it went to trial and Bondi returned the dog to the family with food and medication.
Mitt Romney
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is still reminded of an incident that involved his Irish Setter Seamus despite it happening decades ago.
The story first surfaced in 2007 when The Boston Globe reported that in 1983, a 36-year-old Romney put the family dog in a crate on the roof of his car because there was no room in the station wagon during a 12-hour car ride from Massachusetts to Canada. The dog eventually got sick and Romney stopped at a gas station to wash the dog. Romney put Seamus back in the carrier, returned it to the top of the car and proceeded with the rest of the trip.
Romney later defended the decision, stating Seamus was in an “airtight” kennel and that the dog climbed on top of the car regularly.
The story garnered immediate condemnation from many politicians but especially became a favorite stick to whack Romney with when he ran for president.
During the 2012 presidential race, Republican rival Rick Santorum said that voters need to consider if Romney is the “kind of person you want to be president of the United States.” Also that year, fellow rival Newt Gingrich came out with an ad attacking Romney for the story. Former President Barack Obama also mocked Romney for the incident.
The saga even played out on the March 2012 cover of The New Yorker, which featured Romney driving a car with Santorum sticking his neck out of a doghouse that is tied to the roof of the vehicle.
