Free Republic

Conspicuously living among the politically active in the makeshift village in Zuccotti Park are opportunistic junkies and homeless people - making the most of the free food on offer. Also present and infuriating the hard core of activists are a number of teens looking to turn the gathering into an urban rave. Among the banners and flags are now discarded packets of condoms, cigarettes and bottles of spirits, while naked youngsters happily get together with just sleeping bags covering their modesty. A box of free condoms is kept in the main area where protesters are camping. In one shocking picture,...

While such parks normally are bustling with people - and have facilities to serve them - the relative seclusion appears to have emboldened some to do their business along trails and other areas where no Minnesotan would normally dare to squat. "People are taking it upon themselves to go out in the woods and relieve themselves, and without the presence of employees and others, they're not picking up after themselves," Konrad said. "People are also having a tendency not to pick up after their pets."

I recently did the whole mixed-breed dog DNA testing shebang on Alice, using three of the most popular tests available: Wisdom Panel, BioPet and Canine Heritage. And while her results were, um...mixed, it was definitely a fun and interesting process. (More on this experience in a post next week.) Like me, most people test their mixed-breed dogs simply out of curiosity. Many mutts come from shelters and rescue groups where, although workers and volunteers do their best, a lot of background information isn't often available at the time of adoption. DNA tests can often shed light on our dog's ancestors,...

The meatpacking industry causes 18 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions, mostly due to the release of methane from animals. The livestock industry also consumes huge amounts of feed and water in relation to the amount of meat that it yields, and many find the industry to be inhumane and cruel to animals. These factors alone are reason enough for vegetarians to replace their meat intake with vegetable proteins and legumes. But Ikeda, a scientist at the Environmental Assessment Center in Okayama, sought to further the field of alternative proteins by recycling a form of protein-rich waste : sewage mud....

SEOUL — Shops selling human excrement began operating in North Korea this year, as acute shortages of fertilizer in the sanctions-wracked country put a price on feces, an analyst said Tuesday. Aid groups have said human waste has long been used on domestic crops in the impoverished communist state, but there is now a trade in the readily available commodity, a North Korea analyst told a seminar at a South Korean university. “Each household used to use human excrement as fertilizer. But because it’s hard to keep up with the amount, ‘human manure’ shops showed up at markets,” Kim Young-Soo,...

Skinny jeans, adult films, human excrement sell 'like hot cakes' in North Korea * From: NewsCore * December 29, 2010 5:27AM SKINNY jeans, adult films and human excrement are among some of the most wanted items for consumers in North Korea. Kim Young-soo, a professor at Seoul's Sogang University who has interviewed several recent defectors from the Communist country, said that the items were selling "like hot cakes". Other popular items sold in North Korea included TV dramas and instant noodles, he said. Yonhap news agency reported that shops began selling human excrement to deal with acute shortages of fertiliser...

When President Obama sits down to dinner on Monday night in Providence, Rhode Island fruit and vegetables, cheeses, meats and chocolates will be on the table. From community gardens to a vineyard, the state’s culinary community has grown to the point it can feed a president from its own backyard. As soon as Johnnie Chace knew she’d host the president for a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at her home with husband Arnold “Buff” Chace, she followed one very local path to serve what she hopes is an amazing meal. “The first thing I thought was this is...

Cambridge, Mass. (AP) - It stinks and it's a hazard to walkers everywhere, but it turns out dog poop has a bright side. Dog poop is lighting a lantern at a Cambridge dog park as part of a months-long project that its creator, artist Matthew Mazzotta, hopes will get people thinking about not wasting waste. The "Park Spark" poop converter is actually two steel, 500-gallon oil tanks painted a golden yellow, connected by diagonal black piping and attached to an old gaslight-style street lantern at the Pacific Street Park. After the dogs do their business, signs on the tanks instruct...

What could contaminate the feed that caused the salmonella egg outbreak? How about feeding the chickens back their own manure and litter? If you think that that is far fetched, read here and here. The word "by-product" starts to take on a different meaning. Not only do chickens get fed chicken litter, but chicken litter is also fed to cows.

This is why your mother says to wash your hands after handling money. An employee of DoodyCalls Pet Waste Removal in St. Louis says he recently found $58 packed in dog poop, then returned the cash to the pooch's owner. But Steve Wilson says he sanitized the bills first. Wilson says he wasn't sure what to do when he first noticed money sticking out from the doggie doo. But after pulling out the cash and cleaning it, he placed it in a plastic zip-locked bag and gave it back to the customer. The Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists says...

MANATEE — Authorities arrested a woman who defecated in her pants during a domestic violence arrest and threw it at two deputies, hitting one on the leg, according to a Manatee County Sheriff’s Office report. On Sunday just after 8 p.m., deputies began investigating a domestic dispute between Amy Marie Hager, 33, and her husband at the couple’s home, in the 7100 block of 28th Street East. When deputies went to arrest Hager considering her the aggressor in the domestic violence situation, she became hostile and tried to resist arrest, according to the sheriff’s report. After taking Hager into custody,...

Peninsula man sues pet shop after slipping on dog feces NORFOLK By Tim McGlone The Virginian-Pilot © April 1, 2010 Robert Holloway really stepped in it when he went to PetSmart to pick up some bird seed and dog food. According to a lawsuit filed in federal court, Holloway slipped on a pile of dog feces a year ago at a Newport News PetSmart and badly hurt his back. He also struck his head, knocking out four of his false teeth, the suit says. He's suing the chain for $1 million. PetSmart has filed an initial reply stating that the...

LAWRENCEBURG, Ind., Jan. 19 (UPI) -- An Indiana man fired after 30 years as an aircraft dispatcher says he is prospering through the recession by turning piles of doo-doo into piles of dough. Kevin Kendall, 51, of Dearborn County said he began looking at franchise opportunities about a year ago after being downsized and his interest was piqued by Pet Butler, a 22-year-old company specializing in pet waste cleanup for both public and private areas, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Tuesday. Kendall said he paid the $25,000 franchise fee in 2008 and his customer base has since grown to include 51...

My dad was an electrician’s mate back in 1960 on the USS Valcour AVP-55. The ship was in drydock for an extended period, and since idle hand’s are the Devil’s tools, to keep the hands busy, the daily inspections became more of a focus than they ordinarily were when the ship was at sea. This rankled one man so much that he felt forced to take drastic action. Nowadays, we would say he suffered from post-inspection stress disorder, or PISD. Anyway, the Engineering Division, the largest in the ship, would muster each morning at 8 am on the fantail, where...

This is a 5-minute video of MythBusters learning, and demonstrating, the Japanese art of "dorodungo" -- how to take real animal poo, and with a lot of work, make a high-gloss ball a few inches in diameter. In other words, they show how to "polish a turd". The political implications of this process, especially with regard to how the media spin-meisters treat recent administration screw-ups and related events, were inescapable...

Don't poo-poo technique: Fecal transplant can cure superbug, doctors say More than 90 per cent of C. difficile patients are cured by fecal transplants, studies suggest Last Updated: Tuesday, November 13, 200 7 | 12:17 PM ET CBC News A controversial new treatment, which involves the transplantation of human waste, can treat cases of C. difficile infection. But only a handful of physicians in Canada undertake the messy procedure. Left unchecked, C. difficile bacteria can cause chronic diarrhea, leaving sufferers virtually confined to their bathrooms. (CBC) Clostridium difficile is a superbug that commonly spreads in hospital settings and has been...

Well, she didn't ask them what kind of trees they would be but Barbara Walters' hour with the Obamas Wednesday was certainly lighter than their earlier post-election inquisition on "60 Minutes." Yes she asked about the economy and had a couple of pesky lines of inquiry that sounded as if he was still on the campaign trail (how's he going to find Osama bin Laden anyway?). But she seemed to enjoy herself more asking questions about his safety (and irresponsibly showing a white supremacist poster urging his murder - free advertising for the cause). She also really wanted to know...

A man in St. Cloud, Minn. was fined for dumping dog feces in another man's pickup truck for apparent political reasons. According to the incident report, David Vandelinden, 45, admitted to putting small bags of dog poop in the back of the truck. Police said the truck owner's mother saw Vandelinden place feces in the truck and contacted authorities. Vandelinden told police he did it because "he hates McCain." Two weeks ago, the truck owner put stickers supporting John McCain and Sarah Palin on his truck. Vandelinden was issued a $183 fine for littering.

Peyton Elementary Principal Michael Auclaire apologized to students and parents Tuesday afternoon for a "lesson" the previous day in which he told students to don a glove and look inside a soggy bag of human feces and urine. The incident occurred because he and the school's janitorial staff were frustrated by ongoing messes left in a girl's bathroom generally used by fourth- and fifth-graders, Auclaire said. While his intention was to get the kids to understand how inappropriate it was to defecate on the floor or a toilet seat, or to leave a bag of excrement, he said Tuesday that...

DNC protesters are planning on signing a "Doo Doo Accord" today in advance of the city council meeting tonight where the plan on demonstrating. Rocky Mountain News reported: Representatives of three groups planning protests during the Democratic National Convention will be signing what they're calling a "Doo Doo Accord" in advance of a City Council meeting where an ordinance that would ban protesters from carrying certain items, such as buckets of feces, is up for final consideration. The groups — Unconventional Denver, Re-create 68 Alliance and the Alliance for Real Democracy — are calling the accord a "Non-Pooliferation Treaty." "We're...