A knocking sound coming from a car stopped during a regional drunken-driving checkpoint Friday evening originated from a goat, bound and shoved in the trunk of the sedan, authorities said.
When the car, driven by Fiona Ann Enderdy, 32, of Washington, D.C., pulled up to the checkpoint at the Bedford County/Campbell County line on U.S. 460, Bedford Sheriff’s Deputy Allison Key heard noises from the trunk and asked the driver what was in there, according to a Bedford Sheriff’s Office news release.
The driver said she had a goat, and that’s what Key found when Enderdy opened the trunk, the release said. The goat was panting heavily.
An animal control officer also working the checkpoint said the temperature in the trunk was 94 degrees after it had been opened for about 10 minutes, the release said.
Officers gave the goat water and transported it to the Bedford County pound, the release said.
Enderdy told Key she bought the goat from a farmer to give to the four passengers in her car, who are from Kenya but reside in Lynchburg, the release said.
She told deputies she is from the United Kingdom and transporting goats in this manner is acceptable there.
Enderdy was charged with cruelty to an animal and released. Her advisement hearing is scheduled for July 8. A hearing in Bedford County General District Court will soon determine what will happen to the goat.
Friday’s checkpoint was a joint effort among the Bedford and Lynchburg police departments; Bedford, Campbell, and Amherst County sheriff’s offices and the Virginia State Police.
Almost 15,000 vehicles traveled through the checkpoint in just over four hours, resulting in 82 arrests and citations, including three for driving under the influence and one for drugs.
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked by a student at a press conference in Saudi Arabia about her thoughts on a Sarah Palin presidency, the former first lady erupted in laughter.
During the 2008 presidential campaign I often ridiculed Hillary Clinton for her diabolical cackle, but this time her laughter was sweet music to my ears.
The prospect of Sarah Palin in the White House should reduce intelligent persons to laughter or tears. When Clinton was on the campaign trail against my candidate, Barack Obama, I rarely laughed along with her. But this time I joined her infectious laughter.
God Bless America! God Bless Hillary Clinton! God protect us from Sarah Palin!
Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation
An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation.
The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith, apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith.
The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers.
The lines read out by the DJ included: “One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother.”
The presenter on Genesis TV, a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films.
It began: “My inspiration in life is a man I met in Nigeria called Ben Kenobi. He taught be so much about the Force that spirituality has; it can be used for good and it can be used for bad.”
After stumbling over references to Midi-chlorians, microscopic life forms found in the Star Wars universe, the presenter takes objection to Mr Kenobi’s advice that we must try to live in harmony with the dark forces of the universe.
“I don’t think that is biblical,” he says. “It doesn’t sound right.”
A clip showing the presenter reading the two emails has been viewed more than 440,000 time since being uploaded onto YouTube last month.
The prankster has posted dozens of other videos of prank calls and emails he has made to Christian television stations.
Genesis TV, which is available over Sky and Freesat, launched in 2003.
Acclaimed author Henry Louis Gates is getting ready for the debut of his new show on PBS, “Faces of America,” in which he explores the genetic history of various celebrities. On Good Morning America today, Gates revealed host George Stephanopoulous’s genetic history, and discovered that he likely shares an ancestor with Hillary Clinton.
The stage was set for a larger than usual protest in Collier County on the 37th anniversary of the legalization of abortion.
Planned Parenthood of Collier County started offering abortions four months ago.
The keynote speaker at a fund-raiser held Friday at the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club was actress Kathleen Turner, national chairwoman of the Planned Parenthood Federation.
Yet only about 30 protesters gathered outside the luncheon, far less than the usual 100 protesters on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
But that didn’t damper the spirits of those who gathered.
“We need to educate people, we need to see how people have suffered from abortion and how they carry their regret,” said Beth Bohannon, 56, who is visiting for a month and heard about the protest from San Marco Catholic Church on Marco Island.
The Naples clinic began performing abortions Sept. 14 and 133 women have had the procedure to date, according to a staff member who spoke at the event.
Abortion opponents say it is tragic the local Planned Parenthood is killing unborn children.
“Especially since our motives are to stop the killing of unborn children in the womb and now we have brought it to town,” Ed Melone, 81, said.
Kathleen Sullivan, 81, said if any other event eliminated so many humans every day, it would be considered a national tragedy.
“Abortion is the only act that gets away with eliminating this number of human beings,” Sullivan said.
Lou DePrisco, 79, wore a T-shirt that said “Ave Maria grandpa” referring to the Catholic university in eastern Collier. He said he’s been protesting outside the local Planned Parenthood for 18 years.
“I just believe (abortion) is improper, immoral and wrong to kill unborn children,” DePrisco said, adding that he volunteers at the university. “It might be the law but some laws are immoral.”
Another protester, Sheila Hughes, 70, said she was hoping a Planned Parenthood supporter would have a change of heart about abortion.
“The country needs to have a change of heart,” she added.
The protest usually is held outside the Planned Parenthood clinic, 1425 Creech Road in North Naples. But this year, the clinic was closed Friday so Planned Parenthood supporters and employees could attend the fund-raiser.
About 250 people attended the event, which was expected to raise $75,000.
Turner spoke of becoming a supporter of Planned Parenthood as a young woman and later for her daughter. Today, one out of four women will use Planned Parenthood services, she said.
“We are finding our client base is expanding … now we are encountering many older people who can no longer afford their private physicians,” Turner said. “It is an extraordinary stress on our clinics but we are meeting it.”
Turner said the Naples clinic decided to move forward with offering abortions not long after George Tiller, an abortion provider in Wichita was shot and killed.
“This is an extraordinary accomplishment you should all be proud of,” she said.
As the need gets greater for reproductive services, Turner encouraged more people in the audience to volunteer their time and experience with Planned Parenthood. She also applauded the clinic’s work in Immokalee for migrant families, adding that many underprivileged struggle to access services.
Char Wendel, executive director of Planned Parenthood, spoke about the protesters and how they are a frequent presence outside the Creech Road clinic.
“I think that people may realize what our staff and patients have to deal with every day,” Wendel said.
A 4-year-old boy, beer in hand, is accused of stealing Christmas presents from his neighbors. It’s a strange story, but also a sad one.
April Wright is 21 years old and is going through a divorce with her husband who is in jail. She says she is not sure how her 4-year-old managed to get out of the house, open a beer, and steal the neighbors presents from under their tree. Now she’s just glad he’s okay and says she won’t let it happen again.
The child, Hayden Wright, was found around 1:45 am Tuesday, wandering the streets of his neighborhood. In a police reports, officers said he was wearing a little girl’s dress and drinking a beer. The police report says the child had to taken to the hospital to be treated for alcohol consumption.
April Wright said, “Biggest concern was him being out there, getting kidnapped, getting run over, the alcohol, having to have his stomach pumped.”
Wright says she woke up that night at 1:45 am and panicked when she found Hayden was gone. She says she put safety devices on all the doors so her kids couldn’t get out, but Hayden was able to break the safety device off the doorknob and get outside.
Once out, Wright says her four year old followed his father’s footsteps and was found on Blue Spruce Road, drinking.
“He runs away trying to find his father,” she said. “He wants to get in trouble so he can go to jail because that’s where his daddy is.”
The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office report says Hayden rang the doorbell a few houses down and the neighbor answered, finding the child holding a partially consumeed 12-ounce beer.
Wright said, “He got it out of my father’s cooler in the back and how he got it open I don’t understand because it was one of those tab beers.”
But it doesn’t stop there. The report said Hayden then snuck into a neighbor’s house through an unlocked front door, and stole five wrapped Christmas gifts. One was a girl’s brown dress which Hayden was wearing when police found him.
“Going to the neighbor’s house and taking their presents, very embarrassing,” said April.
She admits she was not just embarrassed, but scared, and rushed to the hospital that night with Hayden. She said she tries to be a good mother and loves her son, but now feels like a failure.
“Kids do things like this and it’s out of your control, you can do the best you can as a mother, everyone makes mistakes, it was an honest mistake,” she said.
Wright did meet with child protective services today who told her she will get to keep custody of Hayden.
What with this Barack Obama fellow always hogging the spotlight, Hillary Clinton has kept out of the public eye more so than at any time in the past, oh, eighteen years or so. Which is odd, considering that she’s actually one of the highest-ranking officials in government. Some people assume that this means she’s been marginalized in the administration, but Hillary tells Ann Curry that she finds such thoughts “absurd” — she’s just “delegating”! And who would blame her? What kind of psychopath would actually want to personally handle all the various international quandaries going on around the world? But because nobody believes Hillary can be satisfied with anything but the presidency, Curry asks the question that every interviewer is legally required to ask of her until the day she dies: Will she run again? “No,” Hillary replies with her trademark burst of somewhat maniacal laughter. “I’m looking forward to retirement at some point.”
Thrown, dropped, mutilated, and ground-up alive. This is the shocking reality faced by hundreds of thousands of chicks each day at the world’s largest egg-laying breed hatchery – Hy-Line International in Spencer, Iowa.
New hidden camera footage obtained at this facility during a Mercy For Animals undercover investigation gives a disturbing glimpse into the cruel and industrialized reality of modern hatcheries.
The warm, comforting, and protective wings of these newly hatched chicks’ mothers have been replaced with massive machines, quickly moving conveyor belts, harsh handling, and distressing noise. These young animals are sorted, discarded, and handled like mere cogs in a machine.
For the nearly 150,000 male chicks who hatch every 24 hours at this Hy-Line facility, their lives begin and end the same day. Grabbed by their fragile wings by workers known as “sexers,” who separate males from females, these young animals are callously thrown into chutes and hauled away to their deaths. They are destined to die on day one because they cannot produce eggs and do not grow large or fast enough to be raised profitably for meat. Their lives are cut short when they are dropped into a grinding machine – tossed around by a spinning auger before being torn to pieces by a high-pressure macerator.
Over 30 million male chicks meet their fate this way each year at this facility.
For the surviving females, this is the beginning of a life of cruelty and confinement at the hands of the egg industry. Before even leaving the hatchery they will be snapped by their heads into a spinning debeaker – a portion of their sensitive beaks removed by a laser. Workers toss and rummage through them before they are placed 100 per crowded box and shipped across the country.
The callous disregard for animal welfare at this facility is not isolated. In fact, the conditions documented during this investigation are completely standard and acceptable within the commercial egg industry. Referred to by Hy-Line corporate leaders as mere “genetic products,” these chicks are treated just as they are viewed – as inanimate objects, rather than the sentient creatures they are.
Egg producers have gone to great lengths to hide their cruel practices from consumers. Grocery aisles from coast-to-coast are stocked with egg cartons featuring idyllic images of free-roaming hens and crowing roosters. These deceptive marketing gimmicks conceal the cruel and violent nature of industrial hatcheries and egg factory farms.
Consumers have a right to know the truth behind egg production.
Citing the troubling findings of this investigation, Mercy For Animals is calling on the nation’s 50 largest grocery chains to require that all eggs sold in their stores bear a label reading, “Warning: Male chicks are ground-up alive by the egg industry.”
Hopefully, armed with the sobering truth, consumers nationwide will be able to make informed and compassionate food choices.
Driven by consumer demand, the egg industry will continue to exploit, abuse, and kill day-old animals as long as doing so remains profitable. Empowered consumers can put their ethics on the table by choosing kindness over cruelty at each meal by adopting an animal-friendly vegan diet.
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