I'M YER GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN

Things are very slowly getting back to normal. I have received a lot of CDs and DVDs over the past couple of days - some for review purposes and some for birthday presents. However, my dear and trusty hi-fi amp blew up last night (after providing great service for fifteen years) and took one of my speakers with it. So I can't listen to anything for a day or two. Young David (my nephew) is lending me some studio monitors he pinched from somewhere, and I will be back in action in a day or two. In the meantime, on with the blogs...

We kick off (geddit?) with some more news about Jon Anderson's new football song. The man gets better and better, at the age when most of us would be thinking about a pipe and slippers and taking the dog for a walk just before closing time. I am seriously impressed and cannot wait until the new album.
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/08/filed-under-music-features.html

Chris Evans is a bit like Terry Christian. They both have really irritating stage personas, yes I know that Terry is actually a really nice guy and I suspect that so is Chris. He recently had Dave Brock from Hawkwind on his show, and you can catch up with what happened on BBC iPlayer
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/08/hawkwind-dave-brock-on-bbci-player.html

Another visit to the universe of Thom the World Poet
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/08/thom-world-poet-daily-poem_23.html

Last week, the massively funny Peter McAdam launched the '9 Henrys' book with a party featuring Martin Stephenson and other special guests. It looked like it was a lot of fun. Here are images and a video.
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/08/pictures-and-video-from-9-henrys-book.html

And whilst on the subject of Martin Stephenson, here is a link to an amusing and very insightful review..
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/08/link-martin-stephenson-darwen-library.html

And finally. Your editor is basically an old hippy. It was his birthday yesterday, and he wants to say thank you for all the love and support from the Gonzo Daily readers
http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/08/jon-is-overwhelmed.html

That's it for today. See ya...

LINK: Why Blake Shelton's Animal-Cruelty Tweet Matters

Why Blake Shelton's Animal-Cruelty Tweet Matters

July 28, 2012, by Barbara J King, NPR

This is a story of twitter and the turtle.

Blake Shelton, country singer and a star of TV's "The Voice," tweeted yesterday that he swerved his vehicle to "smash" an Oklahoma box turtle. When my friend, herpetology expert John F. Taylor alerted me to the tweet, I replied to Shelton asking if his comment was a bad joke or was he really so cruel?

As BuzzFeed has suggested in publishing our conversation, Shelton's response wasn't courteous: he told me to "shut up." Since then, he and some of his followers have called me and others who questioned him names so rude and colorful I can't print them here (they're at the @BlakeShelton and @bjkingape feeds if curiosity moves you).

The name-calling is juvenile and annoying, but not the main issue.

Apparently the original tweet was a bad joke, and Shelton wasn't even in Oklahoma yesterday. Take a look again at BuzzFeed, though. Are fans really killing turtles in honor of Shelton? I hope those tweets are just bad jokes too.

But by experiment, a NASA scientist recently found out that 6% of drivers do intentionally swerve to hit animals, turtles among them. That's animal cruelty, and we don't need a singing and TV star, especially one considered to be animal-friendly, encouraging it.

From Wikipedia

Shelton Tweets About Intentionally Swerving to Hit Turtle

On the morning of July 27, 2012, Blake Shelton Tweeted that he had intentionally swerved onto the shoulder of the road in order to hit a turtle, sending a number of his animal-loving fans into an uproar [22]. Within hours, a screenshot of his Tweet had gone viral throughout the herpetoculturist community and both his Twitter account and Facebook page were flooded with comments from animal lovers all over the nation voicing their opinions on the matter.

According to Oklahoma state law this is considered a felony:

Oklahoma Statutes Title 21. Crimes and Punishments. Part VII. Crimes Against Property. Chapter 67. Injuries to Animals.

§21-1685. Cruelty to animals. Any person who shall willfully or maliciously torture, destroy or kill, or cruelly beat or injure, maim or mutilate any animal in subjugation or captivity, whether wild or tame, and whether belonging to the person or to another, or deprive any such animal of necessary food, drink, shelter, or veterinary care to prevent suffering; or who shall cause, procure or permit any such animal to be so tortured, destroyed or killed, or cruelly beaten or injured, maimed or mutilated, or deprived of necessary food, drink, shelter, or veterinary care to prevent suffering; or who shall willfully set on foot, instigate, engage in, or in any way further any act of cruelty to any animal, or any act tending to produce such cruelty, shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary not exceeding five (5) years, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one (1) year, or by a fine not exceeding Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00). Any animal so maltreated or abused shall be considered an abused or neglected animal.

Change.org petition to get OK. to at least fine him (though it is a felony)

http://www.change.org/petitions/oklahoma-department-of-wildlife-conservation-charges-against-blake-shelton

Some background on Shelton’s past, opinion’s and previous Tweets. Basically he is a bigoted drunk.

Blake Shelton says record label tried to get him off Twitter

July 11, 2011, 3:38 PM EST

WENN

Blake Shelton says his record label threatened to shut down his Twitter account out of concern that his messages were overly candid and sometimes offensive.

Shelton, who has recounted his drunken nights on Twitter, caused controversy in May after posting what many took to be an anti-gay remark: "Re-writing my fav Shania Twain song.. Any man that tries Touching my behind He's gonna be a beaten, bleedin', heaving kind of guy." He later apologized for the tweet, characterizing it as a misunderstanding.

He tells The New York Times, "There was a point where Warner Bros. was, like, 'We've got to get Blake off Twitter, 'cause he can't say these type of things.' I hope that people learn from me. It's OK to be yourself. It's OK to offend somebody, and, as a matter of fact, please be polarizing. If you're not polarizing, you failed in my opinion. If you don't stand for something, how can anyone respect what you do?"

LINK: Wunnumin Lake Bigfoot / Strange Activity - Clearfield Co, PA

Read on...

HAUNTED SKIES: Times (The) 29.11.67.

http://hauntedskies.blogspot.com/2012/08/times-291167.html

LINK: Locals Reluctant to Talk About Bigfoot in Public

Steven Streufort, the owner of Bigfoot Books in Willow Creek, showed off this 18-inch-long plaster cast taken from tracks found in the forest. / Photo by Kristan Korns, Two Rivers Tribune.

Tribes all along the Pacific coast, from Central California all the way up to Alaska, have shared stories about large hairy human-like creatures that live hidden in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Steven Streufort, who runs Bigfoot Books in Willow Creek, said that European settlers arriving in the area disregarded the stories at first – until they started finding footprints and catching sight of the creature themselves. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that the local stories reached the outside world.

“In the late 1950s they started to cut into a remote area of virgin timber north of Weitchpec,” Streufort said. “When they started cutting roads into there, they found footprints in the new roads.”

A logging tractor driver from Salyer named Jerry Crews took pictures and made plaster casts of huge footprints at his work site near Bluff Creek. The footprints were 16 inches long.

The Humboldt Times in Eureka published the pictures in October 1958, and the story was retold by newspapers around the world.

Read on...

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1949 Geoff Capes was born. Capes is arguably the strongest man to have ever lived, having gained more awards in strength competitions than any other man and medals in shot put at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games as well as winning many events at the Highland Games. These days he breeds birds.

And now the news:

• Curious incident of a dead giraffe
• Rescued elephants seen with wild herd in India's M...
• Massachusetts Butterflies Move North as Climate Wa...
• The Wasp That Never Cries Wolf
• When Will We Learn To Speak Animal Languages?
• Norwegian driver hits bear after trying to avoid e...
• Sharks tracked by surfing robot and free app
• Large, wild cat attacks horse in Aitkin County - v...
• Witch of Loch Ness hopes to work his monster charm...

Capes kicking serious arse bending iron bars while his competitors struggle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke2XFIuSqRw

BIG CAT NEWS FROM THE UK: Scotland, Carlisle and a bloke dressed up as a tiger

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in.

It takes a long time to do and is a fairly tedious task so I am not promising that they will be done each day, but I will do them as regularly as I can. JD

I have been very remiss in recent weeks, because Weird Weekending has taken over most of my life. However, things are almost back to normal now, and so I herewith present an enormous round up of the last few weeks' sightings.

Big cats reported on Ashdown Forest
This Is Sussex
The Midhurst cat pauses and looks at people, but the Ashdown Forest cat never does that. "People say it's panther-like, but we just don't know what animal it could be. It's a mystery." The two sightings describe the cat running across the forest ...

1. ​

Sadly, no pictures except for this one of the journalist. Our next stop is Scotland where there has been a spate of sightings...

Mystery cat sighting
Dumfries and Galloway Standard
Samantha isn't the only person to have spotted big cats in the region. In January, Aaron Halliday and Nathan Crosbie spotted a big cat similar to a panther in a field near Dalbeattie. And last year, three mysterious cat sightings were reported in the ...

'It unnerved me a bit' — Cupar woman reports big cat sighting at Castlehill ...
Scotland Courier
It comes weeks after a 'big cat' was also apparently spotted a few miles away over the hill near Ceres and follows years of sightings around the country. Mrs Low told The Courier: ''I was walking my dog near the cemetery and I happened to glance over.

Big Cat Sighting at Castlehill Primary School, UK -- Society's Child ...
Cupar woman Susan Low saw what she believes to be a black puma-like animal in North East Fife on Friday night. Mrs Low, of Sandylands Road, was walking ...

This next one is just silly. The idea that a police alert comes about after some drunk in a tiger costume is seen wandering around the West Midlands makes you question the values of our current society.

Kingswinford cops cat-ch feline felon after a walk on the wild side
Stourbridge News
KINGSWINFORD cops were hoping for a big cat-ch in a case which took a walk on the wild side. Officers were this morning (Thursday August 9) thinking they were coming to the end of a quiet shift when a call came in reporting a 'tiger' on the loose.

Now to the far north of England...

Sighting of 'beautiful black cat' near Carlisle News & Star He added: “The same week I was in the same area with another guy, and we saw a red deer at the fence, desperately trying to get through; it was panicked and I thought maybe it had smelled a big cat.” The incident happened about five or six years ago but ... Skeptic News: Big Cat sighted in Carlisle - The 21st Floor By Skeptic News Skeptic News: Big Cat sighted in Carlisle. 9 August 2012 No Comment. On Saturday, Raymond Sant and his wife Vera were driving from their home in Thursby towards Asda, Carlisle when they spotted what they believe was a panther. As they ... And now. Are these the footprints of the fen tiger? 'Fen Tiger' on prowl beside country road Cambridge News He said it walked beside a fence “without a care in the world” and the company director was “convinced” it was a big cat. The sighting occurred at about 7.30pm on Friday, August 3 on Cambridge Road off the A10. Mr Bates, 65, said: “I was the passenger ... And back to Scotland for a story which happened 25 years ago... Fire breaks out in workshop Forres Gazette Mystery big cat back on prowl – The Moray “big cat” made a midsummer appearance in the heart of Forres last week. The animal was spotted on overgrown waste ground between the Royal Hotel and the main Inverness. Aberdeen railway line and was ...