Sin Piel (no Fur) is a demonstration that takes place every year, to raise public awareness about the cost of the manufacturing of fur coats in terms of animal suffering. This year it was done in the steps of Plaça del Rei in Barcelona. In this Reuters photo the activists are preparing for the activity. Fabiola was one of the organizers (in black on the left side):
The demonstration is organized by Anima Naturalis, an international NGO for the promotion and defense of animal rights.
The Institute of Catalan Studies (Institut d'Estudis Catalans) has upgraded its definition of marriage. It is the first dictionary in the world to do so to include same-sex marriages, which are legal in Catalunya since 2005.
The old definition was "unió legítima entre un home i una dona", legitimate union of a man and a woman. The new definition is "unió legítima entre dues persones que es comprometen a portar una vida en comú establerta mitjançant ritus o formalitats legals": legitimate union between two persons that commit to having a life in common established by rites or legal formalities.
"We should not be slaves of etymologies or certain customs that may have been already left behind [superat]", indicated the president of the philology chapter studies of the Academy, Joan Martí i Castell.
The Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web workshop is now in its fifth edition! The deadline for research articles is February 13, 2009.
Adversarial Information Retrieval addresses tasks such as gathering, indexing, filtering, retrieving and ranking information from collections wherein a subset has been manipulated maliciously. On the Web, the predominant form of such manipulation is search engine spamming (or spamdexing), i.e., malicious attempts to influence the outcome of ranking algorithms, aimed at getting an undeserved high ranking for some
items in the collection. Topics include:
Heifer whines could be human cries
Closer comes the screaming knife
This beautiful creature must die
This beautiful creature must die
A death for no reason
And death for no reason is murder
And the flesh you so fancifully fry
Is not succulent, tasty or kind
Its death for no reason
And death for no reason is murder
And the calf that you carve with a smile
Is murder
And the turkey you festively slice
Is murder
Do you know how animals die ?
Kitchen aromas arent very homely
Its not comforting, cheery or kind
Its sizzling blood and the unholy stench
Of murder
Its not natural, normal or kind
The flesh you so fancifully fry
The meat in your mouth
As you savour the flavour
Of murder
No, no, no, its murder
No, no, no, its murder
Oh ... and who hears when animals cry ?
The Institute of Catalan Studies (Institut d'Estudis Catalans) has upgraded its definition of marriage. It is the first dictionary in the world to do so to include same-sex marriages, which are legal in Catalunya since 2005.
