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Giant Rabbits To Feed North Korea
iamdrscience writes with news of an East German pensioner who breeds rabbits the size of dogs. Karl Szmolinsky won a prize for breeding Germany's largest rabbit, at 23 lbs., in 2006. News photos reached the North Koreans, who asked through their embassy whether Szmolinsky would be willing to sell them some as foodstocks — each rabbit yields about 15 lb. of meat. A deal was struck and Szmolinsky will be traveling to North Korea in April to help them set up a breeding program. (The photos in the article use the most extreme, contrived camera angles to make the rabbits look even more huge.)
welcome our Giant Rabbit Overlords
In Australia the rabbits are even bigger - I think they call them 'roos'...
Oh well, what the hell...
who breeds rabbits the size of dogs.
Why don't the North Koreans just continue to eat dogs?
Trolling is a art,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation
Can anyone else see next month's headline? ... Giant Rabid Rabbits Wreck Havoc on North Korean Village.
The giant rabbit thing sounds straight out of a cheesy horror film. I think I would go with micro rabbits instead. You could breed them by the millions and just eat them whole like little snacks. They might be a little furry and a little crunchy, but at least there is less danger they will turn out evil and eat your children.
Are they made of wood?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
If he thinks that he is going to help the poor starving North Koreans, he will probably be in for the shock of his life. It will probably be for the rich ruling class, or even worse the elite may suffer from poor aim when they go out hunting rabits for sport.
If Korea is really concerned about starvation, they should look at their neighbor China. China went from a disaster of 10's of millions of starving people to total solution almost immediately. How did they do it? They let the farmers have private property rights.
DAAAAAAAAAAAA!!
They may not taste good but they can dance.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
What happens when (not if) N. Korea weaponizes these giant rabbits? Possibly by irradiating them and turning them into an even larger and more fearsome animal (sort of like African killer bees, but with big floppy death ray shooting ears). Seriously folks. Won't someone think of the children?
I'm not a vegetarian myself, but even this raises questions regarding the efficiency of such an operation.
Is it more efficient to feed these rabbits vegetable matter to be converted to protein (which, according to the article, is what the diet of many N. Koreans is deficient in), or would it be better instead to grow protein-rich plants that can be consumed directly by the people?
If the rabbits can consume grasses and other things that humans are unable to digest efficiently, and convert that into protein, then I suppose it would make sense.
"The unicode stuff in the latest version is working fabulously well. My russian mafia friends are ecstatic."
North Korea is not like China, not even close. It is very much like Soviet Union under Stalin. It is pretty much a time capsule of the 50s. Google for some blogs or photos from westerners who went there, it is a totally surreal experience.
Large empty streets, every foreigner is followed by an assigned guide. If a tourist as much as takes a digital photo of one of their leader's statues that is off center or has the head cut-off they are forced to retake the picture. There are stories of children being used to help harvest poppies for heroin production after they get off school. Everything is a show, they use all of their funds to build their military while hundreds of thousands are starving. Their leader is crazy and he has nukes. Iraq was a kindergarten compared to NK. Until the crazy dictators are ruling the country no amount of giant fluffy (and yummy) bunnies will save the people from starvation...
I don't know the technical name for it, but eating the ultra lean rabbit meat is known to cause malnutrition and eventual poisoning and death. I have seen several "adventure" videos where the survival experts remind viewers not to go very long on rabbit meat alone, for its lack of fat, and augment it with other sources of fat.
In Soviet North Korea, rabbits eat you!
Seriously though, how absurd is it that anyone thinks this is going to make any difference: it's a Communist dictatorship. The government runs food production and distribution, so of course they don't have enough food. All the rabbits in the world won't change that. It's sad and absurd that the average North Korean is still paying the price for a government that ignores that basic fact, proven so thoroughly and with so many graves in the 20th century.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
I disagree. I've made it plenty of times to California being only able to shoot and kill rabbits.
PS we used a raft to get past the last river.
PPS my wife died of cholera
Nothing to see h--Oh. Wow. Nevermind.
I'd say that the N.Koreans will be breeding these wabbits to release into the DMZ (detonate the mines) as a response to everyone laughing at their low-yield nuclear capability demonstration. Kim Jong whatever his name is got the idea from Snakes On A Plane. Think of the global (not to mention local) impact of thousands of bunnies being blown-up in the DMZ (and seen on CNN). Only a evil genius would bring the world to the brink this way. F@#king brilliant, I with I had thought of it first!
One step closer to Night of the Lepus. My plans to cause the least likely horror movie to become a reality are almost complete.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
North Korea spends %50 of it's expenditures on Military. It is a massive force, as all citizens are required to spend 10 years in it. A massive force which is a consumer of food, and is reputed to steal it at their behest. Kim Il-Sung is credited for pushing forth "revolutionary" agricultural techniques, that in reality were disastrous failures. North Korea's recent public escapades, among other previous activities, have jeopardized vital capital from South Korea (NK = cheap labour.) It has little credibility in the international marketplace, as the regime is notorious for failing to repay debts. At the same time, the regime doesn't want to initiate trade relations, because it goes against it's Juche philosophy. In truth, these are all acts of twisted paranoia for the sake of the regime's self-preservation. The starvation isn't a product of North Korea's poverty or lack of natural resources. It's a product of North Korea's regime.
A regime that would rather see the misery of all it's citizens than reunifying under the leadership of the south.
Well, at least we know that North Korea is now safe from Jimmy Carter. ;)
Did anyone else find this quote amusing, from the original article?
"I'm not increasing production and I'm not taking any more orders after this. They cost a lot to feed," he [German Farmer] said.
They're too expensive to feed for the German farmer to continue. By German rabbit-breeding standards. Now if the North Korean regime already (and allegedly) finds it too expensive to feed it's own people on even the lowest standards, how is diverting those much needed foodstuffs to rabbits going to solve anything?
Usually there's a logic to this. Unfortunately, the same people powering this decision are the same people that had the foresight of building a massive hotel that couldn't be finished (you know what I'm talking about if you're familiar with Pyongyang.)
Father Turtle: So you nervous for the race tomorrow, son?
Turtle Jr: No way, Dad! Us turtles NEVER lose to the rabbit!
Father Turtle: Riight... but I think you better have a look at the competition.
* In thunders the giant German Rabbit dwarfing Father Turtle and his son *
Giant Rabbit: Guten Tag!
Communism is just a precursor of Dictatorship.
This is because Marx had this stupid idea of condoning or even encouraging violence as the way to achieve Communism.
So when you have a "Communist" Revolution ala Marx, guess who ends up becoming leader of the country?
The one who was willing AND able to exert the most violence.
Yeah, that's right, most of the time you get Mr "Silence all Opposition".
Marx's Communism is severely flawed because of this.
You basically have to wait till you get taken over by a Benevolent Dictator, or the Evil Dictator hands power to nondictators, or Mr Dictator has a change of heart.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Dictatorship is a precursor to communism.
Move specifically, the "dictatorship of the proletariat". It is in the official Marxist road to Communism, a temporary state of dictatorship that should lead to the promised land.
Just about all self-declared Marxist regimes claimed to be the "dictatorship of the proletariat" state, being bright enough not to claim to the people that the current state of affairs was he best they could hope for. The one exception I know of was Albania, which at some point claimed to have reached "true Communism".
It has been rough to get there, but those intellectuals that still dream of Communism have mostly reached the conclusion that any kind of dictatorship of temporarily suspension civil rights are *not* acceptable steps on the way. It just took a few (well, rather more than a few) million lives to get to that insight.
Hopefully it will take less than that for the neo-Conservative to see that torture and other suspension of civil rights are not acceptable means to reach their goals, neither abroad or at home. Unless, of course, that is their goals.
>Seriously though, how absurd is it that anyone thinks this is going to make any difference
In Roman Britain Rabbits were an important food supplement. A large number could be easily be fed and cared for by the Children while the parents did more arduous agricultural tasks such as attempting to grow crops or maintain larger animals.
Pretty bad that in 2006 we have come to this though, especially when the US and EU ploughing food back into the soil and African countries would dearly love to be able to have foreign food markets.
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In the future, they'll be able to reuse 97% of that headline.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
All the rabbits in the world won't change that.
Maybe not but it certainly might help. Rabbits can survive on grass and crude silage, can be grown in relatively small areas and reproduce reliably. Faster than goats, the most widely eaten animal on the planet.
Similar husbandry programs with cavia porcellus, guinea pigs to you, have helped many families lift themselves out of poverty in Peru and other areas in South America.
Rabbits would be better suited to the colder climate of North Korea. The fur would provide a secondary revenue source. It may not sound like much but when you're dirt poor having meat to eat and furs to trade is big deal.
How is this not a good thing? Why would you want to see the North Korean people starve just because their government is the asshat of the world? That's almost as silly as people hating all Americans because Bush is a douche bag. It's not like they elected that idiot in North Korea and there's growing evidence we didn't elect our idiot, either.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Dude, here's a nickel, buy a clue. Sure, large bureaucracies cause inefficiencies but that is so far from the primary reason for North Korea's current situation it's absurd, in fact offensive, to make the comparison. You are seriously lacking in a sense of perspective.
Go for it, son, define "large" for me. Give me some numbers. We have plenty of bureaucracies that are as large or far larger than the entire North Korean government, General Motors, for example, and while they may be inefficient, they do not leave millions of their own starving to death or subject to a high likelihood of torture or death. Equating the two is beyond wrong, it's flat out irresponsible.
Those of us living in reality point, rather, to lack of accountability, lack of transparency, inefficient cross-communications, y'know, the stuff that us actual experts in industrial organization are always willing to explain to those clued enough to pay attention.
You go out there and talk to some genuine experts in the reasons for North Korea's current state. Read up on, say, rule of law. See what energetically capitalist outlets like the Wall Street Journal have to say about the causes of North Korea's problems.Then come back and we'll have this chat again.
Oh, and if you're so hyped on decentralization, tell me, what in the real world have you done to bring that about? Personally, I've been working at that for over twenty years, just testified this past week on government procedures to New York's city council. This wasn't so bad since I've been dealing with the senior relevant councilman since, oh, about two months since he was elected, back in '01.
So, how about you. What have you accomplished?
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Only on /. can uninformed political bickering be considered more interesting that GIANT FUCKING RABBITS! For God's sake people are you all insane? There's 23 pound rabbits on the loose and you're arguing over whether refugee would prefer to go to Europe or America? I want to hear about the rabbits and all I get in the comments are references to communism, a lecture on the life and times of Marx, nookular missiles and such trivial things. Seriously guys think of the rabbits!
I hate printers.