Groups unite to fight creation of unified currency
The recent call by the governor of the Central Bank of The Park to unify Animal currencies has given rise to what some have called an “unlikely alliance.”
Members of a number of advocacy groups, including APIC (Association for the Preservation of Individual Currencies), Lizards for Liberty, The Monotreme Alliance, the Confederation of Ground Squirrels, the Small Animal Reform Group, and IHOP (the Idiosyncratic Hibernators of The Park), have banded together in an effort to block any legislation the Archons plan to enact regarding currency amalgamation.
The newly-formed alliance has chosen Rowena Goose as its spokesBird. The Goose, who has been fighting currency amalgamation for almost a decade was elected President of APIC in 23 AZ (2003).
“We won’t take this lying down,” said the Goose in an interview on CLucK RADIO early this morning. “We’re going to fight until [currency amalgamation] is defeated.”
Central Bank issues advisory to Archons
Multiple Animal currencies may be putting The Park in danger of suffering a severe economic depression.
That is the warning contained in a special advisory to the Archons issued by the Central Bank of The Park.
In the advisory, which was issued this morning, Central Bank governor, Bravessa Contadora, strongly recommended that the Archons take swift action to amalgamate The Park’s Animal currencies “before the Ftoo becomes virtually worthless in the outside world.”
Speaking at a press conference following the advisory’s release, Contadora acknowledged the past controversy surrounding the issue, and said she wished to be sensitive and respectful to those who oppose a single currency.
“I realize that groups such as APIC (Association for the Preservation of Individual Currencies) have been fighting this for a long time and, to a large degree, they’ve been successful. But, to what end? If we are to preserve our trading position with the world outside The Park, we need a strong, amalgamated currency. I see no other option for The Park,” she said.
She went on to explain that trade in so many different currencies is “just too difficult to fathom for those who live in a one-species world” and that, in her opinion, The Park had no hope of increasing exports unless it adopted a simplified currency.
The Park’s 35 Archons have, thus far, remained silent on the issue. A statement is expected later in the day.
Park weather office blasts budget, proposes radical change
PWO Budget Reconfiguration
The Park’s Weather Office has launched a formal complaint against The Finance Office after the release, last week, of its Expense Projections for 2012.
In a statement released this morning, the PWO charged that “a recent history of underfunding of weather in The Park has resulted in reduced crop sizes, diminished coats, domicile destruction and even, perhaps, a rise in Animal illnesses.”
While some of the charges might be difficult to prove, the PWO has authority on its side when it comes to reduced crop sizes and food shortages.
“The past few years have seen the worst harvests in The Park,” says A.P. Civet, of the Society of Concerned Park Cultivators, Planters, Growers, and Farmers (SCPCPGF). “Not coincidentally, these were the years of cutbacks, when funding for weather purchases was at its lowest. It may seem fine to those [Animals] in the Finance Office to replace rain with wind and to buy dull days by the pack, but you can’t grow food like that,” he said.
The Park Weather Officers don’t need convincing. They have put together a counter-proposal, which they are hoping the Archons will review and send to the Finance Office for implementation.
“At the present time,” said a spokesAnimal for the Weather Office, “the weather budget comes out of the 11 per cent of the budget that is allocated for groundskeeping and water maintenance. A measly 15% of that 11% total has been used for weather purchases. We are proposing to more than double that amount to 35%. We feel that figure will give us the leverage we need to buy the kind of weather that will result in abundant harvests. The Park’s population is growing at an alarming rate and our [food] requirements are growing along with that. This is no time to be cutting back and risking more shortages,” the spokesAnimal said.
One Human dead, reporter held for questioning outside Park
Insect Intelligencer reporter ZeeZee Legy
The Insect Intelligencer has confirmed that reporter, ZeeZee Legy, has been held for questioning outside The Park in connection with the death of a Human late last night. The dead Human, whose name has not yet been released by law enforcement, was one of two who suffered injuries last week. The other was released from hospital three days ago.
In a statement released early this morning, The Intelligencer’s editor-in-chief, Fannia di Volo, expressed her deepest sympathies for the family of the fallen Human and pledged the paper’s “full cooperation” in any investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.
Reports claim that the two Humans fell ill suddenly outside their homes and were rushed to hospital. Witnesses at the scene told police that five of the Intelligencer’s reporters were “hovering around” at the time and that at least two of them “had their probosces resting” on the Humans’ arms.
The five reporters fled the scene but were arrested inside The Park within hours of their return. Only Legy remained outside The Park, where it was reported he had been visiting family while on vacation from the newspaper.
Legy, along with the other five reporters, work exclusively on the Intelligencer’s daily Fly on the Wall feature. After the arrest of the five reporters, the newspaper’s publishers made the decision to cease publication temporarily. The reporters were to have been formally charged on July 18, but a backlog in The Park’s court system has caused a delay in the matter.
Scandal rocks Insect Intelligencer
The Insect Intelligencer, one of The Park’s oldest and most authoritative newspapers, has temporarily ceased publication in the wake of a scandal that has resulted in the arrest of five of its staff reporters.
The scandal, which broke over the weekend, involves five of the six journalists assigned to the newspaper’s Fly on the Wall feature. The mixture of out-of-Park news, gossip, and speculation debuted in 26 AZ (2007) and was an instant success. A year later, The Intelligencer’s editors made it a regular component of the paper, hiring six new journalists to feed its readership’s ever-increasing appetite for blood and dirt.
While, at first, the feature was considered entertaining and harmless, Fly on the Wall began to take on a more stinging tone and, last week, out-of-Park newspapers reported that two of the sources cited by the journalists had ended up in hospital. One has since been released; the other remains in critical condition due to an undisclosed illness.
A spokesanimal for The Intelligencer’s editor-in-chief, Fannia di Volo, expressed concern for their well-being, but stressed that no connection had, as yet, been established between the newspaper’s journalists and the health of their sources.
The five journalists are scheduled to appear in court this afternoon.
New conclusions confirm old theories: sighs matter!
Sighs matter!
Such is the opinion of researchers at the University of West Terrier’s School of Medicine, after they analyzed data from three extensive surveys of Animal morbidity and mortality.
The team of investigators, whose medical specialties include cardiology, trichology, neurology, and gastroenterology, examined the health outcomes of twenty-eight species of Animals in The Park. The results of the retrospective study will appear in their entirety this Autumn in the prestigious journal, Sanitas.
“This study is the first of its kind to examine sighs as a marker for disease,” said Dr. Adelaide Antelope, who heads the group of researchers.
A total number of four hundred and twenty-five Animals participated in the survey, which were conducted at UWT over a fifteen-year period. Although previous generations of physicians believed sighs to be of diagnostic and prognostic significance, that theory had fallen out of fashion by the year 8 AZ.
“Even though we continued to note sighs in the history-taking,” Dr. Antelope said, “the significance was more as an attendant behaviour rather than as a sign of more serious disease.”
According to Dr. Yazmina Yak, a senior member of the research team, sighs became an issue in the study when one particular investigator noted the frequency with which the term, “idiopathic exhalation” was used in the description of the mental state of patients who were found to suffer from serious illness.
Also among the group’s findings Dr. Antelope says, is a correlation between sighing and dying (see Figure 1 below).
“When we took a closer look at the outcomes of the sighers, we were astonished by what appeared to be an almost direct relationship,” he said.
Indeed, the study showed that Animals who presented with sighs and at least two other disease symptoms stood a seventy-two per cent greater chance of having an illness that could trigger death.
That statistic alone, says the research group, is enough to make any Animal sigh.
Star’s illness shuts down set of “Mixed Nuts”
Lodgepole Productions has halted filming on the set of “Mixed Nuts” due to the ongoing health problems of its star, Millicent Hayberry.
In a press release issued this morning, the film’s Executive Producer, Victoria Sciurini, announced that filming had ceased “for the forseeable future” due to the hospitalization of the project’s star.
There has been no official announcement about the actress’s condition since she was bitten on the set by a fan and rushed to The Park Hospital for the Afflicted and Infirm. Initial reports stated she was in stable condition and under observation. Later, rumours began to circulate that she had contracted a deadly disease from the bite. The actress’s representatives refused to comment on the rumours.
One source close to the actress said she was experiencing a high fever and tremors and that doctors had commenced a course of pharmaceutical therapy that would “take several weeks to complete”.
A spokesanimal for film company said they are committed to completing the project with Millicent Hayberry and that they eagerly await her return to good health.
Expense Projections show high cost of Park security
The release of The Park’s Expense Projections for the coming year has put into sharp focus the high cost of securing the safety of Animals in The Park.
The budgetary figures, which were released this morning by The Park’s Finance Office, offer a window into the challenges faced by administrators when it comes to guarding the lives and property of Park residents.
“We can’t bury our heads in the sand,” said Park Finance Officer, Milton Struts, when questioned about the high cost of security at a press conference following the release of the figures.
“We live in a turbulent world…in which the mood can change in a flash. That is the new reality, and we have to be prepared for the consequences of that reality,” he said.
The “new reality” that The Park faces is expensive, and accounts for a projected increase of 25 per cent over this year for services such as The Park Police, the Ant Security and Intelligence Agency, and The Park’s Guard Dogs. While some increase in security may be warranted, many of those poring over the figures at the press conference worried openly about the effect the increase will have on the quality of life in The Park.
“Our resources are limited and if so much goes to the Guard Dogs, what will be left for the enjoyment of life?” asked one Park resident at the conference.
New social networking site to offer scent option
Park Animals who use social networking sites to connect with friends and family will soon be able to avail themselves of a new option. If all goes well with its final tweaking, gewper, set to open its virtual doors on August 1, will offer users the ability to smell those they know and those they might wish to know in the future.
Over a period of more than two years, RhinoTech, Inc., the new site’s developer, has been collaborating with Enterprises Moufettes, S.A., makers of the popular scent-masking product, FeralNoMore™, to create what company executives are calling “the ultimate Animal experience in the virtual world.”
“This new site is nothing short of revolutionary,” said a RhinoTech spokesAnimal at a press conference last week.
“For the first time in history, a [social networking] site will be Animal-centric…able to deliver the kind of information that Animals have been asking for and need,” she said.
gewper (pronounced “Gooper”) will allow members to upload their scent to the site’s servers. Those whom members have designated as having the right to do so will be able to download the scent from the site simply by pressing the “Scent” button.
Membership in the site will be free of charge, the spokesanimal confirmed, as will be the scent download. The site’s developers believe that gewper will be so successful that it will generate enough advertising revenue in its first year to pay for their next online venture: a site that will allow members to touch each other, literally, across cyberspace. According to RhinoTech, the desire for that feature tops the list in its most recent consumer survey.
“I know many Animals who would just love to be able to butt heads with their friends across the world,” said the RhinoTech spokesAnimal.
