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Sunday, March 26, 2006

Golden Oldie: 250-Year-Old Tortoise Dies


One of the world's oldest creatures, a giant tortoise believed to have been about 250 years old, has died in the Calcutta zoo where it spent more than half its long life.

Addwaita, which means "the one and only" in the local Bengali language, was one of four Aldabra tortoises brought to India by British sailors in the 18th century.

Zoo officials say he was a gift for Lord Robert Clive of the East India Company, who was instrumental in establishing British colonial rule in India, before he returned to England in 1767.

Long after the other three tortoises died, Addwaita continued to thrive, living in Clive's garden before being moved to the zoo in 1875.

"According to records in the zoo, the age of the giant tortoise, Addwaita, who died on Wednesday, would be 250 years approximately," said zoo director Subir Chowdhury.

That would have made him much older than the world's oldest documented living animal: Harriet, a 176-year-old Galapagos tortoise who lives at the Australia Zoo north of Brisbane, according to the zoo's Web site. She was taken from the island of Isla Santa Cruz by Charles Darwin in the 19th century.

Aldabra tortoises come from the Aldabra atoll in the Seychelle islands in the Indian Ocean, and often live to more than 100 years of age. Males can weigh up to 550 pounds.

Addwaita, the zoo's biggest attraction, had been unwell for the last few days, said local Forest Minister Jogesh Burman,

"We were keeping a watch on him. When the zoo keepers went to his enclosure on Wednesday they found him dead," Burman said.

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9 Comments:

Blogger Andrew Kaduk said...

So are they gonna eat him or what?

title="comment permalink">March 27, 2006 10:07 AM  
Blogger John Q. Public esq. said...

you know after Lent, you should come to the NLT club... I am sure you would enjoy yourself, ask Coff.

title="comment permalink">March 27, 2006 11:13 AM  
Blogger John Good said...

Andrew. . 250 year old meat? I'm gonna start naming off cars. . .

JQ. . I'm sure I'd be honored. Or arrested. I'll get back with you.

title="comment permalink">March 27, 2006 6:56 PM  
Blogger Andrew Kaduk said...

Yeah, sure....like that aged Japaneese beef...

title="comment permalink">March 27, 2006 9:09 PM  
Blogger Andrew Kaduk said...

John, I couldn't agree more. Raising the price of Japaneese goods just to level the playing field between them and their inept American counterparts is just plain SHIT. You realize FOB Japan price for a Honda Accord is less than $10k...

title="comment permalink">March 28, 2006 11:32 PM  
Blogger John Good said...

It really scares me when you agree with me, Andrew. ;)

title="comment permalink">March 29, 2006 5:09 PM  
Blogger Andrew Kaduk said...

Oh, it SHOULD...Johnny B. Good.

John, you realize you have just aligned yourself with a very capitalist-friendly school of thought...(not popular for union-friendly democrats!).

Like I said before...plenty of room for you over here, even if you're just visiting!

title="comment permalink">March 29, 2006 5:53 PM  
Blogger John Good said...

Now, what NEEDS to be done is to put a halt to American companies outsourcing to these countries. I realize that this may change your capitalist-friendly view of me, but it needs to be said. I think elimination of the tariffs should be contigent upon the prevention of outsourcing OUR jobs and products.
Keep the jobs and factories here, and pay a fair union wage. If it makes your product a bit more expensive than the imports, look at what they do right to trim their costs. It's not all a "wage" issue. Many of these foreign companies run extremely lean machines, while many US biz's are running on heavy fuel.
We need to put the teeth back into the "Buy American" campaign. It's currently a joke, since even when you do buy our products, they've usually been made overseas in American owned sweatshops. I'll glady pay a little extra to have our pride in ownership back.

title="comment permalink">March 29, 2006 6:11 PM  
Blogger Andrew Kaduk said...

Ask anyone who runs a business, John...they will tell you that 'labor is the killer.' Labor is all it takes to 'deep six' a perfectly viable business plan. What you recommend would actually develop into an ugly catch 22...

If you stop the jobs from leaving, many blue-chip stocks will tank, whereby tanking the entire economy.
This will in turn tank a lot of 401K's and IRA's who consider these Blue-Chips to be good long-term investments.
And VOILA, you are right back to screwing the people who's wages you are trying to protect via their retirements/pensions/CD's etc.

The biggest fallacy of your arguement:

"Fair Union Wage"

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

$20/hr. to sweep the floor at Harvester right about the time they packed it up and left Ft. Wayne hanging. FAIR??? I wouldn't pay ANYBODY $8/hr. to do that. It's not WORTH $20/hr.

Skilled trades? That's a different debate entirely, but I'll tell you this, my dad is a union-thug electrician (General Foreman) in the Toledo area...Right now he's TAKING HOME almost $5,000 per WEEK. He's getting paid more than most Pharmacists and Doctors to boss around other union thugs. How does THAT create a competetive wage scale that we can apply globally???

I'll save you the time...it DOESN'T. The American Dream has always been to "Get paid a shitload for doing as little as possible." As economies of scale reach out over the oceans, that attitude must die or our entire way of life will.

title="comment permalink">March 29, 2006 11:27 PM  

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