Hasta La Gadget!

The United States is a nation of animal lovers. Over 82 million households (68% of the population) have at least one pet and the care that we provide for our animal companions parallels the care that we provide for our families and ourselves, whether it’s the quality of the food that we buy for our dogs and cats, or the medical care that we give to them. In fact, this year we will spend around $15 billion on veterinary care alone out of a total of about $58 billion that we will invest in the care of the animals who we have invited into our homes.

To say that most people consider their pets to be a part of the family is no exaggeration and shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It seems that every few months there is a new scientific “breakthrough” that validates the commonsense understanding that animals have complex emotional and social lives — that they think and feel and experience love and loss, fear and anxiety just as we do.

And yet, the tax dollars of these same animal lovers are being used to pay for the sanctioned killing of 3 – 4 million healthy pets every year in our nation’s shelters. That’s more than 9,000 healthy, adoptable dogs and cats every day: 9,000 lives, in the fullest sense of the word, are wasted every day.

Caging and killing homeless pets is not only abusive and cruel to these animals that we value as a society, killing healthy, friendly pets is a soul-destroying activity that has a corrosive effect on our communities.

This situation need not exist at all. No-kill is not only possible, it is the right thing to do and it has already been achieved in communities around the country.

More to the point, it is an essential step in our evolution as a moral society because elevating the value and status of those who are the weakest members of our communities elevates the status and value of all members.

Let me put the scope of this tragedy into perspective with a lesson from Hurricane Katrina.

In the aftermath of Katrina, tens of thousands of animals died, not because of flooding — that was only the mechanism — but as a result of the overarching public policy that did not include people’s pets in evacuation or rescue plans. They died because neither human emergency shelters nor state and federal evacuation teams allowed people to take their pets with them when evacuated. This policy was often enforced at gunpoint. Some New Orleans residents report being told to leave the dog or it will be shot before your eyes.

I was there, I spoke to people like this almost every day. For four months following the storm, I oversaw rescue and sheltering operations for Best Friends Animal Society at our emergency shelters in Tylertown, Mississippi, and in Metairie, Louisiana. It was an experience that forever changed my life and that of everyone there, whether a victim or a volunteer.

Katrina was on the news 24/7. Dogs and cats swimming in floodwaters, standing on roofs and on top of cars in the baking sun days and weeks into the disaster. The images tore at people’s heart.

The world was shocked by the images of animals in distress and thousands of people flocked to the Gulf Coast area to save stranded animals and millions more gave donations of cash and supplies.

And then Congress acted.

In response to the deaths of thousands of pets and the deaths of some human Gulf Coast residents who refused to be evacuated without their pets, Congress passed the PETS Act (Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act), which requires local counties to have a pet evacuation plan in place in order to qualify for FEMA funding in the event of a disaster. Congress officially recognized the importance of people’s pets with passage of the PETS Act, and today, evacuation plans and shelters that accommodate the pets of evacuees are the norm.

As a consequence, in natural disasters subsequent to Katrina, such as Superstorm Sandy, the animal component of these events has been manageable locally and has been significantly smaller despite affecting much larger populations. That is a result of a change in public policy that reflected public values.

Katrina was one of the most devastating natural disasters in U.S. history. No one knows how many animals died, but most estimates put the number in the tens of thousands — 50,000 to 70,000 dogs and cats dead across the Gulf Coast – an unprecedented disaster.

And yet, an animal disaster on the scale of the one that followed Hurricane Katrina is happening every week in our nation’s shelters, and it deserves the same urgency of response. Loving household pets, once and potentially future family members, are being killed.

And as with Katrina, we have the resources and practical know-how to put an end to this pointless killing in the foreseeable future, and that knowledge and know-how are what constitute the essentials of the no-kill movement.

We can Save Them All, but it’s a matter of prioritizing the lives of shelter animals. Changing public policy to reflect public values — as we did following Katrina, with lifesaving goals set by local city councils — would accelerate the lifesaving.

In communities (such as Austin, Los Angeles, Salt Lake County and West Valley City, Utah) where local civic leaders have set no-kill goals for local animal control agencies, no-kill has been or is being realized. In other cities — such as Reno, Nevada; Kansas City, Missouri; and Charlottesville, Virginia — lead sheltering and animal control agencies inaugurated successful no-kill campaigns on their own initiative.

If national news crews covered municipal animal shelters, as they covered the animals following Hurricane Katrina, no-kill policies would be the norm in a very short time.

We can Save Them All and we will be a better country for it when we do.

Concept designer Al Brady is at it again with some really cool racers with inverted cockpits—they are like flying bikes. Can you imagine yourself piloting one of these things? The sensation of speed in that position would probably cause adrenaline to overflow out of your ears and nostrils.

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If Captain America was a realistic representation of the United States of America instead of some well groomed side part and perfectly pectoral’d ideal of a man, well, he’d be much fatter, much dumber and much more wasteful.

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If you have ever played with a Nintendo DS handheld console, chances are you might have come across the title, “The World Ends With You”. The game is considered by many to be one of the better RPGs out there available on the DS console and was co-developed by Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts team.

The game itself is pretty old and dates back to 2007, however it was a couple of years ago that a version of the game made its way onto iOS devices, and the good news for Android users is that if you’re looking to see what all the fuss is about, or perhaps to relive some memories, you will be pleased to learn that Square Enix has officially brought The World Ends With You onto Android devices.

Unsurprisingly the game does not come cheap. According to its listing on Google Play, it has been priced at $18 which is admittedly pretty expensive when it comes to mobile games. Heck, there were full-fledged PC games during the Steam Summer Sale that was priced a lot cheaper than that. However Square Enix has defended their pricing decision, claiming that their games are worth their price due to the number of hours of fun you can get from it.

We guess we have to agree since these games are full console games, just ported onto mobile devices. However compared to mobile games which are typically priced anywhere between $1-$5, it does seem like a bit of a turn off. In any case if you think the price is justified, you will be able to download the game via the Google Play Store.

Square Enix’s The World Ends With You Finally Arrives On Android , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Is Ubisoft working on a new Assassin’s Creed game for mobile devices? Well if they are, it certainly would not be the first Assassin’s Creed game to go mobile as gamers might recall titles like Assassin’s Creed Pirates. That being said, it seems that a new game could be in the works, thanks to a screenshot posted in Touch Arcade’s forums.

As you can see in the screenshot to the right, it shows off a new game called Assassin’s Creed Memories. Based on description of the game, it sounds like it will differ from the Assassin’s Creed titles we have come to known and love. Instead it seems that the game could be a slightly slower-paced game and will incorporate card battles, RPG, and strategy.

Unfortunately apart from that brief description, not much else is known about the game, although it does seem like it will most likely end up being an iOS exclusive. It also says that the game is “coming soon”, so hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to learn more about it. So far in 2014, Ubisoft has only announced one Assassin’s Creed title, which is Unity.

It is expected that Ubisoft has another Assassin’s Creed game in the works designed for last-gen consoles in mind called Comet, which has yet to be unveiled. In any case we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled, so check back with us later for the details.

Assassin’s Creed Memories Could Be Upcoming Game For iOS , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.