Javan Rhino, World Population, Warship and the First Lady.

Articles on both the World Wildlife web site and the Times Live reporting that the Javan rhino in Vietnam has now been poached to extinction, what a tragedy. Apparently a lot of wildlife in Vietnam is on the verge of extinction due to poaching for the exotic wildlife market, but the rhino, which was hunted for its horn, has now gone forever. If only the Asian population could learn that the rhino horn will do nothing for them medically. For this rhino species its too late, but other rhinos are still being decimated and butchered to remove their horns, even sometimes removing them whilst the animal is alive. It is dreadful that despite all efforts to protect and conserve this animal, the poachers still prevailed. This makes me so angry I would like to string the poachers up by their private parts and just leave them hanging in the jungles. It has been decided it is not economically feasible re-introducing the animal into Java. Certainly not if you are just re-supplying poachers.

Now there’s an interesting statistic, the world population is projected to hit Seven billion on October 31st this year. According to the report though, the gap between rich and poor is widening and there are more and more people without the security of enough to eat or clean water to drink. People are living longer in many parts of the world where supplies are sufficient and medical help is more available, but there are still many parts of the world where this isn’t true. Makes me wonder how soon there will be too many people for earth to support and it will be necessary for us to find homes in space. Science fiction writers have been predicting such situations for years.

Lots of interesting news stories; this one is about a British warship, the HMS Edinburgh, being accused by US secret agents of pointing its missiles at Michelle Obama, America’s first lady, when she was on a visit to South Africa staying at the Table Bay Hotel. Turns out that, in fact, the missiles were blanks. They were saluting a British lieutenant who had died off the coast of Angola the week before.

If I didn’t live in an apartment building, and if I had kids coming to the door on Halloween, I would try making these, but in my case, there is no point. However, I thought others might like to try them.

Halloween Butterfinger Eyes

By Rollin’ in the Dough!

Serves: 40, Yield: 1 eyeball

About This Recipe

"Ahhhhh! Scary! These are so fun for a Halloween party, children and adults both devour them. They are different than the usual recipe because you add Butterfinger candy bars for a nice crunch!"

Ingredients

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 1/8 ounces Butterfinger bar, finely chopped
• 12 ounces white chocolate or 12 ounces vanilla candy coating
• 40 M&M's plain chocolate candy
• red food coloring or decorating gel
• black food coloring or decorating gel

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl stir together peanut butter and butter until creamy.
2. Gradually add powdered sugar, stirring until combined.
3. Stir in Butterfinger candy.
4. Shape into 1-inch balls; place on waxed paper.
5. Freeze about 45 minutes.
6. Melt white chocolate in a double boiler or get a med sauce pan filled 1/4 of the way with water and heat until simmering and place a large glass or stainless steel bowl over top and turn heat off -if water is boiling it will scorch chocolate.
7. Add chocolate to bowl, stir constantly until melted and smooth, if you want the coating thinner add a Tbs. shortening until desired thickness is reached.
8. Dip balls, one at a time, into coating. Let excess coating drip off
9. Place on waxed paper, immediately press an M&M onto center of each peanut butter ball (you can also wait to put M&M's on until after set and just use a dot of your piped colored chocolate to adhere)
10. Refrigerate until coating is firm.
11. Using leftover white chocolate add red food coloring until desired color is reached (you may have to reheat) and place in a Ziploc or pastry bag, cut a corner very small, pipe squiggly lines on eyes to make them look blood shot or use red decorating gel.
12. Add a dot of black gel or black food colored coating to the center of M&M pieces for pupils.

Have a great day