The images are taken from a Butterball affiliated slaughterhouse in North Carolina.  They show workers kicking the animals, hitting them with sticks, throwing them in walls and other awful abuse.

The videos go further and show footage of abused animals with rotting parts of their bodies.  It shows turkeys with their eyes rotting out and with broken bones.

Mercy for Animals took the footage to local authorities who issued arrest warrants and raided the plant Tuesday morning.

Butterball reacted by issuing a statement that they have a zero tolerance policy for the abuse of the animals and are conducting both their own investigation and one through a third party.

Companies like Butterball are becoming much more sensitive to allegations of abuse at their factories because customers are holding the large agricultural concerns responsible for abuse of animals.  Economists say that there has been a noticeable decrease in the amount of meat being consumed that was raised by large corporate conglomerates.

Allegations of abuse at McDonalds affiliated suppliers has caused the  burger giant to reassess their relationships with egg suppliers and pork suppliers this year.

Would you be less likely to but products form a company like Butterball if you knew there were allegations of abuse against the company?

Here is the Mercy for Animals video that caused the uproar (Warning Graphic!)

[Video] Butterball Not So Appetizing After Abuse Video Surfaces is a post from: The Inquisitr

Istanbul-based Ardic has created what might very well be the world’s largest Google Android based “tablet” device with full touchscreen based capabilities.

Featuring Google’s Android Honeycomb system the Android based gadget offerings full 1080p video support on a 65-inch LCD display with support for “basic gestures” such as zoom and pinch.

The current model currently offers just two sensors however the company has promised a four-sensor unit in the near future which will bring with it multi-touch support.

Powered by a NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC processor and 1GB of RAM the system also offers 16GB flash memory and offers dual cameras. If that isn’t enough to get you excited the system also features support for HDMI and USB while offering additional connectivity through a microSD card slot and WiFi capabilities along with 3G support.

For power users (which is likely anyone who owns this mammoth of a machine), a dock also enables instant connectivity to the OEM TV with HDMI support for video and audio and USB support for touch input.  The company is also hoping to add wireless connectivity in the future.

No pricing has been announced for the machine but I’m willing to bet the amount is not cheap.

Here’s a video of the gadget in action:

Could you find use for a 65-inch Android “Tablet” device?

Meet The World’s First 65-Inch Android “Tablet” is a post from: The Inquisitr

The 7.2 magnitude quake, which hit the Turkish city of Van on Sunday, has also left tens of thousands sleeping outside in freezing conditions.

Rescue teams are now searching for those trapped beneath the rubble, with local mayor Veysel Keser telling the BBC, “There are many people under the rubble. We can hear their screams for help. We need urgent help.”

Ambulances, soldiers and rescue teams have all rushed to the town, with many rescuers working through the night by torchlight, using hands and shovels to dig through collapsed buildings.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has flown to the city by helicopter. He thanked other countries for their offers of help, but insisted Turkey would be able to cope with the disaster.

Mr. Erdogan reported villages north of Van have also been affected, particularly those with a preponderance of clay brick buildings.

Hakki Erskoy, from the Turkish Red Crescent, said camps were being set up to shelter people, and that food and water were being sent to the disaster site, along with mobile kitchens.

The US Geological Survey revealed the quake struck at 13:41 local time (05:41 EST) at a depth of 20km (12 miles). The epicentre was recorded as being 16km north-east of Van in eastern Turkey.

Turkey is prone to earthquakes because of its position in one of the world’s most active seismic zones. A pair of earthquakes in 1999 killed close to 20,000 people in the north-west region of the country.

Here’s an Associated Press report on the disaster:

Turkey Earthquake Kills 239, Rescue Efforts Ongoing is a post from: The Inquisitr

A salmonella scare has prompted a recall of just under 55,000 lbs. of “raw frozen turkey meat” sold under the popular brand name Jennie-O after the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service was notified of a patient infected by the dangerous bacteria in Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin patient was the first to ping FSIS radar, but since then, individuals infected with Salmonella Hadar linked to Jennie-O turkey products were located in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Washington.

The recall affects 4-lb. boxes of Jennie-O Turkey Store “All Natural Turkey Burgers With Seasonings, Lean White Meat.” Packages contain 12 individually-wrapped, 1/3-lb. turkey burgers, and were boxed on November 23rd, 2010. The affected Jennie-O product was shipped nationwide, and is marked by a lot codes of “32710″ through “32780″ (located above the tear strip) with a use-by date of “DEC 23 2011.” The front of each box has a USDA mark of inspection with an establishment number of  ”P-7760″ located inside the seal.

Hormel Foods has posted an official recall notice on their website, with information about safe food handling to avoid being salmonella infection. Also listed are symptoms of salmonella infection and hotline information for consumers with recall-related questions.

Jennie-O recalls 55K pounds of turkey products after salmonella outbreak is a post from: The Inquisitr

The ingredient list alone for this Thanksgiving dinner is enough to make a cardiologist turn pale let alone cut deeply into the world supply of bacon strips.

Here’s the count:

• 5 different birds
• 1 pig
• countless strips of bacon

For a total of 72,186 calories and 6,451 grams of fat.

I’m betting your Thanksgiving Dinner didn’t even come close to this monstrosity is a post from: The Inquisitr

Wow, if that isn’t lucky…

In an incident sure to pop up in guilt-trippy status updates from your older relatives until time immemorial (93% of people won’t have the courage to copy and paste this, will you?), Noah’s Ark Ministries claims to have located the remaining bits of Noah’s Ark in a mountain range in Turkey. The team who believes they’ve found the Ark included “evangelical explorers” from China and Turkey. Wing-cheung Yeung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker, told European press:

“It’s not 100 percent that it is Noah’s Ark but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it.”

Another member of the crew said at a press conference:

“The search team and I personally entered a wooden structure high on the mountain. The structure is partitioned into different spaces. We believe that the wooden structure we entered is the same structure recorded in historical accounts and the same ancient boat indicated by the locals.”

However, scientists with less of a confirmation bias have cautioned religious folk not to get too excited by the announcement:

“You have to take everything out of context except the Bible to get something tolerable, and they’re not even working much with the Bible,” said Paul Zimansky, an archaeologist and historian at Stony Brook University who specializes in the Near East – and especially the region around Ararat, known as Urartu.

While the “Arkers” have said that carbon dating “proves” this time the Ark finding is the real deal, and archaeologist interviewed by MSNBC called the findings a “crock” and says that archaeological records from the period in which the great flood supposedly occurred don’t reflect an interruption in local culture at the time.  Cornell archaeologist Peter Ian Kuniholm also points out (as is evident in the name of the “evangelical explorers”) that the expedition was flawed from the start because the potential findings were expected in advance:

“These guys have already gotten the answer worked out ahead of time,” he said, “and then they go out to prove it.”

Sadly, most people who want to believe Noah’s Ark has really been found will probably buy the whole story until the next Ark pops up somewhere in a remote area in Turkey. (Seriously, how many Arks is Turkey concealing?)

[MSNBC]

Noah’s Ark reportedly found by… Noah’s Ark Ministries? is a post from: The Inquisitr

I always thought Thanksgiving was about pies, not cakes so maybe that is why these horrendous examples of cake baking are a double threat for causing you nightmares. It’s bad enough that these things look like rejects from a cooking class of the Wives of New York City without them also insulting the true tradition of pumpkin pie.

Some-one let the Alien chest popping creature lose.

See what you can do with a sand pail once you turn it upside down

Who let the dog near the cake before taking him outside?

Looks like the Great Pumpkin came back to haunt us in disguise

Where are my sunglasses the glare is killing me

Nothing like a bit of camo to provide some authenticity I guess

I’m not even sure where to go with this one.

hat tip to Buzzfeed

Thanksgiving cakes that nightmares are made of is a post from: The Inquisitr

As with all tradition there is a lot of history behind them, some of which are pretty common knowledge and others that have been forgotten over time. These historical facts aren’t always boring either. In fact most of them can be downright strange and in some cases outright bizarre.

Our big November turkey day holiday is no different so I thought it would be fun to share some of the more interesting facts about Thanksgiving.

It all started from the same person who gave us “Mary had a little lamb” – Thanksgiving hasn’t always been a national holiday but in fact only came into being in 1863 due to the campaign started by a magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale. Her other claim to fame was the nursery rhyme we all curse our kids with as they are growing up.

The entire population of Singapore – According to the National Turkey Foundation in 2007 Americans ate over 690 million pounds of turkey. Which makes it equal to the population of Singapore

And Columbus named the turkey that because he thought it was a peacock – Not always good with directions Columbus thought that when he discovered America he thought he was in India. As a result when he saw the turkey he named it “tuka” which is the Indian word for peacock.

Food is a drug – As stressful as Thanksgiving can be we are actually helped out by the food we eat to make that stress melt away. Stuffing is rich in vitamin B1, nuts have lots of magnesium, and the turkey contains tryptophan. Mix altogether and can say you have a real happy meal.

It’s party time – the original Thanksgiving dinner’s that saw the pilgrims and Wampanoag tribesmen getting down was typically three-days of dancing, singing and with a few games thrown in for good measure.

The birth of TV dinners – we can thank the presence of TV dinners on Thanksgiving. Back in 1953 when the first TV dinners were made it was because Swanson needed to do something with the 260 tons of frozen turkeys they had left over after Thanksgiving.

Houston, I think we need some turkey – The first meal on the moon was a foil packed roast turkey dinner along with all the trimmings.

That is one big bird – the largest turkey ever served up for a Thanksgiving dinner was one recorded to weigh in at  86 pounds.

Some things you may not have known about Thanksgiving is a post from: The Inquisitr

This is much really but as a lead in to a rather silly American tradition you gotta admire the willingness to have a little bit of fun. In preparation for the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon ceremony at the White House with President Obama they released this spoof of the event – which is really more like an announcement if you ask me.

The White House presents: The Turkey Pardon Spoof is a post from: The Inquisitr

A boy was walking along the street in Sanliurfa, Turkey, when a car swerved to avoid hitting a dog, lost control and slammed into him, knocking him down a set of concrete steps. The accident was caught on CCTV video.

The boy, Muhammet Dirlik, was hit by the car which then crashed through a store window just a few feet away. Miraculously, he jumped up and ran to his father.

The boy’s father, Ibrahim Dirlik, said: “I saw my son come towards me crying, but we were not aware he had been hit by the car. We thought he was just scared by the crash. We only realised the next day that the car had hit my son.”

Turkish Boy Hit By Car, Miraculously Unhurt. Video

Turkish Boy Run Down in Horrific Car Crash (VIDEO) is a post from: The Inquisitr

There’s luck, and then there’s the luck Turkish haulier Cem Tokac has.

Tokac was waiting by a rail line for a train to pass, when a truck drove in front of the train next to where he was standing. The train hits the truck, and the truck hits Tokac, who goes straight to the ground.

His injuries: cuts, bruises, and probably a soiled pair of pants.

The entire incident was captured on CCTV at two different angles. Watching it you just can’t believe that he walked away.

Amazing: man survives truck, train collision (video) is a post from: The Inquisitr

Via The Moderate Voice, a cartoon that picks up the spirit of Thanksgiving, with the economic crisis of our times. “What Turkey are they going to get to pay for all these bailouts?”

Bailout Turkey is a post from: The Inquisitr

Turkey has completely blocked Google’s blogging service Blogger due to a handful of sites linking to pirated football (soccer) games. The ban took place Friday and blocks the entire service, not just infringing blogs.

The court ruling (censorship in Turkey is decided in the courts…mostly) followed a complaint from Digitürk TV, a subscription based digital TV platform that owns the right to transmit live coverage of Turkish football league games. Digitürk had asked Google to remove blogs that linked to pirated streams of their coverage (notably only linked, but were not hosting the content.) Google didn’t take the sites down, so Digitürk obtained a blocking order through a court in Diyarbakir for the two domains and their IP addresses, which in the case of Blogger are shared so now the entire service is blocked in the country.

Under Turkish copyright law, blocking is allowed where sites link to copyright material, where usually in western nations, a link may not necessarily constitute an offense in itself. Digitürk has previously been successful in having Justin.tv and MyP2P TV blocked in Turkey.

(via basbasbas and cyber-rights)

Turkey bans Blogger due to a handful of blogs linking to pirated football games is a post from: The Inquisitr

Video taken in Turkey earlier this year allegedly shows unprecedented detailed footage of UFOs visiting earth.

The footage was captured by night guard Yalcin Yalman in a compound in Turkey, and handed over to the Sirius UFO Space Science Research Centre for confirmation. The video below is a 16 minute version of the highlights from over two and a half hours of UFO footage.

After running extensive testing on the footage, and confirming independent sitings of UFOs in the area at the same time, the center is claiming the footage isn’t faked, and that it’s the best evidence yet that we are not alone in the universe.

The video has to be seen to be believed. It’s a case of Aliens being real, or this being the most elaborate scam of all time, because that’s how incredible this footage is compared to what we’ve come to expect from so-called “UFO evidence” in the past. I want to believe….and at least one shot shows a craft not completely dissimilar to the flying cookie picture we covered last week.

What do you think?

UFOs filmed in Turkey: real evidence or biggest scam of all time is a post from: The Inquisitr