War and Pussycats

The image file I uploaded of this Hello Kitty toaster was around one megabyte in size - almost exactly the same size as a text file containing Tolstoy's epic War and Peace.

Blue State, Red State. Nice State, Dead State

When looking at murder rates we see that 63% of Blue (Democrat) states are in the bottom 20 (bottom being the good part) while 22% of Red (Republic) states are simiarly nonviolent.

On the flip side, and aren't we always, 21% of Blue states are among the 20 highest murder rate states, while 52% of Red states are in that bad grouping.

Draw your own conclusions.

Show Us Your Wrath!

New Orleans' French Quarter was largely spared by hurricane Katrina. If, as Jerry Falwell suggested, the storm was the Almighty striking out to smite sin, we can only draw one conclusion. God's aim is worse than Dick Chaney's, which raises all sorts of questions about who will win in the battle of good vs. evil.

Makes You Proud to be an American, Right?

Today, President Bush described Pakistan as "a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world."

Freedom = a coup in 1999 that brought General Pervez Musharraf to power.

Arab World = "that part of the world."

Sigh.

Blackberry Pie

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion agreed to pay $612.5 million to patent holding company NTP to settle a long-running dispute that had threatened to shut down the popular wireless e-mail service for its 3 million users.

3 million is a lot of users, but the amount of press this has gotten is nuts.

Hoisted by Our Own Petards

Mohammad al-Qahtani, the so-called "20th hijacker" has apparently given the US a lot of information, but is now claiming he lied under the pressure of torture. My guess is that he is lying now, but it would be a lot simpler to disbelieve him if we weren't actually torturing people.

In case you are wondering, a petard is a terms for a small mideavil bomb used to blow up gates and walls or 19th Century animal trap, consisting of a rope and a bent branch that caught the desired beast by one leg as it stepped into a loop in the rope and pulled it up into the air.

Oddly, the phrase in the title to this entry refers to the bomb, not the cartoonish snare. It appears first in Hamlet, and then repeatedly in Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Ever Wonder...

how on TV cop shows 35+ year old detectives in suits, overcoats and street shoes consistently outrun 20 year old 'perps' in sneakers?

Can't Get that Tune Out of Your Head?

The Dubai Ports World controversy highlights one thing about the Bush administration. At some point Bush decided that his virtue, his song was steadfastness. No backing down. No admission of error. Stand tough. We may only have one song, but we sing it well and often.

There are reasons to support the DPW deal. For all the problems with the Emirates, since 9/11 they have found religion (sorry) and been pretty supportive of the US. We want to encourage this sort of shift, especially in the Arab world.

That said, the downside, especially politically, for the Bush administration is massive. It has put GOP congresspeople in an untenable situation. Support the deal and open a door for criticize in the upcoming elections, or go with the polls and oppose the deal and further drive down the administration's ratings.

It would have made SO much more sense for Bush to say "I just found out about this deal. It is troubling. We are going to put it on hold and reevaluate it." and then let the deal quietly die. But backing down just isn't in the lyrics of Bush's tune.

More on Dubai Ports World

It turns out that The Coast Guard raised concerns weeks ago that it could not determine whether a United Arab Emirates-based company seeking a stake in some U.S. port operations might support terrorist operations.

This deal is clearly a political blunder. Whether it is bad for the US remains unclear to me. What is clear is that the nexus between the UAE and the 911 attacks was much more direct then any connection with Iraq. As the Republican Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean said "There's no question that two of the 9/11 hijackers came from there and money was laundered through there."

Foxy!

Watching Fox News is like picking at a scab for me. Its irritatingly compelling.

One thing I love is that their crawl (the scrolling "news" that runs on the bottom of the screen) regularly updates the Terror Alert Level. It is currently at yellow for "Elevated" where it has lived since August 2005. According to the Department of Homeland Security, yYellow means that "All Americans, including those traveling in the transportation systems, should continue to be vigilant, take notice of their surroundings, and report suspicions items or activities to local authorities immediately." That helps.

Fox also promotes the use of "Democrat" in lieu of "Democratic." For example, "The Democrat Senator from NY, Hillary Clinton" or "The Democrat Convention will be held in faggy San Francisco." This odd construction makes it clear that the speaker wants to head off any subconscious inference that the opposition is truly "democratic."

But by far, the most offensive bastardization of language and communication is their use of "homicide bomber." Fox began using this term in the Spring of 2002. This Orwellian dysphemism substitutes "homicide" for "suicide" belongs. So, Timothy McVeigh bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was not a "homicide bombing" despite the fact that he killed 168 people because he thoughlessly didn't commit suicide in the process.

I guess that they think that "suicide bomber" attributes some sort of moral creditably to the murder because he is willing to kill himself in the process. Were Japanese kamikazes "homicide pilots?"

To add insult to linguistic injury, Fox not only uses this language in their own copy, but they substitute homicide for suicide in quotes that they run from the Associated Press. See http://mediamatters.org/items/200502230006.

Imagine....

No, this isn't a paen to Lennon's overplayed anthem.

Rather, imagine the reaction of the right (think Fox News) if Clinton or Gore had done the UAE port deal.

If you are conservative, this is a test of your intellectual honesty. Regardless of what you think about the deal itself (personally I am ambivalent about it) if you can't fess up and admit that attacking a Democratic administration would rise to the level of blood sport you fail the test.

Is it Redundant to Have a Pet Name for a Dog?

Allison and I are, I hate to say it, German Shepherd Dog (GSD) fanciers. Actually, I guess this isn't really true since we eschew breeding related activates, opting instead for rescue. "Breeding related activities." Sounds like a euphemism.

We've noticed that people tend to label GSD's with vainglorious and/or Germanic names like King, Kaiser, Fritzie, Zeus, Wolfgang and Heidi.

I've yet to meet an Adolph or Fuhrer. I've known a few Rommels but I guess that’s ok since he was a General (the Desert Fox Terrier?)

Speaking of WWII tank commanders, a little known fact that 15% of all bull terriers are named Patton (General George's favorite breed.) After WW1 he brought home his first Bull Terrier and named it "Tank." His sidekick while he kicked Nazi butt was a dog, named William the Conqueror (pet name Willie who had his own set of dog tags.) A Bull Terrier won the on 2006 Westminster dog show, no doubt leading to a huge increase in their popularity. NOTE - Bull Terriers are NOT Pit Bulls.

Back to GSDs - it turns out that breeders have an even more Teutonic edge. Look at this list of GSD breeders (I'm not making any of this up.) Rotterbarental , Gebirgshaus , Vom Paukenschlag, Kiesthaus (specializing in giant & oversized dogs), Kiesthaus (specializing in “Huge/Awesome” dogs) Vom Haus Dettmer, Vom Brandon Haus , vom Himmelhoch , Holtgrew's, Haus Juris, von der Graf GSD's, Alpenhof, and von Trapp Family Breeders.

Ok, I made the last one up.

After WW1 GSDs were renamed (as a breed) Alsatians in England to avoid the negative connotation with trench warfare and global misery.

Anyway, I waste a lot of time thinking of funny names for GSD. We named our latest adoptee (shown above and a rescue from New Orleans who had an interim name of Neville) Rebel. His full name? Rebel Yellen.

Here are some other names under consideration:

Schmutzy (sounds German, right?)
Shedsy (we may rename Rebel)
Schmaltzy
Lord (Why yes, Lord IS my shepherd)
Dongle
Dufus

If I had 2 GSDs, one pure black and one pure white, how could I not name them Ebony and Ivory, and hope that they lived in perfect....

I've always thought that the dog show world (parodied effectivly in Christopher Guest's movie "Best of Show") is not only weird but vaguely racist. Dog shows are largely about "confirmation" which means how closely they conform to the breed ideal. A little too eugenic for me. However, in an interesting bit of reverse discrimination - pure white GSDs are generally bannedfrom shows. A dog can be pure black, or any sort of mixed color, but not pure white. There are even white shepherd organizations to promote the pure race - er breed. Ironically (?) Hitler had a white GSD named Blondi. I've got to stop now. I'm getting dizzy.

Playing the Odds

From The Atlantic: If you hope to obtain a bachelor's degree by age twenty-four, your chances are roughly one in two if you come from a family with an annual income over $90,000; roughly one in four if your family's income falls between $61,000 and $90,000; and slightly better than one in ten if it is between $35,000 and $61,000. For high schoolers whose families make less than $35,000 a year the chances are around one in seventeen.

Also, a survey of 146 top colleges and found that only three percent of their students came from the bottom economic quartile of the U.S. population—whereas 74 percent came from the top one.