Coffee and Provocation

The Dog's Name is Carlos Danger:

An ad for Motor Master floor cleaner in Mexico features a full-frontal upward view of a dog's penis with the kicker: "What is on your floor is not always on your mind."  Link with picture goodness.  The dog, of course is a Mexican Hairless.

 

Let's Make Putin a Word:

In Russia folks now openly laugh about Vladimir Putin's famously faked "manly" exploits -- including his trophy pike which clearly does not weigh nearly as much as he claims.  How inadequate does a man need to feel to "Putin" by taking off his shirt and sending selfies of himself to the world? Can we make "Putin" a new word to describe what Geraldo and Weiner and other inadequate-feeling males are doing with the new "social media"?

 

A Hippie’s Defense of GMOs:

The article on Slate starts off:  "Let me get a few things out of the way. I'm a crazy hippie. I go to Burning Man every year. I teach yoga. I live in a co-op. For the past two years, I've been delivering organic vegetables for a local delivery service. I've been eating vegetarian for years, and vegan for the past four months. I'm also fascinated by genetics. I read every book that comes my way on evolutionary theory, population genetics, and mapping the genome. I took several classes on the subject at the University of Pennsylvania. All told, I have a pretty solid understanding of how genes work. And ultimately, I'm just not that scared of GMOs."  Read the whole thing.

 

Dog Eating Gator is Now Museum-bound:

A 12-foot North Carolina alligator that ate an 80 lb. dog was shot, and is now museum-bound as an exhibit about respecting American wildlife.

 

Rabid Raccoon Bites Hipster:

Yes, they have rabies among the raccoon population of Central Park in New York City.  Yes, it's a perfectly acceptable way to thin out the hipsters.  America is a tough country and Darwin always bats last. 

Raccoon Was Source of Transplant Organ Rabies

Back in March, health officials announced that a Maryland man had died of rabies contracted through exposure to an infected transplanted kidney.  Now it turns out the organ donor got rabies from an unreported raccoon bite.

The Plague Squirrels of Los Angeles:
The discovery of bubonic plague in the squirrel population of Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County, California has resulted in the temporary closing of all camp grounds there. Bubonic plague got to the U.S. with Chinese immigrants arriving in San Francisco around the turn of the 20th Century.  Black rats later rode out of San Francisco carrying the plague with them  to the Prairie Dog towns of the west, and Bubonic Plague has remained endemic there ever since.

A Dog Food Story in The New York Times:

Here's an interesting story about dog food from The New York Times circa 1885.  It might not be the kind of story you expect.

 

The Thor Hero Shrew:
A new type of Hero Shrew has been discovered in the Congo.  The Thor Hero Shrew is an amazing animal which, like the common Hero Shrew, has a spine so strong it is reported to be able to withstand the weight of a full-grown man on its back -- a weight equivalent to a human supporting the weight of the space shuttle.

Putting the Cat Back in the Bag:

Geonni Banner has a new blog, and she fearless and sensibly tackles the issue of what to do about feral cats.  Check it out!  Main blog link here.