Monday, September 12, 2016
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Time to Fence Up With Contraception
Habitat without wildlife is scenery
Wildlife without habitat is a zoo.
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The Continuing Crisis
Global warming meets population growth.
Population growth is the truth still too inconvenient for Al Gore or Robert Redford.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Dumps for Trump?
There are several makers! Compare and contrast here and here.
Of course, the best deal is Amazon basics. No political affiliation, but a yuuuge savings.
Friday, September 09, 2016
Barkless Dogs
Barkless dogs
This picture is from a fetish shop where goods used in Juju by witch doctors are purchased. Basenjis are a common dog in Benin, though I think this shop may be in Togo, right next door.
What the Hell is a Congo Terrier?
Click to enlarge. Art work by Kevin Brockbank (note dog in a pot at right!)
This piece is from the July 2010 issue of Dogs Today.
Out of Africa
A single breed - the Congo Terrier - sums up the history of dogs.
Have you noticed that in the world of dogs, names and places never quite line up?
Look at Welsh Terriers.
I know digging men in Wales, but none that use a Kennel Club Welsh Terrier to hunt fox to ground.
I know digging men in Scotland, but none that use a Scottish terrier.
Afghans?
There are no Kennel Club Afghan dogs coursing in South Central Asia.
Show line German Shepherds?
Not too many of those herding sheep in Germany!
And in central Africa, the locals are not using "Congo Terriers" that have Kennel Club papers.
A Congo terrier?
What on earth is that?
The Kennel Club's Pariah Dog
The “Congo terrier” was discovered by explorer Georg Schweinfurth on an expedition to Africa in 1869.
He called the dogs "Niam-niam dogs," which described the tribal region where they were found, and he noted they were often quite fat, as the Niam-niam people loved dogs so much they thought nothing of tossing them into the stew pot for dinner!
The dogs themselves were spitz-like and barkless, with erect ears and curled tails, as is often the case with primitive dogs. Where the Niam-niam dogs were different was in their relatively small size, their short coat, and the fact that they often featured a white band of fur around their neck.
Though Schweinfurth called them Niam-niam dogs, similar animals were found across a wide belt of central Africa, stretching from Liberia in the West, to Sudan in the East.
Like many other primitive landrace pariah dogs, the Niam-niam dog had only one estrus a year and rarely barked, but instead vocalized with howls, yodels, and whines similar to those of the wolf, coyote, dingo, or jackal.
Of course, a largely silent dog in thick cover is not necessarily an asset. No matter; this deficit was corrected by African hunters who attached a wooden "bell" or clapper to the necks of their dogs so they could more easily drive small game out of thick cover.
In 1895, the Niam-niam dog was displayed at the Crufts dog show as the "Congo terrier."
The name did not last too long.
In the late 1930s, the Congo Terrier was formally brought into the Kennel Club and renamed the "Basenji" -- a Bantu name that meant "village dog."
The first order of Kennel Club business was to craft a narrow appearance-based "standard" for the Basenji. This was not hard to do, as only seven dogs were initially admitted.
Clearly these seven dogs were perfect specimens of their type!
Inbreeding to Failure
Seven dogs, of course, is not much of a gene pool. In fact, the gene pool of the Basenji never grew much bigger than this. Over the course of the next 60 years, no more than 30 dogs comprised the entire founding stock of the breed in the U.K., the U.S., and Europe.
Inbreeding within this small stock of foundation dogs quickly led to a crushing genetic load and a rise in disease.
The first issue to raise its head was Hemolytic Anemia. When testing was started, twenty percent of all Basenjis carried this recessive gene. What to do?
The answer: Cull.
And cull they did, with about 18 percent of Basenjis weeded out of the American Kennel Club gene pool over the course of a decade.
Of course, this deep reduction in an already narrow gene pool sped up the inbreeding merry-go-round.
Within a decade, another health problem had popped up: Fanconi syndrome, a type of kidney failure. A health survey found 10 percent of all American Basenjis had Fanconi syndrome, and of these dogs, 76 percent were being bred.
What to do?
The Outcross Solution
The solution, of course, was an outcross.
The good news was that there were was no shortage of excellent dogs in Africa. After a 1988 visit to the Congo, AKC judge Damara Bolte reported that:
"In five days and 800 kilometers of driving, we saw at least 200 dogs of which only three were not Basenjis."
Could anyone driving down the road see the same number of Welsh Terriers in Wales, or Scottish Terriers in Scotland? Impossible!
In 1990 the Basenji Club of America successfully petitioned the American Kennel Club to open the AKC registry to African dogs, and 12 were admitted.
The addition of 12 African imports helped, but it was not enough. With popular sire selection, inbreeding within the Basenji gene pool continued. And how could it not, with less than a dozen dogs comprising over 95% of the Y chromosomes in Kennel Club dogs across the U.S., Europe and the U.K.?
Form, Function and Fantasy
As noted earlier, Basenjis have always been found across a wide swath of central Africa. The early dogs came from the Sudan, Sierra Leon, Liberia, the Cameroon, and the Congo.
In 1998, an American Peace Corps worker in Benin reported the country was awash in Basenjis, and that they could be acquired for as little as a dollar.
In 2004, an American imported six of these dogs, and they were shown at the 2004 Basenji Club of America Nationals. By then, however, the AKC registry had once again closed.
The Basenji Club petitioned the AKC to reopen the registry. This was done in January 2007, with a new closing scheduled for 2013.
Will opening the AKC Basenji registry a second time really matter?
Yes and no.
It will not matter to the Basenjis in Africa, which have never needed saving.
The hunting dogs of Africa are protected by those who hunt them. In this regard, they are no different from the working terriers of Wales and Scotland, the coursing dogs of South Central Asia, or bird dogs the world over.
But the Basenji community will not be dissuaded. They insist they are "saving" a breed.
But what is it that they saving, and who are they saving it from?
One thing is clear: Basenji enthusiasts are not trying to save hunting dogs in Africa.
You cannot save dogs in Africa by removing them from the continent, and you cannot save a hunting breed by not hunting them at all.
So what are the Kennel Club enthusiasts really trying to save?
Mostly, they are working to preserve a romantic notion of their own making.
For their breed to be special, a Basenji has to be more than another village dog, even if the word "Basenji" means just that in the Lingala language of the Congo.
And so, Basenji owners tighten down on what they see as the “special essentials” of their breed.
They insist no Basenji should ever bark, and never mind if some always have, and that a barkless dog is such a liability that the Africans themselves bell their dogs when they hunt.
And, of course, all Basenjis must have a tightly curled tail, and no matter that a tightly curled tail serves no function in the field.
Function? The American and European Basenji is not about function! This dog is about form and fantasy.
Hunting? What does hunting have to do with the Basenji? Nothing!
Why should Basenjis be held to a working standard when the Kennel Club Welsh Terrier and Scotty are not? This is the Kennel Club, not the African bush. Form trumps function; everyone knows that. And form is maintained by inbreeding right up to the edge of genetic failure. Why should the Basenji be any different in this regard?
And so Kennel Club Basenji enthusiasts hold tightly to a breed standard invented in England based on seven dogs. And when shown pictures of small hunting dogs in central Africa that do not quite conform to every aspect of "the standard,” they sniff disdainfully.
“Those aren’t Basenjis. Those are nothing more than village hunting dogs."
Right. No irony there!
Just ask any Welshman with mud on his boots, calluses on his hands, and a terrier at his heels. What does he know of Welsh terriers? Not a thing!
And so we come to the ultimate irony: What are Basenji enthusiasts trying to protect their American and European dog from?
Why inbreeding within the closed registry system of the Kennel Club, of course!
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Albert Einstein's Hard Working Terrier
Albert Einstein once said about his wire fox terrier, Chico: “The dog is very smart, he feels sorry for me because I receive so much mail; that’s why he tries to bite the mailman.”
Thursday, September 08, 2016
They Found a WHAT, WHERE?
Apparently, nine-banded Armadillos have moved so far north that they are now common in Missouri and southern Illinois with one individual captured alive as far north as Peoria, They can also be found in all of the Gulf states, as well as Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Oklahoma.
Prior to about 1850, the nine-banded armadillo was not found north of the Rio Grande river, but since then it has expanded rapidly northward, traveling in rail cars with cattle and escaping from zoos and pet cages. Experts say there is reason to think the Nine-banded Armadillo may eventually come eastward to Virginia,
Wednesday, September 07, 2016
333,000 People Saw This in a Week
I re-posted this on this web site's Facebook Page, and over 333,000 people saw it in less than a week. Wow! Thanks to the over 2,000 people who shared it!
Big Oil Unleashes Attack Dogs on Native Americans
Months-long protests against a multi-billion-dollar oil pipeline cutting through land near the water source of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe boiled over on Sunday when the oil company, Dakota Access .LLC, brought snarling dogs and their poorly trained handlers to intimidate and attack protesters even as the company bulldozed land the tribe claims as burial grounds.
In a sign of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the Obama administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have now voiced support for an emergency temporary restraining order against the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. The Department of Justice told the court that oil company construction near the #NoDAPL resistance camps has been the "subject of several recent confrontations," including one on Saturday in which a pregnant woman and a young girl were injured in a clash with private security guards hired by the oil company and the construction crews working on the pipeline.
The bulldozing of the burial grounds appears to be a deliberate act of provocation by Dakota Access Pipeline. Tim Mentz Sr., the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's former longtime historic preservation officer, stated in a sworn declaration on Sunday that: ""I do not believe that the timing of this construction was an accident or coincidence. Based on my observations, the nearest area of construction in the right of way west of Highway 1806 is around 20 miles away. It appears that DAPL drove the bulldozers approximately 20 miles of uncleared right of way to access the precise area that we surveyed and described in my declaration. The work started very early in the morning and they were accompanied by private security with dogs and with a helicopter overhead, indicating that the work was planned with care and that controversy was expected."
Because everyone now has a video camera on their phone, and Amy Goodman's Democracy Now was there with a film crew, there is no controversy or debate about what happened. These dogs were there to intimidate and attack, they were very poorly trained, and the people associated with them had almost no control over their animals. It was a shit-show from stem to stern.
The pipeline itself is being bankrolled by Energy Transfer, a company owned by Kelcy Warren, a Texas entrepreneur worth $4 billion according to Forbes Magazine.
It is not an accident that vicious dogs are being turned on another American minority group, or that all of the police officers standing by are white.
As I noted more than a year ago in a post entitled America's Dogs of Oppression:
In the U.S., about 2,000 law enforcement agencies have K-9 dog units, but the level of training of both dogs and people is very uneven, and as a consequence handlers and innocent civilians are routinely bitten, driving up liability costs for all taxpayers.
Studies have shown that law enforcement dogs are disproportionately used in inner-city communities, and of course dogs have been used in the torture and intimidation of prisoners, by both the U.S. and other countries, for more than 100 years.
It seems the security company hired to do this attack work was Frost Kennels in Ohio. As professional dog handler Jonni Joyce notes in an interview with Amy Goodman:
What I witnessed on the video was absolutely horrific and a chaotic scene. It appeared that the handlers were not trained properly in order to manage a dog that has been trained in some type of controlled aggression. And basically, what it looked like was a bunch of alligators at the end of leashes being put on the Native Americans there that are protesting. It absolutely was an egregious use of canines.
Frost Kennels and its owner, Bob Frost, are not licensed in the state of Ohio to provide guard or security dog services. They do have the ubiquitous "buy it now" PayPal link that tells you that you are dealing with a quality (:: cough :: cough ::) dog merchant. There is no mention of titles or dog training credentials of any kind that I can see.
Unbelievable. This is a liability case on stilts.
Tree Huggers Discover the Best Way to Go Green
Over at Tree Hugger they have discovered the obvious: The Best Way You Can Go Green: Have Fewer Children:
Forget changing your lightbulbs, driving a car with high fuel efficiency, adopting a vegetarian diet or even switching to green power. If you live in the United States and really want to reduce your carbon emission legacy, perhaps the single largest change you can make to your life is commit to have fewer children.
The story goes on to quote a LiveScience article entitled Save the Planet: Have Fewer Kids
For people who are looking for ways to reduce their "carbon footprint," here's one radical idea that could have a big long-term impact, some scientists say: Have fewer kids.
A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environment-friendly practices people might employ during their entire lives - things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.
"In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime," said study team member Paul Murtaugh. "Those are important issues and it's essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources."
Reproductive choices haven't gained as much attention in the consideration of human impact to the Earth, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child - and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future - the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.
Under current conditions in the United States, for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent - about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is
responsible.
The impact doesn't only come through increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - larger populations also generate more waste and tax water supplies.
Of course births are NOT the main driver of U.S. population growth. Immigration is, and this has been true since the beginning, as the graph, below makes clear.
As John Chamie at Yale Global Online notes,
Contrary to popular thought, the dominant force fueling America’s demographic growth is not natural increase, but immigration. This is because immigrants not only add their own numbers to the nation’s overall population, but also contribute a disproportionate number of births whose effects are compounded over time.
Next time some vegan spouts nonsense to you about how the world is going to hell in a hand cart because there are too many people eating cows and chickens, do what I do: Suggest they get themselves sterilized and that they support immigration reform.
If that sounds harsh, be advised that voluntary sterilization is the most common form of birth control in the world. And yes, I advocate men get the procedure as it's a simple in-and-out operation for us.
Also be advised, that 82% of U.S. population growth is due to immigration, and that this immigration is negating ALL other savings being made through conservation.
Bottom Line: Stop talking about what other people should be doing (you cannot do a damn thing about them), and take direct action on the one thing you actually control.
You say you are an environmentalist? Prove it! Stop at none ... or one ... or two. And support immigration control.
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- Related Links:** The Real Threat to Hunting in America
** Population Growth and the Limits of Accommodation
** Drawing the Line at the Border for Wildlife's Sake
** How Many Americans?
** Dead Man's Curve
** The Fox Versus the Stork
** What Would You Give Up to Keep What You Have?
** When Population Growth Comes Homes to Roost
** National Security and Population Growth
** Field Guide to Contraception.
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Tuesday, September 06, 2016
Looking for Doves
Before we went bicycling, the pups and I hit some fields where I expected sunflowers would be planted for dove season. This year, no sunflowers and also no doves. I assume it was too wet to plant them this spring. It looks like something else has been planted in this location, but it's not yet seeding, and there were no birds. I am not sure what it is, but it might be brown millet. You can just see the stuff behind the fountain of grass.
Monday, September 05, 2016
The Very Clean Potomac River
When I was a kid, the Potomac River was so dirty, if you fell in, they took you to the hospital for shots. Today, I drive over the same bridge that I did in my youth, and I routinely count a dozen or more people on stand up paddle boards.
This is the river near Violet's Lock. You can see clear to the bottom, and the fishing is excellent.
Behind this kayaker, you can see the impressive root structure holding an island in place. This is very near where Washington, D.C. takes in its drinking water, and every dozen years or so we get floods where the river here rises as much as 20 feet. If you're an island, you need help to hold on. Mother Nature, as always, obliges.
A Beautiful Labor Day
A very big red-bellied cooter on the C & O Canal, with a bit of aquatic vegetation to garnish his sun bath.
This Is How We Roll
A Tern D8 folding bike, with two mile crates. The back one is zip-tied to the rack that came with the Tern, and the front is zip-tied to a Tern Kanga Rack that clips into a special Tern truss. The dogs have flat collars that are clipped to a very short leash clipped to the back of each respective crate. The rear milk crate has to be cut off the bike rack every time, but it's very quick to take off and put on, and zip ties are almost free. I think it costs me 20 cents in zip ties each time the that dogs and I go for a long roll. Worth it! The rug a bit of scrap that was being tossed out in an office remodel.
Sunday, September 04, 2016
A Coyote's Last Waltz
Very young roadkill coyote in Maryland off of 270 near Little Bennett Park. Coyotes don't get hit too often -- they are very smart animals and wary. Young male fox start to get hit this time of year too, as they are driven out into new territories. This was an instant kill -- a bumper hit to the brain box by the look of it.
Even in Ruday Kipling's day, cars were the true blood sport putting up an enormous bag every night. That's even more true today.
Dead Dogs Do Tell Tales
All things being equal, smaller dogs tend to live longer than larger dogs.
Of course, not all things are equal, and that is especially true in the dog world.
Take a look at the two graphs below, for example. Though they may look similar, they are not, as they are actually plotted on different axes.
It turns out that Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are so unhealthy their mortality cannot be graphed on the same scale as that of the Golden Retriever!
In fact, in Sweden, where this data comes from, it seems that the Golden Retriever is about as healthy as a mongrel -- and in fact may be a bit healthier.
As the Swedish longitudinal analysis of over 350,000 dogs in the Agria Insurance data base notes,
Golden retrievers were at low risk for mortality in this study – only 22% died before 10 years. Golden retrievers were significantly less likely to die of trauma and heart disease and were in the baseline (average) risk group for neurological and tumour causes of death. They were at increased risk in the first age category for locomotor problems, but this effect waned with age as demonstrated by a negative age-breed interaction.
As the Swedish study notes, breed-specific information gleaned from the insurance data can be extremely useful to people looking to acquire a dog and those trying to determine whether an investment in veterinary treatment is worth the expense.
Information on the average survival pattern for different breeds is useful clinical information. Prospective owners should understand that in getting, for example, either a Bernese mountain dogs or a golden retriever, the likelihood of the dog living past 10 years of age is very different. Most owners, once their dog becomes seriously ill or dies, are keen to know if the condition is rare or common, in general or in their breed. Many owners are especially concerned if they feel their dog has died prematurely, that is at a younger than average age. Veterinarians and their clients can also use survival statistics as part of informed decision-making regarding expensive veterinary care and for conditions in which quality of life is an issue. For example, an Irish wolfhound that has survived to eight years has a 76% chance of being dead before 10, whereas an eight-year old golden retriever has a 90% chance of surviving to 10.
Saturday, September 03, 2016
Lyle Lovett :: In My Own Mind
I get up in the morning
Drink a cup of coffee
I look out of the window
I try to get it started
I turn it all over
Plow it all under
I plant 'em in the springtime
Pick 'em in the summer
Steve Irwin's Fierce Snake Fakery
Sometimes, telling a story is all about knowing what to leave off.
For example, did I ever tell you about the time I was stopped at the Orlando airport for a handgun violation ?
True story, and quite a scene, actually.
The security guy asked me to step away from my bag. Was there something I wanted to tell him? No?
Well then, could I explain what the gun was doing inside my carry-on?
I could not. I had no idea what he was talking about.
The cop was not amused.
He drew the gun from my bag, and my wife stepped forward and told the officer it was hers. "She does the packing in my family," I explained.
So what happened next?
Nothing. Using my best Jedi Mind Trick technique, I convinced the officer we were not the droids he was looking for.
Now, this story is entirely true, and that's the way I tell it in the hillbilly bars in West Virginia where a man is not a man unless he has had at least one gun violation in his youth.
What I leave off is the fact that the family and I were coming back from Walt Disney World, and the gun in question was a cap gun still in its packaging. My wife had bought the toy for my son (then age 7) as a consolation prize while I took my daughter on the Tower of Doom -- the ride he was too young to go on.
I recount this tale because it makes a point: sometimes, for the benefit of story, it's best to leave off a little information.
Steve Irwin, who died 10 years ago tomorrow, knew that. In fact, he made his fame and fortune by leaving off a little information.
Take, for example, those endless specials on Animal Planet in which Steve could be seen driving around Australia to handle "The Ten Deadliest Snakes in the World."
Steve would leap off his motorcycle and run across the scrub and grab up a "Fierce Snake" while explaining that this snake had "the most toxic venom of any snake in the world -- 750 times as venomous as a common cobra."
And he would say this all pumped up full throttle in that delightful Australian accent of his. What a mad man!
It was terrific showmanship. And complete nonsense.
Steve never actually lied, of course. Instead, he simply left off an important bit of information. And the important piece of information he left off was that he was using the LD50 index of snake toxicity to determine which snakes were the "world's deadliest."
Now there is nothing wrong with the LD50 index. In fact, it's a global standard with guidelines laid down by the World Health Organisation.
But there's something you need to know when it comes to the LD50 test -- it's a test of toxicity in snakes in which individual mice receive equivalent quantities of venom (i.e. each mouse is weighed, and equal amount of venom are administered by weight).
The LD50 score is the amount of venom administered to each mouse to the point that 50% of the sample die. The lower the LD50 score, the higher the venom toxicity to mice.
Of course, the LD50 score is completely meaningless in the real world. For one thing, not every species of snake administers the same amount of venom when biting. In addition, some kinds of venom are particularly lethal to mice, but virtually harmless to humans and most other animals.
That's the kind of information Steve Irwin left off!
And so, when Steve leaped off the motorcycle and grabbed up "the deadly Fierce Snake" we watched transfixed at this man's reckless bravery, his facile familiarity with snakes, his volcanic enthusiasm.
"Krikey mate, that was a close one!" he would exclaim like a carnival barker at a Midwest midway. Somehow we knew we were being had, but we were not sure how. After all this was Animal Planet; surely they would not lie to us in order to increase their ratings? Would they?
In fact, the "deadly poisonous" snakes of Australia are virtually harmless. Far more people die each year in Australia from horse back riding accidents than snakebites (21 people a year v. 1.6 people a year.
That too is a little fact Steve Irwin left off.
And while Steve liked to talk up the dangers of Salt Water Crocodiles, here too we find very few deaths.
You want to know what kills more people in Australia than any other wild animal? It's not the Salt Water Crocodile. It's not the deadly Fierce Snake or the King Brown or the Tiger Snake.
It's the honey bee.
Funny how Steve forgot to tell us about that!
- Related Posts:
** Faking It With the Turtleman
** Saving Wildlife With Film
** ANWR: America's Serengeti in Map, Film & Photo
** National Geographic's Phony "Wolf Man" Stunt
** New National Geographic Fakery
** More Fakery from Animal Planet
** Man Versus Truth: More Fakery from the U.K.
** Pathetic Human of the Year Award
Friday, September 02, 2016
Breeding Brachycephalic Dogs Should Be a Crime
Writing in The Washington Post, veterinarian Michael W. Fox says that we have have to stop breeding and buying brachycephalic dogs:
In a recent study of dog trends, lead researcher Kendy Teng of the University of Sydney said, “Australians are favoring brachycephalic breeds, dogs with shorter and wider heads, such as the pug and the French bulldog, more than those with longer and thinner heads. Looking at data spanning 28 years, we found that the demand for smaller dogs has increased every year from 1986.
“Veterinarians are concerned about brachycephalic dogs’ welfare, as these breeds commonly suffer from breathing difficulties, skin and eye conditions, and digestive disorders. In New Zealand, brachycephalic breeds are number four of the top five dog breeds considered by veterinarians to be unsuitable for continued breeding, due to compromised health and welfare.
“This trend is also apparent in the U.K., where bulldogs, boxers and pugs have become increasingly popular in recent years. U.K. kennel club registrations of pugs and bulldogs have climbed from 2004 to 2013; the number of pugs has increased from 1,675 in 2004 to 8,071 in 2013; and French bulldogs also rose from 350 to 6,990. In the United States, numbers of bulldogs and French bulldogs registered with the American Kennel Club have increased by 69 percent and 476 percent, respectively, in the past decade.’’
Readers, in my opinion, breeding dogs with extreme forms of the brachycephalic deformity is unethical. Pups’ large heads can mean a Caesarean birth and a lifetime of partial asphyxiation, limited exercise tolerance and enjoyment of life, compounded by chronic eye, skin, respiratory and oral cavity infections.
They are also susceptible to a host of inherited diseases affecting the heart, joints and other organs and systems. Most airlines will not and should not allow such dogs in cargo holds, where they can suffocate.
Regardless of these dogs’ appeal and appealing dispositions, those who really love them should stop breeding them, and the informed should never consider buying a purpose-bred one, regardless of how adorable the puppies may seem. They make most people smile, but they make me sad and angry.
Steve Irwin's Last Words
“Don’t worry, they usually don’t swim backwards.”- Steve Irwin's last words before being impaled through the heart by a sting ray on September 4, 2006
Coffee and Provocation
Proof Positive
A 'Beast of Dartmoor' witness didn't have a camera - so he drew a picture!
The Devil is Beating Cancer
Charles Darwin suits up with running shoes
Reconstructing the Justinian Plague
Scientists now think the Justinian Plague that once killed off 50 million people (15% of the world's population) in the 6th and 8th centuries BCE, is the same one responsible for the Black Death during the 1300s. Yes, good old Yersina pestis is to blame. The good news is that the brown rat has largely wiped out the black rat, making epidemics less likely.
Charging Your Car at the Mall?
Electric vehicle are going to arrive with a bang and all of a sudden because battery life is about to double, price points are already acceptable, and electrical stations work well with a retail shopping model. "The number of commercial charging stations is growing quickly in part because they’re relatively cheap — costing $3,000 to $7,500 per port, depending on whether it is new construction or a retrofit. When attached to a business, they can attract customers, and encourage them to stay longer and spend more. Hy-Vee Inc., a chain of 241 grocery stores in eight Midwestern states, installs charging stations at all its new locations; it has four chargers at each of 42 stores. Charge times for electric cars vary widely, depending on the station and car make, but it typically takes 30 minutes to an hour to get a decent charge. Conveniently, that is roughly as long as it takes to have a meal, says John Brehm, director of site planning at Hy-Vee."
The Oldest Tree in Europe
It was found in Greece, and is a little over a 1,000 years old. In contrast, the oldest tree in the US is over 5,000 years old.
The Secret Ingredient
The secret ingredient to KFC chicken is... click here.
Keep on Trucking
Amazing Trucking Video -- Windmill blades being moved up a mountain in China.
Vets Selling Sick Delusions
More veterinarians are promoting the delusion of homeopathy.
Thursday, September 01, 2016
The Victorian Freak Show
From the Line-up.com comes the story of the Victorian freak show:
From the historic tour of the conjoined Colloredo twins in the 1630s, the freak show was born. Their journey sparked public interest in physical oddities and by the Victorian era, these strange sideshows were thriving.
It’s no secret Victorians were obsessed with the peculiarities of death, and their attraction to the living eccentrics of the freak show ran just as deep. With limited access to travel, men and women of the 19th century were intrigued by touring examples of the exotic. What’s more, with the rise of Darwinism came an increased fascination with the human form – its exaggerations and its abnormalities.
The showmen of these freak shows went to great lengths to make a name for themselves and their attractions. P.T. Barnum, who was known to spin elaborate backstories for his freaks, was regarded as the most successful showman of his time.
Is it an accident that P.T. Barnum was not only parading around freaks, but was also holding one of the first dog shows on earth in 1862?
I think not.
And while it's no longer "cool" to attend a freak show, it's still just fine to breed and display tea cup" dogs which have seizures because their brains are too big for their skulls.
It's still fine to intentionally breed dogs that are achondroplastic dwarves, or to intentionally breed dogs that have such massive cranial facial distortions that they either have to spend their lives in respiratory distress, or have their palettes re-sectioned and their noses trimmed and sutured.
It's still fine to breed dogs with heads so big and pelvis's so small that the dogs cannot mate on their own or whelp on their own; a "rape rack" is used for the former job, and a surgeon splits the dog in two for the second.
Of course there is a big difference between accidental and intentional congenital misfortune.
Those born with "lobster claw" hands, or a face covered in fur, are victims of a bad genetic roll of the dice.
In the case of Boston Terriers, Pugs, English Bulldogs, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Chihuahuas, Chinese Cresteds, and many other breeds, however, the deformity is intentional and the suffering is entirely predictable and entirely avoidable.
Why is this suffering allowed? Here, surely, is a case for legislative intervention?
The Australians have started down that road. Australia's Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1986 sets out offences for intentionally or recklessly breeding an animal with a heritable defect that causes disease as listed in the Act. So far, the law seems to cover only intentional breeding of dogs for Progressive Retinal Atrophy (in those breeds where dominant inheritance has been scientifically established), Hereditary cataracts (in those breeds where dominant inheritance has been scientifically established), Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis, and Von Willebrand's Disease, but there is no reason not to include more visually obvious morphology-caused distress, such as breeding dogs without noses, and with heads too small for their brains.
Consider the two skulls below. The one on the left is that of a Chihuahua with a "molera" -- a gap in the bone at the top of the skull because the brain is too big for the box. A "molera" in an adult dog is actually considered "normal " for the chihuahua! The skull on the right, is that of a child with a serious genetic defect that will require many surgeries and a great deal of pain to correct, if it can be corrected at all.
What kind of monster would intentionally breed for this kind of defect?
And the answer, of course, is a certain kind of breed-blind dog breeder who has "normalized" deformity and who ignores the suffering and distress of the animals that are put in their care.
Consider the wrecked hips and back of the German Shepherd that won Crufts this year, or the twisted spine and smashed-in nose of the Boston Terrier. What kind of person thinks this is "cute" or that the distress caused by this kind of "selection for defect" is a never mind?
There is a tendency to blame dog show judges, and they are certainly not without fault, but I think the problem here predates dog shows entirely.
The simple truth is that some people like to look at freaks and oddities. They think dwarves are amusing, and that a dog with bulging eyes and a smashed-in face is "cute," and they are all too ready to wave off any questions.
"That's normal for the breed" they say, never giving the slightest nod to the fact that this is a dog selected for defect at the hand of man.
Don't Worry About Gun Control
The very beginning of Attack of the Killer Robots by Sarah Topol features this terrifying quote by Stuart Russell, a Berkeley computer science professor:
A very, very small quadcopter, one inch in diameter can carry a one- or two-gram shaped charge. You can order them from a drone manufacturer in China. You can program the code to say: "Here are thousands of photographs of the kinds of things I want to target." A one-gram shaped charge can punch a hole in nine millimeters of steel, so presumably you can also punch a hole in someone's head. You can fit about three million of those in a semi-tractor-trailer. You can drive up I-95 with three trucks and have 10 million weapons attacking New York City. They don't have to be very effective, only 5 or 10% of them have to find the target.
There will be manufacturers producing millions of these weapons that people will be able to buy just like you can buy guns now, except millions of guns don't matter unless you have a million soldiers. You need only three guys to write the program and launch them. So you can just imagine that in many parts of the world humans will be hunted. They will be cowering underground in shelters and devising techniques so that they don't get detected. This is the ever-present cloud of lethal autonomous weapons.
They could be here in two to three years.
How to Avoid Cancer in Flat-coated Retrievers
Everything dies for one reason or another.
Yesterday, a dog named Faith, died for racial purity.
Faith was a Flat-coated Retriever. The breed is not very distinctive. It is just another black dog, another retriever.
To be clear, FAITH was a special dog. As an individual, she was the happy and well loved companion of Gina Spadafori. No dog was more loved, and few dogs were more famous. Fabs. Faybee. We all knew her through Gina, and when she finally succumbed to cancer, yesterday, the bottom fell out of my heart, and not just for Faybee, but for Gina.
But the death of a Flat-coated Retriever, from cancer, at age 7, is as predictable as the tides.
The cancer that killed Faith killed her dam and her sire too. None made it to age 8.
There is no mystery as to the cause of the dysfunction. Like almost every other Kennel Club breed, Flat-coats started off in a small and quickly closed gene pool. What started out as a very small pool of genetic diversity got smaller over time due to sire selection.
Driving the whole thing forward, over the cliff, was the "breed purity" fixation of blue blazer rosette chasers within the Kennel Club. When that was coupled to the fantasy stories told in all breed books, a ready market for diseased dogs was born.
No one ever seemed to state the obvious: there was actually nothing "special" about a Flat-coated Retriever outside of its predilection for cancer. It was not the best working retriever, and it was not the only black retriever. Flat-coats have personalities as variable as those within any other breed.
So how do you change the Kennel Club?
You don't.
You change yourself and you stop buying Flat-coated Retrievers.
You vote with your wallet and your feet, and you stop buying pedigree dogs with Kennel Club papers, as almost every American has already done.
AKC registrations have plummeted more than 75 percent, and less than 10 percent of all dogs in the U.S. now come with AKC papers. That's not an accident; that's people realizing that the AKC is selling a defective product that is either based on a bad design, or made with bad science.
So how do you avoid cancer in a Flat-coated Retriever? You stop buying Flat-coated Retrievers. It's just that simple.
You join the movement away from failure and towards success.
And what is success?
Success is giving a home to any dog that needs one, and millions do. There is no shortage of black-coated retrievers, of pedigree unknown, waiting in shelters within a day's drive of anyone and everyone. In that direction, success lays, not only for one particular dog in the pound, but for real change at the Kennel Club.
Yes, let us all write about the disease, deformity, and dysfunction of Kennel Club dogs. Let's all pound the table to demand that registries be opened up, that certain seriously deformed breeds be banned altogether, that there be heath checks and real performance tests for working dogs being made up as "champions".
But let's all vow to never buy a Flat-coat. Ever.
Let's vow to never buy a Bernese Mountain Dog. Ever.
Let's vow to never buy a Scottish Terrier. Ever.
Let's vow to never buy an English bulldog, a Pug, or a Boston Terrier. Ever.
Let's all promise to stop feeding the fires of destruction and join the 90 percent of all Americans that are saying NO to AKC dogs.
Will getting a non-AKC dog guarantee your dog will not, eventually, die from one disease or another? It will not.
All life ends, and every living thing carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. In this sense Faith is the same as every other dog.
But can we postpone death? Can we improve the odds of our dogs having a longer and healthier life?
We can, and we should.
Step One towards that goal is walking away from Kennel Club dogs.
It's time to stop feeding the fires of canine destruction.
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