Stompin’ Tom’s classic hockey song reworked for the Gold Medal victory last week:

Mild Content Warning: The song contains the word “ass” and a picture of an ass. So some people might not like that. Or some people might feel that it would be inappropriate for kids to watch. Because I guess kids don’t know what an ass is. Or maybe kids don’t get an ass till they are 13. Or something. So if you have an aversion to ass, congratulations. You’re not gay.

Via: Puck Daddy

Popularity: 13% [?]

Image by Dinur via Flickr

Well at least one NHL Team (the New York Rangers) appear to be.

January 14th/~3pm: I get an email from the agent and anxiously scroll down to see Chad’s contact information. Now, what I am about to say next is something that I have not told anyone before. The email address by which to contact the “real” Chad was the exact same one I saw on the Facebook just days earlier. I quickly open Facebook to double check only to find that the whole profile had been deleted (it has since been restored). Annoyed and confused, I then email Chad telling him what his agent told me and that we were good to go. He responds very quickly saying that it was not a problem, and just to clear it with Rangers Public Relations.

January 14/~4pm: I email the Ranger PR Director, who I will simply refer to as PRD (for PR Department). I am not expecting an email in return from him because I had never gotten a response in the past with any of my inquiries. I explain to him the situation and that I have the permission of both Chad and his agent to conduct the interview. PRD responds to me within ten minutes saying that I should have gone through his office in the first place and that Chad will not be available to do the interview. So I guess the human being himself wanting to do the interview isn’t good enough?

January 14th/~5pm: I CC an email to Chad and his agent telling them of my response and apologizing for any inconvenience. I then return PRD’s email saying that I did not go through him in the first place because I had never gotten a response back ever before. He replied, “You just did on the first email you ever sent to me.” Which is false because I had previous inquiries with both him and his assistant and they were never responded to.

The great thing about blogging is that it has eroded the ability of certain entities to “control the message”. When your attempts to control the message look ham-handed and foolish you end up worse off than if you had just let it go.

Read more: Ranger Rant: What Really Happened to the Chad Johnson Interview

Popularity: 12% [?]

Popularity: 12% [?]

My experiences with three dogs (one who died of cancer at age 5) versus my father who wasted away from a debiliating disease resonate well with this reasonTV piece about human health-care vs dog health-care.

The crux of this piece is more focused on the relative ease with which animal hospitals are allowed to open vs human hospitals. My initial thought was that human hospitals are more complex and there has to be more regulation around operating one.

Nope, it’s other local hospitals trying to protect their monopoly and keep out the competition.

Treat Me Like a Dog: What Human Health Care Can Learn from Pet Care

Via Instapundit (still relevant after all these years)

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Kate McMillan who is possibly the best Canadian blogger on the right these days is a woman who I have a great deal of fondness for despite having never met her. She and I share similar political views, both are motorcycle riders (although I sold my bike two years ago). drive trucks and love dogs and rural life.  Kate’s dogged (no pun intended) coverage of the recent Climategate affair which I wrote about on Tuesday deserves the type of award they used to give to reporters but then again Kate is not a reporter  (and is proud of that)

Kate recently had an op-ed piece in the National Post regarding a conflict that is brewing (or already exists) between breeders of purebred dogs and some veterinarians. The crux of it  (as I understand it) is that certain veterinarians are objecting to the practice of tail docking and ear cropping which is an important feature of some purebred dogs (Doberman Pinscher for example).  If I understand it correctly many vets now refuse to perform these minor “surgeries” whilst still advocating spaying and neutering as well as “declawing kittens for profit”.

The crux of Kate’s argument is that veterinarians have no business sticking their nose into the world of dog breeding to the point of advocating for legislation to restrict certain elements of dog breeding they find objectionable.  As someone who is no fan of state expansion into our lives I agree with her wholeheartedly. If veterinarians don’t want to perform certain procedures they should simply refuse and let other veterinarians who want to charge a premium for them have that option – a government edict would have the effect of forcing all veterinarians to conform thus taking choice away from breeders, vets and pet owners.

The world of dog ownership is becoming increasingly regulated these days many countries have banned certain breeds outright because they are considered dangerous. Other nations have banned or are seeking to ban certain dog sports that focus on guard dog activities (Schutzhund, French Ring Sport and KNPV). Dogs are given very little room for error in most modern societies either. If we lose our temper we might face some sort of censure either legally or via peer pressure however dogs get no second chances. Even what any dog behaviorist would count as disciplinary biting on the part of a dog (where the skin is not broken) will usually result in the dogs immediate seizure from its owner and destruction by the state.

Thus it is absolutely right for breeders like Kate to be concerned about yet another advocacy group trying to insert legislation into the life of dogs and their owners. However (you knew there was a however coming, right?) there is an issue that needs to be discussed when it relates to purebred dogs. In fact it is a debate that has been occurring for a number of years in the dog community and appears to be reaching a boiling point.  In Kate’s op-ed piece she mentions the following:

Purebreds (of all species) carry health risks derived from their genetic founding fathers. Breeds weren’t created to compile longevity records, but to perform tasks for mankind — to dispatch vermin, predators, and enemy barbarians, locate game, retrieve over water, to pull sleds, or warm a dowager’s bed on a cold winter night. And so, they remain imperfect.

The Borzoi is living history of czarist Russia, the giant Mastiff a modern echo of ancient Rome — but they suffer high rates of bloat. Poster artists recruited the English bulldog as a symbol of resolve in World War II, but the massive head that encouraged a nation results in caesarian sections. The Dalmatian’s spots are beloved of Disney and children everywhere, but the genetics that create them can result in deafness. The merry spaniel can wag an undocked tail to bloody pulp, but no one hunts woodcock in these parts. Better no cocker, they say, than no tail.

Kate is being truthful here but there is more to the story. Certain dogs breeds do have genetic traits that lead to health issues that is true. But the purebred dogs as they exist today are very different (in some cases extremely different) than the same purebred dogs from 50-100 years ago.

Why? Because of the nature of dog shows and breed standards. You see when a dog is shown to its “championship” it doesn’t mean  (as a lot of lay people assume) that it has won some great obedience competition or has performed a certain number of tasks better than other dogs. The show champion dog is simply the one who has been picked by a judge to conform most closely to the “breed standard”.  The breed standard being a set of rules outlined by national and international organizations that define exactly what a dog of a certain breed should look like. This is on the surface a very good thing because you should have a set of rules that determine what differentiates a Beagle from a Beauceron and when breeders conform to those standards it allows the dog buying public to make well informed decisions and to not pay outrageous amounts of money for a dog that isn’t really the breed it was supposed to be.

Yet the breed standards that some breeds are held accountable to these days have not been helpful to the breeds and you can make a strong argument that they are causing great damage to certain breeds. Why? Because there has been a gradual evolution towards certain exaggerated features in these dogs that have nothing to do with the purpose of the breed as it was originally founded.  A perfect example?  The German Shepherd Dog.

Back in the late 90’s when our first Belgian Tervuren was still young  (and still living – he died of cancer in 2003 at only age 5) we were looking for an activity to do with him. Something that would be a good outlet for his energy but that also suited the breed.

After some research (we had the Internet back in the 90’s for all you young’uns reading this) we discovered Schutzhund.

Schutzhund  is a dog sport that originated in Germany. The name translates to “protection dog” and the sport was developed as a way to test German Shepherd dogs for suitability in police work. Hence the sport requires dogs to achieve proficiency in tracking, obedience and above all protection (i.e. biting criminals).

Our dog being a purebred Belgian Shepherd we figured he would be well suited to this type of activity. And while he clearly enjoyed the sport and seemed to have great fun while partaking it became abundantly clear from the get-go that he was never going to be a proficient Schutz-hund.

Why? He came from “showlines” 

Most people who have a dog (and obviously people who don’t) aren’t familiar with the terms “showlines” or “working lines” when it comes to dogs. The titles are self explanatory but in the interest of being overly long winded let me elaborate.

A show line dog is one that is bred purely for display in the show ring. You know those dog shows you see on TV like the Westminster Kennel Club etc.? Those dogs are showline dogs. They as I mentioned earlier are bred to conform to the breed standard and are awarded championships based on that alone. In other words they are bred to compete and  win beauty contests and nothing else.

A dog from working lines conversely is not built for showing but to do actual work, usually the work the breed was originally conceived for.

When we were told at our Schutzhund club that our dog probably wasn’t going to be a good schutzhund dog because he came from “showlines” I was confused. What difference did it make? A shepherd is a shepherd, a Doberman is a Doberman why would two dogs of the same breed be so dramatically different in behaviour  - especially in breeds that were originated for specific types of behaviour?

The answer: dogs bred for show are only bred for a certain “look” all other traits are irrelevant.

This was the source of some consternation to me for a while but it all became crystal clear when we attended a club competition as spectators some weeks later (our dog was not nearly ready for competition  - and never would be). Their were tons of people and of course tons of dogs. Immediately there were some differences that jumped out at me. For one a lot of the dogs especially the Rottweilers and Dobermans seemed to be a little bit on the small side.  But this wasn’t necessarily a huge difference between show and work dogs in  my mind.  Then I spotted a man taking a dog out of the back of his truck.

The dog was obviously a shepherd of some sort but I couldn’t quite identify what breed. It looked mostly like a German Shepherd but it was not like any German Shepherd I had ever seen before. For one it wasn’t the traditional black and tan color with the black “saddle” that most German Shepherds have. This dog was more of a smoky grey colour. it looked like it had rolled in soot. The dog actually looked scruffy and mangy – like a junkyard dog. And as the handler began walking the dog toward the field another difference jumped out. This dog had a different shape. The back was hardly sloped at all. It was almost square. This was a radical departure from most German Shepherds I had seen at dog shows whose backs always had this odd downward slope that looked unnatural to me. Aside from that this dog’s eyes had a fierce wolf-like intensity about him.  

So I asked one of our club members what kind of dog it was. “A German Shepherd” I was told. “Really? It doesn’t look like any German Shepherd I’ve ever seen”

“Oh it’s from East German stock. They weren’t breeding for show behind the Iron Curtain it was only for work.”

I have tried to find a picture of a dog that looked like the one I saw that day and the one on the left is  the closest I have ever come to finding one on-line.

This day was the beginning of a revelation for me and as we continued to work with our own dog the differences between show lines and dogs bred for work became more stark. The most obvious one was temperament. The working line dogs of all breeds were high energy dogs that never seemed to turn off. Our dog was laid back and relaxed (almost all the time).

This is not a bad thing if you just want a pet. In fact most working line dogs make lousy house pets. There’s a reason why Hollywood dog trainers scour animal shelters for dogs to use. Typically they have been abandoned by owners who selected a dog that turned out to be a true representative of the breed and needed to work. Dogs that need to work and don’t get an outlet will create those outlets. Usually in behavioral problems. 

But if the difference between show and working dogs were only temperament that wouldn’t be a big problem. Those who wanted their dogs for work could buy working line dogs and those who wanted a good pet could buy show lines right?

Generally yes. But there is another more serious problem. Lets go back to the German Shepherd Dog. Remember how I said that he working line shepherd from East German Stock had a back that didn’t seem that sloped?  Well there is a reason for that.  There are a large number of herding breeds out there. None of them except the German Shepherd have this feature because structurally it doesn’t help a herding dog if it needs to perform quick turns. So why do German Shepherd Dogs have that pronounced back angularity? Because somewhere along the line someone decided that a dog with an angular back looked better at a “trot” in the show ring.   Suddenly dogs with angular backs were winning more championships and breeders began responding.  And the results were dramatic.

On the left is an American/Canadian show shepherd on the right is a working line shepherd. Notice the difference?  Now partially the dog on the left looks so extremely sloped because it is in a “show stance” but go to any dog show and watch most of the German Shepherds walking around outside the ring and you will still notice a pronounced slope to much of their backs.  This is not what the original German Shepherd dogs looked like.  They looked a lot more like the dog on the right.

So it is not quite fair for breeders of show dogs to flatly state that they are preserving the dog breeds are they were meant to be and the health problems are just a sad side effect. The British Bulldog as we know it today couldn’t have survived without modern medical science. There were no Cesarean sections for dogs 100 years ago. So to hold this dog up as an example of  a breed that was bred to serve man but not to compile longevity records is ridiculous. There is a reason that someone decided to create an Olde English Bulldogge and it was a reaction to the extremes that British Bulldogs had begun to reach. They had breathing problems. Their heads were so large they couldn’t be born naturally and the males were not interested in mating. Does that sound like a breed that would have arisen at any time before WWII? David Leavitt who created the Olde English Bulldogge breed didn’t think so:

My dogs can now breath. They will never be like hounds, able to run for miles during the hottest weather of summer, but they’re three times better than the restricted modern Bulldog. Cesarean section births are not necessary. Artificial insemination, due to male ineptness and lack of drive, has been replaced by natural ties. Life span in over eleven years. All breeding stock have had hip x-rays. No dog with bad hips is bred. I’m now achieving my goal of producing a Bulldog with the health and temperament to be able to serve people, instead of forcing people to serve him.

There are several breeds of dog that are still used purely for work that are rarely seen in dog shows.  For a long while breeders of Border Collies tried to resist having the dog recognized by the various kennel clubs due to fear that it would lead to diminished working capacity. The dog is now present on the show circuit and differences in  structure are starting to become apparent.  The Dutch Shepherd which is a relative of the German Shepherd Dog and Belgian Shepherd is not recognized by the AKC and both breeders and owners of this dog are almost universally happy about that. In fact Dutch Shepherds are often bred to certain other breeds (such as the Belgian Malinois – a variety of Belgian Shepherd) to increase the health and working ability of the line – a positive side note is that it keeps the breed from being recognized because no cross-breeding is allowed in show dogs.  The dogs that run the Iditarod race in Alaska are referred to as “Alaskan Huskies” and are also not recognized as an official breed because they are not purebred but are bred for one thing: to race in harsh conditions.  Thus the main focus is on health and the ability of the dog to run.  The dogs are mostly Husky but have often some hound or other breed in their lineage. 

Purebred dogs are a wonderful example of our ability to create traits and characteristics in an animal to serve a certain purpose.  The Irish Wolfhound had a different purpose than the Shetland Sheepdog hence the two breeds look different despite both being dogs.

However the current focus on conformation to standard has eroded many characteristics of many dogs so that not only are they unfit for their original task but are structurally unsound as well.

This is not something that is difficult to correct however it does require an admission from purebred breeders who breed for conformation that their breed standards need to be reevaluated. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be a dialogue that most kennel clubs are interested in having.

Some links:

 Balance Problems in the American Show Shepherd

Working vs Show Lines

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You can refer to my previous post about why am writing this series of posts here.

There was a huge internet ballyhoo recently upon the discovery of years of emails from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia that appeared to show scientists engaging in all manner of decidedly unscientific behavior when studying and publishing results that purport to show a planet slowly (or rapidly) being brought to a boiling point by the wanton production of Carbon Dioxide from modern industrial society.

For those who are skeptical of the entire AGW (if you don’t know already AGW is shorthand for Anthropogenic (or man-made) Global Warming  as opposed to Global Warming caused by natural events) theory and I count myself as one of the the news hardly came as a surprise. However the reaction of those who support the AGW theory was in a word disappointing.

The typical reaction to date has consisted of the tried and true “taken out of context” canard that is now the reflex response of every politician whose words have gone beyond the heavily managed and mangled utterances their spin doctors and handlers allow them to make in public.

However I have seen very few AGW defenders explain exactly what the context was. Just to say something was taken out of context and then moving on is not a defense but an avoidance.

Which brings me to my second point. The other defense being mounted on the pro-AGW side is that this is a minor thing and doesn’t bear discussion because in the grand scheme of things so much other data exists proving the theory that the CRU results can be thrown out altogether but the science behind AGW is still solid.

That may be true but it is hardly the way to handle the matter. Any good public relations professional will tell you that the best way to handle a PR problem is to confront it head on and to be open and honest as possible (Tiger Woods take note – you need new PR advisors).

Good PR people will also tell you that while public relations nightmares seem to be incredibly damaging initially with some work they can be turned into opportunities to bring more people around to your point of view. Having said this I am now going to give the AGW proponents some advice on how to turn Climategate to their advantage and in turn help their cause  (if indeed it is worth helping)

The first thing AGW defenders have to do is stop ignoring or downplaying this. The main criticism that has been leveled at AWG proponents by skeptics over the years has been that the science is flawed or at the very least somewhat suspect. The CRU emails play right into this theory and pretending that this is not big deal is the worst thing to do.

If the AGW theory loses all credibility with the public because of the perception that the data was not only flawed but deliberately manipulated then this becomes not only a problem for climate scientists but for all scientists. Unless the CRU controversy is dealt wit properly the ramifications could go beyond climate change research and into full blown and hysterical skepticism of all branches of science – and that is not a helpful situation.

Those who want to defend the science behind the AGW theory should be the ones at the forefront of the criticism of the CRU in East Anglia. If you really believe your science is solid you should be the most outraged over all of this. Why? Because if you are a climate scientist and have been diligently and honestly working on this for years independently of the CRU folks then you have suddenly been tarred with the same brush and guilt by association is as difficult to escape from as being just plain guilty.,

So what to do? There is an old saying in Judo that goes :”When an opponent appears welcome him, when he leaves send him on his way”. The saying illustrates one of the key principles of Judo (and Aikido) which is to defeat an opponent using his own momentum. It is true in martial arts and often it is true in life.

So how to use the opponents momentum in this case?  Simple all climate researchers who wish to divorce themselves from the stink coming out of East Anglia must adopt the weapon of many successful technology companies: Open source your data.

That’s right make your data and findings widely available on the net  to anyone. Allow the critics to examine it pick it apart critique it and try to destroy it.

If the data is solid it will hold up. If it isn’t then any scientist should welcome the discovery of errors, after all what what scientist with any ounce of integrity would want to build his or her career on bad data and false findings?

One of the features of my business is that I have to collect, track and manage a lot of information over the course of the work I do. I am rarely asked by my clients to share the actual information but on occasions when a project is not going well they do ask to see my work. I gladly share it with them and welcome any critique no matter how hard they might be on me. Why? Because I am 100% confident in my work and I am 100% confident in what my data tells me because I know I haven’t fudged anything. 

So if you are a climate scientist and you are 100% confident in your work and your findings why would you want to hide behind the plaintive and mealy mouthed defenses that we hear mounted by those who are now on the defensive because of the hacked CRU emails?

These defenses are wishy-washy and only hurt your cause and along with the other critiques of AGW skeptics like calling them deniers, dismissing them because they haven’t had peer reviewed work or smearing them by suggesting they are in the pay of oil companies make you look like you aren’t confident in your own work.

If you are confident in your own work and someone criticizes or questions it you should be happy to address these criticisms because you can only make your case stronger by how you respond to such criticisms.  And if you respond well you will only gain supporters.

I am perfectly willing to accept the AGW theory if it stands up to rigorous scientific scrutiny but when those who expound the theory react like school children when anyone dares ask a question it doesn’t really give me confidence that they themselves believe in their own work.

So here’s the challenge: open source your data. Embrace criticism in the name of science.

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I have had great intentions to blog more this year but alas work keeps me away from blogging on a regular basis. One of the pitfalls of running your own business is the absolute commitment you need to make to it 24-7. It is a rare evening that I am not working and that includes Saturday and Sunday nights as well.

When I do have free time it is not blogging that comes to my mind first. But other things that take me away from my desk and office and into the physical world. So if given the choice between blogging and woodworking or blogging and hiking with the dogs I am more likely to take the latter option. That is, I know an abrogation of my responsibilities to the people who enjoy reading my blog ( I know you exist – I see the hits that come from RSS readers) but one of the pitfalls of living your life on-line 24-7 as blogging and twittering and other forms of social media are allowing us to do is that it divorces us from the tactile and 3D world outside our window.

There was a funny little statistic that I saw some time ago that said if people who watched cooking shows actually spent the 30 minutes in the kitchen that watching a show entailed they would actually become better cooks and actually cook real meals for themselves. To a degree we have fallen victim to this in the on-line world. We spend to much time commenting on the commentators who are commenting on other commentators and that really isn’t as productive as we think, is it?

Work is lightening up somewhat for me this year heading into Christmas ( I hope it isn’t a portent of a “soft landing” by the economy") so I am going to try and post some thoughts about things that have occurred over the year and also things I have been thinking about. I hope you will enjoy them.

Up first: Cilmategate.

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Some interesting thoughts on searching for intelligent life beyond the solar system.

Image by varrqnuht via Flickr

A prime target for our early efforts to find a twin Earth is our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, 4.4 million light years away, (ED: actually it’s 4.4 light years away) which means that light (or an extraterrestrial message) takes 4.4 years to reach us.

It’s been the destination of interstellar travelers in science fiction writing for so long now that one would almost be forgiven for thinking we’d already colonized it. But Alpha Centauri, the three-star system closest to our own Sun, is now the center of some very exciting science.

Javiera Guedes who headed up a NASA-funded project to analyze the possibility of detecting an Earthlike planet in orbit around Alpha Centauri B, has shown that terrestrial planets are likely to have formed around Alpha Centauri B, and that these planets should be orbiting in the “habitable zone.”

“It’s so close to us, and the position of the other stars is such that it should be very possible to find a small planet,” she explained. She also found that, based on astronomers’ current understanding of how solar systems form, the existence of a planet the size of our own is very likely, and that there’s also a chance that it would lie in the habitable zone.

Now, the planet-hunting team is using a telescope in Chile to keep an eye on the star for the next three years, in order to collect enough data to determine whether or not the next Earthlike planet lies next door.

“If they exist, we can observe them,” said Guedes also showed that such planets would be observable if a telescope was dedicated to their search.

Guedes used a series of planet formation computer simulations to determine that terrestrial planets have probably formed around the star. The team ran repeated computer simulations which ran on a time frame of 200 million years each time. They varied the beginning conditions each time, and thus created a different result each time. However, each time a system of multiple planets evolved with at least one planet – approximately the size of Earth – forming. In many of these simulations, this planet was often found to be orbiting within the habitable zone of the star.

Its brightness and its position in the sky are both positive factors that make the Alpha Centauri search plausible; the latter giving the team a long period of observability each year from the Southern Hemisphere.

But the profound implication of the iron-clad law of astronomical time is that we see Alpha Centauri only as it was 4.4 years ago.In other words any message from inhabitants of Alpa Cenauri saying “Our planet is dying!” and our reply would consume a total of almost nine years.

Read More here

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I used to love this record back in 1983. This is a video made by target videos so it is lip-synched which isn’t a bad thing because you can appreciate just how tight the band was at the time of this recording. The singer died recently which surprised me because I thought he had died long long ago.

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Steve Horowitz from The Austrian Economists blog has a simple. short and pithy essay on the causes of the current US recession.

Worth reading and it won’t take you long. A sample:

2. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac The U.S. government imposed a variety of other institutions and policies that encouraged the lending binge that led to the recession. Fannie and Freddie are not products of “capitalism;” they are organizations created by the U.S. government, which has given them special privileges as well as an implicit taxpayer guarantee. Fannie and Freddie were mandated to purchase a certain percentage of the mortgages that banks originated with the credit created by the Fed, giving mortgage lenders every incentive to keep on making loans, even if the borrowers didn’t meet traditional lending criteria.

The rest

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Holy Crap this guy is fucking buzz-saw.

Hat tip to Hot Air

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Image via Wikipedia

In pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999, the motion of M87’s jet was measured at four to six times the speed of light.

The outburst is coming from a blob of matter, called HST-1, embedded in the jet, a powerful narrow beam of hot gas produced by a supermassive black hole residing in the core of the giant elliptical galaxy M87. HST-1 is so bright that it is outshining even M87’s brilliant core, whose monster black hole is one of the most massive yet discovered.

The glowing gas clump has taken astronomers on a rollercoaster ride of suspense. Astronomers watched HST-1 brighten steadily for several years, then fade, and then brighten again. They say it’s hard to predict what will happen next.

M87_jet NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has been following the surprising activity for seven years, providing the most detailed ultraviolet-light view of the event. Other telescopes have been monitoring HST-1 in other wavelengths, including radio and X-rays. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was the first to report the brightening in 2000. HST-1 was first discovered and named by Hubble astronomers in 1999. The gas knot is 214 light-years from the galaxy’s core.

The flare-up may provide insights into the variability of black hole jets in distant galaxies, which are difficult to study because they are too far away. M87 is located 54 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster, a region of the nearby universe with the highest density of galaxies.

“I did not expect the jet in M87 or any other jet powered by accretion onto a black hole to increase in brightness in the way that this jet does,” says astronomer Juan Madrid of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, [ed note: Local boy!!!!] who conducted the Hubble study. “It grew 90 times brighter than normal. But the question is, does this happen to every single jet or active nucleus, or are we seeing some odd behavior from M87?”

Read more here

Hat tip Space Future’s awesome twitter feed.

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I think one might argue that we were first and the fish were second.

Something in the Water Is Feminizing Male Fish. Are We Next? | Popular Science

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Image via Wikipedia

No, none of this is logical. It’s petty and silly. But it is why ad hominem attacks on everyone from Michael Moore to Sarah Palin are so enduringly popular.

Logical types who are caught up in Robert’s Rules of Order and all those ancient boring and frankly arbitrary rules for debate and rhetoric just don’t get it; the average person doesn’t care about your elaborate arguments and statistics and clever quotations, which are probably read only by people who more or less agree with you already.

They just know Al Gore seems like a fat pushy scold with too much money, and Sarah Palin has too many kids for their liking, and Ron Paul is as cuddly as a rusty bear trap, and I have an ugly voice and frown all the time.

They’re too busy living ordinary lives to spend hours reading Ayn Rand or Koranic apologists or William F. Buckley or to find out that the number of Catholic priests who’ve abused children is about 0.1%. They make judgements based on the evidence of their senses, then rush off to the next thing.

It’s all very shallow. Most of us are.

More

(for the record I consider myself a libertarian and would legalize pot in a heartbeat even though I don’t and won’t partake in it. - I also don’t smoke or drink but wouldn’t make it illegal for others to do it either.)

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Image by Aaron Webb via Flickr

I will elaborate on this later. But I think Leafs Nation should vote for Ian White as an all-star this year. The guy is the best defensemen on this team and is criminally underrated. He deserves more recognition.

I know I will be writing him in on the ballot and I hope the entire Barilkosphere can get behind this.

Update: I forgot there is no All-Star game this year. And I don’t think we can get Ian onto the Olympic team so we now have 15 months to get this thing going!! Huzzahh!

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And here’s a perfect distillation of why. Spend some time and listen to the entire podcast of what happens when a perfectly functioning profitable private transportation system in a large city is privatized to eliminate “greed” and “profit”

Munger on the Political Economy of Public Transportation

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Image via Wikipedia

You know, for as politically inconsequential as our betters in media tell us Sarah Palin is, I can’t help but notice how much coverage she generates.

It reminds me why I always correct those who describe me as a “citizen journalist”. I don’t consider myself a journalist, never have, and this post illustrates the distinction very well.

When mainstream media declares someone to be inconsequential, they write over 4,600 stories about them.

When I consider someone to be inconsequential, I don’t write any at all.

“Thousands Cheer Palin”

I don’t believe Kate has ever written about the Toronto Maple Leafs……..hmmmmm…….

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Image via Wikipedia

Everywhere else in English Canada gets the day off. Quebec doesn’t take the day off either. Does it make a difference? At 11 am somewhere people will stop shopping in malls and stand around uncomfortably for a moment (not a minute mind you) and then continue what they were doing.

Everyone will be wearing the requisite “falls off the instant you buy it” poppy but how many wear it out of true appreciation for soldiers who died in foreign lands fighting for abstract ideals that they themselves couldn’t understand rather than out of guilt and peer pressure?

I come from a military family of sorts. My father was a war veteran along with several uncles. My great uncle was highly decorated during WWI. Remembrance Day has always been looked up on as a sacred day where I come from - almost on the level of Good Friday. I always hold it in that regard.

However I have become somewhat disillusioned lately with the eagerness of those around me to enthusiastically show their “reverence” in public whilst seemingly missing the larger picture. The most obvious example in my mind are the “I support the troops but I don’t support the war crowd” you know what? Try saying this instead. “I’m an isolationist like the Republicans were in the 40’s. Back then I would have said that we have no business meddling in Germany’s affairs”. Because it’s pretty much the same thing.

Someone I follow on Twitter said yesterday that “it’s easy to support a war when you don’t have to go and fight and get killed” (or something to that effect). You know what else is easy? Cheering for wars we won in the past as being good wars when you already know the outcome. WWII is one that people assume they would “support” because it was against those bad ol’ Nazis. But anyone who reads the history of that conflict (I mean detailed histories not the executive summaries you got in high school) knows just how hard that war was and just how close it came to being lost. Something tells me the “I support the troops but not the war” crowd wouldn’t have been able to stomach it beyond Dunkirk let alone Dieppe, Pearl Harbour, the fall of Singapore, the Bataan Death March, the Blitz, The Battle of the Atlantic, Operation Market Garden, and on and on and on…..

Kathy Shaidle has some thoughts of her own here

Related: The latest big money special effects flick from Hollywood is typical of what most people really think of the military these days

Oh and one more thing: We don’t talk enough about the absolute betrayal of Czechoslovakia any more. Just to refresh your memory

Super Cool Update: Tyler brings the “funny but true”

I wish we had big parades today like the Russians used to where they showed off all their missiles and tanks and guns and stuff. Then other countries would know how badass we are. Unless you’re Darth Maul, an American soldier can kill you before you even have time to wonder what that splashing sound is (note: your intestines + the ground). They’ll kill you even if you are Darth Maul, but you could probably fight them off long enough to shit your pants, so I guess that’s something.

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Via Pension Plan Puppets.

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I have been a hockey fan since the age of 6. That’s 40 years. Whilst growing up in Newfoundland I was a habs fan and didn’t really pay much attention to your team.

Then while in university and in my vegetarian punk rock days I swore off hockey because all the punk chicks were all like “sports is a violent demeaning tool of the patriarchy” so I thought if I didn’t watch hockey it would impress them and I would get laid more. It didn’t work.

Then I moved to Toronto and it was a novelty to watch a team that was so bad that a regular season win seemed like a playoff victory. So out of a sort of morbid curiosity I began to root for your lovable losers and have been doing so for the past 21 years.

I have a high tolerance for bad hockey and one sided games.

In 1972 in the opening game of the Canada-Russia summit I watched to the bitter end fighting back tears as the evil commie horde shelled my favorite player at the time (Ken Dryden).

In 1990 (or 91) I watched the Black Hawks (then in their prime) slaughter the Doug Carpenter coached leafs 12-3 (or something ridiculous like that). I can even remember and obviously deranged Carpenter saying in the post game presser that the Leafs would meet and beat the Black Hawks in the playoffs that year.

I watched every minute of those 8-0 beatings Ottawa laid on us during the Paul Maurice years.

But tonight I did something that I have never done in my entire 40 years as a hockey fan - turned off a game in disgust.

This is the absolute most brutal hockey I have seen in some time. And you know what? I ain’t watching it any more.

When this bullshit collection of overpaid babies starts playing at an NHL level call me. I will happily tune back in.

I don’t mind losing. It’s how you lose. Christ, even last year the team fought for every minute of every game and frequently came back from 2 or 3 goal deficits. And most of the time outshot the other team too.

WTF? Seriously WTF?

Well at least we will get a high draft pick right? Oh wait never mind.

PS: To the CBC, Jim Hughson is the worst hockey announcer in the history of the game. Are you people stupid, brain dead or both? How much of my tax payer extorted money is going to pay some guy to say “here’s (insert First and Last Name of player) over and over again for 60 minutes? You’re supposed to be the best hockey broadcast on the planet. You sound like a regional Fox Sports network in a southern market.

Update (5 weeks later) : Et Tu Godd Till? Obviously his tolerance is a little higher than mine. Note that we each had a final paragraph directed at something other than the on-ice product in his case a brilliant take down of the awful new leafs song.

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