Bike v. Dog

Yesterday I was riding in the pouring rain when I heard an odd noise, looked back to see a very excited looking pit-bull closing in on me, OH SHIT!

He wasn't a real tall dog but he looked pretty damn muscular, his face had more of an "I wanna play" look than an "I wanna kill" but if he gets caught up in my spokes I'm still going down really hard so I didn't want to find out how he likes to play. Instead I stomped on them petals for all I was worth and we raced, it was tense for about a block and then I started pulling away, he tried to keep up but stumbled at one point and knew he lost so he peeled off and I kept going, didn't want to give him any ideas of trying again.

-A quick word about Pit Bulls-

I'm not a dog person, I'm generally not a huge fan of pets, love animals just prefer them wild. But I think pit-bulls get a bad wrap quite often and I don't want to contribute to that. Suppose I could have told this story without mentioning the breed at all but I'll be honest and say that because of the stigma with pits it makes the story more impressive. Like I said, I don't think the dog meant me harm, I think he just wanted to play and I didn't want to play at 20 mph. I'm saying this because the only two dogs I'm in regular contact with are both pits, one is pretty much the chillest dog ever. He's probably 60 lbs and the only thing I don't like about him is that he started licking a lot, and that annoys me. He is also quite aggressive toward other dogs which I've been told is a legitimate issue with the breed, but I'm not a dog so I don't care. (I've also been told pits aren't a true breed, but breeds are totally arbitrary anyway, they're all the same species so whatever) The same friends also have another pit that they estimate around 100 lbs, mostly muscle. This one was basically a rescue dog and so it does have some bad behaviors that they are still trying to break him of, I blame him for teaching the other dog to lick all the time. But his biggest problem is really just that he doesn't know his strength and craves attention. He spent much of his first years in a crate so this is understandable. The dog itself though is just happy and stupid, he just wants to play and be friends with everyone, and lick. It's hard to fault a creature for that. Anyway all I'm saying is that yes, Pits are very strong dogs and can be taught to be very dangerous, but they have to be taught to be mean and they aren't mean by default. So don't hate on 'em, at least not any more than other dogs.... I'm not realizing that I'm being hypocritical because their are breeds I generally detest, chihuahuas and pugs come to mind, although I don't hate pugs, I hate people who own pugs and whoever spent time to breed a creature into existence based on their person view of "cute" at the expense of the dog being able to breath. Plus they're fucking ugly but thats just preference. Chihuahuas are just annoying and highly temperamental. Thats probably enough about dogs.

3/4ths the man I used to be

So we've been doing a "biggest loser" competition at work. For the first like 2 of the 3 months I lost like 3 lbs, but I was biking a lot and it was clear that I was turning fat into muscle so despite not losing much mass I was still pretty happy. And then like a sprint at the end of a race the weight has been falling off this month and I'm down about 10 more. We're doing it by percentage for the same obvious reasons as the show so I've lost 6.79% in three months. I was hoping to get under 200 but I knew all along that wasn't terribly reasonable. I will be under 200 before this summer is out. More impressively I've lost 63 lbs total, which is 23%. So this song is half-way true.




I was never a big STP fan, and I generally don't like lethargic music but I still always liked that song. Then again I really don't like Radiohead and yet I like this song too, thought of it cause it got the same name -Creep.

Hating on the Media

Yeah I know everyone busts on the media, but I'm not sure if this says more about the media or about the people who read it. Yahoo had four news stories on their home page, Cali upholding the (unconstitutional) ban on gay marriage, something about hockey (maybe?), something about about Jon and Kate (I think they have a reality show, the ones with the kids but not that other lady with all the kids that looks like angelina jolie but really doesn't) and Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. Which one of the four was the one featured?.... The reality show. I don't hate the media, I hate people because that probably is the most popular of them. So yeah I hate people, with a few exceptions. If you're reading this, you MIGHT be one of them.

No Death by Willful Ignorance

The kid is in the hospital, he's still going to have a pretty shitty time but he's got a good chance to live. PZ has more, albeit not a lot more.

Sucks to be poor

I only read the first page of this, the high cost of poverty, ran outta time and I want to read it later.

Basically it's showing how the poor get fucked over and over again.

Death By Willful Ignorance

It might seem like I'm unduly harsh towards religion quite regularly. If religion was just a harmless sham then I would agree that my attacks are unwarranted, but religion is NOT harmless. Case in point, Daniel Hauser, has been sentenced to a horribly painful death from Hodgkins lymphoma by his loving mother. I'm not using the term loving sarcastically and thats what makes it all the worse. I have every reason to think that his mother loves him and wants whats best for him, but because of her religious views what she considers the best for him is for god to protect him rather than let doctors help him. Even before this disease his mother's views had already done harm to him. He was home schooled and apparently reading wasn't considered important at that education facility.

PZ is angry about this too.

The Gitmo Boys

So as you probably know Obama wants to close Gitmo, for what should be obvious reasons, unfortunately they still haven't resolved what to do with the prisoners until their trials. I want them to come to New York. We have a Maximum security prison in my town that I would be more than comfortable having these guys at. (actually we have two but Southport is more secure than the hill although they did recently increase security their after a couple guys escaped, I don't think anyone has ever gotten out of southport) Unfortunately it's not a federal prison so it probably can't happen. But we have federal prisons in this state and I think it would be perfect if NY the site of 9/11 was the one state that steps up and says we're not scared of them, and despite the fact that these men may have had something to do with the attack on our state we still think they deserve to be treated humanely. Then again the humanity of a super-max can probably be questioned seeing as the isolation there is quite extreme as well. I've been told that Southport is locked-down 23 1/2 hours a day, the prisoners getting half an hour to walk in the "yard" which is basically a somewhat larger room without a roof. But thats getting into a much bigger question about our legal system when right now we just need to worry about the issue at hand.

If we really want to be symbolic we should send them to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. It's tough enough to handle Bernie Madoff I'm sure it can handle people driven insane at Gitmo.

I'd be curious to hear a good reason against bringing them to NY. I personally already e-mailed Gov Paterson telling him that as a New Yorker I'd be proud to show the strength of our state by bringing those who (maybe) attacked us, and treating them like people. That is real strength.

More Military Intelligence

I think this story is pretty self-explanatory. Guy is a damn good fighter pilot, plenty of awards and shit. Now he's training the next generation of pilots here in the US, We've spent about $25 million on his training. He's about to get kicked out for a pretty heinous crime, he admitted he was gay. Seems like a good plan doesn't it? I'd like to see every homosexual member of the military come out at once. Can our military really stand to lose a significant percentage of its fighting force right now? Even if it's 1% that would be a serious problem for them. As much as I dislike the military my point obviously isn't to cripple our military it is to force them to take a long hard look at their policies and decide if they can afford to keep it. I think this would force the military to abandon don't ask don't tell.

They should pick a significant day, maybe November 27th - the day Harvey Milk was murdered. Or if they want to do it sooner, Milk's birthday is May 22nd.

So what do you say? May 22nd every gay soldier comes out of the closet. It's not mass desertion, it's a simple protest against a stupid law.

Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)

More like Sofa King, as in Sofa King We Todd Id.

Iraq: Get out of our cities by June 30th.

US: Fine.
Oh and btw, Baghdad isn't a city, at least not the part with the US military bases.

Iraq: (cough) Assphinctersayswhat?

US: What?

Iraq: Hehe. Uh yeah I guess you guys can keep doing whatever you please in our "free" country.

US: Ya damn right.

Oh why do they hate our freedom? And why the fuck is Obama allowing this. They want us out, lets get out. Maybe we can't fully pull out in six weeks, although I bet we could if we wanted to. But we could at least honor what they have asked for and get out of the cities.

Still Slackin

What? You still check this shit even though I haven't written anything in a week? Thats very sweet of you. For your patience I'll give you links to some insanity.

A Softer World

Overqualified

And right now I'm exhausted cause I didn't sleep last night. Ugh. Oh and I need a new book. I'm going on vacation and I have some long ass layovers. Any recommendations?

TV worth watching

Sounds like The History Channel has some cool shit coming up.

Slackin

Yeah I've been pretty busy lately. Sorry folks. Still really don't have much to say. Although I did recently remember how much I like the band "The Vandals." If you don't know them I highly recommend them, well as long as you like happy punk rock. This is quite possibly the happiest song ever, called I Have a Date. Although they do have one song thats about as depressing as any I've ever heard, seriously don't watch this if you're depressed, especially at christmas time, which it's not.

Beyond that... I don't have much to say. Finals are this week. Birthday was last weekend. 27 woohoo.

State of the Nation

I haven't had much to say lately, so just read some Rudeness instead.

Here's where we stand as a nation: Right now, it is more likely that someone or some entity will be punished for the split-second exposure of Janet Jackson's naked titty during the 2004 Super Bowl than for authorizing the torture of detainees at our prison in Guantanamo Bay.

It's sad 'cause its true.