About pets

No, I don't have any due to the difficulty in getting the type I want, however the Humane Society of the United States (not to be confused with the real Humane Society) likes to use the ideas of a high school drop out in determining animal behavior to decide which dogs live and which dogs die when they get rescued and put into a shelter.

Pit bulls are basically summarily executed because "fighting is in their blood" which is about the biggest load of bull I've seen in a while. Endogenous Retrovirus, a blogger on science blogs has a good post on the latest antics of the HSUS that can be read at here http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2008/07/the_humane_society_of_the_unit.php

Personally I've tried to read the information linked to from that blog post about the slime of a human John Goodwin, yet I find myself unable to really stomach the stuff this guy has done. So the long and short of this post is that some uneducated scumbag not fit to call human is working at the HSUS and deciding to kill off all Pit's that come into shelters mainly because he doesn't like them, because there's no real evidence to support his views, in fact Pit's as I recall don't even top the charts for being the most aggressive dogs. A little bit of googleing shows that there are studies debunking the hereditary aggression notion as well as Pit bulls being the most aggressive dogs. I could link these findings, but I think it's better for people interested to do their own research since it's so easy to find this information on google. Still one well done study I found will be provided for those readers too lazy to searh, http://www.edba.org.au/PAPER%20FOR%20UAM%20CALOUNDRA%20-%20LINDA%20WATSON-1.pdf (pdf)

It's a pdf so readers follow that link be warned, not that there's anything malicious in that pdf, I just don't like being linked to pdf's without warning. People who want to view it as html can use this link.

So yeah, that basically covers my thoughts on this thing. I really don't like high school drop outs using BS logic to kill off creatures that deserve a better life than they have been given. I fully admit that adopting a dog trained for aggression is a dangerous thing to do, but a competent trainer can undo that damage if they are given the chance. Killing dogs or anything simply because someone has the idea that aggression is in their blood is flat out wrong, and frankly I think it qualifies as murder. Dog's might not be human, but if someone were enslaved and trained as a killer then rescued wouldn't they deserve the chance to recover? People are smart, so one might try to say it's totally different, but I've seen some very smart cats and dogs, ones smarter than some humans I know, so I think if a human should get a second chance why not a dog?

Retrospective on the weekend

Went to a party friday, had one of the greatest times of my life, even though it was a going away party for a good friend of mine. I'd like to think that it was a good send off for him. Partied myself out for a good while with that one, so the rest of the weekend was more recovery than anything else, though to be fair the enjoyment of the party just plain made everything seem better.

Asked the friend leaving to borrow some DvD's of his while he was out, and to be honest I was a little apprehensive about asking. I mean, how do you ask someone to borrow their stuff while they're out of the country for a month, it doesn't seem like there really is a tactful way to do it. My friend really doesn't care about stuff like that near as I can tell having known him for as long as I have, so he just told me to grab the set of DvD's. I'm really just one of those weird people who cares about that probably more than is healthy, and even now, after he's left town, I still wonder if I asked the right way. Not that I'm wondering much about it, it's just something that pops up in the back of my mind when I'm sitting around with nothing to do and a blank mind.

Anyways, after the party I crashed at another friends house and started watching the borrowed stuff with them, got through episode 9 of 26 in the series. I'd seen the series before, and can say it's still as enjoyable this time through, in part because it has been so long that most of the interesting details have been lost to time in my mind.

Should probably apologize to my guild in EQ2 as well, I signed off on wednesday saying I'd see them tomorrow, but between a meeting on thursday, the party, and hanging out the weekend away from home I still haven't gone back online. Basically to them I said "see ya all tomorrow" and then vanished. Sorry guildies, I'll make it back on Tuesday unless I have extra work to do that day.

I guess that covers my weekend without too many boring details.

An introduction of sorts

Sitting around, listening to old music. Songs I haven't listened to since early high school, around six years past now, but I still seem to enjoy them as much as the first time I heard these songs. My tastes in music have considerably expanded, but in the end even though I like more types of music now, I have not changed the core of my musical enjoyment. The same songs still make me smile or feel sad or whatever other emotions it evoked in me before still come up when I listen again.

I have changed and yet, at the same time I have remained the same. I feel it too, in so many ways I feel different, and at the same time I feel the same in many ways.

Anyways, this blog is me no longer putting it's creation off since I've been telling myself for years that I'm going to start one and then have never done it. It's going to just be random thoughts as I feel like putting them down and think that commentary on the thoughts would be interesting/appropriate.