Hyperbole and a Half: My dog is retarded

clipped from hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com A lingering fear of mine was confirmed last night:  My dog might be slightly retarded. I've wondered about her intelligence ever since I adopted her and subsequently discovered that she was unable to figure out how stairs worked. Not only is training my dog outlandishly difficult, it is also heartbreaking.  She wants so badly to please me.  Every fiber of her being quivers with the desire to do a good job.   She tries really hard.     But when turning her head at an extreme angle fails to produce a life-altering epiphany, she usually just short-circuits and rolls on her back.   I found a dog IQ test that looked fairly legitimate.  It involved testing your dog's ability to solve a few very basic problems, like figuring out how to get out from underneath a blanket.  I threw the blanket over her and started my stopwatch.  She made some cursory attempts at freeing herself, but as the seconds ticked by, it became clear that she was not going to pass. I put the biscuit under the cup and started the timer.

Goal of a lifetime

I really like that quote ...

clipped from sites.google.com   "And the goal of a lifetime is continued growth, not adulthood. Recapture—or prevent the loss of—such child-like traits as the ability to learn, to love, to laugh about small things, to leap, to wonder, and to explore. It’s time to rescue ourselves from our grown-up ways before it’s too late." ~ Rene Dubos

clipped from www.kmov.com School used webcams to spy on students in their homes PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A suburban Philadelphia school district used the webcams in school-issued laptops to spy on students at home, potentially catching them and their families in compromising situations, a family claims in a federal lawsuit. "This isn't just them spying on the kids, this is them intruding on the parents' home. Who knows what they are seeing?" Walczak said. "The courts for 80 years have said there's no greater sanctuary than a person's own home." "School ends at the end of the school property, so they shouldn't really be in our business at home," Halpern said. "School officials cannot, any more than police, enter into the home either electronically or physically without an invitation or a warrant," Walczak said. Sophomore Tom Halpern described students as "pretty disgusted," and noted that his class recently read "1984," the George Orwell classic that coined the term "Big Brother."

"O-mazing Grace - I want people to sing it with me, too."

An oldie but goody. Sing it loudly!

clipped from www.youtube.com

Iraq War Vet Speaks the Truth

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy... The loss of Liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad..." - James Madison

clipped from www.youtube.com

The Dumbing of America

"Deliberately dumbing down the message works well with the Republican base because, compared to average Americans, the GOP rank-and-file tend to be poorly educated and dogmatically Christian, living in a culture that is hierarchical and rules based."

clipped from www.smirkingchimp.com US history informs us that there has always been a strong anti-intellectual component in American culture. And it's common for radical conservative movements to get their strongest support from the white, rural, Christian south. What's unusual about the GOP "dumbing of America" campaign is that it has become a national strategy, There are two serious problems with the Republican game plan of celebrating stupidity. It is anti-American because it defiles our treasured myth of the triumphant individual. "Dumb is beautiful" runs counter to the American ethos of self-sufficiency, of taking pride in a culture of individuals that stand on their own two feet, and think for themselves. Ultimately, it replaces the individual with the mob. The other problem with the Republican strategy is that it is counter productive. To survive in an increasingly difficult world, the US must tap the intelligence of all of our citizens. This is the time for Americans to question authority not pay obeisance to it.

'Coalition of the willing' comes to end in Iraq

How much is the human cost of this murderous fraud?

clipped from www.theglobeandmail.com The war in Iraq was truly an American-only effort Saturday after Britain and Australia, the last of its international partners, pulled out. Little attention was paid in Iraq to what effectively ended the so-called coalition of the willing, with the U.S. — as the leader of Multi-National Force, Iraq — letting the withdrawals pass without any public demonstration. The quiet end of the coalition was a departure from its creation, which saw then-U.S. President George W. Bush court countries for support before and after the March 2003 invasion. “We're grateful to those partners who contributed in the past and we look forward to working with them in the future,” military spokesman Army Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Ballesteros told The Associated Press in an e-mail.

Obama: better be good

clipped from www.cynical-c.com Yesterday was a historic day. On January 20th, 2009, Barack H. Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America - the first African-American ever to hold the office of U.S. Commander-in-Chief. The event was witnessed by well over one million attendees in chilly Washington D.C., and by many millions more through coverage on television and the Internet. Collected here are photographs of the event, the participants, and some of the witnesses around the world. (48 photos total)

Israel knows what is going on

this is the portrait of a palestian doctor who works both is Gaza and in Tel Aviv when he knew three of his sons were killed in a tank atack of is home town

clipped from blog.lefigaro.fr Télé israélienne : le cri de désespoir d'un médecin palestinien. (Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, le médecin palestinien, après son transfer dans un hôpital de Tel Aviv. Crédit photo : AP)

Hmmm you don't hear this on the news! This is just wrong and those are our dollars... Again I ask, did anyone get a phone call or receive a notice of how our dollars are to be spent?? If I were from that country and lived here and heard all the 'one sidedness' I'd be furious -- crazy mad!!! You know not for nothing the Jews get to much special treatment -- its funny how americans don't ever think that THEY run our country --- PERIOD! You never hear it reported that a town in the Hudson Valley they have their little exclusive community with schools paid for by the taxpayers of this country - schools exclusive for them.. Thats against every law n the books yet its there!!

clipped from www.infowars.com Phosphorous Bomb Rain Over Northern Gaza GAZA - Blankets of white clouds covered the skies over Gaza, including the refuge camps in Khan Younis, Beit Lahia and Gaza City.On Saturday Israeli F16 warplanes launched attacks using phosphorus bombs on the Block 2 section inside the densely populated Jabalya Refuge Camp.Many residents of Jabalya escaped the area covering their faces, searching for a safe shelter in the home of relatives and friends in the neighboring Beit Lahia from the Israelis "Cast Lead Operation". Gaza has always been the Israelis “testing ground” - from nerve agents used in Khan Younis in 2003, to Sonic Boom “phantom air raids”,and the use of DIME in the Israelis massacre called " Operation Summer Rain" over Gaza year 2006.

On the Origin of Species

A must read.
"the Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings throughout the world, which inevitably follows from their high geometrical powers of increase, will be treated of. This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.
This fundamental subject of Natural Selection"
"namely, that each species has been independently created - is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable"
The first of our six abridged extracts; can't wait for the res

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk On the Origin of Species: Introduction In the introduction the great naturalist lays out his "mystery of mysteries" - where do new species come from? When on board HMS Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision. clipped from www.guardian.co.uk clipped from www.guardian.co.uk clipped from www.guardian.co.uk In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species clipped from www.guardian.co.uk clipped from www.guardian.co.uk clipped from www.guardian.co.uk Variation under Domestication clipped from www.guardian.co.uk clipped from www.guardian.co.uk clipped from www.guardian.co.uk clipped from www.guardian.co.uk clipped from www.guardian.co.uk