Daily Soap Box - Dog Breeding

There may be legitimate and good reasons for certain types of dog breeding, but I can't think of any. I saw a news clip last night regarding 'backyard breeders'. It upset me to see the conditions in which these animals were kept but that's only part of the issue. The real problem, in my mind, are the people who insist in buying bred animals.

WTF!?! There is always an over population of pets at local animal shelters. Good animals that need homes, but these people insist on having a specific breed or some dumb shit like that. Come on people, do something good with your money. You can adopt a shelter dog for a lot less and then if you insist on spending that $1000 anyway, give it to the shelter to help them continue the good work they are doing.

If people stopped buying those, literally, retarded toy dogs, then breeders, especially backyard breeders, would no longer have incentive to breed.

The news article goes into requiring licenses and such and I think that would help, but at the end of the day until the buyers stop, the breeders will keep supplying.

Rescue an animal for crying out loud!
www.hsus.org - The Humane Society
Hell just Google "Dog rescue" or "Animal Shelter" and you'll find many many links to all kinds of organizations that will help you find a companion. They are happy, you are happy and you've saved an animal!

Up In Arms over Google Street View

First, if you don't know what Google Street View is, go to http://maps.google.com and click the button labeled Street View.
You'll notice a few camera icons pop up on the map. These are cities that have street view enabled. I won't go into the full details of how to use it, it's pretty easy.

Google will be rolling out more Street View cameras to capture more roads. Likely they'll focus on major cities first. They'll also probably focus on the United States first. But other countries are probably going to be done too, depending on privacy laws.

And that is the issue that seems to keep coming up. Over on DIGG about 25% (by my rough guess) were up in arms about this whole project. As if taking pictures of streets was a real threat to privacy. Really I doubt it has anything to do with the streets or even the houses but the fact that the cameras capture people too. All doing a variety of things. It's not like they couldn't have been seen any other time by people driving down the street but now they are on the Internet for the whole world to see.

I can't help but think, "So what!?" Oh no, Google my drive by my house when I have neglected to cut the lawn so there will be a scruffy picture of my lawn on Google for possibly YEARS! Umm, so? Sure I'd like my house to look better but that's far from a privacy problem or really any problem at all. If someone is trying to find my house I can direct them to the Street View of my house and they'll be able to find me quickly and easily. THAT is the point of Street View.

Some people can read maps easily and translate that to the roads as they drive. I'm one of those people. I have a great sense of direction and my place in the spacial world. Other people have trouble with maps and are better with landmarks. Google Street View provides that. Hell even I would like to see a picture of the place I'm going. Sure I can get to the general location from my map but what does the building look like?

I understand that people are upset with the current government and some of the over reaching activities that have taken place in recent years in the name of The War on Terror. I think many of those activities were and are unnecessary to the security and safety of the U.S. Google is not some evil corporation for doing this. Focus your anger at real problems.

Global Warming

Ok, it's a loaded title, I know.

I've thought long about this topic. I believe that as a global community, as a human race, we should be doing things to reduce our waste and just generally be more energy efficient.

Are we causing Global Warming. No, I don't believe so. Are we helping? No we're not. I personally believe that we are going through a natural weather situation, not unlike the ice ages. Is there anything we can do? Nope. We can't do much to stop weather, we are insignificant in comparison.

Here is why I don't think we are doing this:

1. Cars pollute, but not as much as the media likes to present. Industry and power plants put out, literately, TONS more carbon and greenhouse gases than cars do.
2. Volcanoes put out HUGE amounts of greenhouse gases and the like when they go off. It hasn't killed the planet yet (nor will it).

Here is why I don't think we are helping:

1. Cutting down huge swaths of rain forest that help regulate temperature.
2. Even if our pollution is a small fraction of the green house effect, it still isn't good.

We could be doing more, but not to change Global Climate Change. (much more accurate title)
The bottom line is that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I mean the changes will be more dramatic. Some areas will benefit from the changes, others will not. Coastlines will change as the oceans rise. Some islands will disappear. There will be stronger storms, longer droughts, stronger floods.

There will be death and loss of entire species of plants and animals. Those that cannot adapt will parish. This is just a reverse ice age. Hell it may even swing the other direction too.

We humans can and will survive. How well depends on how willing we are to face the truth and just be prepared. I mean come on, like we are going to change the planet from rising a few degrees over the next decade or two? HIGHLY doubtful. We'd be better off figuring out how we can sustain our crops in adverse weather conditions and moving out of coastal cities or prepping them for rising ocean levels. New Orleans...sorry, your days are numbered, like it or not.

New Last.fm charts

I've been using Last.fm for awhile now. It's a great service and hopefully it'll remain great even though CBS has purchased it.

Anyway, I've had my most recently listened and weekly charts displayed on the right here on my blog for awhile now but today I noticed that there were new scripts for embedding the information on a blog. WOW! What a difference. It's SO much nicer. If the title is longer than the box it'll scroll. You can click on the tracks or artists to get more information (takes you to Last.fm). Also if you hover over the artist you get a neat little thumb nail of the artists' picture.

Frivolous? Yup. Cool? You betcha!

I really don't write here as much as I should

I spend too much time on Digg. Not that Digg is bad but I end up commenting on there instead of writing something more worth while here. I guess the reason for that is I get comments there when I write. Well sometimes. It's like a bar full of patrons watching the news together and making comments. Most are worthless but there are some good ones. Mine are better than 50% good but I've my share of dumb comments.

The point is that I read, watch and listen to news and have a voice yet I rarely use it. Not that my blog is anything but my own personal soap box, that no one reads, but it'd still be a good outlet for my thoughts. Writing helps one refine ones thoughts. There have been things I've written that I looked back on and thought, "Well that sounds stupid." Other times I simply think harder before writing and stop myself realizing that my feelings/thoughts on the subject are poorly developed or without merit.

The 'without merit' thought pops in a lot when thinking about political topics. It's easy to criticize a bill in Congress based on the misinformation in the media. It's a lot harder to go find a copy of the bill, read it and make your own informed comments. I hope I'm wrong but I suspect that many don't think any further than the media for the information that they get all worked up on. I'm sure there are advocates on both sides who are actually informed, but they'll spin the information based on their own biases, that's human nature.

The climate of the world, from my limit scope, seems to be ripe for major change. There is a lot of shit hitting the fan, but only people on the Internet seem able to see it and say something. I'm sure others see it also but prefer to keep the status quo, not wanting to 'rock the boat'. But the boat is being rocked by the sea it sits on.

• Gas prices going way up. (I'll be buying a hybrid or advanced diesel engine car very soon)
  
• An increasingly unpopular executive branch in power in the USA. (Too many issues to even begin discussing. The 2008 elections could either be the biggest turn out in a long time because everyone is sick of Bush and his crew OR it'll be a bust since everyone knows that Bush will be out anyway and anyone will be better than him.)
  
• The war on terror that is a futile as the war on drugs. (We can never eliminate terrorists any more than we can drugs. At least with drugs we have a viable option. Make them legal and heavily taxed.)
  
• Global warming. (Again a huge topic but one that the whole world is starting to wake up to.)
  
• Corrupt businesses and organizations. (SOX, DMCA, RIAA, MPAA, Decode the acronyms but cover your eyes so that their evil does not burn out your soul, a la "Indian Jones".

It sure would be nice if the US government was once again, "We the People" instead of "We the Business People".

Which Star Wars Character are you?

iTunes...Why? Why must you hurt me so?

First I have to say I like iTunes. I don't buy any music through it from Apple but I do like the free podcasts. I also like the music player, specifically the ease of building custom play lists. However...

iTunes lost all my settings...again! Yes again. And I've had this happen on multiple machines. I notice it when I've left my computer on over night, with iTunes minimized and a Windows Update reboots my computer. As soon as I fire things up in the morning...poof! Nothing! I'm sorry that sucks.

Sure we could blame Microsoft for rebooting, but I set it up that way. I want critical security updates to fix and reboot my system. I blame iTunes for not properly saving my settings. Even if I lost the changes from the last time I opened iTunes that would be acceptable, but it resets it as if I'd never used iTunes on this computer before. Bad bad Apple.

I'm afraid it's time to reevaluate the alternatives. I've downloaded and installed Microsoft Media Player 11. I'm not a huge fan but if it doesn't loose my settings that's a plus. I'm also looking for Podcast aggregators. I'm trying Democracy for my video podcasts but I'm not sure if it does audio too. I like listening to a few audio-only 'casts.