Frozen caribou.
Ever wondered how you might fish an Airbus out of a river?
Jack Shafer rips corporate do-gooder campaigns. I’m glad someone wrote this. Nothing more irritating than a righteous lecture with my morning coffee.
Those look like some delicious cupcakes.
U.K. Animal rights charity asks woman if it can weigh her dogs, then takes them and is attempting to keep them . . . because they’re too fat.
Isaac Singletary’s family is suing the Jacksonville, Florida Sheriff’s Department. Singletary was shot and killed in 2007 after an armed confrontation with two deputies on his front lawn. The cops were undercover, posing as drug dealers.
Hoosier makes good.
Sportsguy Bill Simmons on the death of his dog.
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on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 11:03 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
I think Shafer missed something–Chevron doesn’t want to “forestall any regulation or taxation of its carboniferous products,” they just want to clean up their image so they can be one of the good guys when those regulations are written, and get a sweet cap and trade deal.
When I saw the death of dog thing, I thought she had been shot by the police.
Perhaps I am reading this site too much.
From the fat dog story “But I love those dogs. At no point did anyone, the vet or the RSPCA, tell me about the devastating consequences of the dogs not losing weight.”
I’m calling BS on that one. I’ve never met a vet anywhere who doesn’t stress that point over and over and over. Letting your dogs get that fat is cruel, (just look at the picture in the story and tell me those dogs won’t have joint problems, diabetes, or something). If there were reasons you can’t care for your pet, (her mom was sick apparently) get rid of it.
Amazing photo of the caribou frozen in mid-stride.
Now we know where to relocate Gitmo.
chsw
I think that the “Hoosier makes good” link is wrong, couldn’t find much good going on in that catholic church child molestation coverup:(
#5 — Oops. Thanks! Fixed.
The real cause for the do-gooder campaigns is America’s obsession with social responsibility. The corporations are simply climbing on the bandwagon to impress potential customers to increase sales. That’s what corporations do.
The problem is that most people don’t even have a clue what capitalism really is. They don’t see it as a simple voluntary exchange of value to the benefit of both parties. They see capitalism as a bunch of parasitic corporations sucking the life out of “the people”. When you hear the mainstream media, as a result of the current financial turmoil, ask whether we’re seeing “the end of capitalism”, it becomes stunningly apparent just how woefully ignorant the public is about even the bare essentials of economics.
Corporations are just responding to that demonization by trying to convince the public that they are on the side of saving the planet from humanity and if we all do our part, maybe we can avert the impending doom, a sense of which now permeates almost every aspect of western civilization.
I dislike the campaigns, too. But I’m libertarian. Just another voice from the radical fringe.
I suspect bullshit in that frozen caribou. Those quadrupeds that can fall asleep standing (which would have been the first stage of the caribou freezing to death) adopt a characteristic square stance that allows them to lock their knees and thus remain standing.
@chance # 3:
My father was a vet. I know that it is not good for dogs to be fat.
But it is a hell of a lot more stressful on them to be taken from their owners.
The RSPCA is being cruel to the dogs and the owner. The cruelty to the dogs is just a means of hurting the owner. It is being done deliberately and with malice aforethought.
The RSPCA, like many “animal rights” groups, hates people.
I second Nicole. Companies make these cloying campaigns because that’s what people want. If the average person is low on gas and sees an Exxon station and a Chevron station coming up, the idea is that they’ll remember the ads, think “oh, Chevron’s a nice company, they’re trying to save energy/fight global warming” and pull into that station. Basically, they don’t want to become Wal-Mart or McDonalds and lose market share based on the fact that they’re perceived as evil by a big chunk of the populace. Starbucks and Chevron are both inching closer to that point, and they’re trying to inch their way back.
Oh, and the proliferation of nanny-state laws chronicled here (and on Jacob’s blog) are proof that people like being told what to do. People will think that certain companies are good if the companies are nagging them into doing what’s right. And I’m not sure I’m that annoyed by it as long as I’m not being coerced into doing what some idiot legislator thinks is right.
@Aresen
If these dogs had been severely underfed, there wouldn’t even have been a news article on it, much less people defending her. By the woman’s own admission, she had reverted back to overfeeding the dogs, and due to her disability cannot properly excercise them. Even if the ASPCA does hate people as you say, I don’t think they have overstepped their bounds here.
Of course the RSPCA has overstepped their bounds. They are her dogs. That wouldn’t be sufficient grounds to take children away (well maybe in the UK). These are dogs. Pets are property.
I gather you’re OK with taking fat kids from their parents, then, on the grounds that overfeeding them is just as cruel as starving them.
I know a person who let one of his puppies die because he did not maintain its watering bowel, or feed them daily. He did not even have to go outside, it was in a small enclosed room in a basement, where the dogs were kept 24/7. (He didn’t bother to keep the room clean, either!) I saved the other puppy, by making sure the someone took responsibility for caring for the surviving dog. The isolation technique was also an attempt to make the dogs “good guard dogs”. That is the type of person who should not have dogs, especially Rottweilers!
I do not see overfeeding as abusive. It may be misplaced love. Being fat does not necessarily hurt anyone. And I hate it when people have the nerve to point out that I am fat! My sister has a very fat terrier that she overfeeds. He is dieing of testicular cancer. Dogs have a short life, anyway. Why not make them happy! I have had many dogs in the past. All of them are dead now, the fat ones and the skinny ones! Those two dogs looked very happy! But, I am not a pet psychologist!
Taking the dogs because they are overweight is nanny state behavior at its best! Why would libertarians support such behavior. Starving a dog and over feeding should not get the same treatment! One is intentional negligence. The other is from being soft hearted!
I have 2 labs- they’re outside all the time and are fed the same. One looks like an ideal lab- muscular, perfect form. The other is 20 pounds over-weight. She was fat when we rescued her and she’s stayed that way. She’s happy, active, and fat.
Maybe the humane society should steal the dog and euthanize it to teach us a lesson.
fucking busy-bodies.
Hijinks on the caribou. It’s obvious from the matted fur and the positioning of the legs and head that it froze while laying on its left side. Look at the last pic, and rotate it 90 degrees.
I think when the woman said she had no idea what would happen if the dogs didn’t lose weight, she meant she wasn’t warned that they would be STOLEN from her by a purported animal-rights organization, not that she didn’t think it was unhealthy to be fatty.
#15
have the chubby ones thyroid levels checked. It’s cheap to check and the meds, if needed, are also inexpensive.
RE: One final toss for The Dooze
I think I have something in both of my eyes…
Bill S’s article was wonderfully written- bet no one can read that article with a dry eye.
RE: The dog and the cupcakes…..
From the looks of that critter’s eyes, I’m pretty sure that those are Alice B. Toklas brownies disguised as cupcakes.
#19:
Me too. :-( And I’m a cat lover for cryin’ out loud.
#8: It looks like the Caribou was bracing itself against a strong wind. I dunno, I’m not convinced it’s fake.
Starving a dog and over feeding should not get the same treatment!
They should get the same legal treatment: none at all.