If dogs could speak...
Sunday, March 26, 2006
I Didn't Write This BlogMost people seem to believe that the web can be a very anonymous place. Unless you choose to reveal your true identity, you can just make up some silly username, and email away, chat, blog and live an imaginary life without anyone knowing the real you or your dirty secrets. If you like to listen to Patsy Cline or Jessica Simpson in your spare time, that's between you and your iPod.
Well that's not true anymore. For example a federal prosecutor named David Lat in Newark, New Jersey (where there is a great need for prosecuting) pretended to be a young, sexy female associate at a law firm and started an irreverent gossip blog called Underneath Their Robes about judges, including Supreme Court judges. That went on for nearly a year until he included too many details that allowed readers to figure him out. He was soon forced to resign. The judges were not pleased (the rumor was correct -- some don't wear pants under the robes), and his blog followers were upset that he wasn't really a sexy female writer.
Then this week in Iwate, Japan, a policeman also had to resign when his blog identity was exposed. Almost three years ago, he went to the police stockroom and took photographs of official-issue handguns, and posted them on his web page. The idea, he said, was to generate more interest and traffic to his blog, because the guns looked so cool. Poor guy, he must be leading a pathetic, boring life, if he has nothing to write about and has to resort to pictures of guns to bring in readers. Why can't he post about his trip to Barnes and Noble or to the ice show like everyone else? But, this is Japan where guns are cool (unlike in the U.S.) He even went to the trouble of blurring parts of the gun pictures, but some nosy person still recognized the source and turned him in. Today he is still boring, but unemployed.Which leads me to my confession for today. I am really not a dog, not even a guy as some of you apparently think, despite my love of big motors and duct tape. I am actually a female triple-murder convict in Lompoc state prison. I am told that I look a lot like Marilyn Monroe (at least in the front). I do have some back hair, but I am nowhere nearly as cute and fluffy as the picture above would suggest. And I don't have a job, so you can't make me resign. So there.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 5:25 AM 9 comments
Saturday, March 25, 2006
No-Poop AlertLast Sunday a 15-year old boy in Batavia, Ohio, was shot dead by his neighbor for walking across the neighbor's lawn. Larry Mugrage was on his way home when he supposedly took a short cut and was confronted by 66-year old retiree Charles Martin in front of his house. According to police, Martin then shot the teen twice -- the first shot missed but the second hit him in the back below the shoulder blade. Martin calmly called 911 after the incident and said simply "I just killed a kid."
Martin complained that he's been harassed by neighborhood kids including Mugrage for years, and he finally "just blew up." Residents of this well-kept suburb of Cincinnati say that Martin maintains his lawn with meticulous care, measuring his grass length to the inch. He has been upset and called police previously when he felt that his lawn was invaded or violated by neighbors when they were mowing their own lawns.
I know that this blog has often covered poop topics and indulged in juvenile toilet humor -- after all, poop is one of the many things dogs do well, besides eating, sleeping, breeding, blogging and sled pulling (of course not necessarily in that order). But the message today is No More Poop. Or if you absolutely must go, look left, look right, check for anal gun-toting homeowners first then dump fast. Dig a hole and hide the evidence. And best of all, wear Kevlar-reenforced underpants when you roam the neighborhood.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 8:47 AM 3 comments
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Sweet HuskiesThe last few months have been a very busy sports season for huskies. First the Yukon Quest in Alaska and the Winter Olympics in Italy, then back to Alaska again for the Iditarod which is about to conclude in the next day or two. Now comes basketball.
Your first reaction might be "Basketball?! What are you talking 'bout Willis?" but it's really true. Huskies are in basketball too, and doing quite well, thank you very much. Yesterday the University of Washington Huskies edged out Illinois in a slight upset, 67-64, to advance to the "Sweet 16" of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Today, the University of Connecticut Huskies will go up against Kentucky. There is no guarantee, of course, but Connecticut is seeded No. 1 while Kentucky is No. 8, so if things go as predicted, there will be two Huskies teams in the Final 16. No other species is as well represented, no Indians, bisons, lions, eagles, grizzlies or stupid wildcats.
That just goes to show how tough and athletic huskies are, in addition to being just good-looking, humorous and charming. Not to mention modest too. Ski, run, shoot, blog, outdoors, indoors, we can do it all.
There remains a human conspiracy against dogs in football and baseball. That is quite a problem since huskies have a strong need to play year round. But man is trying to keep us down with silly ball throwing requirements, using the lack of opposable thumbs to put canines at an unfair disadvantage. We are not too worried though. There is a petition under way to change the rules of the games -- upon acceptance, balls must be chased down and caught by mouth only, with tail wagging. We'll see who wins now.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:50 AM 10 comments
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Hail to the KingJeff King won the 2006 Iditarod on Tuesday, completing the 1112-mile brutal journey in 9 days 11 hours 11 minutes 36 seconds. He'd already won the race three other times and finished in the top five an impressive nine times. However, the last previous championship came in 1998, and recent runs have been dominated by non-Alaskans, Doug Swingley from Montana and Robert Sorlie from Norway -- it's amazing that the Norwegian dogs have to fly all the way to Alaska and still win.
King started racing in 1980 and finished 28th in his first Iditarod attempt the next year. Since then, he and his dogs have logged over 100,000 miles, four times the circumference of the Earth, almost half the distance from here to the Moon, the length of seven gazillion dollar bills placed end to end, or the amount we have spent in Iraq to stop weapons of mass destruction, that sort of things. No matter how you measure it, a long way, a lot of hard doggy steps.
The winning time this year wasn't the fastest, not even in the top five. The record was 8 days 23 hours achieved in 2002. But this year's run has been among the toughest, with bitter cold and pounding wind most of the way. It's just possible that global warming hasn't quite reached Alaska yet thanks to our good friends at Greenpeace (don't email me; register your complaints at 1-800-NO2-ANWR). Last Friday when King reached Ruby, roughly 2/3 of the way home in 30 below weather, he looked like a grizzled old dog himself, all bundled up in thick fur, his face wind-burned and a big block of ice hanging from his mustache. It was almost as if he was on the last rung of evolution from man to dog. No wonder he deserves so richly to win.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 5:26 AM 4 comments
Sunday, March 12, 2006
The True Path of EvolutionUnless you never went to school or are a television evangelist like Pat Robertson (or both), you probably grew up learning that from amoeba evolved fish which later became amphibians, then reptiles, then monkeys and finally man. Somewhere in there we ended up with George W. Bush and Angelina Jolie, but it was not exactly clear how. The basic idea in this theory is that creatures went from zero legs to four legs then back to two. The illogic of this sequence has never been explained. People were too busy debating things like creationism and intelligent design, and ignored the real issue. Mostly they were happy to think that man (or usually woman) came out on top of the food chain -- a very human-centric and probably wrong vision, of course, but it suited them just fine.
Well now there is new, contradictory evidence. British and Turkish scientists recently discovered a Kurdish family in a remote corner of southern Turkey who can walk naturally only on all fours. The five brothers and sisters, age 18 to 34, can stand up on two legs but only for a short time, with both knees and head flexed. They typically move on two palms and two feet, but rather than walking on their knuckles like chimpanzees and gorillas, they use their palms like heels with fingers angled up from the ground. The scientists believe that this behavior allows them to protect their fingers for more delicate and dextrous activities so important to mankind.
While the scientists are continuing their studies, I think that this finding provides the critical missing link needed to resolve the two-legs vs four-legs puzzle. The two-legs phase was really a failed, temporary experiment of nature, and things are now returning to the four-legs standard. The complete evolution flow turns out to be amoeba-fish-amphibian-reptile-monkey-man-dog, and this family in Turkey is in the final step of making the ultimate transition from man to dog. First they change the way they walk, pretty soon they will be scratching themselves with their rear legs, sniffing each other's butts, and they will start barking and howling like dogs do. It is dog, not man, that frolics happily at the apex of the evolution race.
Remember that you read it here first. By the way, I would like to be known from this point on as Charles Darwoof. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a school board meeting to go to...
- posted by Woofwoof @ 5:42 AM 13 comments
Saturday, March 11, 2006
A Canine Tribute
It's well known that dogs get no respect. Shadow didn't receive the Oscar for Best Actor this year, and Chevy didn't win gold at the Torino Olympics. What a travesty! It's a vast human conspiracy. I strongly demand an independent investigation commission.
Last year the newspaper USA Today ran a series on the top ten worst jobs in sports -- "worst" as in toughest and most under-appreciated, and coming in at No 5 wasn't Bode Miller, but it was the Iditarod sled dog. I bring this up because we are entering the second week of Iditarod 2006, and these canine athletes deserve a lot more recognition and press than Barry Bonds and similar flops have been getting.
A few supporting facts: For this race, a dog and 15 of his buddies have to pull a sled and musher over 1100 miles of Alaska wilderness from Anchorage to Nome, through steep mountain climbs, frozen rivers and open sea ice. They endure the most extreme conditions -- this year's weather features mostly sub-10 to sub-40 degree temperatures in the interior of Alaska, and they wear nothing but their own fur and an occasional bootie. The top teams run at 14 miles per hour, certainly no less than 7-8 mph in the most difficult sections, faster than some people travel on a bicycle. If recent trends are any indication, the winners will likely make the trek in less than 10 days, reaching Nome sometime on Tuesday. Even the slowest team will complete it in about 14 days if they don't scratch.
So I would say that USA Today got it almost right. Except that the Iditarod dog should be number 1 among tough athletes, but we won't quibble. But everyone who reads this should take the opportunity to give your doggies, big and small, couch potatoes and active huskies like me, an extra biscuit (with a generous dollop of Cheez-It on top), and a good dose of ear and belly rub tonight. If you don't, I swear, I'll sic Bode on you.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 10:50 PM 5 comments
Sunday, March 05, 2006
The Power of PooOil barons and sheiks everywhere must be trembling in their sandals this week. Maybe Alaskans in their snow boots too.
Scientists at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan just announced that they have discovered a way to extract gasoline from cattle dung. Their method is to process the cow dung in a pressure cooker at 300C, in the presence of metal catalysts that remain top secret, like the Kentucky Fried Chicken herbs and spices. Perhaps they used the same ingredients for the cow dung that the Colonel used for his chicken -- how do you really know it's not true?
I feel sorry for Mrs. Tanaka when her husband scientist returned the pressure cooker he borrowed one day for some "quick and simple experiment at the lab." No wonder men are always told to stay out of the kitchen. This does remind me though, that the Japanese seem to have a special fascination for cooking poop. I don't know why -- could it be the seaweed and the tofu they eat?
But, I digress. The yield is not bad. They got 1.4 milliliters of gasoline for every 100 grams of cow dung. Now multiply that by the 550,000 tons of poop produced annually by Japanese cattle alone, and plug all of that into a supercomputer to take out the metric nonsense. I came up with over 2 million gallon of premium 89-octane liquid, enough to power all the SUVs in California for a round trip from Los Angeles to Yosemite on Memorial Day weekend, without using dog sleds.
Now I am sure everyone must be wondering about the smell. Not to worry. Another group of Japanese researchers at Sekisui Chemical Co. has successfully extracted an aromatic ingredient of vanilla from cattle dung. Did I mention that these folks are obsessed with poop? Nevertheless, this ingredient, vanillin, can be used as fragrance in shampoo and candles, or to make cow dung gasoline smell like Betty Crocker Rich and CreamyTM chocolate cake. Unless, of course, it already does.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:01 AM 9 comments
Saturday, March 04, 2006
The Usual SuspectsPolice in West Bend, Wisconsin, are searching for criminals who made off with about $26,000 worth of beer from a delivery truck two weeks ago. The thieves drove away a semi trailer loaded with beer parked at a distributor lot around February 17, and returned the empty truck four days later. According to company inventory, the loot included 384 24-packs of Miller Genuine Draft cans, 560 18-packs of MGD 12-ounce bottles, 980 18-packs of MGD 12-ounce cans and 40 24-packs of Miller Light 16-ounce plastic bottles. This must be the honest, Midwest kind of criminals that care about only the beer and not the truck.
The sheriff department is aggressively investigating in order to prevent the biggest party ever held in Wisconsin. They know they will have a bad case of law and order if a nasty argument of tastes great-less filling were to erupt among temperamental cheeseheads. By using time-tested crime-solving procedures, police started focusing on a short list which initially included the 9,574 male residents of the small town, minus kids less than seven years old. By further narrowing down to people who drink cheap tasteless beer, they now have only 8,992 suspects left to pursue. If they haven't caught the criminals by next week, their plan is to bring in search dogs. I have volunteered just in case. Burp...
- posted by Woofwoof @ 10:22 AM 4 comments
