Pretty neat bite statistics in this article that conclude that pit bull bites are common because the breed is popular:

When it comes to perspective, the issue of animal bites can demonstrate just how much interpretation is required. An animal bite can be anything from an insignificant nip by a small dog to a life-threatening injury from the instinct-driven mandibles of a wild animal.

No animal bite reported is higher than that of the pit bull. A total of 17 pit bull bites were recorded in 2003, but this does not necessarily mean that pit bulls are an uncontrollable breed. Pit bulls are a very popular breed, which makes them common. They are also sometimes purchased by owners who want a guard dog and that affects their training and behavior. Labradors are also very popular and not known for biting, yet there were nine bites attributed to this popular breed.

There were only eight more bites by Pit Bulls than Labs this year.

Shih tzus are not terribly common at all in Council Bluffs. Neither are vislas, weimriners or lhasa apsos for that matter. Yet the aggregate number of bites attributed to these dogs was four. If there were as many vislas, weimriners and lhasa apsos in Council Bluffs as there are pit bulls, the city would appear to be under almost constant attack by show dogs

And the interesting stats listed (click more below) show that there were 31 reported cat bites.
Read the rest of this entry »

It seems most NFL players have guns for protection.

Never realized this before but anyone notice how the movie A Christmas Story illustrates the gun control debate?

It has the anti-gun side: You’ll shoot your eye out.

It has the pro-gun side: The fact the kid thinks he is responsible enough to own a Red Ryder BB gun and the scene where he imagines using it to repel an invasion of his house.

It has gun safety: When the BB ricochets, it hits him in the eye. Thankfully, he’s practicing proper gun safety and wearing glasses.

And, I am happy to say, the pro gun side wins.

First, happy holidays to my readers (whatever holiday it may be). In the spirit of Christmas, here are a couple of things from the ghost of SayUncle past:

SayUncle vs. The Light Nazi

A Couple of Trees

Have a safe and happy holiday.

Apparently, in Hell err New Jersey, some one broke into a house and shot the owners pit bull. This has happened twice to different people.

Actually, maybe three times. Turns out the dog I mentioned here was a pit bull.

A pit bull serial killer? Strange.

Seems that in Australia, gun crimes are on the rise. That is odd because Australia’s gun control laws should keep this from happening.

Evil Hippy has moved to new digs.

we have pictures of guys with machine guns standing around the capital and surface to air missiles deployed in cities.

This doesn’t make me feel any safer.

The American Temperament Test Society seeks to evaluate the temperaments of dogs using a standardized test. They have a description of the test that details the situations that they put dogs in. Now, there are obviously some issues with the tests, such as judgment of the judges, the relative excitability of each dog when undergoing a test (they know something is going on), and the type of person to submit their dog to such a test probably thinks that their dog is fairly well-behaved.

They also list the percentage of dogs that pass and fail the tests based on breed. Well, your friendly neighborhood SayUncle compiled the data (available by clicking the more link below) and discovered that based on relative temperament as percentage of pass or fail, pit bulls came in 116th out 202 breeds for having bad temperaments. A Dachshund has a worse temperament according to ATTS than a pit bull. In fact, a pit bull is comparable (scoring slightly better) in temperament to a golden retriever.

More

It really is a pity that pit bulls attract some owners who shouldn’t be allowed to own any dogs, much less dogs that have the gameness of pit bulls. Owners like this lead to dog aggressiveness toward people.

Unfortunately, it looks like the SierraTimes is closing up shop.

A cop in Brooklyn has bragged about beating suspects, giving bad tickets, and ignoring calls in an online forum at Xanga.

Over at Jeff’s weekly check on the gun bias, he mentions the NRA’s financial situation as quoted from the NYT:

The N.R.A. contends that its deficit is a fiction manufactured by accounting standards. “Trying to do an analysis of the organization based on its accounting-created balance sheet is a futile attempt because it is driven by assets that aren’t there, namely the quality of its members, and liabilities that aren’t really there either,” said Wilson H. Phillips Jr., the N.R.A. treasurer.

Jeff asks:

I am not an accountant (but I play one on TV) and I don’t know if this is real.

It could be real. The NRA could be receiving funds now and recording liabilities for it. Of course, we’d never know because the NRA doesn’t give out its financial information. I went to the Better Business Bureau non-profit site and found that:

Despite written BBB Wise Giving Alliance requests in the past year, this organization (the NRA) has not provided current information about its finances, programs, and governance.

What do they have to hide? Heck, the Brady Campaign gives its financial information. If you request a copy of the NRA’s tax return, they are required to give it to you.

I would do an in depth analysis of their financials but they’re not available. The deficit is cumulative results of operations and not year end results. But they did lose $20.4M in 2000. The NRA is not in the money making business and most non-profits only care about cash flow (i.e., can the cash coming in pay for the cash going out) and not profit. At the surface, I’m not too concerned about the NRA’s financial viability. They are likely still financially sound.

If anyone gets a copy of their financials or finds one, let me know.

Brazil’s crime rate is about to go up:

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a sweeping gun-control law Monday in an effort to rein in what he called “an epidemic of murder by firearms.”

Under the so-called disarmament statute passed Dec. 9 by Congress, only the armed forces, police, prison guards and private security personnel can possess firearms in Brazil.

Update: Per AlphaPatriot, the ban of gun sale to civilians already occured and have had no effect.

Update2: Via Dodd, Thailand is next.

Junior,

You’re going to be born into a fairly affluent family. You don’t know what that means yet and very likely won’t for many years. Let’s just say you won’t want for anything because mom and dad do all right. We’re not rich (yet) but we do OK.

This past Sunday, your mom and I went to Lowe’s and Wal-Mart to pick up some things (ink jet cartridge and a keypad that opens the garage door). As we sometimes do, we stop in the store called The Dollar Tree, which sells items for a dollar. We stop in there to get toys for the dogs (who you haven’t met yet) that we don’t mind if they destroy, after all they’re just a dollar.

While deciding which knickknacks we were going to get for the dogs to destroy, we noticed some people shopping and overheard them saying Grandma will like this and Susie will like this toy. Here we were looking for stuff that we were going to let the dogs destroy at the same place a less fortunate family was doing their Christmas shopping for their loved ones. Boy, we felt pretty awful. And we felt sorry for them.

We spent probably $30 on the ink cartridge (I don’t even remember how much it costs and that makes me feel even worse) and $32 on the keypad. What can you do in this situation? Nothing really. It’s not like you can walk up to the family and hand them $62 and hope that makes you feel better. Or expect that $62 to turn their lives around if you got over the awkwardness of actually approaching them and giving it to them without making them feel belittled. So, I did nothing. We didn’t buy anything at the Dollar Tree that day.

In your life, you’re going to meet people less fortunate than you. Heck, the statistic is that most families are a month without pay away from being destitute (don’t worry, mom and I can last considerably longer – we have the luxury of planning for this sort of thing – you’re not even born yet and have a college fund that’s three years old). But one long-term illness and it could happen to us (OK, not really, we have insurance). But there is some set of circumstances that could financially ruin us, even though I can’t think of what they are currently. See, your mom and I have planned and we make decent money. A family Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree doesn’t have a college fund, or insurance, or a savings account. They don’t have the stuff that we’ve already bought for you. They don’t have the luxury that your family has.

You need to be considerate of those less fortunate than you and you need to be kind. And you need to be charitable. I guess when mom and I get a few toys to donate to the Angel Tree, we’re making up for the way we felt at the Dollar Tree.

I guess my point is to give when you can.

This past summer when the wife and I visited Toronto (a very dog friendly city), we noticed several people walking pit bulls and quite a few people walking American Bulldogs. The breeds are popular there. The Toronto Star has a piece on pit bulls at shelters and the public fear and ignorance of the breed that is worth reading. Some key quotes:

But Pearl is a pit bull and sympathy doesn’t come easy when you’re the most hated breed of all.

Indeed and most papers are biased against them.

The pits arrive daily as strays that will never be claimed by their former owners. Most aren’t aggressive, just ill-mannered and hyperactive. But their reputation precedes them, leaving the humane society with the costly challenge of trying to find good homes for the dogs many view as four-legged killers.

Ill-mannered and hyperactive describes most puppies. Pits and other bully types do tend to take longer to mature. They stay in that puppy stage often up to the age of three.

At times, says White, there are so many pit bulls (a term that describes a number of different types of pit-like dogs) for adoption, the society has had to go to shelters outside the city to trade for different breeds of dogs. Pit bull abandonment is an urban problem, so smaller country shelters often don’t mind exchanging a dog for a pit or two.

A paper distinguishing between different types of pits is a rarity.

When they do grow up, pit bulls can be a lot to handle if they’re not properly trained, says White. She believes most of the dogs here today are “haphazard mistakes,” the products of irresponsible backyard breeders who know nothing about genetics.

“For whatever reason, they attract a very irresponsible owner,” she says. “There’s a certain segment of society that will always want a big tough dog.”

It’s good to see a paper lay the blame on owners and breeders.

And the key problems the breed faces:

“The public perception of these dogs is already destroyed and it’s only going to get worse,” Rickerby says from her Cobourg home. “There’s so much hatred around these dogs. People aren’t rational about them.”

As a member of a pit bull rescue group, Rickerby says she’s seen how often these dogs are abandoned and she’s frustrated by what irresponsible owners have done to the pit bull.

“They’re destroying the breed,” she says, referring particularly to the American Pit Bull Terrier. The dog has increasingly become associated with criminals and the lower class, she adds.

Like White, Rickerby acknowledges pit bulls have killed. She says pit bulls are not as likely to bite humans as other dogs, but “if they do they’re going to inflict more damage.”

Thanks to Nicole Macintyre for actually doing an article on Pit Bulls that tells the other side to the story of this fantastic breed.

As a sidenote, the Crocodile Hunter’s dog is a Pit Bull, as was Petey from the Little Rascals.

Or not.

The 2003 1040EZ instruction booklet is 32 pages. We need 32 pages to fill out the easy form.

Ravenwood:

A 31 year old New York City woman, Giuseppina Guidici, had an abusive husband. After Guidici’s husband “held up a gun and threatened to kill her father”, she shot and killed him. Sounds like another case of a scumbag wife beater getting what he deserved, doesn’t it? Well not in the liberal utopia that is New York, where the rights dead scumbags are cherished more than those of the law-abiding.

This week, Guidici was sentenced to five years probation for second-degree manslaughter

The Comedian’s wares get some more press coverage.

Guy tells us what really happened regarding the Halliburton gouging. This is important because he took issue with my post on the new Halliburton contract.

UnknownNews:

You could get ticketed in the city of Omaha for warming up your car in the morning. It’s illegal to leave your car running if you don’t have control of it.

Some people are learning about the law the hard way.

Early Friday morning, Chad Roberts went outside to warm up his car. He started the engine and locked the door behind him with an extra key. Then he went inside while the car warmed up.

“When I came back outside, there were three cops that blocked the cars that were started,” said Roberts.

Glad they had three cops to stop this menace to society.

This is only funny to the extent that certain pundits made fun of the Bush girl drinking habits as though they were an indication that Bush was unfit:

The son of former Vice President Al Gore is facing marijuana possession charges.

Twenty-one-year old Albert A. Gore was arrested Friday night along with two others in downtown Bethesda, Maryland.

A Montgomery County police officer stopped a dark-colored Cadillac driving without its headlights on. Gore was the driver. The officer noticed an odor of marijuana. A search of the car turned up a partial marijuana cigarette, a cigarette box with suspected marijuana, and a soda can that also smelled of pot.

Actually, if he could get his dad to smoke weed, his dad might be more bearable.

This article, which states that gun manufacturers are ignoring technology and not putting essential safety features on guns (which is a stupid assertion), also lists the rules of gun safety.

If you follow the rules of gun safety, you really don’t need any safety mechanisms. To wit:

When the California native was shot in the face at close range and left a quadriplegic, the police investigation focused on the family friend who was unloading the gun when it discharged.

Police found the 20-year-old friend was careless in unloading the gun around children, but never charged him with a crime.

There was another culprit — the gun.

The pistol, a Bryco Model 38 semiautomatic, lacked critical safety features, making the weapon more dangerous to handle. There was no easy way to tell the gun was loaded and it fired even after the magazine — the clip with ammunition — had been removed.

The gun’s design increases the possibility of accidents because the safety — the main feature that prevents unintentional discharges — has to be turned off when the gun is being unloaded, experts say.

Let me be clear: Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! I’m sorry you’re in a wheelchair but the fact is your friend is an idiot and is responsible, not Bryco. You don’t point guns at people unless you’re willing to shoot them. Period. And there’s always a way to see if a gun is loaded, by looking in the chamber. And a magazine disconnect safety is pointless. Look in the chamber.

Lack of a magazine disconnect safety is common on most guns, particularly police sidearms. This way, they can cover an area with a round in the chamber as they are loading a new magazine. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

The reason I am surprised at this article is simply because they list the rules of gun safety. If the people involved in this sob story had followed those rules, no one would have been shot in the face.

While everyone was covering the capture of Saddam and Michael Jackson, the Bush administration snuck Patriot II into Congress.

The NRA has a $100M deficit. Ouch.

Another reason I figure they’ll endorse Bush is they share spending habits. Nevermind that Bush supports the Assault Weapons Ban, it’s political. The NRA will endorse Bush and I’d bet a beer on that too.

Update: Stoney has more on the NRA, its strategy, and dues.

So, Iraq/Al Qaeda ties aren’t new:

ARE AL QAEDA’S links to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq just a fantasy of the Bush administration? Hardly. The Clinton administration also warned the American public about those ties and defended its response to al Qaeda terror by citing an Iraqi connection.

I have contended before that there was an Iraq/Terror connection but never specifically an Al Qaeda connection. Now, it seems there’s evidence of both.

Wow! You know a lot has changed when Lefties are recycling old Rightie jokes about lefties to use against Republicans.

It’s still funny.

Via Brian.

So, it looks like Ralph Nader is going to run. I take issue with this because (as I’ve stated before) I have a plan. See, I’m one of those libertarians who has a history of voting Republican because they’re slightly less bad than Democrats. I was planning on voting Libertarian this time around and hoping that all those other libertarians like me would do the same. I was hoping that would cost Dubya the election and that would send a message to the Republicans and they’d knock of this big government, supporting the assault weapons ban, civil liberties violations crap at the next go around.

Now, if Nader runs, some lefties will jump ship and not vote for Dean (or whoever wins the Democrat primary). Hence, Dems may lose votes thus nullifying the loss of votes that I’d expect Republicans to get.

I’ve said before that I’d bet a beer that Bush will win. If Nader enters, I’d up it to two beers.