Per the AKC, members of Congress are preparing the Puppy Protection Act by Rick Santorum, of all people. Tough on gays but likes dogs.

The AKC opposes the legislation for the following reasons:

While the PPA is advocated as legislation to regulate “puppy mills”, its real purpose is to restrict the breeding of purebred dogs. The HSUS has historically opposed the breeding of purebred dogs. Several years ago the HSUS conducted a nationwide campaign to persuade municipalities to completely ban purposeful breeding of dogs. The campaign was spectacularly unsuccessful.

The Animal Welfare Act currently does not regulate breeding practices of any species of animals. The PPA will, for the first time, thrust the federal government into a whole new arena of animal regulation. The federal government should not be in the business of specifying and regulating breeding practices of dog breeders. Furthermore, and very importantly, there is no scientific basis for the specific breeding restrictions included in the PPA.

The USDA’s Animal Care regulations already require commercial dog breeders to follow a program of veterinary care developed and supervised by a licensed veterinarian to protect the health of all animals in commercial breeding facilities, including the breeding stock. Breeding decisions should be made by breeders and their veterinarians. The PPA would co-opt the judgment and discretion of breeders and veterinarians.

As a practical matter, it will be impossible for the USDA, which enforces the Animal Welfare Act, to police breeding practices without imposing overwhelmingly intrusive burdens on persons who breed dogs.

The “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” approach to enforcement of the animal care regulations will undermine rather than enhance compliance with USDA’s regulations. Rather than providing incentives to admit and promptly correct violations, it will create incentives to contest alleged violations, and bog down the USDA’s enforcement process in litigation.

Compliance with the Animal Welfare Act has improved substantially in recent years. Congress has increased appropriations for USDA enforcement by more than 50 percent over the past several budget cycles, and the number of USDA inspectors has nearly doubled. Industry groups such as the AKC also conduct educational programs and kennel inspections. The AKC alone conducted more than 4000 kennel inspections in 2003, about half as many kennel inspections annually as the USDA.

Current USDA Animal Care regulations, including the veterinary care standards, strike an appropriate balance in protecting both the welfare of dogs in commercial breeding establishments and the public who purchase those dogs, without being overly intrusive or injecting the federal government into decisions which should properly be the province of individual dog breeders and owners. The PPA would upset this balance, and impose excessive burdens on small business owners without improving the welfare of animals.

Again, the gist of the argument of the AKC is to enforce existing laws and don’t create new ones. I do find it odd that the Humane Society opposes purebred dogs. I agree with the AKC to an extent but I also place some of the puppy mill blame on them. They don’t do enough to stop it. While I admire the AKC’s legislative history for pet freedom, their lack of effective incentive for higher breeder standards (and breed standards based on something other than just appearance) is abysmal.

There are many bad breeders. I think a better plan of attack would be an ad campaign that informs the American people about bad breeders, what to look for in good breeders, and an independent body (not affiliated with the government) that provides certifications to breeders who comply with their standards (like the Better Breeder Bureau, catchy name eh?). The AKC does something similar to this but they do a terrible job. They did 4,000 kennel inspections this year but out of how many breeders? It is easy to register any dog with the AKC and it is easy to get papers on a puppy mill dog. I think the AKC should step up it’s kennel inspections and not grant papers until an inspection is done. A standard would be better than legislation. They could even charge for it. A good, ethical breeder who cares would be proud to have such a certification.

The big thing here is education. These puppy mills are atrocious but this legislation will needlessly infringe on many reputable breeders’ rights and will affect the numbers of people who can breed quality dogs in humane conditions.

And does anyone think for a moment that the government can successfully legislate effective socialization standards?

This legislation is unnecessary and puppy mills are and will continue to be a problem. Don’t buy from pet stores either.

Almost forgot to wish you folks a happy halloween. Here goes:

Boo!

Scary ain’t it.

Reuters:

A man described by authorities as a known sexual predator has been chased through the streets of Philadelphia, America, by an angry crowd of Catholic high school girls, who kicked and punched him.

Rudy Susanto, 25, who had exposed himself to teen-age girls on as many as seven occasions outside St. Maria Goretti School, struck again on Thursday just as students were being dismissed, police said on Friday.

But this time, a group of girls in school uniforms angrily confronted Susanto with help from some neighbors, police said. When Susanto tried to run, more than 20 girls chased him down the block. Two men from the neighborhood caught him and the girls took their revenge.

“The girls came and started kicking him and punching him, so I wasn’t going to stop them,” neighbor Robert Lemons told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Susanto was later treated for injuries at a local hospital. Police said he would be charged with 14 criminal counts including harassment, disorderly conduct, open lewdness and corrupting the morals of a minor.

Update: I apparently guessed wrong, A PACK NOT A HERD it is.

Another article on Judge Sandy’s comments. My conclusion: she says that there is room for some influence and does not endorse using other countries’ laws. Good. Seems the WashTimes fudged it.

LeanLeft has more. As does Clayton Cramer.

I peruse my traffic stats regularly but don’t really understand something: What are the differences between visits, pages and hits?

Via the Comedian, the million err four mom march maintains its own blacklist:

Lowe’s Hardware

John Ashcroft

Eddie Eagle

Michigan Governor John Engler

John Lott

LEAA

Elizabeth Dole

Senator Zell Miller (D-GA)

Rep. Bob Barr (GA)

Wayne LaPierre

John Ashcroft

First of all, where’s the media outrage? Secondly, how do I get on that list?

And I’ll be buying my home improvement stuff from Lowe’s, oh wait, I already do that.

One more thing, the LEAA is on the list. The LEAA being the Law Enforcement Alliance of America. The LEAA is the nation’s largest non-profit, non-partisan coalition of law enforcement professionals, crime victims, and concerned citizens united for justice. That is odd, because one of the lies err things that the Brady Bunch and the million err four mom march tell us is that cops are for all this gun control. A bit odd.

Michael Totten on the self destructing left.

Ipse Dixit has more. Does Bredesen have a future in national politics? I hope so.

WND:

A Colorado mother is appealing a child custody decision in which a court barred her from teaching homosexuality is wrong.

Cheryl Clark, who says she is a Christian, has been ordered by Denver County Circuit Judge John W. Coughlin to “make sure that there is nothing in the religious upbringing or teaching that the minor child is exposed to that can be considered homophobic.”

If true, this is abysmal. Sure, she could be teaching her child to be homophobic but you can’t discount religious beliefs.

No comment:

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A young man could have his probation revoked and go to prison for failing to plant 10 mums as ordered by a judge.

David Alan Waters, 20, of Bartlett pleaded guilty in September to vandalizing the home of a 99-year-old woman on Jan 9.

As a condition of Waters’ probation, Criminal Court Judge Carolyn Wade Blackett ordered him to plant the mums at the home of the victim, Minnie Becton.

The KNS writes:

A strong economy and vastly improved race relations are luring record numbers of black Americans to the South, a region that many deserted early in the 20th century.

More than 680,000 blacks 5 and older moved to the South from another region between 1995 and 2000, outnumbering the 333,000 who moved away by a better than 2-to-1 margin, according to a Census Bureau report released Thursday.

I should point out that I haven’t seen an increase but welcome folks.

I am the number one Google for Spiked Bracelets because of this post. I still get about 150 hits per month to that entry.

I used to delete the comments to it because it was a bunch of punk kids telling da man to fuck off. But now, they’re just funny. Really, go read some of the work these geniuses write. It’s very funny but also sad.

Sarcasm is apparently lost on today’s kids.

Via Buck comes this:

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor predicts that the U.S. Supreme Court will increasingly base its decisions on international law rather than the U.S. Constitution, according to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

By doing so, the court will make a good impression among people from other countries, she said.

“The impressions we create in this world are important and they can leave their mark,” Justice O’Connor said.

That is one of the most frightening things I have ever read.

Update: The washington times fudged the story. Clayton Cramer has more.

No not this but this:

Whitney is the worst kind of weasel imaginable. It’s very likely he has more skeletons in his closet. That’s where you come in. The blogosphere is great at fact-checking. If you have access to any legal, criminal, or government databases, you could very well dig up more information about Whitney that would be useful at trial. If you’ve had dealings with Whitney or his company, that could be useful, too, especially if you have notes from his company’s seminars.

Via Spoons comes this WaPo Washington Times article:

The Army has filed a criminal assault charge against an American officer who coerced an Iraqi into providing information that foiled a planned attack on U.S. soldiers.

Lt. Col. Allen B. West says he did not physically abuse the detainee, but used psychological pressure by twice firing his service weapon away from the Iraqi. After the shots were fired, the detainee, an Iraqi police officer, gave up the information on a planned attack around the northern Iraqi town of Saba al Boor.

He did this to foil an assassination plot. It’s a war people, not a game of flag football.

Bush set those fires in California and caused the solar flares!

Seriously:

Michael Hanscom began keeping an online journal, commonly known as a weblog, several years ago. He started his job as a contract worker in Microsoft’s print shop last year. Last week, he mixed the two.

This week, he’s looking for a new job, after becoming an unwilling case study in the fine line walked by corporate employees who write about work in their personal weblogs.

It all started when Hanscom noticed something interesting on the loading dock on his way into work a week ago — three pallets of shiny new Apple Power Mac G5 computers, clearly destined for somewhere on the company’s Redmond campus.

My advice for bloggers:

Blog anonymously (or at least with a psuedonym). You never know when a coworker will find your site and take offense to it. Or you may run for office someday and have said something stupid on your site a while back. Or you may get get put on someone’s blacklist.

Don’t blog work or personal things without changing names.

Don’t say stupid stuff. Do as I say, not as I do.

I really like Buddy Don’s site. The trouble is that it takes forever to read (if you don’t know why, you’ve not clicked that link). Any way to get it translated?

I posted about the NRA blacklist website below. A lot of people have opined on it, including Jeff. I will say one thing, if this whole blacklist thing makes gun control popular again (which it has to a small extent, illustrated by the site mentioned below), it will clearly be the fault of the NRA.

Chris Muir’s Day by Day is getting some attention.

Peggy (who really does have a dog named Homo) is hosting the Volunteer Tailgate Party. Give it a read.

And she did a fine job.

A burglar breaks into an apartment (why do they call them apart-ments when they’re all together?) and finds nude pictures of children. The burglar turns himself and the photos in and the guy who lives in the apartment gets arrested:

A 20-year-old man burglarizing an apartment pried open a tackle box and found nude photos of young girls, including his little sister.

The man turned himself and the pictures into police, who later arrested the apartment’s tenant, a registered sex offender now facing a possible life sentence after being charged with rape of a child under the age of 13 and illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

One thing I learned working in prison (oh yeah, never mentioned it before but I used to work at a prison) was the degree of hatred criminals have for those who commit crimes against children, particularly sex crimes.

USA Today:

A senior member of Saddam Hussein’s ousted government is believed to be helping coordinate attacks on American forces with members of an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, a senior defense official said Wednesday.

Two captured members of Ansar al-Islam have said Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri is helping to coordinate their attacks, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

And all those other coincidences don’t indicate a link either.

Yahoo News:

The economy grew at a scorching 7.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter in the strongest pace in nearly two decades. Consumers spent with abandon and businesses ramped up investment, compelling new evidence of an economic resurgence.

Fastest pace since 1984.

From the WaPo:

Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton (Hahaha - yeah, right) launched a blistering attack on Howard Dean yesterday, accusing his rival of promoting an “anti-black agenda.”

- Snarky comment added

“Howard Dean’s opposition to affirmative action, his current support for the death penalty and historic support of the NRA’s [National Rifle Association’s] agenda amounts to an anti-black agenda that will not sell in communities of color in this country,” Sharpton said in a statement.

He said his comments were in response to a news report yesterday that Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) plans to endorse Dean, the former Vermont governor and presumed front-runner for the 2004 Democratic nomination. Sharpton has had a long-standing rivalry with the congressman’s father, Jesse L. Jackson, who twice ran for president.

The NRA is anti-black? And the death penalty is only a black issue?

While Mr. Sharpton uses this opportunity to snag some free press err deal with important black issues, SayUncle estimates that in America today: 21 black people will commit murder; 22 black people will be murdered; 506 black people will be arrested for drug trafficking crimes; 1,000,000 black people are in prison; and 26,500,000 black people live in poverty.

Go here. See how many lies you can spot on the page.

Both seem plausible to me.

Insty says:

I caught the tail end of a segment on this on my local talk-radio show. Most of the callers were extremely negative on the subject, though the host was engaged in a Socratic dialogue with one who thought that America was evil because it was tolerating homosexuality, and that tolerance would inspire God to come down in his wrath upon us all.

Yeah: No-show for the Holocaust, or Rwanda, or what’s going on in North Korea, but he’s going to come down from the clouds and hurl lightning bolts if two guys get married.

The Comedian, who had some of his stuff used as props by Congress, is getting press coverage for some more stuff.

Apparently, someone engaged in a shoot out with the police with an evil assault weapon.

I should point out that the weapon in question, an SKS, does not accept a detachable magazine and is therefore not an assault weapon as defined under the assault weapons ban of 1994.

From FoxNews:

A new left-wing think tank — the Center for American Progress — unveiled itself Tuesday as the Democratic vaccine to what center supporters say is a plague of conservatism now dominating America.

“We think the debate has been unbalanced in the country,” center president John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Clinton, told Fox News.

Debate maybe unbalanced because Democrats don’t really have a platform these days, other than Bush is wrong.

Based on his studies, Placyk has said the odds of a big primate like a skunk ape wandering Campbell County aren’t very good.

They think it’s not a monkey but don’t know what it is. I am referring to the cryptozoologist, not the critter.

Sometime soon, some one is going to say that this is insensitive:

An organisation in Israel has gained rabbinical approval to train pigs to guard Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Until now, Jewish settlements have been guarded by men with guns and also by guard dogs.

Apparently, I don’t know what negative reinforcement is. Tom tells us. It’s been a while since I’ve had a psychology class.

Junior,

Don’t fight naked. If you do, you will look stupid – even if you’re winning. And it’s just embarrassing, more so if you’re losing.

This rule will be pretty easy to follow for the first part of your life. Unfortunately, when you’re about 22 years old and older, the only things you could potentially get in a fight over will likely involve you (or someone else but most likely you) being naked.

If it does come to fisticuffs, explain to your opponent that you’d like to put clothes on. Odds are he doesn’t want to fight someone naked as much as you don’t want to fight while naked. It really is win-win.

Via Buck, who labels it the fourth branch of government, comes this article on the media’s double standard. Well worth reading:

. . . the real message that we receive is that (1) journalists are above the laws that they demand the rest of us obey, and (2) government needs to grow even larger and more oppressive. Although I doubt that Peter Jennings and his crew would openly admit to my charges, I will demonstrate that despite their protestations, ABC—and mainstream journalists in general—have been partly responsible for the Leviathan State that has proven to be much more effective at oppressing people at home than it has in preventing outsiders from attacking the rest of us.

Another one. A pit bull attacks its owner and the neighbor uses his gun to scare the dog off. If your dog will attack you, you have done some poor socialization. And here’s another media misconception about pit bulls:

The dog ignored Ayala’s shouts, locking its jaws on Oswald, and chewing at the right side of his owner’s face and arm.

Pit bulls do not have the magical ability to lock their jaws. They just have strong jaws.

Tom emails this story:

A man walking his puppy Monday in a local neighborhood was attacked by what appeared to be two pit bulls.

The pit bulls injured the man and killed his puppy, a 6-week-old American bulldog, as they walked in the 1500 block of Republic Street in Over-the-Rhine, WLWT Eyewitness News 5’s Raegan Butler reported.

It’s awful that this happened and the owner of the dogs who attacked the man needs to be held accountable but a few observations:

The opening sentence says they appeared to be two pit bulls. And they even interviewed the owner. Did they not ask the question? Granted, pit bull is not technically a breed but is common terminology for the American Pit Bull Terrier. Was it or wasn’t it?

There is a poll on the page that asks if pit bulls should be illegal to own. As of now, the results are 65% say yes. Abysmal.

One good thing, the article identified the puppy as an American Bulldog. Why is this good? Usually, the media calls them pit bulls too.

Howard Margolius, whose efforts to save his pit bull Cyan from confiscatory Breed Specific Legislation I blogged here, has organized a protest:

We will be protesting outside the Denver City Courthouse on
October 31st, Friday at 12:00 noon! Please join us and support the repeal!

A self-proclaimed ain’t one of them no-gun nuts wrote this article. Some selected excerpts follow to illustrate media ignorance of gun laws and guns:

Every good American needs a rifle to bring home deer and rabbit and squirrel to cook up for supper.

We all need to defend our homes and families from them tourists–um, I mean terrorists.

Ok, useless rhetoric. Whatever.

My question is this:

Why do we, in the general public, need flash suppressors to go after Bambi or fend off some teenage kid trying to swipe our Sony Trinitron?

It’s called the Bill of Rights not the Bill of Needs.

Flash suppressors are used in combat so the enemy can’t pinpoint a night shooter’s location by the flame from the muzzle. Technically, flash suppressors are illegal, but the public can buy “flash hiders” that do just about the same thing.

Uhm, wrong. Flash suppressors are used to disburse the flash to the sides of the rifle instead of straight ahead so that you can maintain site picture without being temporarily blinded by the muzzle flash. A flash suppressor/hider does not actually hide nor suppress a flash. Flash suppressors are not illegal. They are only illegal if on a semiautomatic rifle, made after 1994, that accepts a detachable magazine, and has one of the following characteristics:

Bayonet lug, pistol grip, or telescopic/folding stock.

And why do we general public types need 50-caliber sniper rifles that can kill a man at a range of up to a mile with a round that would blow a hole in a tank at long range?

The most experienced shooter cannot hit a stationary target at a range of one mile. Bear in mind that 22 caliber rifles state clearly on the box that the small 22 long rifle bullet can travel one mile. And at 35 meters, the 50 claiber rifle will penetrate one inch of steel, which is significantly less than long range and the penetration is much less than the five or so inches of armor tanks have. And lets not forget in colonial times the good old Kentucky rifle was popular in calibers of 65 to 70.

Anyway, I mean, is Bambi on steroids now? Was she exposed to gamma radiation, like the Incredible Hulk?

Gun rights are not about hunting but don’t take my word for it:

“The fundamental force behind the Second Amendment is to empower the people and give them the greatest measure of authority over the tyranny of runaway government.” - U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer, 2002

“By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia’, the ’security’ of the nation, and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms’, our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.” - John F. Kennedy, April 1960

“That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It our job to see that it stays there.” - George Orwell

“The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting, and I know I’m not going to make very many friends saying this, but it’s about our right, all of our right to be able to protect ourselves from all of you guys up there.” - Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, appearing before Representative Charles Schumer’s committee hearings on the assault weapons ban

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” - James Madison

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!” - Ben Franklin

“The said Constitution be never construed …to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” - Samuel Adams

“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” - George Mason, during Virginia’s Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788)

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.” - Noah Webster, Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, 1787

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” - Thomas Jefferson

You can reach the author (MICHAEL ZITZ) of the article at mikez@freelancestar.com or at 540/374-5408

Justin tackles the media bias against sentient SUVs.

No really, they apparently have free will.