Owner: Border Wars: A Border Collie Blog URL:http://borderwars.blogspot.com Join Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 06:04:57 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Analysis of hot topics in the dog world, especially border collies. Critique of movies, books, politics, religion, language, music from a libertarian perspective. Agility, Frisbee, Obedience, Conformation, Sheep Herding, Flyball, and more. Site statistics:Click here
Waterboarding Our Border Collies 2007-12-01 00:13:00 Extended metaphor is a difficult device to execute well. Very few things are so like another as to speak to each other's situation, while at the same time one of the two is simple to understand and the other so complex that metaphor is required to illuminate its intricacies. Most metaphors are shallow, superficial, and frankly trite.A notable example of effective extended metaphor is Charles Grinnel's "Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs" letter which I have written about before. Grinnel makes a strong case that our armed services are like the sheepdogs that protect the ignorant and apathetic flock, day in and day out. Most of us choose to be the flock, happily unaware of the dangers at the edge of our pasture, but a select few choose to be guard dogs. To keep the flock together and to keep predators away.The Amused Cynic picks up this metaphor and applies it ever so effectively to the sound and fury over waterboarding. Here's the start of the insightful "Waterboarding Our Border
Collies"
Breeding Ethics 2 2007-11-30 21:10:00 In my last post, I started to analyze the common breeder commandments that are so popular in the show community and in the nannying matron dog world in general. I pick up here where I left off:Taking back their pups for re-homing if the need arises.What the hell is this? Dogs have to come with lifetime guarantees now? No questions asked return policies like Walmart and Costco? What ever happened to personal responsibility? What ever happened to discouraging the "try before you buy" mentality? If buyers want a test dog they should sign up and foster a rescue, a much better decision all around for a novice or unsure buyer. This take-back ethic is clearly not a buyer demand but a tool used by other breeders to slander each other.Even with rampant premarital sex and a nearly absent stigma against cohabitation, divorce rates are still 50% in the U.S. We can't expect puppy buyers to remain 100% faithful either, despite a much better success rate than marriage (a decidedly more important dec Read more:Breeding
, Ethics
Breeding Ethics 1 2007-11-30 16:49:00 For some in the dog world, "breeding ethics" is an oxymoron. Such people are consumed by the myth of overpopulation, or enamored with the reality. It's a cause they can champion and use it as grounds to wag their finger at other people in the same way some parents poison their children to gain themselves sympathy. They evoke the suffering of another to add emotional credibility to their position and they satiate their own ego with doses of dogoodery.This ethic brings us wacko groups like PeTA. It also brings us less radical but equally nannying groups like certain rescue organizations. And it also has infested individual breeders. Since animals can not speak for themselves, every sort of ninny-nanny has taken up official dog whisperer duties who are convinced that their authority to speak for animals is on par with their passion for them.It's not hard to demand others to fit a system of ethics that you don't have to abide by, like men lecturing women about abortions. It's not hard Read more:Breeding
, Ethics
Progressive Now Covers Pets Too 2007-11-29 21:58:00 Progressive Auto Insurance has added an incentive perk to all of their car coverage policies: Pet Injury Coverage. They pay up to $500 in vet bills if your dog or cat is injured in an auto accident while in your car. It's not an opt in program and doesn't cost any more, it's a straight perk.How Is Pet Injury Coverage Different from Pet Insurance? Pet insurance is like health insurance for your pets: It pays for vet bills when your pet is sick or hurt. Pet Injury coverage from Progressive applies only to dogs or cats that are injured in an accident while riding with you in your vehicle. With pet insurance, you pay the bill and are reimbursed by the pet insurance company. Many plans have deductibles, maximums and even coinsurance. Pet insurance does not necessarily cover all medical conditions for your pet, so make sure you get all the facts before you buy. Pet Injury coverage is built into your Collision coverage on your Progressive policy. Your pet is covered for vet costs Read more:Progressive
, Covers
Bring Military Mascots Home 2007-11-28 01:46:00 One of the laws of nature is that big things generally move slower than small things. So, you know that by the time a big group like SPCA International gets involved with a "bring the dogs home from Iraq" campaign, it's likely that a smaller grassroots group has already been doing it for a long time.Well, Military
Mascots appears to be that group. Bonnie Buckley of Massachusetts has been coordinating the effort to send care packages to troops fostering dogs in war zones and help them arrange to bring those dogs back to the U.S. on commercial airlines since June of 2003. Bonnie isn't supporting the wholesale transport of all stray dogs to the US to be worked into our shelter system, instead she acts as a resource for servicemen who want to bring their adopted dogs home with them when they are deployed out of a war zone.This is an impressive undertaking as it requires volunteers to meet the dogs at international customs, re-booking on domestic flights to the final city of destination,
Meet My Dogs 2007-12-08 23:00:00 Border Collies are a gift I inherited from my father, and most of my 27 years have been filled with at least one by my side. Measuring my life in dog years is as fitting a benchmark as anything that appears on my resume, transcripts, and secret FBI file. The memories and images I store of them in my mind and in my heart are more meaningful than my bank balance or the sum of all my possessions.Here are 99 images that document the last two years of my dog life and the two special dogs that wrote the story, Dublin and Celeste.Dublin is an athletic tri-colored male from pure working lines. He has a heart of gold and a playful charisma that you can't help but adore. He talks, especially when he's hungry or wants to play Frisbee, and the morning doesn't officially start until he's climbed up my lap, placed his paws around my shoulders, and gotten his fill of hugging. He sleeps on his back, on my bed, or even cuddled in my arms and when he was a puppy he'd sleep on my pillow and suckle o
G.P.S. Dog Art 2007-12-04 13:20:00 The Earth itself has long been one of man's favorite canvases for expressions of art. The most permanent and lasting works are almost universally painted on cave walls, carved into stone, or man-made mountains such as the Chinese and Egyptian and South American pyramids. The large scale molding and carving of the earth into animal shapes also has a rich history across every continent. Britons of the Bronze Age carved out the Uffington White Horse (above), and Native Americans constructed animal shaped earth mounds (below) evoking a powerful connection between the Earth, Animals, Man and Art.So how do two guys, their dogs, and a couple of GPS units warrant a full page write up in the New York Times Art Review? If you consider tracking the lines and patterns that people and dogs make via GPS a modern (and often abstract) version of the Nazca Lines; then Hugh Pryor, Jeremy Woods, and their dogs Boris and Jemma are modern artists drawing on the same artistic tradition.Long ago came the a
NYT Attack Dog Shot, Dowd Safe 2007-12-20 00:41:00 As an avid student of the Classics (I studied Latin in High School and was the Colorado President of the Junior Classical League: the largest student organization in the world), I am enamored with all things Roman.Roman advances in culture and technology were brought to the known world at the end of Roman spears, carried by one of the finest militaries in history. And the most elite group of those fighting men was the Praetorian Guard.They were a combination of special forces and elite body guards and were reserved for the most powerful generals in the army. Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian all enjoyed their protection, but it was Octavian (who named himself Augustus when he ascended to Emperor and God) who cleverly employed them off of the battlefield and in the political arena (most notably after Caesar was assassinated in the forum).In our own era, where power is transfered peacefully and the last military coup on our shores lead to the founding of our Nation, you might equa
Redemption: Eyes Open and Crying 2007-12-17 20:51:00 I'm not a bleeding heart type. Most people would consider me an asshole. I speak my mind, call it like I see it with no regard for PC pleasantries, and I make an effort to clean my own house before I bitch about the filth of others; that is often mistaken as arrogance, condescension, and projecting vibes of superiority. So be it.I don't generally share my feelings outside of my inner circle, and I find strangers and acquaintances gushing their personal feelings and business to me about as tasteful, appropriate, and interesting as them sharing their farts.That being said, Nathan Winograd's Redemption has my eyes watering, my head spinning, and my stomach in knots. What a horrible disillusionment it is to find out that large and powerful organizations with names that include "Humane" and "Prevention of Cruelty" are for the most part apathetic and defeatist butchers who do little more than lecture and kill and cash checks.Now, I realize that my disgust is just about as relevant as a by Read more:Eyes Open
Buy From A Breeder. Never Adopt. 2007-12-17 16:26:00 That's right. I said it. Don't "rescue" your next pet, buy one from a responsible breeder. The "shelter" establishment in this country is a disgrace, filled with wack-job people who kill animals to "save" them. Animals that are only killed because the shelter industry is inept and has betrayed its founding mission to save and re-home animals.They kill because they make the animals sick through sloppy cleaning and poor handling. They kill because they do not want to care for sick animals. They kill because they do not effectively use the Internet and the media to promote their pets. They kill because they think volunteers are more trouble than they are worth, even though those volunteers would help eliminate the "need" for killing. They kill because they don't want a foster care program. They kill because they are only open for adoption when people are at work and families have their children in school. They kill because they discourage visitors with their poor customer service. They
Adopt A PeTA Pet = Kill 9 More 2007-12-17 02:47:00 For every pet you adopt from PeTA, PeTA kills 9 more. If you rescued a dog from a PeTA supported shelter, you have supported the needless killing of 9 other animals. That blood is on your hands. If you support PeTA, you are a killer x 9. Pat yourself on the back with your bloody hands for killing so many animals.PeTA's Death Toll:See The ProofPeTA cashes over $30,000,000 (that's thirty million dollars) worth of your checks each year, just so it can kill 9 out of 10 animals it gets its hands on. PeTA doesn't want you to kill FARM animals for your breakfast, lunch, or dinner, but they kill PET animals at breakfast, lunch, and dinner time EVERY DAY.PeTA hates the No-Kill movement. According to PeTA:One of the most popular "no-kill" shelters in the United States spent approximately $9 million last year just to house approximately 1,500 animals, mostly dogs and cats. That $9 million could have sterilized as many as 200,000 dogs and cats, preventing hundreds of thousands of unwanted b
Dumb Friends? 2007-12-16 22:26:00 Back in the day, dumb meant you were unable to speak. Now, it seems like you can't get the dumbest among us to shut up. As I've said before, the fact that our animal companions can not speak for themselves has lead to many wack-jobs who have made it their crusade to speak for them (but strangely not always in the pets' best interest). Well, our dumb--but not stupid--pets have finally been given voice by the clever photomanipulation skills of the folks at PQ DVD.Even cooler, if you fellow bloggers post about it before Chritmas, they'll send you the software to do it yourself for free.So join the meme and let your dogs talk. Send a customized X-mas greeting, tell PeTA to go shove it, or invite your favorite sheeple to an agility tournament. Whatever your pooch is trying to say, this PQ Talking Photo software can make it a reality.Cool beans.
Read more:Friends
Redemption: First Thoughts 2007-12-16 19:08:00 I'd heard of Nathan Winograd before Redemption came out, and I even placed that link to his blog on my blogroll before the avalanche of recent blog posts by Pet Connection, Terrierman, Lassie Get Help, Dogged et al hit the presses. But I can't claim early adopter status, or even a great deal of sympathy for or knowledge of his views (yet), all out of ignorance and apathy, not any sort of malice.You see, when I read his name combined with his work in San Francisco, I immediately thought that he must be related to Terry Winograd, one of the best Computer Science professors I had at Stanford. After all, how many Winograds can there be in the bay area, let alone on the Stanford campus; they must be related especially since they have more than a passing resemblance to each other. If Nathan is anything like what I assume is his father, then he must be an engaging speaker with a soft style that belies a razor sharp intellect.I read his online material about feral cat populations at Stanford Read more:First
No One Pays to See the Judge 2007-12-16 00:37:00 Floyd Mayweather Jr. is as polished and talented of a fighter as you may ever see. He is lightning fast with feet as dexterous as his hands. His guard is good, his aim is better, and even when he is showing off he has never been taken to task for it. His fault just might be that there are few other fighters who can bring out his best and give the viewer a truly memorable fight.Ricky Hatton has more drive and heart that most fighters and if he has a fault, it's that he hails from the same island that gave us the Marquess of Queensberry. He really is a "stand-up" fighter, a go-getter, and tenacious. But the style of fighting here in the U.S. is a little more dirty, people get away with more, and being so stand-up just might be a negative. Hatton showed himself to be a class act in the pre-fight hype while Mayweather was an annoying and trashy provocateur.Many fans get off on the trash talk, I'm not one of them. Fighters should make their statements with their fists, not their tongues, Read more:Judge
PeTA = Knuckledraggers 2007-12-14 18:15:00 Two of the most important reasons the human race is still on the planet today are (1) the wearing of animal skins, and (2) the domestication of dogs and other animals; PeTA thinks both are travesties and is doing as much as it can to turn back the clock on both accounts. Lucky for us, they'd have to go back a l-o-n-g way to undo our affinity for fur and furry four-legged friends (and food); and even more fortunate, the target of their new campaign is the Olsen Twins.The greatest environmental challenges our species have survived to date are the mega-colossal volcanic eruption of the Toba caldera in Indonesia 70,000 years ago and the following Ice Age that blanketed the planet 18,000 to 24,000 years ago. The Toba catastrophe (precipitating its own Ice Age) is theorized to have decimated the hominid populations on the planet, wiping out all but 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs of our direct ancestors and likewise decimating our hominid cousins the Neanderthals and Homo Erectus.SEVEN hund
Cats Are Evil 2007-12-13 20:06:00 Cats are the work of the devil. Perhaps they even are the devil.While you often hear of "hell hounds" and "devil dogs," those aloof yet alluring fur balls that allow us to pretend to own them have managed to avoid any sort of association with the fiery pits of hell from whence they came. The slandering of dogs through biased media spin is just one tactic in the feline plot to carry on their nefarious deeds unnoticed.As Verbal said in The Usual Suspects, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." And Cats have done a smack up job of convincing the world that they aren't Satan's minions. But it's true, and I have proof.Look at these cats, they're adorable, angelic even:But they are the SPAWN OF SATAN! Just turn out the lights and their evil shines through:Back beasts! Back to the pit from whence you came! They might look innocent and white in the shining light of day, but the mark of the beast is on them. And don't think that it's just a
God's House is His Castle 2007-12-12 10:33:00 Colorado has played host to several newsworthy murderous rampages by young people and breaches of trust and security at community centers where people are meant to feel safe such as schools and places of worship; the Columbine High School massacre being the most memorable, and the dual church shootings being the most recent.Both gunmen in the Columbine massacre, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were the same age as me (now 27), and the lion's share of their victims were my age and a bit younger; the Church gunman, Matthew Murray, was only 3 years younger and would have been a freshmen at the time of the Columbine massacre. His first two victims were also our age.Matthew Murray apparently modeled himself after one of the Columbine shooters:The online threats appear to include whole passages lifted from a manifesto written by Eric Harris, one of the teens who carried out the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School — 13 miles from Murray's hometown.But the makings of these mass murderers Read more:House
, Castle
Kids These Days 2007-12-12 06:56:00 I was born on the cusp of Generation X-Y, and while actors and musicians are the only people my age who have so-far managed to reach the high standard of "famous people" on wikipedia, there are a number of more infamous candidates left off that list.In the early 1990s, the Generation before us were rebels without a cause:They have trouble making decisions. They would rather hike in the Himalayas than climb a corporate ladder. They have few heroes, no anthems, no style to call their own. They crave entertainment, but their attention span is as short as one zap of a TV dial. They hate yuppies, hippies and druggies. They postpone marriage because they dread divorce. They sneer at Range Rovers, Rolexes and red suspenders. What they hold dear are family life, local activism, national parks, penny loafers and mountain bikes.- Time Magazine, July 16, 1990The article goes on to describe the GenXers in words that apply equally to GenY:...so far they are an unsung generation, hardly recognized a
He's NOT the "Reason for the Season" 2007-12-25 16:35:00 I have to laugh when people complain each year that Christmas has become so commercial. As if at any time in the past it has not been. And by "at any time" I mean right back to the beginning. While such complainers are just bemoaning their lost youth--an ignorant and happy time when commercialism was magic instead of an annoyance--few realize that Christmas is just one big advertisement and always has been.You have been told that today is the birth day of Christ, that Christ is divine and died for our sins, that he performed feats of magic and is omnipresent. You have also been told that Santa Claus has a workshop staffed with elves on the North Pole and that he flies a magic sleigh powered by reindeer carrying a bag of toys, and is omniscient.Adults who actually believe in one are thought to be certifiably insane, and people who don't believe in the other are heathens and infidels. Such cultural declarations come from a cult that has matured into a religion. How sophisticated.Jesus i Read more:Season
, Reason
Off The Mark 2008-03-10 03:00:00 I was in court all last week fighting the good fight and I'll be there again this week. Think Erin Brockovich, only I'm brunette, a man, and my breasts are slightly smaller. And the crime at hand is securities fraud instead of hexavalent chromium poisoning. Since my mind bullets are currently being used to fight non-dog-related injustice and I'm off the job, I'll tide you over with some choice dog comics from Off The Mark by Mark Parisi:
Textual Analysis 101 2008-03-01 14:28:00 When was the last time you carefully listened to the lyrics of your favorite song and asked what was really happening? Too often we are swept away by the melody and the words are just embellishments as this NSFW R-rated, but funny, ad demonstrates:..Was high school composition the last time you analyzed a piece of literature line by line? Do you remember the feeling when you heard or read a line and understood exactly what the allusions and references meant and that knowledge elevated your appreciation for the source material to a higher level and made you feel like you were "in" on something special?You don't have to be exhaustively well read or a collector of Cliff's Notes to find enrichment by delving a bit deeper into a "text." And when the text is more approachable, more immediately r Read more:Analysis
The 8 Signs of Groupthink 2008-02-27 03:50:00 Groupthink is an endemic problem of groups and bureaucracies charged with making decisions when the decision makers use peer pressure to limit debate, enforce an often false consensus, and avoid conflict.Groupthink is similar to other forms of social influence and etiquette such as Political Correctness in that one element of groupthink is the suppression of options, ideas, and viewpoints that are outside of the status quo or the comfort zone of a subset of the decision makers.Groupthink is used in hierarchical groups to preserve the power and prestige of the leadership who view underlings with suspicion and challenges to their ideas as attacks on their authority.Groupthink is also common in groups of true peers where individuals will avoid conflict or expressing a diversity of ideas to av
Killing for a Myth 2008-02-26 00:36:00 In my recent correspondence with a pet rescuer who has yet to embrace No-Kill, I saw firsthand the phenomenon that Nathan Winograd discusses in Redemption: that we hear so much about pet overpopulation, but has anyone seen it?The e-mailer wrote: [Shelters] only kill the animals because THERE ARE TOO MANY! Hello? Have you heard of the overpopulation problem?Why yes, I've heard of it quite a lot. I've also heard extensively about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. If the modus operandi of the shelters in this country were to throw dogs off cliffs because the Easter Bunny commanded it, there'd be an uproar. If you had to trade Santa Claus a euthanized shelter dog for each present, the tragedy of "Christmas Puppies" would have a much darker and more sinister outcome.I've heard a lot about "pet Read more:Killing
Parroting PeTA 2008-02-22 23:29:00 Here's an e-mail I got today from a horse and dog rescuer (Help A Horse Organization) who is rather miffed at my "Buy From a Breeder" rhetoric. I think she missed the point. She also failed to appreciate the elements of my post that were sarcastic and parroting the PeTA rhetoric, despite my caveat at the end of the post; this is perhaps because she is a parrot for PeTA herself.The sad thing about Parrots is that they sound like they are rational and intelligent, but they have no idea what they're really saying since they don't have to think about it. They just mimic. That's the beauty of mantras and why they are so popular by groups that control and influence the masses (religions, political parties, governments, advertisers, schools, social clubs, militias, guilds, unions, etc.): they are
Hatred for Winograd 2008-02-19 01:01:00 An unintended occurance of a visual double negative. When paradigms shift and the new guard replaces the old guard there is generally a lot of spitting and cursing and ill will, especially from adherents to the previous school of thought as well as from the other contenders to the throne.Such a shift is currently taking place in our nation's shelter system and the heir apparent is the No-Kill movement. The shift in thought is a major one, and the expectations of performance in the new school are high. Such radical departures in thought, practice, and benchmarks of success are not easy to swallow and do not happen overnight.In truth, it might take an entire generation for the "kill to be kind" school of thought and its adherents to vanish from the shelter business. With well funded radical
We Feel Fine 2008-02-15 19:53:00 I just got a click through from a rather strange looking address, www.wefeelfine.org, and I thought I'd investigate. It turns out that it's a rather fascinating project (with a Stanford Connection) in human emotion using the Internet as a giant herd of guinea pigs.We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale. Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, h
Memes about Me 2008-02-15 01:34:00 I rarely participate in chain letters (and I do recall getting one or two physical letters before the internet was popular) or mass e-mails and the like (they still arrive in my in box on a daily basis), and I usually avoid the temptation to conform to the popular meme-of-the-day.But some of them are fun and serve a purpose. So here are my answers to the two recent Meme games I've been invited to. First up, 4 THINGS Meme:N.B. Being the nonconformist that I am, I choose to ignore the limitation or suggestion of only 4 answers to each prompt.Some Jobs I have had in my life: Marketing Consultant for Electronic Arts, Founder of a highly successful treasure hunting forum, President of the Colorado Junior Classical League, Technical Consultant for a major Lawfirm, Real Estate Agent, Student Rep Read more:Memes
Happy Valentine's Day 2008-02-14 09:58:00 Happy St. Valentine
's Day from Gemma, Mercury, Bella, Zeke, Maximus, and Stella Rose!
Read more:Happy
Buy From A Breeder 2008-02-13 14:46:00 The New York Times is a little slow on the uptake and is just now reporting on PeTA's disgraceful advertising campaign featuring dead dogs in body bags and the message that if you buy your dog you are directly killing a dog in a shelter.Mind you, this message is coming from people who kill 97% of the dogs they get their hands on, so scolding you for "buy one, kill one" when their own kill rate is adopt one out, kill two hundred and fifty is just slightly disingenuous.I actually find their KKK comparison rather hilarious and will comment on that new ad in a future post.But now is as good of a time as any to remind you that you're committing no sin by buying your dog from a breeder.That's right. I said it. Don't "rescue" your next pet, buy one from a responsible breeder. The "shelter" establ
BC/R&F: Viggo Mortensen 2008-02-13 13:49:00 I began the Border Collies of the Rich and Famous series with the decidedly sub-par performance of one-time BC owner Ellen DeGeneres. We turn things around this time with exemplar Border Collie companion, Viggo Mortensen.Viggo is a modern renaissance man, flexing his creative muscle in theater and film acting, music, poetry, photography, and painting.Born in New York to an American Mother and Danish father; Viggo was raised in Venezuela, Argentina, Denmark, and the United States. He speaks English, Danish, Spanish, Norwegian, French, Italian, and Swedish.Worldly yet grounded; famous yet private; an actor yet genuine; you might say that Viggo's choice of the Border Collie is a fitting reflection of his own versatility and uncompromising nature. Whether on a working ranch in South America or
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