Abortion Position

A couple of weeks ago, one of my readers (thanks, Larry!) emailed me a link to a study on how abortion affects the crime rate. He started by saying “Not sure where you stand on abortion…” — and I could hardly believe that, because abortion is one of a few major social issues that ignited my interest in politics a few (ok, many) years ago…

So in this post, I’ll address the study first, and then discuss a bit of my stand on abortion. It’s still one of the most difficult issues for me to wrap my brain around.

The study (which you can download and read here) supports the idea that legalized abortion lowers the crime rate, and hints at that fact as justification for legalized abortion. The study starts with the interesting correllation between abortion becoming legal in the U.S., and the decline in the crime rate starting roughly 18 years later. It continues by examining possible mechanisms and testing them statistically. I can summarize the whole thing rather crudely this way: legalized abortion lowers crime by lowering the number of people in the age group most likely to commit crime, and even importantly, in the socio-economic categories most likely to commit crime. They cite the example that poor blacks commit a disproportionate share of crime; they also have a much higher rate of abortions.

I found the study fairly convincing as to the connection between legalized abortion and reduced crime. James Taranto has made a very similar case (though certainly not as robustly studied) for something he calls the “Roe effect” — the conjecture that legalized abortion leads to fewer liberals, as liberals are the group most likely to choose to abort a baby.

But I did not find the study convincing as justification for legalized abortion. A thought experiment will demonstrate why. Suppose we instituted a new policy: the first time a person was convicted of a crime, they are summarily executed, right there in the courtroom after the verdict is read. How horrible, you say! I’d wager that new policy would get almost no support. And yet, I’m certain that the new policy would result in a much-reduced rate of crime, as we know from decades of rigorous study that the vast majority of crime is committed by repeat offenders.

The fact that a policy results in reduced crime rates does not justify that policy, ipso facto. The policy in the thought experiment would be (hopefully) universally rejected because it is immoral — that the immoral policy has societal benefit is irrelevant to the debate.

I apply the same logic to the question of abortion and conclude that this study is irrelevant to the debate about the morality of abortion.

I can summarize my position on abortion very inexactly this way: I believe abortion is immoral in most circumstances. I have some very fuzzy edges on my thinking, however, which derive from what I’ll call the “timeline dilemma”. I’m certainly not the first to point out this problem. The sophisticated philosophical thinkers will think me provincial and simple as I articulate this, but that’s their problem <smile>. Here’s the timeline dilemma:

Starting at the early end of the timeline…if a couple decides to use contraception to prevent their sexual activity from conceiving a child, do I see any problem with that? No, I don’t. And if I did, I see a classic slippery-slope problem there — for if I thought (as the Catholic Church does) that contraception was immoral, does it not follow rather directly that any conscious avoidance of pregancy by a couple is also immoral? The Catholic Church says the “rhythm method” is ok, but from a moral perspective I see precious little difference between that and using a contraceptive.

Ok, let’s take it the other way, then. If I’m ok with contraceptives, then what about 1 second after conception? Do I see a moral problem with that? Well, truthfully, no — it seems pretty clear that at that point we don’t actually have child there, and aborting a pregancy at that point, from a moral perspective, doesn’t seem substantively different than contraception to me. Remember, I’m not religious, and I’m looking at this as a secular, but moral, person (even though Dr. Laura would say that’s not possible!).

So there’s one end of the timeline. Let’s go to the other end of it — when a child is born. Do I have a moral problem with killing a baby as it lies there screaming in its crib? Yes (despite my frequently saying — in jest, mind you — that I’m with W. C. Fields: I like my children roasted or boiled). Walk it back — do I have a problem killing a baby one second before birth. Well, yes; from that moral perspctive, I see no particular difference between killing the crying baby and killing the one that’s about to be born.

Two ends to the timeline, two different conclusion about the morality of abortion at those points. Now comes the hard part — what about the time in between those ends of the timeline? If I hold different views on the morality of abortion at each end of the timeline, then inescapably there must be a point in between the ends where my viewpoint flips — for this is a binary issue; abortion (at any given moment in time) surely is either immoral or moral; it can’t be “partly moral", for there is no such thing.

Sometimes (as pro-abortionists are wont to emphasize) there are factors that complicate the moral calculus. Suppose the child is the product of a rape? Suppose it is defective in some profound way that renders a useful human life impossible? And so on; there are many such factors that I’m perfectly willing to throw into the equation — and these, combined with the timeline, are what make this such a difficult issue for me.

There are also factors — sometimes allegedly moral factors — that I believe should not be part of the equation at all. I don’t believe that the mother’s economic situation or marriage status helps us reach a decision on the morality of abortion, on the same reasoning that leads me to conclude that a reduced crime rate offers no justification. And while the pregnancy may simply be unwanted by the mother, I see that as a very unfortunate circumstance that doesn’t speak to the morality of abortion at all. Feminists argue — really, they hold it as an article of faith — that women have the moral right to make any choice they want about their own body, and that prior to birth, a baby is just another part of their own body. By that same reasoning, it would be moral for me to decide not to help a dying person I happen upon, if it inconvenienced me. I don’t buy that line of moral reasoning.

So where on the timeline does my moral stance on abortion flip? The uncomfortable truth is that I have no idea how to determine that point. The only certainty I have is that the further along the timeline a preganancy goes, the more (and more) uncomfortable I get with the morality of an abortion.

In the end, I retreat to safety. “Abortion", in this context, is just another word for legalized killing. The only other form of killing widely (but not universally) recognized as both legal and moral is the execution of criminals. There, to assure the morality of our actions and to assuage our consciences, we go to extremes to make certain we make no mistakes. I see no moral alternative to those extremes for so long as the death penalty is legal. And I believe that’s the safe course with abortion as well; hence my position that abortion is “immoral in most circumstances” (and therefore should be outlawed).

By “in most circumstances", I’m most definitely weasling out a bit. For example, in those (fortunately quite rare) cases where a pregnancy would certainly kill the mother, my own moral calculus is that the mother’s right to live trumps the baby’s right to obtain independent life. Clearly someone might reasonably disagree with that; its a moral judgment, not an absolute. It gets fuzzier if the mother is put at risk by the continued pregnancy; now the moral calculus for me is considerably more complex, and I’d want to understand the probabilities before rendering a moral judgment. There are any number of other circumstances that I can imagine as well. For example, imagine a woman was raped, became pregnant, and then was held prisoner for four months before she escaped. I can think of many circumstances (all uncommon) that make it impossible for me to support a flat-out, no-exceptions ban on abortion. But I can think of no circumstances that allow me to think of abortion as a moral choice that women should be able to make independently.

The legal environment I’d like to see would be one in which abortions more than some very short time (say 30 days) after conception were illegal, but in which a process existed for exceptions to be granted. In this hypothetical environment, requests for abortions would be expeditiously heard (for time is very much of the essence in these cases) by a technically qualified judge (or panel, better yet) who explicitly weighed the moral issues of each such case, weighing the rights of the baby and the rights of the mother where they were in conflict. I further believe that the bar for filing for such an exception should be quite high; that evidence of a moral conflict should be part of the requirement.

Watching the political polarization on the abortion issue, I suspect there are only two likely outcomes, even in the long run: either complete laissez faire, as today, or completely outlawing it. I don’t see much chance of the polar extremes working with each other for any sort of a compromise, middle-road approach to the question. Not that my suggestion would be considered a “compromise” by the “pro-choice” crowd…

Rules for Life

Rules for Life:

1. You really need only two tools: WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn’t move and it should, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn’t, use the duct tape.

2. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

3. And finally, be really good to your family and friends. You never know when you are going to need them to empty your bedpan!!!

— —

Tom’s addition for software engineers:

1. You really only need two tools: the delete key and red wine. If your program does something it shouldn’t do, use the delete key. If your program doesn’t do something that it should, drink red wine while coding until the program behaves as it should (or you don’t care).

Artist Soldier

Michael Fay is a Marine soldier, an officer, an accomplished artist, and a blogger. Quite the unusual combination!

At right are five examples of Michael’s work in Iraq (from where he has just returned), published in today’s Wall Street Journal. As Michael says on his blog, this is his 15 minutes of fame, and he seems to be relishing it. Who wouldn’t <smile>?

As usual, click on the small images for a larger view…

Puppy Journal

The puppies are 2-weeks old as of Sunday and have been put into rick rack.

1st born black male = white boy (2 1/2 pounds)

2nd born black male = yellow boy (2 1/4 pounds)

3rd born liver male = green boy (2 lbs, 10 ounces)

4th born liver male = blue boy (2 lbs, 10 ounces)

5th born black female = pink girl (2 3/4 pounds)

6th born liver female = purple girl (2 1/2 pounds)

Whether CBR or FS, every “pink girl” in every litter of mine has grown up and accomplished things in show or performance rings. All those girls were brown. This time around I put the pink rick rack on the black bitch. Not because I am picking her to be the “one” but because she needs the extra luck that goes with pink. She is the only puppy in the litter with clear white. Everyone else has black or liver ticking filling in their muzzles and/or toes. The white comes from both Cosmo and Picabo but the absence of ticking come from Cosmo. :-( I know it is way too early to worry about their color (it can take up to six months for facial white to fill in) but I can’t help but notice how “clean” she is compared to how “dirty” the rest are. Yellow boy, Blue boy, and Purple girl are going to basically be solid-colored dogs with a little white on their throats and chests. White boy might end up with a slight look of gray around his nose (like Picabo - you have to look for it). Green boy and Pink girl are wait and sees.

A lot has happened in the last week. They are up on their feet and wobbling a few steps forward and backward. Their eyes are open and at the very least, pink girl has shown signs of useful vision. I held her today by the window and she turned toward it, then she turned toward me. When Picabo was outside the Dura-Whelp’s gate, she wobbled toward the gate and made the first attempt at climbing over it (a pretty feeble attempt but she stood on three legs and put her other paw on the barrier). They are also very vocal the few seconds they are awake. They don’t cry but they make a baby barking sound.

Sunday was a big day. I took out the pig rails because they were threatening to become lethal. The puppies are now just big enough and mobile enough that they could get their necks caught between the rail and Picabo. I know because I had to rescue a couple of them Saturday night. I made yet another modification to the Dura-Whelp. I bought a piece of white marker board, used the whelping box’s removable door as a pattern, and cut two new door sizes. The doors slide into grooves and close off the opening. There is no inbetween. The gate is open or it is closed. I want the puppies in but I want Picabo to come and go as she pleases. The opening to the door is 7 inches high. I cut a door that now makes the opening 9 inches high. It is still easy for Picabo to step over but I won’t have to worry about escaping puppies this week. Next week will be another story. I made a second door that is 12 inches high. That one will only go in when I notice the puppies trying to get out. Picabo can hop over it but I don’t want her landing on a puppy. My hope is to keep them contained until they are four-weeks old and then move them into the x-pen. I’m not hopeful that they will last that long in the Dura-Whelp. The other big thing that happened on Sunday was that I moved back into my own room. Ahh, to sleep for six uninteruppted hours… The puppies don’t need me and Picabo wanted the bed in that room anyway. :-)

My oh my but I have had to invest a lot of time in that plastic box. I have it sitting on 1 1/2 inches of styrofoam for additional insulation (that will come out when the 12” door goes in), I have added additional Velcro to both the floor and the two pads I purchased. I made two more pads and I have made two replacement doors. I coded the pig rails with a Sharpie so when I use it again, I can line everything up the way I had it this time. The box is guaranteed for three years. That’s funny because it will be at least three years, maybe four before I use it again. :-)

Not much else has happened. Picabo has rejoined the family on our daily walks. I don’t have to supervise her toilet duties anymore. To say she is blowing her coat is an understatement. She scratches herself and oops, she is bald there. It will all grow back nice and black and shiny. I do have the pictures back from last week and I will make an album to put up in the list’s photo file.

Sheila Miller

Wolftree Acres

Nevada, USA

sdmiller@the-onramp.net

http://www.wolftreeacres.homestead.com

Basic Instincts

Chester Finn and Diane Ravitch are senior fellows at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and former members of the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). They are eminently qualified to comment on how we assess our nation’s educational system. In today’s Wall Street Journal ($) they have a grim report:

U.S. students lag behind their peers in other modern nations — and the gap widens dramatically as their grade levels rise. Our high school pupils (and graduates) are miles from where they need to be to assure them and our country a secure future in the highly competitive global economy. Hence, any serious effort at education reform hinges on our setting world-class standards, then candidly tracking performance in relation to those standards. Even when gains are slender and results disappointing, we need the plain truth. Which is why recent attempts by federal and state governments to sugarcoat the performance of students is so alarming.

They go on to document how state education officials — usually acting as politicians, whatever their credentials — have systematically created state criteria set low enough to produce acceptable outcomes (see their chart, reproduced at right). In other words, if the test scores make the kids look uneducated, change the test until you get the results you want! Never mind how poorly the kids are prepared; do the liberal thing and make everybody feel good about it. What a crock!

They further document how this same crowd is attempting to change the focus from how well (or not) our kids are doing compared with those from other countries, to the much different focus of whether the trends are positive are negative. And of course, if you combine test-diddling with trend analysis, you can make anything look good. Again, never mind whether our kids are being educated — instead, let’s just bury all the evidence of the failure of our politicians to deliver the educational goods. Sort of like what the cats do in the litter box after they do their business. Hmmm, interesting visual analogy, that…

Finn and Ravitch catch our education 'leaders' in another piece of self-serving sleight of hand as well: a consistent presentation of “basic” level skills as though they were the goal for our kids, instead of the “proficient” level that was intended. As if setting expectations lower was actually a solution!

They conclude:

Just how demanding is “proficient” anyway? Here’s how NAGB defined it for fourth grade math: “Fourth graders performing at the proficient level should be able to use whole numbers to estimate, compute, and determine whether results are reasonable. They should have a conceptual understanding of fractions and decimals; be able to solve real-world problems in all NAEP content areas; and use four-function calculators, rulers and geometric shapes appropriately.” Is this too much to expect? Hardly. America’s great education problem is that for years we settled for “basic skills” rather than true proficiency. The Bush administration does a disservice to the nation if it tells educators and state officials that “basic” is acceptable. You can be sure that our competitors aren’t doing any such thing.

Recently I read an article (and didn’t save a link, darn it!) that talked about the results of giving a quiz from the San Diego public schools of the early 1900s to modern day students. Just reading the test questions was a real eye-opener — they were genuinely challenging and difficult, and they covered a very broad range of subjects. Students in those days had to pass this test with 80% or better correct in order to graduate (I believe it was a fourth grade test). Fail, and you took fourth grade over again. If my memory is correct, something like 70% of the students passed those tests. Not one of the over 100 modern fourth-grade students given this test achieved even 50% — much less a passing grade. Of course such an isolated example is fraught with problems, but … when it jibes with observation and experience, we can give it some wieght. As in with my experience a few years ago of meeting someone who had graduated from college, and yet had never even heard of Josef Stalin, much less had any understanding of that evil monster.

The Wall Street Journal is the most consistent source of high quality commentary that I know of. Even ignoring the (very high) news value of the WSJ, it’s worth the annual subscription price just for the commentary. Online is cheaper, too. If you’re not a subscriber, you should consider it…

Eagle, Resplendent

From APOD, an image that is extraordinarily beautiful even by their high standards:

Explanation: From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle. A closer look at the Eagle Nebula, however, shows the bright region is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appears where a whole open cluster of stars is being formed. In this cavity tall pillars and round globules of dark dust and cold molecular gas remain where stars are still forming. Already visible are several young bright blue stars whose light and winds are burning away and pushing back the remaining filaments and walls of gas and dust. The Eagle emission nebula, tagged M16, lies about 6500 light years away, spans about 20 light-years, and is visible with binoculars toward the constellation of Serpens. The above picture combines three specific emitted colors and was taken with the 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA.

As usual, click on the small image for a larger view…

In My Class

Have you been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, “Surely I can’t look that old?"

I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago. Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face 'was way too old to have been my classmate.

After he examined my teeth, I asked him if he had attended Lawton Senior High school. “Yes. Yes, I did. I’m a Wolverine.” he gleamed with pride.

"When did you graduate?” I asked. He answered, “In 1961. Why do you ask?"

"You were in my class!” I exclaimed.

He looked at me closely. Then, that ugly, old, wrinkled son-of-a-bitch asked, “What did you teach?"

Mercury MESSENGER

It’s been almost a year since I last posted about the MESSENGER mission to the planet Mercury. The long interlude isn’t from lack of interest — there just hasn’t been much happening. That’s because MESSENGER is one of the now-common missions that uses gravitational assists from planets to greatly lower the fuel requirements. In MESSENGER’s case, it will be getting a total of six such gravity assists from planetary flybys: one from Earth (last August), two from Venus (the first one on October 24, 2006), and three from Mercury. Not until 2011 will MESSENGER finally make its orbital insertion burn. Between now and then there’s not much happening, except for those planetary flybys, each of which is planned to generate much good science.

The picture at right was taking on the Earth flyby (click for a larger view).

The planned orbit around Mercury is interesting. From the MESSENGER official web site:

MESSENGER’s orbit about Mercury is highly elliptical (egg-shaped), 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the surface at the lowest point and more than 15,193 kilometers (9,420 miles) at the highest. The plane of the orbit is inclined 80° to Mercury’s equator, and the low point in the orbit is reached at a latitude of 60° north. The low-altitude orbit over the northern hemisphere allows MESSENGER to conduct a detailed investigation of the geology and composition of Mercury’s giant Caloris impact basin - the planet’s largest known surface feature.

About 33% of the spacecraft’s propellant is required for Mercury orbit insertion – the process of placing the spacecraft into its primary science orbit around Mercury. MESSENGER’s thrusters must slow the spacecraft by just over 0.83 kilometers (0.52 miles) per second. As the spacecraft approaches Mercury, the largest thruster must be pointed close to the forward velocity direction of the spacecraft. The first maneuver (lasting about 15 minutes) places the spacecraft into a stable orbit; it also sets up a much shorter cleanup maneuver two to three days later near the orbit’s lowest point.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this mission. In the meanwhile, visit the MESSENGER site for more information.

Cartoonists' Revenge

The ongoing kerfuffle over the notorious Danish cartoons continues. The deliberately provoked violent protests haven’t stopped yet, and I’m not even certain that they’ve slowed down.

There are times that make one wonder about what evil the future might hold…

Meanwhile, some cartoonists are fighting back. They are fighting for their freedom of speech, in their own way: with cartoons, mocking and satirical. Follow the link below to see all twelve of them.

Tip of the hat to Simon M., a reader who forwarded these to me.

How To

From the “Complete Jamulian’s Guide To Happiness":

Men — to keep your woman happy, you just need to be:

1. a friend

2. a companion

3. a lover

4. a brother

5. a father

6. a master

7. a chef

8. an electrician

9. a carpenter

10. a plumber

11. a mechanic

12. a decorator

13. a stylist

14. a sexologist

15. a gynecologist

16. a psychologist

17. a pest exterminator

18. a psychiatrist

19. a healer

20. a good listener

21. an organizer

22. a good father

23. very clean

24. sympathetic

25. athletic

26. warm

27. attentive

28. gallant

29. intelligent

30. funny

31. creative

32. tender

33. strong

34. understanding

35. tolerant

36. prudent

37. ambitious

38. capable

39. courageous

40. determined

41. true

42. dependable

43. passionate

44. compassionate

Without forgetting to:

45. give her compliments regularly

46. love shopping

47. be honest

48. be very rich

49. not stress her out

50. not look at other girls

While also:

51. giving her lots of attention, but expect little yourself

52. giving her lots of time, especially time for herself

53. giving her lots of space, never worrying about where she goes

And most of all, it is very important:

54. Never to forget: birthdays, anniversaries, and any arrangements she makes

Women: to keep your man happy, you need to:

1. Show up naked

2. Bring food

A Thing of Beauty

For quite a while now, I’ve looked forward to a periodic (automatic) email I receive from Ron Baalke at the Mars Exploration Program. It’s a simple email — just a list of links to particularly interesting new photos from the Mars Global Surveyor. The images here (click for a larger view) are from the latest of those emails.

Like many of our robotic (unmanned) space missions, this one has gathered little public attention (though the scientific community is pretty excited about it!). It just keeps plugging along, delivering remarkable science results month after month. To me these technological marvels rank amongst the most significant accomplishments of mankind, but clearly I’m one of the few who think so <smile>.

The Mars Global Surveyor images have another attribute that sets them apart from the products of many other missions: many of them are quite beautiful, wholly apart from their science value. Click on the thumbnails and see for yourself!

From Malin Space Sciences' Mars Global Surveyor site:

The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) first acquired images of Mars during its approach to the red planet in mid-1997. The spacecraft began orbiting Mars in September 1997. Following a period of aerobraking to achieve a nearly-circular, nearly-polar orbit, MGS began systematic mapping operations in March 1999. The primary mission was conducted for one Mars year, through January 2001. An extended mission phase followed. MGS and MOC are currently expected to operate through at least December 2006.

Hundreds of MOC images with captions describing their contents have been compiled and released by the MOC team at Malin Space Science Systems since 1997. The links below provide access to these captioned releases.

The link above takes you to the home page for the entire archive of MGS/MOC images made publicly available. It’s quite overwhelming; one could spend hours and hours up there…

Danger!

You’re probably thinking that it’s faceless hackers, Muslim extremists, Karl Rove, or James Carville. Nope — statistically those people are very unlikely to be the source of anything that hurts your computers. Well, then who is the most likely?

Your friends.

That’s right, your friends — the ones who email you those funny video clips, or the tear-jerker animal presentations. They are helping the real bad guys (who need red-hot pokers in their rectums) spread their evil. Of course your friends don’t know they’re helping the bad guys, but they are.

And so, most likely, are you. Because, like the vast majority of innocent email users, you (like me) forward those cute movies, those funny foreign advertisements, etc. to your friends.

And some of those attachments are bad.

How can you tell? Don’t anti-virus programs catch all those things?

No, they don’t. They catch some, to be sure. I use anti-virus software on my system, because I know it will catch a lot of the bad stuff. But I also know that it misses things — it misses the newest variations of viri, worms, and spyware. It will also miss the more sophisicated variations, especially the “polymorphic” ones that change constantly, specifically to evade anti-virus software.

But, you say “I would never forward an attachment to someone after it infected my system!” Well, I would hope not. But here’s the rub: you won’t know your system is infected! You see, the evil hackers (may they be plagued by incurable whole-body acne) who write these things understand quite a bit about human behavior.

There are many ways for them to fool you. One of the most common is the “time bomb": they tell their evil software not to do anything bad until some specific date, or until after it’s been installed on your system for some time — plenty of time for you to have forwarded it to all your friends. Another category of evil software simply hides itself, trying hard to never do anything that would bring itself to your attention. That’s because it’s quietly watching all your keystrokes — including when you enter your credit card number for online shopping, or your username and password to your bank account. Then it sends the interesting stuff back home to the scum who wrote the software.

How can you protect yourself against this? Especially if you’re not technically saavy?

The truth is there’s not much you can do. Even being technically saavy isn’t enough — to detect the best of the evil software (fortunately this is the small minority of it), you need to be a specialist with the right knowledge and tools. And you’d have to spend a lot of time, constantly, checking and rechecking your system. It’s a little bit like taking a walk. Someone evil could be lurking behind almost anything. You can improve your chances by being careful where you walk (a walk in San Diego’s Balboa Park is very safe when compared with a walk in San Francisco’s notorious “Tenderloin” district). Likewise, you can try to be careful with the attachments you open. Some of them (for instance, any that end with .EXE, .COM, or any of a few dozen other “extensions") are inherently dangerous, and should be avoided unless you know absolutely for sure that they are safe.

But with such advice, we’re already assuming some degree of tech saavy. Most non-technical people I know have already just given up on this — they either never open email attachments, or they always open them. In the latter case, they’re just hoping that nothing evil comes their way. And aside from running anti-virus software, and keeping it up to date, there’s little I can do to help them out. Chances are that one of these days they’re going to discover that some pimply ex-Soviet bloc teenager has their credit card number, or a Mulim fanatic in Iran has their street address and phone number, or … substitute your own nightmare.

The reality is this: if we want to enjoy the use of this modern technical marvel (the personal computer), we have to accept some level of risk — much as we accept the risk of an accident as the price we pay for enjoying the use of our car. There are things we can do to help mitigate the risk — we can spend money on anti-virus software, firewalls, etc., and we can educate ourselves. This is much like having seat belts and airbags in our cars, and learning defensive driving skills. And we can even try to “drive” our personal computers in better neighborhoods (e.g., be a little selective about exactly what email attachments you open). But we can’t make it completely safe to use a PC…

Puppy Journal

This is the latest installment of Sheila Miller’s “Puppy Journal", covering the progress of a new litter of field spaniels — one of which will be ours, and the next agility champion! You can read the previous installments here and here. We’ve named our new puppy: Miki (pronounced MEE-kee) — Hawai’ian for fast, agile, and alert. Pretty good for an agility champion, eh?

And now without further delay — the puppy journal:

My how time flies. Has it been 10 days now? Everyone is doing well. The puppies have more than doubled their weight. They weigh between 1 pound, 10 ounces (the two black males) and 2 pounds (the two girls). The other two boys fall in between but are closer to the girls' weight. Picabo is also doing well and is keeping her weight and attitude up.

10 years ago when I first started breeding dogs, a CBR friend of mine told me, “The first three weeks are easy. The dam does all of the work. Just keep her clean and fed.” True, the work right now isn’t physical but it is stressful. There is that little worry always in the back of your head about puppies not gaining weight, getting cold or squished and not getting handled enough. They receive mild stress every day in the form of a series of 5, 5-second exercises. The pads of each foot are tickled with a cosmetic brush. They are held vertically (and I look at their sealed eyes), on their back in my hands (and I look at their umbilicus and the pads of their feet), held head down and finally placed on a cool surface. The mild stress boosts their developing immune system, oxygenates their tissues, and helps their neurons make connections as they attempt to right themselves. The things I look for are the first signs of an eye infection, umbilical hernia, and pigment to cover those white toes! The pigment is there!! :-) I am also looking for Cosmo’s perfect feet. His first puppies with Picabo have nice feet but they aren’t his (and he got his from his daddy Spicer and I think he got his from his daddy Roger). Right now it looks like one of the black boys might have the “squishy” pads I’m looking for. On my “to do” list with the puppies is to put them in rick rack. Because of the gender and color split I have, it is very easy to tell the puppies apart. Well, if you pick them up. I need to color code them so I can ID them from a distance. That comes in handy when they become more interactive and I keep track of what they do. They can do a lot right now. They can root, they can crawl, they can snuffle your ears and sleep their twitchy sleep in the crook of your arm. They have a wide range of vocalizations. They “purr", cry on occasion and even bark (though they don’t open their mouths so it is muffled and very endearing). I love these puppies. :-)

As for Picabo, she is much like a puppy herself. I take her outside, not just put outside, to relieve herself. I swear I have a permanent poop bag on my right hand. As long as I am outside (in my pj’s, parka, and flashlight) walking her up and down the yard, I might as well pick up whatever poop is out there. The longer I am outside, the longer she is out getting some exercise and fresh air. I pick up her poop for two reasons: two of my dogs have developed a “taste” for hers and for quality control. I have become quite an expert on her poop as each bowel movement determines her next meal. Her base food is Iams Puppy with either meat, eggs, cheese, yogurt, bran, or whole wheat bread added to it. Two of her meals are soaked in one half cup of Goat’s Milk Esbilac. The result so far is a bitch who is keeping up her weight and pooping well (I can pick it up). After every trip outside, she gets (in this order) her face washed, boobs washed, discharges wiped away and butt wiped. Once a day I comb her out. She is getting kind of itchy (she is starting to shed) so tomorrow night I am going to give her a bath with oatmeal shampoo.

I have to tell you about Monday (President’s Day) and the ongoing saga of my Dura-Whelp. I went to Winnemucca for my weekly shopping. I couldn’t get my film developed because one place had their machine torn down for maintenance and the other place was closed because of the holiday (but I was able to get the van’s tires rotated!). I went to Wal-Mart and was irritated that part of the parking was fenced off and torn out (Super Wal-Mart is coming). I pulled my van up to the newly set up outside garden area and there they were with a little new snow drifted around them - plastic wading pools! My puppies were born one week too late. Oh well, I went inside for paper and plastic products, dog food, and Velcro. They had 3” wide industrial strength Velcro in your choice of adhesive or nonadhesive. I grabbed the adhesive because I needed the one side to stick to the Dura-Whelp. I also bought 2 1/2 yards of fleece so I could make two extra beds for the Dura-Whelp. I thought I was so smart. I would cut the Velcro in squares, stick the loop end to the Dura-Whelp and sew the fuzzy end to the fleece. Oh, the adhesive! The adhesive! It gummed up my sewing machine needle. I had to keep wiping the goo off the needle with rubbing alcohol. My poor Pfaff. It was never meant for crafts. :-( I finished the job and put a note inside my machine that said, “Gummed up”. I will deal with it the next time I use the machine. The sad part is that I already resolved the shifting bedding problem I had with the command, “Don’t dig”. When Picabo has the urge to dig, she leaves the box and scratches up a blanket I left on the floor. Oh that hindsight! I should have bought one package of adhesive Velcro for the box and one package of nonadhesive Velcro for the fleece. And forget “industrial strength”. It is so hard to peel off that the fleece will tear long before these puppies are weaned. LOL

I promise I am trying to get pictures! :-)

Sheila Miller

Wolftree Acres

Nevada, USA

Security Hole

Update: Welcome, visitors from Pajamas Media! The number of people visiting my corner of cyberspace jumped this afternoon because of a link those nice folks posted this afternoon. I hope that while you’re here, you’ll look around a little. There are lots of things to explore here, from political scribblings, science and technology thoughts, to photos of our travels and our collection of animals. And much more!

Update II: Will wonders never cease? Now there’s a link (broken at the moment <sob>) to this post from Instapundit! Assuming Glenn fixes that link, I suspect I’ll have even more visitors. Welcome, one and all — please take a look around while you’re here!

Bruce Schneier has a wonderful little story on his blog (original article here) about a test of an attack method that combines technical means and a little social engineering. It’s a clever exploit that (unfortunately) is just one example of bazillions of possible clever exploits. In this one, the testers went onto the streets of London and handed out CDs that supposedly contained a Valentine’s Day promotional. Many of the people who were given the CDs carried them straight into their (allegedly “secure") offices and ran the programs right of the CD. Any IT guy could tell you that by doing so, they bypassed nearly all of the security measures the companies had in place; had the software been hostile, it could have done a lot of damage — either by stealing confidential information, modifying critical information, or even by taking down internal systems.

Not good. And oops.

The original article basically blames the employees' bad security attitude, or lack of security education. Bruce draws a better lesson: that the real problem is insecure infrastructure. While I agree with every one of Bruce’s points, in a practical sense it doesn’t seem likely that they’re going to be addressed anytime soon. To use Bruce’s example, this particular attack could have been prevented by not giving every employee a worksation or laptop that could just run any old software from a CD. True enough. But … I don’t know any company that is actually going to run out and put that restriction in place…

I’ll draw another (fairly obvious) lesson from this story: that many IT organizations are throwing their security money at the wrong problems. In particular, except in the most sophisticated IT security environments, the emphasis is almost 100% on “border security": firewalls, multi-element identification, etc. And almost nothing is done about security inside the firewall — even though it’s demonstrable that the biggest threats for most companies are of internal origin. The CD attack is a great example, though theoretical. Already happening are worm and virus attacks — and many (I suspect most) companies are woefully unprepared for these. I’ve worked at two companies — and I know of many more — where all the company’s servers are fully exposed to the LANs that host the company’s workstations. That means that any worm or virus that infected a workstation has free access to those servers — and in these days of laptops and employees VPNing in from home, if you’ve got more than about three employees, the chances are pretty good that some of them are infected. The fact that more damage isn’t done this way is testament to the bad design of worms and viri, not that the risk doesn’t exist.

Yet changing the way company’s secure their IT infrastructure isn’t easy, as my personal experience attests. I’ve had one boss (the CEO) who, after my presentation of things we needed to do to secure ourselves internally, said “Let’s just get SecureID!”. When I told him that would be like putting a padlock on a wet paper bag, he countered with “I don’t care if it really does anything — what I care about is how secure we’ll appear to our customers.” Customers who are, more than likely, equally uninformed about security. This company ended up doing precisely nothing about internal security, despite my tiresome railing on the subject. And to this day they have not been hit with any big problems, which reinforces that illogical behavior. Sometimes I’ve thought that a small “demonstration” was in order, just for the educational value…

I don’t have any good answers for this challenge. My suspicion is that it’s similar to corporate behavior with respect to backups: the issue will be ignored until the company gets burned, then it will be addressed. Companies sometimes seem to be incapable of learning from the pain of others…

Iraqi in the Raw

Ordinarily I would excerpt a “teaser” from an article like this (titled “Iraq and a Hard Place"), but it would be unfair in the case of this one. It is just too complex and varied to be encapsulated; you really just need to read the whole thing. The Iraqi blogs under the name “Truth Teller", and is generally more sympathetic to the insurgents than most Iraqi bloggers that I read. But his perspective is very interesting, and eye-opening in its own way…

Blondes with Hammers

Becky and Sally Ann, were doing some carpentry work on a Habitat for Humanity house.

Becky, who was nailing down house siding, would reach into her nail pouch, pull out a nail and either toss it over her shoulder or nail it in.

Sally Ann, figuring this was worth looking into, asked, “Why are you throwing those nails away?"

Becky explained, “When I pull a nail out of my pouch, about half of them have the head on the wrong end and I throw them away."

Sally Ann got completely upset and yelled, “You moron! Those nails aren’t defective! They’re for the other side of the house!"

Frost!

Being southern California types, we generally experience the solid phase of water (i.e., ice) only in the form of ice cubes or that funny white stuff on the outside of our frozen pizza cartons. To see it outside, without any nearby man-made apparatus to create it, is a bit jarring for us. Some of the later-rising folks out here think that naturally-occuring ice is a kind of urban legend — you see, if you don’t get up until 9 or 10 in the morning, you’ll never see frost or ice around here!

Well, here’s the photographic proof that ice really does occur in this neck of the woods. You easterners and northerners can laugh at us all you want — for us, a “cold snap” is when the temperature dips below 60F. And that’s plus 60F, not those horrifying minus temperatures you’re dealing with. I like our version of a cold snap much better…

The three pictures above are plants covered with frost, of course. But the two at right probably aren’t so identifiable. It’s a sort of upside-down icicle (the closest we’ll ever get to a real icicle), formed on a rock just below our bird water’s dripper. One drop of water falls about every 5 seconds onto this rock. With the sub-freezing temperature, the ice seems to have slowly accumulated until it formed this marble-sized protuberance. I was mostly interested in the strange striations that appear in it — I’ve no idea what caused them to form…

Steyn-a-mite!

Put down your coffee for a moment (so you don’t end up blowing it out your nose) and read this new sure-to-be-a-classic Mark Steyn column. A sample:

Mark Steyn: Cheering tidbits lighten otherwise grim week

Fortunately, the Washington Post had that wise old bird David Ignatius to put it in the proper historical context: “This incident,” he mused, “reminds me a bit of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s delay in informing Massachusetts authorities about his role in the fatal automobile accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969."

Hmm. Let’s see. On the one hand, the guy leaves the gal at the bottom of the river struggling for breath pressed up against the window in some small air pocket while he pulls himself out of the briny, staggers home, sleeps it off and saunters in to inform the cops the following day that, oh yeah, there was some broad down there. And, on the other hand, the guy calls 911, has the other fellow taken to the hospital, lets the sheriff know promptly but neglects to fax David Gregory’s make-up girl!

One can only hope others agree with Ignatius' insightful analogy, and that the reprehensible Cheney will be hounded from public life the way Kennedy was all those years ago. One would hate to think folks would just let it slide and three decades from now this Cheney guy will be sitting on some committee picking Supreme Court justices and whatnot.

Come on, Mark…tell us how you really feel!

Ribbons!

Debbie was at a local NADAC agility meet yesterday, in Ramona, California. She ran both Mo’i and Lea, three trials each. And they placed in every single trial, plus Mo’i qualified ("Q’d") in two of them. So between the two dogs, they took home eight ribbons in a single day — the biggest “ribbon haul” they’ve ever made!

And they’re back at it today…

In the photo (click for a larger view), the ribbons from left-to-right are:

Fourth place: Lea

Third place: Lea

Second place: Lea

First place: Mo’i

First place: Mo’i

First place: Mo’i

Qualified: Mo’i

Qualified: Mo’i

Woohoo!

One Year!

One year ago today I made the first post to this blog. In that year, this little blog has had just over 10,000 unique visitors (the counter in the green area at far right was started a couple of months after the blog actually started, so it reads a bit low).

For me, the most enjoyable part of blogging is the interactions I’ve had with my readers, in comments and in private emails, and even in some phone calls. Of all the many things I’ve done with the web, this blog has been the most fun by far — largely because of that interactivity, which all of my previous web adventures lacked. Blogging is also an outlet for two of my favorite creative activities: writing and photography. I get to inflict both on the world, and the world can’t do anything about it (except ignore me, of course)! And there have been all sorts of other benefits, like bragging about Debbie and her dog agility adventures (with our two field spaniels, Mo’i and Lea), doing some actual reporting (such as the Jamul Casino groundbreaking ceremony), and getting my political voice heard. It’s been lots and lots of fun, and I have no plans to stop anytime soon…

Of course, that last statement will disappoint some <smile>.

The graph above right shows the number of page views ("hits") on JamulBlog, per month since its inception (February is linearly projected). The general trend is obvious enough, though I think this month will be anomalously high because Michelle Malkin (who has the most popular blog on the web) linked to my blog early in the month, causing a surge in visits. But no matter how I squint at the numbers, the trend is up. When I look more closely at the logs, I see that there are a steadily increasing number of people who visit my blog regularly (thank you!). That number is hard to measure with any precision, as some folks visit several times a day; others visit only once or twice a month.

No author likes anything more than to have his scribblings read. I cherish every one of those visitors, and I’m just tickled pink to see the numbers increasing. Can’t account for it by any rational means, but I sure do like it…

Thanks!

Rain

Just a half-inch or so of rain, but it sure is nice to see it. And the forecast says we might even get a little more!

At far right is the weather radar view from earlier this morning, and immediately at right is our rain gauge readings for the past few days.

As usual, click on the small pictures for a larger view.

Kitten and String

Peaches and cream, bread and butter, kittens and string — all things that just really need to be together.

Maka Lea, the latest feline to join us (we have eight others!), is still in that cute kitten stage. He’s got some problems with his locomotion (more about that here and here, along with more pictures!), but he doesn’t let that bother him in the slightest.

Way on the right, little Maka Lea spots me carrying the camera into the livingroom. He can be hard to find — he’s so small that he fits into the tiniest hidey-holes, and under just about anything. But his curiousity got the better of him this morning — he saw that strange thing in my hands and just had to come see what it was.

Then I took him into the bedroom for one of his favorite games: playing with a short piece of twine. You can see how much he’s enjoying himself; he completely forgot about the camera. Eventually he did the universal kitten-and-string thing, getting himself all wrapped up in it.

It’s interesting to watch Maka Lea deal with his disabilities. Basically his strategy is to ignore them, along with their consequences. He’s bouncy and energetic, even compared with other kittens, and this results in all sorts of incidents that just look awful to us. For example, he might run headlong, at full throttle, into a piece of hard wooden furniture — making a resounding “thunk!” that we can hear on the other side of the house. Maka Lea acts like this is just a normal part of life; shakes his head a couple times, and resumes his headlong, full-throttle galivanting. We’ve seen him up on high places, not knowing how to safely descend. You can see him reach a point where he figures he’s got nothing to lose — can’t stay stuck here all day! — and he just launches himself into space. He might be over a hard rock or ceramic floor, or over a dog, or over some pointy object — it doesn’t matter, he just goes for it and ignores the consequences.

With this positive attitude, little Maka Lea does just about everything the “big kitties” do — even a little earlier, I think, than a normal kitten would do. His utter fearlessness lets him march right up to our dogs (who scatter whenever he comes too close, as they’re leery of getting nailed with Maka Lea’s awesomely sharp little claws). He just seems to have no idea that any action might have consequences; the very opposite of the stereotypical scaredy-cat. It’s good compensation for his disabilities, so long as we keep him strictly indoors (which we do)…

As usual, click on the small pictures for a larger view…

Troubling

Troubling. It seems I keep reading about politicians calling this or that “troubling”. I first wondered if I was imagining things, so I did a little research:

Google the web for “troubling” and you’ll get 27 million hits; google “trouble” and you get 340 million. So troubling isn’t exactly an unusual word, but it’s far from the most common.

Google News, on the other hand, has 8,820 hits for “troubling” at the moment I tried it. I perused the first 100 hits, and the majority of them are in stories related to politics. Not all of them, to be sure, but the clear majority. Ah, ha!

My final experiment was to do four searches on Google News: “troubling hillary-clinton", “troubling harry-reid", “troubling president-bush", and “troubling bill-frist”. The hits, respectively, were 38, 22, 976, and 16. But there’s another pattern, slightly subtler, that’s more interesting: the hits on the two Republicans were almost all about the Republicans, and the hits on the two Democrats were almost all said by the Democrats.

This is very one-sided. Apparently Republicans are very troubling to Democrats.

Then I wondered if I really understood what the word “troubling” meant, so I looked it up:

troubling

adj : causing distress or worry or anxiety

Well, that’s about what I thought it meant.

So why are the Democrats so one-sidedly “troubled” by the Republicans? Not that I’m really troubled by this, I’m just kind of curious about why that word seems to keep popping up.

I googled all sorts of things, trying to find someone who knew the reason; didn’t find a darned thing. So I took the more difficult approach: I sat down and pondered. And here’s what I came up with:

I think this is a conscious effort on the part of the Democrats — a word wouldn’t be so lop-sidedly used, otherwise. The Republicans are, I’m sure, just as troubled by the Democrats as vice versa. Yet they aren’t saying so. That difference can really only be accounted for by a deliberate effort.

If the Democrats are doing it on purpose, why are they? I’ll bet they got some advice from someone they trust, a political strategist most likely. I’ll further bet that they got advice that the word “troubling” is a splendid way to make your political enemy look bad — it’s completely non-specific and can’t really be countered. Think about it: Harry Reid calls the NSA wiretaps “troubling”. What’s President Bush going to say? “No, Harry, they’re not troubling"? Doesn’t work. But anybody listening to Harry Reid hears a respected [did I really say that?] Senator calling President Bush’s actions “troubling”. Sounds bad, doesn’t it?

I think that’s the explanation. When faced with a situation where they have no reasoned, defensible counter-position (something that seems to happen to them with great regularity), the Democrats have deliberately decided to invoke the generic, all-purpose adjective “troubling” to register their non-specific objection, and to convey their concern with the proper gravitas.

I’d like to see the Republicans counter this troubling trend. Everytime a Democrat uses “troubling” to characterize a Republican policy or action, I’d like to see the Republicans challenge the Democrats to articulate and defend their alternative. I don’t hear that enough; instead, the Democrat’s non-specific whining is usually allowed to stand unchallenged, like the mom who ignores her screaming child.

Sometimes the child really does need a good spanking.

Education Matters

My readers (all 11 of them) know how concerned I am by the anti-results, anti-science, touchy-feely culture that pervades our educational system. A report delivered to the National Academies on Thursday provides some concrete evidence that competition in the intellectual arena is heating up. Financed by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which “…strive[s] to foster an environment nationwide in which entrepreneurs have the information and tools they need to succeed” (from their web site), it reports on a survey of over 200 multinational companies. The survey aimed at uncovering the factors that drove outsourcing. Key graf from the press reports:

The study contended that lower labor costs in emerging markets are not the major reason for hiring researchers overseas, though they are a consideration. Tax incentives do not matter much, either, it said.

Instead, the report found that multinational corporations were global shoppers for talent. The companies want to nurture close links with leading universities in emerging markets to work with professors and to hire promising graduates.

In other words, America is no longer the premier source of talent — many other countries now have talent pools that look very attractive to these companies, and the trend is for that to be even more true down the road. When our children get a shoddy, short-changing education, we are as a nation crippled in our ability to compete in this arena. This is the core of what worries me on this issue.

The report’s author also had this to say:

"The United States would seem to have a comparative advantage in maintaining its innovative leadership through the high caliber of its scientists and its strong protection of IP,” said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of Advancing Innovation at the Kauffman Foundation. “Industry and universities must be alert to removing obstacles to joint research, or emerging countries will overtake us in innovation breakthroughs, and the burst of discovery that has been driving our economy for the past half-century will be over."

Another public policy implication of the findings, say the researches, is that the United States must focus on highly skilled worker immigration.

"We are educating the best and the brightest, but make it impossible for them to stay in America and immigrate. We need major immigration reform that welcomes, instead of pushes out, highly skilled workers,” said Dr. Marie Thursby.

That first point, about the collaboration between universities and companies, is new to me … but it certainly makes sense, and it jibes with my own experiences in Estonia. The point about our immigration policies stupidly preventing us from importing talent is one I whole-heartedly agree with. If we can’t educate our own children (through our own mismanagement of the education process), well, the next best thing would be to allow (and encourage!) the world’s best and brightest to become American citizens. Why any current American citizen would object to that is beyond me…

A presentation about this report is available here. The report itself is currently undergoing peer review; when it is actually published I’ll let you know.

Puppy Journal

From Sheila Miller:

So the puppies were born late afternoon/early evening on Sunday. A very civilized time to be born. Let me go on record right now by saying that Picabo is one hell of a brood bitch. I can’t believe how much she has emotionally matured since her first litter almost two years ago. She was a great mom then but so serious. Age and experience have left her very skilled but easy going with the newborns.

It was an easy delivery and easy clean-up. We settled into bed by 11:00 p.m. If you haven’t been around neonate puppies, they mew like kittens. I laid in bed and listened to the sounds they made. They have sounds for “too cold", “too hungry", and “too squished” and one for “just practicing my mew”. They weren’t cold, they weren’t hungry, and they weren’t being squished. They nursed and slept. So then I laid in bed and listened to all the sounds this end of the house makes. There was the ticking of the clock, the rumble of the space heater and further from the bedroom I could hear the whole house ventilation fan and every once in awhile, the fridge. IOW, I didn’t sleep much. One of the things that kept me awake is my new Dura-Whelp whelping box. Since it is winter, I couldn’t buy my reliable $6.00 wading pool and had to buy the $280.00 plastic box. I’m happy enough with the Dura-Whelp though I’m still a bit in shock over the price. The box is held together by Velcro. Every time Picabo would stretch out, I would hear that distinctive tearing sound of Velcro separating. I was positive the whole thing would collapse in the night. It didn’t but the bedding kept shifting.

I am always “sick” for a day or two after a litter is born. This time I really was (still am) sick. Some respiratory virus that has overtaken our school has traveled the whole of my body and settled in my chest (and has turned me into a mouth-breather). I was hoping Monday would be a day of checking on dogs, puppies and sleeping. Monday was spent ironing out the wrinkles of the Dura-Whelp. My main concern was the bedding. The bedding is just a square of synthetic fleece with Velcro sewn in the corners to match the Velcro in the corners of the box. Picabo doesn’t dig much in her box but she does shift her body position. Every shift from her, shifted the bedding. Every shift of the bedding put the puppies at risk of getting caught underneath the bedding or on the cold, slippery surface of the plastic box. I had some Velcro in my sewing box and tried adding more to the edges but its adhesive wouldn’t permanently stick to the plastic. I wasn’t about to use a stronger

adhesive and let those babies inhale the fumes. I had to fix this problem because in just another day, Picabo and her puppies would be on their own all day long. What I came up with was carpet tape. I clean and dry the Dura-Whelp and then place additional squares of carpet tape around the fleeces bedding. It sticks fairly well to the plastic an OK to the fleece. Enough to last the day. When I change the bedding, I just pull off the tape and repeat the process.

Monday night was another short night because Picabo had her post-whelping diarrhea. I would like to know how the other breeders on this list feed their bitches during the first 36 hours after whelping. Mine all get yucky diarrhea as they work out all those consumed placentas from their bodies.

We headed over to Elk Tuesday afternoon for tail docking and dew claw removal. I used to be so conservative about this. I always waited until they were 3 or 4 days old and had definitely put on weight. No more. Picabo’s first litter was docked at 48 hours old and they immediately bounced back. This litter was a few hours shy of 48 hours and each one’s whimpering stopped before the next puppy was docked. It is the most disgusting ordeal to witness but I like the look of a docked tail and they really do recover quickly.

Wednesday I was back in school and Picabo was on her own. I came home to a stinky house as she had a poopy accident (but hit the papers!) in the bedroom. Picabo’s GI tract consumed a lot of my time with her first litter. I am going to stay on top of her digestion this time. I’ve added bran cereal to her diet to help hold her together as she adjusts to the physical stress she is under. It seems to be working so far.

Now it is Friday and these puppies and their mom are just great. OK, I said 2 boys and 1 girl were liver and 2 boys and 1 girl were black. But you really didn’t think they were all black and all liver coming from Cosmo and Picabo did you? LOL

Little Black Boy: White muzzle, white toes on front feet, white chest, and a thin white line between the eyes.

Bigger Black Boy: Dusting of white on nose. White cross on chest.

Liver Boy (AKA the Border Collie): White muzzle, four white feet, white chest, and white spot on the BACK of his neck.

Other Liver Boy: Dusting of white on nose, white chest, white toes on two front feet. This boy is a darker shade of liver than the other two liver puppies. He is also the only puppy in the litter NOT to show bright tan under the tail. Most believe that is a sign the puppy is a carrier for tan markings.

Black Girl (AKA the springer): White muzzle, full white blaze between the eyes, white chest, and four white feet.

Liver Girl: White chin, white chest, and white toes on the two front feet.

The good news is that everyone now has “dirty feet” meaning they are ticking up. I am confident that all of the facial and toe white will fill in. I know that the chest white will decrease in size to just a flash of white. But they sure are cute now. :-)

Debbie is going to stop by my house on Saturday. We will take pictures and I hope to have some up for you to view by Monday.

Sheila Miller

Wolftree Acres

Nevada, USA

Puppy Journal

You’ve read my scribblings about our two field spaniels (Mo’i and Lea). In fact, you’re probably really tired of them <smile>! Well, I’ve got bad news for you: things about about to get worse.

We’re going to have a new field spaniel puppy in a few weeks! That means completely out-of-control field spaniel blogging (with photos!) is just around the corner…

Meanwhile, Sheila Miller will pick up the slack. Sheila is the field spaniel breeder whose inspired matchings produced Mo’i, Lea, and a whole bunch of other beautiful brown dogs. This time, though, they’re not all brown — you see, field spaniels come in variations and mixes of browns, plus black and white.

Picabo just gave birth a few days ago to the litter from which our puppy will come — and that litter, as you can see below, has a variety of colors. A little later Sheila will have the puppies “temperment tested", so we can choose one with a better likelihood of being a good agility dog. I’m hoping that the winner of that contest will be at least partially black — I really like the black, black-and-liver, and black-and-white field spaniels that I’ve seen at shows…

Sheila is writing a “Puppy Journal” on her experiences with this litter, and here’s the first installment:

Sheila Miller’s Puppy Journal:

First, let me thank all of you who have sent private and public congratulations. Its not like me to not reply to an e-mail but I’ve been busy. :-) I appreciate your warm thoughts.

I also want to thank Picabo’s co-owners Debbie Miller and Sandy Burt-Jones for allowing me to lease Picabo. Like Scarlett O’Hara’s line, “I depend on the kindness of others”. LOL

Let’s go back to May 23, 2004 when Picabo whelped her first litter. Her puppies were huge, the time between water breaking and first puppy being born was long, and every puppy was delivered with screams from her. I told myself that I would not lease Picabo again (I’m a wimp when it comes to the pain of others). After the dust settled with that whelping, I told myself that IF I lease her again, then 2006 would be a good year to have puppies.

Picabo’s first litter was sired by Cosmo, son of Spicer and Juno. They are turning out very nicely and I figured I would breed her to a relative of Cosmo’s (half-brother, nephew or cousin). Well, the best laid plans… After the fourth stud dog choice wasn’t going to work out, I found myself with an in-season bitch and nowhere for her to go. So I brought Picabo and Cosmo to the vet for blood tests (brucellosis and thyroid) and made the appointment in Reno for eye checks.

I’ve never repeated a breeding before. I don’t have anything against it. It is just that since I’ve never bred a bitch more than twice in her life, I’ve always chosen different studs just for the genetic variety. The breedings went very well. I would crate all of my dogs for dinner, put Picabo out in the front yard and Cosmo out in the backyard. I would close all the doors to rooms where I didn’t want a breeding to take place and then let the two of them in. They would run around the house while I flipped channels on the TV. When they stopped running, I would go look for them and wait out the tie. What could be easier than that? :-)

Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. I’m getting ready for the whelping by making sure I not only have everything the dam and puppies will need but also everything I will need such as food, paper products, beer, wine, etc. Once the puppies come, I will be a weekend-only shopper.

Wednesday, February 8th. Picabo and I run to Elko after school for her x-ray. Since I live so far from my vet (75 miles) and there aren’t any emergency vet clinics closer than 250 miles, I x-ray my bitches to get an idea of how many and how big to expect. Picabo is water buffalo big but the x-ray only shows 4 puppies. One puppy shows a complete spine, full ribs and head. I ask Dr. Rob if that couldn’t be two puppies overlapped. He said, “Where’s the second head"? OK, good point. So four for sure, maybe, just maybe a fifth. Rob thinks they look good-sized (i.e. big like the first litter). He then tells me that he is leaving the next day (Picabo’s first due date) for a four-day rock climbing trip near Las Vegas. He asked me if I wanted some oxytocin to go. Of course I do. I always have a shot on hand in case I need it. If I don’t need it, then I give it an hour or so after what I think is the last puppy as a clean out shot. He gave me four shots. OH MY GOD. Does he think they will be so big that I will need one per puppy??? Oh, this will be a long weekend by myself.

Even though Thursday is her first due date, I absolutely don’t expect puppies until the weekend at the earliest. Picabo’s first litter taught me that she breeds well before she ovulates. Thursday and Friday go by as normal days for little black water buffaloes.

Saturday is pretty normal too. The only thing I noticed about Picabo is that she crated herself after dinner (not her crate, but Cosmo’s crate). No nesting, just sleeping. She didn’t show any other signs of labor. Her appetite and attitude were both good. She was crated in my bedroom that night and I awoke at 12:00 a.m. to sounds of her digging in her crate. I listened as she flipped her crate pad around and settled back down. I fell asleep. I awoke at 1:00 a.m. to the same sounds. She settled down and I fell asleep. I had a dream…

I dreamt that Picabo easily whelped her puppies. Puppy #1 was a bitch! Unfortunately she was a rather large Bernese Mountain Dog. :-( Puppy #2 was a dog. A big, fat, deadgrass MALE Chesapeake Bay Retriever. A handsome boy but I need another male CBR like I need… Puppy #3 was a bitch! A small bitch! A black bitch! A black bitch with two white stripes down her back??? Puppy #3 was a skunk! LOL Not a puppy marked like a skunk but an actual skunk. It doesn’t take a dream analysts to know that I was worried about the size, sex, and color of these puppies. I awoke again at 2:00 a.m. to sounds of Picabo digging in her crate. Enough was enough. I put all of my dogs outside for a potty break and went into the spare room/office/whelping room and made up the bed in there. By 2:30 a.m., Picabo and I were in bed. She scratched around the whelping box a couple of times then jumped in bed with me. We slept the rest of the night away…

Sunday morning dawned and Picabo’s appetite and attitude were good although once again she crated herself. She had to be in the early stages of labor. She asked to go out with the rest of the dogs around noon. I watched her dig a nest under a bush. By the time I walked to the back door, Picabo was at the front door asking to come in. She came in and went back to bed. Later that afternoon came out all peppy and joined us on a walk (well, more like a waddle). When we came back to the house, I told the dogs we would feed the birds and put out the trash. Picabo said, “groan”. I said, “Picabo was that you"? Again she said, “groan”. The two of went in the house. I admit all I could think about was that I was hungry and wasn’t going to get to eat for awhile. :-) Her water broke and she delivered the first puppy ten minutes later. This was an easy, stress free delivery. Boom, boom, boom. 3 puppies followed and Picabo took it all in stride. I on the other hand, became more depressed with each birth. We were expecting four puppies and the first four were all boys. I crossed my fingers that there would be a fifth but I had to wait about an hour to find out. Boom, boom, two more puppies this time girls!

Here they are in birth order:

black male - 9 ounces

liver male - 13 ounces

liver male - 12 ounces

black male - 10 ounces

black female - 15 ounces

liver female - 14 ounces

These sizes are all normal for FS and very good for little Picabo. They are now four days old and the only puppy who hasn’t yet crossed the one pound threshold is the first black male and he is only an ounce away.

To be continued…

Sheila Miller

Wolftree Acres

Nevada, USA

Promoting Ignorance

Sometimes I have to read something several times to be sure the author was serious. This was one of those, and sadly, the author was serious. From the Washington Post (why do I even go there?):

What Is the Value of Algebra?

I am haunted by Gabriela Ocampo.

Last year, she dropped out of the 12th grade at Birmingham High School in Los Angeles after failing algebra six times in six semesters, trying it a seventh time and finally just despairing over ever getting it. So, according to the Los Angeles Times, she “gathered her textbooks, dropped them at the campus book room and, without telling a soul, vanished from Birmingham High School."

Gabriela, this is Richard: There’s life after algebra.

In truth, I don’t know what to tell Gabriela. The L.A. school district now requires all students to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry in order to graduate. This is something new for Los Angeles (although 17 states require it) and it is the sort of vaunted education reform that is supposed to close the science and math gap and make the U.S. more competitive. All it seems to do, though, is ruin the lives of countless kids. In L.A., more kids drop out of school on account of algebra than any other subject. I can hardly blame them.

This piece was written by Richard Cohen, a well-known liberal columnist.

It turns out, as you read further, that what’s got Mr. Cohen upset is the idea of required subjects (such as algebra) for high school graduation. He objects to the idea of having to pass a test to graduate, as well. The column is specific to Los Angeles, which has such requirements for the first time this year.

I can understand (though I don’t agree with) other arguments I’ve heard against stringent graduation requirements. But Mr. Cohen is definitely thinking out-of-the-box here — his argument is that things like algebra shouldn’t be requirements because they’re not needed!

Oh, my. I posit that Mr. Cohen just doesn’t grasp what his world would be like without algebra. Virtually all the things he takes for granted — technology, cars, medicine, as obvious examples — would all be back in the Stone Age without algebra (amongst other things). As I hope most people understand better than Mr. Cohen apparently does, mathematics underlie an awful lot of things that separate us from the gerbils.

Mr. Cohen goes on to relate how algebra has never once been a requirement for him, once he left school. Well, that may well be, Mr. Cohen — it’s certainly possible to choose a career where no mathematics is required, just as it’s possible to choose a career where no ability to write prose is required. But neither of those statements says a darned thing about the importance of either area of study.

But here’s Mr. Cohen at his most condescending:

Look, Gabriela, I am not anti-algebra. It has its uses, I suppose, and I think it should be available for people who want to take it. Maybe students should even be compelled to take it, but it should not be a requirement for graduation. There are those of you, and Gabriela you are one, who know what it is like to stare at an algebra problem until you have eyeballed a hole in the page and not understand a thing you’re seeing . There are those of us who know the sweat, the panic, the trembling, cold fear that comes from the teacher casting an eye in your direction and calling you to the blackboard. It is like being summoned to your own execution.

"I suppose…” How arrogantly certain he is! And so certain about such a really dumb piece of advice, all projected from his own inability or lack of initiative to learn mathematics. And how typically liberal the notion that the kid’s feelings matter more than actually learning something. I’ve been battling that meme for a long time, which makes it all the more disheartening to see something like this from a prominent columnist…

And if you extrapolate this mindset (which I will remind you is very much like the National Education Association’s mindset), you can confidently predict America as a second-tier country in science and technology, with our leadership lost to those with a more … serious … educational system.