Bad Pet Parenting

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Orb

Do you let your pet sleep with you? It could be hazardous to your health.

“Sometimes we forget that they aren’t our children. They are pets and also they have their own life and there are diseases that can be transmitted,” says veterinarian Bruno Chomel of the University of California’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

Oh joy! More fear-mongering making the rounds about having close contact with one’s pets! Sounds scary, until you read further.

In rare instances, some caught illnesses like the plague, rabies, antibiotic-resistant infections; meningitis; and cat-scratch fever. Others picked up ringworm and intestinal parasites.

If your “pet” has plague, rabies, antibiotic-resistant infections, meningitis, ringworm, or intestinal parasites, you fail at pet parenting and probably deserve to have your pet’s misery passed on to yourself and your family, and you certainly do not deserve to have a pet. Seriously … none of these things is an invisible disease. If your pet has them, you would know, if you pay any attention at all to said pet. If you aren’t paying enough attention to your pet to notice such things, why the hell do you have one?

Texas, the Not-So-Great State

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Orb

Democratic lawmakers denounced the latest version of the state budget on Wednesday, saying it would close 50 percent of the state’s nursing homes and leave 43,700 elderly and disabled people without a facility to live in.

Lawmakers have been struggling to find a solution to the $27 billion revenue shortfall facing the state. Republicans have pledged to cut state spending and not raise revenues.

Not content with destroying what’s left of our educational system and also ensuring more people have less access to basic health care, now they want to toss the old and disabled out onto the streets too … a move that will also lead to the loss of some 60,000 jobs on top of it all. Way to go, Republicans! Texas is well on its way to being a third world country!

BRAVO! WELL DONE!

Texas has long been a generally crappy place to live, if one expects elected officials to give a damn about human beings instead of powerful corporations, but it’s getting worse. Much worse. I didn’t imagine that it could get worse, but it is. No matter what you hear about how awesome it is here, do not move to Texas. Not even Austin. Even Austin is starting to suck. I don’t even want to live here anymore. It pains me to say this, because I have long held a deep love of my state and city, but if I had to predict the future, I’d say that in five years time, it’s entirely possible I won’t be living here anymore. Rick Perry and his wealthy cronies will not be happy until they have squeezed every last dime out of this state and left the rest of us dead and dying on the streets.

And don’t get me started on the fact the state government wants all women seeking an abortion to submit to an transvaginal sonogram^† … even victims of rape and sexual abuse who would, I should think be even more traumatized by being forced to have things inserted into their vaginae. Yes, don’t get me started on this subject, because I will sit here all day cursing your ear off and screaming GET OUT OF OUR VAGINAE!

Going to go read something pleasant now.

Footnotes

† Don’t know what a transvaginal sonogram is? Look it up on Google. Seriously, if I start ranting about it, I won’t be able to stop, and I’m going to try to have a pleasant day today. [↩]

Red, White, and Blue Bulimia

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Orb

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
–Matthew 5:10

In the afternoon, the event had the atmosphere of a July 4 picnic. Many brought lawn chairs and blankets, sang patriotic songs and tied red, white and blue bandanas on their dogs.

American patriotism at its gaudiest, exuberant best. Nothing shows the correctness of the “American Way” like patriotic songs and festooned dogs on an afternoon picnic in the park on a cool spring day … followed by an evening of spewing righteous and hateful vomit in a grand display of red, white and blue bulimia.

“This is not about hate. We are not hate mongers,” said Karen Lugo, one of the speakers outside the community center.

When I stand before you and say you are a wife beating, child molesting, follower of a false god, and an evil-doer who deserves to shown to the afterlife in a timely manner, I am sending a message of pure unfettered love.

One organizer, Steven Amundson of Huntington Beach said, “A week and a half ago I would have been happy to have six people show up. It’s not right for terrorism to come to Yorba Linda. I always stress the need to be peaceful and positive.”

This display of America pride is a glowing example of peacefulness and positivity. Jesus and Jefferson would be proud, wouldn’t they? Viva America!

Look upon the faces of American Patriotism and Judeo-Christian love.

Among the protesters were Rabbi Dov Fischer of Young Israel of Orange County, Irvine Jewish activist Dee Sterling and U.S. Congressmen Ed Royce (R-CA), Gary Miller (R-CA), and Chapman University adjunct professor of law Karen Lugo…

Adding to that list the aforementioned organizer by name of Steven Amundson of Huntington Beach, Pamella Geller, Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly (R), Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie, and any other names I can accumulate as I follow the threads of this story as deeply as I can.

I have yet to watch the full-length video of the speakers at this delightful little afternoon picnic of bigotry and hate, but within the first few minutes, the very first speaker says this will be a day that will live in infamy in Yorba Linda. I’m going to guess she doesn’t know what infamy means, because as it turns out, I believe she is 100% correct. Ill-famed, indeed … or at least one can hope that’s how such disgusting behavior is viewed by more than a small number of my fellow Americans.

Addendum:

“You are not people! You are animals!”

Yes, the people screaming are, in fact, animals. Stupid, stupid animals.

In the News

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Orb

Is it DWI if the driver is sober but the engine is drunk?

This dazzling legal question is occasioned by PubCrawler of Austin, a leg-powered trolley spotted puttering around downtown streets these past several months. Well, not puttering exactly, because that would imply the burning of hydrocarbons and a putt-putt sound arising from the vehicle.

The PubCrawler, despite being larger than many cars, is actually a $38,000 bicycle owned by San Antonio couple Billy and Robin Lund and their neighbor Jennifer Elliott. For a fee, groups (or individuals on Wednesday evenings) can rent it, bring their own booze and make a 5 mph trip around Austin aboard what amounts to a mobile bar.

I have to say that as cute as the idea is, I don’t especially think it’s a great idea to have a bunch of drunk people sitting on open stools drinking and working bike pedals in traffic. Eventually, someone is going to fall off a stool or some other tragedy will happen, and then there will be the wailing and gnashing of teeth about this whole thing. But until then, considering it costs $160-$190 an hour (plus the cost of your booze of choice) to hop aboard the PubCrawler, I’ll be using it to determine who are the people who are lacking in sense and not cash.

***

So I hear Roundup Ready GMO Monsanto nightmare crops might be dangerous to plants and animals (and thus also humans). Say it isn’t so! Really?!

Plant pathologist and retired Purdue University professor Don Huber has written a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warning that a newly discovered and widespread “electron microscopic pathogen appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings.” He said the pathogen appears to be connected to use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.

Of course, Monsanto says it isn’t true. Their crops are totally and completely safe! Look, I’ve gone on about GMO crops in the past, and I am not going to rehash the whole thing. I would not be at all surprised if on top of the other evils brought about by these genetically modified plants (contamination of other farmer’s fields and the danger of monoculture in general), they also are capable of causing illness in plants and animals. If you don’t know how these things are produced, you should do some reading. this story is a relatively good place to start.

***

Kelley Masters heads up the Texas Cottage Food Law group, which is working to get House Bill 1139 passed. Under the bill, people like Higgins would be able to operate as a “Cottage Food Production Operation.” If it passes, people will be able to sell homemade foods like cakes, cookies, pies, bread, snack foods, jams and jellies.

I would very much like this to pass, as it would be nice to legally sell my breads. We’ll have to see if the Texas Legislature can be bothered to even look at it, let alone consider it. They have been entirely too busy dealing with the “emergency” measure to make sure woman have a difficult time getting abortions and eventually, they will have to spend some time on the budget crisis. But still, a girl can hope, right?

***

When parents notice their child has flushed cheeks and is hot to the touch they often anxiously reach for the thermometer to check for a fever and a pain reliever to bring it down. But “fever phobia” may be getting in the way of properly treating children, according to a new study in the medical journal Pediatrics.

I’ve witnessed friends with children panic over a kid’s fever of a couple decimal places over normal, and I do mean panic. I’ve tried to explain to them that a low fever isn’t the enemy or the end of the world and that sometime bringing down a fever too soon is actually detrimental, but due to my not having children, I obviously don’t know what I am talking about. Perhaps, now that doctors are saying it too, they will listen.

It applies to adults as well. Fever is not your enemy. It’s actually your friend. Sure, you don’t want it to get too high for too long, but when one’s body is fighting an infection or other disease, the fever is helping your body win. All those nasty little bugs that make us sick? They are designed to live in a certain temperature range (a.k.a. body temp), and when the body is too cold or too hot, it weakens them, giving the immune system a chance to win. So don’t look at every fever as a bad thing (even though they do make one feel like crap).

That’s how I knew Saturday night I would feel better on Sunday and not be stuck with the flu for days on end. I had the flu nastiness (a little), but I never got a fever, which meant my immune system was winning from the get-go.

***

Since the USA seems to be heading to a government shutdown, if our elected officials can’t agree on a budget, maybe you’d like to know what happens when the federal government shuts down. This list is really only the tip of the iceberg, but it’ll give you some things to ponder. I’ve seen a few of them in my life, and it really is better if we don’t allow the government to close it’s doors, even for a day. It very seriously screws things up.

Link Dump

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Orb

I have a number of browser windows open that have obviously been agitating me enough I can’t seem to close them. I’ll never get around to properly ranting about each one, so time for a link dump!

The videotape of the beating of a black teen burglary suspect last March and has led to the firing and indictment of officers and a flaring controversy.

Mitchell remarked to X, “Defense attorneys and Houston police say it will be tough for the defendants to get a fair trial now that this tape is out there, and they are blaming you specifically for putting this tape out there.”

Just because your client stands a better than average chance of being found guilty doesn’t mean the trial isn’t fair. They were caught on a security camera doing something illegal (and just plain awful). Too freaking bad for them, but good for the public at large. We don’t need these kinds of cops on the streets.

***

A member of link-sharing site Reddit thought he caught a scammer red-handed. He spearheaded a crusade against her, harnessing the power of one of the web’s biggest hiveminds to shut her down. He was wrong. She was fundraising for cancer.

In fact, she was raising funds for childhood cancer research –as am I– but facts be damned and to hell with doing research, Reddit readers jumped at the chance to ruin the life of someone somebody else thought was a scammer. End result? She was made miserable and scared for a while (don’t blame her), but thanks to the news stories and attention raised a lot of money for childhood cancer research. If any huge web site full of frothing mouth morons would like to pull the same stunt on me, please do! I need more donations.

You can see her before and after photos here. She’s just as lovely sans hair as she was with hair.

***

Get ready to pay double or even triple the price for fresh produce in the coming weeks after the worst freeze in 60 years damaged and wiped out entire crops in northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S.

While I am capable of tossing some flannel and plastic over my garden to save it from the hell-like freezing spells we’ve been having, farms can’t really do that. Some of the smaller ones try, but it always ends in some losses or poor plant quality. I’ve noticed the lack of some of the usual produce locally, and there have been things completely missing at the grocery store. Prices have done up a bit, but I imagine they will go up more. It doesn’t take much to mess with our fresh food supply chain, and those two cold fronts that whipped down this way were no small things. REALLY weird and not at all natural. Hope we have seen the last of them.

***

“Curveball” –the Iraqi defector who helped lie us into the war in Iraq– is publicly admitting he lied about the weapons of mass destruction. The whole Iraq War adventure has been nothing but lies, lies, and more lies … and an incredible waste of money that could have been used better right here in the USA.

Now really, I’m going to go knit and watch some MST3K.

About Those Blackouts

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Orb

There has been much hullabaloo in Austin about those so-called rolling blackouts we had across the state of Texas on the coldest day of winter (in fact, several winters). I imagine there’s been much hullabaloo about it in cities across the state. Few things get citizens’ panties in a wad than being without heating during winter, especially when it is discovered only some suffered while others didn’t. Can’t very well expect human beings to sit in their freezing cold homes for a whole day without getting cranky! Can’t very well expect said human beings to just get over it either, especially when every public announcement on the matter only makes the powers-that-be in charge of our power look even worse.

ERCOT, the electrical system’s regulatory group, has admitted they could have done a better job of communicating with the public and with local power companies. It has also been admitted the reason for the lack of adequate power to run our entire state was caused by the gross negligence of power plant operators who –for reasons completely unknown– failed to properly prepare for the extreme cold front we all knew was headed our way (causing plants to go down due to ridiculous things like broken water pipes or frozen gauges). All parties involved have sworn to do better in the future, but I’ll believe it when I see it … in the form of not ever sitting in my home freezing my butt off for an entire day, all because I happen to live in an expendable neighborhood.

On a more local level, Austin Energy, who has also been taking some heat for the fact the blackouts were exclusively focused on a small number of neighborhoods, is also crying mea maxima culpa, and they are coming up with ideas to avoid having residents wanting their heads on a silver platter in the future. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, their ideas to make things right never seem to extend to residents and only to businesses.

Weis said the utility would look for ways to spread the outages more evenly. For instance, he said, “We’re gonna look at whether … we can make arrangements with customers to be a part” of the blackouts voluntarily, perhaps by shutting off their own power. Under that scenario, Austin Energy would negotiate some sort of deal to pay such a customer to keep the lights off during an outage.

Alternatively, the utility could offer a discounted monthly rate to customers on the circuits most likely to be shut down during rolling outages.

Weis said the idea would be difficult to extend to homes because “you’d need a lot of them to make a difference with the amounts of power we’re talking about, and it would be very complicated.”

When he says “customers” he means businesses. Apparently, I –being just a lowly human being living in a home that uses electricity which I pay Austin Energy to use– am not actually a customer. Silly me for ever thinking otherwise, right? But what I want to focus on is the bit I highlighted in bold. Seems to me we know how many homes it takes to make a difference. It takes as many homes as were without power for an entire day on that fateful, cold day of rolling blackouts. They already know which circuits they cut, and they know they will use these same circuits again in the future, if the need arises. There is no great mystery about how many circuits need to go down in order to save the grid or who will be the ones sitting at home freezing their butts off. Sure, some smaller businesses get caught up in that too, but they certainly didn’t cut power to Dell even though it was in a circuit that could have been shut down, because (as they stated) that would have cost Dell downtime and money. So their plan is to provide incentives and retribution for businesses who might have their power involved in rolling blackouts in the future, but screw the working man … or woman, as it may be.

Furthermore, at no small expense to Austin Energy’s customers, fancy new meters were installed a few years ago that communicate instantly with the power company. It’s no longer actually required for me to call them to tell them my power is out (or so they say), because as soon as the power goes out, my super-intelligent meter informs them my home –my exact home– is without power. It also informs them on a very regular, multiple times a day (possibly as low as every 15 minutes) of my exact energy usage (ending the need for meter readers and allowing the energy company to charge me premium rates for my energy usage during high demand periods). For Austin Energy to pretend the two-way communication provided by the mesh network between the power company and the smart meters on homes won’t allow them to make a similar offer of reduced rates or other incentives to humans in homes that they would like to offer to businesses is, in a word, bullshit.

If they can discern between business accounts that have and have not bought into their rolling blackout incentive plan, they can surely also do the same for homes in those 44 effected circuits. Why am I any less important than the restaurant or convenience store down the road? My residential account pays more per kilowatt hour for energy than does a commercial account (though, of course, we use less), and without the residential customers in those 44 circuits, they’d certainly be whining about a loss of revenue. The fact they insist they just can’t possibly come up with a way to make residential customers happy with their service as well (most notably those of us who now know we will always be on the chopping block first) is a loud and clear message to those of us who suffered through that cold day with no heat of exactly where we stand on the ladder. We don’t. We’ll be pushed off at the first sign of a power crisis without so much as a “Sorry! Thank you! Have a fiver for your trouble!”

Yes, I am still cranky about this issue. No one likes to be made to feel they are utterly expendable and completely unimportant, and that’s how I have been made to feel –like I have to make the sacrifice for the greater good without being asked my opinion on the matter or being in some way stroked or compensated for doing so, while paying them for the pleasure. It’s not me making a sacrifice. It’s my home and all the others on those 44 circuits being sacrificed. Tossed into the volcano to appease the angry energy gods. That said sacrifice was necessary due to negligence and incompetence is really just the icing on the crappy cake. I have a right to be cranky about that.

And this brings me to another sore point, though it is one that doesn’t (yet) affect me personally. I’m a middle-aged woman in decent enough health, and being without electricity for a day and feeling cold isn’t going to immediately do me any great harm. Oh, it’s unpleasant to be sure, but health-wise, it likely won’t kill me. What about people like my dad who had to have supplemental oxygen created by an electrically powered machine and required drugs dispensed by an electrically powered machine? His emergency tank of oxygen would have lasted 3-4 hours, and then what? He’d have had to go to the emergency room in order to breath and continue living. What about other ill persons using all manner of electrically powered machines in their homes to maintain their health (if not their very lives)? What about home-bound senior citizens who are very prone to feeling the effects of the cold and who are incapable of leaving their homes to seek somewhere warmer to wait it out? What about the weakest among us?

I haven’t heart anyone talking about this particular angle of the rolling blackouts. The sick and the elderly (and the sick elderly most especially) can die quite quickly from a lack of electricity for medical devices and/or the lack of heating/cooling. Some of them are literally trapped in their homes, incapable of leaving without assistance. Had I not had an all-gas stove with which to supply some warmth in my home, I would have had to abandon it by noon. The outside and inside temperatures were quickly equalizing, and the ten minutes an hour of power I was receiving did nothing to change that. In fact, those ten minutes every hour really just seemed like a cruel joke. Here, have some power… HA HA! NOT! It gave the furnace just enough time to realize it needed to turn itself on, to fire up the heaters and blowers and start blowing heat, and then no more power. Also gave me just enough time for the cable box to reboot, the TV to come on, and for me to get a few minutes of news and weather. If I was wearing every piece of warm clothing I had and was huddled by the open oven door by late afternoon, how do you think the sick and elderly, many who will not have all-gas stoves or all gas heat, fared under those conditions? I’m guessing not well, yet no one is talking about it, which leads me to believe no one really cares very much.

This is another point where their lack of good communication skills comes into play. The sick and elderly –and those who love them– can make other arrangements for their care and comfort if they know what’s going on. Between listening to the radio, catching what local TV news I could, and my (somewhat limited) connection to the internet through my cell phone, it was well into afternoon that day before I knew what was going on … that the blackouts were not only planned but targeted to specific neighborhoods. Now, I’m a smart girl, and I’d already noticed the pattern of ten minutes on and fifty minutes off earlier in the day and suspected the blackouts were not a normal foul weather grid malfunction. I definitely sensed an intelligence (snort) behind it. Simply not random enough to be anything other than intentional. Even the people I know locally who were not suffering blackout conditions couldn’t tell me what was going on, because no one was saying anything about it other than that Texas was having a power crisis. With all my ability to receive information, I still didn’t know what was going on and how long it might last. Now imagine I was someone less connected, sick or elderly or both, and sitting in a house that is growing colder and has been dark more than not. How do I decide or know I need to seek warmer shelter elsewhere or proceed to the hospital? Why wouldn’t I think “The power is trying to come back on. I’m sure it’ll come back on for good any minute now!” even though the truth was that it wouldn’t be coming back on for good at any minute. It was going to be more off than on for the day (and I hear in some cases more than a day).

I don’t know how ERCOT and Austin Energy is going to solve the problem of better communication (though they knew days in advance these rolling blackouts might be necessary – so maybe just freaking announcing it immediately on all news sources would be a good start) or how they can make things right for those of us who are slated to always be on the chopping block first during an energy crisis, but they better figure out something. I don’t mind being asked to sacrifice my own comfort for the greater good (for a limited time) when absolutely necessary, but I would like to be ASKED or –at the very least– be made to feel like I am worth asking and making nice with after the fact. They know the meter ID of every meter in every circuit that has and will again be subject to rolling blackouts, and something needs to be done to communicate better with those persons (and businesses) and to make sure we don’t feel like virgins being fed to the dragon just for living in the wrong zip code.

And the next time I’m sitting in my home with ten minutes of power out of every sixty and either freezing or being baked (this could happen during the summer as well, when our electrical usage is even higher), I believe I will start a Twitter campaign t o get everyone likewise suffering rolling blackouts to meet up at the Dell lobby, where I hear the temperature is guaranteed to always be perfect for human life forms and the power will never fail.