I Believe This Makes All Three Major Newspapers in Town

First the City Paper had a nice piece about Faith/Doubt and now the Scene.

More on ‘Dangerous Dogs’

Yes, I should let this go.  No, I’m not going to.

Here are some pertinent facts:  In 2001 there were 68 million dogs in the United States.  There were 4.7 million dog bites, 799,700 of which required medical care and 333,700 of those required patients being treated in the emergency room.  In any given year, there are 25 fatalities from dog bites.

According to the CDC’s data, “pit bulls” (with the usual caveats) accounted for most fatal dog bites in 1988 and since then, the numbers of fatal attacks they’ve been included in has diminished.  Rottweilers, on the other hand, account for a growing number of fatal bites.  However, as noted on Wikipedia, in 1982, there were 9,000 registered Rottweilers in the U.S., but by 1996, there were 90,000 registered Rottweilers.  Of course, not all dogs are AKC registered, but we can extrapolate that the breed has become more popular and as its popularity has risen, so have the incidents of fatalities.

In 1982, there were no fatal attacks by Rottweilers.  The next year, there was 1.  In 1996, with ten times as many Rottweilers in the country we find there are ten times as many attacks–10.

It’s harder to estimate how many “pit bulls” are in the U.S., since the term covers five or six specific breeds, and any number of fighting dogs who aren’t purebred and any number of dogs that aren’t registered.  But in 1996, these five or six breeds, their fighting cousins, and whatever mutts were lumped in with them accounted for three deaths.

It is impossible to tell by looking at the breed of a dog whether it’s going to be dangerous.

However, the CDC links to a study that does look at what factors seem to be accurate predictors of how violent a dog might be.  Most dogs involved in serious attacks are male, intact, young, and big.  They are also likely to be chained while in the yard (which I would guess indicates they aren’t well socialized).

I eagerly await a push to ban male, intact big dogs, seeing as how they are so dangerous and how the public desperately needs protecting from every potentially dangerous thing there is.

Going to the Bank with the Butcher

It will shock you all to learn that the Butcher does not have a bank account.  It will shock you more to learn that the reason he doesn’t have a bank account is that he "doesn’t want to leave a paper trail." 

That man cracks me up.

So, we had to go to my bank so that we could do our usual "The Butcher signs his check over to me and I take all his money."  Seriously, a girl could get used to that being the usual.

Sadly, all that money’s going to pay off the credit card debt he helped me accumulate, so there’s no grand shower of wonderful, useless junk.

Also, Much Love for the Uncle

While I have been arguing that allowing gay people to get married would benefit all Tennesseans by civilizing a certain goon in our midst, Say Uncle, again, comes through with the thoughtfulness.

Best line?

Believe it or not, not everything I’ve done in a bedroom can lead to having kids.

Oh, crazy gun nut libertarians, of all the conservatives, you are my favorites.

Lindsay Says It Better than Me

Just before we get started, I wonder about all these Lindsays on the internet down here.  When I was growing up, the only Lindsay I knew was the Butcher’s age.  Girls my age were all named Jennifer.  Where are all these Lindsays coming from?

Anyway, Lindsay makes a beautiful and smart post about the ‘mommy wars’ and the class issues lying just under the surface.

In other fun feminist news, Chris Wage attempts to post about the other raging war in feminism at the moment–the great blow job war of 2006–and I give him a hard time and Amanda totally has my back.  Let me just say that Amanda is just the gutsiest motherfucker I have ever met.  I aspire to be half as bad ass as her.  And, keeping with all the Amanda love, if you’re looking for a good take down of the article with an explanation of what Twisty is up to, check out Amanda Marcotte’s piece.

Also, via Pandagon, Angela Merkel demonstrates how to appropriately respond when some jackass you barely know sneaks up behind you and grabs you on the shoulders.

Other shit is possibly going on in feminism today, but I am not the last word in feminist thought, so I don’t know what it is.

Holy shit!  I just realized that, since I am old enough to find grouching about the weather to be a fine subject for a blog post, these Lindsays could all very well be the Butcher’s age.  Wow and hmmm.

The Weather

Fuck me, it’s hot out.  Already.  Mrs. Wigglebottom and I came back from our walk and both just had to stand in front of the air vent and let the coolness blow on us.

The thermometer says 77, but I think that’s a count of how many minutes it takes before you don’t feel like you are about to die after coming in out of this stuff.

Everything has a kind of brownish haze.  It’s just nasty.

And, with this post, complaining about the weather, I have officially sunk to a new low of old-people-ish behavior. 

Guess What I Just Saw!

So, there were all these pops and the dog was shaking and I thought, "God damn it, they’re shooting at each other again" and so I cracked open the door, just a touch, to see if I needed to call the cops.

And there, over the interstate, were fireworks!  So close I could hear them sizzle before they exploded!

What the fuck?!  How marvelous is that?

The First Two Don’t Count

I’ll give you three guesses as to whose landlord is mowing her lawn on the hottest day of the year.