Abuse of power

I just read a blog entry at http://www.anomalousdata.com, and I feel the need to spread the word.

This is a video of a professor, taking part in a peaceful protest in Miami, being shot by cops in riot gear with rubber bullets. Not only did the cops feel the need to attack unarmed citizens, but their superior was on tape congratulating them for it.

Here is a news article at ABC talking about it.

Growing up in a midsized town in America's Heartland, I grew up respecting police officers and viewing them as protectors (except for when they are writing me speeding tickets). Abuses of power like this shake that faith in them. Imagine what it does for people raised with a wariness of law enforcement! Steps should be taken to discipline the officers involved in this!

Ratboy dreams

Ratboy is twitching in his sleep. I wonder what he is dreaming about.

The many places of Chaos

Here is a sampling of the many places where Chaos has been today.

Sight? Smell?

I'm starting to wonder if Fuzzball is missing one of her food locating capacities. She seems to have difficulty finding the treat on my hand when I hold it out in front of her. Chaos has no such difficulties.

Fuzzball's annoying habits

Fuzzball has some annoying habits:

1) Although she's gotten better about it, she doesn't always use the litterbox, if an empty corner presents itself.

2) She digs food out of the food dish and onto the floor. Some of it she eats. The rest just sits there waiting to be stepped on.

3) She rattles the cage. She was able to open the cage a couple of times, because I only had one bulldog clip keeping it locked. Now that there are three bulldog clips on the cage doors, she still tries to open them, though without success. She simply makes a lot of noise. This is fine for me, since it's not too strongly audible in my bedroom, despite sleeping with my door open. However, that means that no one would be really happy sleeping on my couch. Since I'm having two guests this week, I called James and got his permission to let them sleep in his otherwise empty apartment.

Ever get the feelin' you was bein' watched?

Ratboy lies in wait in his lair. He acts like he's just hanging out, minding his own business; but as soon as I stand up and walk towards to the door, he's right on my heels!

Random thought from a lazy housekeeper

One would think that it would be unnecessary to sweep/mop the floor with ferrets running around. I mean, really! Don't they just look like they should do the job?

Don't worry! I'll keep this box in line!

Grrrr! Take that, Box!





Did someone call?

Police in bad neighborhoods

It occured to me as I was walking to the bus this morning, that it would be good to introduce police officers to young children in a non-threatening, enjoyable environment. I think that it is a big problem in "problem neighborhoods", that children grow up hearing the police refered to as the enemy. It would probably help to put a human face on the officers. I suspect that this would lead to more respect and less fear on the part of statistically underpriveleged children growing into adults.

Found him.

Can you find the ferret in this picture? Isn't he cute? :)











For the sake of equal coverage, here's Fuzzball eating.

Another government laptop stolen

I just heard that a second government laptop has been stolen. The first was a laptop of a Veterans Administration employee, who had taken home personal data on his computer without authorization. The fear was that the data would be sold, but I think the computer was recovered.

Now a DoT computer has been stolen out of a government car. It also has personal data of many different drivers on it.

My thought is that all the press given to the first case prompted someone to steal a laptop with the specific goal of selling the info on it.

I guess this brings up the question of how much press is too much. On the one hand, it was important to inform the public about the theft so that potential identity theft victims could take the proper action. On the other hand, there was so much press that it probably gave a lot of otherwise uninformed thieves the information needed to plan to steal a laptop for this purpose.

Safe to go outside again

I had let the ferret anti-parasite medicine lapse for about a week. Today, I did the right thing and went out and bought Revolution for them. It's made for dogs and cats, but works for ferrets too to keep all the nasties off/out of them. Now they can again frolic outside.

Theoretically, I could use one kitten dose (under 5 lb) for the both of them, since they both weight about 2 lbs, , but somehow, I can never split it exactly in half, even with a needle and syringe, and I'm afraid of not getting enough of the stuff on them. Therefore, I just broke down and bought two doses at $12.50 each. The little dears are expensive! Fortunately, I only need to give them this stuff in the summer. Summer is also more expensive because of the AC bill.

It was Fuzzball, in the hallway, with brute strength

Well, I've come to the conclusion, that it was almost certainly Fuzzball who was responsible for the ferret escape yesterday. In fact, it might have been her last week too. I've heard her rattling the door on the cage a lot, and this morning, I got this picture of her from afar. Chaos is just chilling out.




Now there are three bulldog clips on each of the big doors instead of just one.





Here they are looking innocent as I was getting ready to walk out the door for work.

thirsty babies

I came home, slipped on a plastic bag in the hall that I didn't rememeber leaving there, and then saw that either a tornado or a ferret had been through my bathroom. Somehow, the ferrets got out. (And I think Chaos was in the plastic bag, just millimeters away from where I stepped and slipped.) The bottom cage door was open, and the clip that I use to keep it locked wasn't where I usually leave it when I open the door. I thought that maybe Tiffany had been over to let them out and had forgotten to close the door to the cage, but she said that she hadn't even been over. So, either I somehow forgot to close the door (which is only a doubtful proposition due to the odd location of the clip and the fact that they were already active in the cage this morning when I left and would have probably already gotten out before I got up this morning had the door been open), or they've figured out how to open the door themselves. I think that I'll put an extra bulldog clip on the big doors from now on.

Anyway, their water dish in the kitchen was bone-dry, so they hadn't had anything to drink for a while. I filled up the dish and here's a picture of them re-hydrating.

Ratboy and his box fetish

I don't know why, but Chaos really enjoys chewing on box flaps. He'll climb into a box, lie down and scratch at it for a while and then he'll start chewing holes in the flaps. Whenever it gets too swiss-cheesed, I have to cut away the chewed up stuff so that he doesn't swallow it, since that could lead to a hospital visit. It seems to make him happy, though, so I let him have his fun.

My manager and the apron I made

Here's a picture of my manager, Andi. She's sporting the apron that I made for her so that she wouldn't have to wear a bodice. It has ties at about waist level and under the arms, though I think the ones under the arms could stand to be dropped a couple of inches.














Since I hadn't measured her before starting and didn't have a pattern to go off of, it needed a bit of alteration on site. I put in a little pleat/dart in the back to pull the shoulder straps closer together and also had to fold the straps over themselves to shorten them, since they weren't pulled tight enough when it was being put together. All in all, though, it turned out pretty well.

There are two...honest!

I just had to take a photo. There was Chaos in plain sight, and Fuzzball sleeping curled up in the blanket.

Dutch dislike doggie doo

Nederlander ergert zich minder aan hondenpoep

Hondenpoep op straat blijft ergernis nummer één in
Nederland, maar steeds minder mensen storen zich er
aan. Dat blijkt uit de Gemeentelijke Belevingsmonitor
2006. De onderzoekers vroegen bijna zeventienhonderd
mensen naar de grootste ergernissen in hun woonplaats.
Bijna een derde van de ondervraagden ergert zich aan
hondenpoep, vorig jaar was dat nog 41 procent. Ook
storen mensen zich minder aan asociaal gedrag in het
verkeer. Dat percentage daalde van 32 vorig jaar tot
27 nu. Andere ergernissen zijn de problemen met parkeren
in de woonwijk en in het centrum, en de verkeersdrukte.

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Bron:
Nieuwsservice van Radio Nederland Wereldomroep

Editie: Nederlands Nieuws, 26 juli 2006
http://www.rnw.nl/

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Dutch less bothered by dog droppings

Dog droppings on the street are still the number one annoyance in the Netherlands; however less people are bothered by it. This is according to the Gemeentelijke Belevingsmonitor 2006. The researchers asked almost 17 hundred people about the greatest annoyances in their living space. Almost a third of the respondents were bothered by dog droppings, last year it was at 41 percent. People are also less bothered by asocial behavior in traffic. That percentage decreased from 32 percent last year to 27 now. Other annoyances are the problems with parking in the neighborhood and downtown, and the heavy traffic.

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Source:
New Service of Radio Nederland Wereldomroep
Edition: Nederlands Nieuws, 26 July 2006
http://www.rnw.nl/

Americans flip out about breast and Germans write about it

A German friend of mine sent me this link: http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,430162,00.html

Apparently, Babytalk magazine decided to do a title article about breastfeeding, and included this "shocking" photo on the front page.

I'm not sure what is worse; the American women, who wrote in to complain about it, or the German news picking up on it and highlighting the absolute prudes in our country. One woman said that she had to rip off the front cover and hoped that her husband hadn't seen it! According to the article, of the 5000 who wrote about the picture, most liked it, and about a quarter complained.

It's a baby feeding. Deal! It's really not all that different than what's shown in these pictures from the Nordstrom selection of swimwear. Of course, the women who wrote in about the baby & breast would probably also be offended by these bikini tops.

Israel and Palestine

If I had my druthers, there would be mandatory student exchanges between Israel and Palestine. This would serve a dual purpose:

1) People are less likely to attack places where their children are.

2) Individuals need to meet individuals. As long as the Israelis see the Palestinians as the dehumanized "other" and the Palestinians also see the Israelis the dehumanized "other", there can be no peace. Individuals need to talk to other individuals to see that they really aren't all that different from one another.

The culture of hate needs to be dealt with at an early age. Children need to learn not to hate thousands of people they've never met.

Israel also needs to end the institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews. Until everyone is treated as an equal citizen, there will always be strife.

Ferret News

Well, I came home this afternoon and felt a little furry lighningbolt brush up against my ankle. Last night, Katrina and I put the little dears away and made sure to close both the top door and bottom door. However, we missed the side door. So, at some point, the little dears woke up and started wandering around the apartment, getting Lord only knows where. At least I didn't find any unwanted presents, though the toilet brush had been knocked over and the phone next to my bed was off the hook.

Katrina held the ferrets for me yesterday while I clipped their nails. Fuzzball seems to really like her voice, because she almost didn't struggle at all. Mom says that I should get a recording of Katrina talking to Fuzzball to use in future nail-clipping sessions.

There's something about the way that Fuzzball smells that reminds me of corn tortillas.

Fuzzball living in luxury

Well, Fuzzball likes to live well. She found a couple of my silk scarves that had fallen off of the table to curl up in. Isn't she cute???