"Your Little Purring Murderer"

I am sure that many of us who have cats and let them outside have fancied the idea of having a cat-cam on them to see what kind of mischief they get into, and it seems that an official study has been done using this idea, and the results are about as ugly as you hate to imagine:

About 30 percent of the sampled cats were successful hunters and killed, on average, two animals a week. Almost half of their spoils were abandoned at the scene of the crime. Extrapolating from the data to include the millions of feral cats brutalizing native wildlife across the country, the American Bird Conservancy estimates that kitties are killing more than 4 billion animals annually. And that number's based on a conservative weekly kill rate, said Robert Johns, a spokesman for the conservancy. "We could be looking at 10, 15, 20 billion wildlife killed (per year)," Johns said.

They strongly recommend that we keep our cats indoors, but unless you raised your cats indoors, this hardly seems like a practical idea. My cats would regard it as torture and would lodge a complaint at the U.N. Besides, we like the idea of our cats keeping down the rat population. I worry more about them getting sick from what they are eating. Even worse, it's not like cats are not at risk. Dogs dominate these streets, and it seems to me that cats need nine lives just to maintain parity. I regard them as half-wildlife and simply hope for the best.

(Source: Sully's Dish)

"Your Little Purring Murderer"

I am sure that many of us who have cats and let them outside have fancied the idea of having a cat-cam on them to see what kind of mischief they get into, and it seems that an official study has been done using this idea, and the results are about as ugly as you hate to imagine:

About 30 percent of the sampled cats were successful hunters and killed, on average, two animals a week. Almost half of their spoils were abandoned at the scene of the crime. Extrapolating from the data to include the millions of feral cats brutalizing native wildlife across the country, the American Bird Conservancy estimates that kitties are killing more than 4 billion animals annually. And that number's based on a conservative weekly kill rate, said Robert Johns, a spokesman for the conservancy. "We could be looking at 10, 15, 20 billion wildlife killed (per year)," Johns said.

They strongly recommend that we keep our cats indoors, but unless you raised your cats indoors, this hardly seems like a practical idea. My cats would regard it as torture and would lodge a complaint at the U.N. Besides, we like the idea of our cats keeping down the rat population. I worry more about them getting sick from what they are eating. Even worse, it's not like cats are not at risk. Dogs dominate these streets, and it seems to me that cats need nine lives just to maintain parity. I regard them as half-wildlife and simply hope for the best.

(Source: Sully's Dish)

Cornel West

“I cannot be an optimist, but I am a prisoner of hope.”

-- Cornel West

Cornel West

“I cannot be an optimist, but I am a prisoner of hope.”

-- Cornel West

Cowboy Land

Thirty gun-toting activists protested a public library’s concealed carry policy this week, startling the patrons inside by taking the demonstration — and guns — indoors. The protesters had taken offense to a single sentence explaining the rule: “Carrying concealed weapons is prohibited, except as permitted by law.”

Philip Van Cleave, the organizer of the protest and President of Virginia Citizens Defense League, compared the library’s gun “discrimination” to racially discriminating against African-Americans:

“What if they had said “We don’t allow African-Americans, except if allowed by law. Would that be okay? I don’t think so… [The rule] implies that no one is allowed to protect themselves on the property.”

-- News-LJ

There really isn't a lot of mystery why America is such a violent country. We still fancy the wild west days. We would like to walk around with cowboy gun holsters around our waists, and be able to settle a fight by stepping outside and drawing, and go around shooting down Indians and other darkies.

Cowboy Land

Thirty gun-toting activists protested a public library’s concealed carry policy this week, startling the patrons inside by taking the demonstration — and guns — indoors. The protesters had taken offense to a single sentence explaining the rule: “Carrying concealed weapons is prohibited, except as permitted by law.”

Philip Van Cleave, the organizer of the protest and President of Virginia Citizens Defense League, compared the library’s gun “discrimination” to racially discriminating against African-Americans:

“What if they had said “We don’t allow African-Americans, except if allowed by law. Would that be okay? I don’t think so… [The rule] implies that no one is allowed to protect themselves on the property.”

-- News-LJ

There really isn't a lot of mystery why America is such a violent country. We still fancy the wild west days. We would like to walk around with cowboy gun holsters around our waists, and be able to settle a fight by stepping outside and drawing, and go around shooting down Indians and other darkies.

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov has written up for the Wall Street Journal his rude encounter with the cops during the protest over the Pussy Riot verdict, taking his best shot at the Putin government.


_ _ _

Mr. Putin is not worried about what the Western press says, or about celebrities tweeting their support for Pussy Riot. These are not the constituencies that concern him. Friday, the Russian paper Vedomosti reported that former Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann could be put in charge of managing the hundreds of billions of dollars in the Russian sovereign wealth fund. As long as bankers and other Western elites eagerly line up to do Mr. Putin's bidding, the situation in Russia will only get worse.

If officials at the U.S. State Department are as "seriously concerned" about free speech in Russia as they say, I suggest they drop their opposition to the Magnitsky Act pending in the Senate. That legislation would bring financial and travel sanctions against the functionaries who enact the Kremlin's agenda of repression. Mouthing concern only reinforces the fact that no action will be taken.

Mr. Putin could not care less about winning public-relations battles in the Western press, or about fighting them at all. He and his cronies care only about money and power. Today's events make it clear that they will fight for those things until Russia's jails are full.

-- Garry Kasparov at The Wall Street Journal

_ _ _

I imagine that he writes in the bitter understanding that nothing is going to change for the better, that billions of dollars will trump humanitarian principles and the welfare of the masses every time. It's not just Russia. This is true for the whole world over. In light of what Wall Street has been getting away with, this is obviously true of America as well. Mr. Kasparov is up there in age and presumably enjoys a comfortable level of wealth of his own. Instead of beating his head against the iron wall, maybe he should just relax and enjoy what life he has left.

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov has written up for the Wall Street Journal his rude encounter with the cops during the protest over the Pussy Riot verdict, taking his best shot at the Putin government.


_ _ _

Mr. Putin is not worried about what the Western press says, or about celebrities tweeting their support for Pussy Riot. These are not the constituencies that concern him. Friday, the Russian paper Vedomosti reported that former Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann could be put in charge of managing the hundreds of billions of dollars in the Russian sovereign wealth fund. As long as bankers and other Western elites eagerly line up to do Mr. Putin's bidding, the situation in Russia will only get worse.

If officials at the U.S. State Department are as "seriously concerned" about free speech in Russia as they say, I suggest they drop their opposition to the Magnitsky Act pending in the Senate. That legislation would bring financial and travel sanctions against the functionaries who enact the Kremlin's agenda of repression. Mouthing concern only reinforces the fact that no action will be taken.

Mr. Putin could not care less about winning public-relations battles in the Western press, or about fighting them at all. He and his cronies care only about money and power. Today's events make it clear that they will fight for those things until Russia's jails are full.

-- Garry Kasparov at The Wall Street Journal

_ _ _

I imagine that he writes in the bitter understanding that nothing is going to change for the better, that billions of dollars will trump humanitarian principles and the welfare of the masses every time. It's not just Russia. This is true for the whole world over. In light of what Wall Street has been getting away with, this is obviously true of America as well. Mr. Kasparov is up there in age and presumably enjoys a comfortable level of wealth of his own. Instead of beating his head against the iron wall, maybe he should just relax and enjoy what life he has left.

Little Cubbies

Little Cubbies

Atlas Shrugged (2) REARDEN STEEL

We open chapter two, which may be considered the Hank Rearden chapter. Aside from Dagny Taggart, Hank is the first proper model of what a person should be in the ideal Ayn Rand world. He is a self-sufficient producer who has created himself and his wealth. He is a miner and master of raw materials, and critical to this novel, he has just invented Rearden metal: “a metal alloy that would do more than steel had ever done, a metal that would be to steel what steel had been to iron”. He happens to be cooking up his first batch of his new metal for commercial use, filling an order for Dagny and Taggart Transcontinental Railroad.

We come to Rearden territory riding on the train, naturally, and it is from this perspective that we are introduced to the man and the place. The normal and ordinary passengers can hardly comprehend the industrial complexity of the plant they are looking upon, and a professor and a journalist are dismissive and derisive of the individual, both in the abstract and of Rearden in particular, thus espousing the anti-Randian perspective, the common opinion of society, against which Ayn Rand is railing, for whom there is no worthy society without great individuals.


_ _ _

The passengers could not grasp the complexity of what seemed to be a city stretched for miles, active without sign of human presence. They saw towers that looked like contorted skyscrapers, bridges hanging in mid-air, and sudden wounds spurting fire from out of solid walls. They saw a line of glowing cylinders moving through the night. The cylinders were red-hot metal.

An office building appeared, close to the tracks. The big neon sign on its roof lighted the interiors of the coaches as they went by. It said: REARDEN STEEL.

A passenger, who was a professor of economics, remarked to his companion: “Of what importance is the individual in the titanic collective achievement of our industrial age?” Another, who was a journalist, made a note for future use in his column: “Hank Rearden is the kind of man who sticks his name on everything he touches. You may, from this, form your own opinion about the character of Hank Rearden.”

-- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged (2) REARDEN STEEL

We open chapter two, which may be considered the Hank Rearden chapter. Aside from Dagny Taggart, Hank is the first proper model of what a person should be in the ideal Ayn Rand world. He is a self-sufficient producer who has created himself and his wealth. He is a miner and master of raw materials, and critical to this novel, he has just invented Rearden metal: “a metal alloy that would do more than steel had ever done, a metal that would be to steel what steel had been to iron”. He happens to be cooking up his first batch of his new metal for commercial use, filling an order for Dagny and Taggart Transcontinental Railroad.

We come to Rearden territory riding on the train, naturally, and it is from this perspective that we are introduced to the man and the place. The normal and ordinary passengers can hardly comprehend the industrial complexity of the plant they are looking upon, and a professor and a journalist are dismissive and derisive of the individual, both in the abstract and of Rearden in particular, thus espousing the anti-Randian perspective, the common opinion of society, against which Ayn Rand is railing, for whom there is no worthy society without great individuals.


_ _ _

The passengers could not grasp the complexity of what seemed to be a city stretched for miles, active without sign of human presence. They saw towers that looked like contorted skyscrapers, bridges hanging in mid-air, and sudden wounds spurting fire from out of solid walls. They saw a line of glowing cylinders moving through the night. The cylinders were red-hot metal.

An office building appeared, close to the tracks. The big neon sign on its roof lighted the interiors of the coaches as they went by. It said: REARDEN STEEL.

A passenger, who was a professor of economics, remarked to his companion: “Of what importance is the individual in the titanic collective achievement of our industrial age?” Another, who was a journalist, made a note for future use in his column: “Hank Rearden is the kind of man who sticks his name on everything he touches. You may, from this, form your own opinion about the character of Hank Rearden.”

-- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand

Camus

“In the psychological experience of nothingness, it is by the consideration of what will happen in two thousand years that our own nothingness truly takes on meaning.”

-- Camus

Most of us, of course, do not need to consider so far into the future as 2,000 years to taste the bitter ashes of our nothingness and insignificance. Indeed, some of us do not even have to contemplate our death at all. We can experience it in full right now in the flesh. It's a strange feeling, kind of ghostly and floating, as of a mind that is barely held down by our loathsome carcass, a mind that is itself dimming and fading.

Camus

“In the psychological experience of nothingness, it is by the consideration of what will happen in two thousand years that our own nothingness truly takes on meaning.”

-- Camus

Most of us, of course, do not need to consider so far into the future as 2,000 years to taste the bitter ashes of our nothingness and insignificance. Indeed, some of us do not even have to contemplate our death at all. We can experience it in full right now in the flesh. It's a strange feeling, kind of ghostly and floating, as of a mind that is barely held down by our loathsome carcass, a mind that is itself dimming and fading.