The Sh*t L*st

Mr. Millan brings his pastiche of animal behaviorism and pop psychology into millions of homes a week. He’s a charming, one-man wrecking ball directed at 40 years of progress in understanding and shaping dog behavior and in developing nonpunitive, reward-based training programs, which have led to seeing each dog as an individual, to understand what motivates it, what frightens it and what its talents and limitations are. Building on strengths and working around and through weaknesses, these trainers and specialists in animal behavior often work wonders with their dogs, but it takes time.

The notion of the "alpha pack leader" dominating all other pack members is derived from studies of captive packs of unrelated wolves and thus bears no relationship to the social structure of natural packs, according to L. David Mech, one of the world’s leading wolf experts. In the wild, the alpha wolves are merely the breeding pair, and the pack is generally comprised of their juvenile offspring and pups.

More important, aggression often has underlying medical causes that might not be readily apparent — hip dysplasia or some other hidden physical ailment that causes the dog to bite out of pain; hereditary forms of sudden rage that require a medical history and genealogy to diagnose; inadequate blood flow to the brain or a congenital brain malformation that produces aggression and can only be uncovered through a medical examination. Veterinary behaviorists, having found that many aggressive dogs suffer from low levels of serotonin, have had success in treating such dogs with fluoxetine (the drug better known as Prozac).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
(Score:5, Insightful)
by Atario (673917) on Thursday August 10, @07:49PM (#15886395)

Airline security is a joke. And it's on us.

Next attack attempt: weapons/substances smuggled in via anally-inserted container

Response: All passengers must submit to anal probe prior to takeoff. You may request a same-sex examiner, but it may delay you further.

Next attack attempt: weapons/substances swallowed, produced in-flight either by regurgitation or timed bowel movement

Response: All passengers must submit to a 24-hour fasting/emetic/diuretic/laxative regimen before takeoff. Water will be provided; outside drinks not allowed. You must use the provided toilet facilities to ensure proper testing/inspection of waste.

Next attack attempt: a team of guys trained to bite effectively

Response: All passengers must have all teeth removed prior to takeoff. There will be two dentists on duty per airport to process the unprepared, but lines will be long, so plan ahead.

Next attack attempt: regular old martial arts

Response: Seats eliminated; all passengers shall be assigned a sealed 3' x 3' x 8' pen and will be locked in for duration of flight.

Next attack attempt: guys wait near airports with surface-to-air rockets

Response: All buildings/cities/people removed from all airports to a distance of five miles, and land paved (and landfill created, if near water); round-the-clock patrols and spotters emplaced, with orders to shoot on sight anyone straying from the single barbed-wire/barrier-encrusted access road.

Next attack attempt: bomb detonated and/or machine guns deployed in by-now immense crowd waiting to get through initial security checkpoint

Response: ????

How far does this idiocy go before we decide there must be a better way, folks? Hm?
--
Foreshadowing: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..." -Bush

Re:Which side are you on?
(Score:5, Insightful)
by shmlco (594907) on Thursday August 10, @09:35PM (#15886893)

"This news is about a STOPPED attack."

Well... just to be contrary... and putting on my tinfoil hat, the news is that, as far as we've been told, some 24 as yet unnamed people in London and Pakistan have been detained under anti-terror laws and can be held incommunicado for a month while investigation continues. The British government has said that an attack on trans-atlantic flights was imminent, but I've yet to hear about any actual bombs, materials, or detonators found.

Though if the ingredients are indeed "common" household chemicals, I've no doubt that some ex-girlfriend's bottle of peroxide in their medicine cabinet is now proof enough to get them sent away. Heck, I'VE got peroxide at home, AND I have a camera with a flash.

The point being that at this point in time there's a whole lot of pontification, and very few facts. Everyone, even Wired, is running the same damned AP article. And for some reason I'm strongly reminded of the other highly ballyhooed and recently foiled "plot", by individuals with no money, training, materials, plan, or even shoes...
--
Want the root password to the US Constitution? Try "Child Porn"

In many places — the atolls of the Pacific, the shrimp beds of the Eastern Seaboard, the fiords of Norway — some of the most advanced forms of ocean life are struggling to survive while the most primitive are thriving and spreading. Fish, corals and marine mammals are dying while algae, bacteria and jellyfish are growing unchecked. Where this pattern is most pronounced, scientists evoke a scenario of evolution running in reverse, returning to the primeval seas of hundreds of millions of years ago.

Jeremy B.C. Jackson, a marine ecologist and paleontologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, says we are witnessing "the rise of slime."

-- A Primeval Tide of Toxins (latimes.com)