- What if the placebo effect isn’t a trick?
- Hiding secret messages in fingerprints. Maybe somebody will find a use for it.
- How to farm during the zombie apocalypse.
- Sea-Tac hopes to become the second airport to let non-flyers meet and send off passengers at the gate, as they used to do in the days before TSA madness. Well, not quiiiite as they used to.
- From American Partisan: How to use encrypted USB memory sticks.
- Asia Bibi may be off Pakistan’s death row. But she is far from being out of danger from Islamist fanatics in her country. Somebody get that woman out of there!
- Nathan Barton on the impact of Libertarians in politics. He comes to see that it’s all smoke and mirrors.
- Stan Lee, dead at 95. Here’s an odd little reminiscence from someone who knew him.
- Also, RIP: the calmly homicidal voice of HAL, the computer from 2001: A Space Odessey. His name was Douglas Rain and he was a Shakespearean actor.
- LOL. Where cannabis was on the ballot last week, it got more v*tes than politicians did.
- U.S. Catholic bishops are meeting this week. They were going to v*te on two proposals to deal with clergy sex abuse — until Pope Francis asked them not to. The ostensible reason is to allow the question to be dealt with later at a global meeting. But Francis has shown himself to be callous in the extreme, siding with accused abusers and accusing victims and alleged victims of slandering the church.
- So. Dog people. Do you think toothbrush-in-a-tug toy would really help do that awful job? (H/T MJR)
I watched the tug n brush ad with no sound (my USB headphones were recharging) – and it screamed late nite infomercial claptrap.
OY! dog owners, do the job right yourself as I do or at least suck up the costs and have it done.
I have a Vizsla that is very people centered and will explode if they cant get up in your grill often… A clean (as it can be) dog muzz is important in that regard.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maryland-officers-serving-red-flag-gun-removal-order-fatally-shoot-armed-man/
On moral panics from the always readable Maggie McNeill,
https://twitter.com/Maggie_McNeill/status/1062192132356620288
https://letgrow.org/helicopters-take-to-sky-door-to-door-search-conducted-after-video-of-child-abduction-released-but/
Nice to see the fingerprints piece from Schneier. I’ve had a lot of driving to do recently, a security course to work toward finishing, and lots of DefCon talks to listen to. One of the more recent ones was regarding this, and Schneier is always interesting to listen to.
The Stan Lee piece is wonderful. Thanks for that.d
Please please please don’t let them CGI Stan Lee’s cameos.
Yes, larryarnold … that business of CGI’ing dead folks is creepy as hell. I really wish they’d quit doing that.
wetcoyote — Thanks for that. I’m not sure about the Tug-n-Brush, either; but I’d like to think it would help, as Ava and I both absolutely hate doggie toothbrushing. I’ve tried peanut butter flavored toothpastes and beef flavored and on and on … but she clearly regards the whole process as an assault on her sovereignty and her body no matter what I do.
I have never brushed my dog’s teeth and they always have white teeth and no dog-breath.
The solution: give them a good, meaty bone once or twice a week.
I don’t know about the tug-n-brush, but anything has to be better than trying to hold your dog down and shoving a toothbrush in their mouth.
Oh, I dunno. Losing several fingers after holding your dog down and shoving a toothbrush in their mouth could be worse. 😉
Actually, I think if you’re doing it right you’re not supposed to have to either hold them down or lose fingers. Ava lets me pry her mouth open and insert the brush without protest, but she then stands there the whole time, balefully accusing me of betraying her sweet puppy trust with my cruel and unaccountable act of dog abuse.
Michael Stone — You’re right about meaty bones, although as the dog gets older (and my Ava is 13 now), it does take a little more than that. She had her first under-anesthetic tooth cleaning last year. Had a bad tooth removed, too. Now her teeth tend to go brown and her breath gets stinkier than it used to.
I gave my dogs knucklebones for years, but had to stop because they gave Robbie (2001-2016) the runs and pukes. For a tough boy who thought he was the boss of the world, Robbie had an incredibly delicate digestive system. And I couldn’t very well give the other dogs bones and not let him have one.
I would like cleaning da Bones teeth about as much as giving me cat a bath!
😀 I watched that video and came away thinking, “people don’t really brush their dogs’ teeth. That’s just the gag of the video, right?” And then I read the comments here and all the normal people, including Claire, think there’s nothing the least bit odd about brushing a dog’s teeth and they wonder aloud if this gadget might not be the answer to their dog-tooth-brushing issues.
I am living in the past.
I am living in the past.
If it’s any comfort, Joel, until a couple of years ago, I thought doggie tooth brushing was only for little yapper dogs who dined on nothing but soft foods — and even then it seemed as goofy as tying pink ribbons in their hair. Mostly I still think that. Big dogs that eat kibble and gnaw bones or rawhides have much less need of it. But Ava needs it now that she’s getting old and Furrydoc tells me it’s the right thing to do. So I try. But I join you in thinking it’s a rather ridiculous occupation.
https://gfycat.com/indeliblelankyaracari
[…] Living Freedom Blog has Monday-Tuesday links. […]
Ah, I never considered that my solution would not work as the dogs age.
For a variety of reasons, every dog I’ve had has ended up living with someone else as they got older.
I’ll have to watch out as my current batch age…
Thanks, Claire.
jc2k — Awwwwwwww. (I’ll bet awwwwwwwww isn’t the cat’s opinion, but that was adorable.)