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Recent Comments:
PG-13 Horror Movies That Prove the Rating Doesn't Matter {Moviefone Blog}
Oct 16th 2010 3:18AM I have to agree with you here. In fact, I'm a HUGE horror and sci-fi film fan (by the time I was 13 I'd rented every horror film at my local Blockbuster) and I'm honestly offended by the idea that a film needs to be rated R to really be frightening. Do sex and blood and guts have their place? Sure. When I'm in the mood for that type of movie, it's pretty cool. But the fact of the matter is that fear, true fear, doesn't come from blood. It comes by psychology. It comes from atmosphere. It comes from a plot convincing enough to get me to come along for the ride.
You can maim and kill as many people as you want, but if you don't have a great plot that keeps me guessing, keeps me thinking, keeps me wondering what's going to happen next, you'll just end up in laughable cult status. Which isn't a bad place to be, there are directors and actors who make a living doing that stuff. But if you want to make something special, you need to have the other pieces in place first, and the gore is secondary.
Sneak Peek: the New 'Doctor Who' {AOL TV}
Feb 27th 2010 10:34PM ...you understand the premise of the show, right?
Old Navy beats American Apparel at its own game {WalletPop}
Jan 25th 2010 11:14PM Yeah, Michael, supporting a notoriously woman hating, sexually exploitative hipster monopoly is so much better, right? Take advantage of people in one country or another, you're still a terrible company with terrible practices. It's not the lesser of two evils when a company founder underpays illegal immigrants in the United States, sexually harasses female employees, asks store managers to take photos of employees and fire those he deems unattractive, and makes ads that capitalize on the image of women who look under aged and frightened. Sweet. I feel SO edgy now.
Airport Security: Is Israel the Answer? {Politics Daily}
Jan 9th 2010 6:51AM This is ridiculous. First, attacks on Israel don't often come from outside of the country but from people within, and when they are from outside, they are from neighboring countries. They aren't flying in, thus Israel faces reduced threat from those entering/exiting via plane.
Second, racial and national profiling is in place in Israel, whether it's overtly stated or not, because of the current state of the socio-political climate in the region. Primarily Jewish Israelis will look at non-Jews, especially Arab non-Jews, as potential suspects at all times and more likely than not, those people face increased questioning and baggage searches.
Third, these methods are not fool-proof, nor are ours failing (despite millions!! more visitors, only a few serious security breaches have occurred in the United States SINCE 2002, the date you gave in your article). I'm not claiming that any mistake is okay, but mistakes are inevitable on this scale, horrific to consider or not.
Fourth, sorry to get political, but Israel is directly attacked because the settlers in the area directly displaced the prior citizens only a generation ago. Of course they live in constant turmoil, they took people's homes and land, shipped them next door, and then refuse to acknowledge the situation. I'm not pro-Muslim or Jew, Arab, Israeli or Palestinian, suicide bomber or military attack, this entire situation is screwed up beyond belief, but they're in a much tougher climate than the U.S. has ever faced, of course their screenings are stricter.
Potentially Explosive BBC Doc on Purebreds Set to Air Stateside {Pawnation OLD}
Dec 14th 2009 11:48AM Erin, as a said before, all dogs of certain breeds, because of their mere coloration, are carriers for certain disorders. A white cat or dog will ALWAYS have the potential to have deafness because it's the SAME GENE and it only depends on a combination of luck, chance, and other factors if they will actually be deaf.
Potentially Explosive BBC Doc on Purebreds Set to Air Stateside {Pawnation OLD}
Dec 14th 2009 10:20AM In short, yes.
Longer version: Testing your dog for a disease doesn't always work since many of the disorders are genetic and can be passed along even if he/she doesn't have the disorder. You're not a better breeder just because THIS dog isn't blind or THIS dog doesn't have hip problems. It's not just THIS dog, it's the entire genetic background, backwards, left, and right, for six generations that contributes and if you don't know that then, no, I don't want a dog from you and no one else should, either.
Potentially Explosive BBC Doc on Purebreds Set to Air Stateside {Pawnation OLD}
Dec 14th 2009 10:15AM Roby, don't know if you're serious or trolling here, but to put it in short: maybe, but not to the same extreme degree. The problem with dog breeding is that the same traits are bred for over the course of generations. The only way to make certain things a problem within the human community is to have them reproduce the same way for generations. That's why some diseases are more common amount certain ethnic groups, because historically, either by choice or by law, we have bred within our race/nationality/ethnicity/whatever else and so have passed those traits on through our specific population. It's also why we have clear cut physical traits. Blondes can only exist if there are not too many with the dominant brunette gene in their recent ancestry, for example.
Potentially Explosive BBC Doc on Purebreds Set to Air Stateside {Pawnation OLD}
Dec 14th 2009 10:10AM cpt, leave your politics on other subjects at the door. You're welcome to have them, mind, but this isn't the place. I'm sure there are forums where this discussion is encouraged, but not here.
Potentially Explosive BBC Doc on Purebreds Set to Air Stateside {Pawnation OLD}
Dec 14th 2009 9:56AM Karen, you don't understand how genetics work. Often those negative traits are directly linked to those which define the breed. White coats often contribute to deafness and blindness, for example. Mood disorders, bone diseases, blood diseases - certain types are prevalent in certain breeds because they are directly linked to breed standards like size, coat, eye color, etc. and in order to remove them from the gene pool, you would have to change the breed standard, thereby STILL eliminating that breed.
Breeding out is how you change those problems, and that's why pedigree breeding, even responsible pedigree breeding, doesn't work. It would take generations of responsible breeding to ever have even a slight chance of breeding a negative trait out while keeping a positive but associated trait in because they are on the SAME PIECE OF DNA. That's how biology works. Multiple traits are influenced by the same one or two or five genes. Without one, you rarely have the other. How many animals would you condemn to horrible diseases in order to, after, hundreds or thousands of potentially afflicted animals, be able to remove the disorder from the bloodlines?
Do you know that a dormant gene can reexpress itself for up to 6 generations removed from the original? Meaning that even if no litters have had a disorder since the great, great, great, grandparents of the current litter, one of those puppies could STILL have it? It's unlikely, but still possible. Because, as I said before, you can't test the puppies for the absence of the gene, because they NEED to have the gene for some other trait of the breed.
Potentially Explosive BBC Doc on Purebreds Set to Air Stateside {Pawnation OLD}
Dec 14th 2009 9:46AM Not all breeders are bad, but all breeding is bad because you cannot control what you can't see. Some disorders and problems won't arise until well after a dog is past breeding age. A female might have had several litters by then, contributing a blood disorder, a brain disorder, something invisible to the naked eye, back into the breed and leading to ever worsening problems for the resulting pups.
