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Dogs are leftover from a time when we needed them, and now they suffer

Dogs have been in the news lately -- poisonings from tainted dog food and less than respectful treatment by a baggage handler. We have a lot of shared history with dogs. Dogs were once extremely valuable survival tools, used for the tracking of game, the herding of other domesticated animals, and most of all for the detection of dangerous predators, usually upright walking ones. That last use is still the most common. Modern burglar alarms have yet to emulate a dog's keen sense of hearing and smell.

You can just look at a dog to see how we have altered their genes. But, how have they altered ours? The alterations have to be there, given so much intimate contact over so much time. I am going to hypothesize (as I have done way too many times before) that the good feelings many of us get from dogs are the result of selective pressure, implying once again that dog lovers may have had a slight reproductive advantage over a long period of time. What else could explain the intense attachment some people develop for their pet dogs? Similarly, both of my daughters developed strong attachments to soft fuzzy objects as small children (a blanket named DeeDee, still providing great pleasure, and a sheepskin named Woooly).

Readers talk back about hookers, condoms, and biofuels

  Re: OK, We’ll Just Drill Over Here Instead Dear Editor: I thought your statement that Cheney and the energy task force treat ecosystems like a “two-bit hooker” was inappropriate, unseemly, slanderous, and entirely out of line. I’m sure those guys treat their hookers much better than that. Laura K. Oakland, Calif.   Re: Buenos […]

Pope

Carl Pope explains why the U.S. is not yet Syria. I think he means it to be optimistic.

Landscaping for water-runoff management

Not quite two months ago, my wife and I became homeowners. We love it. But in addition to the pride of ownership, there are also the worries: Can we really afford this house? Should we get earthquake insurance? Why does a small lake appear in the backyard when it rains?

That last one has been on our minds a lot lately. After 26 consecutive days of rain (and counting) here in Seattle, there's a frighteningly large pool of water that has swamped the roses and turned the lawn into something resembling the Everglades. My dad jokingly suggested that we stock it with trout. But I have a better idea: I'm going to landscape my way out of the problem.

Hypocrisy again

Over on Treehugger, Lloyd Alter claims to have enjoyed this Wall Street Journal piece by Dan Akst (yes, yes, subscription only). I can't say I did.

Since you can't read it, I'll summarize: People who build "green" houses that are huge and isolated are hypocrites.

It's a bit mystifying to me why this genre of writing is so prevalent. I suppose it's fun to point out that a preachy celebrity drives a Hummer, or that the head of an environmental group flies all over the country to give talks, or that some recycling suburban mom commutes 50 miles to work. For pundits, charges of hypocrisy are nigh irresistible, since they require no thought, research, or analysis. "Look, person says A and does not-A! Gotcha!" It's easy.

But is hypocrisy really that important? To the point that seemingly the bulk of writing on environmentalism begins and ends there?

I think not.

Michael Fumento gets dropped.

Another rightwing pundit has been dropped by a media outlet after it was revealed that he was taking payments from private interests in exchange for columns.

Who was the corporate paymaster this time? Monsanto.

Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) announced Friday that it severed its relationship with Michael Fumento -- a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute -- for taking payments in 1999 from agribusiness giant Monsanto. The payola was revealed by BusinessWeek Online, which also broke the story that columnist Doug Bandow had accepted bribes from Jack Abramoff. Copley News Service subsequently dropped Bandow.

Incidentally, if any wealthy interests out there are interested in a column about, say, the evils of suburbia, drop me an email and I'll send you my rates.

Eco-media Gawker-ing

As most any enviro-news junkie with a modem knows, Tidepool has been a great online resource for the better part of the past decade. Tidepool was aggregating the daily eco-news out of the Northwest before the term "aggregator" was even a gleam in the eye of the internets.

With every day's thematic compilation of news and views from California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska, Tidepool constructs the Northwest's identity as the unified region of Cascadia.

Tidepool split from founding group Ecotrust a couple years ago, and the uptick in requests for donations had me a little worried that the service might disappear. So here's hoping Tidepool's made a soft landing into a great new situation, now that the project's been taken over by Northwest Environment Watch:

This is what a Honda sounds like …

Normally, with the exception of those for hybrids, I can't stand car commercials. But then there is this.

As you will learn from the length of the commercial, as well as the fact the car is on the "wrong" side of the road, it is for UK audiences. Sigh ... Europeans do so many things so much better.

I'd like to see a counter ad from Toyota with "this is what a Prius sounds like ..." followed by silence.

(Via PSFK)

If you want your kid to be famous.

If you want your kid to be famous, that is.

Demographers (a notoriously "educated guess"-ing bunch) are predicting that the 300 millionth American will be born in October of this year. Do the math ... that's right. You can finish reading this post later.

You're most likely to be the parent of "Baby 300 Million" (or, as I like to call it, B3M) if you are a Latino in Los Angeles County. And it'll be a boy! Congratulations!

Unlike many of his predecessors, B3M could live to be 90. However, jury's out on the kind of world he'll be living in, due to sprawl, etc.: According to one demographer, "By the time the 300 millionth individual gets to adulthood, many of the cities today we consider small and nice to live in won't be so nice." [Ominous music]

Lest you were wondering, Baby 200 Million (who actually probably missed the two million spot by two years, according to later revised Census Bureau estimates, but whatev) is 38-year-old Robert Ken Woo, Jr. of Atlanta. I smell photo op!

In fact, B2M, B3M, and B4M might all be able to hang out, since B4M is scheduled to arrive in, oh, 40 years or so.

It’s Just Another MLK Monday

Grist won’t be publishing on Martin Luther King Jr. Day So no news from us on Monday, but we’ll be back in fine form on Tuesday. See you then.