Puppycide on hiatus

I’ve been taking an indefinite break from blogging for a while now, but so far the weekly puppycide posts have kept going. As of now, those are going on break, too. I just can’t find the motivation to keep collecting and writing up a new grim recap every week when there are a dozen other (far less depressing) projects demanding my time.

If you want to keep track of dog killings by police, take a look at the Dogs Shot by Police Facebook page, which is where I’ve been getting all my reports from for the last several months. There’s also the Puppycide Database Project to keep an eye on, though that hasn’t been active in half a year now.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Housekeeping: A slight and probably unnoticeable change of pace

So one day into my writing hiatus and I realized the issues with my novel were more fundamental than could be fixed with simple rewrites. Long story short, I’m scrapping the whole thing – all 160,000 words, nearly a combined decade’s work – and starting from scratch. The ideas are already coming together faster than they’ve been in a long time, so I think it’s the right call.

Concerning the ol’ blag, as much as I’ve enjoyed the little break, I think I’m gonna get back into things, but at a slower pace than before. I was spending so many hours of my day reading, sorting, researching and writing for this blog it had become an outright chore. So from now on, I’ll forego blogging about things I feel should be covered here and focus instead on things I want to write about. That means less output overall, but also less feeling like I’m on a deadline to get stories out before the next news cycle.

So, mini-hiatus over, and new posts will come when they come. Though to be frank, considering I went for days without posting at times, there shouldn’t be too much of a difference.

Housekeeping: No more top-level domain redirects

Just a small administrative update for you. Until now, this blog had a bit of code that detected whenever non-US visitors tried to access this blog through a localized top-level domain such as “.ca” (for Canadians), “.co.uk” (for Brits), “.pe” (for Peruvians), etc., and forcibly redirected them to “.com”. Years ago, this workaround was necessary as various scripts and functions on the blog broke whenever they tried to run on a page that didn’t have the right top-level domain – configuring Disqus for “preliatorcausa.blogspot.com” caused it not to work on “preliatorcausa.blogspot.ca”, for instance.

But that was eons ago in Internet time, and things have gotten a lot sturdier since. Thus, I’ve decided to nix the redirect prevention code, so that the top-level domain will now stay localized for international readers. I’ve done some quick testing and everything seems to work fine. You shouldn’t notice any particular difference, other than the page may load a little faster for people trying to access it through domain URLs that don’t end in “.com”. Please let me know if you find anything that doesn’t work.

That is all.

Closing out the half-year: Top 10 posts of 2017

2017 blew through with the energized, concentrated malice of a year that knew it had big, “2016”-labeled shoes to fill and the certainty that it could still be so much worse for so many more people. It was amazing, at least to me, how many were quick to celebrate the end of last year and cheer on the new one even as the United States was preparing to swap out its administration for what can best be described as a pack of Fallout-style feral ghouls, only with less impulse control and extra rot.

Preliator-wise, 2017 only began halfway though the year, so I don’t have quite a year’s worth of posts to look back on. But I’m not about to do a year’s-end retrospective each June 23^rd, so just-over-six months’ worth of blogging is what we’re going with here. So without further ado, I give you the obligatory Top 10 Posts of 2017, as ranked by unique page views (which counts only individual sessions and not repeat page loads).

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10) Atheists tour Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter

Published: September 15 | Unique views: 8

YouTube atheists Seth Andrews and Matt Dillahunty visited Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter and filmed their tour, complete with narration.

Creationism: Magical sky-fairies, dinosaurs, incest and geologically impossible events all wrapped up in a lie told to children.

Puppycide ruling explainer

For the last few puppycide roundup posts, I’ve begun adding labels to each report to indicate at a glance whether the shooting was justified, unjustified, merely attempted or averted altogether. This post explains how I make these determinations.

It should be evident that these rulings represent my personal judgements based on the information available to me from the linked reports, and may well (and often do) contradict the rulings issued by police departments, which typically prefer to protect their own rather than admit an officer may have acted inappropriately.

• Unclear | Indicates the report lacks crucial information, making it difficult to discern the circumstances of the shooting, whether or not it could have been avoided, or even whether the victim(s) is/are alive or deceased.

• Averted | Indicates the best-case scenario wherein a shooting doesn’t occur, even in a situation where it otherwise might have, thanks to officers exhibiting proper restraint and/or deploying non-lethal tactics (such as having the owner restrain the animal) or equipment (such as stun guns, OC spray, dog-catcher poles, etc.). Killing a pet is rarely necessary; given how many officers jump straight to lethal force, those who strive to keep the animal alive deserve recognition.

• Attempted | Indicates a shooting took place but no animal was killed, though it/they may have been injured. Unless paired with Justified or Possibly Justified, the assumption is that the shooting of a household pet was avoidable, either because the animal posed no clear threat (such as if it was already restrained or confined to its own yard) or because the officers failed to take reasonable measures to neutralize the animal using non-lethal tactics or equipment.

• Unjustified | Indicates a shooting, lethal or otherwise, which circumstances clearly indicate could have been avoided, either by the shooter(s) showing restraint or following proper escalation of force, or by attempting to use non-lethal tactics or equipment to subdue the animal without killing it.

• Possibly Justified | Indicates a shooting, lethal or otherwise, where circumstances appear to indicate that use of lethal force against an animal was necessary, but some ambiguity remains that prevents the reader from seeing whether the events could have unfolded differently.

• Justified | Indicates a shooting, lethal or otherwise, where the described circumstances make it clear that lethal force against the animal(s) was the only recourse, such as when a person’s life is in imminent danger and/or non-lethal tactics and equipment either were attempted but failed to subdue the threat or couldn’t feasibly be deployed.

01/28/18 @ 7:40 PM ET

Daily Links: 09/25/17 – Muslim activist convicted of terrorism for refusing to disclose passwords

Muhammad Rabbani

Should I be making more actual blog posts as opposed to lazily dumping everything into link posts? Perhaps. But that would require I not have new episodes of BoJack Horseman left to watch, so … you see the conundrum.

• Human rights activist ^[pictured] refuses to hand over computer & phone passwords to British airport police, gets convicted of terrorism. I’m sure the fact he’s a Muslim has nothing to do with anything.

• Canada denies entry to Chelsea Manning, deems her “inadmissible” over her whistleblowing conviction.

• Now it’s Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump who also improperly used their private email for government business. I’m sure the “party of personal responsibility” will spend months and months harping about this and bringing it up at every possible opportunity, right?
  (via @; RT: @radleybalko)

• These two Buddhists have something in common with “animal liberation” zealots who recklessly endanger ecosystems and kill countless animals over misguided beliefs.

• Finally, an administrative note: I’ve semi-retracted my September 19 post, “Survey shows most college students don’t get First Amendment”, as it now appears that survey was methodologically flawed.

If you have any story suggestions, you can leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links: 08/20/17 – Trump nixes climate change committee

Lynx mother and cub at Montréal Biodome

Barring any last-minute cancellations, tomorrow I’m headed for the Montréal Biodome ^{[denizens pictured]}, my first outing at anything resembling a zoo in … ever, possibly. Expect light-to-nonexistent posting for the next couple days. In the meantime, have some links.

On a more technical note, starting with this post I’m trying out shorter permalinks (the post’s URL). Just so you know.

• The Trump administration just shuttered a federal climate change committee, because who needs guidance on dealing with the greatest threat to humanity a hoax by Big Science, right?
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Trump also reportedly plans to end Obamacare’s contraception mandate, which requires that all insurance plans cover birth control, giving a boost to the religious-Right’s war against abortion, reproductive autonomy and basic logic.

• Meanwhile, TV news shows are having a hard time finding any Republicans willing to defend Trump’s Charlottesville comments on the air. I guess it took actual Nazis to constitute a step too far.

• There must be just so much crime being committed by Muslims wearing face-covering clothes in Québec, folks, since a new amendment would ban them.

• And finally, you know your country has a pollution problem when the dogs start turning blue:
  (via @fark)

If you have any story suggestions, you can leave them in the comments or send them in.

Technical difficulties [updated]

Just wanted to let y’all know I’m aware of the current issues with the blog’s slow loading speed and broken widgets. Seems there’s something wonky behind the scenes at Blogger that I’m powerless to do anything about here. I’ve called for help and we’ll see if they respond, or if they fix it.

I’ll keep you updated.

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UPDATE (@ 9:37 PM ET) —

That was fast: Blog’s now loading fine and everything seems back in order. Of course, I take full credit for that.

Seriously, though: Blogger’s responsiveness is just one reason why I’ll always choose them.

Tinkering around with some test posts

I’m low on blogging material today, so instead I’ll be toying with the blog a little to try and hammer out a minor but annoying glitch. You may notice a bunch of test posts going up and down in the meantime; just ignore them.

I’ll delete this post once I’m done. Never mind; I’m done (for now). That is all.

Daily Links: 07/25/17 – NHS axes prescriptions for homeopathy

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)

Quick change: I’m moving puppycide reports to their own weekly post, since they’re cluttering up my Daily Links with their frequency. Which is depressing, when you think about it.

• England’s National Health Service plans to do away with prescriptions for homeopathy and other “low value” treatments. What took them so long?
  (via Friendly Atheist)

• “What you have here is a conservative group suing a conservative Justice Department for ignoring a FOIA request concerning a conservative House chairman’s efforts to kneecap FOIA.”
  (via @fark)

• Color me pleasantly surprised: Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) ^[pictured] does a good thing, signs a bill to protect the rights of trans students in public schools.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Texas to man: You owe your ex $65,000 in back child support. Man: This DNA test says the kid isn’t mine. Texas: Pay up anyway or go to jail.
  (via @fark)

• It’s like Cracked.com is aiming to become social justice central. I like it.

• Ken Ham’s Tax-Avoiding Ark Ride continues: Creationists sell Ark Encounter (again) to themselves (again) for $10 (again) so that it’ll be eligible for an $18 million tax rebate (again).

• China finds a novel use for pervasive surveillance: help impoverished school students with discreet supplemental financial assistance. And now I’m conflicted.

• And finally: What’s that? You don’t want to hear terrible White-boy rap from a flat-Earther? Well here you go anyway:
  (via Friendly Atheist)

If you have any story suggestions, you can leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links: 07/01/17 – Innocent men can’t sue “grossly negligent” forensic experts who put them in prison

Some of my old art
[full size (1500×1418)]

I’m still working on setting up my art blog, but in the meantime, I’ve gone ahead and posted some of my older art ^[pictured] from back when I was a young teenager searching for something to do during those long classroom hours.

• Federal court rules that even though forensic experts’ “grossly negligent” testimony put two innocents in prison (and one on death row), they still can’t be sued.

• Rare puppycide accountability: DeKalb County, GA cops enter wrong home, shoot & kill dog and injure two people. Two years later, the county pays up to avoid a lawsuit.
  (via Dogs Shot by Police | Facebook)

• Want to inform the cops on someone you think may be a terrorist? There’s an app for that.

• That last story comes via Radley Balko, who has a bunch of links you should check out. Includes a whole lot o’ police misbehavin’.

• And finally, this crowd knows who the real star of the show is:
  (via @radleybalko)

If you have any story suggestions, you can leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links: 06/28/17 – Germany to get marriage equality?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Small housekeeping note: I’ve replaced the “print” share button (beneath each post) with “CleanPrint”, which generates a clutter-free, easy-on-the-ink version of the respective post.

Germany could legalize same-sex marriage as soon as next week following Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ^[pictured] surprise change of heart. The cause: She got to know some gay people personally.

CNN is the latest media group to pay for the increasingly sloppy and reckless journalism on the Russia issue.

The strange, sad case of Laci Green – feminist hero turned anti-feminist defender.
(via Pharyngula)

Religious “nones” overtake Catholics in Australia to become the top, er, religion. (We really need a word for this.) Aussie nonbelievers also grew 11% in only ten years.

And finally, what if you took wolf pups and raised them like dogs? A fascinating new study finds out.

If you have any story suggestions, you can leave them in the comments or send them in.