Last month we learned from university researchers that dogs have personalities.

Dr Sam Gosling, of the University of Texas, rates the dogs on four key traits with positive and negative extremes. He adds that his work suggests pets should be matched with owners who have similar personalities.

I’ll have to write this down…

The work was presented at a major science conference in Washington DC.
“We used approaches used to assess human personality and applied them to dogs,” said Dr Gosling.
“You do find personality differences between breeds. Indeed, many have been bred on that basis. But you also find enormous [personality] differences within the breeds themselves.”

Now we learn that animals like to play and have a sense of humour.

Studies by various groups suggest monkeys, dogs and even rats love a good laugh. People, meanwhile, have been laughing since before they could talk.
“Indeed, neural circuits for laughter exist in very ancient regions of the brain, and ancestral forms of play and laughter existed in other animals eons before we humans came along with our ‘ha-ha-has’ and verbal repartee,” says Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University.

In otherwords, formal research dollars and intellectual resources are being devoted to experiments that reproduce observations that can be obtained by raising a litter of puppies or owning two cats.

Sean at Pol:Spy;

Here’s a question for all of you kids stranded in the maritimes who lack the requisite number of marketable skills and/or firing synapses to find gainful employment outside of your birth provinces. Exactly how much of your precious new found resource revenues do you think will be left after the Liberals sneak in their carbon tax in the new budget and claw all of that money back?

Go read the link, and then head to the main page. He’s on a roll lately.

Proof positive (not that more was needed) that the NHL is being run by hockey players.

“It’s an experiment, let’s leave it at that,” Sabres managing partner Larry Quinn said Tuesday while watching Rochester practice.
Quinn said the test came after NHL officials discussed whether changing the ice color from white would enhance how the game is viewed by fans in arenas and on television.
The Sabres offered to try it and, after some experimentation, settled on painting the sheet in what they call “electric powder blue.” To offset the new colored surface, arena officials decided
to make the blue lines fluorescent orange, which is also the color used for the faceoff circles.
The center line, normally red, is now dark blue.

Reports that the NHL is also considering enhancing team uniforms with coloured sequins remain unconfirmed.

There’s only one question left if the new colors ever came into
effect: what would you call a defenseman?
“Guess, I’d become an orange-liner,” Jeff Jillson said.

Or, in the immortal words of Guy Macon* just “a primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid”.

Huh.
Someone wasn’t thinking.

Are YOU interested in spending up to 30 days along the Arizona border as part of a blocking force against entry into the U.S. by illegal aliens early next spring?
I invite you to join me in Tombstone, Arizona from APRIL 1 – 30, 2005 to protect our country from a 40-year-long invasion across our southern border with Mexico.
Chris Simcox of Civil Homeland Defense, and the publisher of the Tombstone Tumbleweed newspaper in Tombstone, Arizona has helped protect our borders for five years with only a handful of patriotic volunteers. It is time we provided him with reinforcements.
I am recruiting volunteers to converge on the southern border of Arizona for the purpose of aiding the U.S. Border Patrol in “spotting” intruders entering the U.S. illegally.
This is strictly a volunteer project. No financial subsidies are available. And, you will probably need a tent, sleeping bag, hiking gear, etc. You will be responsible for all costs associated with your participation.

Subsidies? I know people who would pay for the chance to do this.

In an era where Bush = Hitler, Ashcroft = Hitler (Rumsfeld would equal Rommel, if the left had any clue who Rommel was), I suppose it should come as a relief that there are still some individuals who are denied the right to invoke Nazi Germany, even in ill-considered “fun”. The entire media kerfuffle over Prince Harry should seem bizarre in today’s atmosphere of rampant “Nazi-ism”, if it weren’t so completely predictable.
David Frum ;

Doesn’t CS Lewis somewhere have an observation that it’s a trick of the devil’s to persuade an age to go rushing to the gunwhales away from the sin to which they are in no danger of succumbing – tipping the boat into the sin from which they are in danger? (If anybody has the actual quote, please send it along so I can replace the unwieldy sentence above.) Europe in general and the UK in particular are in ZERO danger of succumbing to the menace of German Nazism. Meanwhile, genuine fascists dressed in keffiyehs are engaged in thuggery, subversion, assassination, and terrorism on European soil. Can’t we persuade the journalists busy inveighing against poor Harry to take on that cause instead?
Frankly, I personally find it much less disturbing that Harry wore a swastika to a party that his father, the future King Charles III, is reported to enjoy relaxing in Islamic bedouin robes at home.

Poor Harry might have saved himself a lot of trouble by adding a George W. Bush mask to the costume.

*.

hat tip

Paul Martin is cutting short (by a day) his vacation in Morocco. Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew was in Paris, and International Development Minister Aileen Carroll is returning from South America. Deputy PM Anne McLellan is in contact “by phone”…
Do Canadian politicians ever vacation in Canada?
Meanwhile, others do find our country appealing in the winter – none other than the leading candidate to take over from France’s Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy. Of course, the “Sagard” estate of Paul Desmarais ain’t exactly Waskesui.
Norm Spector passes along this observation from Konrad Yakabuski;

Mr. Sarkozy’s stay at Mr. Desmarais’ massive Sagard estate � so big it’s considered a pillar of the local economy � has the power elite in Montreal and Paris alike evergreen with envy. But it only confirms a universal truth: Whether your goal is 24 Sussex Dr. or the �lys�e, you need to know Paul Desmarais.

‘Team to set out in search of elusive Earhart plane “
Call me a pessimist, but I think she’s probably dead.

A novel gift idea for the commuter who has everything. (Language warning.)

“We have a great deal to learn from the Soviet Union . . . a country from which we have a great deal to benefit.” – Pierre Elliott Trudeau

The torch passes…

So, Alexandre, being stymied in his attempts to convince Russians that communism was actually reallyreallycool, saunters off to find some Russians who need no such convincing… and ends up partying with the National Bolshevik Party:

Go Read it all.

“Vote Or Die” P Diddy,

“Don’t underestimate the small guy. Nobody really respected us. Nobody really thought we would come out and vote. It really taught me that if you speak to young people, speak to minorities, they could change the world. The future’s ours. It’s our turn now. We’ve been left out of the game for too long. Time for y’all to let us in now.”
“After the polling, I came to MTV…”

Another reality-based celebrity…

Radio Blogger is all over this breaking story.

Kerry was in Cambodia in Christmas of ’68, but can’t prove it.
He has a magic CIA hat from his secret missions running guns and CIA agents into Cambodia, but no one has seen it.
He ran the Boston marathon either in the 70’s, 1980, 1982, multiple times, or never. There’s no record of a qualifying race to get him in, and he doesn’t remember his time.
He had a chance to shoot the mother of all deer, a 16 pointer, on Cape Cod, but didn’t pull the trigger.
Sorry, John. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me fifteen times, forget about it. Show me the goose. But the more I think about it, that’s not good enough.

He’s calling for a goose autopsy
.

The wife of the “other” JFK… so much like Jackie.

Via Drudge, of course.

“Can we get any of my water?” he asked Stephanie Cutter, his communications director, who dutifully scurried from the room. I asked Kerry, out of sheer curiosity, what he didn’t like about Evian.
“I hate that stuff,” Kerry explained to me. “They pack it full of minerals.”
“What kind of water do you drink?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
“Plain old American water,” he said.
“You mean tap water?”
“No … There are all kinds of waters,” he said finally. Pause. “Saratoga Spring. … Sometimes I drink tap water,” he added.

Michael Totten’s latest fisking rates a degree of difficulty somewhere between setting a mousetrap and kicking a little girl off a tricycle as she wobbles by.
A rude, stupid, mouthy little girl with an annoying accent. Shot full of botox.
On a hand-made tricycle with custom Cyfac racing frame and powdercoated spokes.
That cost $6500 Euros.
PUNT.

CTV News reports on the latest Liberal Nanny State Law.

Ontario gourmands are smacking their lips in protest over a new provincial regulation banning the use of fresh fish in raw dishes.

You voted for them.

Affecting such menu items as tartare, ceviche, cold smoked fish and the popular Japanese delicacy sushi,

I interrupt this post with a disclaimer. I believe the only fresh fish appropriate for human consumption is caught on a red and white spoon and cooked in a pan over a campfire or on propane barbeque. That said, I have eaten at a sushi bar.

…the province has enacted a new regulation that forces chefs to use fish that’s been previously frozen.

Once. I had salmon. Cooked salmon.

Ontario Ministry of Health officials are concerned that, otherwise, unwitting patrons could be served with a portion of a parasitic roundworm …

Unwitting? As opposed to the “witting” patrons paying 5 times what it’s worth to be served with a portion of raw fish?

Ottawa sushi chef Hiro Iida told CTV News he has been making sushi for fifteen years — following centuries-old techniques.

Ahem. And where did centuries of raw fishing eating get you?
Let’s see… paper houses?
The non-invention of the fork.
Massive drycleaning bills.
Fancy writing. That nobody can read.
Poor rhyming skills.
I hate to point out the obvious, but the introduction of North American beef to the Japanese diet, and the 20th century emergence of Japanese technology, productivity and industry are not mere coincidence.

When asked whether she’s worried about eating raw fish, Ottawa restaurant-goer Kristen Smith laughed. “No,” she said, jokingly dismissing concerns of food-borne parasites. “Wasabi kills it, it’s strong. And we need to build up our tolerance, too.”

Yeah, that’s what they all say, ’til they find worms in their poopie.
Then, they want a law.