Click images for desktop size: "City Lines" by Blurburger The dog walk was a wonderful thing.
Such things always seem to be.
My heart was bursting with the good feeling I usually associate with 6 year olds on Christmas morning.
My puppy was appropriately nervous about all the strange new dogs but she still went over to greet our next door neighbor's dog. She was very pleased she got to smell his butt. She wouldn't let him smell hers! This made her think that she won . . . something, I guess.
Usually they only get to see each other through the fence so this was her excitement for the day.
The gentle dog was not gentle. He was very surly about these strange dogs milling about. He doesn't mind being submissive around the house but he wasn't going to take it from these dogs!

Click images for desktop size: "Tree" by Unknown The giant dog was terrified. He almost always is. Like my puppy he doesn't care much for new things.
it all changed when we hit the trail. Sadly this walk was not very well attended. It was a beautiful day and the place is still magnificent. I continue to be impressed that a place that charges 100k for a wedding party would let a bunch of dogs roam free on its tended woods.
(Part of my agenda is to call them today to at least thank them and then to try and beg for permission to take the dogs there on our own . . . for free . . . )
Very soon we had the trail completely to ourselves. The dogs were ecstatic. They ran, found mud to step in and stink from. They explored and got covered with burrs and stenches. It was a wonderful
Click images for desktop size: "Poodle Party" by Unknown day.

I'm still waiting for the internet service to get cut off. The phone, mobile and internet are all on the same phone bill. On Friday they cut off my friends mobile because we're late with the payment.
A while ago I managed to get a DSL service that costs about 25% of what the phone company charges. The DSL still come through on the phone companies line though. On October 13th they'll switch us over to a "Dry Loop DSL line". Which basically means its a phone line where you can't make or receive phone calls but you can still get DSL service.
The government makes them do this so you know the phone company isn't too stoked about it. I'm not sure why it takes so long for them to do this switch as they don't have to come to the house or anything. They just have to flip a switch somewhere.
I guess there could be so many switches that they have to have two weeks to track down the right one . . .
In any event, no phone line, no DSL, no internet . . . I've no idea if they'll wait until the 13th or cut off the phone earlier for non-payment.
When the dry loop DSL gets switched on (oh and its ADSL no matter what they're trying to call it) we'll have the Vonage line. With the extra monthly charge for the dry loop line (yes, of course they charge extra for it) the internet package and phone line will save about 60% per month. Not insubstantial. Worth a bit of inconvenience, for sure. Just don't think I'm dead if you don't hear from me until after the 13th. Even talking to the phone company they give no indication of what they might do.
Interesting how the internet has become a necessity so quickly. I think it took the car 40 years to become vital, the phone about 60 years. Even electricity took over 50 years to be required. I'd guess the internet took about 10?

One thing the internet has done is make politics more accessible. Even the Republican extremist mad men know how to use it. Although they won't to censor it and want to enlist the providers in this quest. They might succeed by destroying net neutrality which will give the utility companies more of our money and enable them to keep you from seeing stuff they don't want you to see.
Stuff like this: The Make Believe Maverick. This is a surprising clear and clean article. Sadly its in Rolling Stone. They seem to know where they're treading as they keep things very very precise and exact and verifiable.
They get involved in McCain's cooperation with the enemy when he was a prisoner of war but stop short of talking about the films he supposedly made. I guess its rumour and they have too many facts to show that McCain is not what he claims to be. He's no patriot and in the Korean War
Click images for desktop size: "Dragon Lady" by Unknown he would have been disgraced as a traitor.
Reading this and its clear that there are no brother POW's who would take the stage and stand alongside him.
Then there is this measured piece about Sarah Palin's Dislike of Minorities and Native Americans. The title is inflammatory. Its a nasty subject. The article is carefully considered and merely points out the facts. Palin is the governor of a state that we think of as being almost all white, but there is a 10% black population that Palin has assiduously ignored and kept down. She has also, apparently, done her best to hide and/or destroy the Native American Eskimo's. She has removed Native American's from almost all government posts and has no blacks in any positions.
Pretty unthinkable and certainly unconsciousinable.
Especially from someone who is trying to tie 6 year old Barack Obama to the old SDS and Weathermen groups. Sort of ignoring the fact that to a lot of hippies and the like those groups were mildly heroically perceived in those days of war and protest she still seeks to align him even though the issue has already been examined and discarded as groundless.
Remember the lesson of Lyndon Johnson, "Make him deny it!"
I don't like Obama much. I like Joe Biden because he suddenly became human to me. But the scurrilous lies of McCain and harpy Palin have pushed me into the uncomfortable position of having to support Obama fervently. To let these sons and daughters of Nixon have a toe hold of power is revolting, dangerous and, with no exaggeration, could lead to the end of the world.
No one is too startled that Palin looks like a tax cheat. No one is surprised that she's a vindictive shrew who has used her power to illegally destroy a man who had the temerity to divorce her sister. What makes no sense is the Republican Party's desire to help her cover this up. So incendiary internet articles like this: The Storm Troopers Dark Side are to be expected and have a basis in being more honest that the people they're attacking.
See, I don't want to have a leader who's the same as me. I want a leader who's better than me. who I can look up to because of their intelligence, their empathy and their drive, not their ambition, bigotry, lies and hatred of the people they seek to lead.