Purchasing a puppy from a pet store appears, on its face, to be an entirely benign act—perhaps even a compassionate act, given the pleading eyes of these beautiful pups. But reproduced tens of thousands of times, this act is the economic engine that allows more than 5,000 puppy mills to operate in this country, mainly in the Midwest, but scattered throughout the nation and causing misery for hundreds of thousands of dogs. © iStockphoto At a time when 3 to 4 million dogs and cats are euthanized at animal control agencies and local humane societies, our nation has an entire industry built upon the principle of mass production of puppies — treating offsite backup services he breeding females like machines and churning out puppies for the pet trade. We'd be naive to think that the two phenomena—high-volume euthanasia and quasi-agricultural puppy production businesses—are unrelated. So that's why The HSUS took the unusual step of commenting yesterday on the behavior of the hyper-scrutinized Britney Spears—specifically, her apparent impulse buy for $3,000 of a Yorkshire Terrier. Generally, we are for leaving this young woman alone. We'd much prefer the nation's attention focused on social issues like animal protection, rather than on the social outings of Britney, Lindsay, Paris and others celebs. But it's been celebrity purchases of small pooches —by Paris Hilton and other high-profile celebs—that have driven the popularity of pocket puppies, such as Chihuahuas, Yorkies, Maltese and many others.

By way of Amanda at Pandagon, who learned of it from Echidne, comes the news that Atrios was on C-SPAN the other night and he got asked the question. You know THE Question. "Where are all the women bloggers?" Sigh. As I wrote in Amanda's comments, "That question, 'Where are all the women bloggers?' a babelfish would translate as 'I only know the names of four or five bloggers. You, the guy I'm interviewing right now, and I just learned your name from my producer. Matt Drudge, Glenn Reynolds, and Mickey Kaus. Frankly, that's more names than my head can hold and I'm really not interested in reading any blogs. Can you please say something that will stir up a little controversary on the subject and help keep me awake through the rest of this interview?'" But I think another way to translate it is, "Hey, fella, how come I have to sit here with you, a boring, pasty-faced white guy, instead of some hot chick in a mini-skirt, and, by the way, do you have Wonkette's phone number?" There are plenty of women blogging, of course. What there are not are any who are regularly linked to by the top five or six male bloggers ( Wonkette is a special case), who are the only ones the producers who book slots for talk shows care oldies hits bout. I don't think the reason for this is sexism, although sexism always seems to come into play when those top male bloggers try to explain why they don't link to more female bloggers.

By way of Amanda at Pandagon, who learned of it from Echidne, comes the news that Atrios was on C-SPAN the other night and he got asked the question. You know THE Question. "Where are all the women bloggers?" Sigh. As I wrote in Amanda's comments, "That question, 'Where are all the women bloggers?' a babelfish would translate as 'I only know the names of four or five bloggers. You, the guy I'm interviewing right now, and I just learned your name from my producer. Matt Drudge, Glenn Reynolds, and Mickey Kaus. Frankly, that's more names than my head can hold and I'm really not interested in reading any blogs. Can you please say something that will stir up a little controversary on the subject and help keep me awake through the rest of this interview?'" But I think another way to translate it is, "Hey, fella, how come I have to sit here with you, a boring, pasty-faced white guy, instead of some hot chick in a mini-skirt, and, by the way, do you have Wonkette's phone number?" There are plenty of women blogging, of course. What there are not aol login page re any who are regularly linked to by the top five or six male bloggers ( Wonkette is a special case), who are the only ones the producers who book slots for talk shows care about. I don't think the reason for this is sexism, although sexism always seems to come into play when those top male bloggers try to explain why they don't link to more female bloggers.

I not only want to be a good consumer by always hunting out the best deals, I want to be a good consumer by doing the right thing. I have just spent two weeks sunning myself in Spain. I wanted to pay an optional 'green tax' with BA, only I couldn't find the option when I was booking the flights. Instead I will go direct to do this with www.climatecare.org - I apparently need to pay £5 to make amends for the CO2 my journey created. I was expecting far worse. Refreshed from my holiday I'm now determined to do the right thing on food shopping. I've lazily slipped into regular visits to our local giant Tesco - it has helped wipe out nearly all our local shops. Instead I'm going to try a farm delivery service. A box of organic fruit and vegetables (sourced from local farmers where possible) will be delivered to my door once a week. The benefits are: * Producers get a better deal. * The food is organic, so my insides are better, the land benefits and there's no CO2-creating industrial processes for pesticides, etc. * The food is seasonal and sourced locally - cell phone pcs o produces very few food miles in shipping it to me. * My vegetable box is refilled each week - so no packaging or plastic bags. (Our reporter Simon Lambert has strong views on this). I've opted for farmaround.co.uk which seems to be pretty cheap - I'll get a veg box for £7 and fruit for £5, plus £1 for delivery. Rival sites include organicdelivery.co.uk, abel-cole.co.uk, riverford.co.uk, organics-4u.co.uk and freshfood.co.

By way of Amanda at Pandagon, who learned of it from Echidne, comes the news that Atrios was on C-SPAN the other night and he got asked the question. You know THE Question. "Where are all the women bloggers?" Sigh. As I wrote in Amanda's comments, "That question, 'Where are all the women bloggers?' a babelfish would translate as 'I only know the names of four or five bloggers. You, the guy I'm interviewing right now, and I just learned your name from my producer. Matt Drudge, Glenn Reynolds, and Mickey Kaus. Frankly, that's more names than my head can hold and I'm really not interested in reading any blogs. Can you please say something that will stir up a little controversary on the subject and help keep me awake through the rest of this interview?'" But I think another way to translate it is, "Hey, fella, how come I have to sit here with you, a boring, pasty-faced white guy, instead of some hot chick in a mini-skirt, and, by the way, do you have Wonkette's phone number?" There are plenty of women blogging, of course. What there are not are any who are regularly linked to by the top five or six male bloggers ( Wonkette is a special case), who are the only ones the producers who book slots for talk shows care about. I don't think the reason for this is sexism, although sexism always savings account payday loans eems to come into play when those top male bloggers try to explain why they don't link to more female bloggers.

I've been riding Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line trains lately, and have found them to be a pretty reliable way to travel, for the most part. Happily, I wasn't riding them yesterday : Legions of commuters sat in idled trains Tuesday morning because Amtrak decided to trim trees at the height of rush hour, according to state Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri. “I had people stuck in trains. It’s frustrating. wellness seminars t is analogous to shutting down three lanes of a highway in rush hour,” said Kolluri. NJ Transit said the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Line faced delays of up to an hour, though Kolluri said he had heard some passengers were delayed by two hours. Those rail lines are the main rail connection between New York City and Newark Liberty airport, so it's a good bet that some people missed their planes. "State lawmakers from both parties" took the occasion to suggest that Amtrak should be given access to still more federal funding. After all, nothing says, "give us more money" like a public demonstraton of the value you already provide.

Purchasing a puppy from a pet store appears, on its face, to be an entirely benign century city shared office ct—perhaps even a compassionate act, given the pleading eyes of these beautiful pups. But reproduced tens of thousands of times, this act is the economic engine that allows more than 5,000 puppy mills to operate in this country, mainly in the Midwest, but scattered throughout the nation and causing misery for hundreds of thousands of dogs. © iStockphoto At a time when 3 to 4 million dogs and cats are euthanized at animal control agencies and local humane societies, our nation has an entire industry built upon the principle of mass production of puppies — treating the breeding females like machines and churning out puppies for the pet trade. We'd be naive to think that the two phenomena—high-volume euthanasia and quasi-agricultural puppy production businesses—are unrelated. So that's why The HSUS took the unusual step of commenting yesterday on the behavior of the hyper-scrutinized Britney Spears—specifically, her apparent impulse buy for $3,000 of a Yorkshire Terrier. Generally, we are for leaving this young woman alone. We'd much prefer the nation's attention focused on social issues like animal protection, rather than on the social outings of Britney, Lindsay, Paris and others celebs. But it's been celebrity purchases of small pooches —by Paris Hilton and other high-profile celebs—that have driven the popularity of pocket puppies, such as Chihuahuas, Yorkies, Maltese and many others.

Having just reviewed Scott Page’s “The Difference” , I wanted to also call attention to an important book published a little over one year ago – “Brokerage and Closure: An Introduction to Social Capital” by Ronald Burt , one of the leading academics on social capital and social networks. In many respects, these books are great complements to each other. Page’s book makes a compelling case that cognitive diversity contributes to superior problem solving and predictive tasks. He analyzes the nature of cognitive diversity and the specific ways that this diversity can contribute to superior problem solving and predictions. Yet, he spends very little time exploring the relationships across diverse individuals and how these relationships contribute to superior performance of the individuals. This is where Burt’s book starts. Burt doesn’t spend a lot of time analyzing categories of diversity in or across the nodes – he is far more interested in the structure of relationships that connect the nodes. This is another important part of the puzzle. Page assumes that the diverse participants are connected and engaged in collaborative problem-solving or prediction view asks. Burt reminds us that a lot of the value is in creating new connections and that not all connections are created equal. Relationships can amplify the power of diversity and diversity can amplify the power of relationships.