As the proud owner (parent?) of an ultra-cute little Chihuahua mutt myself (he’s half Chihuahua and half cartoon), I read this item from today’s Los Angeles Times Metro desk with tears welling up in my eyes. About 20 to 30 of these CUTE little guys and gals are being dropped off at Los Angeles dog pounds every single day. Call it the “Paris Hilton syndrome” if you like, she—and the Taco Bell commercials—are only partly to blame: It’s really the dog breeders who went way overboard in recent years.

As Maria L. La Ganga reports:

“We need a constant supply of new foster homes, because we have a constant supply of new Chihuahuas,” [Kim Durney, administrative director of Grateful Dogs Rescue] said, calling for a halt to “irresponsible” backyard breeding.

In January, Santa Barbara County will begin an effort aimed in part at such breeders. That’s when a new ordinance will go into effect requiring owners of unaltered dogs to get a special license.

Fourteen months ago, the county staged Adopt-a-Chihuahua Week to find homes for more than 100 of the abandoned breed that had ended up in its three animal shelters.

Each dog came with its own pink carrying case, trimmed in black fake fur.

Look into those soulful little eyes. Can you stand the idea that this sweet little creature probably won’t live into the new year? Feel your heart strings being tugged here? Full disclosure: I am trying to manipulate you. If you can provide a home for one of these sweet, hyperactive li’l critters—trust me, rescued dogs know they’ve been rescued and they love you all the more for it—why not pick up the phone right now, before you change you mind, and adopt?

Kudos to actress Katherine Heigl for her generous support of these defenseless creatures. Heigl’s charity, the Jason Debus Heigl Foundation, paid for 25 Chihuahuas to be airlifted to New Hampshire last week, where all of them found loving homes in a single day. On Saturday, the charity’s mobile adoption center will be at Topanga Feed and Seed, 106 S. Topanga Canyon Blvd., from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Cross posting this from BrandX
Photo: A Chihuahua at the East Valley Animal Care Center in Van Nuys on Dec. 9, 2009. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Jamais Cascio discusses the possibility of states getting into a Cold War-like situation over who can adapt to global warming fastest. Eerily plausible. And I don’t think the United States would be anywhere near the top of the pile.

What happens if global efforts to set and abide by strong carbon emissions cuts fail?

The standard answer to a question like this is that “we all suffer.” While that’s probably true, it misses the point—we may all suffer, but we don’t all suffer equally. Some nations will be hit harder by storms or droughts than others; some nations will have the resources and technologies to adapt better than others. And therein lies the potential for what may end up as a nasty tool of international competition.

There is, I believe, a non-zero chance that an extended period of climate instability could induce a state that believes itself to be better able to adapt to global warming to slow its efforts to decarbonize in order to gain a lead over its more vulnerable rivals.

(Open the Future: A Cold War Over Warming)

(Check out my interview with Jamais Cascio on the future of green business here.)

The ACLU took a hard swing at the Obama administration today for upholding the Bush administration’s torture policies. Almost a year on into the Obama administration (quite hard to believe), we’re opening more secret prisons and upholding all the torture doctrines that got us into this mess. What next, starting more wars? Oh wait…

“The Bush administration constructed a legal framework for torture,” Jameel Jaffer, Director of ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a conference call with reporters. “Now the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework for impunity.”

While he credited Obama for having disavowed torture under his watch, Jaffer said that “on every front, the administration is actively obstructing accountability by shielding Bush officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture.”

“It’s the last month of 2009, and not a single torture victim has had his day in court,” said ACLU Attorney Ben Wizner. “Not a single court in a torture case has ruled on the legality of the Bush administration?

In honor of the announcement of the UK’s new ahem Ministry of Space, here’s a picture of a half million galaxies.

Fit that into a 140-word Tweet, puny mortals, and remember what we were SUPPOSED to be doing with the 21st Century!

Note: Every dot in above picture is a galaxy, not a star. Discover’s Bad Astronomer says:

Whoa. That?

 
Dangerous Minds welcomes today a fifth member to the team, main Medicine man, another proud Angeleno, and one of my dear childhood friends, Mr. Brad Laner.  You might have read some of his earlier contributions (see this, and this), but he’s now boldly leaping from guest to regular contributor.  Welcome aboard, Brad!  And here he is in action:

 
The Catcher In The Rye as a play or film?  Not if J.D. Salinger has anything to say about it:

I keep saying this and nobody seems to agree, but The Catcher in the Rye is a very novelistic novel.  There are readymade “scenes”—only a fool would deny that—but, for me, the weight of the book is in the narrator’s voice, the non-stop peculiarities of it, his personal, extremely discriminating attitude to his reader-listener, his asides about gasoline rainbows in street puddles, his philosophy or way of looking at cowhide suitcases and empty toothpaste cartons—in a word, his thoughts.  He can’t legitimately be separated from his own first-person technique.

The letter from which the above is culled is currently on sale for $54,000.  You can see a copy of it here.

(via LettersOfNote)

 
Here’s a bizarre Christmas card guaranteed to bring holiday cheer this season from Etsy seller Dark Vomit. Each card measures 8 1/2 inches tall and comes in a set of five for $15.00.
 
Jesus Christ and Santa Claus Christmas Card print set

 
The UK’s Abe Books has launched a brand new Weird Books Room: “a celebration of everything that?

This creeps me the hell out. It’s an “eye idol” dug up in Nagar, Syria. It’s like a paleolithic Yip-Yip.

?

 
Not to be outpaced by John Ashcroft’s stirring Let The Eagle Soar, Streisand-loving Republican Senator Orrin Hatch has penned, for Tablet Magazine, a celebratory tune of his own, ?