Americans are freedom-loving people… at least for themselves. But they’re certainly happy to limit other people’s freedom.

A perfect example is this Chicago Tribune story about a billboard that some people don’t like. But let me quote some of the things they’re saying.

“It doesn’t represent us as people whose beauty emanates from within,” [local resident Regina] Thibeau said. “I’m a mother, a wife, a member of the PTA, and this is an affront to everything I work for and try to instill in my children.”

Translation: Because that billboard doesn’t reflect my personal values, no one should be allowed to see it.

Cathe Russe, a mother of four girls, stands behind Ibgui’s right to put up the billboard, but she does not like its message.

“It demonstrates that there’s a set of values they support that are the antithesis of my values,” Russe said. “I would love to see it removed.”

Again: I would like to see something removed because it doesn’t reflect my “values.”

Imagine if we applied that standard all over. (Kant called this the categorical imperative.) Nothing should be posted that offends anyone else’s values. Wow. No more signs anywhere.

Certainly that’s the attitude that right-wing Christian extremists have — ‘ban any book that doesn’t support our values‘ — but the courts (those darned activist judges) have basically told them to stuff it.

Still, it’s good to see people like Regina Thibeau fighting to destroy our freedoms one “offense” at a time.

Sam noticed that the volume on his computer had been turned down after he walked away from it. “I can’t hear the badgers,” he said.

“Mommy must have turned it down,” I replied.

“Why?”

“Because it was very loud. If Mommy has half a brain, she knows you won’t come back for a long time. And I think she has half a brain.”

Sam: “No she doesn’t.”

Cool: Apple has launched iTunes Plus where, for $1.29 — 30 cents more than a regular iTunes track — you can download a DRM-free, higher-quality version. At least of songs by EMI artists.

It’s a start, and it’s very cool and well worth it.

But get this. When you download the songs, Apple embeds your user information into the downloaded file. So, although you can easily share these files with anyone, they can just as easily track it back to you.

Or maybe not. iTunes songs are in MPEG-4 format (.m4a), and converting them to MP3 (the standard for sharing music) appears to remove your user info.

And even if it doesn’t, someone will soon find a way to do that.

Regardless, it’s a great way to let people get music they can play any way they want while still offering some protection against wanton privacy. Nice move.

I got so excited to see I was out of bandwidth for a little while yesterday. I figured the site had gotten so popular that I needed to upgrade to a bigger hosting plan. Sadly, no — it was just a mistake by my ISP.

Oh, well. Guess I’ll have to make some comment about the Mac not being a reflection of the gods’ perfection. That’ll boost traffic.

Via Blog of Stupidity.

(Well, one thing to say. It’s from Alexandria-Pineville, Louisiana.)

This is funny. Stowe Boyd and I disagree about the importance of Twitter. On his blog, he wrote a little screed about it, much of which was based on not reading my column thoroughly (as I pointed out in the comments). He also called me ”Idiot,” because in Boyd’s world, anyone who disagrees with you is one.

Anyway, what’s funny is this, in which he claims to “disembowel” me.

I guess in his world, forceful and snide remarks constitute a “disemboweling.” I mine, you need a bit more than just volume and self-importance.

(Heck, if that’s all you need, I’d be disemboweling people left and right. I’m full of volume and self importance!)

And there’s some sort of law that says you have to add things to your kitten photos.

OK, I think that’s enough! Comments are closed! :-)

As I wrote about before, Best Buy got caught creating a scam site to trick consumers into thinking that the prices they saw online were higher than what was in the store.

Now the Hartford Courant is reporting that “Connecticut’s attorney general announced a lawsuit today against Best Buy, accusing the nation’s largest consumer electronics retailer of deceiving customers with in-store computer kiosks and overcharging them.”

A co-worker came to me today — he had planned to take his dog to Brambleton Veterinary Hospital and was looking for the phone number when he found my site instead.

Needless to say, he’s chosen to go somewhere else.

But he gave me some interesting info.

Apparently, Dr. Linda Jennings DVM had a previous partner, Linda Eick. After some kind of disagreement (”fight” was his term, but I don’t know if that’s accurate), Eick left to start her own practice: Big Lick Veterinary Service. And Eick is apparently a wonderful vet.

In fact, it can take a while to get an appointment at Big Lick. Ditto for Cave Spring, Roanoke Veterinary, and every other vet in the area.

Except Brambleton Vet. In fact, you’ll probably find that you have no problem getting an appointment there — they have a lot of free time.

We had only gone to one other vet in the area, and only for an emergency, so we had no idea that typical waiting times were longer. Had we realized that Brambleton Veterinary Hospital had much more free time than other local vets, we may have thought twice.

I went out today to check out a building collapse nearby. No injuries (well, one minor one treated at the scene), but a pretty impressive pile of bricks.

I took some shots and couldn’t resist pointing out the obvious, based on what we were told caused the collapse.

(Click to enlarge)

I can dream, can’t I? (5.5 MB Quicktime movie)

(This may not be working till after midnight on Wednesday.)

He could come back without arms, legs or eyeballs, and you’re bitching? “You’re not dodging bullets, so I don’t want to hear any whining.
– “Dr.” Laura Schlessinger to the wives of men deployed in Iraq.

Well, at least she’s not advocating hanging people who disagree with her, or saying that the wives of 9/11 victims didn’t love their husbands, the way other right-wing pundits have.

You gotta love the right — violence and anger is all they seem to know. Shoot ‘em, hang ‘em, execute ‘em, insult them. A pretty limited toolbox.

I sent my mother (and other family members) the Army’s record of my Dad’s enlistment in 1943. The form said he was “Single, with dependents.”

This is the e-mail conversation I had with my her regarding that. I think Lou Costello is going to jump in at any moment.

Mom [on seeing the enlistment form]: Dad will get  kick out of this one.  Will see him later this afternoon.   

Me: Ask him who his dependents were!

Mom: his dependents were all of us, who else?

Me: In 1943?

Mom: he had no dependents, just a young fella. 

Me: Well the Army seemed to think he had dependents in 1943!

Mom: who?

So check this out. “Jackie,” who claimed in one message that she works for Dr. Linda F. Jennings DVM, has been posting other comments using different names.

She posted as “Anonymous” once, and then as “animal lover” in a couple of places.

She’s not very bright. I explained at the beginning that this whole problem resulted from Brambleton Veterinary Hospital’s nasty attitude, and the staff’s refusing to let us take our dog home.

Yet “Jackie” persists in claiming we were trying not to pay.

Well, consider this. Apart from the fact that we were long-time, multiple-animal customers, PJ had a drainage tube in his leg and stitches that had to be removed.

In other words, Jackie dear, we had to come back to the vet. It wouldn’t make sense that we would try to skip out on a bill. (Add to this the simply fact that we paid every bill over the past two or three years that we’d be going there.)

It seems the people at Brambleton Veterinary Hospital are getting pretty desperate. But the cool thing is, comments like Jackie’s … er, “animal lover’s,” just help show a pattern of misinformation and character attacks.

So I went to see my attorney today. It was actually about something else (updating my will to reflect a life-insurance change, if you care), but while I was there I asked whether he handles things like personal/business cases. I also mentioned slander.

Well what do you know, he does. (It’s not his primary practice, but there are other lawyers in the firm if it comes to that.)

I’m not going to say anymore at the moment, but I left the office with a smile on my face and some paperwork in my hand.

(Oh, and for you language nitpickers out there: A lawyer is someone who practices law. When one is representing you, s/he is your attorney.)

Ferrania’s got you covered.

We brought PJ to a new vet today to have his stitches checked out. Turns out that Dr. Linda Jennings DVM, or her staff, gave him the wrong dose of medication.

According to our new vet (more soon), PJ should be getting 375 mg of Clavamox, but he was only given 250-mg tablets. And yes, it’s available in 375-mg tablets.

According to Pfizer, the recommended dosage for Clavamox is 6.25 mg/lb. PJ weighs about 60 lbs. Do the math and you get 375 mg.

The vet knew this; the vet tech was very clear that we should give him the 60-lb. dosage of pain meds.

But not only did they give us the wrong dose of medication, the people at Brambleton Veterinary Hospital charged us for the larger dose. (When I get home I’ll snap pictures of the receipt showing that we paid for 375 mg. and the tablets that read 250 mg.)

So let me be clear: The staff at Brambleton Veterinary Hospital in Roanoke, Va., was not only nasty and rude to us, but they gave our dog the wrong dosage of medication.

Good thing we went to another vet.

Update, five minutes later: You know what? As much as I would like to think this happened because the vet was evil or incompetent, I realize that’s probably not the case. Most likely whomever stuffed the pills into the envelope simply grabbed the wrong dosage.

Obviously they knew the correct dose — it was on the bill. It saddens me to say so, but I think this was an honest mistake.

Update, 5 more minutes later: Karen called the vet (!) and the woman who answered, Christina, was friendly and polite and offered to swap out the meds immediately. (I can’t imagine she’ll be working there long. :) 

When Karen told her she was uncomfortable coming to the office, Christina said that she was at the desk and there wouldn’t be a problem. When Karen got there, the office manager saw her and “made a beeline for the back,” Karen said. Christina swapped the meds and we got a receipt to document the error.

Oh, and Karen reports that the office was otherwise empty of customers.

http://www.kantor.com/2007/05/14/avoid-brambleton-…

Dr. Linda Jennings DVM said that I came into her office screaming and cursing her staff. And “Jackie” wrote in one comment that “they were in our office the morning after causing a scene.”

So, to defend myself, I present this brief (52 second) clip of me in the office. This takes place after one member of the staff brought PJ out. Was I angry? You bet. Was my tone harsh? A bit, certainly. Did I curse or abuse anyone? Nope.

But check it out. (MP3 format)

Because current employees of Dr. Linda Jennings posted here to share their impressions of Dr. Jennings, I thought it would be appropriate to share some comments from a former employee of Brambleton Vet. Unlike the current people, she doesn’t have a vested interest in one side or the other.

Jessica asked that I not use her last name. Except for adding paragraph breaks for clarity, I haven’t edited these except as noted.

Her first note:

I actually used to work at the Brambleton Vet. It was my first job out of high school and it was horrific. I knew I would never take an animal there after working there. I had similar things happen with Dr. Jennings. She is very rude and would leave surgery early for a golf game and just hand over responsibility to someone else. I worked there in 2000, so I’m not sure who is still there. Still, I find it hard to believe it has improved much.

She followed up with this:

There was one incident that probably stands out most in my mind that I can share. I worked in the lower level where the kennels were and we bathed, walked, and fed the dogs that came in for an appointment (or were there beeing borded). I remember two of the ladies that worked there and how unpleasant they were.

One day a dog came in for a bath and nail clipping. The woman started cutting his nails and cut the quick right away. He started to bleed and tried to get away, but she just brought over people to help restrain the dog so she could continue to trim his nails, and continue to cut the quick! No one did anything about it and the dog was hollering and barking and crying, bleeding all over the floor. I couldn’t believe she would conitnue and that people were letting her. I said I would go get someone, went upstairs totally distressed, and no one upstairs seemed to care either.

I can’t say whether those people still work there, but in general, I found that the wellbeing of the animals was not addressed consistently. This may have never happened again, but in the time I was there in 2000, I saw many things like this. This, however, stuck out in my mind because it was so distressing to be there, and perhaps I was not immune to the amount of blood. But this was a simple nail trimming and does not call for tough stomach.

She also mentioned some other things she heard about while there, but as I can’t confirm those stories I won’t include them.

As promised, here’s a photo of one of the kittens the SPCA has us fostering for a few weeks. Not a great shot, but all kittens are cute.

We had them out and were playing with them for a good hour, and they did not want to go back in their crate! But it’s amazing what a bowl of cat food will do to distract ‘em.