Mitt Romney Hates Dogs

From the New York Times:

Romney placed his family dog, an Irish setter named Seamus, into a kennel lashed to the top of his station wagon for a 12-hour family trip from Boston to Ontario in 1983. Despite being shielded by a wind screen the former Massachusetts governor erected, Seamus expressed his discomfort with a diarrhea attack.

Now the story, recounted this week in a Boston Globe profile of Romney, has touched off howls of outrage from bloggers and animal rights activists even though it was presented in the story as an example of Romney's coolness under trying circumstances.

When Romney's eldest son, Tagg, and his four brothers complained about the brown runoff down the back windshield, their father quietly pulled the car over, borrowed a gas station hose and sprayed down both the dog and the kennel before returning to the road.

How will this story play among Republicans, I wonder? What kind of "family man" treats his dog this way?

Your Inket Printer Is Lying to You

From Salon (sub. req. or ad click-through):

"Your inkjet printer is probably lying to you. According to the research firm TÜV Rheinland, printers routinely report that their ink cartridges are empty when they really aren't. The study was commissioned by Epson, whose printers -- coincidence? -- were found to be the most honest. When Epson printers reported they were empty, they were actually only 80 percent empty. This isn't at all very honest -- imagine if the gas pump charged you for a full tank after filling up just four-fifths -- but it's a fair amount better than Kodak's EasyShare 5300 printer, which reported being empty after using just 36 percent of its ink. That is, the cartridge was almost two-thirds full when the printer recommended buying a new one."

Inkjet printers are such a scam. My color inkjet printer sits unused because I can't bother to refill all 6 of the cartridges. And you can't just refill the black cartridge; the printer will actually refuse to print unless all six cartridges are full. This explains why printers are so cheap to buy nowadays. They're following the disposable razor marketing formula.

Mike Nifong and the Duke rape scandal

First: I don't understand why the media is rushing to the defense of these Duke kids. Their behavior was highly inappropriate, even though it probably wasn't criminal, and they deserved to be sanctioned for it.

Second: Mike Nifong may have been overzealous, but how does that make him different than any other ambitious state or federal prosecutor? How many innocent people have been charged, prosecuted and convicted due to similar behavior -- and how many of those prosecutors have been sanctioned (much less disbarred)? David Feige, in Slate, is right on the money.