Eclectic Amateur

Business Saavy

• Have a great laugh.
  
• Weep at the state of American business "smarts".
  

Gone To The Dogs

... or, why I oppose genetic engineering:

I'm a big fan of the German Shepherd. It's not my all-time favorite
breed, but it's a good one. My wife's aunt has a beautiful
silver-black female born the same day as my oldest son, on my father's
farm. You just can't beat karma like that.

Now, the German Shepherd has always been, to my mind, a
practical breed. From its name, it has a honorable
history of working the fields, and of course in modern times it has
done fine duty in police work.

So, now I learn that the lords of the AKC have decided that
"practical" is out and "abstract geometric styling" is in. Never mind
that man and animals might actually work together. Never mind that
the new show lines cause the animals to have their hips fail, causing
them great pain in later life. No, it's all about The Look™.

For real German Shepherds (the classic dog), look href="http://www.olderhill.co.za/main.html">here.

For the crippled look, see href="http://www.gsdhelpline.com/anneb.htm">here and href="http://www.classypets.com/breeds/breed-info-german-shepherd.html">
here.

Now, if we can screw up this badly just with dogs and traditional
breeding techniques, do you really think we should trust the
cloners and genetic engineers not to help us muck things up even more
radically?