Picard Poster

[ITDUDE]

^^tl;dr
This is Ze Interwebs, any and all points must be made in one line or less (preferably under 140 characters)

 

[Jayson1]

Maybe a pittbull was chosen to represent where Picard is at in his life. More grizzled and angry. Can't make Picard filled with angst and then wheel out a cute adorable dog where everyone goe, awwwww! How cute. Jason

 

[fireproof78]

I am also sure you have never had intense emotions temporarily drive your behavior in bad ways because you were never trained to act like that.

No need to get personal. All the poster said was not to assume all are bad. As with most things in life it isn't black or white.

 

[Spot261]

This is BS. Pitbulls are statistically more likely to kill a human than any other dog. Not all pitbulls are bad, but enough are that it should be a concern. How many Golden Retrievers kill people each year or Jack Russells? Pitbulls are physically strong enough to kill and were bred to have temperaments that make them a poor choice for a pet. Pitbulls are also the most common type of dog in shelters by a long shot. This means that they are put down more than any other dog. It is irresponsible and unethical to breed them when you could instead breed a dog that isn't banned from most apartments due to data backed insurance risks, that isn't physically capable of killing a fit adult human, that would be an extremely stupid choice if you have kids.

I am all for someone trying to take care of the ones that are not bad and rescuing them. However promoting the breed as a good choice of a pet because you feel that they are some magical creature that could only be an aggressive beast if trained to do so is ignorant. I have had dogs for 30 years. I had 2 that I would not want around children because they couldn't handle being bothered by a kid poking them. I did not train them to get snippy when grabbed by a kid. They did not learn that anywhere. They are animals and respond to things based on their animal instincts. If those 2 dogs, one a 10 pound Lhasa Apso and the other a 35 pound terrier mix had the strength of a pitbull, they would be a danger to children, strangers coming into the house and possibly their owners under some circumstances. It is natural variation to have those temperaments in normal dogs. Just like people, some dogs are born assholes or turn into one when they get old.

Put it this way. Why do you advocate for pitbulls as pets, but not coyotes or wolves? They can interbreed. Wolves took generations to domesticate. Is it not fathomable that human driven breeding could create dog breeds that have traits that make them unsuitable for pets just like a wild wolf cub? Of course it is. Pitbull apologists ignore basic science, facts about canines and all the data that shows that they are by far the most dangerous dog breed to own. It's not always the owner, its the breed and its the specific dog who just happens to be one of the bad ones or pushed there by bad experiences. It's nature and nurture. And you likely could train a mini poodle to be aggressive and to kill other small dogs, but they wouldn't be able to do it as quickly as a pitbull and they would not be able to effectively use that violence to kill a healthy, unconstrained, and conscious human.

I used to be an ignorant pitbull supporter because I blindly believed the sentimental bullshit the apologists post and because I am a dog person. Then I saw one snap and rip a gash in one of my dogs in seconds. If the owner did not have a shock collar on it, he would not have been able to stop it. He was a middle aged man who owns a nice house on the water and is a good owner. The dog however is a shit pet and requires precaution that ordinary dogs do not. I read up on the dogs, thought about the variations in temperaments I have seen in dogs I have owned and known and random dogs I have met at dog parks, etc. Understanding statistics at the level of a physicist and engineer also informed my well reasoned opinion. There is no good evidence out there supporting the claims that pitbulls are as good a pet as other breeds. It's all anecdotal. Your claims that the poster you replied to was basing his feelings on anecdotes is silly. You are. As are all Pitbull apologists. Nobody is claiming that all pitbulls are bad. We are claiming that the data shows that they are risky as pets, that they are discarded in high numbers because of the consequences of those risks and that they do not provide anything special as a pet that couldn't be gotten from another dog other than the knowledge that your dog is strong enough to kill your enemies, regardless of how nice he or she is. Pitbull fans are kind of doggie racists. They glom on to one type of dog and preach their special qualities that are not different from other breeds.

If you are so sure Pitbulls are great, prove with data, that all pitbull related human deaths were caused by human owners training the dog to do that and not just an animal with a bad temperament or who just happened to snap for a few minutes. It would also help if you could prove the same for Rottweilers which are the second leading cause of dog related deaths. I am also sure you have never had intense emotions temporarily drive your behavior in bad ways because you were never trained to act like that.

All of which is based on data with significant but unquantified co variants. Pitbulls are frequently trained to be more aggressive by owners who use them for fighting or intimidation. It isn't required that it be proved training is the primary cause for that, the fact that it is a known statistical factor is enough to bring the assertion into valid doubt.

Where Pitbulls are genuinely more dangerous than most breeds is the simple fact that they are well equipped to do damage. Their low centre of gravity, high muscle to body fat ratio and extreme jaw strength mean that when they lock on they are very difficult to remove or escape from.

Note that you have referred to the number of deaths resulting from bites, not the number of bites themselves. That's an important distinction because the ratio of bites to kills whill be very skewed compared to other breeds. I'm inclined to agree there should be strict controls on breeding for that reason, but the idea they are inherently more aggressive is at the moment unsupportable.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Well, if the dog will make you not watch the show, then I suppose your opinion has some merit. But if you’re still going to watch regardless, then your personal opinion of pitbulls doesn’t matter in the large scheme of things. Just like how it doesn’t matter that that other guy got chased down by a pitbull and got bitten on the ass.

Does someone else's opinion ever really matter? It's a discussion board, we discuss things. The dog is quite prominent on the poster, so it seems a logical point of discussion. I find the idea that opinions have merit or not a bit odd.

 

[saladdays]

This is BS. Pitbulls are statistically more likely to kill a human than any other dog. Not all pitbulls are bad, but enough are that it should be a concern. How many Golden Retrievers kill people each year or Jack Russells? Pitbulls are physically strong enough to kill and were bred to have temperaments that make them a poor choice for a pet. Pitbulls are also the most common type of dog in shelters by a long shot. This means that they are put down more than any other dog. It is irresponsible and unethical to breed them when you could instead breed a dog that isn't banned from most apartments due to data backed insurance risks, that isn't physically capable of killing a fit adult human, that would be an extremely stupid choice if you have kids.

I asked someone before in this thread, but which actual breed are you referring to? "Pit bulls" are a grouping of certain types of terriers, with a majority of those breeds now being bred as show dogs. Being "irresponsible and unethical to breed them" is a bit of stretch.

I am all for someone trying to take care of the ones that are not bad and rescuing them. However promoting the breed as a good choice of a pet because you feel that they are some magical creature that could only be an aggressive beast if trained to do so is ignorant. I have had dogs for 30 years. I had 2 that I would not want around children because they couldn't handle being bothered by a kid poking them. I did not train them to get snippy when grabbed by a kid. They did not learn that anywhere. They are animals and respond to things based on their animal instincts. If those 2 dogs, one a 10 pound Lhasa Apso and the other a 35 pound terrier mix had the strength of a pitbull, they would be a danger to children, strangers coming into the house and possibly their owners under some circumstances. It is natural variation to have those temperaments in normal dogs. Just like people, some dogs are born assholes or turn into one when they get old.

Maybe I missed a comment, but was someone in this thread saying that pit bulls were a good choice for a pet? I don't necessarily think they are the best choice, but many more people that not have pit bulls and experience no problem with them.

There is no good evidence out there supporting the claims that pitbulls are as good a pet as other breeds. It's all anecdotal. Your claims that the poster you replied to was basing his feelings on anecdotes is silly. You are. As are all Pitbull apologists. Nobody is claiming that all pitbulls are bad. We are claiming that the data shows that they are risky as pets, that they are discarded in high numbers because of the consequences of those risks and that they do not provide anything special as a pet that couldn't be gotten from another dog other than the knowledge that your dog is strong enough to kill your enemies, regardless of how nice he or she is. Pitbull fans are kind of doggie racists. They glom on to one type of dog and preach their special qualities that are not different from other breeds.

You are striking down claims that I'm not sure were ever said in this thread. Did someone really say that pit bulls were, bar none, the best pet out there?

Furthermore, I'm sure you are correct that pit bulls are discarded because of legitimate concerns. However, I posit that one of the significant reasons that pit bulls are discarded is because of an overall baseless fear of the breeds. Similar to how sharks are not nearly as dangerous and bloodthirsty as made out to be in fiction (many kinds aren't even carnivores). Of course, no one is going to have a shark as a pet, but there are plenty of people out there that know little about sharks who are afraid of them because of what they've heard, similar to how some people that know little about pit bulls who are afraid of them because of what they've heard.

 

[fireproof78]

Does someone else's opinion ever really matter? It's a discussion board, we discuss things. The dog is quite prominent on the poster, so it seems a logical point of discussion. I find the idea that opinions have merit or not a bit odd.

Well, that's, just like, you're opinion, man

 

[ITDUDE]

I don't care about pitbulls one way or the other, but at least they didn't go this way:

 

[ToyBoxComix]

*Sees pit bull discussion on page 1. Sighs, skips to page 8.
*Sighs again, posts snarky comment, leaves thread.

 

[Tuskin38]

*Sees pit bull discussion on page 1. Sighs, skips to page 8.
*Sighs again, posts snarky comment, leaves thread.

The discussion was dead for post of those pages

 

[The Old Mixer]

Of course, no one is going to have a shark as a pet

Well, unless maybe they work for SPECTRE...

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[Awesome Possum]

This is BS. Pitbulls are statistically more likely to kill a human than any other dog. Not all pitbulls are bad, but enough are that it should be a concern. How many Golden Retrievers kill people each year or Jack Russells? Pitbulls are physically strong enough to kill and were bred to have temperaments that make them a poor choice for a pet. Pitbulls are also the most common type of dog in shelters by a long shot. This means that they are put down more than any other dog. It is irresponsible and unethical to breed them when you could instead breed a dog that isn't banned from most apartments due to data backed insurance risks, that isn't physically capable of killing a fit adult human, that would be an extremely stupid choice if you have kids.

I am all for someone trying to take care of the ones that are not bad and rescuing them. However promoting the breed as a good choice of a pet because you feel that they are some magical creature that could only be an aggressive beast if trained to do so is ignorant. I have had dogs for 30 years. I had 2 that I would not want around children because they couldn't handle being bothered by a kid poking them. I did not train them to get snippy when grabbed by a kid. They did not learn that anywhere. They are animals and respond to things based on their animal instincts. If those 2 dogs, one a 10 pound Lhasa Apso and the other a 35 pound terrier mix had the strength of a pitbull, they would be a danger to children, strangers coming into the house and possibly their owners under some circumstances. It is natural variation to have those temperaments in normal dogs. Just like people, some dogs are born assholes or turn into one when they get old.

Put it this way. Why do you advocate for pitbulls as pets, but not coyotes or wolves? They can interbreed. Wolves took generations to domesticate. Is it not fathomable that human driven breeding could create dog breeds that have traits that make them unsuitable for pets just like a wild wolf cub? Of course it is. Pitbull apologists ignore basic science, facts about canines and all the data that shows that they are by far the most dangerous dog breed to own. It's not always the owner, its the breed and its the specific dog who just happens to be one of the bad ones or pushed there by bad experiences. It's nature and nurture. And you likely could train a mini poodle to be aggressive and to kill other small dogs, but they wouldn't be able to do it as quickly as a pitbull and they would not be able to effectively use that violence to kill a healthy, unconstrained, and conscious human.

I used to be an ignorant pitbull supporter because I blindly believed the sentimental bullshit the apologists post and because I am a dog person. Then I saw one snap and rip a gash in one of my dogs in seconds. If the owner did not have a shock collar on it, he would not have been able to stop it. He was a middle aged man who owns a nice house on the water and is a good owner. The dog however is a shit pet and requires precaution that ordinary dogs do not. I read up on the dogs, thought about the variations in temperaments I have seen in dogs I have owned and known and random dogs I have met at dog parks, etc. Understanding statistics at the level of a physicist and engineer also informed my well reasoned opinion. There is no good evidence out there supporting the claims that pitbulls are as good a pet as other breeds. It's all anecdotal. Your claims that the poster you replied to was basing his feelings on anecdotes is silly. You are. As are all Pitbull apologists. Nobody is claiming that all pitbulls are bad. We are claiming that the data shows that they are risky as pets, that they are discarded in high numbers because of the consequences of those risks and that they do not provide anything special as a pet that couldn't be gotten from another dog other than the knowledge that your dog is strong enough to kill your enemies, regardless of how nice he or she is. Pitbull fans are kind of doggie racists. They glom on to one type of dog and preach their special qualities that are not different from other breeds.

If you are so sure Pitbulls are great, prove with data, that all pitbull related human deaths were caused by human owners training the dog to do that and not just an animal with a bad temperament or who just happened to snap for a few minutes. It would also help if you could prove the same for Rottweilers which are the second leading cause of dog related deaths. I am also sure you have never had intense emotions temporarily drive your behavior in bad ways because you were never trained to act like that.

That's all bullshit. In reality, when someone gets attacked by a dog, pitbulls are always blamed mostly due to the negative image that they have from the media and because nearly everyone is terrible at knowing what particular breed a dog is, even a lot of veterinarians. So every single a time a person gets bit by a dog, a pitbull gets blamed. I'm not sure where you're getting the basis for your beliefs, but they're based entirely on misinformation, poor reporting and outright fabrication. There's also some evidence to support that a lot of the negative opinion of pitbulls is tied into racism.

About seven years ago, when author Bronwen Dickey started writing a book about pit bulls, she said she was intrigued by the reactions she got from people. Everyone seemed to have a strong opinion about the dogs, but they often had more to do with stereotypes about the dogs' owners than the animals themselves.

“There is all this coded, racialized language like ‘thug’ or ‘gangsta’ or ‘dealer',” said Dickey, who is also a contributing editor at The Oxford American.

When people talk about pit bulls, they often reveal their opinions on class and race issues while "using the dogs as proxies," according to Dickey. The recent history of the dog, she argues in her new book, is partly a story about racism and cultural stereotypes.

“When I did more research about what had actually happened in the 70s and 80s, and saw how much race-baiting there was in the media coverage of pit bulls, I thought it was really something I had to pay attention to,” Dickey told Fusion.

Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon traces the history of pit bulls in America—from being featured on war-era propaganda posters to being outright banned in cities and municipalities that branded them as “superpredators,” a term that has recently re-entered the political landscape for its racist connotations.

Originally bred in England for an erstwhile "sport" known as bullbaiting, the dogs were later used in clandestine dog fights in basements and taverns—a bloodsport that eventually crossed the ocean to America.

A select few of the dogs continued to be bred and trained for fighting. But huge amounts of them were integrated into normal, domestic American life.

At their peak, an American pit bull terrier named Stubby was a decorated World War I hero; he once captured a German spy in combat. Pit bull-type dogs were kept by Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt in the White House. (Dickey and most dog experts don't consider them actually "breeds," but rather a loosely defined "type" of dog.) Pal, a pit bull, appeared in over 200 films in the early 1900s, the most famous of which as Petey in “The Little Rascals.”

That was the golden age for pit bulls. But by the late 1960s, public perception started to shift.

As urban crime skyrocketed, pit bulls became increasingly employed as guard dogs in economically depressed black and brown neighborhoods. Dickey says that's when newspapers started printing bogus stories about these dogs, fabricating alarming reports of vicious behavior. One 1974 New York Times article claimed that pit bull puppies were trained to fight by killing kittens and other puppies.

Through her research, Dickey said, she was never able to substantiate the claims made in those articles. But it was too late. The enduring urban legend of the pit bull as an unrivaled killing machine had been born.

Real data on dog attacks is surprisingly scarce. The Centers for Disease and Control stopped tracking dog bites by breed in 2000, acknowledging serious flaws in past data collection. "It's virtually impossible to calculate bite rates for specific breeds," the White House said about that decision.

"Singling out 1 or 2 breeds for control can result in a false sense of accomplishment," added a 2001 report from the American Veterinary Medical Association, which backed the CDC's policy shift. "Dog bite statistics are not really statistics, and they do not give an accurate picture of dogs that bite. Invariably the numbers will show that dogs from popular large breeds are a problem."

Dickey thinks that fear, more than facts or science, drove a lot of the media's reports on pit bulls. The narrative was racially charged, she writes.

Dickey says upper-class white people couldn’t believe the barbarity of the people who owned what they believed to be fighting dogs, and they projected these views onto the dogs themselves. Self-styled pit bull “experts” started offering the media quotes about how the dogs have a “will to kill” that's unrivaled in the natural world.

"This is a dog in name only," yelled a column in the Los Angeles Times. Similar reports all but linked the dogs to the crack epidemic that was sweeping inner cities and scaring white people.

In fact, Dickey notes, when you look at the words “pit bull” and “crack cocaine” in the Google Ngram Viewer, which tracks word usage in literature over time, you can see the two terms picked up in usage around the same time in the late 1980s. Here’s the chart:
CHART IS ON THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Dickey might have initially intended to write about a particular animal, and indeed she did. But the end result, she said, has a bigger message.

“Right now we’re at a height of people denying science—think of climate-change deniers and the anti-vaccine movement. People are rebelling against scientific consensus. I think we all need to trust scientific consensus, but at the same time we have to double check and see that everything is on the up and up as well,” she said. “I hope that [the book] will start a conversation and challenge people to be skeptical of everybody, myself included."

 

[Awesome Possum]

I don't care about pitbulls one way or the other, but at least they didn't go this way:

According to studies chihuahuas are more prone to attack that pitbulls or rottweilers, as can be confirmed by any human being who has ever actually interacted with one. Except for my friend's chihuahua, she's unusually sweet and likes to sit in your lap or next to you with her back leaning into you like she's reclining. His may be part pot-bellied pig because she grunts a lot for a dog. I've told him that if he were to die in a wreck or something I'd adopt her and keep her in the life to which she was accustomed, which is basically luxury.

 

[The Wormhole]

I remember there was a chihuahua that ran loose around the neighbourhood my school was in when I was a teenager. Damn thing was a menace and tried to attack all the kids on their way to school, or home. Even the other people who lived in the neighbourhood developed a hatred of the thing, since it would often wander onto their yards and accost them on their own property.

 

['Q']

Possible plot leaked:

Jean-Luc is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will... something you know very little about. I once saw him kill three Nausicans in a bar... with a dom-jot ball, with a fucking dom-jot ball. Then suddenly one day he asked to leave. It's over a woman, of course. So I made a deal with him. I gave him an impossible task. A job no one could have pulled off. The Romulans he buried that day laid the foundation of what we are now. And then my son, a few days after his wife died, you steal his Dune buggy and kill his fucking dog.

 

[Dukhat]

Does someone else's opinion ever really matter? It's a discussion board, we discuss things. The dog is quite prominent on the poster, so it seems a logical point of discussion. I find the idea that opinions have merit or not a bit odd.

There’s a difference between discussing your opinion about the topic at hand (the Picard show) and just going off on some silly tangent about how one hates pitbulls. How does that rant affect the show at hand? Answer: it doesn’t. If that poster showed Picard holding a Coors Light (a beer that I strongly dislike), I would not feel the need to go on a rambling diatribe about how I hate Coors Light. Is hating Coors Light going to stop me from watching the Picard show? No. So there’s no need for me to rant about it.

 

[ITDUDE]

If that poster showed Picard holding a Coors Light (a beer that I strongly dislike), I would not feel the need to go on a rambling diatribe about how I hate Coors Light. Is hating Coors Light going to stop me from watching the Picard show? No. So there’s no need for me to rant about it.

I’m with you. On the other hand if it was Racer 5 IPA, the single most vile beer in the world, I’d not only not watch PIC but start a boycotting campaign against CBS, or something as drastic and just as silly and stupid. But don’t care, hate that beer, it’s vile, it gives piss a bad name, baarff.

 

[Spot's Meow]

There’s a difference between discussing your opinion about the topic at hand (the Picard show) and just going off on some silly tangent about how one hates pitbulls. How does that rant affect the show at hand? Answer: it doesn’t. If that poster showed Picard holding a Coors Light (a beer that I strongly dislike), I would not feel the need to go on a rambling diatribe about how I hate Coors Light. Is hating Coors Light going to stop me from watching the Picard show? No. So there’s no need for me to rant about it.

I think you must have confused me with another poster. I only posted once in this thread about the dog, and it was only a couple of sentences. Certainly not a rambling diatribe. I don't hate the dogs at all, I just don't think this particular breed is attractive.

 

[Dukhat]

I think you must have confused me with another poster. I only posted once in this thread about the dog, and it was only a couple of sentences. Certainly not a rambling diatribe. I don't hate the dogs at all, I just don't think this particular breed is attractive.

I’m not confused, but you are correct; I was not referring to you, I was referring to the other guy who went on an unnecessary rant about how he hates pitbulls.

 

[marillion]

Or the poster is meant to be evocative and not literal.

It’s called (ironically, given the pooch in the poster) a sun dog. Sun dogs are caused when the sunlight refracts off ice crystals in the atmosphere. Now, all that said, the rings are usually seen along the horizon, not in the middle of the sky.