The most harrowing was from my congressional Rep. Jackie Speier who was an aide to Leo Ryan, and shot on the tarmac trying to escape Jonestown. She spent 22 hours lying there with five bullets in her body before she was rescued.

The Post article is by a journalist who was also injured there. He interviews her a bit for this article.

Ted Stevens loss totally messed up my prediction of Palin becoming a Senator in a special election.

Yeah, I think a lot of people were disappointed by this. Some Dems as well....

Or maybe I'm confusing Dems with comedians.

Ted Stevens loss totally messed up my prediction of Palin becoming a Senator in a special election.

And bless Uncle Ted for that "mess-up".

My next favorite request, "How can I get my Beagle to stop barking." Good luck with that!

I am here to testify.

I *will* say that the citronella collar did work. Sometimes.

Fenris is a Beagle mix, but there's no doubt he got the barking genes. I can distinctly hear his bark from a block away.

I *will* say that the citronella collar did work. Sometimes.

Years before my doggy lama days, a friend used a citronella collar on her mutt imported from Puerto Rico. That pooch had some 'street smarts.' She would walk into a corner, throw her head back as far as she could, bark like a maniac, cough a couple of times and then dash off to bark with impunity for the rest of the day. Emptying the collar: 2 minutes. Barking with abandon for 8 hours: Priceless.

I'm totally with amych in the humorless get a puppy for something other than looks bench.

bonny, you have a dalmatian; I'm sure you deal with people who adoped a dalmatian because of the damned movies and then realized that they're not as easy to live with as a good-natured mutt. Our dalmatian is one that The Boy inherited from a friend who realized that this high-strung, needy animal was not going to mesh with her vision of a self-maintaining* pet.

*(Seriously. Who expects ANY pet to be "self-maintaining"? Maybe a pet rock. But dogs need food, water, walkies, and attention. Just because a mutt might be more easygoing than our freaky attachment-disorder dalmatian doesn't mean that the mutt is "self-maintaining." But then, the friend wasn't the brightest porch light on the block either; she once -- hand to god -- tried to clean a spot off the dalmatian for about 5 minutes before she figured out it wasn't dirt. I wish I were making that up.)

I'm totally with amych in the humorless get a puppy for something other than looks bench.

Ditto. Although, sometimes, all the research and finding a good breeder in the world doesn't keep a bad puppy/owner match up from happening. First dog I had as an adult was a Newfoundland. Only seriously dominant/alpha Newf I've ever seen in my life. Also, the only Newf I've ever seen who bonded with one person (me) to the exclusion of everyone else and being super dominant over everyone else. HATED Lewis, even though Lewis did everything he could to mellow the dog out. Finally, after nearly a year, we had to give the dog back to the breeder because I'd found out I was pregnant with Nate. Kind of didn't make sense to have a dog we'd gotten with the expectation of being a family dog, who would in all likelihood hate the rest of the family.

We got a Lab after that.

"How can I get my Beagle to stop barking."

My DH and I have this discussion all the time:

DH: Sass' barking is a big problem.

Me: No, it's the beagle in her.

DH: But she can't keep doing it to people!

Me: She can't stop doing it to people, dear.

Only seriously dominant/alpha Newf I've ever seen in my life. Also, the only Newf I've ever seen who bonded with one person

I've never heard of a Newf doing that. My parents had to get rid of our Newf when I was a child because she never quite knew where she was in relation to me, thus causing me to be knocked down stairs, sat on, and generally treated like a piece of furniture by the dog. Not out of any malice, just out of inattention.