After Anna Briley kicked her boyfriend out of their east Nashville home, the jilted lover took out his frustrations on her pet pig, "Bacon Bit."
The pig was already suffering from a brain parasite that blinded him in one eye when Carl Leon Houston took his fists and a water hose to the animal on Nov. 7, 2006.
On Monday, Houston, 39, pleaded guilty to animal cruelty before Davidson County Criminal Judge Steve Dozier.
Houston had claimed self-defense and said the pig was "messing with his bike and tried to bite him," according to a police report.
Police called to home
Police were called to the couple's home at 2614 Flamingo Drive by someone reporting that Briley was gone and Houston was beating the pig in the head and spraying water in its ear with a hose.
Man Guilty in Attack on Girlfriend's Pig:
I swear, some reporters just don't grasp what's important about a news story.
Richard Nixon: "Oh you'll pay. Don't think you won't pay."
(I hope that the answer is yes so that all such behavior can be enjoined in the future.)
Now back to the pig jokes....
If I used the hose on the kids, I assume that CPS would be after me. I hope I have more leeway with the dog (who weighs about 130 lbs) than I do with my kids.
"a watch pig in the front yard"
Being a city boy, i thought this was mistake until a farm boy colleague pointed out that pigs are quite nasty and far more useful than a watchdog in protecting a house from intruders.
A claim worthy of the "Nostradamus of Commerce."
Answer: maybe a sting-fest to re-populate the names on the feds terror list for PETA animal activist types.
Surely it is not to remind us how rotten humans can be; we already know that by the time we have completed crim law &proc.
I hope the dog bites you. Hard.
"'State Supreme Court to hear case challenging 49ers pat-down policy': Today in The San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Egelko has an article that begins, "The state Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether the San Francisco 49ers invade their fans' privacy by conducting pat-down searches at the stadium gates, a measure ordered by the National Football League to catch potential terrorists. A state appeals court upheld the searches in a 2-1 ruling in July, saying two fans who challenged the policy had tacitly agreed to be searched when they bought their season tickets. But six of the high court's seven justices voted Wednesday to set the appellate ruling aside and review the case.'
My thoughts on why the 'consent' approach is intellectually bankrupt can be found in the July 9, 2007 installment of my 'On Appeal' column for law.com.
Posted at 09:35 AM by Howard Bashman"
Ever tried to raise and train a 130 lb dog (of a guard or service breed, I surmise)? I thought not...
Probably off topic, but I'm not sure what the topic was anyway.
I have raised dogs of that size. (counting the dogs my parents owned when I was young, 3 German Shepards and 2 Golden Retrievers)
I've never considered using a rubber hose, or found it strictly necessary "beat" any of the dogs, but I will say it takes a considerable amount of force of some kind to get a dog of that size to do what you want when it wants to do something else.
In training the dogs We've used both electric training devices and choke collars, both of use limited pain as negative reinforcement and are widely accepted training tools.
Most of the training literature I've read reccomended against physically striking dogs, but ethically I can't distinguish between one kind of pain and another except in terms of degree, and there's nothing that tells me anything about degree.
I'm not sure if St. Bernards count for you, but no hitting was necessary . . . just a choke collar and the obvious advice to treat puppies like they already weigh 200lbs. And a quick hand around the muzzle tames biters with less chance that violence will make a stubborn dog more likely to snap later.
Yeah, but what if it is a four hundred pound hog? Especially with with mechanical skills?
(An aside: if you are a fan of bluegrass music, you might know the song "Pa Fell Asleep and the Hogs Ate Him"; just a little Nashville humor but apparently from a true incident - Pa was drunk at the time.)
Seriously, if you need to beat your dog to get it to obey, you have a broken dog. More likely, you don't know much about dog training. Even electric collars are terribly easy to mis-use, resulting in either poor training or injury to the animal (or both). Positive reinforcement is just as effective, and much less likely to alienate the dog or lead to escalation. And for god's sake, ignore Cesar.
Not being a pig trainer, I have little idea, although I've heard anecdotally that pigs are intelligent and highly trainable.
Have you ever felt the force of the shock collar? Reminded me of accidentally touching a live wire.
If you pop a large dog with a 12 inch piece of water hose, you will at best get his attention. Even then, he might think you are just starting some kind of new game.
To say nothing of the kids...
I have. Newfoundlands and rottweilers. Do they count?
Anyone who routinely strikes a large working dog with a blunt or whip-like object is a vicious idiot, not a trainer. The only purpose achieved via such treatment is to make the animal suspicious and aggressive toward humans, especially those carrying similar objects. This is behavior you only want in large dog if you spend a lot of time around Michael Vick &company.
If you're really trying to train and discipline a dog, you'll get more mileage from a choke collar, squirt bottle and noisemaker than from the rubber hose and switch. The only real justification for striking a dog with an object is the same as with a person, genuine self-defense.
/shrug
I understand why stories like this can be entertaining to people. A pig is an eccentric choice of pet. But I've never found unprovoked attacks on animals by humans all that funny myself, except when the animal gets the better of the exchange. And attacking a woman's pet for revenge is almost as despicable as attacking the woman herself. What's more, its a very common precursor to attacks on the woman's person.
Nitpick: if it is an extremely common risk factor, that means it is not a very discriminatory one, right? Or by "common" do you mean specific? Or selective?
cmon!
130 pound golden retriever? Four words for you...low calorie dog food!
As to 130 lb goldens... he said there were _2_ of them! :-)
Hell yeah. There are plenty of lawyers who deserve such treatment. Kids, dogs, and pigs on the other hand...
"At least one study, by a researcher at Utah State University, backed up the idea that pet abuse was common in domestic violence: Of more than 100 women in shelters for battered women, 54 percent said that their abusers had also abused pets. A separate study, by the same researcher, found that half of 42 incarcerated men who had had violent relationships with women admitted to hurting or killing pets." - New York Times Oct. 1, 2007
Golden Retriever Given Order of Protection
and both weighed in the neighborhood of 90+ lbs, the shepherds have ranged from about 90 to 120.
lol. i love studies like this. i mean - DUH!
violent people tend to be (wait for it)... violent.
so, yes... men (or women) that tend to beat the crap out of their significant others, tend also to be more likely to do the same with others that piss them off, and are weaker than them - pets, kids, etc.
like we need a pointy headed academic study to tell us this?
also, serial killers, sexual sadists, etc. tend to have a history of torturing animals. usually at a younger age. then, they graduate to people. again, not surprising.
if you have to ask why, you will never understand
That's handipig, you bigot.
I'm always befuddled by those that think that choke collars are somehow humane. I was naive and got one when we got our dog. It lasted about 1 minute after I saw the pain and suffering it caused. But, if you want to torture your dog, I'm OK with that because it's your personal property.
A DV comment? I thought the thread was more likely to incite the PETA types and I remember you don't like PETA.
I am not disagreeing about your comments, having been a good horse trainer for more than 40 yrs as well as animal lover who has rescued horses from abuse and slaughter I have seen what you say, but DV is more complicated than that.
It isn't provoked soley because aggressors get "pissed off," but many times because the aggressor is a substance abuser and goes completely apeshit nuts insane when high/drunk/hallucinating/etc, or it can result from the aggressor's loss of control due to epileptic seizures which cause aggression.
It is also complicated by the fact the DV system is built on the perfect able-bodied model, and does not protect disabled people, especially when removing or prosecuting a caretaker upon whom they are dependent. Because of this, the operation of the current DV system is a certain warrant of death on a disabled victim.
Moreover one certain way to be a target of DV is to have autism; just living/breathing/existing while autistic makes lots of people aggressors. I can't even walk to get o.j. on the beach during spring break without a gang of 10 twentysomethings shouting "hey retard" and looking to pick a fight. I'm just saying ... speaking from personal experience.
"violent people tend to be (wait for it)... violent." You got that right.
The worst DV attack I ever experienced was my father bashing my head against what walls of his house like a bettering ram over and over, causing brain injury, tearing 1/3 of the hair from my scalp, and then testifying against my bar admission because he had to spend so much money hiring criminal defense lawyers he would have rather spent going on vacation to Hawaii. Denied a bar admission for 18 years.
whit, why don't you change the subject. The pig example was disgusting enough.
My mother made me read 24/7; I didn't get to watch very many TV or movies. I suppose the price of trying to overcome my autism is that I am culturally deprived. So,
whit, who is Vinnie Barbarino?
if you have to ask why, you will never understand"
And, by the way, please apologize. Abuse is not "like jazz."
violent people tend to be (wait for it)... violent.
....
like we need a pointy headed academic study to tell us this?
Sometimes we need the study to justify laws sending people to prison for "just" torturing animals.
Barbarino was a character in the late '70s sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter." It was a television show about a remedial teacher at a high school in Brooklyn, "Kotter", and his students, who referred to themselves as the "Sweathogs." Barbarino was the "Sweathog" leader, and frequently used the phrase "Up your nose with a rubber hose" as an insult. Vinny Barbarino was also played by John Travolta, and is probably the role that made Travolta famous.
I'm a little disturbed I can remember that much about it, since I never liked it.
/shrug
So a discussion mentioning both hogs and rubber hoses leading to mention of "Vinny Barbarino" does make a perverse sort of sense.
Since unprovoked violence against the autistic has also been brought up, I feel forced to mention the film "Carrie", in which Travolta played a bully (one among many) who torments a socially awkward and withdrawn young woman before she gets revenge on her cruel peers by unleashing her fearsome psychic powers. The film is based on a horror story which I believe was written by Stephen King, who frequently writes about violent bullies.
Its all linked ... somehow...
um, no. we can send people to jail for torturing animals because it's wrong. whether or not it is correlated with other forms of violence is irrelevant to that. if bank robbers tend to disproportionately eat their eggs over easy, im not gonna recommend people who eat their eggs over easy go to jail
like i said, the study is silly because it's so obvious to anybody who lives in the real world and deals with violent #$(#$(#$'s on occasion (or quite frequently, as i do).
but i realize that academics don't live in the real world, that's what makes discoveries like this so interesting to them, and what allows them to hold on to false theories for decades, since they never have to deal with real world counterexamples.
"if bank robbers tend to disproportionately eat their eggs over easy, im not gonna recommend people who eat their eggs over easy go to jail" You sure an analysis of your sentencing determinations would not bear this out for this or other crimes or slights real or perceived?
JWR (just wanting reassurance)
And, you brightened my morning.
No, actually it is relevant to the range selected by the Sentencing Commission, otherwise the sentencing range would be arbitrary and capricious and subject to attack on constitutional grounds. Perhaps you can say it is not relevant by the time a case is before a judge, but even then it might be somewhat relevant though in a more attentuated way should the judge choose to justify a departure.
But I do agree animal abuse and animal torture (as well as autistic abuse and autistic torture) should be punished, because both are wrong.
you are missing the point. we punish people for what they DO, not for the fact that what they do is correlated with SOME people in committing other crimes. that borders on Thoughtcrime(tm) to make punishment for crime X more severe because some people who commit crime X also move on to crime Y
"you are missing the point. we punish people for what they DO, not for the fact that what they do is correlated with SOME people in committing other crimes. that borders on Thoughtcrime(tm) to make punishment for crime X more severe because some people who commit crime X also move on to crime Y"
Yes, i understand that judges punish people for acts, but not necessarily always for what they "do." E.g., classic crim law case, person holding gun goes into grand mal seizure, shoot gun -- it is involuntary. The problem is to punish people for what they "do" is sometimes to punish them for a status; not allowed, Robinson.
I also understand judges do not legislate the sentencing range; that is what the Sentencing Commission does, and it is legislative so they (not the judge deciding/adjudicating the sentence) can look at the correlations in the legislating process, if they so choose.
There is a difference.
"make sure he gets the ORIGINAL carrie starring sissy spacek (circa mid 70's iirc) NOT the remake" Any particular reason one is better than another? Since what do I know about movie culture anyway. I'm just an avid reader.
ok, but let's not get into semantical quibbles. you know what i mean. obviously a grand mal involuntary trigger jerk would not be prosecuted as murder.
although if the person KNEW they had grand mal seizures AND they were holding a gun in a place where somebody else could get hurt, and they seized and pulled the trigger, they COULD be prosecuted under some statutes in some states, just not for premeditated murder.
Okay, the "you know what I mean" evidentiary foundation/grounds for a ruling. I'll leave it at the LOL. You have also brightened my morning.
"although if the person KNEW they had grand mal seizures AND they were holding a gun in a place where somebody else could get hurt, and they seized and pulled the trigger, they COULD be prosecuted under some statutes in some states, just not for premeditated murder."
And, yes, the exception; but a critical fact in the application of the exception is timing -- when did the person who seized and pulled trigger learn he had the epilepsy causing the grand mal seizures?
Autistics are very logical and literal, don't miss details. Maybe that makes me a pain, but it is how I think. I'm also told by numerous lawyers in the know that it would make me a good lawyer.
I appreciate the people who can get the high scores on the standardized tests, but just because i can't take standardized bar exams doesn't mean I don't have the legal knowledge. Even areas I don't work in. As I said, I'm an avid reader.
BTW, I head that the defendant told police that the water was the secret to making a silk purse. ;-)
Nick
How so?
Nick
Explain. What is the joke?
just sayin...
Nick
just sayin..."
Thanks, whit. Your observation is well-taken.
Turing had the right idea when he stressed human like language use as the gold standard for when a computer was as smart as a human (The Turing Test of AI). If a computer program were able to process natural language as well as any human, it could take verbal instructions, and figure out the hidden assumptions and resolve ambiguities (or ask intelligent followup questions) as well as a human, an ability that most people would consider to be true AI.
Some AI experts have posited that human chess players can't memorize or calculate all midgame permutations, and rely on abstract pattern matching to identify likely lines of play. Such AI programmers' hypothesis fails to consider autism -- which does have exactly that amazing memory of all permutations, as well as abstract pattern matching abilities.
To presume that an autistic turing machine has "run amok" fails to refute clear evidence that brute force artificial intelligences are fragile outside of bounded domains, or even domains with a larger possible solution set.
The real accomplishment of an autistic turing machine is a very human one: a subtle and elegant distillation of a domain of highly expert human knowledge.
You brightened my whole weekend with your compliment.
Another Turing Test, which reminds me of the movie Bicentennial Man, starring Robin Williams), which deals with a robot who increasingly acquires human characteristics including (but not limited to) intellligence, curiosity, yearning, and more. Eventually, he begins to incorporate human body parts making himself bionic. The question here is both physical as well as mental/psychological, and whether an autistic turing machine can think intuitively.
I am not sure a "joke" is logically an "expression," however.
Before I was overcome by my husband's really stinky feet after he took his shoes off, and just really completely lost my concentration and ability to compose anything sensible due to the atrocious smell affecting my ability to multitask, i was trying to say the original turing machines were limited to 101010 binary processing. Perhaps that was what you were thinking of in terms of autism makes the binary turing machine "run amok," by removing its limits -- i.e, autism is the ability to think outside the binary bounded domains, autistic thinking may expand the solution set. What can I say? Am I supposed to admit it?
Or, there is prooffered the carrot/stick option, the choice of the irreconcileable juxtapostion of the "brilliant troll." So in order to feel happy and content by your complimenting my brilliance, I am supposed to admit I'm a troll?
Why not just admit I'm a brilliant turing machine, autism is amazing, and I'll say it again, thanks, whit for the compliment.
And when the fireant bites stop driving me crazy, the sting in the eye stops smarting, and I am recusitated from that smell that overwhelmed me, maybe I will even get NickM's joke. I do think intuitively, just not when there's such a stink.
But Hell if I know how to get my bar license or a good job. The essential functions definitely could not include the ability to resist fireants, stinger bugs, or smelly feet.
just sayin..."
LOL
Thanks, whit.
It is likely the fireant/bug invasion has been set off from the sea level rise leeching saltwater into the acquifers, displacing/agitating the fireants/bugs. For whatever this observation is worth. Someone should empirically investigate this.
I wish I were purely a turing machine, because no being with human attributes should suffer so much, two different poisons one from fireants the other from stinger bugs interacting; fevers, chills, delerium, extreme adverse reaction, trembles. It's awful. Global warming is awful. This *piglet* thread will have to go on without more insights from this alleged troll, except for one last observation on the question of the versatility of trolls, turing machines, and autistic game theory:
Ae-IT access/accommodations, employing science, technology, &innovation for greater efficiency = increases productivity &innovation/expands an infinite pie -- a Non-Zero Sum Game (not game of winners/losers, but many sum positive possibilities). Has the potential to Overcome Global Warming.
Blind variations on game theory of 'prisoners dilemma' = dividing a finite pie -- a Zero Sum Game (compelling a game of winners and losers). Global warming is (absent a change of course) a Zero Sum Game.
Trolls and turing machines like to play games that hold their interest, not solely 3D chess; redundancy is boring. On the sub-question of trolls' and turing machines' special preferences for Non Zero Sum Games -- It's the nature of trolls, turing machines, &autism: the quest for knowledge and expertise from a worthy, interesting, and very intelligent game player. Like Kim Peek, this is how they learn. A form of AI for trolls and turing machines. Definitely non-violent, not a threat, but just merely an interesting engaging game of skill, mastery, experience, &learning. Like iterations of WH lawyers vs. WH lawyers now playing out -- Bush v. Gore II, captivating at the highest levels of how the game is played. How one defines or perceives the parameters.
Another great game in the 4th quarter on the Volokh: FF vs. Hoosier on the Muslim poster thread. (wacked out Arab invader vs. American Florida lawyer defender). Very entertaining.
Other worthy game players on the Volokh: There are many, e.g., Humble Law Student, but Junk Yard Dog was my all time favorite! JYD deserves a place at the head of the class.
Trolls, turing machines, &autism: A living riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. -- Winston Churchill.