Update On The Great Wisconsin Cat Hunt

My Wisconsin stringer forwarded this follow up story from the state capital. Big Question: Would Robert M. (Fighting Bob) LaFollette have supported a feral cat hunt? Lord knows that Tailgunner Joe McCarthy would have locked and loaded. Only thing worse than a commie spy is a feral cat. I wonder if Coach Barry Alvarez will go on a cat hunt? What about Senator Russ Feingold? Senator Feingold doesn't like (political) fat cats for sure. If this is (fair & balanced) ailurophobia, so be it.

[X The (Madison) Capital Times]
Cat hunt to face big fight: Monday's vote only a first step
by the Associated Press

A plan to legalize wild cat hunting in Wisconsin passed its first test, but it has a long way to go to become law. Some key officials and cat lovers say they won't let that happen.

State residents at Wisconsin Conservation Congress meetings Monday night voted to allow hunters to kill feral cats at will, just like skunks or gophers - something the Humane Society of the United States called cruel and archaic.

A total of 6,830 people across the state voted yes and 5,201 voted no. Fifty-one counties approved the plan, 20 rejected it, and one had a tie, according to results released Tuesday evening by the Department of Natural Resources. In Dane County, attendees at the Alliant Energy Center session voted against the proposal, 881-388.

In order for the idea to become a law, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board would have to decide at its May meeting to order the Department of Natural Resources to ask the Legislature to support the change. Lawmakers would have to then pass a bill and get Gov. Jim Doyle to sign it.

Some key Republican legislators are already signaling that the idea is a non-starter.

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, co-chairman of the Legislature's powerful Joint Finance Committee, said Tuesday he will "work against any proposed legislation to legalize the shooting of feral cats."

And Sen. Neal Kedzie, chairman of the Natural Resources and Transportation committee, said the issue "is a distraction from the main tasks we have at hand."

"I don't see a whole lot of momentum for it," said Kedzie, R-La Grange. "It's not the responsibility of the DNR to regulate cats."

The congress, a citizens group that advises the Wisconsin DNR, is considered a strong lobby on behalf of the state's hunters, but members were met by a coalition of cat lovers outraged by the plan proposed by Mark Smith, a La Crosse firefighter. Smith had faced death threats - and the clout of several national animal rights groups that denounced his idea.

Smith proposed that the state should classify wild cats as an unprotected species. The proposal defined such cats as those not under the owner's direct control or wandering by itself without a collar and noted that "feral domestic cats killed millions of small mammals, song and game birds" every year.

Smith and supporters argued that the cats were an invasive species that hurt Wisconsin's wildlife. South Dakota and Minnesota both allow wild cats to be shot. Some estimates indicate 2 million wild cats roam Wisconsin. The state says studies show feral cats kill 47 million to 139 million songbirds a year.

Opposition undeterred: Ted O'Donnell, who gathered more than 19,000 signatures in an online petition to oppose the plan said he doesn't plan to give up fighting against the idea.

"I can assure you that the campaign is undeterred and we will still be working tirelessly to defeat this in whatever form it takes," said O'Donnell, who is co-owner of MadCat Pet Supplies in Madison.

Kris Aaron, a dressmaker in Jefferson County who has adopted six cats dumped near her farm, is urging all sides of the debate to reduce the stray cat population by getting more of them spayed and neutered. She is starting a countywide program to trap, neuter and release stray cats.

"If you really care about our songbirds, if you want to see fewer stray, unloved cats, if you don't want to be overrun with rodents, if you don't want to be called pet-killers, let's work together to fix this problem," she said.

At the Monday meetings around the state, animal lovers held pictures of cats, clutched stuffed animals and wore whiskers as they denounced the plan. In the face of such strong opposition, few hunters publicly spoke in favor of the question and instead let their votes speak for themselves.

Even Karen Hale, executive director of the Madison Audubon Society, one of the largest pro-bird groups in the country with 2,500 members, said she voted no. While the cats have reduced the population of birds in the state, she said the question was too controversial.

"The whole issue of possibly hunting them is so controversial and there has been so much misinformation that we really need a lot more discussion on this issue," Hale said. She called for another study looking at the impact of feral cats.

All contents Copyright © 2005, Capital Newspapers. All rights reserved.

Earth To Microsoft: Improve It Or Lose It! (The Word Grammar Checker, That Is.)

[x CHE]
Microsoft Word Grammar Checker Are No Good, Scholar Conclude
By Brock Read

If you've ever used Microsoft Word, chances are you've seen that jagged green line appear beneath something you've written -- scolding you for drafting a fragmented sentence, maybe, or for slipping into the passive voice. That's Microsoft's grammar-checking technology at work.

But how much good does the grammar checker actually do? Precious little, according to Sandeep Krishnamurthy, an associate professor of marketing and e-commerce at the University of Washington. After experimenting with the tool, Mr. Krishnamurthy concluded that it cannot identify many basic grammatical faux pas -- like errors in capitalization, punctuation, and verb tense.

Now he has dedicated himself to chronicling the grammar checker's blind spots, and to persuading Microsoft to improve the tool.

On his Web site (http://faculty.washington.edu/sandeep/check), Mr. Krishnamurthy has posted evidence that he considers damning: a series of examples of poor grammar the software considers passable. One reads: "Marketing are bad for brand big and small. You Know What I am Saying? It is no wondering that advertisings are bad for company in America, Chicago and Germany."

Microsoft officials did not respond to calls for comment. But in a statement released in response to Mr. Krishnamurthy's Web site, the company argued that its grammar checker is a writing aid, not a catchall. "The Word grammar checker is designed to catch the kinds of errors that ordinary users make in normal writing situations," the statement said.

For above-average writers, the software might pick up a grammatical misstep or two, according to Mr. Krishnamurthy, but for subpar writers, the tool is useless.

Mr. Krishnamurthy says many of his students are not native English speakers and often struggle with the written word.

The grammar checker, he argues, impedes their efforts to improve their writing -- by telling them that misconjugated verbs and poorly structured sentences are perfectly fine.

The tool is so pernicious, he says, that Microsoft should either improve it or ditch it. Mr. Krishnamurthy recommends that the software more easily let users choose whether they want only basic guidance or significant editing help. The current software allows users to pick which types of grammatical errors they want identified, but Mr. Krishnamurthy says that system is too complicated for many beginning writers.

Some technical experts say that creating a better grammar checker would be a tall order, but Mr. Krishnamurthy says the program just needs to do a better job of telling writers how to use it. "I've heard some techies say, You're holding us to too high a standard," he says, "but I don't completely buy that."

Brock Read writes about Information Technology for The Chronicle.

Copyright © 2005 by The Chronicle of Higher Education