Good morning John, it's Friday.

On Wednesday, I asked Twitter to pick between three different video topics and, boy, were there lot of people who didn't wanna hear about any of them. But one of the tweets that got the most likes was this one, "how about D: Puppies?"

So this video is entitled Top 10 Best Dogs Ever, and if you are unsatisfied with this content then blame the Steffie. Or any of the 31 people who liked her tweet, including me. 

Let's begin, number one: Stubby, a dog who served the allies in World War 1. After being exposed to chemical weapons and then recovering in a hospital, Stubby became attuned to the scent of these chemical weapons, and could alert soldiers before they could smell the gas coming. He was wounded twice, he served in seventeen different battles and he captured a German spy, recognizing him by his language, and act for which Stubby was promoted to sergeant, outranking his owner. 

Number two: Lily, a pit bull who pulled her unconscious owner off of the railroad tracks, because there was a freight train coming. The owner did not get hit by the train. Lily did. Poor puppy lost one of her legs, but survived. And if you think that story is remarkable...

Check out number three: First dog, trying to cross a highway, gets hit by a car. Second, another dog, this hero dog, drags the dog that has been hit by the car off of the road, like wanders out of the interstate, pulls the dog off... I'm not showing you the video, because it's pretty graphic and terrifying. But, I don't know, why is this dog doing this? It's a... I mean... prob, I guess... just because I'm supposed to cry today? 

Speaking of dogs rescuing people, and there are so many wonderful stories of dogs rescuing people, we have this cat, who is clearly a cat, but is nonetheless, a very good dog. 

Number five: In the 1950s, some Russian scientist went out to the streets of Moscow to collect stray dogs thinking, "These dogs, they are obviously used to extreme circumstances." They tested and trained these dogs and one of them, Laika, was sent into space and became the first animal ever to orbit Earth, also the first animal ever to die in orbit around the Earth, hm. Not how we wanted that one to end, but you know the first animal to went into space is a fruit fly?

Number six: Alvin and the Chipmunks. I know you think that I'm crazy, but it's a little known fact that the actors who played Alvin and the Chipmunks in Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, actually very small dogs. Nope.

Number seven: Bummer and Lazarus, who are two dogs but we're just calling them one sorry, these dogs didn't just survive mid-1800's San Francisco, where stray dogs outnumbered people and were killed and poisoned, regularly, they became nationally famous for their companionship with each other and their ability to kill rats, like crazy. Bummer and Lazarus were eventually exempted from local laws, and they showed up all the time in cartoons about San Francisco. They just sort of be there in the background. 

Number eight: this dog. Which somebody sent me on twitter. I asked people to send me dogs on Twitter, so I picked one. It's real cute. It's a good dog. 

Number nine: Tweety Bird, who is a canary. And canaries are birds but they are named after the Canary Islands and Canary Islands are named after the Latin word for dogs. So, by the transitive property, Tweety Bird is dog. BOOM!

Ah, number ten: my dog, Lemon, who passed away this year. And as we all know, the best dog is your dog. And there's nothing wrong with that. 

Hey, I understand why lot of people wanted me to talk about puppies today. It seems like we're in a much more tense moment than we were a couple of years ago, and it does seem like that's gonna get worse before it gets better. We're being asked to pay attention to lot of different big things, all at the same time. And the way we're fed content about what's going in the world right now is inefficient and it's overwhelming and it's manipulative. Too frequently now the people who are tasked with trying to inform the public are trying to win, rather than trying to inform. And that is something that I'm getting super sick of.

But there's still good dogs, and there are still good people. And in the coming years, we can't choose between taking care of ourselves and taking care of our world's problems. We have to do both of those things. 

John, I'll see you on Tuesday.