Merkins…

While We’re On The Subject of Backward-Facing Bodily Emissions….

Funny, Merkins..., Policing
Published on

..I came across this little nugget, so to speak, at trainee solicitors’ website Roll On Friday:

A man has been charged with battery after deliberately farting at a police officer. Jose Antonio Cruz was stopped for drink driving and taken back to the local police station. When officers tried to get him to take a breath test, Cuz apparently lifted his leg and let out a huge fart. He then wafted the smell towards them. Police say the sheer smell “created a contact of an insulting or provoking nature” and charged him with battery.

I see. Floating arse biscuits can be a weapon, too. I wonder, could one be charged with going equipped for carrying a concealed can of beans?

And They Said Catherding Was Impossible

General goshdarned cuteness, Kittens!, Merkins...
Published on

They were wrong.

USA Today reports on the new trend for cat agility contests [slideshow of cats in action] –

Agility contests for cats? It’s purr for the course

[…]

For pet owners stunned when their own cat deigns to jump off the kitchen counter in the same week she’s ordered to do so, the idea of an on-demand feline performance — in public, of all things — seems implausible.

But evidence is appearing at cat shows all over the world, and interest is growing.

“Many people show up at our events saying, ‘I heard there was cat agility, and I didn’t believe it. I had to come and see it with my own eyes.’

[…]

“This whole thing about cats being untrainable is ingrained in society, and it’s a myth,” Shields says. “Agility is all about showing how smart and trainable they are, the bond between cat and owner, and showing the cats in active, athletic ways that you don’t see when they’re posed and judged at shows. You can get chills watching the speed and coordination of some of these cats.”

And not so much with others.

“Some cats will get in there and then quickly decide ‘I’m just not doing that’ and sit in the middle and take a bath,” says Carol Osborne, a certified ringmaster for agility competitions put on by the Cat Fanciers’ Association.

About 40 shows will feature agility competitions this year, including two this month in Maumee, Ohio, and DelMar, Calif., and three in February in Portland, Ore., Oak Lawn, Ill., and Cincinnati.

“Some of the cats finished in two minutes, some didn’t finish at all, some got distracted in the middle and went off on their own adventures,’ says Bengal cat breeder Ree Hertzson, who saw her first agility competition at The International Cat Association show in Syracuse. “And the Persians would stop after a few seconds and lie around looking pretty.”

More…

I know exactly what our own cats would do if we tried this – Monty would be waiting in vain for noms and Hector would fart vilely from sheer nervousness, then bolt and hide under the bed. Sophie would rearrange the obstacles to her own prissy satisfaction, then put us through our paces – which leads me to wonder. Who’s doing the training here, the cats or the owners?

Colour Me Shocked – Yet Hardly Surprised

'08/12 Election, bigotry, Election Skullduggery, Merkins..., Race, Wingnuts, Women
Published on

If what’s being reported is true, Sarah Palin is apparently a vicious racist as well as the class cow. But then, did I really ever think she’d be anything else?

From the LA Progressive [Via The Poor Man] comes this heartwarming story of everyday gubernatorial bigotry:

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”

Read whole thing

Well, there it is, racism in the raw out and on the table. Wherever do the campaigns go from here?

UPDATE:

An Alaskan anti-Palinist casts doubt on the allegations.

Read both and make your own mind up.