Enough with the ConDems already, dammit. Feh to the fate of the nation.
What the nation really, really needs now is stories about ikkle fwuffy kittens, awww. And by happy chance (and a bit of googling) one turned up just in time:
A Sydney police officer’s turbo-charged patrol car was literally purring like a kitten after a tiny black cat became trapped underneath.
Now police are anxious to find the lucky kitten’s owner after its dramatic use of one of its nine lives.
The frightened moggy was found in the engine bay of the Ford XR6 Turbo, which had been used in an RBT patrol at Cartwright, in Sydney’s south-west on Friday morning.
Constable Tex Tannous said he almost hit the kitten when it ran in front of his highway patrol car on Cartwright Avenue about 11.30am (NZT).
The officer managed to brake in time and assumed the cat had run away after he couldn’t see it near the car.
He pulled over and found the kitten had scampered up into the undercarriage.
[…]
The car – cat still on board – was taken to a nearby mechanic, who removed the front bumper and extracted the cat, who was unharmed except for a small scratch on her nose.
She is now being cared for by the Guildford Veterinary Hospital and is up for adoption.
A woman has been sentenced to six months house arrest for trying to sell ‘gothic kittens’ with piercings on the internet.
35-year-old Holly Crawford, of Pennsylvania, was also ordered to shut her dog grooming business for more than two years after being convicted of animal cruelty in February.
Prosecutors said that Crawford gave the three black kittens ear and neck piercings because ‘she thought it was neat’ to sell goth kittens on the web.
Crawford insisted that she used sterilised equipment and checked carefully on the kittens’ health. She said she had started piercing kittens on a whim, when she first decided to pierce the ears and neck of a stray kitten she took in last autumn and named Snarley Monster.
She was offering her pierced kittens for sale online for hundreds of dollars when authorities were tipped off by charity People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. More….
With a gun in one hand and a sack of bobcat kittens in the other, an Alabama hunter proudly plopped the newborns down on the counter and asked the veterinary assistant to raise them up for him so he could give them to his kids as pets.
The vet tech was stunned, but quickly recomposed herself to tell the hunter she would do it for him so as to rescue the babies from such an awful fate. She immediately began scouring the Internet for an expert in rehab and release.
[…]
Big Cat Rescuer, Merrill Kramer, called on Rick Chaboudy, CEO of Suncoast Animal League in Palm Harbor, FL and he said he thought he had a good candidate. Her name was Bobbi because of her half tail and she had given birth to 6 kittens of her own and then adopted two more. He found foster parents for all but two of the kittens and brought Bobbi and her brood over to see what she thought of diversifying her family.
[…]
Bobbi turned out to be a dream come true for three little orphaned bobcats though. She immediately pulled them in close to nurse and began to bathe them. The little bobcat babies were so startled that they hissed at her!
She ignored their resistance and just kept on loving on them. Once they figured out that this strange smelling “bobcat” mom had the real deal to offer at her breasts, they were in love too. Full Story…
The Wall Street Journal reports that the well lacked a remote-control shut-off switch that is required by Brazil and Norway, two other major oil-producing nations. The switch, a back-up measure to shut off oil flow, would allow a crew to remotely shut off the well even if a rig was damaged or sunken. BP said it couldn’t explain why its primary shut-off measures did not work.
U.S. regulators considered requiring the mechanism several years ago. They decided against the measure when drilling companies protested, saying the cost was too high, the device was only questionably effective, and that primary shut-off measures were enough to control an oil spill. A 2001 industry report argued against the shut-off device:
“Significant doubts remain in regard to the ability of this type of system to provide a reliable emergency back-up control system during an actual well flowing incident.”
However, a spokeswoman for Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority said the switches have “been seen as the most successful and effective option” in North Sea usage. Several oil producers, including Royal Dutch Shell, sometimes use the switch even when it is not required by country regulations.
If you read nothing else on US politics today, readPapers, Please: Asserting White Supremacy Since 1492, a fantastic post from Jesus General on the naziesque ID laws passed by Arizona and the non-reaction of the allegedly libertarian teabaggers:
Even more noteworthy about all this is the reaction from the Tea Baggers — or perhaps I should say the lack of reaction from the Tea Baggers. We’ve sat through months of Tea Bagger complaints about government overreach and the threats to our liberty from government intrusions into our lives. In every case, there’s been little to no empirical evidence that their complaints were based on any reality.
The most generous perspective on those complaints is that the Tea Baggers bought into lies from Republican leaders who sought to increase their profile through fear mongering. A less generous perspective would be that they generally knew they were complaining about nonsense but did it anyway because it made them feel better because they didn’t have to admit openly that their real complaint was that a black man was in the White House.
So what are we to make about the overall lack of response to the Arizona “Papers, Please” law? Here is a genuine example of government overreach. Here is a genuine example of the government trying to infringe upon people’s individual liberties. Why aren’t the Tea Baggers protesting this? Why don’t large numbers of Tea Baggers go to the state capitol in Arizona with guns and threatening signs? Where are all the “Don’t Tread on Me” banners?
I don’t think that there is a “most generous” interpretation this time. It’s not plausible that the Tea Baggers are unaware of the law and it’s not plausible that they are unaware of how it will impact people’s lives. It seems to me that the only realistic interpretation is that they don’t care how the Arizona law will impact people because it won’t impact them or people like them — i.e., white people. Tea Baggers aren’t stupid and know just as well as the rest of us that white people won’t be stopped and asked for their papers like brown people will. More….
