Update from commentor and cat-hero Marc:
Before and after pics of the kittens. It is so cute to see them wobble on their legs and tumble over each other as they explore their nest. Not using flash while they’re awake, since I don’t want to startle/shock them and their newly opened eyes, thus one picture is dark and the other isn’t…
Okay, so maybe one quick flash, while they are dining at Mom’s ‘All You Can Eat’ restaurant… [top]
***********
I’m so jealous, even though I know exactly how much trouble poor lucky Marc is about to discover kittens can be!
Apart from ahhhhhhhhh….. , what’s on the agenda as we wrap up another week?
redshirt
Fucking cats. Fuck cats. They are a menace that you all enable.
Literally, killers released on the world, with a smile.
Amir Khalid
@redshirt:
And a good morning to you, too.
Zinsky
Cute. A biking expedition on Sunday with several couples. Other than that, enjoying warm, summer-like temperatures in the Upper Midwest before the inevitable chill winds of autumn arrive.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: Cats kill birds. And I like birds better then cats.
Tommy
@redshirt: On the Internet, or this site of all sites, you are going anti-cat. Look willing to guess I love birds as much as you. I flipping love birds! I am willing to bet if my cat was outside she’d be scared of birds. Maybe confused by grass.
This is just the way of the world. Cats kill and eat birds. Why they didn’t go extinct. As I walk over to pet my cat and she gets pissed at me for waking her, she forgives you.
OzarkHillbilly
@redshirt: My cat doesn’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@redshirt: But she does kill mice and bugs. Both of which I can do with out.
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: My cat is rarely a few feet from me. Just glanced over and she was gone. I don’t think she reads comments on Ballon Juice, but she just went away. Correlation?
Tommy
These are great medical updates to get from dad when he is in his late 70s:
As my folks get older and they tell me they have a doctors visit I get more and more worried. Then I get an email like this and realize maybe a nuclear bomb has to go off to get rid of them :)!
redshirt
Birds are better than cats.
PurpleGirl
Soft kitty, warm kitty,
little ball of fur;
Happy kitty, sleepy kitty,
Purr, purr, purr.
Kitteh pictures
a purrfect way to start the morning.
————————————————-
Redshirt:
Cats have been killing birds, rodents, mice, bugs for thousands of years, for as long as they’ve been in existence. All the critters are still here. Leave the cats alooooooooooone.
———————————-
Marc and AL:
Thanks for the new pictures of Miri and her kittehs. They are adorable.
Kay
John Kasich scandal(s) update:
Here’s what really happened- the Kasich Administration submitted the fraudulent numbers to the State Board of Education at an open meeting (as required by law) and there happened to be a newspaper reporter at that meeting and he spotted the fraud and put it in the newspaper. The Kasich Administration knows exactly what happened because in one of the emails they (finally) released today Kasich appointees are whining about how the reporter is “getting lost in the weeds” on the made-up numbers they submitted. “Lost in the weeds” means the reporter read them and realized they were invented. The phony numbers Kasich submitted coincided with $70,000 in donations to GOP lawmakers from the charter school sponsors who benefited from the fraud.
Betty Cracker
My convalescing dog seems a little better this morning. She’s still whiny and clingy, poor critter. I dragged both dog beds into my work area so I can keep an eye on them today. I’m ready to clap on the Cone of Shame if she makes a move toward her incision area, but so far, she hasn’t.
magurakurin
@redshirt:
I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but that isn’t the hill I would pick to die on at this particular blog. Unless of course you are actually a guy like Begbie
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: Dogs, on the other hand…
Tommy
@PurpleGirl and @redshirt: : Outside of my home office, the half bath, doves nest. They come back each year (do doves nest for life?). I built out the ledge so it is easier on them.
Each year I get to see a little dove or two learn to fly off my back deck, which is just below that window. I always think that little bird will never fly. He/she often face plants. But they always fly. Never seen a dead one in my yard yet.
So I kind of like birds. I also love my cat. You can enjoy the same things.
Baud
@Kay:
As long as the emails were on the state’s own servers, it’s all good.
Randy P
I tend to get my big stories through blog commentary. I’m not very plugged into whatever everybody’s talking about at the moment.
So I see scanning the thread below that Curt Schilling is a sports guy and he said something stupid about Muslins, and so I read the thread and the associated link to see what particular stupid thing this particular wingnut said and catch up on the conversation.
My question: Does anyone know where the “only 5% of Germans were Nazis” thing came from? Yes, the obvious answer is “from his ass” but I don’t think most wingnuts work that way. My guess is it came out of somebody else’s ass. Rush maybe. Has anyone seen this one in the wild?
Not only do I have to go into work this morning, which I had not intended to do, for an “important” meeting, but I’m wearing a tie (also for said meeting). And now I know I’m going to drive home in horrendous Labor Day traffic. Not what I was planning on doing with the Friday before Labor Day. Especially when I know that, other than those in said meeting, the office will be a ghost town.
In fact a couple of regular Friday phone calls have already been cancelled because there won’t be anyone on them.
Note: I actually like ties. But Friday I usually work home and it’s my day to dress casually. In fact people get pretty casual in the office too on Fridays, but I’m too old-fashioned to do that.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: Good morning or evening to you as well! Fuck cats!
geg6
Four day weekend FTW!
Tonight we are going to John’s fiftieth high school reunion. FIFTY! Told him he’s old because I won’t have my fortieth until 2017. ;-)
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Charter schools, another conservative scheme to line corporate pockets with gov’t money.
bystander
Stephanopolous just had Kim Davis’ attorney on. Nice Georgie could hand him the mic to blather his made up crap. GS is the worst.
Tommy
@Randy P: I am in PJs now. I work out of my house. I won’t go as far to say I wear a coat and tie anymore, but I get pretty dressed up most days. How I used to go to work and makes me feel like I have a job. Honestly makes me feel smarter.
I might be getting far too old. I used to take a lot of pride in what I wore to work and putting on a coat and tie, I kind of miss it! Now I need to go get out of my PJs.
scuffletuffle
I so want to climb into that box and cuddle them all!
Kay
@Baud:
You could also apply “I don’t know why they waited so long to release the emails” – they initially refused, which caused every newspaper in the state to write a daily piece about how they weren’t getting the emails, for a month. They even wrote a piece about how they contacted one another to see if any newspaper had gotten the emails, which was just purely a gambit to pressure him because of course they would know.
I’m glad Kasich is in because he’s (now) getting some scrutiny. Being a governor is just really different than being a Presidential candidate. It’s a whole different level of exposure. Kasich was in the House and he’s smarter than Walker (who seems to just be kind of dumb- he’s falling apart on even simple questions, like his own health care plan) but it’s still a whole different game. We’ll see how he holds up.
Kay
@Baud:
There’s a fairness issue too, which is why newspapers are so up in arms, because Columbus Public Schools juked their graduation stats 2 years ago (which is really common- we have one who does it here- he pushes out lower performing kids and sends them to “online learning”) and the Kasich Administration went after every public school in the state with a vengeance. There were audits and the FBI was involved (there’s always federal money for public schools) and a principal was prosecuted.
So why the different treatment?
Tommy
@scuffletuffle: Yes. What you said.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Wow, that would be disconcerting, seeing how all those teenagers have turned into grandparents. I wonder how many of the former teenagers he’ll be able to recognize now that they are nearing 70…
Even though I live in the same general area where I grew up, I’ve never gone to a high school reunion. I am still friends with several of my childhood schoolmates, and a couple of them have gone to reunions and tried to persuade me to come along, but I always say I kept in touch with the people I cared about and to hell with the rest.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: My cat eats bugs, but there are others she just plays with. (Like the damn roach that escaped from her mouth.)
My wife loves those tiny little lizards that infest Florida and freaks out when the cat just has to chase one.
Randy P
@Tommy: In many places I’ve read the advice that you should dress up for professional phone calls instead of taking them in your jockey shorts. Supposed to keep you feeling and sounding professional.
I’m not all that far from retirement. Not true retirement, I couldn’t afford or enjoy pure leisure. But I think I will soon be able to make drastic changes in the definition and scheduling of “work”.
And more than once I’ve wondered if I’ll keep indulging in the mini-luxury of professionally starched shirts. Maybe not everyday but… Yeah. I like putting on a fresh, starched dress shirt.
Iowa Old Lady
Kasich can make himself sound plausible with media. Scarily so, actually. Maybe questions about schools and anti-gay efforts will make a dent, assuming national reporters make the effort to learn in-depth stuff about him.
Baud
CNET
Baud
@Kay:
IOKIYAR?
A Humble Lurker
@redshirt:
No, I wouldn’t recommend doing that at all.
Another Holocene Human
@Randy P: It’s a dipshit talking point. Only 3% of Norwegians voted for Quisling’s extremist rightwing party. After Norway was Nazified, ordinary Norwegians sabotaged Nazi efforts at every turn. It was important, too, because they were trying to build a nuclear bomb at a Scandinavian site.
Ordinary Germans did
.
There were Germans who opposed the regime and some of them paid with their lives. Very few. (Their numbers probably tripled when Hitler agreed to let the Communists out of jail.) Much has been written about why the mass of Germans who didn’t vote Nazi but ended up under Nazi dictatorship anyway just went along with it all. The German public has been called “corpse-like” among other things. It’s a big question that has absorbed sociologists, historians, psychologists, and political scientists. How does a big, advanced country just close their eyes to systemic genocide happening right around them?
ET
Going to Mount Vernon including the distillery. Did Dumbarton Oaks yesterday when it was blazing hot. For any of you gardeners out there, it is well worth the $10. The Gardens go on and on.
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: My parents could have sent me to any school they wanted. Public schools were cool. Actually a choice to send me to them. If there is anything lacking here about my grammar (sure there is a lot) or this or that it isn’t because of the school. It is because of me! Public schools rock.
debbie
@Kay:
Doubtless Kasich’s faith told him it would be okay to change facts. Like Enron. Like Lehman Brothers. This will never change. This is what Kasich will always be.
Betty Cracker
@ET: How fun! Not many people know Washington was America’s whiskey king in addition to our first president.
debbie
@Kay:
Don’t forget an administrator is being sent to prison.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/06/29/Dodds_data_scandal_court.html
Tommy
@Randy P:
I miss getting dressed up. The suit and french cuffs. I miss it.
It is so easy to say I will shave tomorrow. When you are in your house and you don’t have to report to anybody other than yourself, well it gets kind of real.
raven
I’ve worked at home for over a decade. I work in sweats or gym shorts. It has nothing to do with my productivity.
PaulW
At what legal level can every person involved in these charter school scams – including the politicians who keep defending and FUNDING those groups – get charged in federal courts for Fraud?
Lying about their stats in order to get more money, that equates to fraudulent practices, yes? Lying to the public about what’s going on with these schools so that millions of dollars get spent on programs that don’t work as advertised, that FRAUD isn’t it?
Tinare
@Tommy:
My mom is 92. I’m fairly certain she is going to out live me.
Tommy
@PaulW: Yes. Anybody that thinks public schools don’t rock is an idiot. They should be told as much!
Kay
@debbie:
So they’re still sentencing! We have a rural superintendent who does it, and it pisses me off because the incentives are all screwed up. He sends his low performers out of his district and then my superintendent (who isn’t a lying fraud) gets dinged on those ridiculous “report cards”. The scheme punishes honest people and rewards frauds, because obviously my superintendent can’t be running around saying “I don’t want your low scorers, buddy” – she takes everyone who shows up (as she should) and she gets punished. People are so dumb about numbers. They never look past the percentage. If he’s starting with 100 freshman and ending with 70 seniors, he didn’t graduate “100%”. He graduated 100% of the 70% he didn’t push out. Every school could do that. If my superintendent pushed out the bottom 5% she’d have 100% too.
Baud
@Kay:
I’m thinking of starting a “virtual” school where, for a small fee, schools can send their poor performers so that they can raise their scores and earn more money.
Regulatory arbitrage win-win.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Tommy: The last day I wore a suit to work was when I moved into the IT department(from Legal) and my boss said they weren’t big on suit and ties.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Yep, me too. On the rare occasions when I have to attend an in-person meeting, the requirement to find a presentable outfit and put on actual shoes annoys me.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I hate wearing suits, although I look pretty good in them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Holocene Human:
The same way a big, advanced country just closes their eyes to systemic racism happening right around them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Was watching Morning Joe, Ed Snowden has weighed in on Hillary’s email. It’s not looking good for Hillary.
rikyrah
The kittens are so cute
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yeah, what’s up with Canada?
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I try to avoid wearing them at all costs.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Does Snowden now believe that information does not want to be free?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: He seems to think Hillary should have made hers more costly.
Iowa Old Lady
I see Donald Trump has the Speaker of the House in Indonesia on stage with him yesterday. The one question Trump asked the guy was “Do they like me in Indonesia?” Classy.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
If Snowden were really a hero, he would have leaked the story about the gefilte fish.
Tommy
@BillinGlendaleCA: I kind of miss wearing a suit to work. There I said it.
Gin & Tonic
@Tommy: The writer Robert Caro, who has been working on a 5-volume biography of LBJ (sorry, raven) works alone. He has an office separate from his apartment, and every day he puts on a coat and tie to go to the office to work. He has been doing that for decades.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
As long as the final volume is titled “Fuck LBJ,” raven is cool with it.
Tommy
@Baud: I am all in with Snowden. Heck Glenn Greenwald. But if Snowden was put to our law as a traitor, well I’d find it hard way to argue for him. We have to change the law.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
Funny!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I guess that’s why he’s still in Russia.
@Tommy: Never liked em, hot, uncomfortable. Even had mine custom tailored(kind of have to since I’m quite height challenged); I look better in an Aloha shirt anyway.
debit
Marc, thanks so for much for the updates. They brighten my day every time I see one.
Baud
@Tommy:
Change the law about leaking classified information?
Cervantes
Going back out on the water while the going is good.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
At least he can see Alaska from his house.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve read part of that opus. It’s very impressive. But I’m convinced that Caro’s attention to historic detail and artistic vision would have remained intact had he written his weighty tomes in skivvies.
OzarkHillbilly
@Tommy:
Some do. Some most decidedly don’t. Most are kind of “meh”. If you look around the STL area they are some school districts that really stand out: Lindbergh, Clayton, Kirkwood* are among the leaders, while St Louis, and Normandy are leading the losers. The idea that taking money from public schools and giving it to charters as a way to improve all schools is so ludicrous on it’s face that it defies any attempt to justify.
When Normandy was declared a failed school district, a judge ruled that Normandy students could transfer to any school district they wanted to and a lot of them did. Leaving behind those with parents who for what ever reason could not or would not. You know, the LOSERS. But those who were trying to go elsewhere were also screwed because a lot of the districts they wanted to transfer to were not able to accept this sudden massive influx of students.
Also Normandy would have to pick up the tab, the whole tab including the busing and any and all incidental costs. Normandy is not a rich district and I don’t know the #s but it would not surprise me in the least if Clayton spends double per student what Normandy does. It took less than a year for Normandy to face bankruptcy.
The whole thing was a complete clusterfwck that was so obviously imminent that only a moron could think it would work out.
* I went to Kirkwood, at the time it was meh. my graduating class was 630+. they were just trying to get us baby boomers out the door without collapsing under the crush.
Steeplejack (phone)
@rikyrah:
Good morning!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Hmmm, wonder if he saw the President getting, eh, spawned?
Tommy
@Gin & Tonic: A man after my own heart. I do to do lists for my to do list.
At the top of it is always:
— Shit, shower, shave
— Get dressed
Don’t laugh at me but I do break down my day down that way. Under “Get Dressed” is a lot of things, but wear a “work” like outfit is at the top.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Heh. but yeah. I spent a season* working at my Aunt and Uncles fishing and hunting camp in Canada and they certainly have no reason to brag over us
*back in ’76, but I doubt it’s gotten any better for the native americans
WereBear
WIthout cats, there would be no civilization.
As people gathered more and more together, learning how to grow, and store food, the rats came.
Attracted by the rats, the cats came.
And they made it possible for people to keep going with their civilization idea. This is why, in Egypt, they were worshipped as gods.
Yes, cats kill birds. But the drops in the bird population are caused by habitat destruction and pesticides. Of course the people heedlessly destroying our environment want to blame cats! Who are important parts of the environment. And do fund false, and debunked, reports that it is the fault of cats.
In places where ruthless cat extermination has been carried out… the bird population drops even further. Because cats prefer to eat rats, and rats eat bird eggs.
Cats are being blamed for bird kills now? Now, when more and more cats are kept indoors, far fewer cats inhabit barns, and a great many feral colonies are fed and TNRed and shrink? Now they blame cats?
In terms of science, that is ridiculous. And so is anyone’s cat hate based on “for the birds.”
I live near many lakes, and have seen the sad evidence of a line of baby ducks, paddling along, and one abruptly disappearing. Shall we declare war on pikes? Blame them for the disappearance of the duck population?
That would be wrong. The lake is a place where ducks can raise the young.
The danger is to someone messing up the lake. And that would be a human.
Hunter
Just remembered this from many years ago: my cat, after a difficult labor, had one enormous kitten. At about 4 am. On my bed. We finally got it through her head that the kitten was going to stay in a box in the kitchen. When the kitten finally started to feel the urge to get out and explore, I happened to be in the kitchen one day while he was trying to climb out of the box. Mother was sitting there, and every time he was about to go over the top, she’d reach out and bat him back down. Apparently, she didn’t want him running around loose, either.
JPL
The kittens are so big! Next week Marc is going to have to round them up, in order to take a photo.
Joy in FL
Oh, Marc, Thank You! I love seeing those photos.
In 1980 I got to a watch a stray cat who adopted our family give birth to 4 kittens in a large closet in our house. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and seeing those photos brings back that feeling of deep happiness and amazement. (also my parents let us keep THREE of the kittens and the mom cat!– very kind parents !)
Hunter
@bystander: Staver should be in jail with her.
sparrow
@ET: We used to live next door to it (believe it or not, it was a cheap Georgetown Apt), and it was heavenly beautiful. Great place to take a book and a thermos of tea too.
JPL
@WereBear: I assumed that cats were climbing over the backyard fence, until I caught my dog playing with a mouse. Since I adopted Finch, I found one bird and three mice. By found, I mean he brings them close to the back door. It’s not just cats that prey.
WaterGirl
@BillinGlendaleCA: Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Doug R
@Another Holocene Human: Don’t forget the Night of the Long Knives. That would kinda discourage any serious opposition, you’d think.
WereBear
@Baud: Science gets cats wrong. Over and over.
The honest ones admit it.
Sounds like I’ll have to debunk another article. One of my fans has alerted me.
Yes, it’s like a big Cat Face appearing in the sky. Only virtual.
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: That is MO. In an election where my town voted 57% for McCain, we voted more than 60% to raise our taxes and build a new high school. We don’t mess around with schools.
My parents live across the state and their schools rock. Heck they are so good at football somehow they got kicked out of the league. I guess winning 15 of 15 years the conference can get you kicked out. They now travel to three different states to play. I know everybody on that team is getting a stellar eduction.
WereBear
So far. It started as three volumes :)
Doug R
@BillinGlendaleCA: I believe Dilbert dealt with that: http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-02-07
SenyorDave
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accused a radio interviewer of asking him a “gotcha question” when he was asked about his knowledge of various militant groups and leaders in the Middle East.
How dare anyone think that a man who wants to be president should actually know facts! According to Trump being asked anything has now become a “gotcha question”. Sometimes I do think it is some type of performance art, and eventually he will just call a press conference and admit it.
Peale
@WereBear: cats are not effective at controlling rat populations. Mice, yeah. But rats, not so much. And for both, snakes would be better if you wanted to drive rodents away, but then no one wants to release snakes into their homes for some reason. I think the Egyptians were just fooling themselves into thinking that they were doing something about their rat problems. They figured cats must be making a dent in the rat population because every once in awhile they saw a cat eating a small rat, but a cat with a small rat usually means there are still dozens of larger ones in a nest.
Tommy
@Peale: So you are pro snake?
BTW: Not owned one, but love me some snakes.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: Are you saying the many studies that indicate cat predation contributes to significant declines in wild bird populations are wrong? I’m sure loss of habitat, use of pesticides, etc., are serious problems, and I don’t doubt that the companies responsible for that would point the finger at cats to distract people from their own role.
But it seems logical to conclude that introducing tens of millions of predators into an environment could have a profound effect on native species. I’ve got nothing against cats, but I do think the argument that they should be kept indoors — for their own safety as well as to ameliorate their environmental impact — has merit.
Doug R
@Peale: It’s not that all cats are effective mousers, it’s that the mice smell the cats and stay away in the first place.
Gin & Tonic
@WereBear: Caro turns 80 next month. The actuaries are betting it won’t go to 6 volumes.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: In a closed system where cats are introduced from the outside, yes, they have a Rabbits in Australia kind of poor effect. And yet they also protect birds, in any circumstance, by eating the rodents who prey on their eggs and young.
But there are studies blaming cats in North America, where they have roamed wild for centuries, and there are fewer of them roaming than ever before. Those don’t make any sense, and yet they regularly appear.
Cats and the Environment: Resource Center
OzarkHillbilly
@Doug R: Not my country mice. In fact, their preferred place to take up residence is in the same room as her litter box. (in truth, i suspect that fact has more to do with how things are constructed in this house)
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
It’s even more interesting for John. After the dinner and the high school football game, there is a dance for all alums of all classes at a local hall featuring a local band, the Jaggerz, who may or may not be familiar to the oldsters here from their late 60s/early 70s hit “The Rapper.” John taught at his high school alma mater for about ten years right out of college. He left teaching around 1980. So we’ll also see a lot of his former students, who always remember him. Apparently, he cut quite the figure as a young teacher and track coach. The boys thought he was super cool and the girls all had a crush on him, from what they tell me. It always feels a little weird to me that his former students are my age. But I didn’t go to the same high school, so at least I wasn’t one of those young girls crushing on him. I laugh at the yearbook photos from his teaching/coaching years. He had a major pronstache.
Tom
@Randy P: I ‘semi-retired’ a couple of years ago so I could take care of my wife, who has M.S. I’m only working part-time doing online course/curriculum design and teaching but I enjoy the flexibility.
I still don’t dress up for a work-related conference call. Sometimes I forget to shave.
Tom
@raven: t-shirt, sweat pants and socks is my version of office wear.
Not to mention the luxury of laughing at the morning traffic reports on the news.
Tom
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve heard that this helps some people get into the right frame of mind for work, like suiting up for a football game.
Personally, it doesn’t affect my work quality or output either way.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ohio has a limited form of open enrollment where there are “sending” schools and “receiving schools” but it operates the same way- the parents who leave are the parents who have the time and money to transport and they only bother with that if they’re going to a much better district so the “sending schools” enter a kind of death spiral. We had an odd thing happen here- there is a low income district that does a great job with kids with disabilities. It was never intended to be the “kids with disabilities” school but I’ve worked with them and they’re amazing. The other districts are of course fine with this because they’re losing kids who may be lower scorers or more expensive to educate but it really contradicts the official US policy, which is disabled kids go to school with everyone else. I’m always amazed by this idea that people will just sort themselves into equal groups so we can just apply this “data-driven” rubric and call it done. No, they won’t.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: Where are you getting the information that there are fewer free-roaming cats in North America now than before? I took a look at the material at your link (thanks for providing it!) but didn’t see anything addressing that. It seems counter-intuitive. I don’t doubt that more responsible pet owners are keeping their cats indoors today, but wouldn’t that be offset by growing feral populations?
Elizabelle
Miri and kits are some of the best-looking cats I have ever seen.
Hope they all have happy and bright futures. Pretty little things.
Bobby Thomson
@redshirt: not indoor cats. And birds are just miniature dinosaurs with feathers.
J R in WV
We have two cats. One is formerly so fat as a 8-9-10 month-old kitten she got named Pun’kin, now pretty healthy weight but with extra belly skin hanging.
The other cat, a little younger (2 or 3 months) has always been a strong, lithe active cat. She is named Spike because for many years she would drape herself over my shoulder when I was still at the computer, and dig in with the sharpest claws in all cat-dom.
Spike goes out every night at bedtime, 11:30-12:30 now that we’re retired. She comes in just before dawn, having caught and killed at least 3 rodents, often good sized rats, and I say at least because she may not bring all of them onto the back porch to eat. She leaves the liver/gall bladder for flavor reasons.
We had pigs at one time. Under the pigpen house, as is common, there was a rat, getting fat on the spillage from the pig’s trough. when the last pig went to the butcher, rat started getting hungry, as the pig buffet stopped.
We found a rat corpse the size of an obese o’possum laying in the grassy bottom between the barn/livestock center and the kitchen door – Killed by a nearly 20 pound cat, Rufus, who probably had his hands full with a 25 pound rat. But the rat was dead, and the cat was unharmed. Didn’t want to eat the rat either! “Nasty,” he was thinking, “I’ve got to kill the nasty!!”
Rufus was adopted at the local hardware store-gas station, and was white with red spots. He got to be a big cat, only wary of the biggest red rooster, who could swell up to 3 or 4 times his resting size by spreading his wings and flapping!
Data from our farm shows that given a free choice between many birds and many rodents, a free cat will choose to kill the rodents at night, not the birds in the daytime.
Spike is now sound asleep, and Pun’kin chases and kills mostly moths, crickets, katydids, etc. She has fun, but doesn’t get many calories from her prey. Spike demands breakfast if the hunting was poor, and this morning she’s happily asleep.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: We don’t have growing feral cat populations. There are more managed feral colonies than ever before, thus the fewer cats in them are healthier on average.
The loss of rural communities are driving colonies closer to where the food is; like the suburbs, where they are regarded with fear and horror and become far more visible than they did as barn cats in their previous existence.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay: not to defend his staff, but that’s not what lost in the weeds means. It means they think he’s on a tangent and focusing on irrelevant details.
J R in WV
@Bobby Thomson:
Irrelevant details like their fraud and mis-representation, perhaps?
Because that was what the reporter was interested in.
I worked for a state agency filled with biologists, engineers, chemists, etc. [ETA:] And lawyers, lots of lawyers, who wore neckties! The agency provided a method for employees to purchase nice polo shirts with official logos on them, which we used as a method for avoiding shirts with neckties.
Non-blue jeans or khakis with a nice looking polo shirt did fine for meetings with other people dressed just like I was.
I only wore a necktie for special occasions, like a meeting with the Secretary, the Lege, or the Governor. I still have some nice ties, and took a dress shirt/ties on vacation to Spain and France, for the high-end restaurants. But otherwise, nah.
Bobby Thomson
@J R in WV: that’s not what the expression “lost in the weeds” means. I thought this was common knowledge.
gogol's wife
@WereBear:
Thank you.
I wonder what the psychology is of someone who hates cats commenting on a post that begins with pictures of cute innocent kittens nursing.
If there’s a post on something I hate (football for example), I tend to just walk on by.
Betty Cracker
@Bobby Thomson:
This is true.
@WereBear: It sure seems like there are more feral cats, but I understand that anecdote =/= data. I can’t seem to find any solid data. They are a serious problem in my little town. It’s not so much a “fear and horror” thing but a “damn, those fucking cats sprayed their stink all over my carport again” scenario. I don’t blame the cats; I blame the irresponsible assholes who feed them without taking any responsibility for their medical care.
kc
@redshirt:
Asshole.
WereBear
Exactly. And where do feral colonies come from? I sure, from reports I get from the fine folks who try to handle them humanely, that much of their input is abandoned former pets.
Because, sadly, some of them cozy right up when they get the chance. They never wanted to be roaming feral in the first place.
But in a society where a certain number just thrown them out of car windows, I guess shutting the door on a pleading little face that is asking for food is the lesser crime.
kc
Those kittens are adorable; thanks for the pics, Marc. Just wait until they come out of the box and start tumbling around your house, wrestling with each other. You’re in for hours of fun watching them play.
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson:
Well, suppose Nixon had said the Special Prosecutor was “getting lost in the weeds.”
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@WereBear:
I hate when I have a counter-argument a year too late, but Neale (the scientist commenter in that thread) seems unaware that controlled (laboratory) observation can actually cause unnatural behaviors. For years, people thought that female preying mantises ate the males during mating, and there were lots of studies and speculation on how that could possibly be a good adaptation from an evolutionary POV.
Then they started observing mantises in the wild and discovered that in the wild, it’s a very, very rare behavior. Which means that the behavior they were observing in the lab and assuming was “natural” was actually created by the laboratory conditions.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: It’s not a victimless crime, though. I took in a stray cat myself once because I couldn’t resist the “pleading little face,” but I also took responsibility for the critter as my pet until the day he died of old age. And I still miss the fat bastard.
But people who put out food for stray cats without any intention of taking them on as pets are arguably just as bad as the people who dump former pet cats. Not only are they inconsiderate neighbors, they’re ensuring that more generations of cats will be born into a life of squalor, ill-health and misery. (I’m tempted to print out this comment and go nail it to the door of a certain lady down the street…)
Another Holocene Human
@Doug R: Actually, the SA rounding up Socialist Party leadership, union activists, academics who openly opposed the regime and so on and shipping them to Dachau where a good number of them quickly died under murky circumstances did more to suppress dissent than anything else. The Night of the Long Knives was about Hitler consolidating power within the Nazi party. After he took out the SA heads, he put his new, more elite SS in charge of Dachau.
Another Holocene Human
@Peale: Mice spread disease too. Like Lyme Disease. They’re an animal reservoir.
The Romans were dealing with so many mice apparently they took to eating them. (Seems like a lot of work.)
Another Holocene Human
@WereBear: The US also had native mid to small sized cats, bobcats, which have been decimated by changes in HUMAN land use patterns.
The dirty truth is that big bird extinctions happened in the US during late 19th and early 20th century due to HUMAN predation and HUMAN habitat destruction, such as NA flamingo (for feathers) and passenger pigeon (destruction of their native cane habitat). Also, the introduction of European starlings put native bird pops under pressure. Then DDT came and nearly wiped out NA raptor populations for good. And today, skyscrapers kill hundreds if not thousands of migratory birds every year.
Kass
@OzarkHillbilly: there is a two-part “This American Life” on the Normandy situation, and it is excellent.
Paul in KY
@redshirt: I like cats better than I like birds, so I guess it all balances out…
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: IMO, Germans were 80% behind Nazism until about Dec 1941 or thereabouts.
WereBear
Oh yes, I meant to take in the pleading little face, as you did :)
Apparently there are people who get kittens they way they get Easter chicks and bunnies: let the children play with them until they tire and then “release them into the wild.”
Paul in KY
@WereBear: I would disagree that there are fewer housecats roaming the wild now than ‘hundreds of years ago’.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Paul in KY:
It depends on where you set the bar for “hundreds.” English settlers brought cats with them to the New World, so cats have been invasive here since at least the 1600s, assuming the French and Spanish didn’t bring cats of their own. Does 400 years count as “hundreds”? ;-)
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Right, and there were much fewer hundreds of years ago than now.