There ain’t no God but Allah, y’all
Workers at the Tyson chicken plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee get eight paid holidays a year. Under the new contract they just signed, Labor Day is no longer one of them. Instead, they traded it for Eid al-Fitr — the last day of Ramadan, when Muslims break fast.
That’s because more than half the workforce (700 out of 1,200) is Muslim. Mostly Somali.
Shelbyville. That’s like Bugtussle, folks. Possum Holler. East Dawgtesticle. Shelbyville makes Mayberry look like Gotham City. Or did.
Somalis. Aren’t they the guys that dragged our dead soldiers through the streets? Why are we importing them? In quantity? To little bitty towns in Tennessee? Seriously, WTF?
August 4, 2008 — 8:23 am
Comments: 69
Ingrid Newkirk killed a thousand dogs and cats with her own hands
Meet Ingrid Newkirk, found of PETA, self-described ‘press slut’ and crazier than a whole six-pack of post-experimental laboratory baboons. Her Wikipedia entry (from which I pinched all this) makes it clear she’s a complete nutter — and it was written by a sympathizer. (How do I know? The author describes an experience Ingrid had in India, watching villagers bind a dog’s “arms and feet.” Dogs don’t have arms, sweetcheeks. It’s legs all the way around. Only an animal rights activist can be that retarded about actual animals).
Ingrid was born in Ware, England (sorry, Uncle B) in 1949. Her dad was an engineer and the family moved to India when she was young. There she rescued strays and helped her mother (a volunteer for Mother Teresa) roll bandages and prepare medicine for the lepers. There, I suspect, she learned to loathe every living creature that moveth in the waters and every creature that creepeth upon the earth. Just a guess.
The family moved to the States in the ’60s and she didn’t do anything batshit insane, that I am aware of, until 1970. That year, she took a litter of kittens to the shelter in Poolesville, Maryland where they were promptly gassed. Also, it was a horrible place and the woman at the shelter was rude to her. That really, really upset her, so she decided to work there.
Does that make sense? No, of course it doesn’t.
She describes how horrible her co-workers were, kicking the animals around and “stepping on the animals, crushing them like grapes” and how she complained to management, but nothing was done. Did that happen? Maybe. But it has the thin, high music of a personal sadistic fantasy to me. Anyhow, her solution in her own words:
“In the end, I would go to work early, before anyone got there, and I would just kill the animals myself. Because I couldn’t stand to let them go through that. I must have killed a thousand of them, sometimes dozens every day.”
Oh-kay.
Right.
Whoo!
Oh, look! More crazy:
“On my way down into the District, I would stop in Potomac and pick up triple-ground prime meat … I would break a raw egg and take onions and capers and I would mix it all, and I would go about checking on the animals while eating this raw food right out of my hand.”
Before she went vegan, obviously. Handling animals and munching on a fistful of raw meat. Jesus fucking christ in a cornfield, that’s some serious crazy. Of course, eating excellent quality raw meat in front of an animal on a meager shelter diet would be a great way to tease the shit out of it. Just saying.
But wait! There’s more:
“Shelters cannot humanely house and support all these animals until their natural deaths—they would be forced to live for years, lonely and stressed, in cramped cages or kennels, and other animals would have to be turned away because there would not be room for them. Turning unwanted animals loose to roam the streets is not a humane option. If they don’t starve, freeze, get hit by a car, or die of disease, they may be tormented and possibly killed by cruel juveniles or picked up by dealers who obtain animals to sell to laboratories.”
Noticed what’s not listed as an option: adopting them out as pets. Because people like Ingrid believe animals that rub along pretty well with humans are traitors and must die. That’s why PETA shelters adopted out LESS THAN ONE PERCENT of the animals they took in in 2007. Ingrid must’ve called in sick the day those 17 animals found homes.
You know what? I’m not even going to talk about the good things PETA has done. Because they have done good things along with the stupid things, and on issues that are very important to me, and I’m madder than hell that a sadistic fuck like Ingrid Newkirk got her attention-whoring psychotic stink all over them.
Furylanche! Rottweilerlanche! Malkinlanche! (And anyone else whose kind link got buried under the giant footprint that is Michelle Malkin). Welcome! Stay! I’ll do my best to continue pissing you off in the worst way. Wait…that’s a good thing, right?
August 1, 2008 — 9:41 am
Comments: 48
PETA kills kittens…lots and lots of them…
Y’all knew that, right? Sorry to be a downer, after all the happy kitteh pictures this week, but I was banging around the Web Saturday, wondering what happened in that North Carolina animal cruelty case against PETA. I’ll forget if I don’t blog what I found.
Remember that case? Two PETA employees were nicked for dumping dead animals in a public dumpster behind a restaurant. Turns out, their ‘adoption’ van was a mobile death wagon. As Dana Cheek, formerly of the Norfolk SPCA, put it:
I often receive phone calls from frantic people who have surrendered their pets to PETA with the understanding that PETA will “find them a good home.” Many of them are led to believe that the animals will be taken to a nearby shelter. Little do they know that the pets are killed in the PETA van before they even pull away from the pet owner’s home … PETA refuses to surrender animals they obtain to area shelters for rehoming. If only the celebrity “deep-pocket” donors on the west coast knew that their donations were going to kill adoptable cats and dogs here in Norfolk.
PETA’s response is that the animals are ‘damaged’ and must be put down. Eighty percent of them? Bullshit! The city dogcatcher pulls a higher proportion of healthy cats out of a typical animal-hoarder’s den of filth. Some of the dead animals recovered in the North Carolina case were very adoptable kittens, not a mark on them.
Oh, the outcome of that case? Both acquitted in February on the serious charges of animal cruelty and obtaining property by false pretenses, but they got a littering rap. Like Arlo. At least the trial gave PETAkillsanimals.com some ammo: testimony under oath.
Like the admission that PETA got a $9,370 tax deduction in 2002 for a walk-in freezer. You know — to hold all the adorable fuzzy corpses. That’s what the pair in North Carolina did wrong, I guess: dumped the bodies rather than follow instructions and bring them back to HQ for blanching. (Incidentally, I love the way the freezer appears right after deductions for the Freeda the Fish and Lettuce Lady costumes. Hypocrisy much?).
Look, Providence Animal Control — where I hang out — is a pretty high-kill shelter, I suspect. The Kitteh Man there tries his best and, from what I can tell, makes pretty good choices (I’ve known him to stick his hand in his own pocket for vet services). I don’t ask questions about that part, but there’s too much of the farm girl in me to come down hard for no-kill-under-any-circumstances. But this is PETA we’re talking here. The meat is murder people.
Speaking of which, PETAkillsanimals.com is funded by the Center for Consumer Freedom — a pro-business, pro-restaurant, pro-pharmaceutical, pro-consumer group, which PETArds are apt to take as prima facie evidence that everything PKA says is crap. But facts is facts. And the FOIA is the FOIA. And who the hell else is going to be motivated to check out these sick fucks if not people who have been their targets? Just the occasional lonely journalist, crying in the wilderness.
Look…if you must, give your money to your local guys. The ones that are trying real hard and barely squeaking by. PETA doesn’t just kill kittens, it kills them for no damn reason at all.
Welcome ‘lanchers of various flavors. If this post makes you mad, check out the one above, about Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA. Make sure you’ve had your blood pressure meds first. Whoooeee!
July 31, 2008 — 6:48 pm
Comments: 29
You say ‘domestic’ I say ‘opportunist’
So the story goes that cats self-domesticated at about the same time as we began to practice agriculture. Agriculture makes granaries, granaries make mice, mice make cats. Plausible enough, but for a language quibble: I don’t think cats self-domesticated; I don’t think they changed one stripe from the Wild Kingdom version. Self-selected, more like. The ones that, on the whole, rather liked the company of man came out of the wilderness and settled in his granaries.
The fact is, some animals naturally rub along pretty well with people (and some don’t). They say you can’t tame a Felis silvestris grampia, no matter how hard you try. But catch a Felis silvestris lybica as a kitten and he’s anybody’s. They look exactly alike, but they’re different under the hood.
I’ve been thinking a lot about aminals lately. Sorry to drag you along on my middle-age what-do-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up journey to the center of my navel, but I’ve been trying to figure out if “animal artist” is interesting enough to last a lifetime. In the course of which, it occured to me that my favorite animals are the ones that rub along pretty well with humanity. Pets and livestock, of course, but I have a real soft spot for the vermin and the opportunists of nature, too.
Partly because they’re the only animals I get to see and interact with, I guess. But opportunistic animals also have a cheerful, bluff, “hey lady, you going to eat that french fry?” kind of attitude. They can take care of themselves just fine, thanks. None of this weak, whiny, candy-ass “woo, don’t even look at me, I’m endangered” stuff.
I don’t know. You think there’s much call for S. Weasel, famous painter of rats?
July 30, 2008 — 2:42 pm
Comments: 40
…and another thing…
Here’s how that kitteh study happened. A decade ago, a man in Scotland was taken to court for shooting a protected Scottish wildcat. Remember those? And he got up on the stand and said, “looks like a cat to me.” And they let him go because…well, yeah.
So scientists realized they needed to figure out the whole cat DNA dealio, especially if they wanted to protect some wildcats by law.
So dude went out and sampled almost a thousand cats, wild and domestic, from all over the world. There are five major flavors of wildcat, and the domestic cat can and does merrily interbreed with them all, because she’s a dirty, dirty girl. Which is why it’s so suprising that modern housecats can be traced not just to a single type of wildcat, but five specific individual cats.
Most domestic animals were domesticated simultaneously all over the place, from local wild stock, but not the cat. All the tens of millions of American housecats are the children of cats brought over on ships from the Olde Worlde — despite all our lovely lynx and margays and ocelots, the American domestic shorthair is all lybica. Isn’t that odd?
Okay, back to the Scottish wildcat for a second. One of the reasons they’re endangered is that they merrily interbreed with housecats. What researchers have found, though, is that over time the wildcat genes are stronger. That is, subsequent generations become, genetically, more and more like Felis sylvestris grampia and less like Mister Fluffybutt.
So I’m thinking that must by Lybica‘s trick. That despite inbreeding with some very dubious gentlemen, the line always moves back toward the original. Tabby breeds true.
A lot of cats have some stripeyness. Catch her in the right light and you can see faint bars under the black parts of Charlotte’s fur. But, other than that, Lybica characteristics aren’t usually sold separately. They all come together or not at all — the black lips, the brick red nose and paw pads, the long, blunt, wavy tail. It’s the whole Franklin Mint set, plus the beautiful mahogany display case.
All the slutty behavior and the silly shapes and colors cats have mutated into, it’s extraordinary how common cats like Schroedinger and Damien are — animals that have slap-bang regressed ten thousand years to the prototype.
I think that’s just so cool.
July 29, 2008 — 1:50 pm
Comments: 29
Danger: catblogging
Minion Scubafreak sent me pictures of Schroedinger the kitten on Friday, and I was struck by how much he looks like Damien at that age. “So what, Weasel?” you’re thinking. “Little gray stripey tabbies are as common as muck.”
Can I just take a second to tell you how very tired I am of reading your minds?
Anyhow, gray tabbies are different. Damien was my first and I observed him closely, after which I started paying attention to shelter tabbies and Cheezburger tabbies. It’s not just gray with black stripes and white highlights. Oh, no. There’s a whole constellation of unusual breed characteristics that go with: their paw pads and noses are a brick red. Their lips and the velvets of their paws are black. There’s a hint of brown undercoat around their muzzles and in other spots. Coarse fur, gray on the body (actually a side-by-side mixture of dark and light, like a badger). Long, wavy, blunt tails with black tips and a black dorsal stripe.
I could go on and on. In fact, I just did. Here, have some more.
There’s a tabby personality, too. They’re friendly, pushy, go-to-hell cats. Damien had a little hitch in his britches, a little trot in his trousers, a little wavey, jivey, slinky, shovy, hissy thing going. It was a cinch that boy would get into trouble; he probably invited an 18-wheeler to kiss his stripey ass. I have always believed he somehow bred true to some long ago wild pusso ancestor.
And I’m right, as usual. That lovely beast top left is a Near Eastern wildcat, Felis sylvestris lybica. Thanks to the miracle of mitochondrial DNA testing, they have recently discovered that animal and my boy had a common ancestor 130,000 years ago. Well, five common ancestors. In Eye-rack!
Dude. Read it in the Daily Mail. Must be true. (Okay, here it is in the NYTimes, Stuckup McSnooterson. And yes, it’s from last year).
They weren’t domesticated that long ago. They’re thinking maybe that happened maybe 10,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, but they used to think was 4,000 years and in Egypt, so this is pretty interesting. If you find this sort of thing interesting. Which I do and it’s my blog so you can cut it out or I’ll turn this thing around right now.
They found a cat buried, presumably with his owner, in a 9,500 year old grave in Cyprus. Which I thought was really sweet until I reflected that they undoubtedly killed the cat to accompany his owner into the afterlife. Unless the cat died first and they killed the man to keep the cat company in the afterlife, but I think that’s pretty unlikely.
Links to nice big color versions of the above: prototabby, Damien and Schroedinger.
Added: Did you see the thing Gabe linked at Ace’s, about how women bloggers aren’t popular because they post too much about their personal lives and their pets? Look, bud, there’s some shit about DNA in there, too. I didn’t really get that part, but it had some stuff with Latin words and everything, so ha ha on you. Jerkface.
July 28, 2008 — 10:07 am
Comments: 31
Not just any bozo…
Hey, kids! Bozo is dead!
Did y’all see this? Larry Harmon died in his home on the third of this month. He was 83.
He wasn’t Bozo’s creator (that would be Alan Livingston of Capitol Records), nor was he the first Bozo (that would be Pinto Colvig, the voice for Disney’s Goofy), but Harmon bought rights to the character in the Fifties and flogged that clown for a zillion bucks. Harmon trained and licensed over 200 Bozos to perform in local cities across the US.
I knew somebody who claimed to know the Nashville Bozo. Said he a pervert. I bet they say that about all the adult men who opt to dress up and play with children for a living. I was told this guy paid $30 grand to become a licensed Bozo.
According to Wikipedia’s list, there wasn’t a Nashville Bozo, so I’ve probably been had. Kids waited years for tickets to go on the program. My big brother was on once, but I don’t even know where. <insert funny anecdote and/or recollection here>
Many local Bozos went on to become local bozos. Weather men. That guy who used to introduced the afternoon movie on TV. Like that.
In 2004, controversy swirled when the International Clown Hall of Fame took down Harmon’s plaque, claiming that he had misrepresented his role in the Bozo legend. Geez. He carried that fool thing for fifty years. Give the man his plaque.
Snopes has some doubts about whether a child ever told Bozo to “cram it” live on-air. However, they did go out live, so I’m sure plenty of unsavory things snuck through. My mother said she saw an episode where some kids sitting in the bleachers got the giggles. When none of them would tell Bozo what was so funny, he asked one of them to whisper it to him while he stuck the microphone by his ear. “Jimmy farted.”
Yeah. Weasel’s back.
July 25, 2008 — 1:11 pm
Comments: 32
Can’t. Help. Myself.
You’d think on a weekend I’m trying to rehabilitate myself, I could give it a rest. But that would totally misapprehend the concept of “weasel.”
Oh. Ohhhhhh. I just discovered the spot where cool air from the fan shoots straight up my shirt sleeve. Excuse me, please.
July 18, 2008 — 6:37 pm
Comments: 23
How the hell did I get on THIS mailing list?
Goddamn it! I am not fat!
Okay, maybe I’m not as svelte as I was in art school, when I lived on coffee and broken dreams, but I sure as hell don’t be needing no double-wide toilets or extra sturdy waterproof furniture so I can sit down in the shower.
I guess I have to admire the entrepreneurial spirit; this is surely a catalog whose time has come. The headline promises, “unique, innovative products for tall and plus-sized men and women” but I don’t see a whole lot of tall guys up in here.
I think it’s safe to say if you have to turn to a specialist catalog to find an apron of sufficient hugeness to encompass your personal bodymass, you don’t need to be in the kitchen.
Note that the sand chair pictured on the cover is rated to 650 pounds. Heh. That metal tubing might be up to it, but I’m guessing if you flump a third of a ton on an itty-bitty surface area on the sand, your fat ass is going to be sitting flat on the beach, pronto.
Okay, okay. I quit. Apologies to plus-sized minions. Shop online at LivingXL.com
I wonder how many of those high-capacity bicycles they sell?
July 16, 2008 — 9:03 am
Comments: 85
Doctor’s orders
I just gave blood, so I’m not supposed to do anything strenuous. Like think. Or post something interesting.
I always give blood when they phone me up. You give somebody money, you don’t know where the hell it goes. Give them blood? There’s pretty much one thing they can do with it. (Plus, I love giving Uncle B the coffee mugs with the big RIBC drop o’ blood logo on the side).
The difference between the ones that call and ask and the ones that screen you when you get there is shocking. The phone ladies are all, like, “pleaseohpleaseohpleeeeeease give us some blood. You’ll be a hero to adorable big-eyed puppies everywhere!”
And the screener ladies are like, “So, Miz Weasel, are you a dirty, filthy whore? Because you look like a dirty, filthy whore. Yeah, you give sex for money, right? You shoot up? You’ve snuck off to Cameroon again, haven’t you?” I understand the need to keep bad things out of the blood supply, but if I were having sex in exchange for drugs, I’d like to think I’d have the decency to lie about it.
My favorite question is the one about whether you have ever once had sex with a man who has ever once had sex with another man. How the hell would I know? I mean, technically.
A couple of times I’ve been turned away — high blood pressure, stuff like that. They always act like I tried to put one over on them. “So! Tried to sneak some of your filthy whore blood past us, eh?”
Just once, I’d like the phone ladies and the blood ladies to trade places. Sure, the phone ladies would probably poke me full of holes and leave me soaked in my own gore, but I’d feel so good about it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to lie around and eat things. Doctor’s orders.
July 15, 2008 — 4:45 pm
Comments: 31