One more reason to hate Hillary: even Socks the Cat was a prop. If you like people who get pets to make themselves look warm and fuzzy, then ditch them when the need to look warm and fuzzy subsides, Hillary’s your girl.

UPDATE: More here via the guy who doesn’t really blend puppies, reminding us that Buddy, the other former first pet, didn’t fare so well after President Clinton and her husband left office, either.

Let’s hear it for Ohio Judge Michael Cicconetti, who sentenced kitten abandoner Michelle Murray to stay outside for abandoning 40 kittens, 9 of which died or had to be euthanized as a result. Unfortunately, the message seems to be lost on an unrepentant Murray:

In a Thursday interview, Murray said a stranger left the kittens on her doorstep and the local animal shelter refused to help her. So she said she left the kittens in parks “to force the humane society to do something.”

The mother of three children and two stepchildren agreed to the night in the woods only because she could not afford to spend 90 days in jail.

“But it’s inhumane for the judge to send me out in the cold with nothing but the clothes on my back,” she said.

Bring back Robert Scheer’s mini-violin. If letting her off after one friggin’ night in the cold is “inhumane,” then what the hell do you call abandoning 40 kittens to die? Besides, the choice was hers, not the judge’s. So let’s all let out a great big “boo friggin’ hoo” for Michelle Murray. Here’s a pic of some of her more fortunate victims.

UPDATE: Doc Rampage argues that Murray didn’t do anything wrong. O-kay.

Via Tammy Bruce, H.R. 3858 would require state and local authorities to include pets and service animals in their disaster evacuation plans. The bill reads in its entirety:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2005′.

SEC. 2. STANDARDS FOR STATE AND LOCAL EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS OPERATIONAL PLANS.

Section 613 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5196b) is amended–

(1) by redesignating subsection (g) as subsection (h); and

(2) by inserting after subsection (f) the following:

‘(g) Standards for State and Local Emergency Preparedness Operational Plans- In approving standards for State and local emergency preparedness operational plans pursuant to subsection (b)(3), the Director shall ensure that such plans take into account the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals following a major disaster or emergency.’.

This one’s a no-brainer. Call your Congresscritter and tell him to support it.

UPDATE: All this comes not a minute too soon.

UPDATE x2: For those would-be Cruella de Villes who can’t bear the thought of one taxpayer dime going to pay for anyone’s pet or service dog, bear in mind that 42 U.S.C. § 5196b is a federal funding statute, not a direct mandate. If Louisiana wants to retain its policy of screwing pet owners, and soaking the taxpayers twice on service dogs that will need to be replaced, they can still do it; they just won’t be able to ask the rest of the country to help pay for it.

I’ve blogged before about hero dogs, but some cats deserve a mention as well.

Tiger asks how Bill Waterson’s “Calvin” character ended up being the guy who pees on everything despite never once having “calvinated” in any of the strips that ran in the papers all those years. I think I know the answer. In mid-1994, Mrs. Xrlq (then Miss Non-Xrlq) and I acquired two kittens, which she named Calvin and Hobbes, respectively. A few months later, Bill Waterson ended the strip, and our Calvin started peeing on everything. Since Watterson was too vain to license his product, which he mistook for “art,” pirated Calvins sprung up everywhere. The question was what to have them do. The original Calvin was no longer out there to give them any new ideas, so the pirates did the next best thing, drawing a character who looks like the original Calvin but behaves like the only one that’s still around to give them new material.

UPDATE: Via Drudge, if there is such a thing as a “Calvin Award,” this guy certainly earned it.

The Dog Trainer reports that the Dog Terminator is not to be.

The governor said that the plan to repeal the law prohibiting the destruction of animals for at least six days was a “mistake” made when he hastily put together his budget after taking office last year.

“That was an oversight of mine in December when we were trying to put the budget together in two seconds,” said Schwarzenegger, a self-described animal lover and the owner of three dogs: Sarge, Sammy and Spunky.

“And of course I grew up with every animal you can think of,” he said. “I’m an animal lover.”

The May Revisions to the Governor’s Budget (PDF) didn’t say word one about animal control issues, but between then and now, some idiot inserted a provision into the California Budget that would repeal all of the 1998 changes to California’s animal control law. Some of the proposed changes would help balance the budget some, others would have no budgetary impact, and others still – such as the repeal of the law requiring those convicted of animal cruelty to pay for the animal’s care while guilt is being determined- would actually exacerbate it. None of this stuff belongs in the budgetary debate, especially after having been smuggled in in the eleventh hour. The proposed changes include the following:

1. Ending the state’s policy preference of animal adoptions over euthanasia.
2. Abolishing the requirement that people convicted of animal cruelty bear the costs of the animal’s care while guilt is being determined.
3. Allowing parolees convicted of animal cruelty to own animals immediately upon release.
4. Removing the requirement that shelters use all currently acceptable methods of identification (e.g., microchips) to locate the owner of a seized or impounded animal.
5. Allowing shelters to euthanize animals turned in by their owners, without even attempting to adopt them out.
6. Ending the requirement that shelters be required to relinquish animals to non-profit rescue groups upon payment of the requisite fee. The Times article suggests that this law is unlikely to be repealed.

The budget is almost a done deal, so time is of the essence. Call your Assemblyman and State Senator now – and I do mean NOW – to register your opposition to this horrible bill. If you don’t have the names or phone numbers of your representatives handy, you can get them online by following this link and selecting “Find My District” on the side bar. Then call Arnold himself at (916) 445-2841 (Fax: (916) 445-4633) and email him at http://www.govmail.ca.gov/ to tell why even the legitimate issues with the Hayden bill – such as the unintended consequences of the six-day holding period – demand a serious debate of their own, and should therefore not be smuggled in to the budget debate.

After you call your Legislators and your Governor to register your opposition, you will then have more leisure time to read up on the idiocy you’ve just opposed. I’ve reproduced below an email Mrs. X received from Best Friends, and you can read more about this dreadful legislative sleight of hand at Yahoo! (h/t: Spoons), the Los Angeles Times and, allegedly (according to Sen. Ackerman’s assistant), somewhere in the Orange County Register.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, a friendly dog in Toronto just accomplished what Canadian gun laws could not: preventing a shooting rampage (h/t: Dean Esmay).

ANOTHER UPDATE: Joe Gandelman concurs.

FINAL UPDATE: It’s over. Gov. Schwarzenegger has admitted the error of his ways. Thanks to all who made it happen.

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Unlike certain individuals who will remain nameless, I don’t really hate cats.

A while back, Greg at Begging to Differ offered a working theory that liberals blog about their cats and conservatives blog about their dogs. He cited an exception that pretty well proves the rule: conservatives occasionally do blog about their cats, in order to make a snarky point about the French.

Since the time of Greg’s posting, I provided a similar non-exception exception myself, and Kelley has provided a more conventional example of the basic rule. Dean is taking the idea even further and threatening to leave the country to avoid someone else’s cats. So I think it’s safe to say that there is something to the cat/dog rule. The question is what?

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