Politics

Categories Dog, Politics

Where’s Kapone?

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So, you have two dogs, and they’re your babies.  The older of the two you’ve had since you were a teen, and is now 11 years old.  Oh yes, they happen to both be pitbulls.

They got through the fence on Friday.  It does happen, even to the best of pet owners, but a neighbor says all is not lost, they saw an Animal Control Officer picking up two dogs that match the description of your two.  So first thing Saturday you rush down to the Memphis Animal Shelter to pay the fine and look for your dogs. 

There’s Jersey, in the back row of cages.  There’s a mention on her kennel card of the 2nd dog picked up with her…..but he’s no where to be found.  MAS authorities review the camera take, they say that the 2nd dog picked up at the same time as Jersey isn’t Kapone, but they can’t ID which dog it was.  That dog’s apparently missing too. Oh, and you’re not allowed to watch the video footage.

Last year (2010) MAS “lost” 155 animalss.  Thats not a euphanism, they literally have no explanation for where those animals went after an ACO supposedly brought them in.  In January 2011, they “lost” 40 animals.  Then, for some reason, they stopped reporting how many animals went missing, for all the months after that.  The rest of the numbers are there, but not how many went missing.

This is a picture of Kapone.  The Shoup family is offering a $1000 reward for the return of their dog, no questions asked.  If you know someone in the area please ask them to keep an eye out for this dog.

News article 1
News article 2
News article 3

From YesBiscuit

Categories Guns, Politics

And yet…..

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…..despite things like this and this, I have to come up with a reason why the judge should issue me a pistol permit.  And not just a permit, but a permit to carry concealed where-ever allowed by law, not just at home, or while hunting, or while on the job…..

Seriously though, what do I put as my “reason for requesting a pistol permit”.  I doubt I could get away with “hunting” since I don’t have a hunting license (I’ve debated getting one, but as much as I’d like to say I hunt my own food I KNOW I’d not be able to gut and clean….).  And I don’t know the judge well enough to know if “because its my legal right” will fly (this being NY probably not).

And while I’m in gripe mode, WHY do I have to fill out the medical/legal/court records release forms in triplicate, especially when there’s nothing there for them to find anyway??  They all say “photocopies of this document are legal” (or some such similar language) on the bottom.

Categories Cats, Dog, Politics

Of course its not just Memphis.

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And of course its not just Memphis thats the problem, the Central CA SPCA recently decided that it didn’t have to make its meetings public afterall, and the NYC Dept of Health (which runs the city pounds) scheduled its board meeting in a room designed to hold less than 50 people (which is actually against the law in NYC, there has to be room to hold enough people who can be expected to attend, and the law states that if something has been high profile there must be plans for alot of extra people!).

Seriously people, the whole point of your jobs is to HELP animals, not kill them, trying to deny the no-kill advocates space only makes it worse!

Found over at Pet Connection’s blog

Categories Dog, Politics

Information on a dog from MAS

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Another post from YesBiscuit:

One of her readers, who lives in TN requested, via the Freedom of Information act, the information pertaining to a dog seen on the webcam who was euthanized to “to prevent suffering.” 

Go read the whole post for the entire set of information, but basically this dog was brought in as a stray on May 30, and the cage cleaned (ie: hosed down) while the dog was in it on May 31.  Presumably the dog was given food and water both days.  Neither day was any veterinary notes placed on the animal’s chart, or special care provided, or rescues (or other organizations) contacted on behalf of this dog.

On June 1st, the cage was hosed down while the dog was inside and presumably food and water given. 

A technician notes that she is emaciated and “Referred to Mr. Pepper for disposition”.  The shelter vet notes that the dog is suffering and she recommends “euthanasia as condition exceeds our available resources to treat at MAS”.  No veterinary care is provided.  No rescues are contacted.

On June 2nd:

The dog’s weight is noted as 40 pounds and she is killed by MAS.  The shelter vet signs the final disposition record and dates it.  The date appears to read “6/2/11″ with an apparent attempt to alter the 2 into a 1.

 Since the dog was seen via webcam on June 2nd, apparently being led to the kill room, we know her date of death is indeed 6/2 and not 6/1.  At no time during this dog’s 3 day stay at MAS was she provided veterinary care, infact there’s no notes about her condition at all till day 3 of the stray hold, dispite the fact someone handled her on day 1, and hosed out her cage on day 2.  She appears, on the webcam images captured, to be well able to walk on her own, there’s no sign of her having to be carried, or dragged, at all.  Which means that dispite her low body weight there is a very good possibility that with some time, care, and food this dog could have been returned to good condition and quite possibly made someone a good pet.  Unfortunetly none of the webcam watchers spotted her till June 2nd, at which time several people did request more information on her in hopes of getting her rescued, only to be told that it was to late, the dog had been killed.

Categories Nothing Much, Politics

The Personalized TSA Experience

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Over at MArooned there’s a report from a reader (blogger? I don’t read’em all so could be) about his experience going through the TSA security lines.

MrsSCI-FI announced that she has a medical implant, and must be scanned by hand. Not “Maybe.” Not “Scan her Anyway.” Not “Subject to TSA override.”  Trail Boss, however, knew better. “We get passengers with implants all the time. Just go through.” Not a smiling, friendly comment; this was a variation on “Move your ass, you’re holding up my line.”She repeated her request for a pat-down, and Trail Boss repeated that she is going through the nudie-scanner.  At about the start of the third round of this, I held up my “STOP” hand and repeated what the Mrs had said. Wife, however, was having no problems at this point: she just flat wasn’t going through, and the Trail Boss had had enough. He called for a female guard, and told my wife to stand to the side and wait………Doubling-down on trouble, I stated flatly: “Pat down. No scanner.” Trail Boss directed me to the “Get out of my way” line next to my wife, and called for a male guard…..It’s worth pointing out the following: after my wife had been paired off with her designated TSA groper, I saw a family get waved through with no scan. At least five people, one of them an infant, were waved past us all. No magnetometer, no nudie-scanner, no pat-down. I’m not even certain their carry-ons were x-rayed. I pressed the Trail Boss for an explanation: “Why are they just walking through?”

The answer was a load of crap: “We need to relieve congestion.”

So, what happened to the option to opt out for a pat down?  Apparently thats a “bad thing” as far as the TSA is concerned, if you read the rest of the post you’ll discover that even the patdown was done rudely.  And yet, at the same time, a family is passed by with no scanning whatsoever??  SRSLY??  And my family wonders why I have no wish to fly any more!

I hope Texas kicks their butt!!

Categories Dog, Politics, Rants

If you know someone in TN

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Or even if you don’t but what I’m about to show you is something you find apalling, please feel free to join in the letter writing campaign mentioned.

There’s this blog I’ve been reading off and on for a while, to the point where I should be adding it to my blogroll (something I’ll be doing as soon as I’m done this post).  I can’t read it too often, cause it tugs the heartstrings, but I make myself go read as often as I can.

Over at YesBiscuit Shirley spends alot of her time documenting shelter dogs and cats in need of help.  She would prefer to show you pictures of the happy healthy dogs awaiting adoption at various places, but has often found herself documenting their abuses instead.  Lately its been one of those times.

Two years ago the Memphis Animal Shelter was raided by the county sheriff for animal abuse.  Animals were being starved and otherwise mistreated.  A new director was then appointed, and webcams placed at strategic places around the building so the public could see how much better things were.

Unfortunetly things aren’t much better.  As far as the webcam watchers can tell the animals aren’t being starved, or beaten any more, at least where a camera can catch them, but they are being miss-handled, badly, and the webcams are proving just how many dogs and cats are NOT shown to the public before they’re killed.  Over 70% of the animals that cross the threshold of MAS are killed.  Many of them dragged to the kill room on their stomachs by a choke pole because they’re to terrified to walk.  There was a case, not long ago, where a person surrendered a momma dog and her puppies.  Barely 3 days after surrender the pups were placed into a trash can and wheeled to the kill room.  When Shirley asked for information on WHY, when puppies are generally the most adoptable dog ever, she was informed that SOME of the puppies had a respitory infection.  SOME, and no obvious attempts to see if they could be gotten better.  Just kill’em.

Animals brought in by Animal Control Officers as strays are held in an area not open to the public.  These animals are held for 3 days as strays, and then, unless they’re lucky enough to be choosen to be made availible for adoption, they are killed.  Webcam watchers have seen dogs brought in by ACOs wearing collars, and then 3 days later, those same dogs, wearing those same collars, are brought back to the kill room.  So essentially, if your dog escapes in the Memphis area, and is caught by an ACO, if a shelter employee is unable to ID your dog from your description or photo, you are unable to check the stray area yourself to see if your dog is there.  And so after 3 days your dog is killed.  Gotta wonder how many people in the Memphis area are missing their pets because MAS was “unable” to ID the animal and killed it.

Shirley started a Chip-In, to raise funds for rescuers who wanted to rescue some of the animals they were seeing on the webcams.  This week she finally got a response to all her letters to the new director of MAS.  The Memphis City Attorney sent her a letter threatening her with legal action, with a law in her home state of SC that states its illeagel to raise funds FOR a charity or business without their permission.  Seeing as how she was raising funds for the removal of animals FROM MAS this law doesn’t apply.

Feel free join in the letter campaign to let them know what the rest of the country thinks of them, but keep it  polite, polite goes alot farther than ranting.

H/T to Raised by Wolves, she says it much better than I do, so go read.

Categories Nothing Much, Politics

Electric cars

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While I’m on the subject, everyone goes on about how an electric car saves you money, and officially the .GOV is pushing companies to try to find a way to save oil (at least they keep saying they are), but there’s a side to getting rid of gas burning cars (or any kind of fuel burning vehicle) that I think the general public tends to forget about.  The federal government, and most (if not all) states, make quite a bit of money off of gas taxes that are paid at the pump.  So what happens when that source of income dries up? 

Well, things like this.  At first glance it makes sense.  You use the roads you  should pay a tax to help pay for repairs…..right?  But how are they going to collect this information? 

Most, if not all, new cars already have a black box of some sort that records a few seconds of data in the case of a crash, but in order to track your miles driven it would have to keep track of much more AND send that information off to the government periodically.  You don’t even have to be paranoid to see ways for this to be abused, and thats just by the folks who would legally have a right to the info.  What happens when some crook figures out how to access the data and uses it against you in some way?