draggonlaady

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis has introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to subject a dog, cat or other companion animal to piercings, tattoos and unnecessary appearance-altering surgeries.

Yeah, this isn't the state in which I live, and doesn't affect me directly. However, I would like to point out that at no place in this article is there mention of exemption for tattoos done by a veterinarian. Many people are not aware of this, but I tattoo animals at least weekly. Nothing as elaborate as the dog pictured for this article, but I put tattoos in ears and on abdomens to 1: identify individual animals (this is usually livestock, but rabbits are often ID-tattooed, as are horses. This is becoming less common with increasing use of microchip ID, but is still widely done.)
2: ear tattoos make it clear that feral cats have been neutered
3: abdominal tattoos mark female cats (feral or outdoor pet/barn) as spayed

I'm gonna be mighty pissy if I start getting charged with misdemeanors for every feral cat I tattoo. That tattoo may prevent unnecessary anesthetic and/or surgical procedures in the future. Do you have ANY idea how frustrating it is to re-open a cat that's already been spayed? I call bullshit on statements like this: "There's no reason to pierce or tattoo a dog or cat. It should be illegal."

I can't say as I've ever pierced a dog or cat...but I put ear piercings in cattle regularly, and goats and sheep on occasion. These are usually ID tags, marking them as tested for or vaccinated against certain diseases, but there are also several medication-impregnated ear tags in common use for range animals that can't be caught and medicated daily.

Bills like this piss me off-this is NOT a real problem. Focus on shit like ear cropping and tail docking if you are worried about wide-spread unnecessary cosmetic procedures, not tattoos that are 1: uncommonly done by lay persons and 2: may have valid medical reasons. This politician really wants to help animals? She should focus on supporting neuter and vaccinations programs, and requirements for animal identification to decrease the number of unclaimed strays. Instead, she's floating this ridiculous bill, and using it to smear her opponent as an animal hater. Fucking politics.

You remember me ranting last year about how Whooping Cough is a preventable disease and it is ridiculous that there have been so many cases lately? Well, its officially an epidemic in the state of Washington now.
Get your kids vaccinated. Get your self vaccinated - the most important step in preventing babies too young for vaccines from getting ill and dying is to vaccinate the adults around them. Herd immunity, my darlings, it saves lives. But it only works if the majority of the herd is vaccinated.

Check this out for more details, but apparently the administration has decided that even religious non-profit employers will be required to provide coverage of contraceptives in their employee insurance benes. They get longer than anyone else to make that happen, of course, because religion is still a privileged category somehow (whatwhat? separation of church and state? what's that?) but no more "here, you can have insurance, but you can't get THAT done" exclusions.

Hopefully this'll be the last thing I post about it.

Federal investigators have identified dirty equipment, faulty sanitation and bad storage practices at a Colorado farm as the likely cause of a cantaloupe listeria outbreak that has killed 25 people, [and] top U.S. food safety experts say there's one actor in this deadly drama that shouldn't be blamed: The consumer. . . . Federal Food and Drug Administration officials reported Wednesday that standing pools of water, inaccessible drains, hard-to-clean equipment and failure to cool cantaloupes fresh from the field before placing them in cold storage all likely contributed to the growth and spread of four strains of listeria bacteria at the Jensen Farms packing site in Granada, Colo.

Seven customers at a Subway sandwich outlet in the international terminal of Vancouver airport were taken to hospital on Friday afternoon suffering from an apparent bout of food poisoning. Vancouver Coastal Health spokesman Justin Karasick said the suspected cause of their illness was some tuna that may not have been stored at the right temperature.

In two separate incidents on September 11 (the recent one), F-16s were scrambled to escort planes on which "suspicious activity" had been reported. That activity: using the bathroom. Frontier Flight 623 and American Flight 34 were escorted to their destinations after passengers either made "too many" trips to the bathroom or stayed there "too long."

It is patently obvious that the entire country has lost its collective fucking mind.

Utterly ridiculous. Junior High boy got suspended for the rest of the year, missed the school dance, and the class trip. Because he wore a dress. Oh NOES, a DRESS! Suspension was later reduced, but not until he'd already missed the dance and class trip.

Here's one with a picture of the dress and shoes.

Why are people so completely stupid that anybody even gives a crap if a kid wears heels to school on a dare? For that matter, why is it even dare-worthy? Never mind. It's dare-worthy because people care, so just refer to the first question, I guess.

Anyway, have some blow-up overreaction, shall we? I mean really--if you can't handle the way he's dressed, send him home to change. But suspend him for the rest of the damn year? Get a life and a sense of proportion.