Let's see now, the US Department of Agriculture has a lot of things to worry themselves about, these days. Parts of the country are experiencing severe drought, other parts are under sweltering heat, killing thousands of beef herds. There's always trying to prevent Mad Cow disease from entering the country, much less the Bird Flu that could lead to wholesale slaughter of the chickens (and their eggs) that we love and eat... Genetic engineering of food and the protests against that -- yup, a full plate. In another example of why our government is far too large and busybody, the schmucks at the USDA instead are hot and bothered over the six-toed cats at the Ernest Hemingway Home. From CNN:
The caretakers of Ernest Hemingway's Key West home want a federal judge to intervene in their dispute with the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the six-toed cats that roam the property.More than 50 descendants of a multi-toed cat the novelist received as a gift in 1935 wander the grounds of the home, where Hemingway lived for more than 10 years and wrote "A Farewell to Arms" and "To Have and Have Not."
The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum disputes the USDA's claim that it is an "exhibitor" of cats and needs to have a USDA Animal Welfare License, according to a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Miami.
"What they're comparing the Hemingway house to is a circus or a zoo because there are cats on the premises," Cara Higgins, the home's attorney, said Friday. "This is not a traveling circus. These cats have been on the premises forever."
A message left Friday afternoon at the Washington, D.C., office of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was not immediately returned.
The agency has repeatedly denied a license for the Hemingway home under the Animal Welfare Act, which the home contends governs animals in commerce. The USDA has threatened to charge the home $200 per cat per day for violating the act, according to the complaint.
"We're asking the judge to let us know whether this act applies to the cats, and if so why that is if the animals are not in commerce," Higgins said. "If it has something to do with the number of cats, how many do we have to get rid of to be in compliance with the act?"
I'm not for anarchy but dammit can't the government just get the hell out of our lives once in a while?