Tarazet

Hemingway's Cats

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?"

Your tax dollars being wasted again at work bothering about cats roaming a historical site and harrassing the trustees. These cats are probably the best fed, best cared for ones in the whole town what with all the attention that visitors give them.

I'm not for anarchy but dammit can't the government just get the hell out of our lives once in a while?

Disgusting Cruelty to Greyhounds

Are humans so addicted to gambling that they are willing to overlook the ugly underside of greyhound racing? From Times Online (UK):

THE secret slaughter of at least 10,000 racing greyhounds by one man has been exposed by an undercover investigation.

For the past 15 years David Smith, a builders’ merchant, has been killing healthy greyhounds no longer considered by their trainers to be fast enough to race. He buries them in a one-acre plot at the back of his home in Seaham, Co Durham.

Last week The Sunday Times covertly filmed Smith on two consecutive days receiving greyhounds from trainers before killing them with a bolt gun, dumping them in the plot and covering over the "graves" using a mechanical digger.

He told an undercover reporter it took him three years to fill the field, at which point he simply started all over again. "Within a year the bodies have gone," said Smith. "It takes me about three years to get across there and by the time I get there I can start back here again and there are only a few bones left."

[...]

The RSPCA has previously expressed "grave concerns" about the fate of up to 12,000 retired greyhounds that go missing every year. A spokesman said: "There is no justification for killing these animals simply because they can’t do their job any more."

Smith charges owners and trainers £10 to kill unwanted dogs, many only a few years old. One trainer, who asked not to be named, said: "This man kills dogs for 40 licensed trainers and there are at least 10,000 dogs in his field. People in the industry have been going to him for years. Many of the bigwigs knew it was going on."

Since 1997 anyone has been able to own a bolt gun to kill animals without a licence, although they can be prosecuted if the animals are put down inhumanely or without the owner’s permission. A new code of practice proposed under the animal welfare bill would restrict the killing of greyhounds to vets using "humane" lethal injections.

I don't promote, condone, or suggest violence of any kind against humans or animals. Still, if I read in tomorrow's paper that someone put a bolt-gun to Smith's head, or that of the "sportsmen" who used his services, I wouldn't lose a moment of sleep.

If this is how greyhounds are treated after their short racing career then it's time to outlaw the "sport".

Cat Litter Radioactive?

I thought it was a joke. The title of this news story:

Port to get nuclear detectors that won't be set off by cat litter

Nuclear detectors that shouldn't be triggered by cat litter and other harmless materials will be installed this fall at major seaports and border crossings, the government said Friday.

[...]

The estimated 670 detectors currently in place at ports and borders have long frustrated Homeland Security officials because of false positives triggered by medical supplies, cat litter, banana truckloads and other innocuous materials with low levels of naturally occurring radiation.

"We don't want to send the red flag up every time someone moves a shipment in of perfectly respectable granite," Chertoff told reporters in announcing $1.1 billion in contracts to three companies to help develop and deploy the systems. Officials said the new detectors are expected to reduce about 831,000 false positives each year to 15,000.

A simple search turned up quite a bit about radioactive cat litter. Apparently this has been quite a problem since security has been beefed up at our borders and especially at shipping ports. From US News & World Report:

Two years ago, the government awarded a contract to San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. to manufacture cargo-screening monitors that detect radioactive material. The government bought and installed about 400 of the scanners at many of the nation's border crossings and ports. Cost: $220 million.

[...]

What's the problem? Well, for starters, the monitors can't distinguish between a nuclear bomb and radiation that occurs naturally in a variety of materials, including ceramic tiles, quarry tile, cat litter, fertilizer, and bananas, according to the congressional Government Accountability Office and officials of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (an agency of the Department of Homeland Security), which purchased the equipment. As a result, the detectors reportedly go off frequently. Some Border Patrol officials turn the machine's sensitivity monitors down to avoid "nuisance" alarms, which risks letting dangerous material through.

Slate Magazine even wrote about radiation and cat litter. Here's the scoop:

Last Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the nation's busiest seaports will have enough radiation detectors to screen every cargo container that comes through. But congressional critics say expensive "Radiation Portal Monitors" can't tell the difference between highly enriched uranium and cat litter. Is cat litter really radioactive?

Yes, the clay in cat litter does give off radiation in very small quantities. There is naturally occurring radiation all around us; the radiation in cat litter comes from trace amounts of uranium, thorium, and potassium-40. Many other consumer products are also radioactive. Among these are some ceramic tiles (which can contain uranium), glossy magazines (which are sometimes coated with material that's high in uranium and thorium), and Brazil nuts (which have a fair amount of radium).

The quantity of radiation in cat litter—and all of the other consumer products listed above—is small enough that it poses no risk for either humans or their pets. So, why can't screening devices distinguish between common sources of radiation and the material used to make a nuclear bomb? For one, the most common ingredients in bombs, uranium-235 and plutonium-239, don't give off very much radiation at all. To suss out these materials, a detector must be set to a very high sensitivity. If the sensitivity of the screening device is high enough, then naturally occurring radioactive materials can set off a false alarm. (A small percentage of the uranium found in nature, for example, happens to be in the form of the U-235 isotope.)

A radioactive material gives off alpha, beta, and gamma emissions. Gamma rays are both the easiest to detect and the most dangerous, since they can travel through most materials. (Alpha emissions can't get through the surface of our skin or even a piece of paper.)

The Radiation Portal Monitors the government uses work by converting invisible gamma rays into visible light using a heavy crystal cylinder. If the detector records enough photons, a cargo container will be flagged as radioactive. Compared with a Geiger counter, this technique is very efficient: Radiation can be detected at long distances and at relatively high speeds.

But wait, on the more fun side of things, one clever individual did some math:

For fun, I measured the radionuclide activities in one sample of cat litter. The results were as follows: 4 picocuries per gram (pCi/g) for members of the uranium series, 3 pCi/g for members of the thorium series, and 8 pCi/g of potassium-40.

At these concentrations the exposure rate at six inches above a box of cat litter would be approximately 0.1 micro roentgen per hour (uR/hr) above background. Since cats don't spend a lot of time in the litter box (you never see them taking along something to read when they are heading that way), the radiation exposure is probably minimal.

I've seen varying estimates of the amount of cat litter sold in the US, but for the sake of the calculation, lets assume 4 billion pounds per year. If true, this means that approximately 50,000 pounds of uranium and 120,000 pounds of thorium are purchased in the form of cat litter each year by the American consumer.

Come to think of it, my cat Crispy seems to be positively glowing these past few weeks. I thought it was because he's been catching quite a few mice of late but now I'm not so sure...

Most Popular Pet Names

...But in Britain, where they're er, different, anyway... From K9 Magazine:

For Dogs:
1. Max
2. Ben
3. Buster
4. Tyson
5. Lady
6. Jack
7. Sam
8. Charlie
9. Molly
10. Tara

For Cats:
1. Tigger
2. Sooty
3. Felix
4. Lucky
5. Smokey
6. Charlie
7. Fluffy
8. Molly
9. Tiger
10. Smudge

For Rabbits:
1. Thumper
2. Fluffy
3. Snowy
4. Rabbit
5. Flopsy
6. Bunny
7. Floppy
8. Fudge
9. Bugsy
10. Daisy

Boy. Calling a rabbit, "Rabbit" is rather lame...

More Sick Mutants

I hate reporting stories such as this one but once in awhile I do it to remind us all that there are evil people out there wanting to harm or kill our pets. From CBS TV in California:

Residents of one Oakdale neighborhood fear for the lives of their pets after one dog was poisoned to death.

People say someone has been tossing meatballs filled with rat poison into backyards where there are dogs.

One resident says he found 15 meatballs one morning before his animals got to them.

But others aren't so lucky. One family lost their dog to the poisoned meatballs. They say it's like losing a family member.

Neighbors have now put up fliers offering a reward for information that will lead to police to the person responsible.

Oh, I wouldn't want this mutant turned in to the cops. Someone should just get a good long-range rifle with scope and eliminate society's problem the proper way.