Shotgun

Is a person a sicko when dropping poison down a rathole? .... See, again... I don't know... the article was not clear enough regarding whether the animal had been a nuisance or not... and personally, if I did need to kill an animal for some reason, I'd find the quickest way possible and not intentionally try to cause suffering to it... but the cat in this story survived for quite a while, probably suffering quite a bit, so I would be curious to know the intentions of the shooter, and my first thoughts are that the person likely has some mental problems.

Welcome to Speakers Corner. And yeah, I'd probably agree that whoever was shooting the cats with arrows is a sicko... but I'd still have to argue that letting your pets roam the neighborhood is irresponsible and is inviting such activities of the sickos.

We have the coolest hawk that hangs out in our backyard sometimes. We can see his nest in a tree behind our house. And there is another tree where he often sits to eat his prey, and we can see little bits of fur that he leaves there. He is absolutely beautiful, and deadly... such is life.

So am I a psychopath if I decide to poison the gophers that tear up my yard??? They're pretty similar to cats, physically, but does the fact that they're not usually kept as pets and that they tear up people's yards make it ok to kill them?

Yes, I am... always a cheeky wench.

Uh huh.....SURE it wasn't!!! I did NOT have sexual relations with that woman... Oh wait, what were we talking about???

And I'm glad that you're not my neighbor. If you can keep your dog in your yard without a secure fence, then kudos for you, but if your dog comes running up to me outside of your yard, growling as if it intends to hurt me, then shame on you for putting your dog in a position to either be picked up by animal control or killed by one of your neighbors (or whatever harm might come to a loose dog)... As has already been said, control your freakin' pets, people. Letting your dog run loose is simply irresponsible.

Yes. Well then perhaps you shouldn't own a dog... Jesus freakin' Christ... Do you really not understand that owning an animal that is capable of causing serious injuries to people requires some degree of responsibility???

Umm, social work???

I was dating this guy (years ago) that would pick up a rattlesnake anytime he saw one... and yes, there was usually alcohol involved... and, being in West Texas, there were lots of rattlesnakes around... and I wouldn't be surprised if he has been bitten by a rattlesnake by now!

Ya know, I keep trying to type out a response saying that I agree with you... but then I look at my leather shoes and think about all the meat that I eat, and I can't really think too harshly of people who kill animals without thinking that I am one of them. Sure, it's different if they are just killing them for the sake of amusement, but those of us who support the killing of animals through consumption don't have much right to claim moral superiority...

I would need to be provoked pretty far before I would kill a dog, but I'd have to agree that if I were protecting my own children (or any children, for that matter), I would do whatever was necessary to keep a stray dog away from them.

Why won't animal control do anything about it? Isn't that their job? Around here, I think that any outside cat that doesn't have proof of a current rabies shot would certainly be picked up by animal control.

How do you propose to do that, when you're voting for individual senators and representatives? I'm not very good at explaining some things, so I'll just post a link that describes some possible ways that it could work. I'm not sure which one would work best... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation (Oh no! I posted a link to wikipedia right after I was making fun of it. )

Must I really post this picture again??? Cats are dangerous, people (well, dangerous for idiots anyway)... please be careful. But seriously, if you do choose to let your cat wander outside unsupervised, then you are taking a chance that it will be killed in one way or another. Cats are usually not dangerous, but they can be quite a nuisance, especially to people who do not like them. If you think that you have the right to let them roam the neighborhood, then you need to accept the consequences. And I already went off on my little rant about loose dogs in another thread...

I always speak from what I believe, after I look in my little handbook that tells me what I believe. And if my little handbook doesn't offer a belief for a certain subject, then I do a search on wikipedia (which is BTW a great resource for finding beliefs, for those of you who may be lacking). Luckily I do not need outside sources to come up with the sophomoric tripe that I spew, as I have plenty of that readily available in my own little head.

OK, just for the record... It was not this Shotgun that was involved with the shooting.

Ok, I don't know what the specifics are to this particular story, other than what the media has reported, but... Be responsible for your freakin' pets, people!!! We have recently had trouble with something disturbing our fish pond, and I was under the assumption that it was a wild raccoon. But this morning I realized that it was a neighbor's cat when I caught it in the act. And seeing this cat in our backyard put a huge distress on MY cats, which are kept indoors unless they are supervised in our backyard. I ended up having to chase the neighbor cat away and then deal with my own cat that was distressed from this intrusion on our property. A couple of days ago, we were out for a morning walk when two large dogs came running up to us, growling, one of them getting right up on me as if it might bite - I yelled "BACK!" at the top of my lungs and scared the thing away - its owner running up and putting its leash back on, apologizing, saying that they would never hurt anyone... Yeah, it will never hurt anyone if you keep it on its freakin' leash like you're supposed to. Anyhow, I really am an animal lover, but not to the point that I'm going to let some idiot's animal hurt me or my property just because they choose not to control it. So if you really love your pet, keep it under control and keep it off of other people's property. (Oh, and I almost got attacked by someone's pit bull at the place that I used to live, because they were letting it run loose, but don't even get me started on that! )

I think that it would encourage people to vote for a third party if we had proportional representation - where the legislative seats would be allocated to each party by the percentage of votes that they won. I think that this is the only way that a third party candidate will ever have a chance of winning a presidential election, because it's the only way to stop people from thinking that they are "wasting their vote" if they vote for anyone other than the two main party candidates.

I just got home from a seminar on reproductive cloning, and one of the panelists was talking about a couple that sued a sperm bank because their babies (they had triplets) were not as attractive as they had wanted them to be. If you do decide to donate your eggs, keep in mind that this is the type of couple that you may possibly be helping to have children. As I've already said, if I were donating my own eggs, I would absolutely require that I would be able to approve of the couple that would receive them. (Well, unless I was really desperate for $, perhaps.) One audience member was concerned that cloning would encourage selective breeding (artificial selection) of humans, and another one of the panelists (Dr. Zavos - what a character!) pointed out that selective breeding was already happening, using egg donor services as an example - specifically those that advertise for med students with really high SAT scores and physical attractiveness. (But, to a certain extent, I think that selective breeding of humans happens even when we choose a mate and reproduce the "normal" way, so it could be argued that it's not necessarily a bad thing.) Now to be honest, I'm not an overly uptight person regarding this sort of moral question (I'm pretty open-minded and "middle-ground" regarding most moral issues)... but since you were asking, I just thought I would offer something to think about.

Cool, I see that my evil plan worked.

"It doesn't hurt that he's nice to look at, too!" This is very important when choosing an instructor. I'm sure you realize that half of the women (and maybe some of the guys) in the class are probably fantasizing about having sex with you while you're lecturing, don't ya?

Why, what did they say about you? Are you hot or not?

Do you really think it's BS? I have found most of the reviews to be pretty accurate, especially if a lot of people have reviewed the instructor. It really helped me out this semester; I'm so happy with all of my instructors, which has not always been the case.

What I'm unclear on is how the dog that got shot was able to get into a fight with Grossmith's dog? Was his dog not behind a secure fence either? Not enough info to know if he did the right thing or not, but the person whose dog got shot was obviously in the wrong for allowing their dog to wander the neighborhood. I love animals, but I would be pretty pissed off about a large dog that regularly got loose and wandered around my neighborhood. I doubt that I would shoot it, but I would definitely call animal control.