Why I love cats

Well, I love them for many a reason, but this one stands out.  If your cats are aloof and don't seem to care if you live or die, maybe you're doing something wrong.

“But then they shouted him again and then one of the boys got in Ethan’s face and said “Oi! Why are you ignoring me?” and pushed him over. 

“That’s when I rushed outside and saw Smudge fly out from under our car and jump on the boy’s chest. 

“I think it was shock more than anything but the boy stumbled backwards, burst into tears and then ran off."

Smudge rocks.  :)

Cats and guns and Proglodyte idiocy

Ah, cats and guns.  Two of my favorite things.  (BTW, it's Sam's 7th birthday today.  Still a finicky little prima donna, but we love him.)

Anyway, I know most Conservatives are dog folks, but I don't hold it against 'em.  It is possible, contrary to popular belief, to train a cat.  The method?  A squirt bottle.

Most cats hate getting wet.  So, when your furball starts acting the fool, give him a couple of blasts of water, and he'll immediately run off somewhere private to lick that nasty dihydrogen monoxide off his precious fur.  But if you want the training to stick, it's important that, to him, it comes out of nowhere.  You can't let the cat see you hose him.  If he does, he'll do whatever he likes when you're not around.  He'll walk up to the squirt bottle, sniff it, mark it and pay it no attention...until you reach for it.

See, it doesn't take a cat long to figure out that it's not the device, it's the human pulling the trigger.  So, Proglodyte gun-grabbers, if you are unable to wrap your brain around this selfsame concept, you officially have less critical thinking ability than a common housecat.

How does it feel to be that stupid?  It hurts me just thinking about it--I don't know how you survive.

Nonconformity: The more you try...

...the more you fail.

On with the story of the Most Punk Rock Dude I Ever Knew.

Take a trip back in time to the 1980's, when the punk subculture was growing across the land like a noxious weed, offending the sensibilities of pretty much everybody.  Punk, like Metal, like the Hippie movement before it and Rock & Roll before that and Jazz before that, was about pushing the boundaries.  It was free-form:  do what you want, look how you like, just do something different.

And, like all the other movements, it got co-opted, sanitized and turned into a popularity contest.

The spirit of individualism was shoved aside in favor of the herd mentality.  If you dared to like music other than 3-chord hardcore, if you didn't dress in the appropriate style, if you didn't subscribe to a strange and contradictory mix of anarchism and communism in your political views, if you didn't hate capitalism and America, if you didn't bow down at the altar of Political Correctness and constantly bemoan one "-ism" after another, then you were a "poser," not a Real Punk.

I call bullshit, just like I did then.  A real punk does what s/he wants, and doesn't give one rat's ass who thinks they're punk or not.  Which brings me to my friend Ray.

A general description of punk rockers would illustrate how truly indistinguishable most of them were.  Weird hair, jacket with anti-government/pro-communism sayings and symbols, T-shirt, torn jeans and black footwear.  So one guy would have blue spikes and one a green mohawk.  One guy would have SMASH THE STATE on his jacket, another would have the circle-A.  One had high-tops, one had combat boots.  One wore a Rancid shirt, another favored the Exploited.  Without specific details, you couldn't tell them apart. 

But you couldn't miss Ray.

Ray had normal hair, carried a briefcase and wore slacks and a pinstripe shirt with the sleeves ripped off.  He was all about business and capitalism.  Yep--a capitalist punk.  And that made him more punk than anyone else in the scene.  Ray was truly doing his own thing, and didn't care who thought it was cool.  Compare that to the mindless lockstep mentality found in any liberal enclave, anywhere in America.

I took a lesson from him, and learned to think for myself, do what I wanted, and form my own opinions regardless of who liked it.  So I've become a redneck in an import truck, a first-generation American who wants secure borders, a conservative who favors drug legalization, and a beer-swilling, tattooed biker and truck driver who loves his cats and collects stuffed penguins.  No, I don't fit a stereotype, nor do I care to...and if you're worried about whether a "real" lib/con/whatever would do this or that before you do it?  You're trying too hard. 

Think for yourself, pursue the truth, and do whatever the hell you want that doesn't violate the rights of another.  It's called liberty.  Take advantage of the little we have left.

Cats in Rome

By way of Fr. Z, an article about the cats in Rome and the battle over them:

They also have a successful but modest adoption program, and for the many cats that don’t have the temperament, good health or conventionally good looks to find a loving, responsible home, they provide a permanent home for them in the sanctuary. A distance adoption program allows people all over the world to “adopt” one of these permanent residents by sending a monthly donation. In return they get pictures and updates about their long distance kitty.

Volunteers clean the cages and feed and see to the medical needs of the animals starting every morning, seven days a week, at 8:00 AM. Because the space is so small, disease can spread like wildfire. To prevent this from happening, the volunteers are obsessive about cleaning. I don’t mean just wiping stuff down. I mean full-on sterilization of every litter scoop between every use, of every surface daily. Read the volunteer manual (pdf) to see what kind of standards they employ. I can’t even look my cat in the eye after reading that.

There’s just one problem: this whole thing is technically illegal. They’re squatters. The sanctuary was built without a permit and on an ancient monument. Even though it’s been in operation almost 20 years, for some reason this year government officials have cottoned onto it as a political issue and the refuge is now being threatened with eviction. Authorities, who clearly have not read the volunteer manual, say it’s a health hazard and that it compromises ancient remains. They say this as they build a new tram line right over those ancient remains, which might seem to some like a rather glaring hypocrisy.

RTWT, as usual.  And, once again, we see the results of a bunch of control freaks attempting to thwart a good cause for no reason than sheer bloody-mindedness.  Not that this has anything to do with that whole 'liberty' thing...

Why cats rock

Y'know, if you replaced 'cat' with 'Democrat' and 'dog' with 'Republican,' I'd think I was watching a LameStream Media newscast.


(HT BoB)

On my erratic posting

Longtime readers may have noticed that days can go by without my posting anything.  I confess, it's due to being overwhelmed by the collapse of America.  It seems that every day, we see more disregard of the Constitution by the Thug Regime, less resistance by our supposed allies in Congress, and the world inches closer to complete financial collapse and/or Jihadist domination.

I'm just a truck driver with an attitude and a blog.  I look at the tsunami of evil coming our way, and I do, indeed, despair at being able to make a difference.  But God sends us a message when we need it, often in some of the most innocuous ways.

Our newest addition, little Glock, is barely a teenager in cat years.  He weighs in at four pounds, as opposed to Sam's fifteen and Spike's eighteen.  Now that they're getting healthier,* the pecking order is being established, and I feared he'd end up at the bottom.  Here's Sam and Glock, with my hand in each picture for scale:

You'd think the outcome a foregone conclusion?  Think again.  This little four-pound cat runs fifteen-pound Sam down and beats the crap out of him!  Even Spike backs down whenever Glock steps to him.  Glock is absolutely, utterly fearless and he's making the other cats his bitches without question.  So what does this have to do with me?

It has everything to do with me.  With you.  With all of us who comprise the real America.  Our adversaries may be many.  They may be well-organized.  They may seem unbeatable.  But they're not.  In the end, those who seek power--be they Jihadists, Marxists or any garden-variety statist--do so through cowardice.  They're terrified of anything they can't control, and, in the end, we real Americans will not be controlled.  Courage will trump cowardice every time, and Glock is living proof of that. 

If we stand strong in our faith, our convictions and our principles, we cannot fail.  Take it from a little black cat.


*No, it wasn't kitty herpes, thank God.  Just a bacterial infection, requiring two more weeks of antibiotics.  Our scratches will heal up eventually...

Of cats, medicine and faith

Well, it turns out that our newest addition, little Glock, had a bit more than a cold.  Looks like it's some sort of kitty herpes that got the other two cats in quite a bad way.  By the time we ran Sam and Spike to the vet, Sam bore a striking resemblance to Church after his resurrection, and Spike barely had the energy to eat(which, for him, is completely unprecedented--that cat never stops eating).  :(

So, the vet ran a test to see what this bug really is before we took the step of putting the whole crew on kitty Valtrex forever, and we'll find out soon if that's what we have to do.  In the meantime, it's doxycyclene all around for the next two weeks.  On the plus side, it's in liquid form, which is tons easier than shoving pills down a cat's throat.  On the minus side, "easier" is highly relative.  Glock takes it very well, but Sam (15#) and Spike (18#) have decided DO NOT WANT, so getting the meds into these critters is like grabbing a running weedwhacker by the busy end.  Mrs. Wraith and I are going to spend the next couple of weeks looking like we've gone a few rounds with Edward Scissorhands.

I got a present!

So I came home Saturday morning from my last day on the night shift(SWEET), had a couple of beers and went to bed.  I woke up to my wife sitting on the edge of the bed with a present for me.  He'd been left in a box to die, at the ripe old age of nine days, and was rescued by the folks at one of the local pet stores.  He's now six months old, active, inquisitive, purrs and cuddles constantly...and currently has a cold, so he's sneezing all over everything.  Ah, well, that shall pass.  Now we just have to get the others used to him.  Meet Cat #3, Glock.

He's too active to get a really good picture of, so this was all I could get.  And he's only about 4 pounds, so I just hope Spike doesn't accidentally eat him.  Currently, he's sitting on my lap, purring like an N14 Cummins and bonking me with his head.

Best present my wife ever gave me, outside of her hand in marriage.

Our Boys

Sam

Spike

Merry Christmas to all our fellow cat-lovers.  And someone please lend us a forklift so we can get Spike off the floor.

Draw your own conclusions.

Marty was working at Tufts Veterinary Medical School when she got Frank and Louis, who was brought in at one day old to be euthanized...

Frank&Louie--the Janus Cat

As the local video news report below shows, he is a mostly normal, playful kitty. Thanks to Marty being the right person in the right place at the right time, he has had the opportunity to live a good life.

My former views on abortion and euthansia are...um...being 'modified' of late.

Justice for Dexter

Who?  Dexter is a tiny kitten who survived, against all odds, a horrific and sadistic assault by a very disturbed woman who not only encouraged her children to participate, but has another serial-killer-in-training on the way.

Once again, folks--I'm not an 'animal rights' whacko.  But if you're beating kittens with a baseball bat, you are one sick, evil, f***ed-up individual.  This is exactly how folks like Bundy and Dahmer got started.  This woman needs to serve some time, and hopefully, her children will be remanded into the custody of someone with a concience.

Yes, I signed the petition linked in the article.  If you have an ounce of humanity, I urge you to do the same.

Replace "cat" with "motorcycle," and I've lived this.

Life With Cats is now a part of my blogroll, via iOTW.  You gotta love this guy for making the right call.

Girlfriend says cat has to go!! Free tonight!!

My girlfriend said the cat has to be gone by 12:00 tomarrow. She left a little while ago to hang with her friends. I put all her crap on the lawn and will try my best to find her a new home but if not there is always the shelter.


So what we have here is one mildly attractive yet bitchy soon to find out she is a homeless exgirlfriend. She is somewhat house broken (but i think she is still connected to her mom by the umbilical cord).

She is in her midtwenties and is NOT SPAYED (though she usually takes the pill) Lot of life left in this one. She is up to date on her shots and is great with dogs and small children, but does not seem to get along well with cats.

She is playfull and bathroom trained (If takeing over every inch of horizontal surface with her stuff in the place is house broken. Then she is the Queen of house brokeness!!!).

She has somewhat of a special diet though i never figured it out fully, but pretty much it is dictated by what ever her closest friend of that week is into (Raw, vegan, atkins, hostess) You get the picture.
She will be coming with a whole lot of stuff!! (If it is still there when she comes home, but when iam done here Iam heading right over to the free section so maybe not) There will not be a rehoming fee (As a matter of fact i got $34 cash if you can get her tonight, If you need more we can hit the atm unless you have paypal then we have lots of options).

The main reason I am rehoming her is becuase she moved in about 9 months ago, and for three months everything was great, but then she started bitching about my cat. My cat has lived with me for 11 years since he was abandoned in my yard at about 3 weeks old, and i had too bottle feed him and teach him how to do everything a cool male should know (hunt, nap, play, hide, chirp like a bird. how to use a litter box!! This was the most challenging as i did not know how to use one myself. That made for some awkward moments) In other words Misdemeanor and I have been kicking it for a long time, and if she thinks I would even consider kicking him to the curb. Well need i say more?


I may put her up for auction on ebay tonight if my lawyer gives me the okay.

Priceless.  This, folks, is the definition of loyalty and honor.

Now, before my readers start thinking Wraith's done gone off his meds, let me elaborate.  I do not believe animals have rights equal to humans.  I have not joined PeTA, the HSUS or any other "animal rights" vegan whackjob organization.  But, dammit, God gave us dominion over the creatures of the Earth, and that is a responsibility that we must live up to.

When you take in a domesticated critter, you are making a lifetime commitment to that animal.  It would have been one thing if his Soon-To-Be-X had suddenly developed a violent cat allergy--it's been known to happen.  (If that happened to my wife, the cats would be gone, no matter how heartbreaking it would be.)  But it seems that STBX basically decided that she had the poster by the balls enough that she could start issuing ultimatums without consequence.  She has now found out different, and hopefully will learn something from the whole affair.

His devotion to Misdemeanor may just have saved this guy from becoming a whimpering, henpecked shell of a man for the rest of his life.  Here's to you, kitty!

Vroom!

(HT iOTW)

And now for something completely different

HT iOTW

To quote The Humungus...

... "There has been too much violence.  Too much pain."

But I offer a kitten.*

"Just watch the vid.  Leave behind your cynicism, your snark, your malaise, and I'll spare your lives.  Just watch the vid.  It'll leave you smiling through the wasteland of the current regime.  Just watch the vid, and there will be an end to the horror."

Sometimes, we just need a Cuteness I-V.


* OK, Bayou Renaissance Man offers a kitten.  I'm trying to get a Mad Max post-apocalypse mood going on--work with me.

It's all true!

Cat Physics explained.

For those of you who've never had a feline companion, and can't understand why any of this would endear them to us...well, it's like the old saying about Harley-Davidsons: "For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who don't, no explanation is possible."