Purchase of the day.

From the February 15, 2013 Amazon Associates Earnings Report:

"Dog in Charge" [Hardcover] K. L. Going (Author), Dan Santat (Illustrator) (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $1.02)

... and 79 other items purchased — at no additional cost to the buyers. Commerce!

"Faithful is not love. Faithful is a subservient position..."

"... in which insecure people can not accept that, despite their tremendous talents, they might be wrong. That's why I like cats and independent dogs."

So says Dante in at 3:01 a.m. in The Faithful Dog Café.

Faithful is not love? That made me think Love is faithful and kind... But it's "Love is patient and kind..."

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. 

Does that sound like a cat or a dog?

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful....

Cat?

... it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 

Cat?!

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Cat?!!

Love never ends. 

That sounds like what we mean when we say faithful. (I know Paul goes on to put "love" in a category with "faith" and "hope" and says "love" is the greatest, but the love he describes includes complete faithfulness to the loved one.)

The actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt confronts his paparazzi.

Via Metafilter.

I love when the one paparazzi guy tries to explain himself by citing "La Dolce Vita" — the movie where the term "paparazzi" originates — but then he can't think of the director's name and the actor says "Fellini."

By the way, I love "La Dolce Vita." Remember that time FireDogLake attempted to insult me by saying "Every time I look in over there, something so weird is going on that I feel like I just bumbled on to the set of a Fellini film" and I was all...



And remember "I don't want an egg at this hour."









(Note: The man in the backseat is the character named Paparazzo.)

"More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats... than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons..."

"... collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes." 

Domestic cats — pet and feral — "kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year" in the United States — "most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat."

Blood donor dogs and cats.

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine’s Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital:

To do that, the hospital has its own Animal Blood Bank with a dedicated core [sic] of 12 dogs and 11 cats who serve as regular donors, many of them the animal companions of students or staff members at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. “We actually have a waiting list of pets to become new donors,” notes Bach.

The typical canine blood donor is a healthy, larger dog — more than 50 pounds — that has been screened for blood borne parasites and diseases that affect the qualities of blood. Importantly, the dog donor possesses a good nature.

“We don’t sedate the dogs,” explains Bach, who says a typical blood draw from a dog takes about 7 to 10 minutes. “Cats are certainly different than dogs. Cats are a little more reclusive and sometimes have a little higher stress level in the hospital. They are sedated.”

Cats also need a more compatible blood-type cross match when they are getting transfusion.

They also do horse and cow transfusions.

Their most recent resident donor horse, Drive Thru, retired this fall after seven years of donating blood and serving as a calming presence and companion for any skittish equine patients at the hospital. In the hospital’s large animal practice, Drive Thru was a star, getting presents and mail from the children of clients and visitors and occasionally popping his head into the waiting room for peppermint candy, his favorite.

The resident cow donors are Maxine and Natalie, "beautiful and pampered Holsteins." How much blood goes into a cow getting a transfusion? 6 to 12 liters.

The Pope with a clown, Susan Rice caught between 2 power-heads, and a heavily tattoo'd quarterback.

I don't know what Matt Drudge is trying to slip into our subconscious today, but it's phantasmagoric. Felliniesque.


Click to enlarge.

The quarterback is Colin Kaepernick, who, not having murdered anybody, seems to be doing comparatively well, NFL-wise. His mother is "annoyed." The body scribblings are Bible verses (we're told). Across the chest it says "Against All Odds." Is that in the Bible? I don't know. Ask the Pope (if he's through clowning around). I've heard of the book of Philipians, so maybe there's a Philcollinsians.

Hillary and Rahm are swirling around Susan Rice. The story is Hillary prefers Kerry as her successor. Fine, but I can't see the Pope+Clown → Tattoo'd Quarterback transition. I hate to think there's no connection, that these are simply the stories that belonged at the top of their respective columns. Drudge means so much more. Tell me what the meaning is.

Here's the story about the Pope meeting 1000s of circus performers at the Vatican:

Benedict, a known cat lover, paid particular attention to a pair of lion cubs that were brought up to him, stroking them and chatting with their trainers. At one point Benedict even bent down to caress one — not an easy feat given the 85-year-old pope has trouble with his knees and occasionally uses a cane.

A gentle scene. Not the first thing that leaps to mind when you think about Christians and lions. 

Viral advertising gets very psychedelic... and feline...

Via Metafilter, via somebody who posted before understanding that it's an ad.

(If you want the cat-poop-related product, here it is.)

A Madison modus operandi.

I hesitate to reveal an approach to victimizing women in Madison....

A Saudi Arabian man who police say has returned to his country was charged with attempted sexual assault Tuesday after he allegedly talked his way in to a neighbor's apartment in Madison last month.

The July 4 incident was one of three within five days in July in which Riyad M. Alsulaiman, 24, allegedly approached women who had cats and asked to pet them in order to get into their apartments, all in the 1600 block of Fordem Avenue.

Let's retune those stranger-danger sensors. Elsewhere in the annals of getting creeped out in Madison, we've got our legislator, Brett Hulsey subjected to a disorderly conduct charge, because his horseplay with and photography of some kids at the beach creeped out the adults who were watching from a distance.

"In an attack reminiscent of 'Cujo' four pit bulls attack Dodge minivan trying to get to cat hiding in fender."

The kitty cat survives and the car owner is the owner of the dogs, so it's pure entertainment.

"Companies are realizing that women comprise a very heavy percentage of the cocktail-drinking community..."

"... and I believe they are starting to speak more directly to women without the fear that they're going to alienate the male base."

A man who saved a mouse from a cat is now "at death's door" with the plague.

In Oregon.

Dutch artist turns his dead cat into a helicopter.

Sorry, this has nothing to do with Scott Walker.

Or does it?

Quick! Check out the UW hawk-cam.

It's dinnertime. Rabbit is served.

In other Wisconsin bird news: "Bald eagles recover from eating euthanized cats."

At the General Strike Café...

... perhaps (purr-haps) you have a solution for everything.

"The cat is a living human animal and doesn't deserve to be basically murdered...."

So said Circuit Judge David Hansher, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The cat is a living human animal!?

Anyway, the judge sent a man to jail for 6 months for killing a stray cat who was damaging his property. When people kill feral animals on their property, it's inflammatory to call it "murder." The method of killing the cat sound horrible — swinging it by the tail and cracking its head — but the man discovered the cat living in his vacant rental property, where it had been "urinating and defecating all over and tearing up furniture":

He told Hansher that he opened the doors and windows and tried to chase the animal outside, but that it instead hid under the kitchen sink. He said he tried to grab it by the neck but could only reach the tail, and once he pulled it out, the cat began viciously clawing and biting at him.

The judge said: "It's abhorrent and repulsive what you did... I'd rather have an armed robber in front of me than someone like you."

Crazy!

"She said her cat died after getting entangled in piles of Etsy fabrics..."

"... boxes of paperwork, trash and other possessions, while a dog died allegedly after swallowing a pile of Love’s pills."

"The Beatles, 'Revolution,' cut up, scrambled, and looped. The Beatles sing 'one two three four' for an hour."

"All of Billy Joel's greatest hits played at once. Celine Dion screams for 1.5 minutes. Please enjoy responsibly."

Yes, indeed. You can end up feeling a little ill.

Like, if you go here: "Have you ever wondered what each Beatles album would sound like if you played all the songs together at the same time? No way! Me too!"

And they recommended this...



... which seems pretty entertaining while it's going on, but I don't feel so good now.

"Poisoned cat stew 'killed tycoon.'"

Strange headline ranks second on the "Most Popular" list at BBC.com.

Eagles and kitties.

Together at last.



(Via Metafilter.)

"I see it now... You brought to my attention the beauty that is supposed to be in life."

"Life is like a road and we are all supposed to walk down it, transforming into different people at every crossroad. Sometimes we hit road blocks. Sometimes we're not sure how we'll continue, but we always transform into something that can get us through the day."



(Via Metafilter.)