Vengeful Kitty Sneeks into White House Dinner

AP: A photo leaked recently from a recent State Dinner shows how a cat may have gotten past White House security. While inside the cat reportedly used several priceless 18th Century French chairs as scratching posts before peeing in the Lincoln Bedroom. 

Although details are still fuzzy, it is believed that this "attack" was not political in nature, but payback for an errant snowball throw by Obama last February. (see below)

In an attempt to stem any potential fallout from cat-owning voters, Obama quickly held a press conference assuring the public that he still obeys the kitty...

http://longlivethekitty.com

Fat Cat Closes Checkpoint at Newark Airport

Fat Cat Causes Drama at Newark Airport
NEWARK, NJ - "Too Big to Fail" - A 25 pound cat reportedly freaked out while going through airport security during rush hour on Tuesday, jumping from it's carrier, and then squeezing under a large bomb detection machine where it became lodged in the 4 inch tall space.

The checkpoint soon was closed down, causing havoc at the airport, where people had to be diverted to other checkpoints. The cat eluded security officers who tried in vain to use a snare to capture the large animal.

After 20 minutes, Emergency Services were called in, and a hydraulic spreader had to be used to lift the one-ton bomb detection machine, so that the portly cat could be accessed.

Although the cat's owners missed their flight, they were reportedly "ecstatic" that the large cat had not been harmed. Authorities described the cat as, "tired and relaxed" after all of the drama.

In related news, President Obama has reportedly had trouble confronting fat cats on Wall Street, who continue to endanger our economy. Perhaps a hydraulic lift and snare would work?
(File photo of former bailout recipient AIG's CEO Martin J. Sullivan, who accepted a $47M severance package today, after the company reported its biggest losses in 89 years)

Human Wins Best In Show...

Insert caption here... Suggestions?

Heroic Cat Saves Pregnant Woman and Kids

Chicago Sun TImes: A woman pregnant with twins and a man sleeping on a couch with her were awakened by their pet cat when smoke started filling the room during a fire early Monday in their new home... read article

Note: After reading this article, it is interesting to note that the cat had the entire bed to itself while the pregnant woman and man were relegated to sleeping on the couch. It is also to note how useless the man and dog were during the emergency.

Thatcher (the cat) Has Died

TORONTO - A text message about a pet's death sparked a rumor that ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had died - and set off a flurry of diplomatic activity in Canada.

Canadian Transport Minister John Baird sent a message to phone buddies that read, "Thatcher has died" - a reference to his 16-year-old tabby cat.

But the message was misconstrued, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper was soon told the Iron Lady was dead... google news story

Source: http://longlivethekitty.com

Choosing the Right Shelter Cat

Some people feel lonely around the holidays, but for shelter cats, that feeling can persist long after you’ve put away the decorations. “A shelter environment is very stressful for cats, no matter how nice we make it,” says Jenn Smith, cat co-chair at Danbury Animal Welfare Society (DAWS), “It is especially hard on those who have lived in a home and lost the security of both their owners and their physical home,” adds Smith.

The winter holidays lead to a surge of gifted animals that are later taken to shelters by unprepared owners. You can help counter this trend by bringing home a new feline friend for you and your current kitty... Read article

Study Proves that Cats Control Humans

If you've ever wondered who's in control, you or your cat, a new study points to the obvious. It's your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed.

The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore... read the full article

Toxoplasmosis: how your cat's poop makes you crazy

More Man Openly Loving Their Cats

More Proof that the Feline Revolution is Spreading. Next, of course, will be another cat in the Whitehouse, like the days of Bill Clinton, and many other American presidents who owned cats.

NY Times: Indeed, it seems that man’s best friend is no longer a golden retriever, but a cuddly cat named Fluffy.

Although there are no hard (or soft) statistics (it is rare to find an owner, man or woman, walking a cat in public), it seems that single, heterosexual male cat owners are on the rise.

This line of thinking does not surprise cat lovers, many of whom believe that only pillars of virility and masculinity would dare to own one. They are quick to point out other well-known macho cat owners: Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Victor Hugo and Marlon Brando, who reportedly found a stray cat on the set of “The Godfather” and incorporated it into a scene.

Read the NY Times Article

Susan Boyle Misses Concert Due to Missing Cat

AP: According to the Daily Mirror, Susan Boyle did not appear in another "Britain’s Got Talent" concert last night after a hysterical screaming fit over her MIA kitty, Pebbles. (See below for one artist's vision of Susan Boyle singing a duet with her cat!)

Susan reportedly stood on the balcony of her eighth-floor hotel room overlooking the hotel atrium and repeatedly bawled: “Where’s my cat?” She was then quickly whisked out of the Liverpool hotel via a fire escape. One witness said: “She kept shouting, ‘I want my cat! ... Read more from LA Times

painting by Dan Lacey - Inspired by God?

Removing Cats to Protect Birds Backfires on Island

(Advisors to President Bush warn that pulling troops out of Iraq could trigger a similar explosion of the native rabbit population.)

Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Eradicating the cat population on Macquarie, a remote island between Australia and Antarctica, has damaged the local environment, allowing rabbits to rapidly reproduce in their absence.

Wiping out the feral cats that were introduced on Macquarie in the 19th century to control rabbits, brought to the island by sealers as a source of food, has instead led to a rabbit explosion, the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology reported. Hungry rabbits and rats have caused 40 percent of Macquarie’s native flora to vanish, helping erode island slopes.

“The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs,” said Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division, which administers the island.

Macquarie, a United Nations World Heritage Site, is among the island ecosystems where plants and animals introduced by humans as a source of food have overrun native species. Rats eat rare bird and reptile eggs on Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands while Brown tree snakes, which came to Guam in ship cargo holds, prey on native lizards and birds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Rabbits, first brought to Macquarie in 1878, became the main prey of feral cats that arrived earlier. The rabbit population reached 130,000 in 1978, then fell to 20,000 as the result of a viral disease introduced to reduce their numbers. The cats lost their main source of food, resorting to eating native burrowing birds, and were then eradicated from the island in 2000.

Global trade contributes to the mixing of plants and animals across different ecosystems, the Invasive Species Specialist Group of scientists and policy experts says. The cat features on the group’s list of the world’s worst invasive alien species. view article

Sign of a Slow Economy

Even free Kittehs are not selling, as is evident from this sign recently seen in Akron, Ohio.
source

Bush's Cat "India" Dies; Pakistan a Suspect

Indians mourn the loss of India the cat

Just Days after terror struck Mumbai India, terror also struck "India" the Whitehouse cat. The Bushes' cat, an 18-year-old American shorthair named India, died Sunday under what the FBI is calling "suspicious" circumstances.

Upon hearing the news, confused Pakistani militants briefly stopped chanting, "Death to India!" before quickly resuming when the news was clarified.

President Bush was initially saddened and angered by the news, promising to "smoke out" whoever was responsible. But after mulling the news over, he soon exclaimed with relief, "Well, at least she has 8 more lives."

more: Bush family cat India, 18, dies

1/06/08 - I couldn't make this up. Saw this AP story after posting the news above:

Islamic militants ridicule death of Bush cat
AP 1/06/08

Islamic militants posted sarcastic comments on an extremist Web site Tuesday ridiculing a recent announcement by First Lady Laura Bush that the family's cat had died.

The online comments were unusual on the site that usually focuses on official statements by al-Qaida and other militants. Commentators, who must be registered members of the site, frequently post their opinions, but normally the topics are humorless.

But on Tuesday, one commentator, called Dark-Side, sarcastically urged followers to offer condolences for the cat... read more

Cat Survives 34 Story Fall

GOLD COAST, Australia, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- An Australian couple said their 7-year-old cat survived a 34-story fall from their penthouse to the ground below.

Sheree and Wayne Washington said their lucky cat, aptly named Voodoo, suffered only scratches to his ear, mouth and paw and a bloodshot eye after his fall from their Gold Coast penthouse, which was cushioned by a bush far below... read more

Cat Bites Santa in New Jersey

In a shocking bite-and-run, a large cat has injured a New Jersey man acting as Santa Claus:

HAMILTON TWP. - Scratches and bites cover the hand and arm of Jonathan Bebbington, after an encounter with a not–so–friendly feline.

Bebbington says, "It hurt, it had a lot of power in its jaws."

That's because the kitty on Bebbington’s lap when he was dressed as Santa Claus for pictures appears to be a bobcat.

A woman brought the cat to the "Santa Paws" charity picture fundraiser Sunday at Petsmart in Hamilton Township.

People can bring their pets to get pictures with Santa for $9.95 and at least half the money goes to various animal charities.

Bebbington's been playing Santa at these events for years.

He says, "We've done some exotic different pets. We've had people bring in horses or parrots or snakes, things like that. But I thought a bobcat? Well it's different."

Bobcats can grow to 40 or 50 pounds, Bebbington says this one was not full grown but it’s large size, distinctive facial features and short tail leave no doubt it was some kind of bobcat.

He struggled to control the cat for nearly 5 minutes while it bit him repeatedly.

"He locked on here, grabbed the skin," he says as he points to his left hand.

According to breaking new today, the owner of the bobcat has come forward. Apparently the fierce animal's name is Benny. According to Atlantic County Health officials and the cat's owner, the animal was a Pixie-Bob, a domesticated cat distantly related to the wild bobcat.

Chairman Meow condemns the attack on Santa Claus in general, but has called for further investigation into the motives of Benny, the Pixie-Bob, and has not ruled out the possibility that the attack upon this particular Santa Claus was justified. Chairman Meow points out that naive humans often try to "overlove" cats with excessive petting and cuddling, and in such instances a retaliatory attack may be deemed appropriate, even upon Santa himself.

Woman's Skeleton found With 26 Cats

Woman's skeleton and 26 Cats found in foreclosed L.A. home
Reuters 12/03/08

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Police investigating a foreclosed Los Angeles house found the skeleton of an elderly woman and 26 live cats. Coroner's officials said they were trying to identify the woman they believe was Barbara Hunt, who would have been 86. true story!

new "got kitteh?" sticker

N.C. Persian Cat Named World's Best

RALEIGH N.C. - The Raleigh area has produced a lot of celebrities. There are the Sedaris siblings. Clay Aiken. Josh Hamilton. And now Kuorii "Santos" of Cuzzoe. Santos, a 1-year-old, black Persian, is the best cat in the world, according to the Cat Fanciers' Association. The Raleigh resident won "Best in Show" this past weekend at the the association's International Cat Show in Atlanta.

He beat out 729 of the "world's finest pedigreed felines. Honors in the cat world are nothing new for Santos. Of the 40 shows in which he has participated, he was named "Best in Show" 39 times. The one show he didn't win had a rookie judge. But that's another story.

When Santos is not traveling the world for shows, he lives the celebrity life in his North Raleigh home near Triangle Town Center with owners Brandon Moore, 22, and Justin Pelletier, 30. He sleeps in his own room on hand-made, navy blue, silk pillows.

Twice a day, he dines on special meat made especially for cats, which his owners feed to him by hand. He also has a catnip habit. He takes four baths a week in his own tub with a mix of Joico and Aveda shampoos that cost $60 a bottle. full story

Cat Born With Two Faces

Chairman Meow denies that this 2-faced kitteh is part of any secret feline surveillance program... Dick Cheney, however, had no comment.

UK Times Online - 11/21/08
A vet got more than he bargained for when a cat he was helping in labour gave birth to a two-headed kitten in Western Australia. Veterinarian George Huber and nurse Louisa Burgess had to do a double take when the grey and white freak feline was born with two faces... full article

Cat Earns $10 Million For Japaneses Town

NBC News 10 - With the downturn in the global financial sector, many small towns are scrambling to boost their economy. One town in Japan decided that the key to prosperity was a cat, but not just any cat.

It's the last stop of a country train line - an isolated town of just a few thousand people. The tourists are flocking here to snap what they call a once-in-a-lifetime picture of her, Tama the cat or as she's known to the Wakayama Railway - "Super Station Master."

The cat, in a conductor's hat, greets travelers like Michiko Yoshihara who traveled nearly six hours by train and spent hundreds of dollars to see Tama.

Tama belongs to the grocery store next door but started hanging out at the train station. The train line heard about Tama and decided on a whim to start promoting her as the stop's stationmaster.

Merchandise started flowing and so did the cash, turning Tama into the ticket for one town's turnaround.

Before Tama, the train line was almost always empty and nearing bankruptcy. Not only has she brought this train line back to life, but according to a study at Osaka University, she has single-handedly pumped 10 million US dollars into the local economy.

Seeing is believing, says the town that's living an economic turnaround amid a national and global slowdown.

Why would so many spend so much on a little cat? It's a chance to take a break from the problems facing Japan, says Haruto Maeda, who took the day off work to see Tama.

Tama now lives full-time at the station, with her mom and a friend.

Vacationing Woman Thinks Cats Miss Her

VERO BEACH, FL–Annette Davrian, a 45-year-old Cedar Rapids, IA, bank teller, is spending her vacation time in a delusional haze this week, somehow managing to convince herself that her cats actually miss her.

Animal behaviorists agree that cats are incapable of feeling sadness over an owner's absence, asserting that their only reaction to such an event would be a brief adjustment period to claim household territory previously thought to be the owner's... Read More

"War on String" May Be Unwinnable - Cat General

"War on String May Be Unwinnable" Listen to this Onion Radio News