While they are undeniably fuzzy, cute creatures, cats are in fact bearers of almost certainly dangerous, even lethal contaminants.
These contaminants, too tiny or diffuse to be detectable by human
senses, range in form from oils to orificial gases. In order to help
the cat owner, or those who come into regular contact with cats, to
identify and avoid contamination by these pathogenic substances, I've
created this handy guide to the most dangerous cat-based contaminant zones.
Face Oil Distribution Zone
Many cat owners don't know this, but cats secrete a type of oil from
their faces. This oil is called "face oil" and is extremely noxious.
Whenever you see cats rubbing their faces all over something, you may
be assured that they are coating that object or surface with a thick
layer of oozing, pestilential face oil, which is water-resistant and
would probably smell bad if secreted in enough quantities. Cats, being
mischievous creatures, love to spread their face oil all over anything
they possibly can, including people's hands, beverage glasses, and
anything else that might subsequently contact the human's mouth area.
Anal Cloud Zone
Possibly the most noxious but least understood of the cat-based
contaminants, the feline anal cloud is a kind of haze that surrounds
the anal regions of cats, that follows them as they walk. It is a
well-known fact that one of the greatest pleasures for cats is to show
their anuses to humans, or, if they can manage it, to actually put
their anuses into people's faces. It's a rare cat encounter that
doesn't include some type of exposure to a cat anus.
If you accidentally make contact with a cat anus, rinse the affected
area immediately with hot water and antibacterial soap. If you breathe
in anal cloud gas, quickly run outside and take deep, whooping breaths
for fifteen minutes, then smear Vick's Vap-o-Rub all over your chest
and neck.
Paw Contact Zones
The only thing cats love more than smearing face oil on things or
putting their anuses into your face is walking all over anything. Most
cat owners regard this foul practice with benevolent forbearance, but
they are actually condoning the massive spread of lethal bacteria and
other dangerous substances onto surfaces that can then infect human
beings.
While cat paws look and feel perfectly harmless, they are actually
crawling with germs of all kinds. The primary offender is residue from
cat litter boxes, that makes its way onto the paws when the cat enters
the box, defecates or urinates, and then scratches the litter onto the
excreta. Although the idea of an animal crapping in a box is, on the
surface, an appealing concept, the reality is that the average litter
box is a veritable bazaar of deadly pathogens, and anything that the
cat's paws touch is sure to be covered in short order with waves upon
waves of deadly, disgusting germs.
There is no sure-fire preventive measure to safeguard against paw
contamination, except to prevent your cat from walking on any surface
that is not immediately thereafter sterilized. Cats can also be made to
wear special silicone-based booties that are washed regularly, no less
than once per hour, in an anti-microbial solution.
(reprinted from Trout
Fishing in South Central Wisconsin )
Why hasn't the price of gasoline skyrocketed in Europe?
Because it hasn't.
If
our price is the direct result of a world shortage, as the oil
companies claim, why isn't the rest of the world similarly affected? The price of gas in Britain five years ago was around $5/gal. Since then it has risen in increments to about $5.85/gal.
If the British price had risen in the last few months to the same
stratospheric degree that the US price has, it would be closer to
$10/gal.
It isn't.
Why isn't it?
The same is true
in every other country in the world. Gas prices have NOT risen in any
of them anything like the US price. In Japan, the price of gas has
hardly moved at all. Five years ago, it was $4/gal; today it's about
$4.40.
What is there about the world oil market that makes us so...special? Just asking.
I kinda sorta thought maybe it was, you know, like, a SCAM. But I
didn't want to assume it automatically. One should leave open the
opportunity for somebody to offer a counter-explanation that doesn't
include corporate highway robbery and vast consumer ignorance and
gullibility.
Should one exist, that is.
Add to your thoughts the fact that prices in the US can vary from 2.50
to 3.50 per gallon and the obvious questions of WTF become
even more pressing.
Cindy Sheehan: The right wingers are really having a field day with me. It hurts me
really badly, but I am willing to put up with the crap, if it ends the
war a minute sooner than it would have....
Bob Zmuda has a novel idea, Rush is NOT a right-wingnut, he's just putting us on as the world's greatest Satirist.
By now, we're all familiar with the quote from yesterday's Rush
Limbaugh show in which he accused Cindy Sheehan of faking documents in
order to make it appear as if her son had been killed.
When I first read the remark
I flew into a rage, using my arms to melodramatically sweep decorative
items off various tables whilst exclaiming shallow insults directed at
his bulbous forehead. I finally came to my senses as I attempted to pull the sink out of the floor so as to smash it through the wall and escape to watch the ballgame.
This is all a joke, I thought.
Eureka! We're all the victims of an elaborate Dittopunking: a meta-joke
orchestrated by Rush Limbaugh, who we can now comfortably refer to as
Rush Limbaugh: World's Greatest Satirist. All these years, Rush
Limbaugh has been satirizing modern Republicanism.
Dittobusted!
We do it all the time. We imitate and exaggerate those worthy of
ridicule in order to prove a point or get a laugh or both. Saturday
Night Live, The Daily Show, Al Franken, and The Simpsons all employ
satire as a means of serving up a point of view. But it never occurred
to me that Rush is playing a character as a means to prove a point
about the worst aspects of Republicanism.
Do the math. It's common knowledge that he's used pseudonyms in the
past (Rusty Sharpe and Jeff Christy, for example). That bulbous
forehead could be a sophisticated silicon appliance. Throw in multiple
divorces and drug addiction while preaching moral values and the satire
rises to surface. You know what? Andy Kaufman or Don Novello could be under there for all we know.
The dots were further connected as I researched yesterday's Rush Limbaugh Program. Within the transcript, I discovered this:
These are basically a bunch of miserable, angry people exploiting death.
Rush was referring to Cindy Sheehan and those who support her. But
not really. Check it out. This is so damn smart. While his "Rush"
character appeared to be accusing us of exploiting death, he
was actually taking a deliciously subversive stab at the Bush
administration who, while "angry and miserable", used 9/11 for its own
political gain.
Perhaps he was slyly commenting on the "America Supports You Freedom
March" orchestrated by the Pentagon and featuring Clint Black. You
know, the march that blurs the line between the Iraq War and 9/11 and
turns it all into a big PR stunt. Megadittos, El Rushbo (wink, wink)!
Either way, that single statement perfectly spoofed the right's hypocrisy.
More from yesterday:
I'm weary, ladies and gentlemen, of even having to express
sympathy. "Oh, she lost her son!" Yes, yes, yes, but (sigh) we all lose
things.
Now that's cutting edge satire worthy of the greatest minds
of our time. Not only did he rip Bush's unsympathetic "I have to move
on with my life" comment, but he also sliced into the the right-wing's
uncanny ability to trivialize the war dead. "We all lose things." I love it! If he had followed it up with a "Flip Flop" chant, it would've been spot on.
I can imagine George Carlin saying something like that while mocking
the right-wing. On second thought, Carlin would be much funnier and
probably nowhere near that insensitive, but we're only grading the
satire here. Besides, who am I to judge Rush Limbaugh: World's Greatest
Satirist?
The evidence is incontrovertible. The gig is up. I can't wait to see
the look on the faces of all those poor, naive Dittoheads when they
learn that the console-tapping, nuhnuh-nuhnuh-chanting voice from which
they derive all their political thought... is actually punking them. Satire on loan from God is what I say.
Time to come clean now, "Rush", or whoever you are ( ?).
Nothing the Cheesy Gordita says or does has the power to shock or
surprise anymore. The satirist angle is an interesting hypothesis, but
a humor-Republican association is unprecedented in the modern era. I
lean towards a destructive force of Nature explanation. Similar to a
hurricane, but fueled by radio waves, money and narcotics instead of
moist warm air. Composed of insubstantial substances, yet deadly if
you’re in its path. Beautiful in its own way.
I hope you don't mind getting mail
from your designees, I figure a little feedback is always healthy. When
I first heard that evolution wasn't just a natural process, but was
actually all done on purpose, I was kind of pleased by the idea. It was
nice to know there was somebody out there looking out for us. Or well,
I guess you're not a person, but a being, anyway. I try to think the
best of beings.
So, I appreciate all the good stuff you've done.
Flowers, songbirds, sex, all very nice. Or, mostly nice. But the more I
thought a bout it, the more I started to get, I don't know how to say
this any more nicely, kind of disappointed in a few things. So if
you'll just give me a moment of your time, here are some things you
might want to reconsider.
Are you really looking out for us
after all? For one thing, you really ought to stop intelligently
designing those bacteria to be resistant to antibiotics. Evidently you
originally designed the bacteria to kill us and make us sick, and I'm
sure you had your reasons. Intelligent doesn't have to mean nice. So
now you're probably a little annoyed with us for coming up with ways to
kill the the bugs first, but give us a break! It seems to me if we
start to figure out how to stay alive for a while, you should just
accept that. We get to design things too, okay? Same goes for HIV.
What's that all about anyway? It was bad enough you intelligently
designed it in the first place, now you keep redesigning it so the
drugs don't work. Enough already. And then there's the flu virus. Don't
get me started with that one. Don't you have anything better to do?
Then there's the whole question of the human body. It has a lot of great
features, but a few of them just seem -- sorry to have to say this, but
it's true -- not very intelligent. To begin with, there's that stupid
appendix, that doesn't seem to do anything except get infected. Then
there's the birth canal. It's not a problem for me personally but it is
for at leat half of my friends. It's too small for the baby's head,
causes no end of trouble. I could go on and on with that. The lower
back. I don't expect perfection, everything has to wear out and break
down eventually, but there are some pretty obvious improvements you
could make there.
Then, as if an appendix isn't bad
enough, you made it even worse by giving me a solitary cecal
diverticulum. Damn near killed me, for no good reason that I can
see.Then there are allergies. Multiple sclerosis. Schizophrenia.
Huntington's disease. Neurofibromatosis. These appear to be
manufacturing defects, rather than design flaws per se, but
shouldn't you exercise better oversight? (By the way, can you give me
the name and phone number of the being in charge of manufacturing? Or
at least the mailing address? I promise I'll be civil.) The quality of
the product is a reflection on you, after all, and I'd think you'd take
more pride in it.
Next, I don't want to call you a
hypocrite, but I hear that you get really, really angry when people
kill those innocent preborn babies. But then I read that you do it
yourself! Specifically, out of 100 zygotes, about 50 fail to implant in
the uterus and uhh, well, there goes a Sacred Human Life down the
toilet. Of the remaining 50, 30% (that's 15) are simply sloughed off in
what appears to be a normal, perhaps late, menstrual cycle and the
woman probably will never know that she was preganant. The remaining 35
embryos will last at least 35 days, after which pregnancy may be
recognized. Of these, 25% will die in utero,
perhaps recognized as a miscarriage. That leaves about 26 of the
original 100 innocent preborn babies unslain by you. So why is it okay
for you, and not for us? Just asking.
Now, there are some
things that bother some people that are okay with me. For instance, I
have nothing against beetles. You're entitled to your obsessions. It's
kind of ridiculous that the whales keep stranding themselves on the
beach but it's not my problem. And kudzu is a major pain but I guess
it's our own fault for putting it where it doesn't belong. (That's
still no excuse for poison ivy.)
Anyhow, just a few
thoughts, I hope you don't mind. I know I've mostly been pretty
critical, but I hope you'll take it professioally, not personally. If
you're interested, I have some more ideas.
