FP edit. Last time i got nudes. Now show me your face. I dare you.
Just for the record, I have no idea what that “Last time i got nudes” thing is about. I just like the scene. (Don’t overlook the floppy tiger in the background!)
You may have heard the story of the goat who refused to eat for six days after he was moved to a new animal sanctuary and separated from his best friend, a donkey. When the two were reunited, he found … Continue reading
I saw this little guy on Facebook a while back:
Yes, it’s a tiny tortoise eating tiny pancakes (originally from BuzzFeed Blue). Tiny versions of things that are normally much bigger are almost by definition cute, but there may be a darker side to this GIF, alas. Continue reading
May humans and dogs enrich each other forever.
A little over a week ago, I spent my Saturday morning at Austin Animal Center, and got to know a few dogs that are almost too cute to describe. So here are some pictures instead.
This is Apple (A698628), a ridiculously adorable pittie/Shar-Pei mix. Her fur feels like velvet. It was an incredible struggle not to take her home with me right then. We already have two dogs, though, and I don’t know if they want another sister.
She has been moved over to the Town Lake Animal Center facility, I hear. She was named Peaches when I met her, but they renamed her Apple because there’s already a Peaches at that facility.
Juno (A696564) and Ford (A698086) are quite the pair. I forget Juno’s breed, but Ford is a black Lab/Great Pyrenees mix. He combines the rambunctiousness of a Lab with the size of a Great Pyrenees. He’s a bit young and excitable, but he’s awesome. Juno is a master of composure and patience in his presence.
As a bonus, before we move on, here’s a brief bit of my encounter with Ford. He’s very lively: Continue reading
A picture appears to be in the process of going viral:
Via UNILAD / Facebook
I saw it on the Facebook page of the British website (magazine?) UNILAD (h/t Jason), with the following caption:
There are poachers in Africa currently hunting Rhino. This woman hunts the poachers.
The “hunts the poachers” line sort of caught my attention. (Yes, yes, other aspects of the photo caught my attention, too. I’ll get to that.)
The awesome blog TYWKIWDBI wrote about this woman, Kinessa Johnson, yesterday, and clarified that the organization where she works, VETPAW, employs ex-military servicemembers to secure locations where poachers are known to operate. The goal is to dissuade poachers from trying anything in that area, not to seek them out and engage them (which is what “hunt” sort of implies). That doesn’t make it any less bad-ass by any measure. Continue reading
A news story out of Wisconsin sort of piqued my curiosity, although I’m not delving too far into this one, except to make a few general observations (h/t G):
A Wausau man accused of performing a sex act with a horse has been charged in Marathon County with bestiality.
[Name and age redacted but available almost anywhere else] was charged with sexual gratification with an animal sex organ, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana as a repeat offender and bail jumping, according to court records.
I vaguely remembered hearing somewhere that “bestiality” is not actually a criminal offense in many U.S. jurisdictions, so I set about to try to look that up without actually using Google. Wikipedia is our friend in this regard: “As of 2012, bestiality is illegal in 37 U.S. states. Most state bestiality laws were enacted between 1999 and 2012.” As it turns out, bestiality was usually included, expressly or by implication, in state-level “sodomy” or “crimes against nature” laws, which were mostly struck down in 2003 by the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas. I do not, let’s be clear, think that this negatively affects the importance or validity of that decision in any way.
![By chensiyuan (chensiyuan) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yosemite_valley_tunnel_view_2010.JPG "By chensiyuan (chensiyuan) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
This is a heavy topic, so here’s a picture of Yosemite Valley to marvel at.
Since I am of the opinion that consent is the most important factor in any sort of sexual activity—i.e. if the participants all give knowing, willing consent, they can pretty much do what they want; and by “all” participants I really do mean all participants, including anyone who can see what you’re doing (it’s fine by me if you like stuff involving clown noses and Cool Whip, but I never agreed to watch you do it in public, so get behind closed doors, or at least high walls, please)—I am generally of the opinion that sexual activities with animals is not permissible. They cannot give consent in any way that we humans can unambiguously understand as consent. Continue reading
BuzzFeed published a listicle on Monday entitled “24 Reasons Why No One Should Ever Have A Pit Bull As A Pet” (h/t Alice and others).
Lest you start to get angry at yet another misguided attempt to malign an awesome type of dog, it’s a trick! They love pitties!!! The listed reasons are all along the lines of “They might be too cute!” and “They love hugs too much!”
Sharky (RIP) figures prominently in several of the list items, which is as it should be, because Sharky is awesome and beautiful and wonderful and he will live forever in our hearts!!!!!!!!
Here’s an example of what, to a lawyer, ought to be a patently ridiculous argument, but that also deserves a certain grudging respect for its sheer audacity. This is from a 2009 unpublished decision by the Texas First District Court of Appeals in Houston, Bradley v. Texas:
Appellant, Marcus Andre Bradley, challenges the order of the county court at law denying him the relief that he requested in his application for a writ of habeas corpus. In his sole issue, appellant contends that the State’s prosecution of him for the offense of cruelty to animals, after a justice court had, in a prior proceeding, terminated his ownership of 45 pit bull dogs and ordered him to pay $9,020 to the Houston Humane Society for the boarding and care of the dogs, is barred under the “doctrine[s] of double jeopardy and collateral estoppel.”
We affirm the order of the trial court.
It’s mostly the double jeopardy argument that intrigues me. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that a person cannot be tried twice for the same offense, but it’s not as simple as it might sound. The government can’t charge you with the same offense if you are acquitted after a trial, or if the case is declared a mistrial after a certain point in the case. That doesn’t apply, though, if one case is criminal and the other isn’t. Continue reading
