nuke the unborn gay whales..........

oh wait, that may be a felony in kansas.

but go ahead and abort a human, that's okay!

5 bucks says this comment gets removed by the site staff. Whaddya think?

To tell you the truth I don't really think about it that much. But if you give me a couple days I'll get back to you......

Oh wait, I used that line yesterday. So........

Ummmm........only if the animal is treated cruelly during a full-moon....in a roundabout.....during Thanksgiving week.

No to a felony, because our fine system of justice cannot distinguish between one cruelty or another. As far as prosecuters are concerned, dog on a leash = beating a dog to death. I don't want to see someone getting 7 years in the slammer because they dyed their poodle pink.

Endangered species are different. If someone were to abuse a Dalton-Gang-Flint-Hill 8-toed Sloth, I'd be very upset. They're hard to find you know.

I think it should be a felony. Injuring, torturing, or killing helpless animals is not something that should be taken lightly by anyone (even those joking about roundabouts...again). If we take something more seriously, maybe the amount of incidents can decrease.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

No, I do not think it should be a felony. I would prefer to have my tax dollars spent for something more useful than long drawn out court cases to prove an animal cruelty case.

You can make animal cruelty a big revolving door cash-cow for the government, like traffic violations. But, I believe the monetary return on felony convictions is non-existant :it costs way more to prosecute the case than the accused would return to the system

Can you imagine having to spend big $$$ on a legal defense because some nosy neighbor saw you swat the dog with a newspaper and you are now faced with a felony conviction?!? (and the state spending an equally large sum of tax dollars for the prosecution)

Levy a fine commensurate with the level of the cruelty, but save felony convictions for serious crimes that actually impact innocent people...rape, murder, assult w/ deadly weapon, etc.

Quick note:

Please read again, gnome. I wasn't actually stating an opinion about the morality of abortion (a point I made later). I was refuting the 'heartbeat at two weeks' assertion, which is patently false, because bad science is no good to anyone on any side of the debate.

If someone wanted to say, "The heart and brain begin developing in the second month of pregnancy, along with a rudimentary nervous system to sense and interpret stimuli," then I wouldn't call it bad science, because that's in line with observed phenomena.

Please don't put opinions and defenses into my words that aren't stated.

I stand firm on, "I think it depends."

True cruelty? Pouring gasoline on an animal and lighting it, beating an animal to death, things like that, yeah, there should be a class of felony that encompasses that, because dissecting a live pet without anesthetic merits more than a misdemeanor conviction, you know?

One of the standards, I imagine, will need to be that the abuse or cruelty causes serious, lasting observable physical effects like death or permanent injury. If I swat the cat for trying to eat off my plate, a veterinarian isn't going to be able to find evidence of physical injury even immediately afterward, and without that evidence, a felony case shouldn't go forward.

I also think it's essential that the person intended to harm the animal or knew it would be harmed, and that there was malicious intent involved. Locking your pet in a car or leaving it on a leash is dumb, but if 'dumb' were a felony they'd just have to wall off the whole country and incarcerate pretty much everyone over the age of, say, two.

Mental cruelty to animals, though despicable, isn't a felony-level offense in my book. Those folks should just be kicked really hard in the ribs a couple of times.

I think, though, that there needs to be a provision exempting those who choose to put sick or hurt pets down themselves instead of having the vet do it, because I know there are people out there who believe that if you make the decision to put a pet down, you should do it yourself, and they can and will do it humanely. I don't think that it should be any class of crime to kill a rabid animal. Instead, I think you ought to be given a plate of cookies and a pat on the back.

You can gauge a cow's level of stress by the frequency and pitch of its mooing (yes, there are studies on this, and our tax dollars probably paid for them...).

So, with this knowledge in hand, researchers found that cows exhibited considerably less stress if they were gradually enclosed in a chute while moving slowly than they did if they were in an open-air line moving the same speed. There exists, based on this knowledge, a humane killing box, which is basically a slowly narrowing chute with a sloping roof, into which the cattle are driven to calm them before the kill. It is more humane, and the meat tastes better because stress and adrenaline result in bitter meat.

I don't know what the frequency of use of this mechanism is, just that it's out there.

sam, your comment, "The judges would have to decide what is "cruelty" and I have faith they can tell the difference between abused animals and discipline within reason."

Are you serious? Have you seen some of the cases they've decided. Come on let's be sensible now.

Hey for a real riveting article check out http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175518,00.html

ABSOLUTELY!!! And yes, I meant to yell that.

Even, yes, trap-door buffalo need to be loved.

I have to disagree with those who think the guidelines should be left open to judicial interpretation. I think that the criteria for felonious animal cruelty should be set out very carefully, and that input from animal rights' groups should be carefully considered but absolutely not dictate terms or conditions.

Felonies carry a lot of weight aside from incarceration. There's the loss of voting privilege, the inability to hold a lot of jobs, all sorts of restrictions placed on convicted felons. As much as I think people who beat or abuse animals are despicable and should be punished, I don't know that someone who hits his dog, even repeatedly, is a felony-class criminal. I'd rather see them reserve felony animal cruelty for the really severe cases, where people are running pit bull fighting dens or keeping fifty malnourished horses in a filthy barn 24 hours a day while their hooves rot out from under them, or wrapping puppies in wire and burning them with chemicals, and I think the line between felony and misdemeanor cruelty needs to be laid out in crystal clear technicolor.

Of course it should be! Whoever said that animal cruelty/abuse is the first sign of a killer is correct! If you research convicted killers, rapists, terrorists, etc you will find a history of animal abuse. If we can nab them there before they move on to bigger and worse things, all the better!

Animals are living, feeling, emotional creatures that do not EVER deserve to be the brunt of human abuse and cruelty. It takes a very weak, insecure person to take out their anger on an animal. Abusing something that cannot fight back is the biggest sign of weakness. It doesn't take any genius whatsoever to hurt something without defenses.

I do not believe in hitting animals for any reason, so those of you that think you should get away with hitting your dog's behind because he annoys you should rethink your ways. There are other ways to communciate disapproval to an animal than striking it. Just like there are other ways to say you are upset with someone other than punching them or slapping them.

Animals deserve our respect, protection, and love. And to the comments on PETA: Yes, PETA is at times tyrannical, but they are possibly the most successful organizations in the field. We all know of them because of their success. Not many organizations enjoy such international success. I think we would all benefit from learning from them. Visit www.peta.org for more info.

For once I agree with bankboy! The judges out there are crazy lunatics driven to levels of deprevity by the waning and waxing of the moon's cycles. Take this Alito guy, for instance ...

you can read about it at foxnewsisabunchofbull.com.

PETA does not believe in keeping animals as pets. (Maybe I should turn my 8 pound dog out into the cold to freeze and starve...whichever comes first.)

PETA puts animals to death all the time.

PETA has given money to people who BOMB clinics.

Yeah, they are such a great organization! NOT!!!

Holy @#$$ bankboy, do you know what that story means? It means Clark Kent now walks among us!

harrierist: Stop, you're making me hungry. mmmmmm. . . moaning cow meat, ahhrrghghlhglglhglghglah.

For the question, I think a more effective method would be subjecting the folk doing the cruelty to the same thing that they were subjecting their pets to.

Abusing something that cannot fight back is the biggest sign of weakness. It doesn't take any genius whatsoever to hurt something without defenses.

Exactly right vegan. Now with that comment another few cases come into play. What about the child rapists that the judges set free? Pretty easy to hurt something that can't defend itself. The biggest case of all though is how many unborn babies are murdered every year? Screw the animals, save the babies.

(I still feel that animals should be saved but babies are much more important and need to be saved first.)

E_M sorry I haven't been able to get on for a few days...I think for about 4 and now I've been able to get back on the last couple.

And a bone for the pro-life flamers. . . . . . . In comparing the possible hypocrisy of supporting anti-animal cruelty leg. and the viability of abortion, perhaps the threshold is where the pre-born fetus develops fully enough to have a greater spectrum of sensory perception, and higher-level response/reaction to stimulus, than the average animal. After all, since humans are animals, what obviously makes us special is our capacity for high level thought. Therefore, before such development takes place, there is no distingishable ethical difference between an unborn human being and, at various times, monkeys, dogs, cats, cows, grass, fungus.

And yes, although I'm formulating hypothesis, I'm just talking out my @#$. Perhaps Ubermime could check my work if he checks in at some point today.

Hey, alphavegan-

Study a little animal behavior sometime that isn't PETA propaganda.

In actuality, what I do to discipline a dog for anything more serious than putting a nose in my food or standing on my head while I'm trying to sleep is flip the animal over and hold it there with its neck and stomach exposed until it whines or shows me its throat. With cats, I grab the shoulders and gently but firmly force the animal down until its stomach touches the ground and hold it there until the tension goes out of its muscles and it lays its tail flat and is no longer laying its ears back. Once it does, I let it up and reward it with petting and a kind word. I am the alpha in my house, and the animals are to know that and act accordingly. I provide them with the food, I care for the lower-ranking animals, I groom them, and they are weaker than I, despite their claws and teeth. Understanding dominance relationships within a pack or a pride means you are actually able to discipline a pet in ways that are meaningful and effective.

A swat is used quite frequently within the animal kingdom. It means, especially among felines, "Hey, you're in my space and I am using it right now. Get out, or I'll flip you over again. You know full well I can best you." So, when the cat sticks her nose in my dinner, she gets a swat, not as a discipline, but as a warning to back off that she will understand.

And by the way, you assume a lot. Not everyone who swats or disciplines an animal is angry at it, or even annoyed. Some of the food I eat, like chocolate ice cream, could make my cat very ill, and she doesn't need to be stealing it. Good pet owners NEVER strike a pet out of anger, fear, or annoyance, much as good parents never spank when they're angry.

The american judiciary is the most evenhanded in the world. The right wing actions to demonize the judiciary is worse than a lie. It is an attempt to corrupt and destroy the foundations of our goverment. "Activist judge" is a made up term that conservatives trot out every time a court does not rule the way they want. Notice they were calling for activist judges for the terri schiavo debacle.

The pathetic attempts of the radical right to frame arguments are wearing thin. You moan about abortion but are happy to push the plunger to take a convicts life or cut medicare. You hide behind jesus' robes and look down upon the poor. (incidentally 75% of americans below the poverty line are either children, the handicapped or women) You cut taxes and call it fair then run up HUGE deficits for the next couple of generations. You try to scare us into thinking corporations are going to leave unless we reduce their tax burdon, but ignore the fact that if they leave, no one will have enough money to buy their stuff! You cryout "Free Market" but support corporate welfare, price controls and blame consumers or labor when corporations make bad business decisions. You complain about the state of education and loss of local control in America and then clap as educational standards are lowered and watered down by no child left behind. You worry about Huck Finn but are afraid to explain birth control. You allow the FDA to withold a vaccine for HPV, one that will keep women from DYING of uterine cancer because you are afraid kids will have more sex.

Keep sticking your head in the sand. Keep ignoring the real issues. Change is in the air. Radical conservative thought has been exposed as the festering lie that it is. You can be a part of America or you can not. Your call.

Oh, and if you set an animal on fire, you need to go to jail for at least 2 years.

alphavegan, I would urge you to reconsider your view of PETA. It is not an organization that saves animals.

PETA KILLS ANIMALS.

Peta kills thousands of animals, every year. PETA's own records reflect this. An astonishing 80% of the animals that PETA rescues, it kills. No animal shelter in America has a record of euthanization so high. Many animals are being injected and killed before PETA has even left the parking lot.

http://www.petakillsanimals.com

PETA's donations speak for themselves. Money donated to a convicted arsonist. Should you support such a crime? The facts are real, as stated in PETA's own records, how many animals it has killed, and who gets all of the money.

Think again about PETA. They are an extremist terrorist organization whose agenda is more marketing than actually helping.

If by geesh you mean thanks! than you are welcome.

I gots to have my weekly rant!

bun did you write that yourself or take it off Lulu's website? Because if you did write it yourself then I have to congragulate you on the way it was written. It was a very good Op piece. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough concrete evidence in there to support your claims. I'd like some spefic examples of the claims you make.

And just for the record, taking a rapist/murderer/serial killer/psychopath life is a different situation than a defenseless unborn child. If you claim otherwise then we may as well stop punishing anyone who murders. Crap, let's let them continue to run the streets. I mean come on, BTK wasn't THAT bad of a guy. He just made mistakes. (For anyone that doesn't realize the statement about BTK was sarcastic please get help.)

Badger, very well said (11:20)

E_M, hillarious! where do you find this stuff? I should know better than to go to one of your links while I'm eating or drinking something. (I'm tired of wiping the nose goblins off my keyboard!)

dascoop40, while you may seem certain of it needing to be a felony, many of us, especially myself, do not trust our justice system to make the right call between the varying degrees of animal cruelty. Yes, at one point I did throw firecrackers at frogs (I was 10). While I see that as very mean now, I certainly don't need a felony on record for something like that. Nor would I want city and state resources being used to prosecute high profile animal abuse cases when there are more pressing matters. For goodness sakes, how long did this Moonbar incident get dragged on? It should have been dropped and done with, but instead someone saw fit to continue wasting public money to prosecute Giddens (when most of us could care less).

I'm off track, but anyway, felony is okay if outlined correctly, but usually when we give an ok on something, our friends in power manage to f it up in some form or other.

How does John Roberts have time to be a nurse AND a supreme court justice?

WOW!

Felony

Neopolss - Peta kills 5 animals per day, just in one city - wow! Does all that meat & fur go to waste?

e_m Have you ever seen Vivian's cat?

ms_c enjoying the roundabouts of Lawrence yet?

For all the pro-choice animal rights activists: We know that the thing in the womb is alive: it has a heart beat from 2 weeks after conception; it has detectable brain waves from 6 weeks--and abortions don't take place before 6 weeks. So the thing in the womb is, at least, a living animal. And it might very well, from an early period, be capable of feeling pain--certainly it moves and responds to stimuli, and movement and perception, it might be argued, must be coupled with some rudimentary ability to feel pleasure and pain. So then, I assume that you think that people ought to be compassionate towards animals. Perhaps you are even a vegetarian and opposed to killing animals on principle. How, then, can you consistently support legal abortion?

In every abortion the fetus is cut into pieces, ripped or torn apart, or poisoned. No one would want to treat a small kitten or puppy in that manner, nor does the law allow to do so, so why should we allow anyone to treat immature human beings in that way up until delivery?

Heartbeat at two weeks?

Pretty interesting, given that at two weeks after conception, the fetus doesn't even have a circulatory system, and thus no heart or blood vessels for it to push blood through. What, exactly, is beating?

You do know that at two weeks past conception, the mother usually hasn't even missed a period yet, right? Conception is most likely to occur on Day 14 of a 28 day cycle (the 'fertile period' is considered to be anywhere from day 9 to day 19, though, so if she conceived on the very last day possible by the math, I will concede that at 2 weeks her period could be as much as a week late), and the period starts again at day 1. This 'heartbeat at two weeks' nonsense is bad science being used by people who mean well.

It's all well and good to be opposed to abortion, but please do it with accurate biology, not scare propaganda. In any case, I don't really get the 'you should be anti-choice if you're opposed to animal cruelty' angle, myself. I think it's a pretty handy smokescreen.

Badger,

The point is not the level of development of a person whether it is okay to kill them or not. The point is that it is the taking of the life of a person. Abortion is the taking of a person's life. We have laws against murder. Do you really want to support murder?
I would hope not.

As far as the question goes, my answer is no, it should not be a felony. However, restitution or fine should not be paid to the court, but to the person who suffered the loss of their animal. If the animal is unowned, the restitution should be paid to the animal shelter to care for animals up for adoption.

It is obvious they should not have asked this question when the moon is so nearly full!!

I'm intrigued by the number of people who say -- only if it's malicious, intentional, etc., etc., etc. No one is un-intentionally C R U E L. Otherwise it would be an oversight or just an accident, everyone knows that accidents happen. (Unless you are eight years old and a wild child :)

Have a good day all, I'm off to the airport to pick up a friend.

: )

Liberty-

My point wasn't about the morality of abortion. My point is that if you use propaganda and incorrect facts to support your argument, whether you're PETA or Operation Rescue, you hurt your argument because you destroy your own credibility.

For example, if lunacydetector doesn't check his facts well enough to find that even the most basic rudimentary circulatory functions don't really start until at the earliest four weeks after conception, why should anything else he claims to be fact be taken at face value?

Ceallach, I'm not sure that I can agree that cruelty is always fully intentional. Many things that are cruel come about because of a lack of awareness. Tethering a dog outside on a freezing night can be cruel, but it's unintentionally so if you don't know that his chain is wrapped around a tree and he can't get to the doghouse with the electric blanket. The cruelty is born of carelessness in that case, but a lot of people would call it cruel nonetheless not to check the chain length.

The reason I specified that it should be malicious and intentional to merit a felony is because there are different definitions of cruelty based on who's doing the defining, and I don't know if current Kansas law lays out the difference between what is cruel and what is merely careless or negligent.

Observer, the beauty of the blogoshere is that one is participating in conversation. You see, conversations happen when a group of people begin discuss issues and situations and the impact one thing has on another. We have opinions (or in my case iron clad-truths hahahah) that just burst forth! Its all very exciting. You can start with animals and end up talking about cheese...(MMMMMMMMCHeese) It fun, healthly and human.

Now, you can either join in and express or get out of the way.

If you can't focus on anything other than following non-existent rules on a message board, than you must lead a very poor existance.

Observer, the beauty of the blogoshere is that one is participating in conversation. You see, conversations happen when a group of people begin discuss issues and situations and the impact one thing has on another. We have opinions (or in my case iron clad-truths hahahah) that just burst forth! Its all very exciting. You can start with animals and end up talking about cheese...(MMMMMMMMCHeese) Its fun, healthly and human.

Now, you can either join in and express or get out of the way.

If you can't focus on anything other than following non-existent rules on a message board, than you must lead a very poor existance.

And I must repeat myself...oops!~

And I must repeat myself...oops!~

Wavis O'Shave is an eccentric English musician and comedian who has released several cult classics including the album Anna Ford`s Bum. Also appeared several times on Channel 4's 1980's music programme "The Tube" as a character known as the Hard. He has also recorded under the name Foffo Spearjig.

Is that the guy?

Ubermime: I wouldn't advocate the killing or torturing of a monkey, either. Except for maybe GrapeApe, but that's a whole 'nuther story altogether. (he keyed my car)

As for the rest, I would agree with the statement that a human is a human, but that wasn't the point I was putting forward (although you bring up some pointed facts). The question I have is: what's so intrinsically special about humans? The only thing (aside from the obvious that I happen to be one) is our level of intellect or higher order reasoning. But, as you state, there are other animals capable of those sorts of things, which is where I based my hypothesis. And then, if such things that make something special (at least in this hypothetical ethical argument) were taken away, would the being then still have that apparent advantage.

Of course, this is a rather convoluted smokescreen of my real argument that there are NO universal ethics, that everything is subjective except for degrees of probability and that, when it comes to ethics, we're ALL just, as I said before, talking out of our @#$.

Except for the one universal truth, of course. All things are better with ninjas.

And for those of you willing to doubt the one universal truth, then I present this visualization exercise.

botany. . . . . . . . botany WITH NINJAS!!!!

Presidential debates. . . . . Presidential debates WITH NINJAS!!!!!

librarians. . . . . . .NINJA LIBRARIANS!!!!

and so on.

WHEW!

yes, Cealach, asking this question near full moon...

actually I'm glad to see OTS asking useful questions which require something beyond the brain stem to answer. good OTS!

I have written in comments to this paper's articles before of the need of Kansas to add felony animal cruelty laws...like that case a few months where the guy threw a rabit out the second story window.

Cealach is right, no such thing as unintensional cruelty unless you really are psychotic.

by the way, psychopaths, or now, sociopaths have a good handle on our common reality, but lack empathy and remorse.

for once, I am shocked to say, I have agreed strongly with Badger's posts [except his answer at 1;57pm in defense of abortion].

I also have argued that Kansas needs to add another set of statutes: interference with a service animal, misdee and felony.

I am the alpha in my home too. I trained gnomedog in obedience. occasionally, I use a "leash correction" a brief sharp tug on the leash, accompanied by "NO!"

I, too, groom, feed, protect, and comfort him. having known the love of many dogs in my life, I know that animal cruelty, besides the dog fighting, is also sometimes demonstration violence performed by a violent person...as "see this, I could do this to you!"

often cruelty to an animal does include a form of terror and loss for one or more persons.

I sincerely hope that this time, the felony animal cruelty statutes will go in for Kansas, written with good definitions which a wacko judge can't screw up.

okay, so, the toilet works fine today here!

Gonna miss you Even_Money!

and, if OMB is using AVH...'s box, I hope AVH... doesn't live nextdoor!

hope that friend doesn't weigh too much, which you're picking up Cealach...yell if you need help!

bye, back in a few hours. mostly, a very good discusiion here today.

p.s. also, some misguided PETA types have actually protested against working guide dogs, saying that they are being tortured, and imprisoned, even heckling trainers and blind folks in San Francisco...these trainers, students and dogs were from Guide Dogs for the Blind, San Rafael CA... www.guidedogs.com>>

so...i leave you now.

Observer: if you were a dog I'd kick ya.

And use spell check once in awhile.

Jonas, you have it right just like the Good Book tells us: "Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you."

As God made us all(see Genesis 1) including beasts, cattle, fish and man in his likeness, I take it that "others" would include animals. No, I would never harm an animal and certainly would not want to be treated as some of the examples that have been discussed above.

Ms_Canada, have you safely made it to the Land of Oz? What do you think of our trap-door buffalos and prairie squid?

On that note...my neighbor had to pick porcupine quills out of one of her steers the other day! Yeash! What next?

118...wow impressive again today!

I have always believed that God made dogs in a particular way to demonstrate certain qualities of angels.

these days, there are also miniature horses being trained to replace guide dogs. however, they have to wear little leather booties for indoor work.

S_sue:

Actually, there isn't a spell checker. I was just tryin' to bug Observer cuz he deserved it at the moment. But don't tell him, or anyone else!!! SSHHHHHhhhhhhh........

Gnome: is your name Gnorm?

gno, gname is gnot gnorm, gneither is it gnorbert. my gname is in the Bible, however. single sylable.
hey TB: "girl with the gold boots on!" that was funny even without the running commentary!

wow, porcupine quills in the steer. where'd the steer catch 'em?

Gnome:

gno here for "Gnirl in the Gnold boots":

http://www.mst3kinfo.com/daddyo/di_1002.html

http://www.mst3kinfo.com/daddyo/daddyo6.html