Holly Willoughby's self-indulgent "women-will-survive-in-a-man's-world" speech is a rip-off of Jennifer Aniston's

The whole Philip Schofield saga is a mountain out of a molehill story of gargantuan proportions. It is ridiculous as many commenters have said. What did he do? He lied. Everyone lies. He had a consensual affair with a person of the same sex. That happens a lot too. He did nothing illegal as far as we know. So, what is going on?

And Holly Willoughby's speech, for me, is sickening. It is so self-indulgent. The tone is screaming to me that women are suffering and bravely surviving in a rotten male-made world. "We will survive" is stamped all over that image of another presenter, Josie Gibson, holding her hand in support. She is playing the victim looking for sympathy. 

Willoughby would not have made this bizarre, crisis speech if her co-presenter had been a woman who'd had a same-sex affair and lied about it.

Image: MikeB

The 'girls' against the men.  They always like to refer to themselves as 'girls' when they are women. It makes them more vulnerable in this horrible male world. Men are monsters and the girls have to be brave to survive it.

She enhanced her message by dressing in pure white. The angel with an anti-man message.

That's the message I get and it is sickening. And as they are now saying Willoughby appears to have ripped off Aniston's speech when playing Alex Levy in the drama The Morning Show.

She starts: “And to you at home, I understand how you must be feeling because I and the whole team here at The Morning Show are feeling the same way.”

Willoughby starts with a modified version: "Firstly, are you okay?...I imagine that you might have been feeling a lot like I have – shaken, troubled, let down, worried for the wellbeing of people on all sides of what’s been going on, and full of questions.

No, I am not shaken. I am fine, thank you. It's all fluff and stupid.

It is all so artificial and a load of puffed up, fluffed up nonsense.

It's not just me who's sickened by this performance. Carol Midgly writing in The Times todays described Willoughby's speech as "cynical pass-the-sickbag stuff". 

She says it was a "schmaltzy let's hug it out-athlon". Schofield was thrown into the dustbin which supports my view that this was an anti-male speech. It portrays men as the bad guys.

Ironic as Schofield seems to me to be a gentle soul. He comes across as nice. I think this is why the news media and some ITV colleagues have been so unnecessarily critical of him. He presented as the nice man. That was his public persona. But he is normal. He can lie and not be Mr Perfect. For that reason, he has been hammered.

Note: Sorry but this has nothing to do with cats. She even prefers dogs to cats and has a pet dog.

Criticising Patrick Gower for advocating shooting feral cats in New Zealand

Paddy Gower - I'm told on a news website - has 'issues' with feral cats. He thinks that they are dangerous pests and that they should be shot dead ('hunted'). They should be hunted to extirpation. I can't read the article on their website because I live in a region of the world where it is not published. I have no idea why they restrict publication of this site to certain countries. That seems bizarre to me.

Patrick Gower. Image: Twitter. His face is as unattractive as his attitude towards feral cats.

Paddy Gower's attitude towards feral cats is also bizarre. Actually, it's more ignorant than bizarre. But then again, it should be added that a lot of New Zealanders (Kiwis) dislike feral cats to the point where they think they should be shot. 

Simply do away with them. It doesn't matter whether it's cruel or whether they are euthanised humanely. They actually prefer the former method because it's quicker and cheaper. The objective after all is, as mentioned, extirpation of the entire species from their country.

This is along the lines of Australians. It's a cultural problem. They ignore the central aspect of their inhumane attitude which is that they, New Zealanders, put the feral cats there in the first place. They are the creators of the so-called "feral cat problem".

When a person creates a problem, they have a duty to clear up the problem. And when the problem concerns sentient creatures, they have a parallel duty to clear up the problem humanely. That is the moral obligation. They entirely miss this critical point. That's why I have called them ignorant and which is why Paddy Gower is ignorant. Yes, strong words but my words are very much in line with his words. I chose my words carefully. He didn't.

You do not advocate the hunting of feral cats. If you do that you are advocating animal cruelty. And perhaps more importantly, you are encouraging people to take pot shots at a cat at a distance. Some of them will be indoor/outdoor domestic cats and therefore owned by a New Zealander. That would be a crime. The crime of criminal damage as well as a crime under the country's animal welfare laws.

You cannot advocate shooting feral cats. Period. It is an entirely unacceptable behaviour.

Paddy Gower is advocating potential criminality in his shoddy statement.

Patrick Gower (born 1976/1977) is a New Zealand political journalist and National Correspondent for Newshub (formerly called 3 News). Prior to his current role he was Newshub's political editor. - Wikipedia.

Animal advocate Chris Packham has successfully sued Country Squire Magazine for defamation

Animal advocate Chris Packham has successfully sued Country Squire Magazine for defamation and was awarded £90,000 compensation plus more than £500,000 in an interim costs payment.

Update: Here he is:

Online hate and abuse ruins lives . . . we need better laws to protect us . A statement following my court case this week . . . and enormous thanks for all your support - it means a lot to myself , Charlotte and Megan . Thank you . Please RT pic.twitter.com/x9kkvzZzsh

— Chris Packham (@ChrisGPackham) May 27, 2023

Chris Packham. Photo Garry Knight from London, England - People's Walk for Wildlife 2018 - 04

Chris Packham is a well-known British animal advocate. He is high-profile. He fights for animal welfare. He claimed that he was libelled by a hunting publisher and he managed to crowd fund enough money to sue that publisher for defamation. He alleged that the publisher instigated a campaign of online abuse against him. He alleged that Fieldsports Channel created articles that he faked a death threat to himself.

He also sued the Country Squire Magazine. There appears to be a connection between Country Squire Magazine and the Fieldsports Channel. I can't find the connection on the Internet but it must exist. Are they one and the same legal entity? Update a few days later: I think it is because Mr Bean writes for this channel and he is a supporter of sport hunting. This in fact is why he hates Chris Packham so much. This is about Packham being against sport hunting and Bean and his co-defendant being pro-sport hunting.

As mentioned, he successfully sued Country Squire Magazine for defamation and the judge awarded him £90,000 in compensation plus more than £500,000 in costs. This was an interim costs order and therefore the overall award for legal costs is going to be higher than that.

As is not unusual, the judge's award for costs far exceeds the award for damages (compensation).

The compensation for libel damages (libel is a written form of deformation whereas slander is a verbal form of deformation) includes compensation for:

• Accusations that he lied in order to persuade people to donate money to a wildlife sanctuary
• Pursuing an agenda or campaign against Mr Packham and those who share his views which "focused on alleging fraud and dishonesty without any proper evidential basis".
• Accusations that he defrauded and manipulated people an attempt to raise funds for the Wildheart Trust which is a wildlife sanctuary on the Isle of Wight.
• Accusations that he lied when he said that gamekeepers on two Scottish estates were burning peat during the 2021 UM cup 26 a conference in Glasgow.
• Accusations that he acted fraudulently (was a fraud) and a "notorious liar" and as having an "obvious nastiness" and accusing him of playing the "Asperger's victim card".

Packham was successful in suing two defendants, Dominic Wightman and asset manager who is the editor of Country Squire Magazine and the writer Nigel Bean.

During litigation the defendants - the men named above - had indicated that they intended to put on the record in the litigation that Packham was a "rapist, a bully, and a pervert" despite there not being a shred of evidence to support this in order to try and scare Packham off from litigation. 

The judge said that this misbehaviour from the defendants is reflected in the damages awarded against them and that they will pay a higher proportion of Packham's costs than usual which are called indemnity costs.

The Country Squire Magazine has issued an apology on their website subsequent to this court judgement. They might struggle to pay these heavy costs combined with the damages. I don't know the resources of this magazine but if they going to have to pay more than £600,000 it's going to be painful at least and I wonder whether it might close the magazine.

Classic case of domestic violence combined with animal violence (kitten)

NEWS AND COMMENT-HOLLYWOOD: This is the latest story in which domestic and animal violence merge and become one. We know - everyone knows - that there is a strong linkage between domestic and animal violence. By "domestic violence" I'm referring to human partners engaged in violence against each other normally the male against the female.

Aghajanian (left) and Johnson. Photo by Nancy Vienneau for The Tennessean.

In this instance, a top Los Angeles chef has been accused by her estranged wife of torturing and killing their two pet cats, one of them a kitten, as she filed for divorce and requested a restraining order over the abuse that he meted out.

FBI Realise the Important Connection Between Animal Abuse and Other Serious Crimes 

I'm concerned about the violence against the cats obviously. Elizabeth Johnson has filed for a domestic violence restraining order against her estranged husband Will Aghajanian. The story has been reported in The Los Angeles Times and The Daily Mail.

Elizabeth Johnson alleges that Aghajanian joked about feeding their kitten to coyotes. She also says that she witnessed Aghajanian shaking their kitten which caused his or her death the next day.

Aghajanian put the dead kitten into the trash can and insisted on keeping it there in the house according to the wife. Comment: to cause her more emotional harm allegedly.

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) dramatically under-reporting animal cruelty

As to the domestic violence aspects of the story she says that Aghajanian mentally and psychologically abused her. This, she says, kept her from realising what was going on with the animals in the house.

Aghajanian denies it and says that they are "false allegations". He claims that he is the victim and that his estranged wife repeatedly threatened to kill him and actually burned him at least twice with a metal spatula and a spoon which she had placed in a fryer according to the court filings and as reported by Mail Online.

Their restaurant Horses opened in September 2021 and immediately received rave reviews and was an instant celebrity favourite.

Comment: I can think of one outstanding comment namely this. Aghajanian wanted to harm his estranged wife the best way he could because of the animosity between them without physically hitting her. 

He knew that she was connected emotionally to the kitten. I would allege that he decided to harm the kitten to harm her. Perhaps he didn't want to kill the kitten but he shook the kitten so hard that it did kill him or her. It's a simple formula. We see this all the time. 

It is invariably the man who harms or kills cats and kittens to get at their female partner because it is invariably the case that the female partner adopts the kitten or cat and is more connected to the companion animal than the man. 

Like I said, it's an old tried and tested scenario which happens all over the world all the time and occasionally is exposed in court filings and in criminal prosecutions.

British police officer sold sick and dying kittens in a cruel £280,000 moneymaking scam

NEWS AND OPINION: In another example of British police officers misbehaving, former British Transport Police officer Amy Byrne and her partner Harry Angell bought kittens at a discounted price and apparently, they also bred kittens as well and then sold them at inflated prices. 

I will suggest here that the reason they were able to sell the sick kittens at inflated prices is because they claimed that they were purebred kittens. This has not been reported in the news media but if you can buy kittens for £50 online which you can and then sell them for hundreds of pounds which you also can you have to justify it by misrepresenting the kittens as purebred. 

A lot of people are fooled by claims that cats are purebred, pedigree cats. They don't know the cat breeds or what they should look like. The wool can be pulled over their eyes. You see a lot of this online. In truth this couple's scam was based on this weakness in knowledge.

One of the sick kittens. Image: SWNS/RSPCA

In this moneymaking scam, the health and welfare of the kittens concerned were completely ignored. Customers often found that their new pets were malnourished, ill and even covered in urine or faeces. They sometimes died not long after they were adopted. This is after the family had bonded to the kitten which makes this go even more obnoxious because it wasn't only the kittens who suffered but the people who bought them as well.

This scamming couple used at least 33 fake identities in adverts. Remember, this is a police officer. She was engaging in out-and-out crime. Another example by the way of a failure in the selection process for police officers. This has been admitted by the head of the Metropolitan Police. Although Amie Byrne worked for the British Transport Police as mentioned.

The couple deceived buyers into believing that they were buying kittens that had been wormed and micro-chipped. They provided fake health certificates.

They pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court to charges of fraud and breaches of the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Angell was jailed for three years and four months while Byrne was jailed for three years and eight months. They were both banned from owning pets for 10 years with no chance of an appeal.

The RSPCA prosecuted. Representing that charity at court, Hazel Stevens gave six examples where kittens died soon after they were bought. She said:

There were human and animal victims in this. Humans were at risk of getting illnesses from the cats. Children were excited about a new member of the family including one child who made a card to thank Amy Byrne only to see them died days later.

One parent bought a male kitten for her artistic son. She soon found that the cat was in fact female and was underweight and had diarrhoea in her fur. She died soon afterwards.

One victim said:

Having recently lost a cat, we were so looking forward to giving a home to a new kitten. We instantly fell in love with Elsa, who was so sleepy and cuddly when we got her. For the two precious weeks we had her she became part of our family. We were devastated to watch her slowly go downhill, trying to rid her of the worms she arrived with and taking her to the vet for numerous tests. She spent the last two days in the animal hospital with them trying everything to make a better but she gave up the fight.

Think of the emotional pain of that and the pain suffered by the kitten. And also think of the financial cost.

When purchasers contacted the couple, they were ignored. Trading Standards and the RSPCA were inundated with complaints leading to the police searching the home of Byrne and Angell. They tried to throw away their mobile phones. Angell jumped out of the window and threw his phone in the garden. Byrne did a factory reset on her phone.

Despite these attempts to remove data, Angell's phone was recovered which revealed hundreds of images of kittens. There were also enquiries about adverts and complaints from customers on the phone.

The Times newspaper (the source of this article) reports that Angell bragged about how he bought two kittens for £75 then sold them for £600 each the next week. The RSPCA say that the couple intended to make a gain of £278,870. Byrne was sacked in January after a misconduct investigation. She shared another property containing cannabis plants and a half-smoked joint and a pack of cannabis seeds.

FAKE! DNA evidence to prove that big cats prowl British countryside!?

The British news media, at the moment (mid-May 2023), are stating that DNA evidence from a black hair strand caught on a barbed wire fence following a sheep attack has offered "definitive proof" that big cats are roaming the British countryside. Don't believe it. This is fake in my view but I stress this is my opinion.

The picture in the circle is a stock image from Alamy of a genuine black big cat (melanistic) while the blurry one is of a domestic cat crossing a field! Image: LBC.

There is a band of people in Britain who have been trying to prove that there are big cats - normally black panthers - roaming around the British countryside surreptitiously and have been for decades.

My suggestion (allegation) is that one of these band of brothers has got hold of a black hair strand from a melanistic jaguar i.e. black panther from a zoo because they have a friend working in the zoo and they have placed this black hair on a barbed wire fence and then commissioned a laboratory to do a DNA test on it. They've worked with the documentary film maker to do this (see below).

That I think is a very fair allegation because there is simply no evidence whatsoever to prove that there are big cats in the British countryside. People have been taking photographs and videos of big cats for decades and they are always fuzzy images and the cats are always domestic cats on analysis.

You have to have an inordinate amount of faith to believe what these big cat conspiracists want us to believe.

The LBC website say that this is a "shocking revelation" (LOL). It comes after a documentary film maker spent years investigating sightings across the country they say.

This mysterious black feline hair strand was recovered from a farm in Gloucestershire where there has been some unusual predatory activity. And there is apparently video footage of a large black animal in the area. They mean a domestic cat.

The picture above published on the LBC website shows a black panther - a genuine black big cat - but it is a stock photograph.

Matthew Everett from Dragonfly Films said:

The DNA was from hairs caught on a barbwire fence where there had been some unusual predatory activity.

"It's taken five years for the production team to find such evidence and film its journey from collection to analysis.

"People in Gloucestershire and Britain have described what appear to be black leopards for decades. So, a leopard DNA result from a black hair sample is unsurprising.

"This is not the first such DNA result and is unlikely to be the last.

"There is a great deal of 'secondary evidence' for these cats, such as consistent witness reports, but hard evidence like DNA is hard to get, so the contribution from this documentary is very helpful.

"Collecting such evidence from local people, farmers and landowners is essential - Citizen Science like this will hopefully help us learn more about the Bagheera type big cats which may be quietly naturalising here."

Dragonfly Films are looking into broadcast options for the documentary film. I will look forward to seeing it. But I do not believe a shred of this. It is an attempt to make an interesting film based upon a topic which has fascinated millions of people for a very long time and upon which the news media depend when real news becomes quiet.

2 instances when cat many owners destroyed their cats believing they'd catch a fatal disease from them

There have been a couple of high-profile instances when many cat owners deliberately destroyed their cat companions because they believed that they might catch a fatal disease from them.

AIDS in humans set off panic in nervous cat owners who killed their cats. Image: CNN.

FIV

Feline AIDS as it is sometimes called or Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) was discovered in 1986. In June 1981, the first cases of the illness now known as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) were reported from Los Angeles in five young homosexual men diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and other opportunistic infections (CDC).

The news media reported on FIV in a way which scared the population into believing that they could catch the disease from their cats.

This led to some cat owners panicking and killing their cats. Within hours of the newspaper reports nervous cat owners were taking their cats to shelters and asking them to euthanise them or find new homes.

Eventually the news media researched the facts and reported that the virus that causes feline AIDS was not zoonotic i.e., it cannot be transmitted to humans but the damage had been done and many cats were killed unnecessarily.

It is true that the viruses causing human and feline AIDS belong to the same group of viruses but they are distantly related. There is no way a cat can give a human the disease even by biting and scratching them.

Covid

When this disease was first reported in the news media, I can well remember the effect it had on nervous cat owners in China. Those in high rise apartment blocks began throwing their cats out of the windows to their deaths on the paving below.

Cats thrown from tower blocks in China during the early days of the Covid pandemic. Image in public domain.

I reported on this on Feb 1st 2020: SHOCK HORROR- CORONAVIRUS, CHINA: Panicked Chinese Are Throwing Their Cats Out of Tower Block Windows.

It was dire. And then as the pandemic progressed thousands of cat owners abandoned their pets in locked apartments for them to die of starvation. It was utterly mad.

At the time there was no media reports of the possibility of contracting the disease from companion animals so these cat killings were entirely out of panic. 

As it transpired it was found that Covid is zoonotic and can infect people. And people can get the disease from pets but even at the end of the pandemic there have been exceptionally few examples.

Imaginative Humane Society fundraiser goes viral

The Animal Friends and Humane Society, in Hamilton, Ohio have come up with an imaginative fundraiser on their Facebook page. They are asking visitors to provide them with the name of an ex-partner who they believe behave badly towards them. That name will go onto the base of a litter box and the litter box will be used for the rescue cats in their care.

Humane Society fundraiser goes viral on news media. Image: MikeB

They are accepting donations between February 1-12 and on their Facebook page there are instructions on how to make the donation. It is via an American mobile payment service called Venmo which is owned by PayPal.

There is a QR code on their Facebook page which you can scan using your smartphone or "search the Charity @AFHStreasurer2011." Your chance to kill 'two birds with one stone' to use an appropriate saying. You can clear your conscience of that pesky relationship that you had which bugs you and you can do some good for animal welfare.

Video of Brazilian football team official grabbing a stray cat aggressively at a conference

An unnecessarily aggressive example of human behaviour in manhandling an innocent stray cat who trespassed on Brazil's news conference in Qatar. Shame on the man. You did not have to behave this aggressively towards the cat. There is anger in your behaviour. This is a cross post from PoC as it is interesting in that is hints at the general abuse that can be directed at stray cats in Brazil.

Here is a screenshot and some words:

The problem is this: the man hurt the cat by grabbing the cat's skin along the spine. Also, to grab the scuff of the neck aggressively like this is not good when the cat is an adult. There is too much weight placed on the loose skin. He dumps the cat unceremoniously over the table.

The aggressive behaviour of the media official indicates a poor relationship with cats. This was a press conference at Qatar before the Brazil versus Croatia quarter final which Brazil have just lost on penalties.

Neymar scored the only goal in the first half of extra time - a great goal - and Croatia got the equalizer late in the second half of extra time. Croatia won on penalties 4-2.

Tragedy for Brazil as they were favourites. Some might say it is karma for the mild abuse meted out to this stray tabby cat who innocently wandered into the news conference.

The journalists present were aghast at the rough and aggressive behaviour of the official. PETA complained justifiably.

Animal charities swamped due to UK's cost-of-living crisis

There is another report today in the news media about animal charities being swamped with abandoned cats and dogs because of a double whammy of major problems. Firstly, there was the surge in cat and dog ownership during the pandemic with those owners now giving up their pets because they've decided they can't afford to keep them which has been exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis. 

In isn't just the cost-of-living crisis which is causing this abandonment of pets. People adopting pets during Covid now see the reality of cat and dog caregiving and have decided that they were unprepared or uncommitted for a lifetime of cat or dog caregiving.

RSPCA shelter. Image: RSPCA

The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has reported a 25% increase in abandoned pets during 2022. They say that their employees are overwhelmed at their call centre from owners reporting that they are struggling to feed and care for their animals.

During the first seven months of this year, they recorded 22,908 cases of abandoned pets paired with 18,373 during the same period last year.

They have reported such events as a terrier dog being thrown from a truck travelling at 50 miles an hour and 20 puppies being abandoned in a box in a layby in Essex.

They put most of this problem down to the extraordinary number of 3.2 million cats and dogs that were bought or acquired during the lockdowns coupled with the increased pressure on the finances of many cat and dog owners in the UK who are facing extraordinary bills to heat and power their homes this winter. 

Some economists have predicted 22% inflation in the UK thanks to a projected £6,000 annual bill for a typical family home to provide gas and electricity to that home beginning in the early part of next year.

Cats Protection has seen a rise of 46% in the number of animals on the waiting list in July of this year compared to last year. Peter Shergold, the head of operations at Cats Protection said: 

"This is the worst situation in organisational memory in terms of the pressure on our services to take in cats. The rise is directly linked to the cost-of-living crisis."

I can also see, by the way, problems with the cost of running animal charities. There are reports of numerous small businesses going under because the cost of gas and electricity is just too high so their overheads become unbearable. I can see some small animal charities having to close at least potentially because of the extraordinary rise in the price of gas which has a knock-on effect on the cost of electricity in the UK.

Pet owners are struggling to afford basics such as food and litter for their cats. The extreme cost of gas is due to Putin's attempt to force Europe to loosen their sanctions against Putin. It's blackmail basically. He doesn't care about killing thousands upon thousands of innocent Ukrainian citizens and he doesn't care about the dramatically negative effect that the price of gas is having upon so many organisations and individuals in the UK. In fact, he wants the Brits and Europeans to suffer.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then, maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

I can remember reading an article about a man who said that he has to use the dregs from his shampoo in order to make ends meet. He could then, and only then maintain enough funds to look after his cat. But it occurred to me that most people add some water to the bottom of their shampoo bottle in order to get out the last bits because by doing this you can get two or three more washes. I don't think that it is a particularly clever thing to do or something which indicates that a person is on their uppers.

Also, I think that a lot of people have built into their lives overheads such as subscriptions to smart phone providers, Sky television all broadband Internet. Or they are buying a car on hire purchase as opposed to outright. So, they burden their lives with overheads and they are not prepared to release themselves from these overheads which leads them to a precarious financial situation under the current cost of living crisis. 

They should divest themselves of some of these expensive overheads and ensure that their expenditure is less than their income and then they can put some money aside for those unexpected veterinary bills in a self-insurance policy. 

Family mistakenly donated their cat to a Denver thrift store

The owners of this ginger tabby accidentally donated him to a thrift store in Denver, Colorado, UK. The way it happened is interesting. The cat had hidden inside a recliner chair. No doubt he had made a little nest for himself there. He had probably done it before several times. 

As a side note, it should be added that recliner chairs are dangerous to kittens and puppies and even adult companion animals because they go underneath them and when a person sits on them and reclines,  the mechanism under the chair shifts position and it can crush the animal.

Montequlla inside the recliner inside the thrift store. Photo: the store or Denver Animal Protection.

But that is another issue. In this instance the cat, whose name is Montequlla, was hidden inside the recliner and the family donated the recliner to the thrift store. They did it because they were moving home

They realised that they were missing their cat and had no idea what had happened. In the meantime, the store noticed the cat (meows) and called Denver Animal Protection. They scanned the micro-chip but it had not been updated. Therefore they could not contact the owners.

Jenna Humphreys of Denver Animal Protection, told the Denver Channel: "Sure enough, there's a recliner out front, and there's a little orange tabby stuck inside. Very friendly, couldn't get out. They said that they had noticed the meowing shortly after somebody had dropped it off."

The recliner. Photo: Denver Animal Protection (believed).

In the meantime, the family were frantically searching nearby houses but then realised that he could be inside the store, inside the recliner. They returned to the store. The employees of that store gave them the phone number of Jenna Humphreys at which point they were able to reunite with their cat.

They put the event down to Montequlla being stressed and a bit frightened about the impending move to a new home. Perhaps there was quite a lot of noise and commotion in the home. His home territory was being disrupted quite dramatically. He decided to hide in a place which she had used before.

Humphreys said that "It's not uncommon for us to be call to help remove animals from those situations, but this was a new one."

Good ending 👍. Photo: the husband I expect.

The family are very happy that the story ended well. And they are thankful to everyone involved who managed to arrange the reunion. I bet Montequlla is happy too. Although he now has a move to do. He won't like that. It is going to cause some more problems.

RELATED: 5 tips to make moving home with your cat a success.

There is a Facebook post on the event by the Denver Animal Shelter which is below.

Montequlla's family donated a recliner to the thrift store when they were moving. They didn't realize that their cat was...

Posted by Denver Animal Shelter on Tuesday, January 4, 2022

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) misleads their readers regarding the feral cats of Kangaroo Island

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation have a headline, today (Dec 30, 2021), on their website which I would strongly argue is very misleading and deliberately so. They state that hundreds of feral cats have been "removed" from Kangaroo Island in a bid to protect endangered native species.

It is the use of the word "removed" which I believe has been deliberately chosen to paint the authorities in a better light that should be the case. These feral cats have been removed, yes, but they have been removed because they've been killed. This is actually mass slaughter. The authorities are killing feral cats in their many thousands. It has been going on for a long time. However, it is the first time I've seen this kind of language used which distorts the true picture.

A deadly feral cat pointing device which delights the Australian authorities even though it kills feral cats in a decidedly inhumane way. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation call this device a trap when it simply is not.

Of course, as usual they refer to feral cats as 'pests'. It is rather strange because in some countries feral cats are not regarded as pests but as community cats. The Australian viewpoint is a very negative.

How do you decide if an animal is a pest or not? Well, I would argue that they have labelled feral cats as pests because they kill native species. To restate that in a different way: the behaviour of feral cats leads to the death of native species. And so they call them pests.

On that criterion, they would have to call themselves pests because humans in various ways kill more native species than feral cats. You won't find any information or hard facts on it. It is an estimate from me. But that is not a bad thing because all the numbers about the killing of native species by feral cats in Australia are estimates anyway.

There is one particular method of killing feral cats which they delight in. In another example of a distortion of the truth and heavily biased reporting, they describe the Felixer as a "trap". It is not a trap. It is a device which chucks 1080 poison onto passing feral cats. They groom themselves and ingest the poison and die a painful death. 

RELATED: Picture of feral cat Doomsday Machine.

There is no way on God's earth that you can call this device a trap. Nothing is trapped. It just kills feral and stray cats. It also kills domestic cats and other animals but it is designed to feral cats only. How effective is it?

They persist in calling this feral cat poison a trap and that it is five times more effective than a standard cage trap. Standard cage traps do not kill the cats. Cage traps are not designed to kill cats but to trap them after which they can be sterilised and returned under a TNR program or in the worst case scenario they can be euthanised in an humane way.

The Felixer simply poisons animals. There is no attempt to kill the cats humanely under this scheme. Whether it is humane or not is entirely irrelevant to these people.

Emily Brown from Hayle, UK, has never seen so many cats killed by motorists

NEWS AND VIEWS - HAYLE, UK: Emily Brown is giving up on the human race. She has never seen so many cats killed on the roads in her seaside town. She is complaining about the motorists on the website of the newspaper Cornwall Live. And she is right to complain. She says the town is plagued by hit-and-run drivers killing people's companion cats. 

Emily Brown. Photo provided by her.

They don't stop, she says. She was taught to treat others properly and decently and can't understand why drivers just carry on. A 20 mph speed limit is in operation in her town, as I understand it. But this doesn't seem to make any difference in terms of killing pets on the road.

Tourist town

It seems that the problem was caused, or certainly exacerbated, by a huge influx of tourists when the doors unlocked when the pandemic eased back and the government allowed freedom of movement. Emily Brown said:

"The world has gone mad with cars everywhere. The traffic has been bad anyway because of summer and all the tourists. I think we need a 20 is Plenty campaign here in Hayle."

She is concerned that one day a child will be hit and there have been some near misses. In the photograph she is standing on Trevassack Hill where an incident occurred. And she has regularly read about cats being killed on the road on Queensway which is a new estate near the Copper House public house.

Cats and kittens run over on the road are left where they died and she said that she is forced to deal with them. Recently she called one of her friends to help move a cat because she didn't want children to see the dead animal on the road. She has seen posts about missing cats in Hayle weekly and sometimes daily.

She also said:

"It makes me feel like I'm losing faith in humankind".

I completely understand that. She believes that at least drivers could do something and pick up the animals and try to find the owner or take the cat to a veterinarian to let them scan a microchip to find the owner. She has contacted the local police and local authority about providing road signage to tell people to slow down. Clearly drivers are not adhering to the 20 mph speed limit. I can understand that as well I'm afraid. The 20 mph speed limit is too slow for many people. They regularly break it.

It seems that the local authority will not put up new signage because of the cost. She said: "It's all to do with money, but that shouldn't be an excuse."

The other side of the coin

The other side of the coin needs to be mentioned: cat owners allowing their pets to roam freely over dangerous roads. If cat owners live near active roads they should keep their cat inside. Although the idea of full-time indoor cats is catching on in the UK there is resistance to it. The default is to let cats go outside unsupervised. There are two sides to this problem. We can't put all the blame on car drivers. Cat owners have a responsibility to keep their cats safe.

Black cat theft warning at Halloween is trying to be helpful and not a threat

BIRMINGHAM, UK-NEWS AND COMMENT: News media is reporting on a mysterious note that has been stuffed through letter boxes in King's Heath, Birmingham, UK. It appears that some people found this note a bit disturbing. News media state that the letter created "grave concern". As you can see it is a simple warning on lined notepaper in tidy handwriting. It is almost certain that the person who wrote it is a woman and probably a young woman. The handwriting is very female and the smiley at the end is also a female trait. This adds to the certainty that it was written with good intentions.

Black cat theft warning at Halloween is genuine and not a threat. What I mean is that it is intended to be helpful. Picture: Facebook.

We can only see a part of the note but my interpretation of it is that it was written with a genuine concern for black cats in the area. Perhaps one of the residents felt it necessary to provide neighbours with a reminder that black cats can be a danger during Halloween.

One person responded on Facebook by saying: 

"I do worry extra about my 2 black cats around Halloween. Always try and have them both in by dark all year round."

And another said: 

"People have been hurting black cats on Halloween for years unfortunately due to the superstitions etc. I've never allowed mine out on Halloween or days either side just in case."

Both are sensible comments. Cats Protection, the cat charity, chipped in by saying that they had not come across this sort of human behaviour before and they had not seen any real evidence to suggest that there was a rise in cat thefts around Halloween. Although they did understand that people might be concerned about the note.

That is an interesting observation because in the USA where Halloween is much bigger, I feel that there is also a bigger concern about the welfare of black cats during Halloween. Cats Protection clearly feels that black cats are no more at-risk during Halloween than any other time. Although they agreed that keeping cats inside reduces the chance of possible theft or abuse and all the other usual problems that can occur when outside the home such as road traffic accidents and getting into fights with other cats.

Bengal cat trapped in neighbour's bathroom and found after two weeks

NEWS AND VIEWS: This is a novel way for a cat to become lost so it is worth mentioning. Also, the cat is a purebred Bengal. His name is Batty. It's unusual for such a glamorous cat to be allowed to wander outside. I'm not sure that I would be able to accept that if I lived with a Bengal cat. Too much worry about the cat being stolen.

Bengal cat Batty. He was trapped in a neighbour's bathroom for two weeks! He is recovering nicely. Photo: Colin McNeil, the owner with his family

Batty lives in Midlothian, Scotland. He was missing for about two weeks because he was trapped in a bathroom in a neighbour's property that was being renovated. The owner left the property unaware that the Bengal cat had entered her bathroom. The report does not tell us this but the door to the bathroom must've been closed on her departure. How else would the cat have been trapped?

The Bengal cat's owner is Colin McNeil and his family. They spent 12 days searching for him, putting up the usual posters et cetera. Colin feared that Batty may have been stolen which is the point I'm making.

Colin was being interviewed by Edinburgh Live when he learned that his cat had been found. As expected, he was hungry and dehydrated. It seems that he had nothing to eat or drink for two weeks. He is being nursed back to full health. They say that he is underweight.

Building contractors were working in the house where he was trapped. It seems odd that they did not spot him. I would have thought that the cat would have made some sounds to notify people of his predicament. Colin McNeil went along to the house and made enquiries but they said that they hadn't seen him. Strangely, McNeil said that the bathroom was wrecked while his cat was in it! I don't understand that part of the story.

I'm not sure that we're getting the full picture here except for the fact that the cat was trapped in a bathroom. It is the first time that I have read about a cat being lost in this way.

Think of the companion animals killed by the floods in Germany

I feel compelled to write a quick note about the dramatic floods in Germany (and surrounding nations) which have killed around 160 people but the numbers will climb. And a shocking 1,300 are missing. They've put the floods down to climate change and a 1 in 1,000-year event. There are fears that there will be more of these events. Climate change or global warming is presenting as extreme weather not just a warmer planet.

Horrendous floods in Germany and Netherlands. A damaged road after flooding in Bad Münstereifel, Germany. Photograph: Sascha Steinbach/EPA.

Because about 160 people have been killed by these dramatic and devastating floods, it is a foregone conclusion that many companion animals have also been killed. News media is not talking about them because they talk about people first which I suppose is understandable. Update: 18th July: no news yet of companion animal rescue.

I have searched various news media outlets looking for stories about cats and dogs who have been rescued from these floods. I have not found any stories. I would like to remember those animals. Of course, I'm concerned about people and their relatives but I am equally concerned about companion animals. And, indeed, any animals including farm animals.

Pony rescued from the floods. I don't have details of the photographer. Sorry. There is more talk about the animals about 4 days after the floods but still very little.

If these floods are due to climate change, they've been caused by the behaviour of people. The companion animals are innocent victims of human behaviour. You might argue that people are the authors of their own suffering as a consequence of these climatic catastrophes. But the same argument does not apply to animals.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

It would be another failure of the human-to-cat and dog relationship if these floods are due to excessive amounts of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases being expelled into the atmosphere.

Here is an addition to the page. A couple of guys in flood water with cat carriers and their cats inside. This is the first photographic evidence that I have seen of cat rescue in the floods. These guys are in Belgium which was also badly affected.

A couple of guys in flood water with cat carriers; the first photographic evidence that I have seen of cat rescue in the floods. This is in Belgium which was also affected. Photo: AFP/Getty.

And here are two dogs in Belgium waiting to be rescued. The photo is from AFP/Getty:

In Belgium a database of dog and cat owners has been made available to the emergency services who are operating in regions where there was heavy flooding. This will enable rescue workers to reunite animals with their owners. They will use the online dog ID and cat ID database systems but of course the animals concerned would have to be micro-chipped. The database became anonymized because of the European GDPR regulations, which is why they have to be formally opened to the rescue services. Apparently, in Belgium, rescue workers found numerous lost pets who had been dragged away by the force of the floods. We don't know whether these pets had been killed or were alive.

One problem with the floods is that in Germany there was insufficient warning. This was a major factor in the loss of life because both homeowner or home occupier and their companion animals were unable to get out of the way of the flood waters.

We've all heard about California and the near 50°C temperatures that they have been suffering. These temperatures were also felt in British Columbia just north of California. Let's think of the animals in that state and province. Let's pray that they've got air-conditioning but air-conditioning contributes to global warming because you burn fossil fuels to run the air conditioning machines.

I will update the page if the news media report on any animal rescues and the meantime I would like to express my concern that as many dogs and cats survive as possible.

Did Binx a black domestic cat survive the collapse of Champlain Towers South condo?

8777 Collins Ave, Surfside, FL News and comment: The Miami-Dade Mayor is seen on video telling the world that a black cat has emerged after the dramatic and tragic collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium. It is a moment of light emerging from the darkness of this tragedy. 

The building is adjacent to the beach and the sea and it is believed that poor quality concrete eroded because of the sea air. So far it is known that 79 people have died while 61 are still missing. The world has read about this story. Nobody could survive that collapse looking at the rubble which is flattened.

Binx a black cat survived the Maimi Beach condo collapse? Pic: ABC News.

But it appears that Binx, a black cat has survived it. Nobody has said that this cat actually survived the crushing collapse. However, he was found in the area after the collapse and there are question marks as to why he was there. Binx lived on the ninth floor of this condominium. He must have been a full-time indoor cat. He was found and a person has claimed him as their cat.

READ A MORE CONVENTIONAL VERSION OF THIS STORY

A local cat rescue, The Kitty Campus, is involved because the cat was taken to them. They posted on Facebook what had happened but that particular post cannot be found by me. It seems impossible that Binx survived the collapse and therefore he must have been outside. And if he was outside, was he the resident of an apartment on the ninth floor of this building.

What I'm saying is that he may be a community cat of which there are quite a few in Miami Beach being looked after by volunteers. I guess the only evidence that we have that Binx lived on the ninth floor is that the owner of the apartment on the ninth floor claimed him as their own. That's the evidence.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

But being a cynical old man that I am, it seems plausible or at least arguable that the person who claimed Binx is not the true owner but a person who wanted to adopt a cat and perhaps wanted a bit of celebrity although we don't know the person's name which indicates that they did not want celebrity! :)

But we also know that a lot of people, a lot of the time, do rather strange things under these situations. In the past people have claimed to be the murderer of an individual when they are not. They did it for celebrity. They want to be in the news. Perhaps this person did in fact want to be in the news but she was prevented from appearing before the cameras! I have no idea because I'm speculating wildly but it sniffs of that to me.

If Binx truly did survive the collapse of this building he would be the single sentient being to do so. And it would seem to be unimaginable that it actually happened despite the enormous ability of the domestic cat to survive the most extraordinary conditions and emergencies. That's why they are said to have nine lives.

Objectifying women - the cycle that constantly reinforces it

This had nothing to do with domestic cats directly but I feel compelled to write about it because I see it all the time and it annoys me. Indirectly what I am saying affects cat welfare. Celebrity woman can dress more functionally and promote cat welfare in one of many ways. They have the clout.

I want women to be totally equal to men but if celebrity women wear sexy clothes and the news media reports on it as the Daily Mail has done in this example then we simply reinforce the objectification of women and we ogle them as some sort of sex objects. It has to stop. Note: Sexual objectification is the act of treating a person solely as an object of sexual desire.

Objectifying women. The cycle the reinforces this concept.

A celebrity woman wears sexy clothes and the news media report on it, such as above: Mabel sets pulses soaring in a figure-hugging halterneck jumpsuit. It is a self-perpetuating cycle. And some women complain about being objectified. A lot do as far as I can tell. Do they really mean it?

As it happens so much, maybe this is the way it should be? Maybe this is the male-female relationship. But I hear women complaining about being objectified as sex objects. They want to be treated as equals and I totally get that and support the goal. 

But when they dress in sexy clothes (which is perfectly okay) and they are reported in the news media as illustrated by the Daily Mail online newspaper we reinforce the objectification of women. They are nothing more than to be looked at for their appearance. That is the role of women in this vicious cycle which constantly reinforces this stereotype. 

If women want to break out of it, they have to wear loose fitting boring trousers and cover up their torso. In short, they should dress more like men which they will totally hate and it is an untenable idea. 

They want to be attractive and they do it for themselves. It's instinctive. It is part of their DNA and inherited genetically. It is meant to attract for mating purposes. There has to be a compromise somewhere down the line which means wearing less sexy clothes and the news media stopping these sorts of headlines.

The trouble with writing about women on a cat website is that Google never finds the page and therefore nobody reads it! Which is why I have to write this incredibly quickly because I am basically wasting my time. I hope somebody reads it and comments. I will waffle on to make the page larger which may help Google find it.

It is beyond time that this unhealthy relationship between celebrity women and the news media is broken. It simply reinforces over and over again that women are sex objects. Both parties are equally to blame. I don't want to spoil the fun because I know women enjoy wearing these sorts of garments but there is a much wider issue, one of equality, total equality and the way men perceive women. 

If men perceive women as sex objects, they are never going to be equal in the wider sense. Certainly, many women are completely equal in the workplace and in life generally but overall, you see a lack of equality and it is deeply entrenched.

By equality I don't mean that women should do men's work. They don't need to behave like men and become directors of companies which is a miserable job. Trying to force women into top executive jobs in big companies I think is unhealthy as well because I don't think women are geared up for that kind of role. You have to be a completely driven testosterone-fuelled male to do that. But there are many roles that women can fill and they should be allowed to do them in an atmosphere of complete equality.

33 cats dumped on the roadside with food then 15 of them shot dead

DUNN COUNTY, WISCONSIN, USA - NEWS AND COMMENT: In a heinous crime of great brutality perpetrated by a person or persons, 33 cats appear to have been abandoned on the roadside with a pile of cat food. Then somebody shot at them killing 15.

 33 cats dumped on the roadside with food then 15 of them shot dead. Photo: Humane Soc.

Jamie Wagner, Kennel Manager at the Dunn County Humane Society attended the scene which she said has left her haunted. She said: "I was not prepared for what I saw. I have been working here 15 years, I have seen a lot of things. It was very horrific."

She said that it appeared that somebody had abandoned 33 cats and 15 had been shot. They don't know the circumstances as to why someone would do this. Comment: I know the reason why they did it. It is because they are cat-hating, nasty, insensitive, psychopathic individuals who think they can treat cats as inanimate objects without any consequences for what they're doing.

UPDATE 4/30/21: The reward for information leading to the person/people responsible for this act has been raised to...

Posted by Dunn County Humane Society on Wednesday, April 28, 2021

In a Facebook post from the Dunn County Humane Society they provided an update on April 30 telling us: "The reward for information leading to the person/people responsible for this act has been raised to $5000. Please report any tips directly to the Dunn County Sheriff's Department!"

They follow it by stating: "This is not the type of post we enjoy putting up, but this is such an act of cruelty that we need to do everything we can to find the person/people responsible. Any information regarding this incident would be greatly appreciated."

The details to contact these people are as follows:

• Dunn County Humane Society (715) 232-9790
• info@dunncountyhumanesociety.org
• Dunn County Sheriff’s Office (715) 232-1348

Comment: I have been reading news media stories about this sort of cat abuse/cruelty in America and in other countries, let's be clear, for 14 years. To me, it is not surprising or shocking. I have seen similar acts of cruelty reported in news media before. This story stands out somewhat because of the numbers involved. And it is the first time I have read of cats being abandoned on the roadside and then shot at. 

It takes a particular kind of individual to do it. It seems that a person abandon the cats then stepped back and shot at them but it is entirely possible that there were two or more perpetrators namely the person who abandon the cats and then another person came along, saw them, and decided to shoot at them. Therefore the police may be searching for two or more people as the Facebook post indicates.

God willing they'll be caught. But don't hold your breath because there is invariably a lack of evidence. This probably occurred in a remote place. No cameras. No evidence.

Note: The embedded FB post may stop working. If that has happened I apologise but I have no control over it.

'The Beast of Bodmin' or another big cat picture is a crude digital manipulation

This is a photograph which has been published today on news media as an example of a mysterious big cats roaming around the UK, often Cornwall, in the south-west of England. These so-called big cat sightings in the UK pop up from time to time and every time they are pathetically inadequate photographs which simply do not provide evidence and this is another example.

'The Beast of Bodmin' or another big cat is a crude digital manipulation. Image in public domain.

You can see that this is a black domestic cat with a tail added digitally and crudely. It just looks wrong. The tail is too long and there is a small gap between the body and the beginning of the tail or that is what it looks like.

It isn't just the tail which has been digitally added in, it is also the general body conformation. The big cats are quite stocky in their overall body confirmation. Their shoulders are strong and highly muscular. The legs are thick and also muscular as they must be to hang onto large prey animals. Looking at this cat you see typical domestic cat legs. They are quite fine and slender in complete contrast to what we see when looking at big cat pictures.

It is absurd to bandy around these sorts of pathetic images and argue that they are mysterious black panthers wandering around Cornwall. Please can we stop this and be sensible.