Art imitating life...

This Onion story is almost to scary realistic to be funny. Enjoy it anyway :-)

Dog Humiliated In Front Of Entire Park
AUGUST 24, 2009 | ISSUE 45•35

CONCORD, NH—Banjo, a local border collie mix and loyal human companion, was utterly humiliated Tuesday, when his owner, 34-year-old Michael Ingram, loudly scolded the dog right in the middle of Cold Brook Park.

. . .

"I just find the whole thing really awkward," said Douglas Lax, who takes his 6-year-old yorkshire terrier every morning to play in the park. "Sometimes Michael and I will be talking about baseball or whatnot, and out of nowhere he'll make some weird joke about Banjo 'being lazy' or 'shedding his hair all over the couch.'"

. . .

"I used to go over to their place all the time for dinner, but I always felt so uncomfortable," said acquaintance Janet Schrump. "All those comments Michael would make about how 'we'd better keep our food away from Banjo' were rude enough, but when he decided to lock the poor thing inside the bathroom one night, I just couldn't take it anymore."

"Honestly, if my husband ever did that to me, I'm not sure what I'd do," Schrump added. "Probably shit in his bed."

Read the whole story here.

Get Happy?

Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years (HAPPY) is a nauseatingly titled bill making its way through the halls of CONgress. Is that how they're burning through our money, making aides come up with cute names (and sappy acronyms) they can all sign on and say "hey! look how much we love pets!"

According to WashingtonWatch.com, "H.R. 3501 would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow a deduction for pet care expenses."

Evidently the text of the bill has not been released yet, so the details are completely unknown. At face value, I tend to support anything that puts limits on how much of my money they steal. But a bill like this could easily turn into something that expands the pet health insurance industry, or uses the "companion animal" language and further undermines our property rights with pets. The more I think of it, the less optimistic I am. I mean, what is the motivation for a bill like this? The government desperately needs all the tax money it can get. Sure, there are a lot of pet owners, but they spend a lot of money on pet health care, and the tax loss could be significant. Would it really buy that much favoritism with the pet owner voting blocs? Somehow I don't think so. So what's the motivation? Any good ideas?

Guess we'll have to wait and see.