Did Daniel really care for this cat?

Most people who know me know that I love animals -- particularly dogs and cats. But there comes a time when mercy for the suffering of the animal must be considered alongside human practicality. It's called common sense, and it's in increasingly short supply.

Daniel Dockery had a 9-month-old cat named Scruffy. Daniel is a "recovering" heroin addict. In December, Scruffy suffered a severe wound caused by a barbed wire fence -- it was deep and ran from her abdomen to her knee. Daniel took her to the Arizona Humane Society. The Society determined treatment would be $400, but Daniel didn't have $400. He asked them to take his mother's credit card over the phone, but they were not set up to do that. Then he asked them to wait while his mother wired him the money.

The Society told him if he would sign the cat over to them, they would treat the cat and put it in foster care. That would have been the logical thing to do since it's obvious that Dockery doesn't have the means to properly care for an animal. But Dockery refused. The end of the story for Scruffy is that she was euthanized.

Now all the animal rights people are blaming the Humane Society. The Humane Society is just that -- humane. They use their money to place animals that would otherwise be left to wander the streets and suffer. They use their money to treat animals who have no owner to provide the funds needed to treat them. If they had treated Scruffy for Daniel for free, they would be inundated with pet owners bringing in their animals for free treatment. Then the money they've collected for the strays and abandoned animals would be dried up, and they would be forced to euthanize many more adoptable pets.

If Daniel had any common sense or any compassion, he would have given Scruffy a chance. Instead, he selfishly clung to his "rights." I suspect that if we checked, all of us taxpayers are providing Daniel's food and shelter and medical care. I guess he thought he was entitled to free veterinary care as well.

"Euthanized cat sparks an outcry." The Dallas Morning News; December 29, 2011; p. 3A.

More Obamacare

Did you know that starting in January of this year, the government charges a fee to your health insurance for research to find out which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best? Guess how your insurance plan pays for that fee? They increase your premium or reduce your benefit. And guess what else? The fee automatically increases with inflation, but I didn't see any provision for it being reduced if inflation decreases.

Not to mention that I don't want some bureaucrat deciding which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best for me. I prefer those decisions be made by my doctor and me.

So what does this boil down to? We are paying more for our insurance and being told what's good for us. Don't you just love Obamacare?

"New health plan fee to fund research gets mixed reaction." The Dallas Morning News; December 28, 2011; p. 6A.

Would you leave your children with a pedophile?

Poor little Aliahna Lemmon, age 9, had an idiot for a mother -- and Aliahna paid for it. Tarah Souders, Aliahna's mother, entrusted Michael Plumadore with the care of Aliahna and her two younger sisters even though she knew he was a convicted sex offender. Michael bludgeoned Aliahna to death with a brick, then dismembered her and hid her head, hands and feet at her grandfather's trailer before dumping the rest of her body elsewhere.

Tarah Souders should, at the least, be charged as an accessory to murder. There is no excuse for what she did.

"Man accused of killing 9-year-old." The Dallas Morning News; December 28, 2011; p. 5A.

Which part do you disagree with?

National Urban League president Marc Morial doesn't like what Rick Santorum had to say while he was on the campaign trail in Iowa. Santorum allegedly said, "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money." I say allegedly, because if you view one of the youtube slow-motion clips of it, it's quite possible he just got his tang tungled up (as one of my high school teachers was fond of saying). It's quite possible he started to say ". . . make lives better," then decided what he wanted to say was, " . . . make people's lives better." If he did say "black people," he pronounced it "blike people."


But let's give the reporters and Morial the benefit of the doubt and say that Santorum did, in fact, say "black people's live." What part of that offends Morial? The part about living off other people's money? Or the part about earning your own money? Or the implication that by percentage, more blacks than whites are on welfare? That's easily checked out -- blacks make up approximately 12.4% of the population, but draw better than 33% of the welfare benefits.

I guess Morial just doesn't like the ring of truth.

"Santorum comments on blacks criticized." The Dallas Morning News; January 4, 2012; p. 14A.

Constitutional Law or Sharia Law?

A Denver Federal Appeals Court ruled that Muneer Awad has the right to sue to block an Oklahoma law that prohibits Islamic law from being considered in Oklahoma courts. Awad said, "This is an important reminder that the Constitution is the last line of defense against a rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry . . ." I guess he means that same Constitution that he's trying to subjugate to his heretical religious law. . . the law that allows a father to kill his daughter if he feels she has dishonored the family or become too "westernized." If the Muslim can use Sharia law as a defense, then he can be exonerated for killing an infidel (that's you or me or any other Christian). He can be exonerated for beating his wife. He can be exonerated for any other of a number of things that are crimes in this country. What do you think would happen if a Christian judge used the Bible to excuse someone who beat a homosexual? He would be vilified and disbarred at the very least. And so also should those judges who sit on that Denver court.

"Oklahoma ban on Islamic law discriminates, court says." The Dallas Morning News; January 11, 2012; p. 7A.

Is she smart enough to be a SC Justice?

In Supreme Court arguments over the issue of nudity and cursing on broadcast TV, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, "One cannot tell what's indecent and what isn't." I suppose that could be true if one is mentally retarded or amoral. Wonder which one she is?

"Justices weigh TV standards." The Dallas Morning News; January 11, 2012; p. 5A.

Where are the editorials?

The Dallas Morning News grows skinnier and skinnier. And all the while they're trying to convince the readers that this is all a new and exciting format with them in mind. Yeah, right.

Anyway, in a recent edition, they took two pages to tell us what's on the opinion page. They explained that it had a masthead, editorials, letters to the editor, featured columnists, a cartoon, and guest columnists. I guess they assume we're too ignorant to recognize those things when we see them. But the real irony of all this? They had none of those things in that edition, because they took up the entire editorial section to explain what goes on the page.

"Behind the opinions." The Dallas Morning News; January 3, 2012; p. 10A.