The legality thing for shooting your dog depends a whole lot on where you live. In an area with livestock shooting dogs is practically a public service and "taking care" of your own dogs, if that becomes necessary, is expected. Anything *other than* a bullet to the head would be considered inhumane.

I looked it up earlier. In my jurisdiction — Texas — it's illegal to shoot somebody else's dog, but it would not be illegal to shoot your own. It is illegal, however, to torture your dog, withhold food from your dog, abandon your dog, confine your dog, fight dogs or overwork a dog.

The relevant statute is the State of Texas Penal Code chapter 42.

It's legal to kill your own dog. It's not legal to starve your dog to death. That's a class A misdemeanor in Texas.

I think Rachel's metaphor proved more than she meant for it to. Maybe I'm mis-reading her, but that's how it looks to me.

Or, possibly, it proved exactly what she meant to prove, only I'm kinda slow. That's a distinct possibility, too.

Oh, who the hell knows. There's so much irony floating around in here, I expect to bump into Alanis Morissette any minute now.

Well, If Rachel reads this. Amen Sister. I totally agree with you.

If she has to die. Then do it quick. Don't starve/dehydrate her to death. Unless of course that means she didn't die of natural causes and negates the life insurance policy. Then again, it could be said that intentionally starving Terry to death is not natural causes either.

I totally agree. If she's a Vegetable and has to die, do it quick and get it over with.

If she's not a Veggie, get her the damned medical treatment she needs.

It's that simple.

So, as a socieity, right here and now, perhaps we can all start considering that when/if Michael Schiavo is ever faced with an incapacitating illness, disability, "nervous exhaustion" or the like, that we will tie him to a stake in the middle of a closed room and then seal the door and walk away. What happens to him over time is his problem because he's not actually human, not really a human being...

I mean, apply his own lunacy to anyone else, especially himself, and it's obvious just how crazy the man is.

Some schizophrenics believe that they "are dead." One of their symptoms of problematic perceptions is that they think they are walking around but are, truly, dead. They try to convince people that they died some earlier time but that their body continues to walk around like a zombie but that they are, in fact, clinically and really, dead (so they ask for helps in stopping their bodies from their zombie mobilizatiions).

Michael Schiavo saying that Terry Schiavo "is dead" and/or "died fifteen years ago" strikes me as a similar statement, and I wonder why anyone would ever consider him with any seriousness as a responsible party for anyone else, based upon that statement alone.

If I was going to pscyhoanalyse Michael Schiavo, about that statement, I'd say that it was Michael Schiavo expressing that Terri Schiavo had died to Michael Schiavo, that Michael Schiavo no longer regarded Terri Schiavo with any humane qualities or in any humane compassion. Meaning, he indicated that he had experienced a form of death and that he no longer regarded his (former) wife as having or requiring any humane considerations -- and, however, worse, that Michael Schiavo was admitting that there was no further reason or requirement for him to extend any humane considerations to Terri Schiavo as being "dead" and/or a corpse.

Meaning, he could and would and intended to treat her remaining "body" as he would a corpse and that is to defile it and/or bury it, dispose of it.

Not the words of a balanced individual, to my view. Certainly not an indication that Michael Schiavo posed qualities that would make him capable of extending CARE for and about another human being. Who was, despite Michael's problematic psychology, still alive.

Has anyone read about the issue in Wisconsin whereby some are asking that they be able to shoot/hunt ferile cats?

There's a problem in that area of a rampantly reproducing ferile cat population and they're killing many of the bird species in their daily needs for food source, among other things.

Same problem in Hawaii, by the way (a huge ferile cat population that takes a huge toll on other wildlife, unfortunately).

There are few predators who predate upon ferile cats in most areas where humans exist (no pumas, no coyotes, no wild dogs), so ferile cats tend to proliferate in and around human populated areas and there are always handfuls of humans who put out bags of catfood and thus, assist the ferile cat populations in proliferating (thus, ensuring the ferile cat overpopulations).

So, some people in Wisconsin are trying to make it legal for them to hunt and shoot ferile cats, just as they can badgers, possums, etc., to reclassify ferile cats in Wisconsin as the same animal type as other wild species, but there's the expected upset by some humans about that idea, that despite being ferile, a cat is a cat is a cat and no cats should ever be shot or killed.

Anyway, my sympathies. I like felines as a species but I also like birds (probably moreso favor birds, to be honest here) and I've seen what neighborhood domesticated cats can do to local bird populations, much less the terrible toll that ferile cats take on bird populations (particularly in Hawaii)...so, I am not opposed to taking steps to control/prevent ferile cat populations, whatever it takes.

Unfortunately, people think that birds are an annoyance, that ferile cats and the problems they create are tolerable and such...

Are we mice or men?

Rachel and I are pretty much on the level in how we feel about what is happening to Terri Schiavo. She just doesn't mince words as much as I did.