YT called it a gerbil. I am not an expert, so we'll just call it a 'rodent' (sorry whatever rodent you are!) for now!

Searching religion and cats got me this sad piece of knowledge:

Beginning in the 11th century, tolerance for cats began to decrease in Europe for religious reasons, and “by the 13th century the church viewed witches as real and cats as instruments of the devil” (Lynnlee, p. 20). Dante (1265–1321), for example, mentioned cats only once in his work and compared them to demons. From the 14th century well into the 18th century, cats were regularly killed on specific religious holidays. “By the late 15th century the persecution of cats and witches was a mainstay of European society. . . . The 15th and 16th centuries are almost devoid of any cat literature and art. . . . During this period the cat still was used to control rodents, but it was rarely seen as a pet, for if so its existence and that of its owner were in jeopardy” (Lynnlee, p. 21). Cats became especially associated with heretical religious sects, such as the Waldensians and Manichaeans, and members of these sects were accused of worshiping the Devil in the form of a black cat.

On feast days all over Europe, as a symbolic means of driving out the Devil, they were captured and tortured, tossed onto bonfires, set alight and chased through the streets, impaled on spits and roasted alive, burned at the stake, plunged into boiling water, whipped to death, and hurled from the tops of tall buildings, all in an atmosphere of extreme festive merriment. (Serpell JA, The domestication and history of the cat, in Turner DC and Bateson P, eds, The Domestic Cat, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 156).

"At Metz, for example, on “cat Wednesday” during Lent, 13 cats were placed in an iron cage and publicly burned; this ritual took place each year from 1344 to 1777" (Kete K, The Beast in the Boudoir, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, p. 119).

(http://www.stanleyresearch.org/dnn/LaboratoryofDevelopmentalNeurovirology/ToxoplasmosisSchizophreniaResearch/IAllaboutCats/tabid/173/Default.aspx)


Great, as if we needed more reasons to hate religion...

Fuck Mickey. Hate that stupid rodent.

I think Jenna is cute in a way. I mean she kind of looks like a rodent; but if that stands true - she's a blazing hot rodent.

Damn, where's my club. Somebody needs to teach that little rodent a lesson.

It's a medium-sized rodent with buck teeth, but that's not important right now...

>> ^Payback:

He was also a great admirer of Priscilla Presley's beaver.

>> ^Reefie:

>> ^ForgedReality:
I don't see any corners there. It's in the middle of a road. And it's a wild animal, not a pet.
It didn't look to me like they were tormenting it. They were just having a bit of fun. The fact that they delicately picked him up and lightly set him down in the weeds at the end came as a bit of a surprise to me. Good to see they didn't hurt it.

No need to be a smart alec, that poor creature was doing a last resort attempt to fight because it had exhausted the option of flight. You walk down a road and get mugged by 3 assailants - there are no corners on the road but the word 'cornered' is very applicable to the situation.
As for the gingerly scooping up and depositing in the grass at the end, they were too scared of being bitten to pick it up by that point. The video clearly shows their repeated attempts to pick up the creature without being bitten, behaviour by them that is only making the critter more anxious. I only dread to think how things would have gone if one of them had been able to pick it up.
No shit Sherlock about it being a wild animal - I almost mentioned in my first post that a possible reason for the aggressive behaviour might be if it was a mother with a litter of kits nearby - then I noticed the bollocks and a couple of classic bits of male rodent behaviour.
They hurt it alright, they scared the crap out of it and all you can say is "good to see they didn't hurt it"... WTF? Were you even watching the same video?! Emotional distress is more damaging to small creatures than physical inflictions because it induces a confusion that can completely interrupt their regular routine, and one day later there's a dead rodent in the bushes because it's been too dazed to feed and look after itself.


I don't see them trying to pick it up at all. They're being dicks, sure, but they're not TORMENTING it. They just thought it was funny how the animal chose to defend itself. Obviously it was defending something (a litter perhaps as I was suggesting and as you mentioned), but it had a choice to stay and fight or run into the safety of the weeds, so how was this a "last resort?" They weren't encircling it and preventing its escape, and at the end, they even made sure it got off the road and didn't get run over by a car or something.

PS - Calm down. There's medication you can take for that.

>> ^ForgedReality:
I don't see any corners there. It's in the middle of a road. And it's a wild animal, not a pet.
It didn't look to me like they were tormenting it. They were just having a bit of fun. The fact that they delicately picked him up and lightly set him down in the weeds at the end came as a bit of a surprise to me. Good to see they didn't hurt it.


No need to be a smart alec, that poor creature was doing a last resort attempt to fight because it had exhausted the option of flight. You walk down a road and get mugged by 3 assailants - there are no corners on the road but the word 'cornered' is very applicable to the situation.

As for the gingerly scooping up and depositing in the grass at the end, they were too scared of being bitten to pick it up by that point. The video clearly shows their repeated attempts to pick up the creature without being bitten, behaviour by them that is only making the critter more anxious. I only dread to think how things would have gone if one of them had been able to pick it up.

No shit Sherlock about it being a wild animal - I almost mentioned in my first post that a possible reason for the aggressive behaviour might be if it was a mother with a litter of kits nearby - then I noticed the bollocks and a couple of classic bits of male rodent behaviour.

They hurt it alright, they scared the crap out of it and all you can say is "good to see they didn't hurt it"... WTF? Were you even watching the same video?! Emotional distress is more damaging to small creatures than physical inflictions because it induces a confusion that can completely interrupt their regular routine, and one day later there's a dead rodent in the bushes because it's been too dazed to feed and look after itself.

My parents have had several cats over the years, and used to leave two cat doors open coming into the house. One on the garage, and another coming into the house, so they could come and go as they please during the day.

One particular cat loved to bring home 'gifts', but she never wanted to cause a mess like this. Everytime she brought home something to play with, she would put it in one of the guest bathtubs where it would be played to death!

We were never surprised to come home to birds, snakes, rodents, etc, covering the bathtub. It did make for easy cleanup!

O.K.! Think about it. Cats are born homicidal maniacs. They spend 90% of their waking hours killing insects, watching other live things such as birds with desire to catch and kill, or playing as though they are catching and killing something. The other 10% is going to the toilet and rubbing their scent on their human slaves legs in order to mark the human as their property. They are said to harbor a paramecium that causes rodents to not fear them and humans to love them. They have evolved a cry that is the frequency and modulation of a newborn human baby. Other than that, they present a regal attitude and are cute (which impression may or may not be a result of the paramecium). If cats were as large as horses, we humans would be in deep trouble! Lastly, there are no good cat recipes.

Fuck cats man. Upvoted for the realistic portrayal of cats as useless animals.

I never understood the correlation between netizens and cats. They are mostly useless - good for rodent control and little else.

When I get a dog (soon), I'm going to make sure it learns it's own form of rodent control.

>> ^shagen454:

...There is a huge Homeland Security building down the street from me. I bet someone in there reads everything on sites like this... the building looks like something out of Darth Vader's Empire, like it could be a huge square building coming out of the death star... so I want to take the opportunity to say, "hey Homeland Security lick my fucking taint you pieces of shit, come and get me you constitution burning rodent mafia douchebags!!!!
DHS would *never* do such a thing! That's the CIA's and the NSA's job!

I like what Ed is saying but this is complete bullshit. This is just some commentator installed by huge media corporations to spew the "otherside's" story. This shit is supposed to make you think that there are opposing sides when in reality the democratic party is owned by the republicans (the minority? hah! the minority with all of the corrupt power) and the republicans run this whole shitty oligarchy that we call a free democracy. It's all shit, sorry for being bitter - I love this country but if you're a rep or dem - you suck. Go read some history books and get back to me. The only way to stop all of this weird corruption that has gone on for decades is to buy some heavy weaponry from bechtel or some shit and take this big-box burger shop over. And well, you know, it's just not even worth it. Time to finally move to Sweden.

There is a huge Homeland Security building down the street from me. I bet someone in there reads everything on sites like this... the building looks like something out of Darth Vader's Empire, like it could be a huge square building coming out of the death star... so I want to take the opportunity to say, "hey Homeland Security lick my fucking taint you pieces of shit, come and get me you constitution burning rodent mafia douchebags!!!!"

Tell your children and your children's children to vote local, vote indie or green. It's the only way.

Totally agree! But let's give it up that that squirrel too. Especially considering that squirrel is food to some folks.

>> ^choggie:
one bad-ass rodent trainer having fun!...and fucking commercial... cartman voice GODDAMMIT!

one bad-ass rodent trainer having fun!...and fucking commercial...*cartman voice GODDAMMIT!