As everyone knows, athletes and celebrities get away with much more than the average person. Also, as many people know, there aren't many laws enforced more weakly than animal cruelty laws. I can't find my calculator, but I think that adds up to some sort of medal of honor for this scumbag.

http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=92434

First felony offense in Georgia is punishable by a "$15,000 fine and 1-5 years in jail." Can I get odds on him doing anything more than donating a grand or so to the ASPCA?

I hope they give the scumbag the chair...


And by the way....


YOU'VE STOLEN MY DOGS!!!!

I bet his wife gets the next beating...

"You took it where?"

Soon they're going to have to change it to the National Felon League.

Motherfucker.

If I had my way, Animal Cruelty offenses would be punished in much the same way Child Cruelty/Abuse/Molestation offenses are. The bastard should be fined, jailed, and publicly denounced, never to be able to earn a decent living again. He should be placed on a publicly available list of "Known Animal Abusers", and he should never again be permitted to have a pet (his household would be subject to random compliance checks).

Instead, he'll lawyer up, the whole thing will blow over, and they'll get another dog that will be treated just as poorly.

Someone should just beat his worthless ass to death.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those psychotic PETA idiots who doesn't eat meat or wear leather. I just can't stand it when people treat their pets like they don't feel or have a soul the same as they do. This piece of human shit should be locked in a cage for a year and only be let out for a random unwarranted beating here and there.



I took this picture just now to show you what animal cruelty looks like in my house:



I know, I know...no pillow or blanket. I'm such a heartless son of a bitch.

QFT

I'm a Falcons fan. If this story turns out to be true and the Falcons don't run him out of town, I will refuse to watch any of their games next year. I can forgive Eugene Robinson for Super Bowl Hookergate, but pet abusers should be strung up by their balls.

HEYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Seriously man, great word play.


No you won't.

shhhhh..... i'm bluffing

The Falcons are trying to work on a trade to the Benagls as we speak.

Well played. Unless this is true, then even more well played.

oh the falcons. can anything ever go smooth? i wish adults would act like adults. I guess there is no incentive though since they aren't treated like adults

A sad representation of my team (Hawkeyes, not the Falcons)....even worse representative than Ricky Davis

Which is really saying something.

I've met Jon in Iowa City on two different occasions, and he seemed like a really nice, genuine guy.

That being said, it's pretty inexcusable.

You from Iowa City? I lived there for a few years when I was younger.

Bitch had it coming.

I'll start this off by saying, cute dog!


I wanted to do start things off on a friendly note, because I know i'm going to get blasted by the next few things I'm going to say. Perhaps you should consider joining peta if your concerns over the souls of animals are so great. It seems to me that a great number of people chose their animal cruelty battles based on the arbitrary "cuteness" of the animal, not the depth of the animal's soul. There's a great deal of evidence to support that pigs are a great deal smarter than dogs or cats. If you want to see true horror, I suggest you go to a hog confinement farm, and see how pigs are treated in the factorys. Or Cows. Or chickens. Or any of the various animals that are raised for their furs. I don't think it would be too far off to call the way animals are treated by the industral food and fur industry torture.

I myself don't believe humans have souls, much less animals. I find the way people humanize and atribute human emotions and characteristics on their animals to be truly bizarre. While I don't advocate violence against animals, I also am very confused when I see people get so fired up about it that they advocate tourture towards the inflictor. I realize that it's in some way hyperbole, but I don't see people in the Dafur thread getting this fired up when the victims of this kind of violence are actual humans.

Can't touch this...

Good points all, Big D. I think it's a combination of the cuteness of the animal and our ability to recognize (or insert) emotions or facial expressions on animals. In other words, it's easy to see when a dog is upset because their face looks somewhat like a human's when he is upset (I'm not actually sure whether or not the analogous face on a dog actually equates to the dog having that emotion). Maybe this emotion recognition phenomenon is in some way associated with what we call "cute." Maybe if pigs or cows made frowns or whimpered when they were mistreated, we would have more sympathy for them.

Then again, humans are uncanny at their ability to look over the suffering of others and ignore massive amounts of pain if it takes place out of sight or if it leads to a tasty snack. Meh.

It's way beyond the "cute" factor when it comes to dogs. Almost everyone that has a dog considers it a part of their family, not a pet... I don't know of many people who sleep with a cow curled up around their feet, or have a sow awaiting their arrival home with tails wagging. This loyalty and unwavering love is the reason so many people are disgusted by people like Babineaux; it isn't because the dog was cute, it's because the dog was loyal to its owner, and its unquestioning trust of the human to take care of it ultimately cost it its life. We've domesticated dogs to the point that they no longer have the instinct to flee wen in danger from people; because of that, we have a responsibility to take care of our pets. If you don't want to take care of an animal, don't adopt one; it's not terribly difficult to avoid the responsibility of caring for a creature that can't take care of itself.

You can't expect people that get upset about the mistreatment of pets to get upset over the mistreatment of all animals. Honestly, every single person should feel some guilt about cows living in poor conditions just biding their time until they're killed... but damn, I love steak.

and that's what it really comes down to. Actually, pigs make great pets. I knew a woman whom had the most adorable lil pot bellied pig as a pet. It behaved much in the same way as a dog did, was house trained, very well behaved and friendly. And I understand your point about domestication, but again, we've done the same thing with livestock that we eat? How well do you think, say, a turkey would do in the wild? My dad used to work on a turkey farm as a kid, and when it rained, he had to herd the turkey's into the coup, or else they would look up into the rain, open their mouths, and drown. My dad swears this is true. And actually, Dogs do pretty well if they are released in the wild. I used to go to a church camp that was terrorized by a pack of feral dogs that was made up of dogs that had been abandoned by their owners. Cats also do fine on their own as wild cats. I understand that people view the dogs as part of their families, and that dogs view humans as part of their pack. But I still don't think that justifies the way many people get more upset over animal cruelty over human cruelty, and over violence done to cute animals (and this isn't just a dog thing. Like baby seals and dolphins getting killed by tuna boats. People care fck all about the tuna being killed by those boats) as opposed to violence done to delicious animals.

I agree with your points on emotion recognition combined with cuteness. Although I think proximity/familiarity has something to do with it as well. People are just more familiar with dogs and cats--they have them in their homes, they consider them their best friends, they told all their secrets to them when they were twelve. Generally, we don't have those kinds of experiences with farm animals or wild animals, so we're not as sympathetic to them. This also has the side effect that people don't have experience with how cows and pigs go about exhibiting pain, and so don't recognize those signals as easily.

In my opinion, though, it's exceedingly philosophical to have serious doubts about whether dogs/cats feel pain, although I understand what you're saying. But it doesn't seem like a stretch to think that animals who are physiologically similar to us, in situations in which we would feel pain, and exhibiting signs that are associated with experiencing pain, are actually in pain. It's a lot harder to come up with a case that they aren't. I'm inclined to go with the preponderance of evidence.

Well, there are wild turkeys...but yeah, a domesticated turkey released into the wild probably wouldn't fare that well. Feral dogs and cats don't do that well either. There are many who are getting by, but overall, cats and dogs aren't very well-equipped to live "in the wild". The average feral cat only lives about two years--compare that to a housecat with a life expectancy of about 14 years.

As far as people getting more upset over animal cruelty than human cruelty, I'm not sure if that's true. Yeah, there are people who go wild with rage about animal abuse, and when hearing of a human tragedy, go "oh, that's too bad." But there are also people who are inflamed about abuse against humans, and don't really care that much when they hear about animal abuse.

I know that I'm more active on animal abuse issues than human torture/killing issues...but I work in animal sheltering, so it's part of my job. There are counterparts to us animal folks who are devoting tons of time to human rights issues and not much to animal issues. Maybe it balances out in the end.

But if people really do care more about animal abuse (or dog and cat abuse, more likely), then at a guess, maybe it's because they see dogs and cats as more vulnerable than humans? Or more of our personal responsibility?

I'm not saying that more people care about animal abuse than person abuse. I'm just saying I, personally, find it bizarre when people flip out and get homicidal over animal abuse, particularly non-vegetarian, non-animal rights activists, that's all. I think, in general, that people's humanization of animals to be bizarre, and that particular form of humanization to be paradoxical, hypocritical and bizarre. As someone who doesn't really get fired up about animal abuse, I think my meat eating is consistant. But when someone says



"If I had my way, Animal Cruelty offenses would be punished in much the same way Child Cruelty/Abuse/Molestation offenses are. The ******* should be fined, jailed, and publicly denounced, never to be able to earn a decent living again. He should be placed on a publicly available list of "Known Animal Abusers", and he should never again be permitted to have a pet (his household would be subject to random compliance checks).
Someone should just beat his worthless *** to death. I just can't stand it when people treat their pets like they don't feel or have a soul the same as they do. This piece of human **** should be locked in a cage for a year and only be let out for a random unwarranted beating here and there. "

I find that really wierd... but when they, in the same post say...

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those psychotic PETA idiots who doesn't eat meat or wear leather"


Well, I find it weird AND paradoxical. IF animal abuse really makes you homicidal, if you feel that it warrants Child Cruelty lvl of punishment ( IE completely equivocating the act of hurting a human and hurting an animal) then why the fck wouldn't you be a member of Peta? Why the hell would you eat meat, and wear leather? I found that post strange on multiple levels.