Chamblee54

This is a repost . This item was posted a year ago, and things have only gotten worse. The repubs have been the party of hell no, and have fought BHO on everything he does. We finally got health care reform. If the repubs had cooperated instead of fought, a much better plan might have been enacted.
The economy remains in the toilet, and has been dealt a body blow by deepwater horizon. Metro Atlanta can expect an influx of oil spill refugees to compete for the few jobs available. Meanwhile, the water crisis in Atlanta has been aided by heavy rains, but a long term solution is just as distant as in 2007. That was the year of drought, with the fishwrapper printing charts of how many days we had before the water ran out.
Today is election day in Georgia. Sarah Palin has decided to endorse Karen Handel, and assumes the voters will not refudiate her choice. The Republican primary has a straw vote on the ballot, on such issues as abortion and exclusion from Obamacare. One of the choices is about states rights. Georgia took a serious view of this issue in 1861, with disastrous results.
America is working under a triple whammy in 2010…war in Babylon and Stanland, economic chaos, and deepwater horizon. The only one of these that was chosen directly was war. These wars are ruinously expensive, and result in the deaths of thousands of women and children. BHO is withdrawing (for now, under protest) from Babylon, but has made a commitment to the conflict in Stanland. Much of the killing is done by robot planes. Whether or not BHO is a war criminal is not for PG to judge.
Maybe the only appropriate thing to do is tell a joke. This is courtesy of funnyjokes.com.
An old hippie dies and goes to the Pearly Gates. St. Peter looks him up in his big book and says, “I’m sorry, but you’ll be going down to Hell.” The hippie, astounded, peers through the gates and sees G-d walking in the distance.
“G-d!” he says. “What gives? Remember that time I was tripping on acid? I saw you, and you said we’d be in Heaven together forever!”
G-d thought for a minute, then said, “Oh yeah, but I was drunk.”






PG got an email with a few “clever” pictures of BHO. They will not be reprinted today due to copyright issues. If you want to see a few, go to the source. While you are there, you might get a clue as to why BHO got elected.
The Repubs made a mess. We got mixed up in wars, where the only victories will be ruinously expensive. The economy is a mess. And yet, the “right wing” continues to point fingers, and play any number of rhetorical games. We were offered Sarah Palin as a Vice President.
On the other hand, BHO has a fanatic constituency now that is hypersensitive to criticism. It is going to be a long four years. The POTUS is a magnet for criticism, satire, humor, and meanness. It is just the way it is. BHO is a product of Chicago politics, and can more than take care of himself.
Yes, BHO is the first dark skinned President. He had a white mother, and his father was from Kenya. He is not the descendent of slaves. By the Jewish tradition… i.e. the children of a Jewish mother are Jews….BHO is white. And yet, African America claims BHO as one of their own. People are being set up for disappointment.
On the other side of the fair and balanced fence, the conservatives are a piece of work. PG looks at sites like iowntheworld and is reminded of how little he has in common with the conservative movement.
It makes you wonder why anyone would want to be POTUS. As firebug William T. Sherman said:
“If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.”

PG saw a link on facebook (spell check suggestions:facetious,facecloth) recently for a site called “I Write Like”. The idea is to paste a few paragraphs of your work in the box, have their computer hamsters run a few laps, and find out what author your style is similar to. “For reliable results paste at least a few paragraphs (not tweets).”Since the twitter revolution has passed PG by (except for Conway Twitty (spell check suggestions:Witty, Titty, Twisty, Twittery) jokes), this is not a problem.
There is the matter of comparing apples to oranges. PG writes blog posts, which is a different animal from murder mysteries. Factor in ease of publication, no editor, fonts of color, and profuse illustration, and it is apparent that PG is performing in a new arena.
The last post by PG was about Mark Twain , a fine author to be compared to. After weeding out the quotes, PG fed the text into the window. (The ease of copy/paste quotes is another game changer from the days of Dickens.) The droid said ” I write like Kurt Vonnegut. “. The bottom of the page had an amazon link to the books of Mr. Vonnegut. Perhaps this is the true motive. And so it goes.
PG is writing a new blog . The idea is that this will be the new website of a club PG belongs to. In the spirit of adventure, the first post was fed into the coding robots . This time, logo read ” I write like Cory Doctorow”. PG has never heard of this person.
There was a doorstep encounter with a Jehovah’s Witness recently. The blog version was fed into  iwritelike (spell check suggestions:Christlike, treelike, skywriter, ghostwrite).  Just for fun, the html coding was included, and the pictures from the Crimean War left out. The result was, ” I write like Dan Brown”. Maybe someone confuses html for da vinci.
Ok, so far we have scored good, bad, and idontknow (spell check suggestions:idolization). Maybe a fourth trial will answer the question… should PG continue writing, or cut his hands off. (Voice activation software makes this a moot point). A recent post about profanity..always a crowd pleaser…is pasted in. “I write like Cory Doctorow”. It is time to go for a walk, before the alabama storms roll in.
A little while later… PG went for a walk in Chastain Park with his friend Uzi. When he got home, it was time to write about it. After erasing the code, PG fed this post into “Iwritelike”. For the third time today, the lookalike writer was Cory Doctorow. Amazon must have a lot of product by this person.
The text of this post was also linked to Cory Doctorow. Ok, when the Chamblee library is open, maybe they will have something by this Doctorow person. But just for tonight, PG wants to know of an author that he has heard of. Maybe he should quit while he is ahead, or still has a head. Whatever choice he makes, he will be east of Buckhead(spell check suggestions:Blockhead,Blackhead).
On Tuesday the 13th, PG wrote about the opium trade in Afghanistan as a possible motive for the war there. When he fed this text to the coding robots, the answer he got was ” I write like David Foster Wallace. “. At least PG doesn’t have hangups like Mr. Wallace.

PG was putting the finishing touches on a blog post when Uzi called. He needed to go walking, and the weather radar said there was going to be a break between storms. An agreement was made to go walk around Chastain Park. (spell check suggestion:Chastity)
Typically, the men park between the swimming pool and the amphitheater. PG decided to take a new route in, and went behind the amphitheater. He could hear sounds from the stage, and decided the crews were setting up a show. When he met Uzi a minute later, PG suggested they walk past the amphitheater, and hear the sound check.
This involves a change in routine. Usually, they start out with a lap down Powers Ferry, around the golf course, and coming back north on Lake Forrest. This is clockwise. Starting out behind the amphitheater, however, meant starting the golf course circumnavigation down Lake Forrest, behind the Little League fields. The walk around the golf course was thus counter clockwise, which can be very confusing to a couple of old fogeys.
The sound check was going on at the amphitheater. Equipment was seen on the stage, and a man was yelling “yo, yo” into the microphone. There was a guard at the driveway that led to the backstage area. He said the band tonight was Counting Crows.
PG was finishing a week where his computer had been down 56 hours. He wound up getting into the yard sale videos. Uzi surprised PG by not liking “Young Frankenstein”, which is almost universally praised as a work of genius. PG thought YF was amusing and enjoyable, but not life changing. “Father of the bride” (the Steve Martin version) had provided more belly laughs.
When thinking of “Father of the bride”, PG always thought of an incident years ago. The movie was playing at the I85 Drive In (RIP). The title was on the marquee, and the H fell off. The result was “Fater of the bride”. You had to be there.
The drive in was down the road from an apartment complex. An unpleasant co worker of PG lived in this complex. Finally, this alleged human moved out. A week later, the complex had a sign in front, saying they had a “new attitude”.
One of the other movies PG had seen that week was “Gallipoli”. At one point, the young men of 1915 Australia were being persuaded to go fight in WW1. One young man said, with regards to the Turks, “If we don’t fight them over there, they might come and fight us here”. This is much the same logic that is employed today in the Babylon war.
By this time, the old fogeys were walking between Lake Forrest and the golf course. A lady came by walking two dogs. PG crouched down in front of one, who started to bark, in a threatening manner. The owner lady got a grip on the leash, and bloodshed was averted.
After making the turnaround at the American Legion house, the walk continued up Powers Ferry. By this time the clouds in the western sky were getting darker and darker. A decision was made to not stop for any more pictures, walk fast, and try to get to the cars before the next round of storms. About five minutes after they got to the cars, the bottom fell out.

Mark Twain left earth to take care of itself on April 21, 1910. Now that 100 years have passed, his uncensored autobiography is about to be published. As True Slant tells the tale, Reports of Mark Twain’s resurrection are greatly exaggerated.
Samuel Clemens is an icon of americana, his books a staple of high school english. The clever sayings of Mr. Twain are quoted to this day. On his death in 1910, President William H. Taft said “Mark Twain gave real intellectual enjoyment to millions, and his works will continue to give such pleasure to millions yet to come. He never wrote a line that a father could not read to a daughter.”
The White House predecessor of Mr. Taft was Teddy Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt became famous as a result of what Mr. Twain called “the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War”. When the newly conquered Philippines did not greet the Americans as liberators, a brutal little war broke out. There were reports of massacres of women and children by American troops. This conflict led Mr. Twain to write The War Prayer, which would not be published until after he was dead.
The truth is, Mark Twain was a rascal, with many sharp opinions about religion, big business, and war. As Henry L. Mencken wrote ” Instead of being a mere entertainer of the mob, he was…a destructive satirist of the utmost pungency and relentlessness, and the most bitter critic of American platitude and delusion, whether social, political or religious, that ever lived.” His present day image of Colonel Sanders, played by Grandpa Walton, is far from the mark.
But then, Grandpa Walton is not what many think. He was played by Will Geer, whose birth name was William Aughe Ghere . Mr. Geer was a member of the Communist Party, who organized a violent dockworkers strike in San Francisco. The co organizer of that strike was Mr. Geer’s boyfriend, Harry Hay.
Getting back to Mark Twain, it seems like some people don’t like to have their heroes tarnished by reality. True Slant wrote a feature that is the basis of this post. ( The text part anyway. The pictures are from The Library of Congress . HT to dangerous minds. ) It seems like when the True Slant author, Mark Dery, posted a link to his article on Facebook, Chaos ensued.
Weekend Update: Apparently, some Bronze-Age bible troll reported my Facebook link to this essay as “abusive,” presumably because Twain was an atheist and Huckleberry Finn, one of the most banned books in a nation that stinks to heaven of god-bothering, is the devil’s handiwork. Now, due to Facebook’s guilty-until-proven-innocent logic—a rule of thumb that wins the Idi Amin Dada Award for enlightened online governance—I’m unable to repost. Anything. Whether you like Twain or my work or not, I hope you’ll consider reposting a link to this page on your Facebook page as a way of saying you support free speech. If that sounds like product placement, mea culpa maxima.)
((YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Facebook appears to have repealed its ban on my links, at least for the moment, restoring the link to this article. Heartfelt thanks to all who stood with me in free-speech solidarity by reposting a link to this essay on their FB pages. Twain would be proud of you!
In the sandbox epic Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance , a philosophical ramble detours on the concept of mythos over logos. The concept is that people, when presented with information that disproves there illusion, will continue to believe in the illusion. This would seem to be the case here. The inspiring story of Mark Twain is threatened by the reality of the writers last work. (Actually, this autobiography was dictated to a stenographer, rather than written.) People would rather feel warm and fuzzy about a myth, than read the truths of the mythmaker.

The wordpress homepage linked to a post on the benefits of “swearing”. Since Chamblee54 had a post about *donkeys* the other day, maybe this is a good subject to continue on. As before, this is a profanity light blog, and this discussion on cussing will not have any examples. If you do not know any of the words in question, then you need to get out more.
It seems like a grant monger at a university did a study. (PG thinks that people will believe anything if it is the result of a study or survey). The subjects were asked to hold their hands in freezing water. Half of the subjects were allowed to say a swearword of their choice, the other half said a non expletive control word. The cussers (spell check suggestions:customers, accusers) felt less pain. PG does not know how this was measured, or whether he believes this study.
Mark Twain is famous for a similar thought. “Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” In an ironic twist, Mr. Twain published his books in an era when swearing in print was not acceptable. As a result, his novels are profanity free. ( It has been a while since PG read “Tom Sawyer”, and he may be mistaken ).
The reference to prayer is another twist in this tale. Much of the objection to profanity is from Jesus Worshipers. These are people who consider the Bible to be “the word of G-d”. And yet, if you go to the Greek and Hebrew original texts, you will find every body part and reproductive act mentioned. It seems to PG that a ban on cussing is more of a social issue than a moral one.
Jesus Worshipers have the same anger management issues as non believers. PG has noticed that often JWs will use words like Jesus and G-d as a device for expressing displeasure. This does not speak well for either Jesus or G-d, and is a violation of the Third Commandment. Perhaps these believers would be better off to use words for body parts as insults, instead of a reference to G-d.
The subject of profanity is fertile ground for bloggers, and PG will return to it before long. Before we go today, there are a few more comments from the post that started this. The Mark Twain quotes page about profanity is valuable. (And if the opposite of pro is con, what is confanity?)
“The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all wrong. He can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and benevolent and affectionate way.” Mark Twain
“There ought to be a room in every house to swear in. It’s dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that.” Mark Twain
“When angry count four; when very angry, swear.” Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
“swearing is like perfume. used intelligently in small doses – it can enhance the meaning of a phrase. if it’s cheap and overwhelmingly applied – it can make you leave the room! kaiamaeve
I must confess, I quite like swearing. But, like everything, try to do it in moderation. A good oath blurted out at the right time can really emphasize a message. I don’t think I know any adults who never swear, but I know many who rarely let out a good curse-word and, when they do, you know they really mean it. They make it count. Andrew Berthoff
I had my days at military school where I cussed like, well, a soldier, and I’ve also had my church-going days where I promised myself that I didn’t swear at all. Those days are both behind me now, and I really try to not swear very much because I think it makes me sound like an  moron. Nathan
This is a repost. Pictures from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

PG saw the two ladies walking across the street. One was white, one was black, both were carrying a book. The sensible dresses suggested door to door Jesus.
It had not been a good week. After sitting through an endless meeting saturday night, PG noticed his back hurt. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday had been devoted to rest and drinking water. The spine was showing improvement Wednesday morning, when the computer did not power up. A trip to the computer shop, and optimistically waiting until the afternoon, when hopefully the machine would be back. ( It was late Friday afternoon when the machine was ready, but that is a post for another time.)
PG was working on a picture when he heard a soft tapping on the door. Sure enough, it was the two ladies he had seen before. The white one stepped forward and said” Hi we are Jehovah’s witnesses. We are going around the neighborhood sharing a few words from the scriptures. I am sure you agree there is a lot of stress in life today”.
PG replied, ” I am looking at it” and closed the door. The Library of Congress.

Tom Dispatch has an audio feature about Afghanistan, and the many unanswered questions about our war there. It is apparent to PG that we invaded Afghanistan to get revenge for 911, and looked for a reason later.
Tom begins the monologue by discussing the prospects for Gen. Petraeus (spell check suggestions:Petroleum, Perpetrates ), and how a success there may actually be worse than failure. If we “conquer” Afghanistan, we will hold “the fifth poorest country on earth, the second most corrupt country, the world’s premier narco state.”
At the 3:06 mark on the tape, when Tom makes the comment about narco (spell check suggestions: Narcissus) state, PG had a flash of understanding, and a possibility for the reason behind this war. This may even have been powerful enough for the powers that be to ignore the reports about a terror strike in September 2001, and passively let 911 happen.
The rumors of CIA involvement in drug trafficking are wide spread and long term. When planes went to Central America in the eighties to bring arms to the contras, they came back to the United States loaded with cocaine. There are stories of collusion with the government in Cuba. There are many, many more stories about connections between the US government and the drug trade.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, they cracked down on the poppy farmers. Much of the raw opium for heroin/morphine/opium is grown in Afghanistan. This was not a pleasing  for the CIA.
Could it be that the real reason for our involvement in Afghanistan is to ensure the flow of narcotics into the hungry world? This would be a big cash cow for the CIA, although not enough to justify the amounts of money being spent on the conflict.
Pictures for today are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.

PG was waiting to comment on the Georgia Governors race. Before today, he was, reluctantly, supporting Karen Handel as the lesser of many evils. Today, Sarah Palin endorsed Mrs. Handel.
To begin with, the Georgia Governor’s race is none of caribou barbie’s business. We have enough problems without that idiot telling us who to vote for. In her endorsement of Ms. Handel, Mrs. Palin
said “She’ll balance budgets and help spur Georgia’s economy.” In Georgia, a balanced budget is required by state law .
What about the other candidates? It is a sorry bunch. The front runner, and likely runoff contestant, is John Oxendine . Mr. Oxendine is the state Insurance commissioner. He is alleged to receive campaign contributions from companies that he regulates. There was also a tacky fued which pitted Mr. Oxendine against a 15 year old blogger.
The next candidate to consider is Eric Johnson. . As a longtime legislator, Mr. Johnson possibly has ethical issues, but that pales before his involvement in the Genarlow Wilson affair.
Mr. Wilson is a young man sent to prison for having sex with a 15 yo, when Mr. Wilson was 17. Eric Johnson thought prison was appropriate for Mr. Wilson. State Attorney General Thurburt Baker, a democratic candidate for Governor, is also involved in the Genarlow Wilson affair..
The last two republicans we will consider are Humbert Humbert Ray McBerry and Nathan Deal. Mr. McBerry is a former educator, with an convincing reason for leaving the profession. Nathan Deal is a former congressman, who resigned before a house ethics investigation could take place. If you type “Nathan Deal ethics” into google, you will have 102k results.
The democratic side is hardly any better. Former governor “King Roy” Roy Barnes is running for another chance. One of his opponents is Attorney General Thurburt Baker. Mr. Baker was involved in the Genarlow Wilson affair..
Mr. Baker is an African American, which can be a disadvantage in redneck Georgia. Mr. Baker does not help himself with the commercial that is embedded above. White people are not impressed when a black man is said to not know his father.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

Uzi called PG just as he was coming back to the computer with a sandwich. Even though it was Georgia July hot, Uzi wanted to get out and walk. Before long the old people’s favorite place to walk was suggested…the mall. PG put clean pants on, and went over to Perimeter Mall.
Walking into the capitalism cathedral, PG began to think that he was the only white man without a tattoo. The lady at the tea shop did not mind, and offered PG a sample of some product. The two teas the teased PG had a lovely taste, and many fine benefits for good health. The terminally frugal PG said thank you, and headed to the food court to meet Uzi.
Neither PG nor Uzi was ever a heavy duty shopper, and have slacked off more and more as time goes by. The number of massage and chiropractic kiosks in the mall was a bit surprising. Another asian in the mall promoted a show by Chinese acrobats, that is coming to Cobb County in August.
On the upstairs part of the mall (where fans blow the aroma of the food court) was the apple store. The merchandise was beautiful, and since PG can’t afford it, he didn’t ask what it costs. One computer had a screen the size of a living room TV, and the cutest keyboard. The sales staff was attentive, even the one with the tattoos. As PG left, the young lady at the door said “have an excellent day”.
Before long, it was time to hit the food court. First, you go for a slow walk around the facility, taking samples from anyone foolish enough to offer one. Then a decision is made, and in the best food court tradition, PG went to one vendor and Uzi to another. PG got a fine meal of chicken, rice, greens, water, and styrofoam, and paid $5.87. While the food court lacked the ambiance of Piccadilly, it was a nice change of pace.
After being satisfied that nothing had been missed, Uzi walked out to his car. A discussion was had about the struggle of old fogeyness(spell check suggestions:fogginess, forgiveness) , and how there has to be something else to do. PG walked back inside, took a few more pictures of mannequins, and went home.

While PG was taking mannequin pictures, Uzi suggested pasting head shots of Sarah Palin on top. This may yet happen, as both are plastic air heads. Getting a head picture that fits on the body is a bit tricky, and may be more trouble than it is worth.
While editing the pictures, PG listened to a segment of Bloggingheads. To no ones surprise, the show was about Sarah Palin and religion. The hottest ex-governor is on a lot of minds these days. At the end of the show, PG looked through the comments, and gave up after about forty.
The day before, bloggingheads ran a show about the Congo. There has been a ghastly war there, with millions reported dead. ( The real toll is unknowable.) Compared to the concern about “liberating” the people of Iraq, the slaughter in the Congo has gotten little attention in the USA. Compared to the outpouring of thought about Palinoid (spell check suggestions: Palindrome, Palimony ) religion, the diavlog on the Congo got one comment.

Last week, the results of an investigation into “climategate” was released. The scientists of the E.C.U. at U.E.A. were cleared of any wrongdoing , i.e. doctoring data to prove a preconceived point. Even hotel freebie favorite USA Today featured this report.
Some of the players felt that the theft of internal emails was a crime . This matter was not dealt with in this report.Also, there was some criticism of the scientists for not being more “transparent” about their data.
In other energy news, Germany is planning to get 100% of it’s energy from renewable sources by 2150. Fossil fuels might not be the only game in town after all.
Pictures for this feature from The Library of Congress .

There was this message on facebook… “I BET you CAN’T stay on this page for 30 SECONDS without LAUGHING!” Now PG is opposed to gambling, but worries about his sense of humor sometimes. Even though the bet did not specify odds or a point spread, this was one to look into.
The facebook application quandary was easy to bypass. Just highlight the message, right click, and choose the google search.
Sure enough, the original page was easy to find. The phrase at the top…See the hidden content on Facebook pages without the hassles…was troubling, but not enough to stay away. After all, that virus scan last night didn’t show any problems, so the site might be ok.
The can’t laugh bet is based on a youtube video. The entertainment did not make PG laugh. There was an animated dancing banana that was shown twice. The good news is, the commenters agreed that the video was not funny. A person called Jesus said “God doesn’t love the creator of this video…” PG worries that his funny bone is broken sometimes, but enough people agree that the video in question is lame.
The bypass page has an ad on top from LaQuinta Inns. There is a story about a woman going to a hospital to have her baby. She drove past a LaQuinta Inn, and named her baby girl LaQuinta. If she has a brother named LeBron we have problems. ( Does anyone note that the initials of LeBron James are LBJ?)
As your reward for reading through this, here area a couple of jokes. A TRUE SOUTHERN LADY………..A very gentle Southern lady was driving across the Savannah River Bridge in Georgia one day. As she neared the top of the bridge, she noticed a young man fixing to jump. She stopped her car, rolled down the window and said, “Please don’t jump, think of your dear mother and father.””Mom and Dad are both dead; I’m going to jump.””Well, think of your wife and children.””I’m not married and I don’t have any kids.””Well, think of Robert E. Lee.” ”Who’s Robert E. Lee?””Well bless your heart, just go ahead and jump, you dumb ass Yankee.”
This hair color joke is courtesy of yellowdoggrannie.A blind man and his guide dog enter a Bar and find their way to a bar stool. After ordering a drink, and sitting there for a while, the blind guy yells to the bartender, “Hey, you wanna hear a blond joke?”The bar immediately becomes absolutely quiet. In a husky, deep voice, the woman next to him says, “Before you tell that joke, you should know something. The bartender is blond, the bouncer is blond and I’m a 6′ tall, 200 lb. blond with a black belt in karate. What’s more, the woman sitting next to me is blond and she’s a weight lifter. The lady to your right is a blond, and she’s a pro wrestler. Think about it seriously, Mister. You still wanna tell that joke?”The blind guy thinks a moment and says, “Nah, not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times.”

JoemyG-d reports today on a proposal in San Francisco to ban the sale of pets. The proposal has little chance of passing. There is even less chance of this measure being enacted in Georgia. But maybe it should.
According the California source “The real problem, staff said, is hamsters. People buy the high-strung, nocturnal rodents because they’re under the temporary impression that hamsters are cute and cuddly. But the new owners quickly learn that hamsters are, in fact, prone to biting, gnawing through expensive wiring and maniacally racing on their exercise wheels at 2 a.m.
So the animals end up at the shelter. Just about every species has its own rescue group in San Francisco, but no one seems to want hamsters. Hamsters are the No. 1 animal euthanized at the city’s shelter, said San Francisco Animal Care and Control director Rebecca Katz.”(Katz?)
Here is an animal euthanasia provider who supports the ban. People get pets as an impulse, or as gifts. When they get tired of them, the pet is often murdered. There is also the issue to the excess reproductive capacity of many animals.
When PG took speech and drama in high school, one of the cheerleaders started a speech by saying “you are going to think I am a monster”. Her proposal was to outlaw pets. The amount of food used to feed companion animals could be used to feed humans. Ditto the medical resources used to treat sick animals.
People sometimes are so in love with their pets, that they do not see the harm they do to others. A dog that will not stop barking is an infringement on the rights of others. A pit bull that gets loose can ruin the life of someone unfortunate to get in the way.
PG lived for 23 years in a duplex, and had a wide variety of neighbors. He was fussed at for closing the gate to the back yard by one household. Another neighbor threatened a lawsuit for leaving the gate open.A Florida import dumped his catbox eighteen inches from where PG opened his car door. There was the little black dog that PG became friends with, only to be poisoned by enemies of the owner.
The United States is entering a period of austerity. It is well known that the pampered pets of the wealthy live much better than many human children. Maybe this money needs to be spent on people.
Pictures are from The ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

UPDATE: The following comments were left at JoemyG-d about this matter: There was nothing said about gerbils.//It is already illegal to purchase, import, or keep a gerbil as a pet in the state of California. It’s been the law for many years.//Where did Richard Gere get his?//New Hampster.