British Kitties

The lovely Moonbotica's abyssinian kitties. George (top) and Heidi (middle).

Separated at birth

Pictures of Mrstrailerco's late kitty, who looked remarkably like Maxx.

Oh, if they could only stay with us forever.

Tidbit

Had to steal this photo. From cuteoverload.com. Is there anything on earth cuter than a teensy little kitten?

hat tip to watertiger.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Copyright: Juan Casado (skylook.net)

This amazing photo of Maxx's comet, vertically compressed, was taken at sunset last Friday from mountains above Catalonia, Spain.

(Yes, it's actually McNaught's Comet, but only because the astronomy world hasn't been clued in yet.) Hat tip to Cardamon in comments.

Decapitatage

Via BBC News, Saddam Hussein's top aides hanged:

Two of Saddam Hussein's key aides have been hanged in Baghdad, two weeks after the chaotic execution of the former Iraqi president.

There were "no violations" this time, officials said, but Saddam Hussein's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, was decapitated as he was hanged.

Well, he wasn't taunted, but they did rip his head off. I guess that's alright then. / snark

Jesus fucking christ. Maybe this is why the civilized world has abandonned capital punishment. What's next? boiling in oil? drawing and quartering?

Bring it On

AP/Charles Dharapak

Bush and his chief controller, Darth Cheney, are vowing to escalate the war no matter what Congress or the American people want. Via the WAPO - Bush: 'We're Going Forward':

In an interview broadcast last night on CBS's "60 Minutes," Bush said he has the authority as commander in chief to move ahead with the deployment, regardless of what the Democratic-controlled Congress does in opposition.

"In this situation, I do, yeah," Bush said. "I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I've made my decision. And we're going forward."

Sounds like a "Bring It On!" moment to me. Someone should remind Bush what happened the last time he threw the gauntlet down like this. Hey chimpy!! "how's that working out for you bud?"

If chimpy continues to thumb his nose at the public and the congress, I predict that even republican senators and congressmen will finally get sick of him and pull the plug.

Too bad they'll be about 5 years too late.

Note: I chose the photo above because it's the perfect illustration of just how alone Bush is with his Iraq escalation policy and a good example of how powerful a well-composed environmental portrait can be.

Henriette

Henriette is ready for her close-up Mr. DeMille.

The lovely and talented Henriette lives with the lovely and talented Plum P. in Canada.

The Little Sociopath

If you never thought that Bush was pathological, you need to see the tape of Bush on 60 Minutes. He said this evening:

"The Iraqi people owe us a debt of gratitude."

Really? We invaded, uninvited, and broke their country. At least a 150,000 Iraqi civilians have died, the country is in ruins, and there is no end in sight.

Iraqi civilians are fleeing the country at the rate of 10,000 per month, and those who are too poor, or are unable to flee are basically "queing up to die," in the words of one correspondant.

Ethnic cleansing is a fact of life.

Things couldn't get much worse. (Well, aliens could land, I suppose, and unleash a plague or something.) And yet, Bush says they owe us a debt of gratitude.

Fuck you Mr. Bush. Fuck you.

Maxx's Comet, the Comet McNaught

AP/Jeff McIntosh

The Comet McNaught, photographed over Devil's Head Mountain (Alberta) in the Canadian Rockies on January 11, 2007.

Pretty Picture of the Day

Reuters/Jason Lee

From the International Ice Festival in China. Lovely.

Ntodd's kiddenz

Sam! who was found as a teeny little guy in Ntodd's garage. Two years, whoops, three years later, he is the elegant young teen you see today nesting in Ntodd's office.



Lola, who is actually a boy, and one of the punkz.



Vinnie, the other punk.

Wolcott's Cats

James Wolcott, the god of snark, has been very selfish in not sharing his delightful bengal kitties with us. So, in the interests of the blogosphere, I've decided to post pictures of what I think his kitties might look like.

Here's one of them, lounging in Wolcott's upper westside apartment.



And here's the two older ones, after reading Wolcott's latest blog post:



And lastly, here is Wolcott's newest bengal kitten:



Now I realize that Wolcott doesn't read this blog, but if he should happen to, if he'd kindly send me some jpegs of the real Wolcott kitties, I'll be happy to post them.

Plushy blogging - the final session

I've been staring at my camera all week, knowing there were a few frames of Maxx still on there. I just didn't have the heart to download them before tonight.

This photo was taken on the sixth. (yes, there were originally two photos up on the post, but I felt like the second was an invasion of Maxx's privacy) I used to love how he'd catch his little tongue between his teeth like that. RIP sweet buddy.

Update: Barry mentions in comments that the comet McNaught became prominently visible about the day of Maxx's death, and that maybe the comet appeared to take him off to the stars. I only hope his spirit is somewhere where he feels safe and warm.


The Comet McNaught, photographed on January 6th. Copyright © 2007 by Michael Jäger and Gerald Rhemann (Austria)

Cassie's housemates

Here is Bella (top) and Romeo who live with Ilze and Cassie.

Fiona!!

Lovely Fiona lives with Dave™ and his family in California. If I remember the story correctly, Dave and his wife had just lost one of their kitties to old age, and the very next day they heard a tiny voice crying from under their front porch. It was Fiona, who has grown up to be a lovely kitty.

Plush Life Buddies

I'd like to continue the tradition of posting photos of some of the plush life family's kittenz. It certainly will make me feel better. So I'll start with photos of Odin, who lives with geor3ge in Indiana.





Please send me your own pics.

Eschaton Refugees, Welcome

Haloscan sucks ass. Feel free to vent here if you'd like about Pat Buchanan's insanity, chimpy idiocy, or any other subject.

Thank you

I want to thank each and every one of you who have left messages of condolence or have emailed me. You have made a very difficult time a little bit easier for me. (And a special thank you to all Maxx's blogger buddies who posted tributes to him) I miss him terribly already, but I'm relieved that his pain is finally over. Someone said today that he's frolicking with the other kitties in heaven tonight, but when I think about it, I remember how much Mr. Plushy loved humans. I'll bet he's making the rounds of all the angels, seeing what they're up to, sitting in their laps and scamming chin scritches from them.

Dr. Pendant posted this little bit of verse that I think is lovely (from Romeo and Juliet, I believe):

When he shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he shall make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

I believe I will always look at the starry night sky and smile, thinking of my dear little Maxx. I hope you all will too.

R.I.P. Lion Kitty Maxx

Good bye sweet plushy prince. You were the funniest, sweetest and most loving friend I could ever have. Each and every day with you was a gift.

Sunday update

Lion kitty Maxx looks all relaxed and happy in this photo from this summer. He's actually not that happy this evening, since he had to go to the vet this afternoon to get his pain patch replaced. And horrors!! they shaved another spot on the other side of his shoulder. He's turning into patchwork kitty.

Oh well, he'll be niced and stoned in about 12 hours. In the meantime he's got some nice bupronex to keep him company.

Saturday Happy Maxx photo

Celebrate the plush!!

Cassie!!

This is Cassie, the beautiful girl who lives with Ilze. My but she has a delightfully plushy tail! And what in the world was she doing up on the roof? Looking for aliens?

update: edited because I got confused on who the photos were from. Oy.

Tux's tribe

Here are Max (top) and Nicky, Tux's handsome brothers. Nicky is apparently irritated that he can't be in the contest. Silly kitty.

Arthur J. Shouty-Crackers!!

Here is Arthur J., lion kitty Maxx's best friend and confidant. Arthur and Maxx visit through Maxx's wormhole and have had many delightful adventures together (we won't talk about the margaritas, the purloined jeep or the night they almost wrecked Auntie GWPDA's jeep). More recently, Arthur J. has been a great comfort to Maxx through his surgery and his illness.

Arthur is seen here stalking and killing the dreaded alien biscuit monster, lest it sneak into the house and kill his mom while she's sleeping. Good doggie!!

We have another contestant!!

Look at that magnificent tummy!! This in Bandicoot, who lives with faithful reader the Political Cat.

Henriette

This is Henriette, who lives in Canada with Plum P. She can't be in the pageant either, but she is awful pretty.

Ian

Mathew would like to enter Ian in the contest, but since he's not black and white, he doesn't get to play. We'll just have to admire him instead.

What excellent whiskers he has!

Black and White Kitty Wars!!!

Oh dear. I said that Hidey was the most beautiful black and white kitty evah, and poopyman threw down the gauntlet. Here's a couple pictures of Tux, his norvegian forest cat. What a delightful pink nose! Tux was rescued at the age of 2 days from a parking lot and bottle fed to become the magnificent creature he is today.




And of course here's Hidey.



Who's the fairest of them all? I am NOT taking sides. Do I look crazy to you guys?

Magoo!!

We can't forget Magoo, Hidey's sister, who lives with Barry in Alaska.

Photo of the Day

AP/Mike Meadows

I adore lightning, and I adore lightning photography. AP photographer Mike Meadows has captured a spectacular lightning bolt while composing a gorgeous photograph. Simply lovely.

Space Blogging

Not a new image from Hubble, but a lovely one. The Bubble Nebula:

The central star of the Bubble Nebula, or NGC 7635, is 40 times more massive than the sun and is responsible for a stellar wind moving at 4 million m.p.h. (6.4 million kilometers per hour), propelling particles off the surface of the star. The "bubble" surface is the outermost edge of the particle wave.

Credit: NASA

Hidey the Snow Cat!!

For a cat that lives in Alaska, Hidey doesn't appear to like snow so much.

She's still the most beautiful black and white kitty on the planet.