Jack, you're dodging the real question: Which cat is more qualified?

Billy for Congress; Lola for state senator. (Billy roams further.)

Personally, I'm on Team Lola. Willamette Week's hit job on Billy may have been unfair, but it did leave many unanswered questions that he still refuses to address.

I thought this meant you were hitting the gym.

I hate the move in this particular race. Bob Sallinger is a credible candidate for this position, who has done a ton of good things for the area. (He's one of the lead advocates for West Hayden Island, for example.)

There are plenty of races where I'd sooner vote for a cat over any of the eligible humans, but this isn't one of them.

Think I saw your cats dozing during the District 1 debate. If they are going to nap through the campaign, what the heck will they do at meetings?

Vote for Bob Sallinger! Unless you hate bald eagles on West Hayden Island. In which case, may the fleas of a thousand compost rats infest your groin area.

My particular take on Sallinger is less that I am profoundly less than impressed. I am a cat person who has long been involved in pro cat policy reform. Sallinger has been blowing the horn to keep all cats indoors since time immemorial as they eat native songbirds (no "nuisance" swallows mind you). I am not surprised he wants to be a politician: he set up a straw man with the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon to go on the record supporting Trap Neuter Return for feral and stray cats so long as he and his cronies can trap cats near his wildlife preserves without notice to cat owners and take them to shelters that kill most of them. As a result pet cats are disappearing at an alarming rate. If Sallinger had a sense of reality, he would realize many people do keep their pet cats indoors now days and it isn't necessary to remove every last cat; he is one of the most uncompromising people I can imagine-blind too. He called me uncompromising because I have the nerve to believe cat lives have value and that cat owners have rights in them.
Sallinger is with local Audubon; until recently it hasn't been especially militant, leaving that distinction to the American Bird Conservancy which has been promoting zero tolerance for outdoor cats. Most irresponsible, this August, they cited a non-published study from a PhD student in Georgia who found that 55 neighborhood cats with cameras on their collars killed five birds in a week. From this, ABC exprapolated that cats are responsible for the decline of 1/3 of bird species. One of the researchers stated to Alley Cat Allies president, Becky Robinson, that this kind of exprapolation was not part of the study. ABC's spin was picked up by the news media, including 20/20 and cat groups are launching petitions to stop the irresponsible reporting that results in unnecessary cat deaths. What was most interesting to me about the Georgia study was that only 44 percent of the cats hunted. I have noticed that there are some cats who will starve to death before hunting as the instinct has been bred out of them. I read something recently about swallows flying at 24 mph. I am waiting for the bird groups to say that cats fly at 25 mph, they are so intent on killing cats they will say or do anything. Someone who is trying to move the discussion into the realm of reality is Peter Wolf at his blog: Vox Felina.

That should be nuisance starlings.

I'd write in "Anyone else..." on my write-in line. Smith and Hales are both stinkers.

What a screed. Hey, starlings, as foreign to America and from the same continents as the domestic cat, are used to being aware of cats and rarely get nabbed. Besides, they taste nasty and cats don't like them.

I will happily bequeath my seat at EMSWCD to Jack's cat (Lola, not Billy). Board meetings are Monday 6-8 pm. No pay, but free pizza for whatever that is worth to Lola. Maybe they can add some anchovies.

At times like these, I almost wish I still lived in Portland, because then I'd push a write-in campaign for my late savannah monitor Steadman. Steadman got his name as a hatchling, when he'd demonstrate his displeasure with explosive diarrhea that made the inside of his cage look like a Ralph Steadman painting. Not only was it a nightmare to clean up, but the stench would have burned out the nose hairs on a dead nun. Oh, and he could aim, too. In other words, Steadman would be the one individual who could continue Sam Adams's policies without a single change, and Steadman would probably make more sense in his speeches. Best of all, a six-foot carnivorous reptile is already "Portland Weird" enough that he wouldn't need hipster glasses.