John McCain has two turtles named Cuff and Link.
I take it this means that nobody will mind my two rabbits, Port and Folio.
UPDATE: Banking on the continued relevance of hippies is never, ever a mistake.
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My old cat “Miss Thang” was renamed by my mother “Big Guy.” (He’s lived with my parents for the last 10 years.) They put his 19-y.o. fat butt to sleep yesterday.
I’m so sorry MAJeff.
I have a 13 yo that’s been with me since I adopted him at 6 weeks from a vet (no humane society or aspca in northeast kingdom). His name is C-80 (named after a dog named D-O-G). And I just adopted Monty from a lady on Craig’s List cause she couldn’t care for him anymore. I wonder is 4 too old to change their names? It’s not like he looks at you when you call his name anyways.
I wonder is 4 too old to change their names?
Absolutely Not!
“Miss Thanks” had previously been “Hobbes” for four years. After “Miss Thang” didn’t stick, he became either “Big Guy” to my parents or “Buddy” to me.
Harriet, my current cat, was named “Grizabella” by her previous family.
If any pet enters my house with the name of a cartoon character or a musical character—especially one named by Eliot and Webber—it will have a new name.
Their suggestions: Bichon Frise, Chinese crested, poodle, soft coated Wheaten Terrier or miniature Schnauzer.
What? Are Collies not overbred enough for a president? Get a mutt my man! They’re as American as apple pie.
Amalink, you can always change a cat’s name. It’s not like they come when you call or anything. I should have named mine [tongue click] and [whistle] instead of Milo and Grady.
It’s not like they come when you call or anything.
My (sadly late) cat Boris would always come when I called him. I managed to train him by showering him with attention every time I said his name.
Between cancer and poisonous cat food (thanks, China!), we’ve had four cats in four years. Boris and Natasha are gone and now we have Keaton (as in Buster) and Annie (as in the name she came with).
This quote from the article cracks me up…
“Richard Powell, 79, of Spokane, Wash., whose dog passed away last fall, said if a person owns a pet that “tells you that they’re responsible at least for something, for the care of something.”
Not the number of kids, kind of kids, history of public service, number of marriages. Just pets. Which, I guess, means the crazy cat woman from “The Simpsons” should be running for Governor of whatever state Springfield is in.
I’m sure there’s a list somewhere of inane campaign stories. This has to be up there.
This is seriously so dumb every molecule in my brain temporarily exploded while I was reading it. At least it acknowledged the obvious post-hoc fallacy in the last bit of it.
This killed me—“Richard Powell, 79, of Spokane, Wash., whose dog passed away last fall, said if a person owns a pet that “tells you that they’re responsible at least for something, for the care of something.”
Gee, I guess having a wife and two kids doesn’t count as “caring for something.”
Forget the bichon frise, I want to see a giant, mouse-ravaging pixie frog in the white house. That’d be my kind of president right there.
I actually had a weegie named Mackison (after the beer we were drinking when he wandered up) who would come when called, but the old joke was too good to pass up.
Well, supposedly pets make you less likely to commit suicide… and you don’t want to deal with a suicidal president… of course, pets don’t make you less suicidal, just less likely to do the deed, so that doesn’t really…
Nope, the justification doesn’t work. This is the worst fluff.
Not that McCain is not a rich jackass, because he is. But Rocky’s pet turtles in Rocky I are named Cuff and Link, too, and that’s probably where these names come from. And Rocky Balboa is not a rich jackass until Rocky III.
Houdini’s Ghost - I’ll bet McCain gave Joe Lieberman a servant robot, too.
Wait… So they didn’t count Lieberman as being ooe of McCain’s pets?
Well, supposedly pets make you less likely to commit suicide… and you don’t want to deal with a suicidal president… of course, pets don’t make you less suicidal, just less likely to do the deed, so that doesn’t really…
I guess I’m morbid, because I immediately thought, “I wouldn’t commit suicide at home because the cats would totally eat me once I was dead.”
Mnemosyne, LOL, that might be part of the equation. I’m pretty sure my two cats wouldn’t be very discriminatory, either….
Mnemosyne, we have three cats and a Dachshund. I’m pretty sure we’re going to be eaten whether we’re dead or not.
WF
Re: UPDATE
“Don’t ‘hope’ for a better life. Vote for one.”
Check. I’m voting for Obama as oon as the polls open. 
Well, if you love them so much, why don’t you marry them?
Oh wait, that’s either Pee Wee Herman, or John Cornyn. Or a weird combination of the two.
You can pretty much always change a dog’s name too, and they DO come when called. I’ve rarely kept a dog’s “pound-name” and thanks to nick-naming, each of my dogs probably has a half-dozen names they answer to. My posting name here is one dog’s “full name”, but Calliope Jane is more commonly known as Callie and also answers to Calipers, Q, Potato, PiggyDog, and Pie (yeah, each one of those has a story).
Oh now wait a minute. People are going to vote against Obama because he doesn’t own a pet?
The biggest drawback of democracy is that people like that get a vote. Hell, you might as well let their pets vote.
Mnemosyne, if you can, check out T. Coraghessan Boyle’s short story “Thirteen Hundred Rats” in the current New Yorker. I’m starting to have completely depraved thoughts of this happening to some of the people in this post’s link.
I thought Lieberman was McCain’s servant robot. Rimshot!
This is some seriously stupid shit. I think the AP reporter should be at least able to understand this survey doesn’t imply that people who own pets are more likely to prefer McCain because they own pets. Its a correlation, probably related to the fact that people who live in suburban/rural areas are more likely to own pets and more likely to vote for republicans. Smarter reporters please?
i love “rocky” too but when do we get beyond the silly getting to know the candidate bs?
Stephen, I thought so too, plus Obama does better with college students and most dorms don’t allow pets… Plus, apartment pet “deposits” (you don’t get them back, so why is it a deposit and not a fee??) are excruciatingly high - I have to pay $400 per cat everytime I move!
It’s all explained at the end of the article. McCain tends to poll better wmong the sort of people who tend to own pets. What we have here is a prime example of correlation, not causation. But apparently that’s too big a word to put in the heads of Americans, so the AP decided to just make stuff up. We have the best jourmalism in the world here in the USA!
Gee, and here I thought the word “responsible” applied to “not taking on a creature you cannot adequately care for because you travel all the time”.
I guess McCain has a full staff of pet people to care for his pets. Doesn’t strike me as a regular guy thing, really.
p.s. to MAJeff - so sorry for your loss. Give Harriet extra treats and loves for me, ‘kay?
Banking on the continued relevance of hippies is never, ever a mistake.
Hey, I’m relevant! No, really I am!
thanks, Ms Kate. Harriet is hugged out and was happy to see me leave today
Phew, I’m sorry turtle lovers, but turtles can stink. I mean we’re talking relationship-breaker-stink here.
I suppose it keeps ol’ three testicle tomcat at bay too.
Oh Jeebus.
(from the Cuff and Link article) “Taylor, who described herself as a retired stay-at-home wife, owns two cats, Lady Jane Taylor and Mr. Tommy Katz.”
Retired stay-at-home-wife??? What the FUCK DO YOU HAVE TO BE RETIRED FROM? Because you’re still at home, and you’re still a wife…...so you’re STILL doing your job….which is to be his slave.
But hey, at least you have two cats!
????
Kiah, maybe she means “retired homemaker” (I’ve noticed ‘homemaker’ and ‘SAHW’ are used interchangably a lot, even though they aren’t alwayd the same thing) as in she used to be his slave, but finally she put her foot down and made him hire a maid or at least do his own laundry? Does seem a bit confusing…
Perhaps McMaverick should have named his turtles:
Ass and Wipe.
......so you’re STILL doing your job….which is to be his slave.
Now, now, Kiah, if she’d have to be doing some mandatory volunteering to rightfully be called a slave.
Maybe a retired stay at home wife is one who got a really good divorce settlement
Maybe one of his kids named one Link on account of being green and he wasn’t hip enough to name the other Zelda?
Our cat, now living with my daughter, answers to her name (when she feels like it) in two languages (Miss Tea and O’Cha). It’s not that cats don’t know you are talking to them, they just don’t usually care.
I have friend who has two slaughter-lambs (a black one and a white one) named “McCain” and Obama!
Clever!
Aside from bogarting his turtle names from “Rocky,” McCain’s Big Thing is his Vietnam War service. Funny how nobody other than Wes Clark is pointing out how long ago that was. George W. Bush didn’t run in the 80s on his World War II service. (Other than some very garbled comments about thinking about the separation of church and state while he waited to be rescued in the Pacific.)
I keep hearing Janet Jackson in my head:“What have you done for me lately? Oooo, yeah…”
Vapidity, thine initials are A.P.