Human House Cats - the world under UBI

Some UBI proponents are convinced that incentive effects will go away. People who are less stressed about meeting their basic needs will actually be more productive, proponents argue, because they will have the financial freedom to experiment with different career options. And one might find anecdotal cases where that could be true.

But for the vast majority, a UBI will create legions of human house cats. Living on a UBI might not be all that uncomfortable if you can afford a room, ramen noodles, and an Xbox to while away the hours.

And, like house cats, they'll be great until they shred society's sofas, chap in its flower beds, leave part chewed dead animals in the hall, and wail all night because they fancy the bird opposite. I guess too, that the wealthy elite will probably want to have them neutered - that might be the deal: food, drink, warmth and entertainment in exchange for the chop.

....

In defence of pussy cats (not that they need it)

Writing in the Telegraph, Andrew Brown launches an attack on the pussy cat. Or more precisely on the owners of pussy cats.

What cats do, as everyone knows but some prefer not to think about, is kill wild birds – millions every year, according to the RSPB.

Here are these two birds bringing up their families in our garden, feeding their bleating chicks, and along comes the domestic cat, a ruthless hunter introduced by humans to mess up the natural order of things.

“Belling the cat” (that is, hanging a bell around the animal’s neck, as in Aesop’s fable) ought to be the minimum cat owners do.

At least that would warn birds of their presence. I would go further – cat owners should stop their pets reproducing indiscriminately. It would also be better if cats were kept indoors at night.

If you own a cat, what it gets up to it is your responsibility. If your pet goes out and slaughters millions of birds and chicks, it is your business.

This bloke has a serious problem with your pussy cat. And all because he's noticed that a couple of local cats have been stalking the long-tailed tits nesting in his garden. Our writer is terribly excited about the fact that these birds are nesting there but less excited about the other perfectly natural thing going on - the cat stalking the nesting birds.

Now one thing is true, domestic cats kill a lot of birds every year - about 55 million according to the RSPB. And in the scale of things this seems an awful lot of predation. However, the reality is that predation by cats isn't responsible for any decline in bird populations. Here's the RSPB again:

Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds.

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season

We also know that of the millions of baby birds hatched each year, most will die before they reach breeding age. This is also quite natural, and each pair needs only to rear two young that survive to breeding age to replace themselves and maintain the population.

It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season, so cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations. If their predation was additional to these other causes of mortality, this might have a serious impact on bird populations.

Yet this doesn't stop people like Andrew Brown writing their pig-ignorant rants about predation by cats. So here's a little more information. Firstly there have been significant declines in some bird species with farmland species the worst affected. However when we look at the main garden species - blackbirds, blues tits, great tits, wrens, robins and chaffinches - there hasn't been any decline in the period from 1970 to 2012. Indeed some species such as the long tailed tit (yes, the bird Andrew Brown is so agitated about) have seen what DEFRA describe as 'weak increase'. Put simply the birds that cats are most likely to predate aren't the species in decline.

There are about 7.9 million domestic cats in the UK (according to the Pet Food Manufacturers Association who I guess make a study of these things) which means that the average mog catches about seven birds a year. Just taking one species, the blackbird. There are about 5 million breeding pairs in the UK and, in a typical year, a pair of blackbirds with raise two or three broods - four if there's a mild autumn - with each brood comprising 3-5 chicks. That's around 60 million blackbird chicks every year. Repeat this calculation for blue tits, dunnocks, wrens, robins and that lovely long-tailed tit and we have literally hundreds of millions of chicks born every year.

Declines in bird populations are not down to cats. Mostly the declines are down to changes in habitat, modern farming practice and competition from other birds. Andrew Brown may, in his ever so urban and squeamish way, not like to see those little chicks munched up by next door's tom cat but it's a long step to get to blaming that cat for bird population declines that either aren't happening or else are down to fertilisers, hedge-removal and marshland drainage.

Cats have been part of human living for a very long time:

All domestic cats, the authors declared, descended from a Middle Eastern wildcat, Felis sylvestris, which literally means "cat of the woods." Cats were first domesticated in the Near East, and some of the study authors speculate that the process began up to 12,000 years ago.

And during that time those cats have done a sterling job of everyday pest control while also providing the playfulness and cuteness that makes them such an Internet sensation. It seems however that some people have a problem with cats. But instead of using their newspaper column to tell fibs about these wonderful creatures, such people should just come clean and say "I don't like cats". We understand this position (weird though it seems to us mog fans) and it's so much most honourable than trying to argue cat owners are bad people who don't care about wildlife.
 ....

Quote of the day - on the cat ASBO

****

Rocky the Ginger Tom has got himself an ASBO from Rotherham Council:

I am in receipt of several complaints regarding your cat Rocky causing alarm, distress and annoyance to other residents in the area of your property. Although I appreciate that cats do roam, I would prefer if you could take steps to keep your cat Rocky from leaving the perimeter of your garden in the future. Should further complaints be received about damage done to neighbours’ property by your pet you will be charged for the repairs. 

Well I guess the Council had to do something! However, the owners comment is priceless:

"How can a cat behave antisocially? It’s an animal, it’s a pet - he’s not going to bite your leg off, drink alcohol in the street or try and rob your phone."

....

What Sharia says about leaving your wealth to the cats home

****

It's OK folks I'm not channelling some Muslim scholar or even Karl Sharro. But I am bothered by the kneejerk reaction to the Law Society's guidance on sharia wills:

The Law Society was accused of giving its stamp of approval to discriminatory practices after it published advice on writing wills which deny women an equal share and exclude “illegitimate” children or unbelievers. 

My problem is that wills are intended to be discriminatory and, more to the point, it's the testator's wealth not society's. This means that the person making the will can do so on whatever basis he or she wants. We do not need the permission of parliament to write a will in which:

“The male heirs in most cases receive double the amount inherited by a female heir of the same class. Non-Muslims may not inherit at all, and only Muslim marriages are recognised. Similarly, a divorced spouse is no longer a Sharia heir, as the entitlement depends on a valid Muslim marriage existing at the date of death.” 

This may offend you - it certainly offended ex-Conservative MP, Lousie Mensch - but there is nothing in English law to prevent people from ordering their affairs in this way.

By way of comparison, why no faux-offence at the regular decisions made by worshippers of Bast:

When the much-loved British actress Beryl Reid died, she left her £1 million home to her four cats, all of which had been strays that she had rescued.

Hamish, Coco, Boon, Tuffnel and Eileen continued to live in luxury even after their besotted owner’s death.

Is this not as egregious a decision as deciding that the strictures of an ancient religion will determine who gets what?

As a society we have two choices here: we either believe that people can decide how their wealth is distributed after they die or else we don't. And in the latter case (which those so agitated by Sharia wills seem to have adopted) we would have to accept some intervention of the state to determine how the money is divided. Tell me folks, do you want parliament to decide how you organise your estate?

If you believe in a free society where we may order our affairs as we wish then you have to accept that some people wish to live according to the rules set by their faith. And for a devout Muslim this means Sharia. This doesn't mean that we can require people to order their affairs in this way merely that, if this is what a person chooses, they've every right - in England have always had every right - to do that unhindered by the intervention of the state.

And for those who adhere to other faiths, criticising the rules set by Sharia is, to put it mildly, monumental hypocrisy.

I am still unsure though what Sharia says about leaving your wealth to the cats home?

....

Pete's Mission: A New Year Thought

I was going to write a long, thoughtful, slightly meandering piece for New Year. Around the myths of Janus I would paint a relevant look at today’s issues – and tomorrow’s hopes. But then I thought; “you guys don’t want more dreary forecasting, more ill-informed futurology or another lump of maudlin remembrance of 2011.”

You want to party. To celebrate something – maybe a good year, maybe the end of a bad year, perhaps just the fact of survival. And so you should, properly with food, wine, good company and the joys of music.

Tomorrow we start again on our search – Pete the cat’s search:

"...While still a kitten, all fluff and buzzes, Pete had worked out a simple philosophy. I was in charge of quarters, rations, and weather; he was in charge of everything else.  But he held me especially responsible for weather. Connecticut winters are good only for Christmas cards; regularly that winter Pete would check his own door, refuse to go out it because of that unpleasant white stuff beyond it (he was no fool), then badger me to open a people door.  He had a fixed conviction that at least one of them must lead into summer weather."

Tomorrow we will – again – set out looking for that doorway into summer. Some of us will find it and walk through the grass or curl our toes in the soft sand. Others will not find the right door.

But what makes us human is that we carry on the search. If we stop or worse, call for someone else to look for us or even make a new door, then we become a sheep – and we fail in Pete’s mission.

There is a doorway into summer but, unless you’re a cat, someone else can’t open it for you.

Happy New Year. Have a great 2012 looking for your doorway!

...

...and I suppose you think that's funny, eh?

"I was trying to catch a nap"

See you....

Busy day today - so no blogigng. Have asked Kiwi to look out for you - I think he's agreed!

Doorways....

One of my favourite books is Robert Heinlein's "Doorway into Summer". Mostly because the real hero of the book is a cat - a boy cat with a rough attitude not one of those pampered housebound metrosexual pussy-cats but one who travelled everywhere with his head poking out from a kit bag. What this has to do with anything is moot but the idea of the doorway was central to the book - the cat would travel from door to door in the house knowing that one would be the 'doorway into summer' and he could go out without getting cold or wet or both.

Which rather takes me to the point of doors. Are they to keep us out or to protect us while we're in? And are we not fascinated by the possibilities that lie behind the door. Don't tell me you haven't tried a door handle or two in your time? Or peeked carefully - and with a slightly guilty feeling - through a door left ajar? Of course you have and, like Heinlein's cat, you're left disappointed. There is no summer, no secret garden where all is good, the sun is shining and the living is easy! Yet we carry on looking. Hoping that next time...

.....

Beards, cats and clever octopusses - thoughts on the World Cup Finals

****

The World Cup finals have proven to be everything we might expect – England performing in the manner of a damp squib, the TV pundits frothing about special kinds of football not played by Englishmen (samba, total, passing etc.) and everyone being consistently wrong in their predictions. Apparently, with the exception of an especially clever octopus.

There have been some oddities – an Italian player with a full beard (as opposed to one of those trimmed affairs more usually associated with footballers). Presumably de Rossi is studying at the Martin Castrogiovanni school of beards. This trend of bearded Italians is – while odd – faintly encouraging for those of us who have struggled in the sartorial stakes besides assorted Latin types (although inexplicably, as observed here, Vicente Del Bosque, the Spanish boss wouldn’t look out of place in Last of the Summer Wine).

A further oddity of this World Cup has been the failure of any pundit or commentator to attach the term ‘cat’ to any player (not of course that it ever did Peter Bonetti any good). I was under the impression that some sleek, probably South American player has to be likened to a cat at some point – surely it’s in the rules? Such fickleness really isn’t acceptable (as is the fact that the Argentine team is not referred to as The Pumas – this is also wrong).

All in all, not a bad World Cup – and one in which the teams playing good football in an organized way (or in Spain’s case passing the ball in endless triangles until David Villa wakes up and scores) appear to have risen to the top. For my part I’d like the Dutch to win – they deserve it for playing OK football but mostly for failing to win it when they were the best team on the planet by a mile.

Hup Holland Hup!

....