Because Every Puppy Needs a Tongue Post...

Staten Island Assemblywoman sponsors bill to outlaw the tattooing and piercing of pets.

You know, they say there's a special place reserved in Hell for people who abuse animals. I say we save the Devil the trouble and the Real Estate and just shoot anyone who goes in for such a thing.

There's two ways to take this story:

1. Apparently, the economy is booming because even with an official unemployment rate of 8.1% (unofficially closer to 19%) someone a) has the money to do this sort of stupidity, and b) someone is actually making money catering to complete retards with all this disposable income and no impulse control.

2. We have fallen so far as a society that it has become necessary for the government to pass laws prohibiting people from doing that which is both insane and inhumanly cruel. One should think that a people possessed of enough animal intelligence to take a dump would be able to refrain from piercing their dogs' 10 nipples, but apparently not.

I wonder where PETA is on this one, because for the first time in my life, I might actually join them in a campaign to stop this sort of idiocy.

Personally, I'm of the mind that people who get tats, or excessive plastic surgery and piercings, have some sort of mental deficiency that goes beyond the mere desire to be "unique" or "make a statement about my personality". People who feel they have to mutilate themselves in order to get attention probably fall into the categories of "loser" and "potential axe murderer" anyway.

You know, like Chas Bono.

What's next? Some doofus decides that Fluffy is really a girl cat trapped inside a tomcat's body and demands a sex change operation? Can we do this to tropical fish? Parakeets? Boa Constrictors? Will the day come when the alligators in our sewers will emerge to exact revenge sporting Christ heads, blooming roses and "Born to Kill"?

What happens if your pit bull doesn't like that ankh you put on his forehead, and somehow manages to discover that Chinese ideogram you tattooed on his leg really means "I'm a Complete Asshole", and not "Lover of Harmony" like the -- white, and obviously-unskilled-in-the-Chinese-language -- tattoo artist told you?

(As an aside, I know a few people who have gone and gotten Chinese ideograms tattooed on their bodies, under the mistaken impression that it is both decorative and meaningful in some shallowly-New Age Way, only to discover that what they thought was a positive message either turns out to be complete gibberish, or an insult, without their knowing).

People who do this sort of thing to an animal are sick and twisted, and probably too stupid and dangerous to be left alive. For certain they should never be allowed to breed, because if you'll do this sort of thing to your terrier it's not too big a stretch to have to worry about your bipedal progeny.

Update: I forgot about this classic Monty Python Sketch.