Hound bites Bugs Bunny; Elmer Fudd goes to jail.

Stephen Bodio alerts us to a new silly law being proposed in the Land Of Silly Laws (also known as California.)

Alarmed to find out that the cousins of their beloved toy poodles are being allowed to follow their natural tendencies and do, you know, icky carnivorous things like chase and kill varmints, Sacramento legiscritters are proposing a new law stating:

[A]ny person who knowingly engages in any activity in which a dog is left untethered and allowed to track and pursue any rabbit, hare, or fox and that results in the injury or death of the rabbit, hare, or fox is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for a period not to exceed 6 months, by a fine not to exceed $1,000, or by both that imprisonment and fine.

As someone who lives in an old lakefront cottage and who is delighted when her feline companions discover a "self-propelled cat toy" and do what comes naturally, I'd like to remind Assemblywoman Hancock just why in the hell people started keeping dogs and cats in the first place. It's not because they look cute with painted toenails, honey; it's because they chase and kill the mice in our houses and the rabbits in our gardens.

Personally, I blame Beatrix Potter and Richard Adams. Generations of urban and suburban kiddies have been raised to see the bucktoothed destroyers of crops as The Good Guys. Now these thin-blooded putzes are in a place to write laws, and when they find out that their neighbors not only set their hounds on Bunny Fluffkins, but are actually delighted when Rover catches and kills it, the results are predictable.

How far we have come from our agrarian roots...