@ Andy Ominous

hehe, you did better than i could at high noon. ummm, when i said "high noon" i meant ever.

@ kim

good post. i have heard about the "Standesamt" but didn't know what it was called. having lived in the U.S. all my life i find it strange that people would put up with that. not that i'm 100% against it - especially in extreme cases like these. i'm curious though...can you tell me what the general feeling about the Standesamt is with the people of Germany?

also ITA with your second comment. i can't imagine a company (that wanted to succeed) would want to associate itself with Nazi's/deathcamps. you're sooo right, not everyone is that fluent in history - let alone subtle nuances like that. seems that people want to sensationalize things like this company's name when, in all likelihood, it just was what it was. a name.

@v. i can't/don't totally disagree with your comment. but i sincerely believe that the names were just what got this family noticed. can you really imagine that these parents weren't just stupid in the child-naming dept...? i'm pretty sure they weren't much better in other child-related areas.

it does NOT say that they took the kids away because of their names. the only post i saw that addressed this was from 'sloane'. it's jumping to conclusions to create controversy. having worked with my state's Child Protection Services/Welfare Dept...i can pretty much guarantee that there is no law in any state that allows children to be removed from their parents because of what they named them. no matter how stupid the name may be. come on, THINK it through...they can't take the kids away based on their names - but do you think that parents who think it's a good idea to name their kids like this aren't doing about a thousand other moronic things in that home? i doubt that, other than naming their kids asinine names, they're just a regular family. i feel confident in saying that they're nuts and they live like nuts and things like that tend not to be conducive to a safe and sane home for children. there are underlying issues in the home that haven't been revealed yet - like filth, not enough food, abuse, failure to dress children appropriate to weather, failure to supervisor children - those are the things that get kids removed from their home and i don't doubt that at least one of those things was going on. dumbasses generally act like dumbassess in most/all areas of life - these are two dumbasses if ever i did see...

@ Scotchdrnkr ITA with your comment,

"I have to admit the first toss looked a little to hard. But chances are the guy doing it wasn’t all that experienced with zero G either the second one was much softer."

that makes perfect sense. especially since he does do the second toss much more softly. i seriously doubt that this was all a set up to torment the cat. i think one of my dogs would really enjoy it. i would let her give it a try because she loves new adventures. who knows, maybe they thought the cat might enjoy it.

as many others have said - this is not true abuse. look up 'animal abuse' and this will look like a day in the park. fight real fights - there are plenty out there without building one out of a mildly annoyed cat.

hopefully they won't combine it with the helicopter with the .45 attached to it that was posted here a few weeks ago. because, yikes!

@MrPumpernickel. even though i don't much care for the way they toss the cat around...you make an excellent point when you said,

"I mean, honestly, calling this animal cruelty is taking away all value the phrase has when describing real animal cruelty."

this is not true animal cruelty. look up puppy mills and lab animals and you'll see what REAL animal cruelty is. lifelong cruelty.

i'd like to challenge all those who are outraged at this - and those who aren't - to do something besides posting here to actually help a real live animal. i'm not a crusader - but i got a rescue dog who was used as a breeder at a puppy mill and after months and months of love, attention, full bellies, long walks and kisses, she still runs from us. fear is all she knows. it's doubtful she'll ever be a trusting dog. so lets keep things in perspective and consider actually doing something besides posting your outrage. to all those that have helped an animal...i salute you. they need us.

thank you for reading this far.

thanks to those that chimed in about the breed of the dog! mucho appreciation. i asked b/c i have an australian shepherd that is way bigger than she's 'supposed' to be. i think you're all right about the rottweiler part. every once in a while i'll look at my girl and think maybe she's got some rott in her - but her features are more delicate, but she's twice the size (110lbs) that a normal aussie shep would be. she's a rescued dog - so it's just a matter of curiosity. thanks again for the info!

hi! can someone please tell me the breed/breeds of the dog? thanks y'all!

i'm with you, red. it's calling me to try it. i wonder how long until that's on CSI...

this is great. i don't see any downside to it whatsoever. i only wish they were available for Christmas gifting this year...my shopping would be done.

now that's super NEAT (o-rama)! i just read about this over at cracked.com this morning and i was looking around the internets for something just like this - ie a working model. thanks for entertaining me and enlightening me every single day.

awww, mutants can be cute too. hooray for you - little fluffy guy.

i second you on the maggots, MarcBee. even though i know it's Ramen all i can see are maggots. so, no, i wouldn't try it.

ahh, jacki, that sounds like heaven...never too hot and never too cold. i wanna move to where you live. also, i think northern cal is so much nicer than so cal. i've been in so cal all my life and everytime i go up north i'm surprised at how different it is in all the good ways. i'm sure many of my fellow so cal-er's may not agree...but that's the way i see it. Santa Cruz is one of my absolute fav places.