The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
Questions Nobody Is Asking
“Is Your Ergonomic Desk Trying to Kill You?”–headline, SmartMoney.com, Jan. 29
News of the Tautological
“Senate’s Vote Seen as Key to Immigration Reform Bill Fate”–headline, Boston Herald, Jan. 30
Bottom Story of the Day
“Listless U.S. Squad Plays Canada to Draw”–headline, New York Times, Jan. 30
Oh, the Felinity!
“That Cuddly Kitty Is Deadlier Than You Think” reads the headline on a New York Times “Science” story:
In a report that scaled up local surveys and pilot studies to national dimensions, scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States–both the pet Fluffies that spend part of the day outdoors and the unnamed strays and ferals that never leave it–kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.
The estimated kill rates are two to four times higher than mortality figures previously bandied about, and position the domestic cat as one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation. More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes.
If we were a cat, we’d commission a study on the number of mammals and birds killed by human beings.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
