bonsai kittens

[(V)/\><]

Greetings all,
i was a little disturbed with an email i just got. firstly it just seemed to be just another kind of chain mail, because it contained a story/plea and requested that you send it on to everyone you know, and when 500 names are on the list, you send it back to one of the originators. it claims to be a petition of some kind, that is being gathered to try shut down a site, but i can't see how an electronic petition would stand up in court because everyones names could be forged. i was just wondering if anyone else here has come across the site http://www.bonsaikitten.com or has gotten the mail? i don't know what to make of it, whether it is a hoax or for real. if it is for real, are there not animal cruelty laws to prevent people from doing this? below is an extract from the mail.

We need to work together on this.
WE succeeded in closing down this webpage about a year
ago
but now it's back again. WE WANT TO CLOSE IT AGAIN.
A Japanese person in New York breeds and sells cats,
called Bonsai cats.
Sounds harmless enough, except that these cats are
given a
muscle-relaxant and put LIVE into a bottle where they
spend the rest of
their lives! The cats are fed through a tube and
waste matter is removed via another tube. The bone
structure of the cat
forms in the shape of the container.
The cats are sold as original, exclusive ornaments.
This brutality ist
the
latest fashion in New York, China and Indonesia.
If you can bear it (the pictures are horrific) you can
see the details at the following webpage:


http://www.bonsaikitten.com/bkmethod.html
---------------------
The Protest list must have 500 names[snip<...

i'm going to wait for some feedback before i go spreading more potential junk mail.

thanks.

[prodikal]

I have seen this site before i got told it was a joke ? any one got any confirmation on that ? if not its sick as **** and who in there right minds would want a kitten in a bottle ?

[Mahakaal]

From Snopes.com,

"Bonsai Kitten" is a site that purports to be "dedicated to preserving the long lost [Oriental] art of body modification in housepets" (by raising them inside jars so that they remain small even when mature and their bodies take on the contours of the vessel used). It's actually a bit of fictional humor put up just before the end of the year 2000 by some MIT grad students to satirize "the human belief of nature as commodity " and to "punish the hypocritical and easily offended by upsetting them, and to amuse those who understand ."

[El Diablo]

haha, I have known about that site for about 2 years now and think it is absolutely hilarious to see all these people get up in arms over a little tongue in cheek satire. I give the makers of the site two big thumbs up, and all the crazed PETA people a big old thumbs down with a rasberry for not being able to see humor when it's right in their faces.

thanks for reminding me about that site




El Diablo

[The Old Man]

The domain name is listed at OpenSRS as being owned by someone with "Dr." in front of his name. Seems that if it is a sick joke, it's a very sick joke. History says some orientals had a custom of wrapping their feet, supposedly to keep them small, and some remote tribes seem to wrap their heads to give them a long shape or something, but i've never heard of putting little animals in some restrictive container to stunt/control their growth. I was going to paste the registration of the domain so you could see it, however the TuCows agreement on lookup prohibits that.
Anyway, if it is a joke i for one am not amused. And if it's for real perhaps someone could think of a way to put the perpetrators in a bottle so they could evaluate and improve their process with a more personal touch. Today a cat, tomorrow a dog, next week a kid....

[CXGJarrod]

Urban Legend Zeitgeist says the same thing... Its a hoax...

http://www.tafkac.org/ulz/bonsai.html

Wired said that the doctor name is an alias.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41733,00.html

[mathgirl32]

Speaking of PETA, environmental wackos, and others of that ilk......

FORTUNA, Calif. (AP) -- An activist was struck in the head and killed by a falling tree Thursday afternoon while trying to block the logging of ancient redwoods on Pacific Lumber Co. land, Earth First! said.

I heard about this a few years ago. Although I don't think people getting killed is funny....you have to admit it has a certain comical irony.

The article is here

[Dhej]

The best results that we have observed have been achieved by replacing 5% of the kitten's diet with 100 micron powdered iron for two days, and then using a strong magnet to reposition the kitten from outside the vessel. With this technique the realignment of the rectal diverticulum with the waste hole should be achievable with no difficulty at all.

My goodness these guys have gone through a lot of effort. Read the guest book, it is almost more bizarre than the rest of the site. The only thing I have to say is DRUGS, lots and lots of DRUGS..., were needed for them to create something like this. Only someone high as a kite sitting infront of a bonzai tree with their kitten would go "jeeze I should make a site called Bonzai Kittie and screw with PETA's head."

This almost goes beyond a hoax into a kind of cross between conceptual art and shock art. Think of it, instructions to make something that is impossible to execute in the real world (through legal constraints, ethical issues, and simple biological restriction (anyone that uses the phrase "rectal diverticulum" is full of ...). Not only that but because of the ethical issues surrounding the humain treatment of animals, there was no way that the creator of the site would not think that he was going to get a lot of negative responses to his site.

People believe almost anything they read online..., for all they know that site could have been made by a 13 year-old pot-head in a graphic arts class. I mean think about it..., there is no way for a kitten to become a dodecahedron..., sure you may be able to mold bones to a certain extent (just look at pictures of women that had lived their lives in corsets, their rib cages are all scewy).

Sheesh, they should change the URL to www.gullible.com, if you believe in spherical kittens, I've got a nice collection of victorian sporks that were once owned by Louis XIV that I would be willing to sell, (just give me some time to go to the nearest TacoBell to pick them up... )

Jeeze,
Dhej

[gore]

lol, people never learn, this is the equivilent of lyrics written by NOFX, TOOL (if youv ever read any of these lyrics im naming you know what i mean, they seem really seriouse sometimes and there totally pranks on people) Cannibal Corpse, The Ramones (hehe how many people were offended to hear beat on the brat with a baseball bat and took it seriously) Marilyn Manson (i think people are actually realizing some of the stuff he did was just to make em Mad) Eminem (thats an easy guess, he does this daily) but all in all, pranks are funny, especially when people honestly think there true like this, those of us that understand just sit back and laugh at the protesters marching against the Parents whO hit There kids foundation or something lol.

[doktorf00bar]

Haha finally a thread about Bonsai Kittens. Anyone who can't tell this is a joke should put their hockey helmet back on and return to banging their head against the wall and drooling.....