First Dog not to be the last of Obama administration controversies

Already, President-elect Barack Obama is making controversial decisions about his administration. Along with Rahm Emanuel, the new president will be bringing a puppy to the White House, a promise he made to his daughters at the outset of his campaign.

"You have earned the puppy that is coming with us," he told Malia and Sasha. Malia, whose allergies must be taken into account, asked for a "goldendoodle," some kind of hypo-allergenic poodle hybrid. But according to an American Kennel Club survey, the People would like to see a purebred poodle - America's eighth most popular dog - in the Obama White House.

Very likely the First Family will adopt. An unscientific Chicago Tribune poll showed a vast majority of readers prefer an unspecified shelter dog to any particular breed. PETA even wrote the Obamas a letter in July, stating, "Millions of Great American Mutts...are set to die in our nation's extremely overcrowded pounds and shelters for lack of good homes. When you are ready, please adopt a homeless pound puppy..."

The only administrations with no record of having a pet, according to the Presidential Pets Museum, are those of unknowns James K. Polk, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and Chester Arthur.

The Obama camp may have felt pressure this summer when an AP-Yahoo News poll showed McCain leading 42 percent to 37 percent among pet owners, while 63 percent of homes have a pet, according to an American Pet Product Manufacturers Association estimate. People without pets, a minority, favored Obama 48 percent to 34 percent.

John McCain has as many pets as he does houses, maybe, including two dogs, two turtles, a cat, a ferret, three parakeets, and "a bunch" of saltwater fish. "You usually connect with things you're familiar with," American Kennel Club spokeswoman Christina Duffney said to explain the poll results. Interestingly, pet ownership had no effect on Nader, who got 3% in both categories, as well as several others.

But most importantly, while the new president worries over the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and failing wars abroad, Chicago Tribune resident idiot John Kass asks:

"Who's gonna clean up the doo?"

AP-Yahoo News poll

"Presidential Pets"

"Squirrel a la Huckabee?" (Slate V)

Slate V's Samantha Henig must have picked up on my previous post, and in this video asks how to safely cook a squirrel, and if it can be done in a popcorn popper, like Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee claims to have done in college.

Economy, war, health care...squirrel attack!

Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press", asked Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Sunday, "Was it true...that he had fried squirrel in a popcorn popper in college?"

"Mr. Huckabee confirmed his prior squirrel consumption but appeared to back away from defending the flavor," says the Wall Street Journal. "'It's not the best thing in the world,' and doesn't really taste like chicken, he concluded."

Though the former governor of Arkansas' response lacked the bite most voters would like, still no other candidate has come out and taken a position on squirrels (of the rodent family Sciuridae) in America.

That very Sunday, before Huckabee made his bland statement on the issue, a squirrel entered a substation in Gentilly, Louisiana, tripping a circuit breaker and leaving 6,000 energy customers without power for nearly four hours.

Hardly a week before that a squirrel got into a transformer in Weston, Connecticut, causing an electrical fire and brief power outage.

In fact, squirrels frequently chew wires and meddle with transformers, causing power outages, fires, and even explosions. "New York officials report that squirrels cause power outages daily," according to one source. At least twice, the gray rodents have shut down the NASDAQ stock exchange.

"On average about twenty-five percent of all power outages nationwide...are inspired by suicidal squirrels," claims the web site "Daily Kos".

And voters needn't limit their concern to tree squirrels--burrowing ground squirrels can undermine the integrity of buildings and infrastructure. "A post-Katrina study," warns a California-based water supply and flood protection organization, "cited 'rodent burrows' as a pervasive problem with earthen levees in New Orleans."

OTHER PLACES TO WATCH OUT FOR SQUIRRELS

A baby grand piano.

My friend's pants in third grade.

Soup.

The cemetery.

England, where the destructive American gray squirrel, brought to the island in the 19th century, has turned out to be a viciously invasive species, routing the native red squirrel from its habitat and spreading a deadly pox among the survivors.