Uncrunched

“Cats were pulled out of kennel cages, injected in the chest cavity and then dropped on the floor to die.”

I don’t understand how there’s any question that this person should be prosecuted:

Yet, a former HCAC employee told Harris County officials and Fox 26 news that, while working at Harris County animal control, she found a live Chow in a freezer. Apparently, after a HCAC employee attempted to kill him, he was put in a freezer. It is believed that he had been in the freezer for at least 24 hours but the dog had managed to claw his way out of the trash bag and survived. It is clear that not one employee of HCAC bothered to confirm the cessation of vital signs on this dog, as required by state law, before placing in him a garbage bag and throwing him in a freezer.

This story almost had a happy ending because, after finding the dog alive in the freezer, a HCAC employee offered to adopt him. But, this almost happy ending became horrific when we learned that, after surviving an attempt to kill him by injecting him with poison and after surving in a trash bag in a freezer for 24 hours, Dawn Blackmar ordered him killed (again). Instead of adopting the dog out to the person who offered and giving him a chance at life, Blackmar chose to have him killed. Blackmar’s behavior, although shockingly not illegal, is outrageous and should be unacceptable, especially as Director of a so-called “shelter”.

What can you do? Adopt a pet, never buy one, and support your local Humane Society.

The only comment I really have on this story by Dan Lyons about Robert Scoble supposedly creating a new venture fund is this – If he got it wrong and has already publicly apologized on Google+, why in the heck hasn’t he at least added an update to the original article?

Because to do so would be to admit that process journalism actually exists. Real Journalists never get things wrong because they’re “real journalists.” So the apology, if it must happen, never gets anywhere near the original article.

I also find it fairly awesome that this entire cycle of stories was originally spawned by Dan Lyons defending Nick Bilton’s article that, well, apologies just aren’t good enough when you’ve done something wrong.

As an aside, this article by Dan Primack is one of the best things I’ve read about the true conflicts of interest faced by tech writers.