ohmidog!

Michael Vick pleaded guilty today to a state dogfighting charge, and apologized to ”the court, my family, and to all the kids who looked up to me as a role model.”

The former NFL quarterback pleaded guilty to one charge and not guilty to a second count that was then dropped. While conviction of the charge carries a maximum five-year sentence, Vick was given a three-year suspended sentence, according to the Associated Press.

By pleading guilty to the one charge, Vick became eligible for early release from prison and a possible return to the NFL. Federal law prohibits prisoners from being released to a halfway house if there are unresolved charges pending against them.

Vick, 28, already is serving a 23-month sentence in Leavenworth, Kan. for a federal dogfighting conviction. He’s scheduled for release on July 20, 2009, and will serve three years of probation.

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The stabbings last week that killed a former Japanese health minister and his wife were the result of an unemployed man’s lingering anger not over his pension, but over the death of his dog in a local pound decades ago.

A man with a knife last Monday and Tuesday attacked the homes of two retired vice ministers who had led the pension department in the Health and Welfare Ministry in the 1980s, when millions of records were lost during a botched computerization effort.

Originally, police suspected that the attacks were connected to public anger over the loss of the pension records.

But Takeshi Koizumi, 46 and unemployed, who turned himself, and his knife, in to police over the weekend, has told police he was “hacked off” not about pension issues but about the death of his dog in a local pound, according to the Washington Post. Read more »

Printer problems? You might want to try the solution this cat uses — much like my approach to computer-related problems: When in doubt, whack it.

Sixteen cats and  nine dogs found themselves homeless again after a fire broke out at the Animal Rescue Foundation office in Terryville, Conn.

All 25 animals in the shelter escaped unharmed.

Authorities said the fire started when a malfunctioning light fixture melted, dripping plastic onto bedding materials for the animals. Shelter staff were in the building, preparing for a Sunday’s bake sale fundraiser when someone smelled smoke.

The six volunteers inside quickly moved the animals to outdoor pens, according to the Republican American in Waterbury, Conn.

“We were just running on adrenaline,” said shelter president Kathy Johnson. “We didn’t care about the fire. It was just ‘let’s get the animals out of here as fast as we can.’”

The Animal Rescue Foundation, a nonprofit organization run by volunteers, was incorporated in 1978. The shelter takes in abandoned, abused and unwanted dogs and cats and houses them until they are adopted. Read more »