Free Republic

Many animal lovers find it hard to part with their pets when they die. So when cat Orville, named after the famous aviator Orville Wright, was run over by a car, his artist owner decided to turn him into a permanent piece of artwork as the ultimate tribute by transforming him into a flying helicopter. Dutch artist Bart Jansen first stuffed Orville before teaming up with radio control helicopter flyer Arjen Beltman to build a specially-designed flying mechanism to attach to the cat. The end result, named the Orvillecopter, is now on show at the Kunstrai art festival in Amsterdam...

Orville certainly isn't the first cat to fly, but he may be the first cat to do so under his own power.

A Good Samaritan who took a dead cat to the vet was left angry after being asked to pay a "disposal" fee. Deepdale trainee solicitor Sara-Jayne Pritt, of Isherwood Street, found the animal lying on the side of the pavement in nearby Skeffington Road on Thursday, February 25. But instead of ignoring the cat's corpse, she picked it up and followed advice to take it to the nearest vet. Because she was working, the 25-year-old asked her sister Gemma Pritt and dad David Pritt to take the cat to Vets4Pets in Moor Lane. But she says that after the vet...

It’s a dead heat in the race for the White House. The first national poll conducted entirely after Barack Obama publicly named Joe Biden as his running mate suggests that battle for the presidency between the Illinois senator and Republican rival John McCain is all tied up. In a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Sunday night, 47 percent of those questioned are backing Obama with an equal amount supporting the Arizona senator. “This looks like a step backward for Obama, who had a 51 to 44 percent advantage last month,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Even last week,...

PROVIDENCE, RI (TDR)- Oscar, the nursing home cat who could seemingly sense the impending death of patients, was found dead early yesterday. The cat gained recent notoriety when reports of his ability to detect the impending death of the terminally ill became public. Seemingly aware that death was at hand, Oscar would reportedly climb into the bed of patients during their final hours...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - An employee working the drive-through window at a McDonald's will have a tale to tell. When the worker went to the open window thinking the car pulling up had already ordered, the people in the car threw a dead cat through the window, police said. Cedar Rapids Animal Control officer Matt McAtee said the black domestic shorthair appeared to have been dead for a while. "It looked like somebody had picked it up off the road," McAtee said. Police were called to the restaurant about 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. The people in the car drove off. A...

CNN is reporting that among likely voters Bush's numbers went up with Bush getting 50% and Kerry 47%. The poll was done after the convention. This means Kerry got a negative bounce.

<p>MIAMI (AP) - O.J. Simpson's ex-girlfriend has been charged with animal cruelty in the starvation death of her pet cat, who stayed home alone while she was out of town for about a month.</p> <p>Christie Prody was fined $500 on a civil cruelty charge after the cat's decomposed body was found in her Miami apartment in January. But she was served with a summons Tuesday on a more serious misdemeanor criminal charge.</p>