The Conservative Cat

Intelligent creatures, such as humans and cats, spend their lives learning from experience. The lower animals, however, are quite different. Each individual's behavioral programming varies slightly from its parents. If a behavior pattern is helpful, it is passed down to the next generation. If the pattern is fatal, it disappears.

It is a failure to realize this fact that has led to the development of a major threat to American civilization-- the car-blocking goose.

A typical car-blocking goose is the size of a 10-year-old child and has an extremely tiny brain, most of which is devoted to instructions for not getting sucked into jet engines. They travel in large groups called gaggles, and the only known predator is the National Rifle Association, which means that in blue states their growth is completely unchecked. Thanks to drivers who brake for animals, car-blocking geese feel completely safe wandering aimlessly across the surface of suburban highways, secure in the instinctive knowledge their behavior is safe. Even Bruce, who understands the evolutionary importance of killing these stupid things, is unable to bring himself to floor the gas pedal when a group decides that they want to examine the radiator grill of the family van. Peg-Eye Nate had what I thought was an excellent idea for fixing the problem, but apparently the Department of Transportation frowns on carrying a working flamethrower on Federal highways (although this is not surprising coming from an organization that feels compelled to search little old ladies at airports for shoe-bombs).

Anyway, the point is that if you stop killing animals that wander onto roadways, in a dozen generations or so they'll learn that they have nothing to fear from blocking traffic.

This is a bad thing.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat