NC Media Watch: Obama will ruin our economy for a mass delusion

It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world - that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison."

Cats and the plague

In the 14th century the common knowledge was that cats were agents of the devil and needed to be killed. The debate was over and they were killed by the tens of thousands across Europe. Flea bitten rats carrying the plague multiplied, and 25,000,000 people (one third of Europe) died.

And today the pinheads in government are also convinced that the debate about CO2 is over. Mass hysterias recur from time to time.

Cats and the Black Plague: Persecution of Felines Increased the Death Toll for Humans

Certain religious leaders had been casting aspersions on cats for quite some time before the Black Plague hit. Pope Gregory IX told people that domestic cats were diabolical in 1232, fuelling anti-cat sentiment, and this prejudice worsened over the years. Cats were not subservient and tended to be noisy at night, which caused them to be viewed with suspicion. Many superstitious people began to associate them with the devil.

Large numbers of cats and their owners were executed after being accused of witchcraft in the years leading up to the Black Plague and for hundreds of years thereafter. Totals vary widely from one historian to the next for both “witches” and cats killed. However, it is safe to say that a large proportion of Europe’s domestic cats were slain, either on suspicion of being Satan’s familiars or as part of the mass animal killings that people undertook in a desperate attempt to control the Plague later on. Dogs were also slain in these mass killings, which removed another of the rat’s natural predators.

Most of those murdered on suspicion of witchcraft were poor peasant women who kept pets for companionship, and thus were easy scapegoats. The impoverished, the elderly and the eccentric were convenient targets for witchcraft accusations, and they were executed along with their pets. Overall, from 1230 to 1700, starting with the Inquisition, millions of cats were murdered.

Persecution had depleted the supply of domestic cats dramatically, leaving human grain stores unprotected when merchants brought the plague from Asia to Europe in the form of ship rats with infectious fleas. Rats took over Europe, gobbling the grain and providing homes for the fleas that carried the Black Plague. Without the protection of domestic cats, the rat population multiplied exponentially. As a result, the Black Death spread rapidly, decimating Europe’s population. Additionally, many people suffered food poisoning due to rat droppings in their food supplies. Overall, people paid dearly for the slaughter of cats.

Those who kept cats as pets would have had a better chance of surviving the Black Death, as the rat populations around their homes would have been kept under control.