Police Warning

[Acrylic-bob]

Bonsai Cats???? I haven't heard that one.

[Acrylic-bob]

Oh. I have now.

http://www.bonsaikitten.com

[vorlon24]

It may also help to check this out after reading it:

A web site is selling merchandise to help people create 'bonsai kittens.'


Status: False.

Examples:

[Collected on the Internet, 2001]

To anyone with love and respect for life: In New York there is a Japanese who sells bonsai-kittens". Sounds like fun huh? NOT! These animals are squeezed into a bottle. Their urine and feces are removed through probes. They feed them with a kind of tube. They feed them chemicals to keep their bones soft and flexible so the kittens grow into the shape of the bottle. The animals will stay their as long as they live. They can't walk or move or wash themselves. Bonsai-kittens are becoming a fashion in New York and Asia.

See this horror at: http://www.bonsaikitten.com

Please sign this email in protest against these tortures. If you receive an email with over 500 names, please send a copy to: [email protected] From there this protest will be sent to USA and Mexican animal protection organizations.


[Collected on the Internet, 2002]

FOR EVERYONE WHO LOVES ANIMALS

A site that we were able to shut last year has returned. We have to try to shut it down again! A Japanese man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called BONSAI CATS.

That would sound cute, if it weren't kittens that were put in to little bottles after being given a muscle relaxant and then locked up for the rest of their lives!! The cats are fed through a straw and have a small tube for their faeces. The skeleton of the cat will take on the form of the bottle as the kitten grows. The The cats never get the opportunity to move.

They are used as original and exclusive souvenirs. These are the latest trends in New York, China, Indonesia and New Zealand . If you think you can handle it, view http://www.bonsaikitten.com and have a look at the methods being used to put these little kittens into bottles. This petition needs 500 names, so please put your one name on it!!! Copy the text into a new email and put your name on the bottom, then send it to everyone you know. If you notice that there are 500 names on the list, please send it to: [email protected]

Origins: Bonsai kittens are not real. Nobody is making bonsai kittens. Nobody is selling equipment to help people make bonsai kittens. The Bonsai Kitten web site is a joke, not an actual promotion for the making of bonsai kittens. Investigations by law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have already determined no real cats were harmed in the creation of the pictures used on the Bonsai Kitten web site. Signing a petition to shut down the Bonsai Kitten web site will not prevent any kittens from being harmed, because no kittens were harmed in the first place.

It was all a joke, one which some say was in terribly poor taste. If that was your reaction, take comfort in the knowledge that many others thought the same.

How could you have known the Bonsai Kitten site was a satire despite its lack of "This is a joke!" banners emblazoned across it? Satire doesn't always announce itself as such (some feel that would ruin its humor), so in cases like this, one dusts off the common sense and aims it at the problem:

• The process described is impossible -- animals so treated would die long before they could be "molded."
  
• The web site offers no way to purchase the materials advertised -- a real commercial enterprise wouldn't build consumer interest through a flashy web site then fail to offer anything for sale.
  
• "Bonsai Kitten" displays no actual pictures of the finished product -- there are no molded kittens on display.

[WillowTheWhisp]

There is a very real and horrible possibility that some idiot on seeing the website might actually decide to try it though.

[pendy]

Simple answer - hoax or not. If it happens to you, and you have a distressed lady on your doorstep, ask her in and say you will make the call for her. That way, if she is genuine, no problem. If she isn't, she will just make her excuses and leave.

[WillowTheWhisp]

Got this from a website:

As urban-legends website Snopes confirms, these are spoof emails, designed to play on our fears of being ripped off. ICSTIS, which regulates premium-rate telephone lines in the UK, has confirmed that these rumours are untrue. The most expensive premium-rate (090) numbers charge £1.50 a minute.

Thus, these scams are nothing more than hoaxes – it's the emails themselves that are the trick! By forwarding them to everyone in your address book, you are wasting your time and that of hundreds of other people. So, the next time that you receive a weird email of this type, check Snopes first - or just delete it. Otherwise, you join the growing list of gullible hoaxers

[MUMMIBOO]

well one way to solve that one is to ask bt to put a barr on all premium rate numbers like i have that way of course u can use my phone.
That also helps if you were to get a dialer on your pc.

[vorlon24]

There is an easier way to stop dialers being downloaded - just be vigilant. I know a lot of people who just click on 'Yes' or 'OK' without actually checking what they are accepting.

If you are not online and just installing a game then that's generally pretty safe, but if you are online, look out for them, because they are becoming more common

[entwisi]

Or use an Operating system that has security built in.

[vorlon24]

I take it you are not talking about Windows here...

[entwisi]

Who, me?

Would I ever.....

*cough*

[vorlon24]

What do you use then?

(PS like the penguin!)