I posted a clip on my personal facebook page yesterday afternoon as the footage the owner of a cat recovered, showing a lady throwing his pet cat into a wheelie bin to be left to it's own devices, started going viral.

It shocked and outraged me, but thought it best to post it on my personal facebook rather than on my business website, as although I would like to expose the horridness of this kind of behaviour to as many as possible to get people to think about their place in the world, my business website is really not the appropriate platform for this.

However early this morning I watched as the traditional media around the world picked up on the story and it blew up into a global outrage.
So why post it now? Well I think everyone needs to see and acknowledge the world we all live in, and take some portion of responsibility for this kind of behaviour collectively as a society.
Mahatma Ghandi once said "the wealth of a nation is best measured by the way that it treats it's animals".
With all of the animal cruelty cases in the media at the moment, this is never truer.

However the reason behind me posting this to my business website is to engage in the conversation as to the emerging power of new social media like Facebook, and youtube.
This clip was posted around 24 hours ago (click on the read more to see the clip), and has now been seen right around the world. The youtube page of the clip has now got comments such as "Anyone got her address? I'll swing by for "coffee" you old piece of shit!" and if one chooses to dig into the story a little it is not hard to find the name and address of this lady, who now has guards at her house after a crowd gathered.

This reminds me of a similar situation that unfolded a few months back when Ashton Kutcher posted a youtube video of extreme animal cruelty covertly taken on a US Dairy Farm. Within hours of this being posted, hundreds of thousands of people were commenting on this, and names and address were published quickly. You can only imagine what occurred next for the "farmers" as it all happened so quickly.
Such is the power of the internet now. not only is big brother watching, but also every man and his cat now has the power to create a situation right from their own internet access device - and by this I mean one can literally now take and post video instantly to youtube etc via mobile phone technology, and if you have the right network, it is potentially out there to millions of people as it happens.

Here is the clip from youtube:

This story has blown up, and the woman must now be really questioning her actions.
From the AAP this morning:

The owners of a kitten in England thrown into a wheelie bin by a middle-aged woman have appealed to hundreds of people who have expressed their rage online not to "take matters into their own hands".

The RSPCA launched an investigation after a grey-haired woman was captured on CCTV dumping Lola the rescue kitten into a large green rubbish bin in Coventry.

The cat, which was trapped for 15 hours, emerged unscathed but footage of the incident, posted on social networking site Facebook, provoked angry reactions.

Hundreds of people have joined groups on the site, including one entitled "catch the evil b**** who put the cat in the bin", and many have posted threatening messages about the woman depicted in the CCTV.

The RSPCA said the woman had been identified and was due to be interviewed on Tuesday.

The charity said police were supporting the investigation and urged the public to "leave the matter to be dealt with correctly by the authorities".

Police also urged local residents to show restraint.

A small number of community support officers - wardens who assist the police but have no powers of arrest - had been stationed near the woman's home after a crowd gathered outside.

Lola's owner Stephanie Mann, 24, said: "I can't believe the reaction to the story. I only posted it on Facebook because I wanted to see who she was.

"Now that the police know who she is, I think people should leave it to them and the RSPCA and not take matters into their own hands.

"Whatever she has done, I don't like her, but I don't want her to get hurt. It needs to be dealt with properly, not by people getting aggressive with her."
The RSPCA said it planned to interview the woman involved after it confirmed her identity, but declined to say whether she had been identified by a viewer of the clip online.

And another article just posted by AAP:

A British woman who enraged animal lovers across the world by dumping a cat in a wheelie bin says she "thought it would be funny".

Mary Bale told The Sun on Tuesday she binned the feline as "a joke", adding: "It's only a cat."

The 45-year-old sparked an angry online campaign after being caught on CCTV throwing the pet into a large green rubbish bin in the Stoke area of Coventry.

Tabby Lola was trapped for 15 hours after being picked up by the scruff on the neck and dumped in the container.

The four-year-old emerged unscathed but footage of the incident, posted on social networking site Facebook, provoked angry reactions.

Hundreds of people joined groups on the site, including one entitled "catch the evil b**** who put the cat in the bin", and many have posted threatening messages about the woman depicted in the CCTV.

The footage also led to an ongoing RSPCA investigation.

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, the Bale said people were "overreacting".

"I really don't see what everyone is getting so excited about - it's just a cat," she said.

Bale explained to the newspaper that she noticed the cat as she was walking home from work and began stroking it.

"I don't know what came over me, but I suddenly thought it would be funny to put it in the wheelie bin which was right beside me.

"I did it as a joke because I thought it would be funny. I never thought it would be trapped. I expected it to wriggle free."

Bale admitted that she "shouldn't have done it" but added that she did not deserve the hatred of people around the world.

Lola's owner Stephanie Mann yesterday appealed for calm and urged people not to take "matters into their own hands".

The 24-year-old cat lover said: "I can't believe the reaction to the story. I only posted it on Facebook because I wanted to see who she was.

"Now that the police know who she is, I think people should leave it to them and the RSPCA and not take matters into their own hands.

"Whatever she has done, I don't like her, but I don't want her to get hurt. It needs to be dealt with properly, not by people getting aggressive with her."

Last night, West Midlands Police said Bale had not committed a criminal offence.

The RSPCA is leading an investigation into the incident and will be interviewing the woman shortly," police said.

"Coventry police are supporting the society's investigation and would urge the public to leave the matter to be dealt with in the appropriate manner by the authorities.

"Coventry police have not arrested the woman because she has not committed a criminal offence."
The force said the woman was not being given police protection and community support officers were outside her address monitoring a large group of people for "public order purposes as per routine police procedure".