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ON TAKING OUR CATS TO FRANCE - PART 2

We've determined on which airline we'll be flying to which port of entry - Turkish Air through Istanbul to Marseille (See Part I). The next hurdle? Paperwork. The website maintained by the French embassy in DC has a section on regulations regarding bringing privately-owned pets into France. It seems simple enough. Dogs, cats, and ferrets as well as hamsters, mice and other domestic pet rodents are welcome with the proper paperwork. Birds must undergo quarantine either pre- or post-entry. Here are the rules  ripped from the website and slightly modified for clarity for dogs, cats and ferrets coming to France from the US: Every animal must be identified by a standard ISO 11784 or annex A ISO standard 11785 microchip or a tatoo clearly readable and applied before July, 2011. If the microchip standard is different from standard ISO 11784 or annex A ISO standard 11785, you must bring your own scanner in order to read the microchip.   Every animal must have a valid rabie

ON TAKING OUR CATS TO FRANCE - PART 1

We will not move to France without Mimi and Chloe, our Siamese stepsisters. It would not be LIKE leaving members of our family behind. We WOULD be leaving members of our family behind. So we investigated. There appear to be two phases to the process. First, how are we going to travel with the cats physically? Then, what happens when we show up in customs with two very tired, annoyed, and vocal felines? This post will discuss the first question. Let me be clear. We will not fly in the cabin with the cats in the hold. More precisely, Cathey won't fly in the cabin with the cats in the hold and I, being smarter than the average bear, agree. This limits our choice of airlines. Our usual carrier is Delta/Air France. We normally fly from JFK to Barcelona, rent a car, and drive over the border to France. Delta/Air France does allow cats in the cabin - for a fee of $200 apiece. Including that fee, two one-way tickets would amount to just under $5,000. Two round trip tickets would co

NUCLEAR FILIBUSTER FIZZLE

The Constitution wastes few words on the rules of the American House and Senate. With a couple of exceptions, the Constitution's take on the subject of legislative rules is simple: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member. In fact, the rules for ending debates were themselves the subject of some debate early on, at the very turn of the Nineteenth Century, amongst the Founders themselves. As a result, the rules concerning forcing a vote were changed from the original within a few years. But it was assumed that the gentlemen of the Senate (they were all gentlemen in those days) could debate, come to decisions, vote, and move on without the need for those debates to be constrained by specific rules regarding closure. It wasn't until the mid-Nineteenth Century that the need for a way to limit debate became a topic of conversation and not until the third quarter of