The adorable pictures thread.

[Gandalf Lundgren]

Tama was born in Kinokawa, Wakayama, and was raised with a group of stray cats that used to live close to Kishi Station. They were regularly fed by passengers and by the (at that time) informal station manager Toshiko Koyama. The station was almost shut down in 2004 because its financial problems, due to its uncertain future, Koyama adopted Tama. Eventually the decision to shut down the station was withdrawn after the citizens demanded it stay open. In April 2006, the Wakayama Electric Railway destaffed all stations on the Kishigawa Line to cut costs. Station masters were selected from employees of local businesses near each station, and Koyama was officially chosen as the station manager. In January 2007, railway officials decided to officially name Tama the station master. As station master, her primary duty is to greet passengers. The position comes with a station master's hat; in lieu of a salary, the railway provides Tama with free cat food.

[Tripe]

[LucasM]

[LucasM]

If you wish to ruin the impact of the above pic, open the spoiler:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After looking at it for a while, I decided the above pic is a fake.  Multiple things clued me into that fact.  First, the ripples should not start under the far edge of the floating swan, they should start equally under each side; the ripples for this side start underneath the thing, rather than at its edge, they aren't even balanced left to right.  Second, the reflection in the water is not distorted in most areas to conform to the water rippling, and where it is is not correct (look at the reflection of the duck's beak: the arcing of the reflection actually goes in the wrong direction, up/('out'), instead of down/('back')).  Also, though the duckling is small, regardless with an inflatable swan as small as that one supposedly is, the neck of an inflated swan that size could not support a duckling without bending and buckling to some degree.  And, finally, the 'reflection' of the duckling and inflatable duck, though foreshortened, have incorrect relationships between the parts: in the reflection the duckling's eye should be almost completely covered by the reflection of the swan's beak, not with the same gap between them as in the direct image.

So... 'adorable', but not one whit of it is 'real'... other than it being a photo of a duckling by itself, a photo of a swan inflatable thing by itself, and a photo of a splash pattern by itself, all combined by someone on a computer to create 'faux adorable' [but there's no 'The faux adorable pictures thread' so I'll leave it here.]

[Lembach]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I don't think LucasM is really a black cat!

[goflyblind]

[Tripe]

WAR KITTENS!

Or navy kittens at least.

[mattwnelson]

Goes back to the tradition of the ship's cat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship%27s_cat

That top pic is of Convoy, who was lost with his crew when they were sunk by a U-boat. The article has lots of other examples, and they're not all happy endings for the kitties, be warned.

Matt
(that's just sea salt making my eyes water, blast it)

[MartyS (Gromit)]

If you wish to ruin the impact of the above pic, open the spoiler:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And, finally, the 'reflection' of the duckling and inflatable duck, though foreshortened, have incorrect relationships between the parts: in the reflection the duckling's eye should be almost completely covered by the reflection of the swan's beak, not with the same gap between them as in the direct image.

Now that you made me look more closely.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another thing about the reflection, not only should the eye be different, we should see the ducklings bill from a lower angle, showing more of the bottom of it. 

So yeah, the "reflection" is pretty much a flipped copy without the proper changes in the viewing angle, and without the proper changes due to the ripples in the water.

[Bob]

The Houston zoo make a frozen snack for the local male cougar.

[LucasM]

Apparently in Japan, cats hanging around convenience stores is a 'problem'.  There's more pics here: Welcome to Kitty Mart

[Edited after three 'likes' to add link.]

[The Lurker]

[Johnny Unusual]

"OK, I'm starting to think it's not an automatic door, but just in case, let's find more guys."

[goflyblind]

[Mrs. Dick Courier]

Kitty!