Friday is traditionally considered to be cat blogging day, but with the exception of an occasional visit with cats, I've almost never engaged in cat-blogging. That's because I own no cats, and I'm allergic to them. I'd buy one of those new hypoallergenic cats, but they cost nearly $4000.00, so it'll have to wait for a major market correction. At the rate cats breed, though, you'd think that wouldn't take too long:

One cat and her litter can produce 420,000 cats in seven years - 10 million in 10 years!

Is there such a thing as having too many cats? We've all heard about so-called "animal hoarders" who are found living in squalid conditions with hundreds of cats, but woman in this area was recently cited for having fifteen cats in her home:

The Health Department and Borough Council say Smith and her 15 cats are in violation of an ordinance prohibiting residents from keeping more than four cats - and the fourth has to be approved.

Smith, who is a volunteer for Furrever Friends Rescue and Volunteers, a cat-rescue organization, describes herself as a foster "mom" to her cats. She has been rescuing cats and kittens since 2005 and says the rescue group is doing the town a service by taking them in.

So far, she has provided foster care to 19 felines as a Furrever Friends volunteer. In April, she was part of a team that took in five kittens found in a beer box sealed with duct tape and thrown into a garbage dump. Those kittens have been placed in homes, she said.

In July, after receiving a letter from the borough saying she had to remove the excess cats, she took her cause to the Borough Council, to no avail.

"He has no comment," Borough Clerk Barbara Lewis said yesterday, speaking for Mayor John Soubasis. "The ordinance is staying like it [is], and that's how it was decided."

Putting aside the question of the fine line between "animal rescue" and "animal hoarding," how might most libertarians analyze this? Clearly, the woman should have a right to conduct her life any way she sees fit, and, psychological judgments aside, if she isn't creating a health hazard or annoying the neighbors, I don't know whose business it is how many cats she has.

Besides, if they can limit the number of animals, why not other things? Like guns, perhaps? Why not people? In the area surrounding the university I live near, local zoning laws prohibit more than three unrelated students from living together.

Did the cats who wrote the "man's home is his castle" doctrine take into account zoning?

MORE: In Saudi Arabia, the sale of cats has been banned as a "Western influence," even though the prophet Muhammad loved them -- "in one instance letting a cat drink from his ablutions water before washing himself for prayers."

Now why would they pass a clearly un-Islamic law?