Regular readers of Kevin Drum's Political Animal blog, successor to CalPundit, are used to his frequent diversions about his cats. So it's not surprising that his Jan. 4 post, Final Cat Blogging, has run up 377 comments.

About an hour ago Jasmine was sitting on my desk (keeping an eye on me, as usual) when she went into a violent spasm and fell to the ground. She died within a minute.

I don't know what happened, but it was probably a heart attack. She's had a heart murmur ever since we first got her, and it probably finally caught up to her. She was nine years old....

This will be the first night in years that she won't curl up between our pillows at night and then methodically take over Marian's pillow completely as the night progresses. It always helped us sleep better. If there's a cat heaven, I hope Jasmine is there, eternally chasing fat, lazy mice and snacking on spicy tuna. Rest in Peace, sweetie.

It's a largely liberal blog, hence the second comment in the thread: "At least she lived to see the Democrats take back Congress." Kevin has an update if you need a little upbeat right now.

Via Patterico