Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Books are my comfort food!

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

No one could have predicted…

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Proof of Life

Reader Interactions

114Comments

  4. 4.

    Bnut

    He’s sort of just cruising around the house looking for ways to be a PITA.

    Sounds like my girlfriend.

  5. 5.

    Jager

    He’s looking for MEAT scraps, MEAT scraps, MEAT scraps!

    Btw, he looks like my niece’s old cat, Booger, that nasty boy would leap on the counter and grab sausage right out of the pan. Properly fortified, he’d go out and kill a couple of birds just for the hell of it and leave them on the deck! He and Tunch would make quite a pair of widebodies.

  7. 7.

    JCT

    He’s got the “I’m ignoring you” look down pat.

    And hah, Jager — my naughty cat brings his new “friends” when they are still alive so he can get bored and set them loose in the house for us to catch.

  8. 8.

    merrinc

    Noelle the Maine Coon diva caught a mouse an hour ago. Unfortunately, it got away before she could dispatch it and despite the help of the dog and another cat, there is a (probably) living cat toy somewhere in the house.

  12. 12.

    Strandedvandal

    Fred brought in a quail this morning. Friggin thing was about as big as he is.

  13. 13.

    jl

    Wonderful pictures of Tunch. He looks very satisfied. Must have been all that nice steak and Scots whisky for dinner.

    Thanks!

    What did the humans eat?

  14. 14.

    Jager

    @JCT:

    A couple of years ago, my German Shepard, Straka strolled up to me with a god damned tail hanging out of his mouth…I told him to drop it and a very confused and damp mouse fell out and scurried across the patio

  15. 15.

    wmsheppa

    @John Cole you still doing pet rescue stories? I have one cat from the deserts of Utah and one cat found pregnant and dumped in WV for everyone’s viewing pleasure if so.

  16. 16.

    Violet

    Awww….he looks sweet in those photos. That’s a rarity. The mouseover titles are priceless.

    His tail cracks me up every time. He’s got a tiger in his tank!

  17. 17.

    JCT

    @Jager:

    Oh yuck!

    We often joke about what the poor mice feel as Mango leaps onto the back fence and makes his way to his cat door (high window in the kitchen) — dangling the poor creature in the breeze.

    One night he brought in a live pal and neither he or the 2 beagles could capture it. I heard him chasing the poor thing all night. The next AM my husband told me that he had found the mouse… floating in one of the dog’s water dishes! Husband quipped that he couldn’t decide if Mango was washing his “friend” and accidentally drowned it or the little thing took his own life.

    I can see by the thread my pet is not the only one who pulls this annoying stunt.

  19. 19.

    Bnut

    I call for an official BJ cute pet contest. Front pagers are forbidden from entry. My dog will win. I bet 20 internet bucks on it.

  20. 20.

    burnspbesq

    @General Stuck:

    Bad Stuck! How many time have I told you not to eat trolls? Now you’re going to puke Uncle Clarence Thomas all over my freshly cleaned carpet.

  21. 21.

    BR

    So I was digging through my music collection and ran across this gem, from 1996. It’s by a Canadian band most folks probably never have heard of:

    “Publicly subsidized! Privately profitable!”
    That’s the anthem of the upper-tier (the puppeteer untouchable).
    We focus a moment, nod in approval and bury our head back in the bar-codes
    of these neo-colonials while our former nemesis
    (ah, the romance!): the nation-state, now plays fund-raiser for a new brand of power-concentrate.
    Try again, but now we’re confused- what is “class-war”?
    Is this class war? Yes, this is class war.
    And I’m just a kid- I can’t believe that I gotta worry about this kind of shit!
    What a stupid world! Yeah, this is just beautiful… absolutely no regard for principle.
    What a stupid world. (We’re): 1) born 2) hired 3) disposed!
    Where that job lands,
    everybody knows and you can tell by the smile on the CEO’s
    that the environmental restraints are about to go.
    You can bet that laws will be set to ensure the benefit of unrestricted labor-laws
    (all kept in place by displaced government death squads).
    They own us. They produce us. They consume us.
    Can you fucking believe this? What a stupid world.
    Fuck this bullshit display of class-loyalties.
    The media and “our” leaders wrap it all up in a flag- their fucking shit-rag. hooray!

    Yes, they’re a bunch of angry Canadians, who are obviously shrill:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5YZ7FELtCI

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    @Bnut: Even though I don’t think burnie meant anything with that against you, I will say he does see himself as a rope tender for BJ.
    He’s all about the inside v outside.
    Probably due to his Dukie heritage.

  28. 28.

    burnspbesq

    @Bnut:

    I realize it’s late on Friday night, but reading comprehension is a good skill to keep in your toolkit at all times. Unless you are Stuck, I wasn’t talking to you. And unless you are Uncle Clarence Thomas, I wasn’t referring to you.

  29. 29.

    Corner Stone

    @Bnut: burnspesq also loves the Yankees, sad to say. Loves them almost as much as Cole loves the organ.

  31. 31.

    scav

    No pets but I did for a while have mice showing up in my appt mailbox. The one inset into the wall in the front hall. Brick building. I learned to open the mailbox door very very gingerly and to check for mail even if there were no deliveries to let them out. The most memorable inhabitant came flying out at me at eye level, dropped to the floor and proceeded to run head-first at high speed into all three walls of the hall — somehow without knocking himself out — before managing to make it out the door. It was like being in a pinball machine.

  32. 32.

    Jennifer

    For anyone who’s bored, I’ve got Fox’s clip of the Taliban monkey jihadist with the gun photoshopped into his hand up over at my joint.

    I’m suggesting that all future discussions of “equivalence” between right-wing and other media be answered with a shorter: “Monkeys. With guns photoshopped into their hands.”

  33. 33.

    burnspbesq

    @Bnut:

    We’re not defensive. We understand that consistent excellence brings out hatred from the small-minded. We revel in their hate. Small price to pay, when you get to celebrate two Championship Mondays in two months.

  34. 34.

    sfinny

    Lovely pictures and love the captions. Fortunately my cat does not throw up often, but when he does it is strategically located in my morning path.

    Last week I woke up to a dead bird in the hallway from my bedroom. Stupidly I left the door to the patio open for air (its been very hot in the NE) and Uncle Joe managed to get a bird off of the terrace, which is no mean feat, and left it for me. Well at least he was happy (not my favorite thing to dispose of dead birds early in the morning).

    OT: Driving home on Wednesday I swear that a tornado passed by me. I had to pull off the road because I couldn’t see even with the wipers at full, and debris was flying around like crazy. This does not happen in CT often but it has happened more in the last five years then when I grew up here. Scared the crap out of me on my drive home.

  35. 35.

    Mister Papercut

    You tell me, as a blogger, how Balloon Juice put up a picture today purported to be John Cole’s cat? What did you do to find out whether or not that was John Cole’s actual cat?

    Tunch = plant

  37. 37.

    Yutsano

    @Bnut:

    Yikes, a Duke guy. Well, I’m a Yankees fan

    I just want to give you hope, as both of these conditions are curable.

    I will feel this in a few months when Bama wins back to back national championships.

    This, however, I have a tougher time arguing against.

    @MikeJ: This is precisely why I want a place on either Queen Anne hill or West Seattle. Actually I think I’ll be happy with any location with easy access to 99. Goes right by the new job.

  38. 38.

    MikeJ

    I got Red Sox tickets for Sunday. Apparently they’re going to play the local fishermen. And I will eat Ichi-rolls and drink Manny’s until I can’t drive home.

  43. 43.

    gbear

    Those pictures don’t look like proof of life to me. They look more like proof of taxidermy or, at the least, proof of rigor mortis. Maybe proof of extreme cannabis intake…

  45. 45.

    BR

    @burnspbesq:

    I don’t like that at all. Not even a tiny bit.

    Yeah, I wouldn’t say Propagandhi is the most accessible or listenable band. But I somehow find them awesome anyway. And somehow their lyrics always end up being so sadly true even years later…

  46. 46.

    Emma

    sfinny: there were tornado warnings for CT on Wed.

    Tunch is definitely a Turkish Van. Does he like water? His coat is most likely water-repellent, really.

  47. 47.

    The Dangerman

    @gbear:

    Those pictures don’t look like proof of life to me.

    Proof of massive consumption of tuna as a way of life.

  51. 51.

    Yutsano

    @Tattoosydney: Kon ban/nichi wa. I just got home from dinner with the parents and have a massive chocolate craving I may go indulge here sooner rather than later. I don’t think the chocolate milk is gonna cut it.

  52. 52.

    Corner Stone

    @KG: Well…kind of a joke I guess. But nothing to do with comic-con.
    It’s from Family Guy:

    Neil Goldman: And so, because of his rough-and-tumble style of command, Captain Kirk is clearly superior to Jean-Luc Picard. Any questions… Meeeeg?
    Meg Griffin: No! Leave me alone!
    Mr. Berler: Thank you, Neil, for that incredibly irrelevant presentation. We all know that Captain Picard is the superior officer.

    I just caught the end of a ST:TNG while surfing.
    I love Picard.
    There. I said it.

  54. 54.

    Yutsano

    @burnspbesq: :: gnashes teeth mightily ::

    Damn you. I didn’t necessarily want to go to the store tonight. You may have just forced my hand here.

  55. 55.

    KG

    @Corner Stone: ah, yeah, I know the Family Guy episode. I like Picard, too. Not to go too Trekkie on it, but I don’t think you can really compare the two. TOS was set in a more wild time than TNG. I think you could arguably compare Kirk and Archer; and Picard to Janeway or Sisko. It’s a historical thing. It’s like trying to compare Washington to FDR, completely different worlds.

  56. 56.

    JCT

    I must say that in the first picture Tunch looks like he is sitting on an orange kitty.

    That tail is a scream.

  58. 58.

    Anne Laurie

    @wmsheppa: Rescue stories always welcome! Email your photos & story to me (address at the top right-hand corner) . I’ll front-page them if Cole doesn’t beat me to it.

  60. 60.

    Yutsano

    @Tattoosydney: I’m making a corn and black bean salad with corn left over from dinner tonight plus a knock-off of a trifle involving lemon cake, chocolate pudding, strawberries, and blueberries. Plus roast chicken for dinner tomorrow. I think I’m in a cooking fit again, although something tells me I’m not going to bother to bake the jelly roll cake I was planning on (even though it’s dastardly easy) and just use ladyfingers. I dunno, I’m leaving all that for tomorrow.

  63. 63.

    KG

    @Tattoosydney: I have learned, over the years, to not think too hard about time paradoxes when it comes to time travel stories. The most recent one that has begun to annoy me is on Eureka. But yes, Back to the Future, the entire trilogy is so full of plot holes that it’s crazy. That said, anyone says anything bad about Doctor Who, I will start throwing blows.

  64. 64.

    Violet

    @burnspbesq:
    No. Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food or New York Super Fudge Chunk. The dark chocolate fish/chunks really satisfy a chocolate craving.

  66. 66.

    slag

    @SIA: That was a great talk. If you missed the Van Jones convo in the other thread, I’ll sum up:

    Consensus is Van Jones is made of awesome and is quite the hottie.

    Obviously, it was a deep conversation.

  69. 69.

    slag

    @SIA: Indeed. And contra Atrios, the message of Van Jones’ speech had nothing to do with clapping louder. It had to do with taking responsibility upon ourselves for the direction of the progressive movement. And, if anything, ignoring the President and the Administration and focusing on local politics instead as doing so will better help us deepen the grassroots.

    He’s right, of course. Getting pissy at this Administration hasn’t done much for us. We’re better off focusing on the things we can control. But sadly, we still lack organization and unity, which can never come from without.

  70. 70.

    Tattoosydney

    @KG:

    That said, anyone says anything bad about Doctor Who, I will start throwing blows.

    I read an comment (somewhere on FlickFilosopher) that much of Doctor Who should be read as fantasy, not science fiction, and therefore time holes and paradoxes could be fixed by the simple expedient of magic. I quite liked the argument. Also, the argument that it’s a kids show that adults are allowed to watch, so get the hell over the whole time paradox thing.

    That said, I was amazed by the number of comments I read (on other websites) after the final show where (no spoilers) the commenter just didn’t understand how what had happened happened.

    Re: link above – If you like Dr Who, and haven’t read FF then you are in for a treat. Note the Spoiler warning at the top of each of her pages, if by some chance you haven’t seen the season finale.

  73. 73.

    hamletta

    @sfinny: The late, great Priscilla (so named because she had perfect kohl-like rings around her eyes, the way Elvis liked it) was a calico, and therefore a mighty hunter.

    One spring, a bird came down the chimney, as they almost always do.

    I could hear the desperate flapping of wings, but I did not care, because birds are just rats with feathers.

    Some time later, I ventured out to the front room and found two neatly amputated wings. And nothing else.

    Figuring she’d eaten the rest, I disposed of them and went about my day.

    When it came time for bed, I pulled back the covers, only to find a rat-bird’s head in my bed!

    It was then that I realized my kitty was a member of the Mob.

    What nefarious message she was transmitting I never understood, because some time later, she shot out the front door in pursuit of a bird in the neighbor’s yard and got eated by his asshole dog. The end.

  77. 77.

    slag

    @SIA: I think he’s right about the fact that we need to stop treating Democrats who lose elections as losers. And I do consider John Kerry a hero in several respects. But I wish he would help us help him a little more by not saying stuff like this: “we believe we have compromised significantly, and we’re prepared to compromise further.” Seriously. Not helping.

  78. 78.

    Corner Stone

    @Yutsano:

    Argle bargle. blah blah blah

    I’m pretty sure that’s the breadth and scope of what Cole defines as “mayhem”.

  81. 81.

    Steeplejack

    @Yutsano:

    The horror, the horror . . .

    I can’t stay around for this. I have to get my beauty sleep so I can sack up and get out in the 101° heat tomorrow. Good times.

    Mañana.

  82. 82.

    Tattoosydney

    @burnspbesq:

    Hey, mate, WTF was Ponting thinking, choosing to bat???

    I confess that the attractions of cricket pass me by (except when Mitchell Johnson takes his shirt off).

    I do admit to an odd schadenfreude when Australia gets thumped, mainly because our national sporting ego can use the occasional sharp elbow in the ribs.

  83. 83.

    gwangung

    This is precisely why I want a place on either Queen Anne hill or West Seattle. Actually I think I’ll be happy with any location with easy access to 99. Goes right by the new job.

    Ah, so you did get a new job. Cool!

    Just be careful not to live ON 99 when its Aurora Avenue. Getting back to be a main drag for hookers and drugs on some blocks…

  84. 84.

    gwangung

    @slag:

    And contra Atrios, the message of Van Jones’ speech had nothing to do with clapping louder. It had to do with taking responsibility upon ourselves for the direction of the progressive movement. And, if anything, ignoring the President and the Administration and focusing on local politics instead as doing so will better help us deepen the grassroots.

    Huh. I always had the feeling that if you didn’t have control at the local level, it was a contradiction in terms for the “grassroots” to go looking for power at the national level–in order to make a splash at the national level, you HAD to dig in deep at the local level.

  85. 85.

    slag

    @gwangung: Indeed. Personally, I think we need to work both levels simultaneously. But then, I’ve always been a multi-tasker (aka a half-assed-er).

  86. 86.

    Hob

    @Strandedvandal: Heh heh… I’ve lived with one GSD and one strange sheproid mix, and they’re both the world’s least mighty hunters. Both have accidentally found themselves face to face with the next-door cat that they had barked so many death threats at, and ran away even faster than the cat. One caught a squirrel and didn’t know what to do with it and dropped it unharmed. One found a gopher peeking out of a gopher hole in the park, and ignored the gopher in order to pee into the hole.

  89. 89.

    Yutsano

    @gwangung: I actually found a place on 2nd and Yosler, which is basically Pioneer Square. And they’re practically giving it away. Only major reason I can think of is, well, it’s Pioneer Square. It’s not exactly known as a quiet neighborhood.

  91. 91.

    NobodySpecial

    My original cat (named Cat, of course) was a mighty hunter and responsible for evidently feeding his family, as we ended up with I don’t know how many birds, mice, and the occasional bat on our porch. On the other hand, his daughter was a strange one – she liked to eat the legs off mice and leave them there, still alive.

  92. 92.

    Lesley

    I know I’m late to this Tunch love in but I have a question no one has asked.

    How long did it Mr. Throw Up Here to walk from here to there?

  93. 93.

    asiangrrlMN

    Cole, if you just posted pics of Tunchie 24/7, I would be a MUCH happier woman. I love that cat with a passion bordering on stalkerish (but not quite. I am too fucking lazy to stalk anyone. In fact, I wrote an essay about why Alan Rickman didn’t have to worry about me stalking him, unless he moved into my house, at which point, I wouldn’t have to stalk him).

    @hamletta: I am sure that was not fun in the moment, but it makes a great story (the head in the bed). My boys don’t sleep with me ‘coz of my allergies. One morning, I went out and petted them per usual. I saw something on the ground (I don’t turn on lights) and assumed it was a cat toy. I picked it up to throw it for them. It was warm. I thought, “Cat poop?” Um, no. It was a freshly-killed mouse. I dropped it, but managed to gather myself so I could praise them for being mighty hunters. Then I got rid of the carcass (perfectly intact).

    Anyone still up?

  97. 97.

    asiangrrlMN

    @roshan: Wow. There’s a lot of meat to digest there. I think, in general, I agree with his assertion that those fighting in wars are not automatically heroes. In fact, labeling them such strips them of their humanity, I think. Thanks for the link. I will have to mull it over more.

    And with that, I am really retiring now. Night.

  98. 98.

    thalarctos

    @asiangrrlMN:

    You know, if you’d asked me before I took this particular cat-sitting gig in Philadelphia a few years back, what my preference in cleaning up dead mice from the living room floor would be, in the lack of any experience I’d have gone with guessing fresh-killed over indefinitely-long-dead in provenance.

    Just goes to show you how naïve I was then–Pete helpfully provided enough data points over the course of the summer to disprove that hypothesis. I had totally underestimated how helpful rigor mortis is in picking up a dead rodent with minimum contact. A freshly-killed, still warm, mouse is floppy and squishy and hard to manage through the layers of plastic, while a mouse in rigor can be easily picked up with two fingers and a wad of plastic, and then simply flipped into the garbage bag.

    Bet you won’t find THAT tip in Martha Stewart, eh?

  99. 99.

    wormtown

    @Jennifer: Is that real? Cripes, I really can’t tell anymore.

    P.S. Haven’t read the entire thread; so maybe discussion below your comment…………….

  101. 101.

    kid bitzer

    people…don’t you see?

    there are not *two* photos of tunch up there.

    there is only *one* photo of tunch, and the second one is just flipped and retouched a little!

    look at the exhaust trails! identical!

    i’m telling you–there’s some mischief going on here. notice how it’s titled “proof of life”? but it isn’t really proof at all, is it, if it’s only one photo?

    who is trying to fake a proof of life? of whose life?

    is this john trying to fool us into thinking tunch is still alive? or is it…tunch? trying to fool us into thinking that the fat hairless monkey is still alive?

    i won’t speculate–it would be irresponsible–but my analysis of the two photos *proves* that they are identical! identically identical!

  108. 108.

    QuaintIrene

    It’s funny. When I first saw pics of Tunch he looked like he was carved out of a giant pristine meringue. Now every time there’s another little brown smudge showing up.

  109. 109.

    Yutsano

    @bago: I thought maybe this would get lost somewhere in the BJ archives but it seems to be a slow posting day. I haven’t committed to anything yet as far as housing so perhaps we should start a dialogue.

  110. 110.

    Steeplejack

    @Yutsano:

    You know, I’ve got this basement apartment right off of 99 on Queen Anne.

    Run, Yutsano, run!

    P.S. Find out if Bago’s middle name is Wayne. Almost all serial killers have the middle name Wayne.

  112. 112.

    matoko_chan

    ummm…..probly someone has ax this already, but how much does Tunch actually weigh?
    From the pics it looks like if he was black he could double for Bulgakov’s cat in The Master and Margherita.

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