Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

No one could have predicted…

Democrats are back in array!

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

No Justins, No Peace

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Motown is Joe-Town!

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We still have time to mess this up!

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

When we show up, we win.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

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Open Thread

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Just walked back into my study from a bathroom break and caught tuna breath drinking out of my glass of water. Well, not really drinking, per se, but more like dipping a paw in, swishing it around, pulling it out and licking it, and then dipping it back in. Rinse and repeat. My first thought (right after “God damnit Tunch!”) was what if I had not walked in on him- I would be drinking litterbox flavored water without knowing it.

The second, more horrifying thought was “HOW MANY TIMES HAS HE DONE THIS AND I HAVEN’T CAUGHT HIM?”

Reader Interactions

147Comments

  3. 3.

    jacy

    “HOW MANY TIMES HAS HE DONE THIS AND I HAVEN’T CAUGHT HIM?”

    Someone obviously never read his Cat Ownership Manual. (Perfectly understandable, as it was written for cats, by cats, and in Cat.)

  8. 8.

    Shrillhouse

    Our old cat used to dip his paws in my wife’s hot cocoa, and then leave hot cocoa pawprints all over our apartment.

    God, I miss that cat. RIP Trixie.

  9. 9.

    Southern Beale

    My big fat orange tabby did that and then got clumsy and dumped an entire glass of water on my laptop.

    I loved that laptop. Lost EVERYTHING. Sigh.

    Back up your data, John.

  10. 10.

    cathyx

    Wow, good catch, that’s really gross. I also think it’s disgusting people who let their dogs lick them on the mouth. That dog licks its butt to clean it.

  11. 11.

    jibeaux

    Just wait until you find out, Seinfeld-style, what item from your bathroom he has put in the toilet. bwahaha.

  12. 12.

    ant

    mine either splashes it all out, or knocks over the glass.

    we haveta keep his water in the bathroom sink, so he can’t make a mess of it.

  13. 13.

    Djur

    Yeah, my Finnegan loves to do that with the big-ass mason jar I drink out of. That’s why I keep a lid on it. If I leave any water unattended and open for any period of time, I assume it’s now eau de merde du chat and toss it out.

    Suggestion: switch to a closable container or a bottle. A big water bottle you can close up will keep the cat’s paws out, it reduces the risk of spilling, and you’ll probably drink more water, too.

  14. 14.

    jheartney

    Our cat drinks straight from the tap, licking the stream of water as it flows. I think he often gives the faucet a tongue bath, but we mostly ignore the implications of that.

    Every breath you take contains countless thousands of floating bacteria and other micro stuff. If you smell the litter box it’s because tiny particulates and allied e coli are traveling from the box to your nose.

    We bathe all day in more germs than you could count. It’s why we possess an immune system.

  15. 15.

    Pee Cee

    “HOW MANY TIMES HAS HE DONE THIS AND I HAVEN’T CAUGHT HIM?”

    Answer: How many times have you left a glass of water unattended?

  16. 16.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @jibeaux:

    Mine used to regularly shove seashells down the toilet. We had to remove the basket of shells from the shelf above the toilet for that very reason after we had to remove the toilet to find out what the blockage was.

  18. 18.

    El Tiburon

    Caught this article via Digby.

    I think Perlstein nails it as far as why there is so much frustration with Obama. I echoed some of these sentiments a week or so ago here regarding the entire birth control compromise.

    Barack Obama knew it too. He just wouldn’t say it. He refused to criticize right-wing ideology. Or to make a full-throated case that Democrats offered an ideological alternative.

    But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, given an inch, conservatives are taking a mile.

    Right-wing change relies on leadership like that – Democrats who don’t plant a flag, who refuse to render the bad guys “controversial,’ and who never stake their claim on apparently “insane” ideas of their own – like proposals to pass a federal law desegregating public accommodations.

    Read it all.

    Although the Republicans may not get their “vaginal rape” laws passed, the argument gets so pushed to the right we don’t notice how abortion is de facto outlawed. “But Hey, at least we won on the vaginal insertion rape law! Holla!”

  20. 20.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    BTW did anyone see MJ this morning? It was interesting, Chuck Todd had been talking to some Repub strategists and they were saying that at this point the only way to save the party was to “let the 22% have their nominee” (I think we are more familiar with the 27% figure) and when he gets creamed in the general they can say “told ya so” and begin clawing the party back from the right.

  21. 21.

    Deb T

    Tunch probably licked his paws after using the litter box if that’s any conciliation.
    I’ve had cats and dogs all my life and I’m sure I’ve ingested enough hair, dander and dirt to fill a trash bag. Not that I want to and I don’t let dogs lick my face (I hate that).

    My current crop of cats are lickers! I never had cats that did this before. I can usually fend them off by scratching their ears, etc. They aren’t licking my mouth at least. Usually an arm, sometimes my cheek.

    Anyway, I think a certain amount of exposure to dirt is beneficial to all but the most immune challenged. At least I hope so. I heard that animals are more in danger of catching things from us. Is that true?

  22. 22.

    Mo

    But what if it was monkeys stealing your drinks?

    Awesome mix of BBC science documentary narration and footage of drunken monkeys.

    My cat did this. Bad because I liked to keep water to drink during the night. Learned that he disliked carbonated water. Bought a Sodastream. Miss the cat.

  24. 24.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    My cat does this to my girlfriend when she leaves her glass on the coffee table.

    I’ve had my cat for 16 years so I know all his moves by now but my girlfriend had never had a cat before we moved in together so she’s a frequent victim to kitty pawing her drinks and stealing her jewelry.

  25. 25.

    KyCole

    I always keep a glass of water by my bed at night. Before my cat died I would wake in the wee hours to the sound of her lapping up the water. At least she kept her foot out of it.

  26. 26.

    donnah

    I found our cat licking a stick of butter I had out on the counter. Gah! They are opportunists, that’s for sure.

    Our cat drinks that way, too, paw-dip by paw-dip. She’s the first long-hair cat we’ve ever had and it’s taken me a while to get used to combing her so she doesn’t get matted, and she has had to get used to being combed.

    Lordy, the things we put up with for some love!

  29. 29.

    Felinious Wench

    My cat will only drink from the fishbowl with my Siamese Fighting Fish in it. She has no interest in the fish, besides watching it. She just wants the water.

    I refill the bowl once the fish’s water space is getting crowded.

    Cats.

  32. 32.

    cathyx

    Ever since I put my cats on a restricted diet, (they were fat), I have to put any and all food away where they can’t get it. They will eat anything that’s left out.

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    He does it every time you leave the room, and he’s been doing it since you first got him.

    You’re welcome.

  35. 35.

    Felinious Wench

    @Bulworth:

    It drinks the Tunch-flavored water or else it gets the Rosie again.

    This made me snort my hot tea up my nose when I laughed. Damn you, Bulworth!

  36. 36.

    Shinobi

    Once I caught my cat stealing an entire piece of cheese off of a sandwich I was in the process of making. She was just holding the cheese bigger than her head and staring at me like “I no take cheese what you talk about?”

    Cats are also the reason I can no longer take a glass of water to bed. So many ruined books.

  38. 38.

    Sasha

    The second, more horrifying thought was “HOW MANY TIMES HAS HE DONE THIS AND I HAVEN’T CAUGHT HIM?”

    Some things in life need to be mysterious. Sometimes you need to just keep walking.

  39. 39.

    Interrobang

    Don’t you know anything, John? The first rule of Cat is that purloined water is tastier. Whether it comes from your glass, the toilet, or any random source that is not the water dish, it’s always tastier.

    I make a habit of leaving “decoy” glasses of water around for my cats, but they still get into my water from time to time.

  40. 40.

    The Pale Scot

    “T. gondii infections have the ability to change the behavior of rats and mice, making them drawn to, rather than fearful of, the scent of cats. This effect is advantageous to the parasite, which will be able to sexually reproduce if its host is eaten by a cat.[12] The infection is widespread in the brain, with more cysts targeting the parts of the brain corresponding to fear. The widespread nature of the infection causes many previously unnoticed symptoms in the rats.[13]

    Studies have also shown behavioral changes in humans, including slower reaction times and a sixfold increased risk of traffic accidents among infected, RhD-negative males,[14] as well as links to schizophrenia including hallucinations and reckless behavior.”

    “Cats are the primary source of infection to human hosts.”

    John’s accident proneness explained.

    Good luck getting rid of those oocytes dude.

    Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer

  43. 43.

    Schlemizel

    @donnah:
    Our ‘special’ cat loves butter. We had to get a covered dish to keep her from it. Bread too, she will rip into a loaf & eat her fill, just a bite or two from as many slices as she can get to. They like the winter when we have little water reservoirs on the in the radiators. They make the rounds lapping from them. Not sure if it is that they are too lazy to go to their water dish of if they see themselves hunting the plains & coming across small watering holes.

  45. 45.

    gelfling545

    @Southern Beale: I lost my beloved iBook to my dog’s lust for black coffee. Given that she’s less than a foot tall, I still don’t know how she got on the dining room table.

  50. 50.

    wrb

    Rush is stomping Willard for criticizing the practice of lighting one’s hair and is excusing Santorum’s recruiting of Dem votes.

    Calling this for Ricky.

  54. 54.

    Eric S.

    I tend to drink out of pint glasses. My cat helps himself whenever I have water or iced tea out. Not that the little psychopath (and I mean that affectionately) needs any caffeine in his life. I’ve gotten used to it. What surprised me last night was when he jumped up on the coffee table, grabbed a blackberry out of the bowl and took off with it.

  55. 55.

    bemused

    One of my favorite cat cartoons has a fat cat lolling on the kitchen counter top, leaning back against the microwave, back legs resting on a fruit bowl, chatting on a cell phone with a martini glass in the other paw (the goldfish in the martini glass was a nice touch), saying to a feline pal:

    “So she’s like ‘GET OFF THE COUNTER!’ and I’m like ‘GET OFF MY ASS!!’ “

  56. 56.

    Schlemizel

    @Litlebritdifrnt:
    And thats why we need Willard to get the nomination. After he gets his ass kicked the 27% will be in full screaming-mimi. They will demand someone even nuttier than Ol Frothy.

    They probably will get it and that could be the death of that putrid cesspool of a party for 40 years.

  58. 58.

    The Pale Scot

    @Mino:

    Well eewww.. But, the worm is perhaps deadlier but it may not affect the hosts behavior. Parasitologists are discovering some incredible stuff concerning parasite’s ability to commandeer their hosts behavior and biology for their own purposes.

  59. 59.

    jl

    It is his way of transmitting some of the TunchForce to Cole, who should be grateful.

    Unless it is T. gondii, in which case, Tunch is just trying to make Cole less fearful of approaching him…. with food.

  60. 60.

    Walker

    Marcus, my cat, is a salt freak. If I leave out a sleeve of Saltine crackers, he will either stick his head in the sleeve or pull a cracker out with his paw. He will then take a single cracker into his mouth and proceed to nom on it.

    He won’t actually eat the Saltine. He just munches on it to get the salt off. And, of course, leaves crumbs all over the floor.

  61. 61.

    runt

    This is why I prefer dogs: They make more noise when they jump onto the table.

    Having said that, it should be clear to any pet owner that you leave foodstuff and beverages unguarded at your peril. What were you thinking, Mr. Cole?

  62. 62.

    Butch

    So did I mention that we found a kitten in our carport two weeks ago? Assumed he would be feral and we were wrong – he’s a charmer. So now we’re up to seven cats and four dogs.

  64. 64.

    Short Bus Bully

    The cold war continues I see. I recall an open thread a week or so ago where a certain John Cole of this here blog was reveling in his oneupsmanship for waking a certain Tunch throughout the day to torture him in response to being ambushed Kato style in the middle of the night.

    I think Tunch is as sly as we all give him credit for being.

    Well done cat, well done.

  65. 65.

    Poopyman

    @petesmom:

    This is why I drink from a water bottle with a screw-on top.

    Every glass in our 5-cat household has a screw-on top.

    I can’t believe this is the first time you’ve caught someone in your water.

  66. 66.

    Tercali

    Yep. Par for the course in cat human cohabitation. My cat Max helps himself to every open glass of water on every surface he can reach. We have a few narrow window ledges that he’s to skittish to attempt thankfully.

    Be on the lookout for floating cat hairs, dander specks and wet pawprints…

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    @Southern Beale:
    @gelfling545:

    I got milk all over the keyboard of my iBook thanks to my cat Boris, but fortunately I was buddies with some tech guys at the time and they were able to help me salvage it. (Short version: rinse rinse rinse with bottled (but not distilled) water and then let it dry for at least 7 days.)

    It wasn’t entirely Boris’s fault, though — what happened was that he tried and failed to jump into my lap right when I took a mouthful of cereal, and I laughed so hard that I got milk all over the iBook.

  69. 69.

    Abraxas

    My cat does this all the fucking time! Drives me crazy. Even leaving a couple of glasses of water just for him doesn’t stop it. Grrr.

  70. 70.

    David Koch

    @wrb: Romney’s internal polls show him losing.

    Romney is already conceding, saying, “it’s okay if I don’t win the nomination”.

  72. 72.

    joeyess

    Tuna breath? Might wanna have his teeth cleaned, Cole. Trust me, you don’t wanna wait until he has to have them removed. That costs about $40 per tooth and that adds up, brotha.

  75. 75.

    vtr

    I’m not sure there’s serious health implication here, but check with your vet. I recommend being very selective in buying cat litter. Some brands taste better than others.

  77. 77.

    serge

    My answer has always been to let them do whatever…one of my dogs isn’t satisfied until he’s given me a ten minute tongue bath every morning, and I can guarantee you he’s been to his ass in the recent past.

    I live by the advice of a good friend, an epidemiologist with the CDC and now NIH who’s spent much of her adult life in Africa. Her advice has always been, “Challenge your immune system.”

    That said, you should still kill the damned cat…

  80. 80.

    Aaron S. Veenstra

    Many times. All three of our cats will do this at least occasionally (given enough access) and our kitten still drinks a decent amount of his water out of the bowl via his paws. When he doesn’t use his paws, he reaches his face all the way across the bowl to make sure he gets his chest wet while drinking. He’s really not happy unless he’s getting the floor around the bowls wet.

  81. 81.

    Legalize

    Precisely why no beverages are left unattended near our computers. I’ve walked into Mrs. Legalize’s office with Shit-Head McGee (our male cat) with half his fucking skull shoved in a teetering water glass – right next to her day-old Mac Book. To be fair to Shit-Head, it WAS hilarious.

  82. 82.

    Linnaeus

    Did anyone here catch Mac McClelland’s Mother Jones article about labor conditions in online-shipping warehouses? It’s a must-read:

    “Just look around in here if you wanna see how bad it is out there,” one of the associates at the temp office said to me, unprompted, when I got hired. It’s the first time anyone has ever tried to comfort me because I got a job, because he knew, and everyone in this industry that’s growing wildfire fast knows, and accepts, that its model by design is mean. He offered me the same kind of solidarity the workers inside the warehouse try to provide each other at every break: Why are you here? What happened that you have to let people treat you like this? “We’re all in the same boat,” he said, after shaking my hand to welcome me aboard. “It’s a really big boat.”

  83. 83.

    Quicksand

    You know, I like this blog very much. There’s a lot of insight into political matters and national affairs, and my own worldview matches up quite well with the front pagers and the commentariat (you know, readership capture, echo chamber, epistemological closure, and all that).

    But then, every now and then, I read a post like this.

    Seriously John, how long have you had that cat? You’re just now figuring this out?

    It calls my entire intellectual identity into question.

  84. 84.

    Catsy

    @cathyx:

    Wow, good catch, that’s really gross. I also think it’s disgusting people who let their dogs lick them on the mouth. That dog licks its butt to clean it.

    This. I have a friend who lets his cat eat things off of his plate and will actually eat something after the cat has taken a bite of it. Turns my stomach.

    Our cat likes to inform us that he requires food while we’re in bed. He will crawl up on my chest, start purring like mad, and reach out with one paw to touch me on the lips. If I have the covers over my face, he will slowly pull the covers back.

    I once woke up to his paw on my slightly open mouth. The cat went flying as I lurched out of bed and ran to the bathroom to wash my face and use mouthwash. Ewwwwww. Ew ew ew. He walks on kitty litter with those feet.

    Thankfully, Suede is remarkably well-behaved other than little quirks like that. He doesn’t jump up on counters and tables and we’ve long since learned not to leave uncovered glasses of water.

  86. 86.

    Elizabelle

    PS: in keeping with the thread: I had a dog that loved to drink.

    Cocktails, egg nog, coffee — she was there. Leave no food or drink untended.

    When I adopted her, her name was “Tipsy.”

    I don’t think that was an accident.

    Loved that dog.

  88. 88.

    Jennifer

    @Jennifer: I posted that before reading through the thread.

    That having been said: toxoplamosa is a very common parasite to find in humans, and unless you have a compromised immune system, it seems benign. People with AIDS can die from it, also, unborn babies don’t have the immunity to deal with it, hence the warning for pregnant women.

    In tests done on human subjects with toxomplasmosa, they found that the women were “warmer” and the men more risk-taking…which parallels the effects the parasite has on rats, making them more suseptible to being caught and eaten by cats.

    But to put things in perspective, something like over half the population in Europe carries the toxoplamosa parasite. It’s really not that big of a deal.

  90. 90.

    gene108

    We’ll soon see, if the courts really think corporations are people.

    Human rights are front and center at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in two cases testing how American law intersects with international law. At issue in both cases is whether foreign nationals in the United States can sue corporations or other entities in U.S. courts for alleged violations of human rights.

    The case that has corporate teeth chattering is a lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell Oil, which is accused of aiding and abetting the Nigerian government in committing atrocities in the 1990s.

    The suit was brought by 12 Nigerian citizens, all of whom have been granted political asylum in the United States. They are natives of the Ogoni region of Nigeria where Shell Oil has conducted oil exploration for decades.

    SNIP

    Their lawsuit against Shell is based on the Alien Tort Statute, a law enacted in 1789 by the first U.S. Congress and aimed mainly at pirates. The statute says U.S. trial courts can hear civil damage suits brought by a foreign national for wrongs “committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”

    The statute remained largely unused until 1980, when victims of human rights abuses began using it against foreign individuals and corporations. In 2004 the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, upheld the application of the law to human rights abuses, but only for a limited category of crimes — torture, genocide and crimes against humanity. The court said that in modern times the torturer has become like the pirate and the slave trader of earlier times, “an enemy of all mankind.”

    Unresolved, however, was who could be sued. The case the court ruled on involved a lawsuit against an individual. This case asks whether the victims of such crimes can sue corporations.

    http://www.npr.org/2012/02/28/147507940/human-rights-victims-seek-remedy-at-high-court

    I say, if corporations really are people, they should have the same standing in the courts as an individual would in similar circumstances.

    It’ll be interesting to see the results.

  91. 91.

    MosesZD

    It sounds like the cat has developed some mad skillz… I’d say he’s been doing it for a LONG time.

  92. 92.

    gnomedad

    I know David Brooks is as popular as toxoplasmosis around here, but I can’t help liking this:

    The wingers call their Republican opponents RINOs, or Republican In Name Only. But that’s an insult to the rhino, which is a tough, noble beast. If RINOs were like rhinos, they’d stand up to those who seek to destroy them. Actually, what the country needs is some real Rhino Republicans. But the professional Republicans never do that. They’re not rhinos. They’re Opossum Republicans. They tremble for a few seconds then slip into an involuntary coma every time they’re challenged aggressively from the right.

  93. 93.

    Culture of Truth

    I’m laughing at John and then suddenly I’m thinking, does that happen in *my* house? I think not, because I would have noticed, and in fact I have, on rare occassions when the water dish is not full.

  95. 95.

    Rosalita

    My male cat can’t seem to stop tipping my glass over to see what’s in it — and then whatever WAS in it is all over the table, counter, floor…

    Oh and he loves sweets. I spent an entire day laboring over Linzer cookies. Left them to set up on racks and took a little nap. Came down to tongue marks in the powdered sugar and the jelly centers cleaned out. Lucky for him he’s cute.

  96. 96.

    p.a.

    Wikipedia 2015: …despite a cantankerous personality in his blog posts, Cole apparently had an active and fulfilling social life in his hometown. This began to change in 2012 however, with his insistence on always being served beverages in sippy-cups…

  97. 97.

    Schlemizel

    @gene108:
    it’ll be 5-4 corporations are people my friend – when it works out to their advantage – but they are not people my friend – when THAT works to their advantage.

    GACK! We need to elect about 4 Dem Presidents in a row in order to unload the current boxcar of buffoons that is the USSC.

  98. 98.

    Amir Khalid

    Why is Mr Frothy courting Michigan Democrats? Does he not realize they’re not voting for him because they want him to be president? surely he or someone on his campaign staff is aware that these Democrats (1) hope to divide the delegate count and weaken the eventual Republican nominee; and/or (2) expect he’ll be easiest to beat in the election proper.

  100. 100.

    RSA

    So, John, when you wrote this last week,

    At any rate, more often than not, in the winter, if I am feeling a little run down and sluggish, I drink a couple big glasses of water, and in short order I am feeling much better.

    I think you might not have been giving credit where credit was due.

  101. 101.

    Schlemizel

    @gnomedad:
    If only the slug would look back at his own slimy trail and concede his part in how this came to be. Short of that there will be no growth and he will be polishing wingnut nob again soon wondering how things got so far out of hand.

  103. 103.

    EL

    I put a glass of ice water on my nightstand every night, and often wake to my cat lapping away. I think she likes the ice. I gave up trying to stop it and live with “sharing.”

    I’d probably feel a whole lot different about it if it was her paw, though.

  104. 104.

    pat

    For some forgotten reason, I long ago started leaving a glass of water on my bedside table. I rarely drank out of it after going to bed, because of the reflux, dontchaknow.

    Now I don’t drink out of it because Susy Cat has decided that if SHE is thirsty in the middle of the night, darned if she is going to traipse down the hallway to the kitty water, when there is this glass RIGHT THERE.

    I do like to wake to the slurping, tho.

  105. 105.

    Schlemizel

    @Amir Khalid:
    Because all he has to do is win the GOP nomination and then the Angel Gabriel will anoint him President. It does not matter to him how he gets the nod, only that he gets it. And from a strictly GOP thought-process this is exactly right. No matter which of the clowns gets his orange hair & floppy shoes into the ring the rest of the bozos will fall in behind honking their little horns and squirting seltzer on the Dems.

  106. 106.

    R-Jud

    Quinn is the paw-dipper. Tully just knocks glasses over and laps up whatever doesn’t immediately soak into the carpet. This is why

    a) we mostly drink out of bottles
    b) we’re getting hardwood floors put in next month

    It’s a good thing they’re cute.

  107. 107.

    Schlemizel

    Since I wake up regularly every hour, hour and a half now I keep a glass on the headboard to drink from. But I have always used one of those sports shakers with a large tab that closes the opening. I did it because I was afraid I’d dump it in the dark but now I’m really glad I did even if I never tip it over!

  108. 108.

    cathyx

    I’ve had my cats eat my vitamins I set out to take and left for a moment. Now that’s desperate.

  110. 110.

    trollhattan

    @Amir Khalid:

    #1. Ego.
    #2. The only sin is losing.
    #3. See #1.

    Mittens has the annoying self-satisfaction shared by many of his rich Uberclass brethern, but Rih is infected with breathtaking pomposity and no small amount of narcissism. He’d more or less kept it under wraps when he was foundering on the C-List, but now that he’s attracted all the cameras he’s letting the freak flag fly.

    And when he’s calling the president “snob” that’s a tell.

  112. 112.

    Southern Beale

    Today was the last day of early voting so I went ahead and got it out of the way. Big line at the polling place too, they said it’s cuz it’s the last day .. all last week it was dead. Should have known.

    Tennessee is an open primary state but it looks like the braindead Republibots are primed to vote for Rick Santorum without any ratfucking help from me, plus there are some judicial races on the Dem primary ballot that are important. So I got to cast my vote for Barack Obama today! Wooo hoo!

  113. 113.

    Mark S.

    Some British global warming denier:

    Warming to my theme, I noted that there are now sufficient reserves of shale gas to power the US economy for the next five hundred years (at current consumption levels) and that after that we’ve got at least another five hundred years worth of viable energy from the clathrates (concentrated methane deposits) on the ocean floor. So that’s panic over for the next millennium at any rate.

    Utterly insane.

  114. 114.

    rea

    Rush is stomping Willard for criticizing the practice of lighting one’s hair

    Oh, sure. Let’s let the bald guy talk about the pleasures of setting one’s hair on fire.

  115. 115.

    Mino

    @Mark S.: We’re gonna get tired of eating food synthesized from cow farts when the oceans crash and desertification is finished with us.

  116. 116.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    “HOW MANY TIMES HAS HE DONE THIS AND I HAVEN’T CAUGHT HIM?”

    Every day that you’ve had him (I’ve had cats that did this too). Enjoy your toxoplasmosis infection.

  117. 117.

    boss bitch

    @El Tiburon:

    Don’t blame Obama for the craziness on the right or the advancement/instensity of it. The left has a voice and they also have resources. USE THEM! and stop treating Obama as some savior. He’s one man and you all expected him to spend all his days fighting your battles.

    “Obama knew it too” – GTFOHWTBS!!

  118. 118.

    Southern Beale

    Certainty, Bitches!

    Markets Start to Anticipate Obama Victory in November
    __
    While President Obama may not be Wall Street’s ideal candidate, stock prices are rising on growing expectations he will be re-elected this November.
    __
    Part of that, market pros say, is simply that investors feel more certain about who will be in the White House for the next four years and which policies they will have to deal with.

  120. 120.

    muddy

    I think Tunch is probably too lazy to bother to mess with your glass repeatedly, John. Probably he just heard you coming, let you “catch” him, just so you would torture yourself with the wondering. It’s much more efficient for him this way.

  126. 126.

    trollhattan

    @David Koch:

    Boatloads (yes, I’m being ironic) of polygamists, too. Willard’s grandad pretty much guarantees he’s got that vote sewed up.

    I’ll bet a lot of the sister wives will be a-votin’ for the first time.

  127. 127.

    trollhattan

    @Southern Beale:

    Yeah, one must balance entertainment versus practicality, but the image of a house overrun with soggy, water-bloated kittehs looking for the cat box does have it’s appeal.

  129. 129.

    Chuck Butcher

    This thread is pretty funny to me on several levels. My immune system has been pretty well tuned up by decades of working outdoors in less than clean environments. If you haven’t been in construction or something like wildfire firefighting you probably don’t quite understand…

    I don’t like my faced licked. That incudes, really, by a woman. All of my pets have learned that one lick on a hand is more than sufficient. (just to be clear – women are not pets)

    My wife goes nuts if a cat gets on the counter or dinner table, I don’t like it – either. Currently, other than two grand-babies and their mother, we are pet free. Dogs and cats are simpler and cleaner – really.

    John, your battle is lost. Our last cat – in the face of my wife’s incindiary reactions – would never get on a counter in front of anyone and bolt if caught. If caught. There were pretty good hints that “not caught” was going on.

  130. 130.

    Sawgrass

    My cat won’t drink water any other way. My wife can’t seem to remember not to leave her water glass sitting around, so it’s for sure she’s also been inoculated by whatever is in the cat box or anything else on her paws.

    Video below for comparison, with original guitar soundtrack by my friend Eric (and unfortunate titling by wife Terri– just my opinion, mind.)

    The Cootie Show

  131. 131.

    daize

    @Aaron S. Veenstra: That is just so cute.

    I had a kitty who would drink water out of my glass. It was just so sweet I didn’t have the heart to stop her. (Dumped tuna water afterward, of course.) She never really “got” people food, but I had to hide the butter and Parmesan cheese.

  133. 133.

    wrb

    @Chuck Butcher:

    This thread is pretty funny to me on several levels. My immune system has been pretty well tuned up by decades of working outdoors in less than clean environments. If you haven’t been in construction or something like wildfire firefighting you probably don’t quite understand…

    This.

    Jesus, people have become delicate flowers. I’ve worked in construction and logging and have horses, goats, sheep, dogs, cats birds and probably critters I’m forgetting. There is shit in the dust. It floats in our (pristine) air. Lick your lips and you’ll ingest some.

    A healthy immune system is what matters.

  134. 134.

    WereBear

    9 month old kitten, Tristan, spilled white wine on my laptop and killed it. Mr WereBear pointed out that if I had been drinking scotch, it might have been saved.

  136. 136.

    DanielX

    John,

    It’s been going on for quite some time and you’re not dead yet. Console yourself with the thought that the inside of your mouth (like all human mouths) probably has bugs as nasty or nastier than anything His Royal Rotundity has on his paws. Which is not to say you don’t want to lessen your exposure to toxoplasmosis and coliform bacteria etc as much as possible…

    Get a sippy cup. Today.

  137. 137.

    crosspalms

    Our cat Paulette likes to do that, too. She never tries it with wine, though — keep that in mind.

    Cat Midnight, meanwhile, likes spinach and will steal it off the counter any time we have it.

  138. 138.

    Patricia Kayden

    “HOW MANY TIMES HAS HE DONE THIS AND I HAVEN’T CAUGHT HIM?”

    What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

  139. 139.

    Bill Arnold

    @Comrade Dread:
    Re latent Toxo, I wonder if John has noticed any changes in mood, sociability, attention, motivation or sleep patterns. Or increased friendliness to cats.

    Do those cat drinking fountains work well?

  140. 140.

    Jennifer

    Again, don’t make too much of the toxoplasmosis. I went back and looked at the reference I had cited earlier – I was WAY low on the number of people with toxoplasmosa in Europe. It’s virtually 100%. And something like 1/3 of all people in the world have the toxoplasmosa parasite living in their brains.

    Not really a problem unless you’re severely immuno-compromised.

  142. 142.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jennifer:

    Yeah, I read the Atlantic article and couldn’t help thinking, “Have this guy’s co-workers ever noticed that he has Asperger’s?”

  144. 144.

    Steverino

    My cats never drank from my glass that I noticed. I’m a big coffee drinker, and sitting with a cat and a book and a cup of coffee, I’d always have to show the cat what I was drinking: “Coffee– you don’t like that,” and they would thereafter ignore it.

    Out of habit, I did the same thing with a rent-a-cat at the local bookstore and my travel mug, while getting some quality lap time, to the same effect. He didn’t like coffee, and was content to let me drink it without doing that focus-on-the-food-as-you-eat thing.

    My own cats were never food-hogs, either; they had a bowl of dry food all day and never over-ate, nor ate my food/begged at the table. If it was something they’d like (mac&cheese, spaghetti sauce with meatballs, and so on) I’d leave a little on my plate and put it on the floor for them. I miss all that; my wife dislikes all animals so I live vicariously through you-all (and the bookstore, and the neighbor’s dogs).

  147. 147.

    vonhonkington

    @Chuck Butcher: incendiary, huh? i’m imagining your wife going about the house, watching tv, doing dishes etc, while casually toting around a flamethrower, fuel tanks and all.

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