Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I really should read my own blog.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

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

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

I was promised a recession.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

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

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

This blog will pay for itself.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / NFL Open Thread: Watch Those Hands, Mister!

Reader Interactions

37Comments

  2. 2.

    Mnemosyne

    Moving this up from a different thread where it was OT:

    In sad pet news, our friend’s cat has a serious bowel obstruction and the vet is telling her that the surgery will cost $10,000.

    No, I didn’t accidentally add a zero. I love our cats dearly but, honestly, I’m not sure I could bring myself to pay that amount of money for one of them to have surgery. (I also don’t have that kind of money laying around, but that’s beside the point.)

  3. 3.

    The Dangerman

    Did anyone else see the Cmon Man (it’s an ESPN thing) where Big Ben actually got a reach around? I’m sure he was glad he was wearing a cup.

  5. 5.

    Corner Stone

    Alright, so this is an ersatz NFL post of sorts but let me reiterate ~ this is the worst, worst, wurst, officiated NFL game I have seen in a decade or more.
    And, I am a Texan fan so I like seeing Denver lose. This has been balls out brutal. Just fucking brutal.

  6. 6.

    Hill Dweller

    @Mnemosyne: $10,000? My now ex-girlfriend had an obstruction taken from her cat’s intestine, and it was less than $1,000. Granted, taking an obstruction from the bowel would be more expensive, but $10,000 is f’n insane. She should check another vet’s prices, if possible.

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    @Maude:

    Yeah, that would be my first question for the vet: what’s the prognosis and what would her quality of life be after the surgery? Maybe if it was “one and done,” but I seriously doubt it since simple surgeries rarely cost $10K.

    This is her first pet, so I’m trying to let her know that sometimes euthanasia is the kindest thing you can do and it doesn’t mean you’re a failure as a cat owner.

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hill Dweller:

    It sounds like there’s some infection and necrosis, so that’s where the extra cost is coming from. Which, again, leads me to urge her to think about what’s best for the cat, not about how guilty she feels for the cat getting sick. She did everything she was supposed to do — her regular vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so this is the specialist she was referred to who’s giving her this figure.

    Sometimes, unfortunately, shit happens. She didn’t neglect the cat or ignore that she was sick, but the vets couldn’t figure out what the problem was until now.

  11. 11.

    Maude

    @Mnemosyne:
    I grew up with a brother who was a falconer. He didn’t allow birds or animals to suffer. He used chloroform and then sobbed.
    I would say she needs to let the cat go, it is kinder and she will go through loss.

    Edit, I can’t spell tonight.

  16. 16.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    I think this kid is actually being sincere

    aaltman82
    Dunno how much it matters, but Romney’s hasty avail to clean up “47%” video was handled pretty deftly.

    Someone upstairs at Time inc must’ve scolded him for mentioning Romney’s tax returns in his initial write up on this. Isn’t Parson Meacham at Time now?

    Read more: http://swampland.time.com/#ixzz26ms4iCmp

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    @Punchy:

    Turns out that, as with so many things in life, when it comes to officiating, you get what you pay for. Substandard pay = substandard refs.

  18. 18.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    @Mnemosyne: by paying Roger Goodell twenty million that otherwise would’ve gone to entitled, first string refs, the NFL is creating jobs for second-string replacement refs!

  21. 21.

    Corner Stone

    I wish Gruden would go back to coaching. Somewhere, please.
    He sucks the dick of anyone ahead in any game he’s calling.
    It’s awful. Just shut up John. We all get it. You’ll be back coaching these guys soon enough.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    @BGinCHI:

    Which is what Romney is throwing in the game of life.

    Throwing an interception requires some skill on the part of the defender who catches it. What Romney is doing is more like fumbling the snap.

  25. 25.

    ? Martin

    @Roger Moore:

    What Romney is doing is more like fumbling the snap.

    I would have gone with ‘caught masturbating in the huddle during the Superbowl’, but there’s still 8 weeks to go, so maybe we should save something for later.

  26. 26.

    Corner Stone

    Shit. I’m surprised the NFL officials didn’t find some BS to give ATL another series.
    This has been turrible, jus’ turrble.

  27. 27.

    Violet

    @? Martin: Mitt can’t even figure out how to put on the uniform his daddy bought for him to play in the stadium his daddy’s money built, while all his daddy’s friends hire hookers to distract the opposing team. He’s even running onto the field in the wrong direction so that he ends up in the parking lot.

  28. 28.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker

    Blind squirrel trips over nut as Romney steps on his dick:

    Brooks in tomorrow’s Times: “Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.”

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:

    It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other.

    I think this is the key explanation for the blind squirrel finding the nut this time around. Brooks may not know much, but he’s a member in good standing of the self-satisfied millionaires club. He finally has a chance to speak about a topic where he has genuine expertise that his readers lack.

  33. 33.

    Yutsano

    @Mnemosyne: Before they decide to send kitteh to the Rainbow Bridge, is there a vet school they could look into? Some take on rare cases for learning purposes plus they’re usually much less expensive. My mom has her horses worked on at Wazzu all the time because it’s lots cheaper than the local vets.

  34. 34.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Mnemosyne: Aw, that’s no good. We had to put down the younger of our two a bit more than a month ago. Our vet told us that we could do a lot of things to buy him an extra week of life, but no guarantees beyond that. So we had to give up, and cried, and thought of what we could have come up with, but there unfortunately wasn’t anything we could have done that would have led to a significantly better, longer, happier life.

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yutsano:

    I don’t think there’s enough time left, unfortunately. Kitteh already can’t make it to the litter box and is having accidents where she’s laying down. I think, unfortunately, the Big Needle is going to have to come tomorrow for the cat’s sake.

    This is our kitty Charlotte’s sister, so her owner feels really guilty that we gave her a cat and she “killed” it. We spent some time on the phone reassuring her tonight, but there’s only so much you can say.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    @FlipYrWhig:

    When our cat Natasha had cancer, we had a really terrific vet who always made one of the options, “Or you could do nothing and let nature take its course, and that’s perfectly okay.” Kitty breast cancer has a very, very low survival rate, so the vet wanted to make sure we knew that, frankly, there wasn’t much that veterinary medicine could do for us and we shouldn’t feel guilty if we didn’t spend tens of thousands of dollars to gain an extra couple of months at best.

    I half-suspect that our friend was quoted this outrageous price to kind of force her decision, but I don’t really know. She’s living in the Bay Area now, so I don’t know any of her vets.

  37. 37.

    thalarctos

    @Mnemosyne:

    It sounds like there’s some infection and necrosis, so that’s where the extra cost is coming from. Which, again, leads me to urge her to think about what’s best for the cat, not about how guilty she feels for the cat getting sick. She did everything she was supposed to do—her regular vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so this is the specialist she was referred to who’s giving her this figure.

    Sometimes, unfortunately, shit happens. She didn’t neglect the cat or ignore that she was sick, but the vets couldn’t figure out what the problem was until now.

    You’re absolutely right about that–I developed severe pain in my abdomen, and the surgeon–a really good one–spent several days trying to figure out what could possibly be going wrong.

    When he finally did operate, he found a blood clot that had cut off the blood supply to my small intestine, and 3 feet of it had necrosed and had to be removed.

    Later, when I was back enough to participate in lucid conversation, he told me how lucky I was–that this kind of blood clot is usually found “on autopsy”.

    Which is my long-winded way of saying that you are right, and I hope that your friend can someday see her way to forgiving herself–if this kind of thing is so hard to find in humans, how much more so in cats, who can’t participate in their own care?

    It’s awful bad luck, but it sounds like there is nothing more she or her vet could have done, given the circumstances. I hope she understands that and eventually forgives herself, as she did nothing wrong.

Comments are closed.