I love the “oh shiiiitttt” look on the pilot’s face at about the one minute mark when he first sees the cat. Can’t quite figure out the passenger’s reaction. Did the pilot tell her about the cat and say “DON’T LOOK!” or something? Because when she finally does look, she doesn’t seem surprised.
My guess is that puddy tat found a firmly grounded hidey-hole immediately upon disembarking and stayed in it a good long while. Poor critter.
Germy Shoemangler
I noticed the humans wore headphones. The decibels that poor cat experienced makes me wonder if some permanent hearing damage occurred. An engine powerful enough to lift two people will be LOUD.
Cats are natural stowaways. They made it to the new world (as we call it) by chasing mice and rats onto sailing ships.
J.
Per the original (?) video, the cat was fine. Totally unfazed by the experience and is the club’s mascot. Talk about a cool cat.
Elizabelle
Amazing video. Cat looked kind of unflappable. Did not seem to mind flying.
Aircraft sounds like a lawn mower. I am impressed with how quickly it can gain, and lose, altitude.
Elizabelle
I wish they would pan out and show the ultralight in full.
Botsplainer
Communism!
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/confederate-flag-removed-from-alabama-capitol-on-governors-order/
srv
Freedom is on the march:
Limbaugh know what you people are really up to
Leftists will come to embrace Dylann’s flag burning.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I actually flew on a very similar craft years ago. It was an ultralight that one of my uncles built using a snowmobile engine, and it was LOUD! I still can’t believe I did it since I am scared shitless on regular passenger airplanes and avoid flying as much as possible! But it was fun — like riding a flying bicycle!
Germy Shoemangler
Notice to all snakes everywhere: mess with bunnies and Mom the Rabbit will kick your ass. Repeatedly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MHUlVIJy94
Karen in GA
@Botsplainer: But how will the South honor its heritage now? /white supremacist moron
I love the video. After Phoebe, I can’t imagine not having a black and white purr machine in my home. I’ll bring one home again someday.
Anyway, speaking of unflappable pets: Muppet’s a good girl, and Iggy benefits.
raven
@Betty Cracker: Wonder what kitty would have done hanging on the mini-gun on the Cobra on that dive?
WereBear
@Karen in GA: You have the cutest pups.
Randy P
Years ago when we lived in MD, we got a call one day from someone who lived 50 miles south of us and across the Potomac in VA. They had our cat who had vanished months before. Our theory was that he had stowed away on a truck or something and had only just decided to allow someone to get close enough to read his ID tag.
A few years later in PA he repeated the stunt, again disappearing for months and again coming back into our life when he accepted food from someone who was eventually able to read his tags.
The last one might have cured his wanderlust as he stuck close to home after that, dying at home at 14.
This guy was also the most successful hunter of any cat we ever owned. He would bring us rabbits and I suspected he could bring down a deer if he wanted to.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
Honestly, the cat didn’t look that traumatized – more like it was just enjoying the view and the air blowing on it’s face.
raven
@Karen in GA: We went to the antique places in Monroe last weekend and one had a big booth of string instruments.
ArchTeryx
Actually said that the pilot told the passenger (the woman) to ignore the cat. Cat was fine perched inside the wing, but if she tried to jump down onto someone’s lap, the club may well have been minus one mascot.
He flew the pattern and got the plane down smartly. What I wish they’d recorded is his conversation with the tower while he was doing his go-around; the video poster said it was five shades of hilarity. I bet it was.
JGabriel
@srv:
After which, Walker will sign a third bill mandating display of the Confederate battle flag over the Wisconsin capitol.
WereBear
@ArchTeryx: Sounds like the cat might have gotten a taste for it. Hide those keys!
Germy Shoemangler
I didn’t know Hodge had a statue in his honor. Hodge was Samuel Johnson’s cat:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodge_(cat)
Roger Moore
@Germy Shoemangler:
Chasing, or being brought onboard to do something about them? My impression is that plenty of ships kept cats quite deliberately as vermin-hunters.
ArchTeryx
@WereBear: Oh, I have no doubt about that. The club mascot? She would have been used to the planes and crawling around in them, and may well have been flying before.
They should just install a “cat sling” to keep kitty safely contained and take her up with them. I’ve heard of ultralight pilots doing just that, though not seen the pet slings in person.
Germy Shoemangler
@Roger Moore:
Probably both. Cats often insert themselves into situations where their value is then perceived, and they are encouraged.
Keith P.
This was the first time I could bring myself to watch, since I was worried I’d be watching, and the cat would fly off the craft (although damn thing could probably survive the drop). Glad to see that they landed without any harm coming to it. Now I’m gonna go curl up with my own cat for a little while.
Bill
Was there no pre-flight safety check that would’ve revealed a cat hiding in the damn wing?!
Frankensteinbeck
I am told that as long as it lands feet down, which they do turn to do instinctively, terminal velocity for a cat is slower than ‘definite permanent injury’ velocity. I think hitting a tree would change that, so I’m just as glad the cat kept its grip.
Apparently there’s a certain range in the 20-50 feet height where a cat is much more likely to be injured, because it doesn’t have time to get into position.
Karen in GA
@WereBear: I’d say thanks, but I had nothing to do with it — they came that way. They’d say thanks themselves, but they’re too busy treating my living room like a skate park to acknowledge anyone else.
@raven: Sorry I missed that. But then again, I shouldn’t be spending the money, so it’s probably for the best.
Iowa Old Lady
The more I hear people who knew Clementa Pinckney talk about him, the more impressed I am by the kind of person he must have been.
Germy Shoemangler
@ArchTeryx:
As Betty said, those ultralights are LOUD. Kitteh-sized earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones would be the humane thing. A cat’s hearing is one of her superpowers.
Of course, no cat would tolerate such safety devices.
Tenar Darell
@Karen in GA: Your dogs are the funniest.
@Randy P: Speaking of great kitty hunters of deer this Jurassic Kitty mashup comes to mind.
Elizabelle
CDC alert, via Andy Borowitz.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler:
Actually, mice and rats are more the natural stowaways. There appears to be a long tradition of cats carried onto ships to control vermin, and to provide companionship.
Elizabelle
@JGabriel: Yeah. MotoKitty? We just found PropellerKitty.
Botsplainer
@Iowa Old Lady:
Way I figured, a guy who becomes the pastor of a historically significant church has to really have people skills above and beyond. The reaction from even conservative Republicans who served with him reflects the sort of esteem people held him in.
Belafon
@Botsplainer: There were three flags at the Confederate memorial that were also removed.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
And where, where, I ask you, did the Wright Brothers make their initial flight?
Kitty Hawk.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
As I understand it, that’s not quite right. A cat can right itself and land on its feet from only a few feet up. The worst danger zone is because cats that fall a really long distance eventually relax and spread out their legs. That increases their drag and decreases their terminal velocity, making the landing less dangerous. IIRC, the height of greatest danger is substantially more than 50 feet; the data on this is from the (unfortunately large) number of cats living in highrises who have fallen off balconies or out of windows.
Josie
@Karen in GA: I have been enjoying your dogs for some time now and realized I hadn’t told you so. I look forward to each new dialogue. Those faces are loveable, and their conversations are funny but true.
ShadeTail
@Germy Shoemangler: Not just snakes, but cats also.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUU_oOBZKko
Elizabelle
Front page of NYTimes website just now: top story: Homegrown Radicals More Deadly Than Jihadis in U.S.
blurb:
from the story:
Why might “such numbers” be “new to the public”? Why?
DCrefugee
@ArchTeryx:
If someone knew the airport and the date/time, a recording may be available at http://www.liveatc.com...
ruemara
@Iowa Old Lady: Which is why he was a target for neonazi assassination. Considering Dylann asked for him and this has been one of a series of “lone wolf, just a crazy” incidents.
I have this cat video in my companies social media calender as a warning to check your stuff for cats, because they have no sense.
Elizabelle
@Josie: Ditto. Best dialogue by pets on the web. To my knowledge.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: Simple, the people in the cross hairs of these homegrown terrorists are usually not blue eyed and blonde.
ETA: Two examples from the top of my head; Mother Emmanuel and the Wisconsin Sikh temple.
raven
@Karen in GA: It’s a booth in this place.
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore:
I’m sure you’re right. I only remember the general idea, and was groping for details.
@Elizabelle:
I can’t believe any national newspaper is reporting this. Sticking their fingers in their ears and going ‘LA LA LA POST RACIAL AMERICA’ has been their obsession for 40 years. Were the Charleston murders really that big a wake-up call?
Elizabelle
More from the NYTimes story about homegrown terrorists (which they’re calling “radicals”, although that term is also more properly applied to political extremists too — several in Congress):
[The authors did not include murders like the Aurora, CO theatre shootings (13 dead), or Sandy Hook (26), because no overtly political intention. Curious whether they included those killed during the attack on Gabrielle Gifford.]
different-church-lady
And knowing cat behavior as I do, the next day he/she was standing on the aircraft mewing and looking at the pilot expectantly to say, “Hey, is this thing going to move up in the air again?”
jayjaybear
@Elizabelle: Uh-oh. 13. They’re going to have to hire a burglar to bump the number up.
Elizabelle
Last excerpt from the NYTimes story, about conservatives realizing the problem in their midst, and trying to stonewall it away:
Yup. We saw that in real time, on Fox News the day after the Charleston murders. Panelists on the noon program, Outnumbered, were suggesting free and universally available mental health services. Like Fox News supported Obamacare in any fashion. Just don’t look at those guns or that poisonous ideology!
piratedan
@Elizabelle: my guess would be no, the ties of Loughner to the right were tenuous and no real correlation could be found or at least was admitted. Does that excuse the “surveyor symbol” crap from Palin? The gun imagery that was used in the campaigns against her, not really but based on the reaction to the Charleston shootings, I’m not sure that the tight would have gracefully accepted any blame even if Loughner had a wall of Palin pics and a collection of Rush Limbaugh memorabilia.
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
The Knoxville UU shooting is interesting because the shooter was targeting liberals based on his readings of Savage, O’Reilly and others that liberals were destroying the country. The people killed were white and it was political.
schrodinger's cat
@MomSense: Yes, people with a different ideological bent (liberals) and/or different religious beliefs are fair game as well. Also too, abortion providers. Their list of who they don’t like is a mile long.
Elizabelle
From the NYTimes story: a quote from a man for whom GWOT is his business. Good business, maybe.:
Really?
Elizabelle
Might this be the 2009 DHS report on rightwing extremism? Might be a summary.
The NYTimes declined to link. Wonder why not?
lamh36
Are her 15 min up? Is our national nightmare over? Out of sight out of mind?
Also I’m back at work so sorry for any duplicate info.
Elizabelle
@Elizabelle: Yup. That’s the report. It was only 9 pages.
Here’s a DKos 2012 diary about its release and blowback at the time:
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
Knoxville could have been so much worse. The children were performing a musical so the place was packed. One of the parishioners put his body between the shooter and everyone else. It is a brave person who rushes a shooter with his body to save others.
Chris
@piratedan:
As I recall, Loughner’s politics were an incoherent, incomprehensible mess, with his Facebook favorite books list spanning the spectrum from Karl Marx to Ayn Rand and from “Mein Kampf” to “To Kill A Mocking Bird.”
What I remember noting at the time, though, was that he was living in a state with a powerful and especially rabid right wing movement that ensured that liberal – not conservative – politicians are blasted every day with incessant conspiracy theories, accusations of communism and treason, and blame for every bad thing that’s ever happened. And that even loonies outside of the right proper will easily pick up that kind of thing by osmosis, and let it inform their actions. It doesn’t seem insignificant that this generic madman, generally angry at the entire political spectrum, nonetheless chose to make his stand by targeting an event organized by a liberal politician, not a conservative one.
SiubhanDuinne
@jayjaybear:
Think they can get it up to a nice even 27?
Central Planning
@ruemara:
The people or the cats?
piratedan
@Chris: Chris, since she was my Congresswoman for a time, pretty familiar with the political environment here in Southern Arizona. Trust me, there were a LOT of folks looking for a way to associate Loughner with that particular flavor of rabid tea party faction that exists out here, no one would connect any dots and if the local LEO (Pima County) and the FEDS refused to do so, then I will refrain from doing so as well. Giffords might be considered a liberal these days, back in the day, she was and associated with the Blue Dog caucus but she was a thoughtful one. She was one of the key votes that led to the passage of the ACA and even took out a full page ad in the local rag for outlining her specific thoughts and reasons behind her vote. That led to her local offices being vandalized, but no connection was made to Loughner for that . The GOP took another four years before they took the seat with McNally (and she’s been every bit the disappointment I thought she would be) after all the crap that they put Giffords and Barber (who was also shot on that day, her chief of staff, successor) through.
Karen in GA
@Tenar Darell: @Josie: Aw, thanks!
@Elizabelle: And thanks to you too.
If my Facebook discussions are anything to go by, it appears today’s new “I’m not racist but…” thing is “Sure the Confederate flag can seem offensive, but taking it down won’t solve anything.” Yesterday’s was “Just pointing out that it’s not really the Confederate flag, it’s the battle flag of [depends which racist you ask].” I wonder what tomorrow’s will be?
raven
Bobby Jindal’s Biggest Troll Is His Friend’s 21-Year-Old Son
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s only that long if you itemize. Their list of people they like is people just like them, and their list of people they don’t like is everybody else.
shell
That kitty’s got a kung-fu grip.
Elizabelle
@jayjaybear: @SiubhanDuinne:
Funny. Saw jay’s comment re 13 and thought it was about number gun deaths in an incident.
But it’s earlier comment about the declared Klown Kar candidates.
CORRECTION: Death toll from the Aurora theatre shootings was 12, not 13. Pulled the number from memory…
And Sandy Hook massacre also killed Nancy Lanza, and Adam, so 28 deaths from that one. Nancy the gun purveyor is frequently not included in list of victims. Twenty small children, six adults at the school.
And neither of these mass murders is included under homegrown terror. They’re just terror by gun. The usual …
Robin G.
@Germy Shoemangler: I read once that cats are the only animals that domesticated themselves. Apparently they (correctly) concluded that humans are just pushovers with food.
Althea
That is one more badass cat.
Germy Shoemangler
@Robin G.:
And our settlements attract quite a few highly-desirable mice.
Is it true the plagues of the middle ages were partly to blame on the persecution of cats? They were chased away by the pious, and the disease-carrying rats multiplied? Or is this an urban myth spread by cats?
Randy P
@Elizabelle: Why is this coming from the CDC? Aren’t they in the business of tracking the spread of disease? How is counting the number of… On second thought, I guess counting GOP presidential candidates does fall within their charter.
karen marie
@Frankensteinbeck: My cat fell out a second story window, one of the worst, but other than being terrified at finding herself alone outside and a small cut on the side of her mouth, she was fine. Watching the video, I imagined standing in the yard and being hit by a cat dropping from a couple 100 feet. Everyone was lucky that didn’t happen.
Joseph Nobles
It’s my firm opinion that the flag being padlocked to the top of the staff is what led to its complete removal. Those legislators knew Pinckney, and the shameful farce of every flag at half staff but the one conceived to commemorate white supremacy violated every shred of hospitality the South is supposed to be famous for. And seeing the opportunity, other states and businesses jumped right on board with pulling it down. It had to be done. It might as well be done now.
It’s hard to read Facebook and see all my Alabama relatives up in arms, though.
Althea
@Germy Shoemangler: And now we have one more badass bunny with a score to settle! Damn.
Brachiator
Bobby Jindal just hailed a ride in the GOP Klown Kar
http://www.bobbyjindal.com/announcement/
Poopyman
@Elizabelle: Heard this on WTOP this AM, oddly enough. Perhaps not surprising was that it was NOT presented by their National Fear Correspondent, JJ Green.
NotMax
More informative and less patronizing than I expected; just finished watching Make Me A German. A young British family strives to live in Nuremberg as average Germans do.
Germy Shoemangler
@Althea: A rabbit often appears in our backyard. Helps himself to our vegetable garden. We’re now doing container plantings hanging from narrow posts; unclimbable.
One day, my wife was weeding and came face to face with rabbit. She tried to shoo him away. He stood his ground. Stared at her. No fear.
I was out there one morning and he popped out of some perennials. Kept eye contact with me until I averted my gaze. He’s a big bull of a rabbit, probably very popular with the lady bunnies. Even the squirrels leave him alone.
I expect to find him someday in my favorite chair, handling the remote.
Karen in GA
@Brachiator: Hey, what’s one more? Although really, I think they need a klown bus at this point.*
*Hey, I patiently waited my turn while everyone else made that joke, so now I get to make that joke too. Suck it up and deal, people.
Germy Shoemangler
Latest Bernie Sanders cartoon in the New Yorker
DCrefugee
@Joseph Nobles:
This.
The image of the capitol flag at half-staff and the Confederate flag at full height, and the awkward questions it posed, were too much for it to withstand. If it had been temporarily removed or lowered to half-staff, that image would never have been captured and we wouldn’t be having this conversation…
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: Kinda surprised that Supriya hasn’t morphed into Susan, yet.
David Marotta
@Germy Shoemangler:
That rabbit has a mean streak a mile wide…
Omnes Omnibus
@David Marotta: Look at the bones!
schrodinger's cat
Not a Jindal fan, but yesterday’s WashPost article about taking him to task for forgetting his Indian roots was a shoddy hit job. Who died and made the Post journalist an arbiter of who is a “true” Indian American.
Mike in NC
Jindal’s campaign bumper sticker should just be: “Piyush!”
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Ben Bradlee.
Botsplainer
If you go to FR, there is great weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, along with the usual seesaw between “The Confederates and KKK were Democrats” and “enough with the PC crap!!! We’re the real Americans and want to bring our guns to war with libruls over our sacred, exceptional heritage which totally isn’t hate!”
The pattern that I think I see emerging may be a massive flamethrower blasted at the Tea Party by the establishment/money side, chafing at the bits. In the mind of guys like Yertle and the Orangeman, being the majority party leader should be fun – lots of parties and goodies to hand out. You extract what you want from the President while giving him some things he wants, thereby enriching your friends and your own coffers. The Tea Party and its concomitant small shopkeeper checkbook mentality has really impacted that fun (along with the national economy) in a horrible way.
Having the pork guys emerge from this may not be all too terrible – the pork barrel GOP can be worked with.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: And we probably haven’t seen the last candidate declare his/her futile run just yet. I’m surprised that Palin hasn’t thrown her hat into the ring.
Elizabelle
@raven: Great story. We need more Zack Kopplins.
Also Bill Moyers, and he’s written some articles for Slate. Back to Mother Jones:
So Jindal is even more of a hypocrite, because he’s for dumbing down YOUR kids. But not his own. They get a way good [private] education.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer: If you enjoy schadenfreude of this type, check out The Other McCain’s blog. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth! Many choruses of “The end is nigh!”
ETA: Also a lot of anger at capitulating RINOs.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: To be fair, there were liberals initially talking about mental illness too vis-a-vis the Roof shootings.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
Don’t know anything about Jindal’s wife, but she lived in Louisiana almost all her life. If she didn’t pick up a nickname along the way, I guess she figured she didn’t need one. She has a degree in chemical engineering, but appears to share her husband’s religious views.
Cluttered Mind
Loughner was a paranoid schizophrenic. His political beliefs were kind of secondary to that. I have a friend who went to high school with Loughner, and said that he’d heard in the years leading up to the Giffords shooting that Loughner had isolated himself from basically everyone he used to know and gone way off the deep end with the craziness.
Mental illness IS a problem that needs to be addressed, the real issue here is that Republicans seem to want to use it as a way to deflect any sort of conversation about the tragedy from taking place at all. It’s not okay to yell “IT WAS TEH MENTAL ILLNESS!!!1” and then use that as a conversation stopper. Okay, so you think the problem is mental illness, now how about making it impossible for mentally ill people to own firearms? Crickets.
I mean, it’s not only Democrats who get targeted by mentally ill people with guns. I seem to recall Saint Reagan had a brush with death after getting shot by a guy with some serious screws loose. You’d think that would matter.
All of that aside, mental illness doesn’t appear to be a factor here and people talking about it are using it as a deflection tactic. It’s disgusting.
Elizabelle
@Randy P: The plague! The plague!
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: Missed that. I was Fox-watching. Thank you.
Germy Shoemangler
@Patricia Kayden:
She’s been talking about it.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
I just read the piece. Yeah, it’s pretty shoddy, and a pointless cheap shot.
Tree With Water
Here’s an historian’s insight into South Carolina and slavery (courtesy of Salon.com). As you read, keep in mind Mary Chestnut of South Carolina left a diary entry alluding to the many slaves owned by General Wade Hampton, all of whose physical appearance betrayed the fact they were his own children. If memory serves, the post-war Hampton represented the state in the U.S. senate:
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/24/the_face_of_racism_today_is_not_a_slaveowner_eric_foner_on_the_past_and_present_of_white_supremacy/
lurker dean
i’m still really surprised, and skeptical about, the speed with which the confederate flag is being taken down, both by government and by private industry. I frankly can’t make any sense of it, the folks in government who are now behind it have never really shown a concern for being on the wrong side of history (gay rights, healthcare, climate change) or being perceived as racist (see entire obama presidency). i believe the idea that this is a step against the tea party was mentioned, but i’m not sure that completely explains it. all that said, it seems like an important step. i just can’t figure out how such unanimity on the subject has been achieved so quickly.
Keith P.
Me: “Alright, which one of you wished for Nickelback to get a tumor?”
Commentariot (in unison): “I DID!”
Me: “Sick bastards.”
elaine benis
My husband and I did ultralights – winged, motorized trikes – a few years ago on Kauai. It was amazing.
Two months after we got home, the company’s owner (and my husband’s pilot) fell out of the sky over the ocean with a customer on board. Both died – you don’t stand a chance in the water wearing the heavy NASCAR-type jumpsuits we had on (I felt like the Michelin Man). IIRC the aluminum frame cracked.
It was a blast, but I have NO desire to ever do it again.
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Didn’t know Jindal was a Rhodes scholar. Sad to see how much he has to play down his intelligence to please his constituents. Surely, he knows that “teaching the controversy” is dumbing down Louisiana students.
Germy Shoemangler
@lurker dean: i just can’t figure out how such unanimity on the subject has been achieved so quickly.
Saw this comment on Chauncey Devega’s blog:
bemused
@raven:
I don’t know which is worse, that Bobby really believes in creationism or that he’s promoting it for political reasons. Makes me sick and all those young students pay the price.
WereBear
It’s been pointed at by a number of scholarly studies. Cats were their only form of rodent control, and the rats carried the fleas. It would be astonishing if it were not a big factor.
And they weren’t “chased away.” They were captured and burned in big bonfires. It was hideous.
Bill
@schrodinger’s cat:
In fairness, so is mine. Difference is that I don’t want to kill the people on my list.
Betty Cracker
@lurker dean: I’ve wondered about that too — I really did not see this utter capitulation on the flag issue coming. My working theory is that they figured out somehow, via polling or other means, that making a stand on the rebel flag this time around would result in an electoral shellacking or massive loss of revenue. Just as every car problem can be attributed to an issue with fire or fuel (or both), all GOP machinations are related to money or power or both.
Lynwood Allen
I can haz parashoot?
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: It’s my theory that a lot of people really don’t hear the dog whistles.
But this is both a lighthouse and a foghorn. It’s freakin’ stark.
Paul in KY
@Brachiator: Wonder if the marriage was an arranged one?
Origuy
@jayjaybear: I saw what you did there, but they’ve already got a hobbit.
Oliver Willis tweeted this picture, thinking it came from a conservative site, but it originates with a site selling Presidential Monsters. Count Barackula is pretty bad ass, though.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: I think the GOP politicians and their enablers are trying to innoculate themselves by capitulating on the flag of treason. They know their presidential candidates are seen as extremist loons by a lot of voters. They want to remove an issue from the table. Morning Joe was saying that explicitly today.
And they are hoping to stop the reaction here. They don’t want to discuss gun violence or institutional racism or the role of rightwing media, interest groups and politicians in fomenting this kind of ugliness.
Both sides, people.
Manyakitty
@Patricia Kayden: Give her time. You know she’s gotta be dying to jump back on the big kids’ grift wagon.
lurker dean
@Germy Shoemangler: I guess that’s part of my concern – this capitulation is intended to mask how awful the party is in other areas. But they really don’t seem to care about that, at least with their base, who will believe anything.
An awful thought just came to mind – is it possible that they know the Supreme Court is about to pull subsidies so they’re doing something decent before that happens? I just made myself ill.
Linnaeus
@Betty Cracker:
Watch for the new GOP spin that “it’s a Democratic flag!”
Omnes Omnibus
@lurker dean:
No. The Court is very good at keeping things to itself.
Haydnseek
@Roger Moore: The Royal Navy has a long tradition of this, even bestowing the title “Ships Cat” on the lucky feline. There’s a YouTube video of Winston Churchill, while on the deck of a RN warship, bending down to skritch the proud critter, who I have no doubt was well briefed on proper protocol when asked to be present for such formalities.
Gravenstone
@Elizabelle:
I believe this is what he actually meant in his remark. See something often enough and it just starts to blend into the background.
Wally Ballou
I realized they probably wouldn’t have posted that kitteh video if everything hadn’t turned out okay, but still…my heart was in my throat for the whole thing. It doesn’t help that the cat is the spitting image of my Otis.
jl
@Elizabelle: Comment lamh linked to an article about the deliberations yesterday. At least at the Haley-Graham-RNC level, IIRC, two issues were important. One, to spare GOP pres hopefuls from embarrassing themselves (ha! good luck with that!) with having to answer repeated questions about the issue. Two: corporations worried about public perceptions. (edit: I do remember one line in the text: Graham (I think) worrying that if corporations wanted to distance themselves from the symbol, SC might be put at a competitive disadvantage if corps distanced themselves from SC, the state of the shooting and still flying Confederate battle flag)
I don’t think the article went in to what was going on in the SC legislature, where it appears, due to friendship many had with their late colleague Rev Pickney, actual human feelings were involved in the decision.
rikyrah
that video was hilarious. The guy’s eyes when he saw the cat – PRICELESS!
lurker dean
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, money seems to be a big driver certainly. My brother also posited that maybe they have research on the issue, but to me it seems like the flag was so off the radar as an issue that I can’t imagine Reince/Boehner/Graham having thought it through that far ahead of time. But maybe they did. We’re looking at total capitulation in less than a week, I don’t recall ever seeing things move that fast.
lurker dean
@Omnes Omnibus: Good point. Though as we’ve seen, at least in relation to substance, this Court isn’t necessarily typical or principled.
dogwood
@WereBear:
Has anyone read T C Boyle’s “Top of the Food Chain” ?
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY:
Why?
Brachiator
@Tree With Water: A lot of history packed into the Salon interview with Eric Foner.
Interesting bit about the Red Shirts and how this became, like the flag, a symbol of Southern heritage and white racism.
Anti Reconstruction efforts successfully drove a wedge between blacks and poor whites
White supremacy also created and perpetuated the myth that black poverty was a result of the inability of black people to help themselves
This history is not much taught in schools
jl
@lurker dean: I wonder whether, once there has been long standing and contentious public debates over certain issues and symbols, they ever completely go off the radar of large corporations that deal with the public. Maybe for politicians, but not for the corporations.
Mike J
@Linnaeus:
It’s the flag of conservatism. Liberals are the one who destroyed the rebellion it stood for.
Gin & Tonic
From the strange bedfellows department. Jared Taylor of the Council of Conservative Citizens was in St. Petersburg (no, not Florida) back in March, for the big conference of Putin-loving European neo-Nazi leaders called the “Russian International Conservative Forum.” And Dylann Roof’s website, lastrhodesian.com was registered through a Russian company.
Germy Shoemangler
@Haydnseek:
No scratching, no hissing, no spitting.
And smile for the damn camera, can’t you?
ruemara
@Central Planning: to be fair, both groups show lapses in rationality.
lurker dean
@jl: good point. you might have 27% that want something, but it’s more profitable to cater to the 73% that don’t. as someone on BJ mentioned, certain institutions like colleges have been trying to disassociate with the flag because of recruiting and other issues, and this is giving them the excuse to do it.
Roger Moore
@Cluttered Mind:
How about making sure mentally ill people get health care? You can hear a pin drop.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: /snark on
Because all those curry eaters have arranged marriages and dance to Bollywood songs when they are not restocking 7-11 shelves.
/snark off
jl
@Brachiator: The red shirt symbol may have been an act of defiance that was inspired by a post Civil War Republican tactic against Democrats: charging them with disloyalty during the War, reminding public of Copperheads. It was called ‘waiving the bloody shirt’, or ‘waiving the red shirt’.
WereBear
@Tree With Water: This was a stunning final paragraph:
shell
On Star Trek, a red shirt will get you killed.
Gravenstone
@Linnaeus:
C’mon, you know their verbal tic of hate and disrespect.
Linnaeus
@Mike J:
I know that and you know that. That won’t stop the GOP from trying that spin.
Linnaeus
@Gravenstone:
Oops, yes. Thanks for the fix.
Roger Moore
@Haydnseek:
Maybe the kitty was briefed on protocol, but any cat person can tell you that no amount of briefing will keep a cat from doing WTFTW.
jl
Just in: we now know what the whole Hallucigenia ‘worm’ looked like!
After 50 years, scientists discover head of the insane Hallucigenia ‘worm’
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/24/8838169/hallucigenia-worm-fossil-nature-study-2015
I eagerly await the Pre-Cambrian version of Jurrasic Park, with giant spiny meat eating worms!
Mandalay
Presidential candidate-with-no-chance John Kasich is a honey badger who doesn’t give a shit about rich donors…
It’s also worth noting that flavor-of-the-week media darling Nikki Haley voiced her disagreement with Kasich about expanded Medicaid coverage. She might begrudgingly take down that flag, but she still reserves her right to fuck the poor in the ass.
different-church-lady
@Cluttered Mind:
What this country needs is more racist massacres committed by sane, rational people.
Germy Shoemangler
Roger Moore
@lurker dean:
It’s not quite that simple. It’s most profitable to sell to both the 27% and the 73%, which you can sometimes manage. And catering to the 27% can be plenty profitable if everyone else has abandoned them so you have the market to yourself.
different-church-lady
@dogwood:
I’ve not read that one, but I’ve read enough T.C. Boyle that even just the title gives me the willies.
different-church-lady
@Germy Shoemangler: Made a statement of contrition afterwards. I don’t know what to think of it. Like, “OK, where was this before you got sentenced to death, when it might have done some good?” Perhaps it’s not sincere; but if it’s not, why bother now when it does no good?
Germy Shoemangler
@different-church-lady: Helps in the appeal?
shell
Ann Coulter, showing her usual grasp of the facts.
Haley was born in South Carolina. Maybe because she’s not as blonde as Ann confused her.
The irony of that quote is if it was true that Haley was an immigrant, she would have had to become a citizen in order to run for office. Which would mean, in studying for that, she would probably know a hell of lot more American history than most native born.
different-church-lady
@Germy Shoemangler: I suppose it’s possible. A month of sitting in a cell thinking about the end of his life might have given him a perspective shift.
Brachiator
@Karen in GA:
Hmmmm. The GOP contenders traded in the Klown Kar for a much roomier Klown Karavan.
schrodinger's cat
@shell: Was it Coulter who called Sotomayor an immigrant, or was that another Fox blonde?
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: It’s on the edge of being large enough for Klowns Across Amerika.
Germy Shoemangler
@schrodinger’s cat: It had to be Coulter. It’s one of her obsessions.
Speaking of Foxx, what happens when Rupert Spawn 1 & 2 take over from dad? Roger Ailes rage quits? Megyn Kelly grows dreads? Hannity admits he was wrong?
Or business as usual?
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: At this point it is no longer a minivan, but an RV
Germy Shoemangler
@schrodinger’s cat:
Hindenburg airship?
“Oh, the SeanHannity”
ET
I have to say I was totally impressed that he managed to be so calm after he saw what was going down AND the cat managed to hold on during the landing.
If I was that cat I would have ran and hid and still be hiding.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: Now if I had some kind of formal comedy outlet, I’d be working on a “GOP introduces bracket system for primaries” angle.
Brachiator
@jl:
No doubt part of the origin.
But fascist pinheads often love color coordinated wardrobe. So you have the Nazi Brownshirts, Benito Mussolini’s blackshirts, Oswald Mosley’s black-shirts in the UK, among others.
Poopyman
@different-church-lady: @Brachiator: Klownado!
NotMax
@Germy Shoemangler
Partially touched upon here.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Whether intended or not, that was the exact vibe I got.
NotMax
@Brachiator
Not to mention the SS-inspired uniforms (quickly withdrawn) for certain Dept. of Homeland Security divisions.
Mike J
@Germy Shoemangler:
There is some speculation that axing Palin was the first fuck you sent to Ailes.
NotMax
Mentioned in passing on Maddow yesterday that Jindal’s approval rating in Louisiana currently stands at –
– wait for it –
27%.
Germy Shoemangler
@Mike J:
I’d like to think so, but I wonder if that order came from Roger’s desk. Because he could never stand her; said she was bad for “the cause” because of her stupidity.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@schrodinger’s cat:
This thread is probably dead, but I sometimes wonder if Indian culture is going to follow the lead of China, Taiwan, and Thailand (probably others I haven’t thought of) and people will start adopting a “Western” first name for professional purposes. We’re getting pretty used to it here at the Giant Evil where we have a lot of employees who immigrated from the above countries or who work for the GEC in their home countries.
On the other hand, Indian-Americans are pretty well established in the US and people don’t think that names like Ajay or Priya are that weird anymore, so it may not be necessary.
Mike J
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Not compared to Madison or Ashleigh.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): If Barack Obama could become President with a “weird” first name and Hussein as the middle name, I don’t see the need for Indian Americans to change their first name. Of course, to each his/her own.
A Ghost To Most
@Brachiator:
Closer to home., don’t forget William Dudley Pelley’s Silver Shirts
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
And of course here in California we have Kamala Devi Harris running for the US Senate.
Karen in GA
@Poopyman: Am I stealing that? Why, yes. Yes, I am.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Ajay and Priya may or may not be weird, but they aren’t too hard for Americans to pronounce. But my impression is that a lot of Indians wind up shortening their names because the names are just longer than most Americans can deal with. For example, we had a guy in our department named Gansharatnam Balendarian (? spelling) who went by Bali because nobody could get his full name right.
mike with a mic
@schrodinger’s cat:
There are blonde haired and blue eyed gays and atheists that get killed. While race may be a more common motivator, there is a long list of us that don’t fall into the proper white, conservative, christian mold.
MaryRC
@Randy P: It’s from Andy Borowitz who writes short humor pieces for the New Yorker. You can find this on the New Yorker website. And yes, you have nailed his approach.
PurpleGirl
@shell: Does Coulter’s blode come from a bottle? Then Haley could also be a blonde sometime.