Someone in a thread or two below requested pet pix. I guess the hope is to ameliorate the Heart of Darkness up-the-river vibe roiling the late-stage Republican primary. A little relief from the ragegasms currently pulsating through (I hope, only) the most voluble of the Democratic and sporadically Democratic passionistas.
I share that hope, along with some of the my-party rage and plenty of horrified fascination with the their-party Totentanz. And so, as a kindness to myself and all of y’all, here’s Tikka, in the position I imagine Reince Priebus ends up in at the end of each Oh-My-Sweet-FSM-This-Can’t-Still-Be-Happening day.
This one I caption “At Leest I Haz Mah Dignatee!”
And, for a slightly more elegant glimpse of the cat who would be the Donald’s hair’s most fearsome predator, were he only able to schedule the hunt between his naps:
Master of all Data at your service.
And with that — back to imagining Zombie Jefferson and Zombie Adams trying to find a snack at the Republican Convention this summer. Can’t help thinking about how such a gathering would be a diet camp for obligate-neuron-feeders.
Patricia Kayden
Thank you for these lovely pictures of your cute kitty. That kitty has more dignity in her left paw than any of those Clown Car Occupants vying for the White House.
moonbat
What a handsome fellow and welcome change of pace.
I admit to Trump fatigue. Call me when the convention starts.
SarahT
@Patricia Kayden: So true.
@moonbat: Hope FYWP will let me post this video – one New Yorker’s way of dealing with Drumpf fatigue:
https://www.facebook.com/anxfreedom/videos/543916659127325/
FEMA Camp Counselors
Tikka2016.
Happy Days Are Here Again.
schrodinger's cat
He looks pissed in the first photo, did you disturb his beauty sleep? Awesome kitteh is awesome and in charge. Give him some tuna and appease the wrathful God.
Betty Cracker
He is such a lovely cat! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cat with such a symmetrical triangular face tat, and I’m sure he’s a towering intellect compared to Rinses Repeatus & Co.
muddy
That’s a fine figure of a cat.
moonbat
@SarahT: Har! Well played!
Tom Levenson
@schrodinger’s cat: (a) He’s always pissed. And hungry. And pissed because he’s hungry. And his stupid hooman won’t feed him when ordered.
(b) Yeah. I caught him dozing in that position and snapped my fingers to get him to look at the lens. Got my favorite Cigar-Stolen-Churchill look. ;-)
Gin & Tonic
Modern home WiFi routers are a very nice heat source.
MattF
If you find that your nerd-friends are unavailable this morning, it’s because the webcomic xkcd has posted a ‘Garden’ simulation. You turn on the illumination sources (with variable number, position, direction, field of view, and color temperature) and let it sit. So far, with various kinds of lighting, I’ve gotten trees, bushes, tufts of grass, a birdbath, a deer, a stick figure human, and an octopus.
ruemara
More like this, please. I miss cat presence.
ET
Any update on Marc’s troop?
Mike R
Nothing much more relaxing than a cat sitting near, or on your lap and purring. I like cats.
dr. bloor
@Tom Levenson:
So, cat.
NotMax
Just for the fun of it, a pair pet related ads which wouldn’t come close to passing muster today.
                 #1  -  #2
NotMax
Crap. 4:45 a.m. coding fail. Trying again. Mods, please delete the first one
Mea culpa
Just for the fun of it, a couple of per related ads which wouldn’t pass muster today
#1 – #2
Tom Levenson
@NotMax: Awesome. Just great.
dr. bloor
@NotMax: The guy in the second picture is thinking about the dog in the first one.
Pogonip
Is that cat related to Tunch?
I am reading The Last Apprentice books. Talk like Yoda, why does Alice?
Betty Cracker
Via TPM, regarding Ivana Trump’s (wife #1) interview w/ the NYP:
LOL!
Tom Levenson
@Pogonip: “Is that cat related to Tunch?”
Only in the most important way: Tunch embodied Tunchitude. Tikka is always and only Tikka.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: So are laptops. I have to keep mine partway open to keep Miss Kitty from laying on it. I get morning sun at my desk and that is where she is now.
Iowa Old Lady
I see the Supreme Court has unanimously upheld districting by one person-one vote rather than one voter-one vote.
Patricia Kayden
@Iowa Old Lady: Great decision. And kind of surprising that it was unanimous.
@Pogonip: Related only in girth and cuteness.
Immanentize
@Iowa Old Lady: Truly excellent decision. A new supreme court might actually reach the issue whether voting is a personal constitutional right. Currently it is not.
This issue has always implicated another issue when prison towns (like in upstate New York) were getting huge federal cash dollars because of their ‘residents’ numbers even though most were downstate. Although they couldn’t vote local. That problem, however, is an apportioning of cash problem, not a voter district problem.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Donald Drumpf, the non-feminist feminist. According to his ex-wife and probable (righteous) cause of one or more of his personal bankruptcies. Gotta love her.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: good.
Dolly Llama
@moonbat: I’ve said it a number of times here and elsewhere: Trump will go down just because people will be fucking sick of hearing the guy and hearing about the guy. It’s already happened. The latter primaries will bear it out. Even his fucking supporters are thinking “Could I bear to hear this shit and be whipsawed in this way for four fucking years? Can I do it for four more fucking months.” The unanimous (except for people who are on the actual Trump payroll) will be “no.”
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Gay boxer! The most surprising thing to me about ad #2 is that one of the cans the poodle is dreaming of is proudly labeled “horse meat.”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
An interesting Open Thread paper on AI showed up on ArXiv recently:
The Singularity May Never Be Near (4 page .PDF) from Toby Walsh of UNSW.
E.g.
Some things to think about.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
What a cat! Please give him a treat for me.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Because… it’s a French poodle?
Joey Maloney
Stepped out the front door of my building this morning and saw this: Oops.
Betty Cracker
I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon that I’m really worried about. It’s probably nothing — I worry about all doctor’s appointments! But anyway, to take my mind off it, I’ve been trying to watch the final episode of 11/22/63 on Hulu, and of course it won’t fucking load. Damn it all to hell!
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
True, but they made it a deliberately narrow ruling. They ruled that apportionment by total population is constitutional, but they avoided ruling on whether it’s mandatory. You can bet that the next time apportionment rolls around, some red state is going to try apportioning by number of voters rather than total population, and the issue will be revisited then.
Tom Levenson
@MattF: Where would you like your intertubes delivered?
@Betty Cracker: I know. I hear health hoofbeats and always think “zebra.” Sucks. Best of luck, and enjoy the adult beverage of choice in celebration (I trust!) tonight.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Those are so odd. Did Betty know boxers smoke?
Possibly little-known fact: Kal Kan used whale meat.
CaseyL
Tikka is an awesome looking kitty. I would love to scrungle him in my arms. Is he a cuddler?
@Betty Cracker: Eek! Best wishes for a no-big-deal result!
PurpleGirl
Nice pictures of Tikka. He has a pink nose and pink toebeans. I love pink noses and pink toebeans.
rikyrah
MONDAY, APR 4, 2016 05:00 AM CDT
The Democratic Party’s great White flight: How racism spurred a demographic reckoning
Some argue that whites are voting less for Dems owing to a lack of progressivism. The data tells a
different story
SEAN MCELWEE
In a recent New York Times piece, Nick Confessore explores why Donald Trump has proven so successful with whites. His piece, while admirable in many ways, obfuscates the role of race in Trump’s rise and the white working class abandoning the Democratic Party.
One theory for why whites are leaving the Democratic Party is because Obama is not progressive enough. This impression has been heightened by recent comments made by Susan Sarandon, who said she wasn’t sure if she could vote for the similarly centrist Hillary Clinton in a general election.
Did whites not vote for Obama because he wasn’t progressive enough?
The simple answer is no. A vast political science literature shows that racism is indeed what is causing whites to leave the Democratic party. Explanations that obscure the importance of race simply cannot explain the voting patterns of white Americans.
American National Elections Studies (ANES) includes a series of questions that ask respondents to place themselves, the parties and the candidates on a one to seven scale. By comparing how a respondent places Obama and themselves, I can examine the percentage of Americans who place themselves to the left of Obama. I examined four questions: government services and spending, guaranteed jobs, ideology and government funded health insurance. (See the questions here.) I examined all whites and the white working class (whites without a college degree).
On none of the questions did more than 20 percent of whites (or working class whites) report being more liberal than Obama. Only 1 percent of whites (and a bit less than 1 percent of working class whites) reported being more liberal than Obama on all four questions. In contrast, 37 percent of whites and 31 percent of the white working class were more conservative than Obama on all four questions.
However, there are further problems with the theory that Obama’s lack of progressivism caused whites to leave the party. Examining only the ideological scale, I find 74 percent of whites (and 66 percent working class whites) who identify as being more liberal ideologically than Obama identified as Democrats. Only 15 percent (and 20 percent) of those more liberal than Obama identify as Republican. Further, most whites who are to the left of Obama still voted for him. Among whites more liberal than Obama, 22 percent did not vote, 68 percent voted for Obama, and 10 percent voted for Romney.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax:
“Gay Dogs!” : )
rikyrah
Cute cat
Dork
There’s a crass other-name-for-kitty spread open on a bed looking longingly joke in there, but I’m not going there, even though I pretty much just went there.
SCOTUS just issued a 8-0 response. Yes, Thomas voted in concurrence with Ginsberg and Kagan. Somebody needs to check on his BP and body temp…..
Tom Levenson
@CaseyL: Tikka’s not much of a cuddler. More a feed-me-or-I’ll-take-your-arm-off-at-the-shoulder-er. I’m a little unfair. The vet told me he was likely feral as a small kitten and his fight-or-flight reactions reflect that tough start. (We got him from the shelter when he was ~12-14 weeks). He’s still very skittish around strangers: he can check you out, but woe to your extremities if you try to return the favor. (“Cat-people” are the worst; I have some friends who just can’t believe that any feline can resist them. I’ve had to use iodine a couple of times on those folks — true fact.)
But he is mellowing as he ages, and is becoming more of a lap beast. And for all my trash talking, he’s a great animal and fine working companion. Spends a lot of time on my desk when I’m typing away. Good times.
Feathers
@rikyrah: How racist and/or misogynist do you have to be to become one of the 15% of Republicans who consider themselves to be more liberal than Obama?
Matt McIrvin
@Feathers: You could be one of the weird subset of Greenwaldians who have become convinced that Obama is a worse warmonger than the Republicans.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Hope you come out certified in the best of health!
burnspbesq
@Roger Moore:
The Court’s freedom of action was somewhat constrained by the procedural posture of the case. The District Court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted. Theoretically, the standard of review on appeal of rulings granting 12(b)(6) motions is abuse of discretion, which the District Court clearly did not. Alito’s concurrence holds the door open, at least a crack, for reconsideration if a case comes up with a full record.
Brachiator
Great cat pics!
A nice moment of piece.
I got Everybody fatigue. But I will enjoy the lull until the next round of primary clashes starting tomorrow.
Amir Khalid
@Tom Levenson:
People who spend any time around cats, especially cats who don’t know them personally, should be aware that felines are at least as individual as humans in that regard.
burnspbesq
@Dork:
Did you actually read Thomas’ concurrence? It was one of his “I concur because of long-standing precedent, but that precedent is FUBAR” jobs. I have no doubt what he would do if presented with a clean sheet of paper, and neither should you.
dww44
@Tom Levenson: We too have a “showed up on our doorstep” tuxedo who’s now going on 15, still gorgeous, and very much a lap cat. She’s also scared of strangers and disappears upstairs to seek refuge in the box springs underneath our mattress whenever strange folks show up. She even knows when a strange vehicle comes down the driveway and is up the stairs in a flash before they even make the door.
She showed up on our back porch in December 2001, literally the day after the SO had our father–in-law’s mostly feral cat put down due to age. We’d adopted him when the in-laws moved into a retirement home nearby. Squeaky, so named because that’s all she ever did for the first few years, was about 12 weeks old when she arrived so serendipitously.
Miss Bianca
@Tom Levenson: @Amir Khalid:
My Maine Coon kitty, the aptly-misnamed Angel, came to me as a feral kitty – I literally picked her up as a sodden little ball of bronchially-compromised fluff in a Safeway parking lot, tottering thru’ the cars and squalling imperiously, “RESCUE ME!!”
She became “Angel” (I did not name her, btw) while she was still sick and languid enough to be cuddly. Once I’d nursed her back to health it was all, “screw you, human – feed me and take care of me when I’m sick or injured and I’ll condescend to hang out with you.” “Bitchy Kitty” became her nym after her true nature emerged. I think she must have been just on the cusp (what is it, 5-6 weeks?) of the time when she could be socialized at all.
ETA: She finally got fed up with me entirely after one too many moves involving the acquisition of DOGS, and ran off. But I still miss her. Don’t know what that makes me – “sucker”?
Anoniminous
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Thank you for the cite.
catclub
@Iowa Old Lady: Good news!
Paul in KY
@Miss Bianca: Thank you for taking care of her.
Joel
@Dolly Llama: Dates to remember:
April 19 (NY) — 95 delegates
April 26 (PA, MD, DE, RI, CT) — 176 delegates
June 7 (CA, NJ, MT, SD) — 303 delegates
Trump has 752 delegates; if he clean sweeps the northeast, which he probably will, that puts him at ~1100.
He will probably lose all the mountain states by varying margins.
His path to the nomination depends on California. Who would have thunk it?!
MattF
@Joel: I have a hard time believing Der Trump will do well in MD. Of course, given the choices… who can say?
Gravenstone
@Tom Levenson: My grandmother was a great rescuer of strays. At one point she had two snow white cats, an Angora and a Persian that she’d picked up. The Angora was a lover, but the Persian must have had a rough go because she wouldn’t let anyone touch her. I took an inordinate amount of pride in slowly getting her to let me (and me alone) scratch her gently between her ears. Only place I could touch that didn’t immediately result in a display of tooth and claw.
Tom Levenson
@Gravenstone: Tikka’s a little like that Persian, though now much mellowed. He’s not quite a one person cat, but he really doesn’t like even those friends with whom he’s become familiar to pet him. One student of mine who house sat for us last summer spent the entire three weeks trying to get past his defenses. Took just about the whole time, but he, alone of all humanity, managed the feat.
Mnemosyne
Keaton has discovered the sun in our new(ish) apartment and has started the cat trick of appearing to be asleep and yet incrementally following the sun across the floor.
Matt McIrvin
@MattF: Trump is leading the very few MD polls that have been taken. Remember, these are Maryland Republicans, a minority in the state.