Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

In my day, never was longer.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

After roe, women are no longer free.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

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

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Come on, man.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Basking Boxers Edition

Open Thread: Basking Boxers Edition

by | 153 Comments

This post is in: 

Here’s a pair of lazy-ass boxers basking in the sun next to the potting shed:

img_1053

They’re tuckered out from chasing a feral cat through the yard. Luckily, it was able to exit the property by scaling a six-foot wooden fence. I saw what was happening through the window in time to call the dogs off, but the cat would have likely escaped anyway, and I’m not sure what the dogs would have done if they’d caught it. Probably get clawed and run away.

I’ve mentioned before that we have an irresponsible ass of a neighbor who feeds feral cats. I’m sympathetic to people who feed feral cats (although I wouldn’t want to live near them) IF they take responsibility for the cats they attract by trapping them and taking them to the vet to be spayed/neutered and checked for disease before releasing them back into the neighborhood.

The aforementioned irresponsible ass doesn’t do that, so the neighborhood is overrun with an ever-increasing population of feral cats who are regularly run over by cars when they’re not pissing in people’s carports, killing songbirds and spraying their stink all over the place. My dogs are too old, fat and tame to menace the cats, but I’m betting that’s not the case with other neighborhood dogs.

Anyhoo, it makes me sad and angry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Here’s something for the weird coincidences file: Today is Wednesday, aka, “Make Your Own Goddamn Dinner Night.” The mister and I were discussing delivery options, which are severely limited in our little town.

I remembered that some time ago, we’d ordered a pizza from a local chain that frequently disappointed us, and after I called to complain about receiving a burnt pizza that arrived an hour late the last time we ordered, they extended a store credit.

But the mister observed that it had been so long, the store management had probably changed, and the new manager would be unlikely to honor the credit. I said I had a picture on the phone that I’d taken to display to the manager who sent us the burnt pie:

img_1054

I could maybe use it as (not wholly convincing) evidence to bolster my claim to a free pizza, but the weird coincidence was the date stamp on the photo: December 14, 2014. What are the chances?

Also, the grease stain somewhat resembles Elmer Fudd, with Donald Trump’s hair. Reaching out to grab something — maybe a pussy.

Anyhoo. Open thread!

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    OK.
    Just bought “My President is Black.” from Atlantic Monthly.
    Ebony also has an Obama retrospective out called ‘Hail to the Chief’
    No, it is not in hardcover. Dammit, Black publications- spend the extra few dollars to hardcover these!???

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Reaching out to grab something — maybe a pussy.

    I like how you started with feral cats and ended with this. You got talent, kid.

  3. 3.

    SteveinSC

    I’m up for a national boycott of Drump’s Inauguration nightmare TV etc. Kill his ratings. I saw this on HuffPo and think it’s the least I could do. (Just got back from Cocoa/Cocoa Beach the former sucks and the latter is close behind.)

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    Anytime I see Samantha Power asking if some other entity has no shame, at last have you no shame, I want to scream in her fucking face.

  5. 5.

    Mnemosyne

    I just texted my nieces’ mother to get her final approval to take them to Disneyworld.

    Now we wait.

  7. 7.

    barbequebob

    feral cats, and cats in general that are allowed to run loose in kill so much of our native wildlife.

    It is hard enough for our native wildlife to survive with the loss of so much habitat and road kill, do people really need to turn cats loose?

    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/feral-cats-kill-billions-of-small-critters-each-year-7814590/
    http://www.ecology.com/2013/08/27/global-impact-feral-cats/

    Please keep your cats inside so native wildlife can interact with each other the way nature intended it.

  8. 8.

    Mnemosyne

    @Baud:

    World. I’m not allowed to take them to Land because then they would be in the same state as my brother that she hates.

  16. 16.

    Vernon Bush

    I have no, none not a lick of sympathy for feral cats. they are a wild animal. We had a similar situation with a neighbor. They were everywhere having litters all spring/summer. Several times I saw hawks swooping down and picking off kittens. Saw cats walking around with dieases, mange and open festering wounds from fighting. To boot they stunk up the place badly. No amount of discussion with neighbor would work, not even pointing out how cruel it was to allow litter after litter of kittens to be born when maybe half of them would live.

    I finally got a trap and started trapping them. That’s when it was discovered that no one would take them, No vet, not even the animal shelter and there are no rescue organizations around (small town). I finally took them out into the woods for the coyotes to take care of. I told the neighbor what I was doing and that finally got to them. They kept a few cats but they are all in their yard now and domesticated and the feral cat problem is solved

  19. 19.

    lamh36

    Tom Perez is in!!!

    @aseitzwald
    Just in: Labor Sec. Tom Perez will announce his candidacy for DNC Chair tomorrow afternoon in call with state party chairs.

  20. 20.

    Pogonip

    Betty & Vernon, I feel your pain. We also had a feral-feeding neighbor. The landlord trapped 32 adults and 8 kittens; all but 8 of the adults and all the kittens were caught on our street. I tried to file an animal-cruelty complaint when I found a kitten whose eyes were so badly infected they were dissolving. No go. They’d have to prove the cats belonged to the neighbor and even if they confiscated them all the shelters were full. I couldn’t even shoot the suffering ones like the kitten because you can’t fire off guns in town. In that town, at least, there is no legal way to stop cruelty to cats by the mentally ill.

  23. 23.

    jharp

    So what’s worse?

    Feral cats or chipmunks?

    We get overrun with chipmunks. I think I’d rather have the cats. At least the cats don’t move into your home.

  25. 25.

    Ian

    I hope efgoldman shows up to this thread. I once got to witness one of the greatest thread wars ever involving him and a troll and feral cats.

  30. 30.

    Yarrow

    @SteveinSC: @rikyrah: I love that the DC marching bands aren’t going. And I’m definitely up for any kind of a boycott. I’ve been hiding magazine’s with his face on them. Put them at the bottom of the pile or turn them around. Every little bit helps.

    I posted earlier today about how his people have reached out to big name entertainers’ managers and bookers and offering them tons of cash, appointments in the administration and even ambassadorships if they can get their client to perform at the inauguration. So far it sounds like no one is biting.

    Heh. Loser Donny. No one likes him. Keep it up.

  32. 32.

    Yarrow

    @lamh36: She’s going to be his de facto First Lady. I hope people shun her. She deserves no respect. She wasn’t elected to a damn thing.

  34. 34.

    Josie

    I used to live next door to a family (the dad was a state representative, no less) that neglected to feed and/or spay their cats. The cats, not being stupid, came over to my house to eat my cats’ food on my covered back porch. So I started taking them, one at a time, to the vet to be fixed. The neighbors never said a word about their cats coming home with shaved tummies and stitches. I always wondered if they even noticed.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    @Pogonip

    Will take chipmunks over skunks any day of the week. Everyone who has ever lived out in the woods has at least one skunk story.

  38. 38.

    Ian

    @Pogonip:
    The troll was arguing against a plan to reduce Hawaii’s feral cat problem. Said the people responsible for the feral cats should be shot first. It got pretty epic.

  40. 40.

    EBT

    My dipshit oldest sister was a feral feeder. She and her husband had 25 or so that lived under their house that she named and maybe another hundred that between her and the neighbors that also fed them sort of roamed the incredibly depressed rural suburb (picture that in your head) she lived on.

  41. 41.

    jharp

    @Pogonip:

    We also have squirrels. Fox squirrels.

    I live in the suburbs but somewhat woodsy.

    In one year, with the neighbor boys pellet gun I shot 64 squirrels.

    And it really didn’t help. There are more than ever now.

  43. 43.

    hovercraft

    @rikyrah:

    NO local DC High Schools applied to be part of Trump’s Inaugural Parade.

    Neither did any local HBCU Marching Bands.

    Howard said they could not do it because of “budgetary reasons”.
    another said that they wanted other marching bands to have the “opportunity”, and another gave no reason.

    I love it, the only thing better would be if Howard and the DC high schools had cited travel expenses as the reasons for not applying. The idiot probably would have taken that at face value.

  44. 44.

    WereBear

    Feral colonies are supposed to be maintained to extinction: I know several people who have successfully done so. We need better laws about animal cruelty, but if there is nowhere to put them, even motivated officers are unable to take action.

    And I continue to be skeptical about blaming cats hunting for bird depopulation: without cats, rats proliferate and eat the bird eggs and kill far far more, as they discovered on an island where the skua gulls are now threatened because after a “cat cull,” the rat population exploded.

    And it’s only the been the last few decades that cats are mostly kept indoors. How is it that, in time past, when every barn was swarming with feral cats and few kept their cats indoors, there was no bird crisis? I can’t figure that one out.

  45. 45.

    jharp

    @NotMax:

    Yup. Skunks are the worst.

    I remember folks putting out antifreeze to fix the problem. Never did it nor advocating it. Just sharing.

  46. 46.

    Josie

    @jharp: You need my corgi. Duncan is a passionate squirrel hater and would be killer. And he is fast. I have to bang on the sliding glass door before I open it to give the squirrels a running start to the trees before I let him out.

  47. 47.

    SteveinSC

    For a few (no, several) days after the disaster, I was nauseated by the thought of Drumpf in the White House. It still looks like we may see the end of the Republic. I’m in with Michael Moore that there may be violence before the orange-haired orangutan asshole is hanged from a lamp post.

  48. 48.

    raven

    In “A Feast Made for Laughter” Craig Claiborne wrote about the Tamale Man in Indianola who made great tamales until they found hundreds of cat skeletons under his house!

  49. 49.

    Fester Addams

    @rikyrah:

    Howard said they could not do it because of “budgetary reasons”. Another said that they wanted other marching bands to have the “opportunity”, and another gave no reason.

    Howard’s should go and then play nothing but Russian music.

  51. 51.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Vernon Bush: The cat lady on my block traps them, has them netured and sets them lose again. That way the fixed cats keep other strays out and thus sustainable kitty population was achieved.

  52. 52.

    hovercraft

    @lamh36:
    Because of course she needs to. The Shitgibbon needs her nearby in case it gets the urge:

    Trentrunner says:
    December 14, 2016 at 5:59 pm
    So Politico “fired” Julia Ioffe for tweeting speculatively that Trump is fucking Ivanka. (Ioffe was already heading to The Atlantic, so not sure how Politico could fire someone who’d given notice…)

    But the important thing is we all know Trump would never fuck his daughter. Sure, he sneaks in the bathroom when she showers and masturbates while he watches, but where’s the harm in that?

  56. 56.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @NotMax:

    Will take chipmunks over skunks any day of the week. Everyone who has ever lived out in the woods has at least one skunk story.

    The fact that the Vietnamese consider skunk meat a deliciously is the only thing keeping suburban California overrun with the things. You don’t have to live in woods to have a skunk story. One of my friends was driven out of their house because of skunks constantly being trapped and dieing under his house.

  58. 58.

    Yarrow

    @NotMax: This is true, but it is also customary for the president’s spouse to assume the role of First Lady unless she is somehow unable to. Daughters or other female family members have filled in in the past, so it’s not unprecedented. But he’s got a spouse – she’s just refusing to move herself and their son to Washignton, D.C. Every other First Lady has moved and lived in the White House. What’s Melania’s problem? Why can’t she do whatever is required of the First Lady? Why should Ivanka even get office space in the White House? She should have no role in the administration whatsoever, let alone an office in the White House.

    Handing out offices and administration roles to your kids is what dictators do. Maybe we should start an ongoing Dictator Watch series. Bringing his kids into his administration should be near the top.

  60. 60.

    hovercraft

    @Pogonip:
    I live in Perth Amboy NJ, definitely no where near the woods, but we have all sorts of wild life, deer, skunks, groundhogs, and opossums. Who knew that suburban Jersey had this much wildlife.

  63. 63.

    CaseyL

    @Yarrow: I really hate to defend anyone anywhere near Trump, but there is precedence for this: Alice Roosevelt served as hostess and de facto First Lady for Teddy Roosevelt, who famously said about her: “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.”

  66. 66.

    Yarrow

    @Fester Addams: I want to know if enterprising people are planning to be in the crowd waving Russian flags. Maybe a whole bunch of people with those individual cardboard or plastic sheets that when they’re all held up together form an image – like they do in stadiums at the Olympics or other events. Maybe 100 people could show up and position themselves a certain way and then all hold up their color pieces and it would make the hammer and sickle, the old Soviet flag maybe.

  71. 71.

    Josie

    @jharp: Yup. I have never confessed this to my kids, but he actually did kill one. It was on the other side of the tree and i didn’t see it until it was too late. That’s why I now bang on the door before I open it.

  73. 73.

    danielx

    @Betty Cracker:

    Also, the grease stain somewhat resembles Elmer Fudd, with Donald Trump’s hair. Reaching out to grab something — maybe a pussy.

    In addition to everything else troubling me at the moment…that particular image is going to keep me awake tonight unless I take therapeutic measures.

  74. 74.

    HinTN

    @raven: Now that you mention it, I am noticing not too many groundhogs. We are, however, overrun with deer. @WereBear: We have two “house” cats. They hunt and occasionally get birds. We feed birds. There is no shortage.

  75. 75.

    debit

    Wow, so I guess this is not the place to announce that I bought a heated cat shelter for any feral cats hanging out by my house because I don’t want to think about any animal freezing to death. And a heated water dish so they can have fresh water. Jesus, you guys.

  76. 76.

    The Pale Scot

    @Yarrow:
    Nobody, but Nobody who has a great midtown apt and the money to enjoy it willingly moves to DC.

    Unless they’re venal power hungry smucks, that is

  77. 77.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Five ferals were born on my property, and I trapped them all, one by one, including a skunk which loved the trap and wouldn’t leave it, LOL. One of the ferals became my beloved Woody, the smartest, sweetest, handsomest cat in the world who just simply wasn’t cut out to live the feral life. The others were too wild, so I made a home for them in my back barn, and fed them for almost 7 years, shoveling out a path for them after every snow storm, and had a heated water bowl which I maintained through some brutal winter weather. One by one they were picked off by whatever – probably coyotes or the fisher cat {shudder} that I saw one night. I still have Woody though and can’t imagine my life without him.

    @debit:
    co sign

  78. 78.

    hovercraft

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Doesn’t Ivanka have a job of her own? This moving into the First Lady’s office suggests the answer to that is “not really.”

    Like Uday and Qusay, she is an “executive” at her fathers company. a SVP if I remember correctly. Considering that the family are supposedly “hands on” in the day to day running of the place, and they’ve all been pretty much focused on this latest and biggest scam, running the company seems to not be a real job, either that or they lied and don’t actually do a thing. Maybe because it’s main function is selling the family name, running for office is the same thing? These people didn’t have real jobs, and now their new jobs will be to loot the treasury, and capitalize on their fathers new position.

    Oh and we will be a balmy 24 with a real feel of 9, fun times.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    Everyone may have read this already except me, if so I apologize.

    Wherein Obama neatly bridges the 2 camps in the Democratic Party:

    “And so I’m careful not to attribute any particular resistance or slight or opposition to race. But what I do believe is that if somebody didn’t have a problem with their daddy being employed by the federal government, and didn’t have a problem with the Tennessee Valley Authority electrifying certain communities, and didn’t have a problem with the interstate highway system being built, and didn’t have a problem with the GI Bill, and didn’t have a problem with the [Federal Housing Administration] subsidizing the suburbanization of America, and that all helped you build wealth and create a middle class—and then suddenly as soon as African Americans or Latinos are interested in availing themselves of those same mechanisms as ladders into the middle class, you now have a violent opposition to them—then I think you at least have to ask yourself the question of how consistent you are, and what’s different, and what’s changed.”

    See that? Easy. Tied it all up with a bow. :)

    I’m going to miss having a smart, admirable President. I don’t aspire to Trumpism. I literally think I’m better than Donald Trump. Not his voters so much. Him. I’m better than he is. So are you.

  80. 80.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @CaseyL: Nope, Edith Roosevelt was the first First Lady to hire a social secretary and maintain an office. She was highly engaged to the position including personally supervising the White House staff. Alice was in her late teens when TR became President and presented “challenges”, hence his quote.

  82. 82.

    The Pale Scot

    Per dogs and kats.

    Any terrier will do. The one I grew up with would lie down and feign sleep in the back of yard. It would take a while but eventually the squirrels would lose track and come down and forage. She’d stay dead like until one came within a foot or two. And the chase was on.

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Saw that on Twitter. Nicely said, PBO. And yeah, we are all better than Trump. Even down to the meanest, most boring and contemptible troll. :)

  85. 85.

    SWMBO

    @Josie: When we moved here almost 40 years ago, there were empty lots in the neighborhood that have dice had houses built. We had loads of squirrels, rabbits, foxes and other wildlife. We also live near a municipal airport and down the street from a large park and ball fields. Every time they “upgraded” or built, we had critters fleeing destruction of their habitat. When the poodle figured out how to climb the tree, the number of squirrels dropped precipitously. The dachshunds that followed ran off the rest of them. Dachshunds also hunt mice/rats in the house. They have killed parrots in the yard. The birds land on the grass and hunt for bugs. Next thing you know the dogs come around the corner with green feathers. Dachshunds and corgis have an exaggerated view of their place in the world.

  89. 89.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yarrow:

    What’s Melania’s problem? Why can’t she do whatever is required of the First Lady?

    I am kind of reluctant to mention this, and I’ll dance carefully around it anyhow, but there has been speculation (some compassionate and informed, some just mean-spirited) that there are good reasons not to disrupt young Barron’s routine right now. To the extent there are “sides” to be taken, I am fairly sympathetic to Melania. I hope she can protect her son from most of the ugliness, and if that entails staying in NYC for the time being, I won’t criticize her.

  90. 90.

    rikyrah

    I hope those that tweet push back at POLITICO trying to sell the bullshyt that Twitter wasn’t at Ferret Head’s meeting with tech people over emojis.

    It is because TWITTER WOULD NOT GO ALONG WITH THE MUSLIM REGISTRY!!

  91. 91.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Betty Cracker: I’m waiting for the ShitGibbon to release his college transcripts, it seemed that it was so important for the President to do so(Oh and his taxes). The ShitGibbon keeps on telling us how well he did at Penn, he didn’t graduate with honors; so how about it Donnie?

  92. 92.

    The Pale Scot

    After reading Washington monthly’s piece about Trump and the energy dept. I’ve come to the conclusion that the twit is re-enacting The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. We’re all employees and/or customers of Grot. But I’m doubtful that the homeless alcoholic hired to be CFO is going to have a previously unknown talent for numbers.

    PS love the Soviet flag idea. Hope to work some elements of the Russian 42nd International Clambake into it

  94. 94.

    Mnemosyne

    @Baud:

    I’m trying to be, but their crazy mother makes it difficult. At least I get a really good discount, which is why I can afford to fly.

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    @WereBear:

    Not to be depressing, but I think those were the pre-spaying days when people would drown newborn kittens to keep the cat population down.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    That’s what we should say at our protests and whatnot It’s not your voters, Mr. Trump. It’s you! Nearly anyone is superior! That guy over there. He looks like he’s nice, at least!

    When we said anyone could grow up and be President, we didn’t mean that literally. A few CANNOT. You, for example.

  97. 97.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Major Major Major Major:

    isn’t wind chill kind of bullshit though?

    Trying going outside someplace where it is 10 degrees and still. Then go outside someplace where it is 10 degrees with a 30 mph wind. Get back to us with your results.

  98. 98.

    Poopyman

    Guess this is the post for this.

    Poopyman is dead.

    The cat I picked up from the bottom of a hill below a feral colony at work when he was two days old in 9/2002 died Saturday from a fast-acting cancer. Since he was only two days old, I of course had to bottle feed the little guy. Turns out that dry-mix formula causes intense constipation in a lot of kittens, and I had to make a stop at the vet’s every 4 or 5 days to unplug him. And so the legend of Poopyman was born.

    This is my last post under this nym. I was thinking of switching to Mr. Schitzengiggles (my real name), or maybe Hugh Jassol (my other real name), but it dawned on me that maybe I’m a little too enamored of butt-related names. Maybe I’d better go with something else. Anyway, whatever it is will have an “ex P-man” suffix for a while so y’all know.

    I really miss the little guy.

    ETA – And of course Cole kills the thread.

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    @debit:

    Yes, but you’re also the kind of person who will try to trap them so they can be spayed, so you’re probably good except for the extreme cat haters.

    I think it was here that somebody said that some vets have been doing kitty vasectomies on male ferals. That way, they keep their instinct to prevent other males from impregnating “their” females but can’t make any new kittens.

  109. 109.

    Major Major Major Major

    @debit: I’m not saying it doesn’t make it colder, I’m saying the numbers are bullshit, especially if you’re, you know. Dressed. “Minus 30 with wind chill” doesn’t equal minus 30, is all I meant.

    ETA: unless you’re a bottle of water. It’s like life expectancy, one of those surprisingly useless statistics.

  112. 112.

    debbie

    @debit:

    A couple of years ago, during the first polar vortex, I had to walk across a very large, flat parking lot at night with wind gusts up to 40 mph and wind chill near 35 below. Wind chill is not a hoax.

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    The adult children were at that meeting. They’re still ‘doing deals” according to Big Daddy.

    I’m telling you it’s gonna take more than “norms” to rein these people in. No boundaries. Rules don’t apply.

    On July 24, 1974, the United States Supreme Court ordered Nixon to surrender the White House tapes.
    Nixon complied with the court’s order

    No one is the boss of the Trumps. They’ll have to be arrested before they comply with anything. The court better get an army.

  115. 115.

    debit

    @Mnemosyne: Well, I’m a sucker. I have a bird feeder for the birds and a squirrel feeder for the squirrels too stupid (or fat) to to get to the bird feeder. I just figure, life is hard enough for every single living thing. They’re just trying to get by and survive. That’s what all of us are trying to do.

  116. 116.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @debit:

    Heh. My ex sister-in-law and her husband (both Floridians born and raised) were posted to the Philippines when Gene was in the AF. They loved it, loved the climate, loved the people.

    On their next tour, they were sent to Minot AFB for a year or two. It’s been 55 years almost, and I don’t think Elsa has recovered yet.

  119. 119.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @debbie:

    I would listen to the wind howl some nights and lay in bed worrying about them, and what else I could do for them. They wouldn’t come in, which was my first choice, and my second choice was heating the barn, which wasn’t possible. Then I’d tell myself I didn’t think twice about the squirrels, raccoons, skunks and chipmunks, and try to convince myself that the ferals were just like them.

  120. 120.

    J R in WV

    Regarding feral cats, there may be a group doing capture, spay vaccinate, release in your area on feral cats. All you need is a connection to get the Vet work done and some live traps. Feral cats are usually hungry enough to catch easily.

    We don’t have a feral cat problem out here in the deep woods, but friends in cities do, and participate in such a catch and release program. Eventually the volume of cats begins to drop as the number of fertile female cats drops.

    Or maybe you’re too far out into the woods, we don’t have a feral cat program in our county… too poor and backward. We’re lucky to have cops busting the child molesters and meth cookers.

  121. 121.

    debit

    @Major Major Major Major: Totally get what you’re saying. I don’t totally agree. When I was biking to work in the winter, I bought a pair of boots rated to -20 F. I wore them over two layers of heavy wool socks (boots were a couple sizes too big for this very purpose) and still had frozen feet after 12 miles. When I bitched at the local bike shop, they said it was windchill. Cold, plus windchill, plus even more windchill from my speed. Same boots and sock combination kept my feet warm and toasty if I walked the same amount of time as my usual commute.

    So yeah, the numbers might be off, but even dressing for the weather is not always going to defeat the wind.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @Poopyman:

    Sorry for your loss. These fuzzy little guys can take such a big place in your heart. Glad you have another cat to help you with your loss.

    We have a strategy to have two or three cats so that we aren’t alone when we lose one. Plus they are amusing in their competition to be top cat.

  127. 127.

    hovercraft

    @Major Major Major Major:

    isn’t wind chill kind of bullshit though?

    I recommend you visit pretty much anywhere along the northern border in February and try spending 20 minutes shoveling your car out of a snow drift with a nice arctic wind swirling the snow back into your face. Then tell me whether or not it’s bullshit. I disregard the temperature the weather person says it’s going to be, I just want to know what the winds doing, because that makes all the difference.

  130. 130.

    hovercraft

    @NotMax:

    The “Golf Capitol of the U.S.” – despite having no golf courses.

    Who knew, I didn’t even though I’ve lived here 13 years.

  132. 132.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Poopyman:

    I’m so sorry, Poopyman. I know you’ve been expecting it for a few days, but it’s still an unpleasant and unwelcome shock when the moment comes. You did right by the furry version of your nym, and I hope his passage was a peaceable transition for him.

    Again, in the immediate absence of raven, I’ll step forward to share Irving Townsend’s lovely words:

    “We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.”

  133. 133.

    hovercraft

    @Kay:

    See that? Easy. Tied it all up with a bow. :)

    I’m going to miss having a smart, admirable President. I don’t aspire to Trumpism. I literally think I’m better than Donald Trump. Not his voters so much. Him. I’m better than he is. So are you.

    So maybe allowing pictures of their new digs was a mistake, at this rate there will be people lining the sidewalks begging him to come back and make it stop.
    I’m so going to miss him, I guess he’s served his time, and earned his life back, but seriously, to go from this man to the Shitgibbon, it’s just too much.

    I think I’m better than his voters, sorry it’s true, I am not a fool, I used my eyes, ears and brain, and they led me not to vote for the Shitgibbon, that makes me better than them.

  134. 134.

    Aleta

    @MomSense: Somehow it cuts all the way through any jacket, right off the bat. Other winter winds take skill to survive. Winter wind off the Atlantic feels like surviving is luck.

  136. 136.

    Kryptik

    I dunno who might have been keeping track, but the North Carolina GOP called a “special session” and are essentially trying to take a legislative coup in order to render any power incoming Gov. Cooper might have utterly null and void.

    Read here, then follow the various twitter links for the full list. One of them will ‘alternate’ control of the election board, with essentially the GOP chairing the board on all even years, a.k.a. all congressional/presidential election years.

  137. 137.

    Aleta

    “We’ve got the scientists, we’ve got the lawyers, and we’re ready to fight. We’re ready to defend,” (Gov. Jerry) Brown said while addressing the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

    “If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite,” Brown said to cheers and applause. “We’re going to collect that data.”

    Brown offered support in response to reports that some climate scientists are copying information from public servers to independent servers because they’re afraid that a Trump administration may try to alter or dismantle the federal government’s reams of climate data.

    “If they start deleting databases, look, we’ve got a lot of databases in California,” he said. “We can take a few more. We’re here. We’re here to collaborate and stay on the course.”

    He also pledged to protect any labs within the public University of California system that are doing climate research.

    “As long as the University of California manages those labs, we’re not going to have political interference, we’re going to have honest independent science,” Brown said. “You can count on that.

  138. 138.

    hovercraft

    @Kay:

    No one is the boss of the Trumps. They’ll have to be arrested before they comply with anything. The court better get an army.

    THIS.
    These people have no respect for norms or precedent. The new emperor will do as he pleases, he is now the ruler of the world. Since no one is his boss, fuck anyone who questions him, just shut up.

  140. 140.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    “Minus 30 with wind chill” doesn’t equal minus 30, is all I meant.

    There’s a reason I moved from Chicago to California as soon as I graduated from high school, and it wasn’t the city. It was the fucking winters. It doesn’t get nearly as cold in CO as it does in IL or MN.

  144. 144.

    Yarrow

    @hovercraft: This is how dictators behave. No one is the boss of them. So just in this thread alone:
    Trump as Dictator Watch:
    1. Children get jobs or roles in government
    2. Won’t follow norms or precedent

  147. 147.

    Mnemosyne

    @EBT:

    In a way, I almost can’t be mad at Putin. He doesn’t have any responsibility to us. There’s no reason for him to prop up American democracy.

    I’m pissed at all of the Americans who helped him do this, wittingly or unwittingly, and all of the American politicians that are saying, Hey, as long as I get to kill Social Security, I don’t care who runs the country! and the MSM that only cares about ratings and, gosh, having Putin’s puppet running the country is going to be great for ratings.

  149. 149.

    Yarrow

    @efgoldman: That rumor went away for a bit and then popped up again a day or two ago. I think Trump mentioned it – that they’re trying to find ways to get them clearances. Or some jobs in the government. I thought that was illegal. Something about a law was passed after JFK hired RFK or something? Can’t hire family members.

    They are crossing all sorts of lines. The kids should be out of all the talks. They should be off running whatever the businesses are and leave daddy to do the presidenting.

  150. 150.

    Kay

    @hovercraft:

    But Trump relies on other people respecting norms and rules. That’s his edge. You do, he doesn’t. Advantage: him.

    The contractors he stiffed held up their end- they painted the hotel rooms or put in the sinks. He can rely on that- most people will do the work they agreed to do and you don’t have to sue them to get them to do it. Then when it comes time to pay them Trump doesn’t follow the rules. Advantage: Trump.

    The only way to deal with a person like that is to get as far away from them as you can, but we can’t do that- we’re stuck with him. That calls for doing some norm-flouting ourselves. Otherwise he’s enjoying the benefits and protection of norms he doesn’t recognize or adhere to.

  151. 151.

    SWMBO

    @Poopyman: Heartfelt condolences. Still, for a 2 day old rescue, he had a good run. And we can tell he brought you joy. Peace and comfort to you.

  152. 152.

    SWMBO

    @Omnes Omnibus: Are you whacked out on pain meds? j/k. I’ve lived in the subtropics for over 38 years. It thins the blood and winter is a lot harsher when you get old enough to cast out on an ice floe.

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