Not to be mistaken for Lynx, Iynx is my other girl. A magnificent Himalayan, she is amazingly smart, loyal, and protective. Her ability to understand complicated conversation about her when her name isn’t mentioned and we’re not even aware she’s near is truly baffling. Research heretofore has denied that cats can have such ability, but I have worked hard, every day since I got each kitten, to develop their linguistic and social skills and I’m not so sure if these cats aren’t much smarter than even most cat lovers profess.
Open thread, and here’s thinking of you greenNotGreen!
ETA: OMG I had to share this!
Baud
The abominable snowcat!
Patricia Kayden
Smarter than many of those in the Trump regime, I tell ya! She’s gorgeous.
AnonPhenom
Republican obstruction of the investigations into Russia’s meddling in elections, ours included, reflects more than just political partisanship.It is indicative of what the Right’s donors’ see as the way forward to achieving an optimum political construct to serve their interests. And it doesn’t necessarily include democracy. If you believe that there aren’t a multitude of Western plutocrats who haven’t been willing and able to work with the Russian kleptocracy (and others) to not only enrich themselves but removing any institutions and individuals they have mutually determined to be a liability, you haven’t been paying attention.
It’s not Republican Representatives and Senators that need to be convinced that the price of maintaining a Trump Administration is too high, its’ their campaign funders. They must be shown that the price of undermining democracy is very high. Higher than they can afford.
jacy
That’s one beautiful cat!
(my cats are currently strewn around the yard looking like someone dropped them out a plane. Lazy, useless beasts….)
E.
There is no doubt in my mind that cats lead very rich interior lives, and it should be clear to anyone who pays attention that they understand words, potentially a fair number of words. They grasp intonation even better — it is easy to train them to respond to a certain intonation. They also have richly varied personalities that cannot be explained by upbringing alone. I’ve also learned lately that they have an acute understanding of space and geometry. If I toss a rock from a point that my cat cannot see, he will trace its path backwards to find its launch point. He also will manuever himself to get a good view of something that is out of sight by moving in a direction other than toward the object he is looking for. That is, he can triangulate. It continues to amaze me that some people believe animals do not have consciousness, emotions, personalities, and moods. They also make discoveries, and learn from them.
TaMara (HFG)
Beautiful. And please, anyone who has a cat knows they are the adults of the pet kingdom and understand everything, even if they might not let you know it.
RSR
Beautiful girl!
Alain the site fixer
@TaMara (HFG): thanks for the email!
Oh and if you didn’t see the YouTube I added above, refresh/scroll up!
Jeffro
The scariest part of “the bucket” was the chickens. Not sure why…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that bucket thing is pretty cool– make me want to put out a bunch of bird baths– I have a hanging one that doesn’t see much activity, but I’m thinking it’s early in the warm season
(among phrases I never thought I’d think, or speak, or even type: I was expecting a lot more tongue action from that donkey)
ETA: @Jeffro: We are saved from the malevolence of chickens only by the magnitude of their stupidity. They are truly evil.
Alain the site fixer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: truly ROFLMAO
Elizabelle
Her’s gorgeous too.
RE cats: this was some good relationship advice, from the LA Times. Um, relationships with other people. People.
LA Affairs column: Best advice I ever got for dating a guy with kids: Be like a cat, not a dog
I think the “cat” approach would work with a lot of people, and not just potential step-kids. Or any kids/teenagers.
The Moar You Know
Research has then missed something pretty important. At least one of my cats could understand complete sentences and would respond as best as her vocal equipment would allow.
That’s the key. Talk to them just like they’re people. Works with dogs as well. My last dog could understand and execute multi-sentence instructions.
Lyrebird
@Jeffro: Well maybe you’ve seen Microcosmos? (and if not, you should!!!) but that is a scary chicken…
@Alain the site fixer: Thank you for these two beautiful images! Needed that.
Patricia Kayden
@AnonPhenom: Hmmmm. How would folks like the Koch Brothers be convinced that kleptocracies wouldn’t be good for their bottom line though? As long as they make money, I doubt they care about the political system in which they make the money.
Major Major Major Major
Nice cat.
I wonder what Samwise would think of snow.
We got him a drinking fountain thing yesterday. He’s still getting used to it.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: Because they’re little feathered velociraptors, that’s why.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden:
To a degree the Kochs are actually true believers. Their dad cofounded the John Birch Society. Maybe you could appeal to that somehow.
germy
Ten Bears
Cats are proof aliens visited us in the past.
Left here to keep an eye on us.
Roger Moore
Cats are very smart, but people tend to underestimate their intelligence because they use it for their own goals rather than their humans’.
rikyrah
The cat is beautiful ?
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
Fear for their persons. If they’re going to push us toward a lawless culture, they need to understand that lawlessness cuts both ways.
Alain the site fixer
@Betty Cracker: talk about feathered velociraptors, we once had a gang (because that’s what it was!) of juvenile male turkeys come through our neighborhood in rural Colorado with no fences really. So this gang came through our yard for an hour or so and tore up all our beds, pulling up every worm and grub and other critters and leaving a path of destruction behind them. It was amazing watching them, their ambulation, head movements, interactions, etc. Very primal. We joked that they looked liked dinosaurs. And you know, juvenile wild turkeys DO look prehistoric. Chickens too, once you see it.
Phylllis
@germy: Then Came Bronson. Such a crush I had on him.
Alain the site fixer
@Ten Bears: good to see you here! I often see you other places where I don’t comment. If I’ve just missed you before, my apologies.
KS in MA
Beautiful cat, and (I guess I’m in the minority) I loved the Bucket.
Roger Moore
@Alain the site fixer:
They are dinosaurs. People say the dinosaurs went extinct, but one branch of their family- the birds- is still with us.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: velociraptors are only about the size of a turkey.
Alain the site fixer
@Roger Moore: and that’s why everything tastes like dinosaur, not like chicken. Chicken is just one of so many Dino-descendants but it’s the one we eat the most often so its taste is most familiar.
Mnemosyne
I can’t find the article now, but there was an interesting study lately that said that cat owners could understand and interpret their own cats’ vocalizations, but not those of other cats. One of the hypotheses the researchers came up with is that cats basically create a language with their humans that is mutually understandable but doesn’t make sense to outside humans.
Charlotte makes a lot of crazy vocalizations and now we’re wondering if she has some Siamese/Oriental cat in her. She doesn’t have any of the markings, but her body type is pretty similar per some of Anne Laurie’s comments about Cheryl Rofer’s cats.
bupalos
Yowza. They sent out Huckabee’s daughter for the presser, she opened by saying it was her daughter’s 5th birthday so be nice, then proceeded to fumble her way through a bad sean spicer act including stating that Comey was fired for his “many atrocities.”
This whole Trump era is going to spawn a thousand think pieces on the banality of evil.
Major Major Major Major
@bupalos: I saw a headline that Spicer literally hid in the bushes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@bupalos: I had it on mute, and she was visibly in over her head.
ETA: I wonder if whoever is supposed to be anchorinng MSNBC when they’ve brought in Brian Williams because this is “important news” are as annoyed as I am at his labored attempts to be witty and charming
Mnemosyne
@Alain the site fixer:
IIRC, current science says there are only two animal families that are directly descended from dinosaurs: birds and crocodilians. A lot of other “dinosaurs” like the Mosasaur are not true dinosaurs, but early lizards.
But that does explain why alligator meat tastes like chicken — common ancestors.
Shell
@Jeffro: When I saw that second bird show up the edge of the bucket, butt-first, all I could think “Here comes the poop!”
Citizen_X
@KS in MA: I loved it too.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good. I hope the press rips her to shreds. Betsy DeVos got booed giving a commencement at Bethune-Cookman. Also good. People who’ve chosen to prop up this demented, illegitimate demagogue need to feel the contempt they’ve so richly earned.
laura
@Phylllis: OMG, my second crush after the Beatles.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
Many people use “Velociraptor” imprecisely to mean all dromaeosaurids, including larger ones like Deinonychus, largely because Michael Crichton did that in Jurassic Park. Crichton admitted that the “Velociraptors” in his books were really Deinonychuses, but he called them Velociraptor because it sounded more dramatic.
Baud
@Alain the site fixer:
Where did mammals come from?
Mnemosyne
@KS in MA:
I just watched it — it was pretty cool. I admire anyone who has the patience to sit there and look through (presumably) hours of footage just to put a 90-second video together.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: you know what’s scary? Utahraptors. Also geese.
Alain the site fixer
@Mnemosyne: yeah, I was thinking birds and gators and crocs, really. And some larger lizards. They taste very similar.
Baud
@KS in MA: I liked the Bucket too.
Major Major Major Major
@Alain the site fixer: and frogs.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
As I understand it, the theory is that meowing is basically a kitten behavior that adults don’t use with other cats, so there’s no existing feline meowing language to adapt to use with humans. That leaves them to make it up. My guess is that if a kitten were raised in a house that already had adult cats, it would learn to use the same meows for the same meanings as the adults were already using.
Alain the site fixer
@Baud: ok, I should have used quotation marks there, point taken. I’ve never thought that everything (not red meat or seafood) tastes like chicken but those around me, especially Americans, have always said that.
@Major Major Major Major: geese can be very scary, but it’s worth it – truly, well-cooked goose with red cabbage is one of the best meals one can have if one eats meat.
bupalos
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wasn’t sure she was going to make it through even the first 5 minutes. She’s almost Trumpian in her inability to read the words good (like it takes such total focus that she can’t get inflections right, she’s too busy making sure she gets the right sounds with the right letters.)
She finally found a stride by getting snippy and making it personal with the press. I think they are coached on that. The primary thing is just delegitimizing the whole process. I think that’s part of why they tell pretty transparent, obvious lies too.
Alain the site fixer
@Major Major Major Major: true dat.
Baud
@Alain the site fixer: Fair enough. But where did mammals come from? I can see fish to amphibians and amphibians to reptiles and reptiles (dinosaurs) to birds, but I’m not sure how we get mammals.
gbbalto
@Baud: From another line of reptiles!
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Yep, but the missing piece was realizing that the cats are making it up to communicate better with their humans. It makes sense — we “meow” at each other all the time, so of course cats will vocalize back to try and communicate with us.
Especially since most humans are too dumb to pick up on all of the body language communication the cats use with each other. I guarantee you that our cats talk about us behind our backs using twitches and eye-blinks.
Baud
@gbbalto: Fascinating.
jl
@Baud:
Mammals come from their mommas.
And their mommas come from therapsids:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Pristeroognathus_DB.jpg
But my question has always been, ‘what does chicken taste like?’
Edit: and my favorite small mammal is the black and rufous elephant shrew. My favorite medium size mammal is a purple furred thing from Cambodia that smells like popcorn, but I can never remember the name of it.
And my favorite large mammal is, of course, Baud. Awwww, that is just so sweet, isn’t it?
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Crocodilians are not descended from dinosaurs, but they are the closest living non-bird relatives to the dinosaurs. Basically, there was a split with the crocodilians one one branch and the dinosaurs (including birds) and some other related animals like pterosaurs on the other.
Aleta
The first time I looked a chicken in the eye into her brain the Jurassic was still right there.
@E.: > (cats have an) acute understanding of space and geometry
I agree and believe it’s one reason they love boxes and bags.
And why they enjoy using their vision to redesign the space by changing their vantage points, up high, underneath, etc.
@Alain the site fixer: this video redesigned my day. Thanks so much.
Josie
Alain: Both of your cats are gorgeous. And I agree with the general consensus on the intelligence of cats. We are probably lucky they are small.
Phylllis
@laura: I have a definite type. Crushes also included Aldo Ray & Richard Egan.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
IIRC, one of the really fascinating things they’ve discovered is that dinosaurs were not reptiles at all. Reptiles are a totally separate animal family. There are a few early reptiles that got incorrectly lumped in with the dinosaurs, but they’re not true dinosaurs.
Current research seems to indicate that the dinosaurs never died out — they shrank down and learned how to fly.
bupalos
Never waded into the debates on whether any votes should be given to any Trump nominees, but this thing about Trumps deputy AG getting lots of D votes seems to be the biggest of the slim reeds they plan to try to hold on to. Pretty much the whole thrust of the defense: “Everyone loves this guy, especially Democrats, so he’s uminpeechableh, and he basically MADE Trump fire Comey because all Democrats do is hate hate hate, goodbye, the end, briefing over.”
schrodingers_cat
@Josie: No doubt. Otherwise we would be dinner.
Aleta
@jl:
And their children go to therapists?
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Mammals split off from the rest of the amniotes very early. There are basically two branches, the one that led to mammals and the one that led to birds, dinosaurs, and everything else we call a reptile (crocodilians, turtles and tortoises, snakes and lizards, etc.).
jl
@gbbalto: I think we go back to this one. Howdy, ancestor! Are you proud of your great-great-…..great grandkids?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsid#/media/File:EdaphosaurusDB.jpg
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: They do creep me out. But then again – as Bill Burr put it – they do have a 100% murder rate, due to us humans.
;)
Aleta
@Mnemosyne:
Just like cats made up cat toys to exercise their humans.
Major Major Major Major
@Alain the site fixer: sure, dead geese aren’t scary, of course.
gbbalto
@Roger Moore: Better answer than mine. My knowledge was obsolete.
Alain the site fixer
@Aleta: so glad to hear it! The second I realized I was awe-ing and ooh-zing so much, I knew I had to post it. Things like that make me cry with joy at being alive and being able to see such marvels.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Ah, okay. The way I’ve been seeing it explained (in an oversimplified way) is that there were avian and non-avian dinosaurs, and only the avian line survived.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: That’s what I just read in wikipedia, FWIW.
Alain the site fixer
@Josie: yes, yes we are. I’ve been blessed with seeing two different mountain lions when I was in Cañon City Colorado, and if they’d been closer to me I would have been very, very frightened. As it was, one was stalking a couple on a blanket in the starlight, and I ran to my car and honked and turned on my lights and high beams, and it ran away. They never even saw it…
Mnemosyne
My favorite new dinosaur factoid: when paleontologists first found the fossils of Oviraptors near a nest full of eggs, they assumed that the Oviraptors had been eating eggs from other dinosaurs’ nests (hence the name).
But more recent discoveries indicate that the Oviraptors were actually sitting on and protecting their own eggs, so they’ve been getting a bad rap since 1924.
(Since birds steal eggs from other birds, we can be pretty sure that at least some dinosaurs did the same, but that wasn’t what the Oviraptors who were found in or on nests full of eggs were doing.)
Mike Furlan
Depends on the Cat. One out of my three cats had Iynx level comprehension. The other two, lovable morons.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Wikipedia is pretty good with math and physics, unlike history and politics where the contributors agenda can get in the way of accurate info. No idea about biology or a subject as politically charged as evolution.
Aleta
@Alain the site fixer: The video did slow my breath, make me tear up and return me to a place I love. I really thank you for posting it.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Incorrect. A better thing to say is that “reptiles” as most people use it is not a valid evolutionary grouping. Basically, crocodiles are more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than they are to lizards, so you can’t make a valid grouping that includes turtles, lizards, and crocodiles but excludes birds.
ET
My Snowshoe Siamese Bean thinks this is a pretty kitty!
jl
@Baud: BTW, your Wikipedia entry is extremely dry. You need to add some human touch and color before the next election.
Miss Bianca
Pretty kitties, Alain!
I’ve never seen a mountain lion up and close except once, when it was streaking in front of my car as I turned onto County Road 1A at the Cotopaxi Store. I’m sure I’ve been much closer to more of them than I’d care to think about. And they are all around our neighborhood. Luna the Wonder Husky has a special bark for when she encounters predators in the wild – that is, she actually *barks*, as opposed to yodeling, wooing, and howling, which is her usual communication mode with her human servant(s). So far I’ve actually witnessed her facing down coyotes and an enormous bear – but at least once she did it at my neighbor’s house at something I couldn’t see – and this is one of the neighbors where there have been mountain lion sightings. Yikes!
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
Wait, you mean that the makers of One Million B.C. (1940) lied to me? Unpossible!
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
That’s true, too. The dinosaurs were a tremendously successful group that was split into all kinds of sub-groups, and the birds are the only one of those sub-groups to survive. It’s just that the split between the branches that led to crocodiles and birds happened before some more branches between groups like dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
Alain the site fixer
@Miss Bianca: I’m not a fan of guns, but they’re a necessity where you live! I was in Dawson Ranch, so up against the wild and not super-developed, but you’re where it’s really at, “it” being wildlife.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
Yes. Everyone who played any part in propping up this shitshow—including his voters—needs to feel it forever.
On the topic of cat language, my dearly departed Nico (the best cat ever) had the most adorable vocalizations. She didn’t “meow”, she said “ear” instead. It would vary in tone quality and volume depending on mood. She wasn’t a big talker, but every once in a while you could have a whole conversation with her, as long as you didn’t mind every response being some variant of “ear ear ear”.
I named her Nico because she had this sweet, raspy, small voice that very much brought to mind Nico singing “Femme Fatale”.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I let someone who lived in the mountains here in CA who told a story about taking a few of her alpacas out for a walk along the trails and being frustrated that they were very agitated. When she got back to the house, her husband was like, “Did you know there was a mountain lion watching you?” ?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Wilmer’s batting 0 fer – his candidate Mello lost his race. Bernie would’ve won though or something.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
At least two of my cats (one past, one present) have learned to meow “Mommy” at me. It was super freaky the first time it happened.
Alain the site fixer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Wilmer’dve lost bigly and Trump would have much more legitimacy. And perhaps we wouldn’t be seeing such a resurgence of sexist, misogynist behavior being acceptable or even humorous. So many “what could have happeneds”. Sigh.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Ten Bears:
I actually use this as a working theory myself. When they go into the meatloaf position – four feet tucked up underneath, eyes slit, motionless – that’s when the upload to the mother ship occurs, after having observed us hairless monkeys 365/24/7.
Ruviana
Your kiddo is great! She reminds me of my late Himalaya mixes Fatgirl and Mr. Boy who I miss every day.
ArchTeryx
@E.: Animals can feel every bit the range of emotions we can. They don’t know what those feelings are, for the most part – they just react to them – but they certainly can feel. And cats can most definitely conceptualize a lot of things. They’re miniature predators. They have to act as both predator and prey and their hardwiring reflects that.
Himalayans, on the other paw, are stone cold awesome. If I ever get a cat of my own, it’ll be a Himalayan. Beauty and brains in one package.
In the meantime, the house’s ginger tabby derp cat is in love with me, because I give first class pamperings.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Alain the site fixer:
Wilmer’s natural constituency really is his precious white working/middle class. That’s who lives in Vermont. Imagine how big a difference he’d make if he’d take his message and his cult over to the GOP and primary Trump from the left? That way he wouldn’t have to pretend to care about women and PoC and still attack Democrats, but divide the GOP instead. Let him borrow their party next time, and do something helpful for the first time in his PITA life.
AnonPhenom
@Patricia Kayden:
So, are you saying they haven’t been making money or they’re not really active in politics?
SiubhanDuinne
Iynx is absolutely gorgeous. Do you pronounce her name “Eye-inks”?
In other news, Don Blankenship has been released from federal prison, and apparently didn’t learn a thing while he was behind bars. According to NPR his first action as a free man was to send out a Twitter storm lambasting mine safety regulations.
Mnemosyne
@ArchTeryx:
Or, as I usually say, cats are paranoid because they know they’re in the middle of the food chain. They eat other animals, but they know full well that there are animals that want to eat them as well. So, paranoia.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
I always liked the Kliban cat who said “Trout?”
HILFY
Besides beauty, Iynx also has the ability to teleport from your porch into deep snow. Leaving us to wonder how she got to the beginning of her snow adventure. Clever girl.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Nico was hilarious. She was a stray, and I adopted her from a lady who took in strays, nursed them back to health, and then found them homes. She was soooooo elegant—probably half Maine Coon and half Persian, so long, beautiful fur and markings like Steve’s, but with a Persian’s build. More delicate face structure, smaller body, and short legs. However, because her legs were shorter in proportion to her body, she would occasionally have a hard time jumping up on things, and she’d have to scramble to hang on, or would slam into the sides of cabinets or tables. It hurt her ego SO BADLY if I laughed at her. LOL. I thought about shaving her like Cole does with Steve, but I think it would have just destroyed her self-image, so I never did.
Cole’s Steve pictures always give me a little pang. Nico was just the greatest cat.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Something I never thought I’d see:
Jen Rubin retweeting ThinkProgress.
Miss Bianca
@Alain the site fixer: True, dat. I consulted Adam about a Henry rifle because I thought it would be cool, but a bit impractical for walking around on non-hunting trips. Some type of handgun is going to be required at some point, I think.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
HuffPo link for the Don Blankenship story.
I wonder if (hope that) Cole will have something to say about this? I so vividly remember his post when the news of the disaster broke. It started “My entire state is in mourning, and in shock.” His anguish was palpable.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: My friend Wylie had a Siamese who, swear to dog, would occasionally yowl “WYYYYLIE” at the top of her lungs. That was freaky, sure nuff!
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
She sounds lovely. Yeah, most cats I’ve known really hate to be laughed at. They are not unlike Trump in that respect. But at least they always have the presence of mind to look at you as if to say “I totally meant to do that,” and then change the subject by licking their ass.
I think I’ve related here about my bilingual cat. Every morning I would say “Who wants breakfast?” and every morning her response was “Moi!”
Elizabelle
@Alain the site fixer: How do we pronounce your beautiful snowcat’s name?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and watching cable and, apparently, shouting at the screen, and meeting with Henry the K in the Oval Office, but no word of praying. Since against all odds and indications, trump doesn’t drink, he’ll be sober when he starts arguing with the portrait of Lincoln.
Not that I think the fight is over by a longshot, but these tweets made chuckle. It’s too late for skiing and too early for the beach– I wonder where Jared and Ivanka are?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He should go campaigning!
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Investigating nail removing technology for when they’re done selling everything that hasn’t been nailed down.
artem1s
@Patricia Kayden:
William Jefferson Clinton. Best peace time economy in modern US history. Barack Hussein Obama. Amazing recovery even with unprecedented GOP obstruction. Trickle down from three GOP Presidents and one orange loon. Deficits, defaults, and bank failures as far as the eye can see. They only care about what political system is in place. Money made under a Dem is tainted. Money stolen under a GOP admin is golden.
Mnemosyne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Jen Rubin seems to be undergoing a full-blown conversion à la David Brock.
Interestingly, Brock underwent his conversion while researching a book that was supposed to be anti-Hillary and he realized how wrong he’d been about her.
barb 2
Cat cognitive abilities are far superior. They don’t do well in labs — and often there is experimenter bias. The researchers don’t believe cats can think. Rosenthal effect.
There is a really great book about non human animal intelligence — it begins with the Blank Slate — BF Skinner’s stupid theory and shows just how far off BF was in his biased assumptions of animal intelligence.
“Are we Smart enough to know Smart Animals are?” by Frans de Waal
Redshift
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Get ready for (more) “think” pieces trying Dems they could have won in they’d been nicer to the forced birth crowd.
AnonPhenom
@artem1s:
There’s never enough money and always room to inflict more pain… until the last man’s standing.
..he who dies with the most toys…
Alain the site fixer
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s more like inks. Lynx without the l. If you will. Another day, I’ll share the story of her and Echo’s names. We spent so much effort to find the right name for each. Again – another day!
Alain the site fixer
@HILFY: a (not-so-cat-loved) family tradition: I throw them out gently into the first good snow so they have to get their precious feet soiled with that awful snow. lol
Alain the site fixer
@Miss Bianca: revolver.
Roger Moore
@artem1s:
People who are as rich as the Koch brothers don’t care about absolute amounts of money; they care about relative amounts and what they’re allowed to do with it. The Kochs want the poor reduced to serfdom and themselves to be feudal lords ruling over the rest of us.
Alain the site fixer
@barb 2: thanks for the referral. I’ll take a look. I have read/own a few books but I have had almost mystical experiences with a number of different creatures so I’m pretty sure that the answer is no. For example, I’ve seen behavior in a family of sphynx moths that just didn’t make sense unless there was some cognition from them or empathy they felt from me.
AnonPhenom
@Roger Moore:
and our political/electoral system produces candidates dependent on the largess of these sociopaths in order to attain office.
I think we’ve got a starting point here.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Redshift:
Since that survey came out this week that proved the actual economically anxious white working class voted for Clinton and the
culturally anxiousracists voted for Trump, the cult is pretending like the last 6 mos of them demanding Dems coddle bigots like Bernie wants, never happened.Mike Furlan
@Mnemosyne: Whatever noise a cat makes in trying to attract a human, is what that cat thinks a human sounds like. I must sound pretty stupid to my cat.
Central Planning
@Mike Furlan: Our cat must have thought we were ducks. She literally quacked.
Betsy
@Baud: it’s not linear like that. It’s branched. Proto mammals developed before or during the dinosaurs from something else entirely. Thera-somethings as I recall