The message here is clear:
“If I can’t sit in the box, I will sit ON the god damned box.”
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.
After roe, women are no longer free.
The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.
They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.
Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
Let’s finish the job.
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.
An almost top 10,000 blog!
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Their freedom requires your slavery.
It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
“Squeaker” McCarthy
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.
You can’t love your country only when you win.
Jerzy Russian
I am glad he let you live one more day.
madmommy
From the look on his face, tomorrow isn’t looking so good for you. Steve gives good stink-eye.
RepubAnon
Why are you paying attention to something other than your feline overlord?
Olivia
Well, at least he doesn’t pee on it, which is a problem I have all the time. Blended family of cats, one was orphaned at 5 days and the others raised normally by their mom. The two normal ones bully the orphan constantly. It doesn’t help that the orphan thinks he is human and wears a ‘kick me’ sign on his ass.
Jerzy Russian
I was working in the garage all day today, and upon catching up with the afternoon threads my head is still spinning from all of the flat Earth talk. I always though the original Flat Earth Society was a bunch of people who were bored out of their minds and pretended to believe the Earth is flat for unknown reasons. Lately, I have had to conclude that they probably actually believe it. Sadly, there are groups that make the Flat Earth Society look like a room full of Einsteins, for example check out fixedearth.com.
Omnes Omnibus
Steve is probably a sweety. If I remember right, it was Tunch who batted Cole’s wallet to the floor for Rosie to show her love for JC by gnawing on it for a while.
pk
OT,
Trying to meet with Rob Portman about their health care.
Dead Pundits Society @DeadPundits
This needs to go viral: courtesy @atticusgarden: Columbus Police Officer pushing a handicap women out of her wheelchair & walking away
https://twitter.com/DeadPundits/status/883738907359268864
opiejeanne
@Jerzy Russian: Oh no, what did I miss today?
In HS we had a Flat Earth Society as well as a Disciples of Diogenes club, both brought to us by the same group of kids.
Old Dan and Little Anne
I had 2 cats fixing to fight in my front yard earlier. That Goddamn noise is from hell. I went outside and hissed at them and they moved about 5 feet from each other. I went in and got a big cup of water next. Problem solved. Full moon.
rikyrah
Hey. I keep on telling you..it is Steve’s house. You get to stay there because you feed him.??
Tazj
His fur looks like it has almost completely grown back. He’s floofy and fluffy again.
One of my monster cats keeps following me around the house, still desperate for attention.Enough already, I’ve want to go to sleep.
Jerzy Russian
@opiejeanne: Mr. Cole posted a blurb about some fools in Fort Collins, Colorado who have to meet in secret to discuss their beliefs about the shape of the Earth. Apparently they have to go underground because they get mocked if they show their faces in public. See here: https://balloon-juice.com/2017/07/08/shut-the-fuck-up-stupid-people/
Hal
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-09/did-trumps-g20-performance-indicate-us-decline-as-world-power/8691538?pfmredir=sm
StringOnAStick
It is hard to get a cat photo that doesn’t look like stink eye, it has something to to with how their eyes and the protective membrane. We have hundreds of photos of our late kitty, who was a complete sweetheart who never acted out towards anyone, including the vet, yet all but a few have that stink eye look. We have one that so perfectly reflects her sweet personality, it sits framed on my desk and on the shelf over the TV, benevolently watching over us.
Omnes Omnibus
@opiejeanne: We had a Flat Earth Society and a Hester Prynne Fan Club. Both were IB student related.
Geeno
OMG – He is just a huge koosh ball.
I would be all over him, and I would squeeze him, and hug him, and call him George.
And after he clawed his way way out of my grasp – he would hide in some deep cravass in the basement – and I would be sad and bloodied, and George wouldn’t let me have rabbits..
Keith P.
Cats love looking down on things, that’s for sure. I still don’t understand their love of boxes, though.
Tazj
@Tazj: I do need to sleep, I’m too tired to spell I correctly.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: OT: But since you said you missed ‘Wild Bill’s’ final resting place…here it is, circa 1975.
Betty Cracker
Lovely cat!
My husband is sick, so I spent all day floofing his pillows and shuttling food and beverages to him.
Then I tucked him in and went out to dinner with a pair of younglings and took them to see “Wonder Woman,” which we all enjoyed.
Now I’ve discovered there’s a new season of the Great British Bake-Off available on Amazon, one I have not seen. Hooray!
jl
Thnx for nice pet pic.
Cole should get his cat an empty box. Throw a fundraiser and I’ll chip in.
Olivia
@Betty Cracker: Wow! You take much better care of the sick husband than I do. No floofing or tucking in. I cannot give in or whatever I do to help him when he is down becomes the new way of life. My mom was so upset with me after his hip replacement because after 5 days I made him walk down the stairs and get his own lunch. Physical therapy is what it was.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hal:
The key word here is “claims”. He is, in fact, about nothing but himself. I’m willing to indulge him one final time. With a tumbrel ride.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
You’re lucky to have a cat like that. You’re even luckier he’s let you live so far.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: I keep several empty boxes around for my cat, her Serene Highness Princess Mocha. One of them she claws to death.
Keith P.
@Villago Delenda Est: I just threw out about 7-8 boxes I had set aside for me cat. She used a couple of them (they have to be just the right size), and then moved on to window sills.
SiubhanDuinne
It’s not just the FNYT that indulges in mindless pablum on its op-ed page. I just read a guest opinion piece in the WaPo, something with a lame click-baity headline on the order of “Five Things You Never Knew About Hippies (Your Jaw Will Drop When You Read Number Three!!)”
Okay, I made that up, but even so, the piece was among the most vapid, anodyne wastes of pixels I’ve seen. Just pathetic.
jl
@Villago Delenda Est: Great! We’ll have a fundraiser so you can ship one of them to Cole. Can you fold one of them up? That will save on postage, maybe.
Cole seems strangely unresponsive to this, what seems to me, fairly simple and basic function of cat servantship.
Yutsano
@Olivia: Speaking as a dual hip replacement recipient, you did it right. Most hospitals will make you start walking the next day in fact. I was up on my joint in two days and in rehab by 3. They’re pretty merciless.
jl
@Keith P.: Maybe your cat developed choice fatigue with the boxes?
Frankensteinbeck
@Hal:
While I mainly agree, Russia cannot build itself up by tearing the US down. Putin is trying to swim up a waterfall, extending the power of his broken country. Nothing Trump does can do better than prolong Russia’s collapse.
Brachiator
@Jerzy Russian:
I think that one of the reasons there is an increase in this stuff is that some people need to believe in simpler, more easy to digest stuff, even if it is wrong.
I also think that social media makes it easier for fools to find one another.
Devore
I hope Steve is feeling better
Keith P.
@jl: Pretty much. The boxes have to be slightly bigger than her, no more, and she only wants to sleep on/in something for a few days at a time. I bought a real nice bed for her, and she used that for a week. She even got tired of sleeping on her cardboard scratching board.
Mike J
@Frankensteinbeck: They should stick to the rivers and lakes that they’re used to.
jl
@Keith P.: That’s my experience with family cats. Except when they decide that someone’s favorite easy chair is a good place to plop themselves, that’s a long term commitment. They never get tired of a spot like that.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
Probably true, but you can’t blame Putin for trying. And God knows he has found the perfect fool of a helpmate in Trump.
Jacel
@Omnes Omnibus: My San Francisco high school (circa 1970) had a Cheapskates Club, organizing cheap or free things to do after school. We also had a Science Fiction Fantasy Witchcraft and Weird Things Club (SFFWWTC). And because a friend of mine produced the weekly mimeographed list of the school’s activities that were announced in each home room class, I created a Dogsled Club and made up blurbs for the group’s fictional weekly activities.
Major Major Major Major
Samwise has a box that he likes to sit on, in the corner under the desk in the nook, by an exposed water pipe of some kind.
Ruckus
I’ve been somewhat binge watching West Wing. I find it much better than hearing or looking at what an ass drumpf is. Or any of his suckups. Just watched season three ep 19 which is the one with bits by real people who worked in the WH including Presidents, Ford, Carter and Clinton. I imagine that if that show was to be remade there is no way they could have drumpf or any of his staff on. There’s no way drumpf’s people take the job as seriously or with as much concern as the people who spoke, even the staunch conservatives like Karl Rove. And him I figured his lips were moving so he must be lying.
ETA To be somewhat on topic I was watching it while my roommates cat laid sleeping by my side.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: I’m watching House of Cards season 5, it’s much nicer to pretend the president is merely a serial killer.
ETA: I’m also playing Warcraft because it’s nice to pretend to be an elf.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re younger than me. We didn’t have International Baccalaureate back in the dark ages when I went to school, but the perpetrators of our two groups would definitely have been in IB. They were a bunch of characters, a year or two ahead of me and I was flattered to be allowed at their lunch table.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
I understand a hip replacement isn’t a lot of fun. I have a bad hip, it’s been on the fritz for 61 yrs but the last 5 have gotten rather more serious, with regular escalations. But I’m not looking all that forward to having it done.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thank you. I wanted to take that photo but I didn’t want to fork over money to visit his grave. I love that they planted Calamity Jane with him, since it was her dying wish to be buried near him and he had no use for her at all.
I visited Billy the Kid’s gravesite when we happened to be staying nearby on a cross-country trip.
Billy’s Grave
Major Major Major Major
Samwise update: Samwise currently thinks he’s hiding behind a paper bag and looks out at me sneakily when I walk by.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Anything is better that the pretend president that we have now.
Also my roommates cat has places she likes but fortunately most of them are not the same places as the humans. Except for my bed when my roommate is out of town. Then it’s like the last cat I lived with, loves to sleep were my feet go. OK the last cat liked to sleep on my feet. Could be a tad uncomfortable and made going to sleep tough. Every damn night she’d climb up and settle in. Not sure if it signified anything, being the only male in the house.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ruckus: My cat once decided my ankles were the place to be. I can’t imagine that this would be comfortable, but ankles it was.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Glad you liked it, it was the selected pic in Lightroom when you mentioned that you didn’t see it. I’d just scanned it. I don’t remember them charging when we went there, but then again, that was 42 years ago.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: @Villago Delenda Est: Samwise is also weirdly attached to this stag fern we have on the wall. He gets upset when I take it down to water it and always follows me around when I carry it somewhere. One time I watered it in the bathtub and a little piece of sphagnum fell off the mounting and I didn’t see it. Later that day I found him in the bathtub just staring at the moss. So weird.
Ruckus
Cat is back sitting next to me complaining about falling asleep I think. But she likes it when I listen to music and I’ve got ELP on right now, Fanfare for the Common Man. Played in an empty stadium while snowing. It’s a bit weird but I like the tune so there you go.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: That’s actually a really beautiful image.
NotMax
@Ruckus
If that’s the same video which have linked to several times over the year, it’s in Canada, filmed during a rehearsal. So cold you can see the musicians’ breath.
Anne Laurie
Our two cats, Piper the Ninja & Rocket the Viking, sequentially fall in love with very specific cardboard boxes. Mostly they’re only interested when That Other Guy wants the box — it becomes valuable territory when Rocky can feel smug about keeping Piper out of it, and vice versa.
There’s one box that’s been a social favorite for months, though. It’s just the right size for a fifteen-pound cat to curl up snugly, and it’s planted at some fortuitous junction (just outside the main bathroom) where its occupant can keep an eye on all the important sounds/smells of the household. Spousal Unit accidentally soaked its base while doing some minor plumbing repairs, and had to carefully blow-dry it, under the baleful scrutiny of his outraged Feline Overlords. Murphy the Trickster God only knows what will happen when it finally collapses beyond repair!
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
The pictures in your mind are better than real life. She’s drooling on my bed. She just woke up an looked at me like “Hey asshole, how come the music stopped!” And then she just walked out of the room.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Friends’ mutt used to work her way into the sleeping bag, skooch all the way to the bottom and sleep there. While I was in it. Happened every time I visited.
fuckwit
Perfect thread: I have a cat-related question.
I have two cats, 1 year old littermates. They’re mutts but have some Maine Coon in them.
Their fucking hair. It’s everywhere.
I have tufts of hair on my goddamned bedsheets AFTER they come out of the wash and dryer. And the cats are locked out of my bedroom and don’t sleep on or even near my bed.
It’s a mystery to me where the fuck this hair is coming from. And how to clean my sheets so that when I put a new set on, I’m not sleeping in cat hair.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Probably is that one. There isn’t a soul in sight other than the 3 of them. Wearing heavy jackets and looking a bit like the cat that just walked out of the room. Not giving a shit.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus:
Oh, of that I had no doubt.
Ruckus
@fuckwit:
Dude. You are fucked. There is nothing that you can do. Vacuum all you want, shave them bald, you have a cat or long haired dog, you will have hair. And it will be on the pets and anywhere you don’t want it. It’s the nature of it. It’s one, of many, ways they let you know that they own you.
Bruuuuce
@Ruckus: I am not a hip replacement recipient, but my wife is. She took her time getting to it, and before committing, consulted with her extensive email listserv (of alumnae from her alma mater, Bryn Mawr). The largely first-person anecdata (so not real data but an incredible simulation) she collected were extensive and almost universally positive, as was her own experience with the replacement. Yes, physical therapy needs to begin almost immediately, and it can be difficult for the first bit. One key piece of advice that she both got and saw in person (at the hospital while convalescing) was that sooner is better in terms of successful rehab, both in terms of postoperative scheduling and, generally, actual patient age. (Sadly, her roommate in hospital was a recalcitrant woman in her late 70s who resisted PT, and about whom the PT confided in M that she was unlikely to walk effectively again if she didn’t get through the first, painful, bit.) tl;dr: Consult with your doctor and, if surgery is recommended, take the advice.
Ruckus
@Bruuuuce:
My bosses mom is 90 and she had hers replaced a couple of years ago. She’s back driving (don’t bother asking) comes into work once a week or so for an hour or less. Doesn’t do anything but she is walking as good as most 90 yr olds and I haven’t seen her walker for a yr or so.
What you wrote is about what I’ve heard from several people I know. Including an ex NFL player that got one at a rather young age. Played for 9 yrs. But then football does that. Worked with a woman who got both knees replaced because she had RA so bad she could hardly walk with canes. She was in her 40s. Within 2 weeks she was back at work and was very, very happy and walking like she was 20 again. If the joints are so bad that you can’t walk then it has to be worth it. My left knee should have been replaced 22 yrs ago, damaged in an accident, but my doc said let’s not do this until you can’t take any more Vicodin per day for the pain because otherwise you’ll need at least 2 more replacements in your lifetime when they wear out. Started on ibuprofen, never went to Vicodin, have been off of the ibuprofen for about 15 yrs and am just now thinking that it really is getting to be about time. The VA waits till just before you start crawling before they think about it. Or possibly after you request a wheelchair.
Bruuuuce
@Ruckus: Glad to hear the part about the knee. Less so the last two sentences. Sadly, I don’t see that improving any time soon. Good luck twisting arms when/if you feel it’s time before the doctors do. (As an aside, I have been told much the same about my developing cataracts — the after will amaze me! — and am sort of looking forward to it. But first I need to get the wound on the bottom of my diabetic foot healed, which will take some time. Maybe the procedure will be a holiday gift to myself.)
Anne Laurie
@fuckwit:
Find the solution, and you’ll make a mint, my friend.
Local joke is that NASA uses cat hair to test its airlocks — it would take that level of engineering technology & scrupulous containment techniques!
Static Guard actually does make the hairs less ‘sticky’, but you still need to vigorously brush the surface you want to de-fur. And using Cole’s favorite tool, the Furminator (if your cats will permit it) reduces the amount of excess they’ve got to spread around your household. But a certain level of cat-hair-contamination is just part of the lifestyle…
Anne Laurie
@Ruckus:
You have my full sympathy, not that it’s worth much. I too was born with mild hip dysplasia on one side, so I keep an eye on the popular literature, which (along with my doctors) assure me both the materials and the techniques are improving all the time. (One benefit, in my case, of being a late Boomer; all those active runners & skiers ten years ahead of me on the age curve.) However, the knee on the opposite side is now officially arthritic — that’s what sixty years of unconscious compensation will do — and it’s giving me a lot more grief than the hip ever has, so it’ll probably end up getting replaced first…
Ruckus
@Bruuuuce:
I can’t get glasses from the VA, if I were to need them, but I can and do get my vision checked annually for cataracts and a fun thing called PVD. Which is the gel inside your eye breaking down into a more water like substance. Doesn’t hurt your vision for the most part but there are some issues. I get bright lights in my peripheral vision, way out to the side, mostly on one eye. It’s the side I have about 4 other major problems with. I think my left side has flown the coop and has left a bunch of empties and trash thrown around. I’m far more worried about those things and the stroke they think I’ve had rather than joints that can be painful. Lots harder to walk if your heart or brain, or both are broken.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
My hip issue is somewhat funny. Or maybe you had to be there. We were on a family vacation at the beach and I got bit or stung, my first time and right at the joint. I didn’t know what it was and it didn’t hurt much till later that evening. My hip swelled up and had what I’ll call an unusual discharge, especially as it isn’t supposed to do that at all. My folks freaked when I showed them and rushed me to the ER where the doc said I was strongly allergic to bee stings as he pulled out the stinger. He gave me a shot, I got better and though that was the end. But ever since it’s bothered me. Until like I said about 5 yrs ago. It went from an occasional annoyance to an often fairly high level of pain and difficulty walking. Then it goes back to just being annoying. So something I was born with but not what people think when I say that.
Anne Laurie
Ah. So anti-allergen drugs wouldn’t help? (Not a doctor, obviously; just thinking about taking benadryl to keep mosquito bites from itching, and wondering if the pain is a side effect of inflammation as an allergic reaction, which might be treatable with… steroids?)
Murmeltier
Hon, you know he would find our koi in their temporary digs, & fall in. You’d have to rescue him, get bloodied all over again, and then somehow try to soothe the very freaked out fishes. I could save you the trouble & sew you a floofy Steve fascimile.
Bruuuuce
@Ruckus: Damn. Take care of yourself; sounds like a balancing act you’re doing there and falling over would be very bad indeed. Heart and brain are the biggies (and having experienced CHF, yes, it’s a big concern), but health issues suck, in general. Good luck walking that wire.
satby
@fuckwit: the hair is coming in on you. Use an enzyme additive like Biz in your wash, the enzymes help release the fur in some mysterious way but it’s worked for me ever since I read that tip in a magazine years ago. You’ll still pick up more fur, and you have to be religious about vacuuming, but that will help.
efgoldman
Speaking of cats:
My SIL found a no-kill shelter in Wilmington NC that agreed to take his late mom’s sightly overweight (40 lbs – trufact) 11-year old tabbys. The shelter thinks they may already have a proper new home, and if not will keep them for office cats. Thank you to all.
It fell to daughter to pick up mom-in-an-urn on Thursday. Since her husband (our SIL) was an only child, he’s going to keep the ashes on a shelf. That may or may not creep you out. Daughter isn’t creeped out by the ashes, but she does find it creepy that someone with whom she spoke only a couple of times, who barely ever met her wonderful granddaughter, with whom my daughter had a hate/hate relationship, is going to be in their living room. The ashes are in a heavy, metal, sealed urn, but I wouldn’t put it past THEIR cat to push it off the shelf and scatter mom all over the living room.
Daughter said the urn was heavy, but SIL said “She’s not heavy, she’s my mother.”
[Ducks, signs off, runs away until this afternoon]
Gvg
@fuckwit: furminator combs help and starting young will train them better. Some fabrics attract fur more than others and in my experience sheets that look alike have different rates of attraction to fur. Experiment with different brands of sheets. Bounce dryer sheets sometimes help.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Deadwood was a classic tourist trap and I guess they decided they could cash in on the gravesite too.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
My system seems to be one of the “only 3% of the population has a problem with this drug” or “this drug is effective for 97% of the population but you aren’t in that segment”. A doc put me on a low dose of prednisone once for something. I thought I was going to die. At least prednisone has well known side effects, I was still off the charts.
@Bruuuuce:
Will find out soon what the real issues are I hope, but so far it seems more to be an electrical failure than a structural one. Docs are working on it. Not in what you might call a rapid fashion but that’s how socialized medicine works some times.
Jay Noble
@Ruckus: If I read the blurbs correctly that’s The Montreal Olympic Stadium in ’76 before the Olympics (obviously). I think it was done as a promo
J R in WV
@efgoldman:
My Dad kept Mom’s ashes in a plastic box, in a tight-fitting cardboard box on his nightstand by the bed. Until we got Dad’s ashes in a very similar (must be an industry-wide standard!) container.
That next spring we took them both to a favorite waterfall with a small group of family and friends, and tried to sprinkle them in. The ashes were pretty clumped and not amenable to sprinkling, so mostly they were dropped into the river at the waterfall’s foot. We had a BBQ first, and then drove back roads down to the waterfall, which is quite famous. Probably a huge no-no, but don’t care!
Ruckus
@Jay Noble:
I think Not Max and you agree. I haven’t seen any telling of it anywhere so I have no idea but I can’t imagine too many times they played to an empty, open stadium in winter in snow country.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
My friend who passed in Jan of this year, the 19th, so she missed the coronation, her ashes were scattered in the water feature in her back yard by about a dozen of her friends. Must be something about ashes and water.
SWMBO
@Bruuuuce: My ophthalmologist said to wait until my eyes could not be corrected to 20/50 (driving sight). He did mine in 2012. OMG amazing. He put in fixed lenses that are 20/20 in midrange. About arm’s length. Have bifocals for driving or threading needles but reading or working on the computer, I don’t use glasses. Also I got back the full range of colors. Cross stitching and matching yarns is better than before. Couple of things they don’t tell you: when you open the hot oven, wait until the heat escapes. You will fall screaming to the floor it hurts so bad. 2) don’t hold back a sneeze. Makes it feel like your eyeballs are going to pop out. 3) if you can’t feel bone underneath, don’t rub it. No more rubbing your eyes.