Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

This really is a full service blog.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Let there be snark.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

No one could have predicted…

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

T R E 4 5 O N

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Faunasphere / Respite Open Thread: LOOK! ANIMAL MEMES!

Respite Open Thread: LOOK! ANIMAL MEMES!

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What a terrible day for Paul Bronks’ twitter feed to go to ‘protected status’. (I sincerely hope it’s temporary.) Apart from @BoringEnormous, which are your favorite sources for fauna-related respite japes?

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    They aren’t memes, but I love the pictures in @bodegacats_. People like to talk about working breeds of dogs, but it’s nice to remember that all breeds of cats are working animals- even if they’re mostly shown on their work breaks.

  9. 9.

    Elizabelle

    Yep. Enough. Many thanks to whoever pulled the … unmentionable post.

    Pets rule! Animal kingdom! Cute even when not in pajamas.

  10. 10.

    Mary G

    @Roger Moore: Yes, bodega cats is one of my favorites, too. They just have that “you looking at me, punk?” attitude as they chill on the stack of beer cartons.

  14. 14.

    Mandarama

    I like Thoughts of Dog on Twitter. It’s goofy but sweet. Connected to WeRateDogs, which is also funny.

  15. 15.

    realbtl

    Only related because Rs are shameless liars. They are spamming everything from UPS to youtube here in Montana claiming Jon Tester promised to fix Obamacare and didn’t. Jaysus.

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    Vegan kale chocolate

    It is a bar of the most delicious dark chocolate (73% cocoa solids) covered in “kale crunch”, a thick mossy sprinkle of kale, spirulina, sea salt and pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds, that creates undulations on the bar’s surface likened by one colleague to the Lake District.

    I am horrified.

  26. 26.

    geg6

    The dog thinking too hard looks exactly like Lovey. And she gets that exact look. I can see the gears going in her head. Never quite sure, when she looks like that, what she is thinking. Other times, she tells me exactly what she’s thinking. She’s very smart. Cole thinks he got the stupid one of the litter, but I think he just doesn’t understand poor Thurston.

  28. 28.

    Miss Bianca

    I don’t know where this meme came from originally, but I’ve made it my home screen on my desktop computer. I think I may have seen it on Caveman Circus originally. Anyway, I’ve been muttering “Avenge me, Bob” or words to that effect the entire day.

  33. 33.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    I think I’m going to go blow things up online to decompress. Are there any World of Warships players out there? It might be fun to make a Jackals clan. I’t much slower paced than most online games and fun for military history buffs. If you are interested in that kind of game.

  35. 35.

    Mary G

    Great thread on coping strategies:

    Today seems like the right time to do a thread I've been thinking about for a while on how to handle the seemingly never-ending deluge of depressing and disturbing news. My tips are based on my time as a CIA military analyst in which I dealt daily with disturbing content. (1/)— Cindy Otis (@CindyOtis_) June 29, 2018

  36. 36.

    Mandarama

    @Old Dan and Little Ann: Yay, a puppy! Labs are awesome. I’ll commiserate with you…our rescue pup, who joined our family Saturday, is only 10 months. He’s doing great with house training, but steals stuff to chew up! (I can’t really get mad though.)

  37. 37.

    TenguPhule

    @Gravenstone:

    ‘moss’ and ‘chocolate’ are not words meant to be used in proximity.

    Indeed. Spirulina is also one of those things that doesn’t belong in stuff normally regarded as food.

  40. 40.

    jl

    I don’t need a respite, since was lucky enough to be so busy to only hear a few snippets on the news. Sounds like it was a mess.
    But thanks for fun pics and videos

  44. 44.

    TenguPhule

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Not had choy sum.

    Its leafier and tastes like a fusion of spinach and bok choy, but less watery when cooked. Quite tasty cooked by itself or with a little soy sauce or dressing.

  49. 49.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, season 3 of “The Good Place” starts tonight. Mike Schur is a genius because he can combine philosophy with fart jokes and have the whole damn show work.

    The hard part is going to be waiting for G to get home from work so we can watch it together.

  53. 53.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: I watched Season 1 and liked it OK, but haven’t felt any burning need to catch up with it. Probably just as well to wait till Season 3 is over before starting Season 2. I’m funny like that.

    On the other hand, some jackal recommended “Leverage” a few weeks back, and I have been enjoying that one very much indeed.

  54. 54.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    Thanks, all. I’ve been dog free for a year. The time is nigh. I haven’t raised a puppy in 20 years and that one was my best friend for 10 1/2 years. A dude on my softball team suggeste reading, The Monks of New Skete: The Art of Raising a Puppy. I highly recommend it to anyone. It reminded me of where I went wrong years ago and what to do better this time.

  60. 60.

    Roger Moore

    @schrodingers_cat:
    My local farmers’ market has one stand that specializes in all kinds of Chinese vegetables: bok choy, yu choy, gai lan, long beans, winter melon, etc. They’re great, especially in the winter when the selection of other vegetables is scanty. Unfortunately, they don’t have any ginger this year, because somebody bought out their whole crop. They’ve promised to plant more next year, though.

  61. 61.

    Mandarama

    Rescue dog Tully met our vet today for the first time, and the doctor’s opinion is that he does not have a lot of Great Pyrenees in him. (He does have double dew claws on the rear. ) Instead, vet thinks he is golden retriever mixed with Llewellin setter. I don’t know much about that breed, so if anyone else does I would love the info!

    But he is still a Velcro dog like all goldens, and he is sweet and spotted and cute. 100% Good Boy so far except for being an accomplished counter thief.

  62. 62.

    CarolDuhart2

    I struggle with eating more vegetables. Maybe it’s all the unimaginative ways it was fixed when I was a kid. I do enjoy Indian vegetables though, despite all that. Maybe I’ll go find a cookbook somewhere.

    What I’ve been doing to decompress is working on a set of civics flashcards. So far I have all the Presidents, 50 States, Cabinet Posts and Independent Agencies. I plan to also do House, Senate and Supreme Court as well. Except for Presidents, this is all about the institutions (founding, functions, and so forth). People, and even sizes change, so I’m not including those.
    Later I want to do Major American Wars and International institutions like Nato, the EU, and so forth.. So far I’ve gone through 3 packs of 100 4×6 cards, with some stragglers.

  67. 67.

    CliosFanBoy

    and having lost my big buddy Rocco the fox terrier a few weeks ago, now our youngest, Sonia, probably has cancer. She had a small lump in an anal sac so they removed the whole sac. The surgeon says he’s never seen it NOT be cancer. Hoping we caught it early. (fingers crossed). Yes, Sonia is on the Pets of BJ calendar too. She’s our sweet pea.

  69. 69.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @TenguPhule:

    73% cocoa solids isn’t nearly bitter enough for me these days. I’m pretty much 90% or GTFO.

    I do like a choc (can’t remember the number, but it’s fairly dark) with ginger and wasabi. At first it’s kind of Meh Shrug Emoji, and then a minute later there’s an afterkick and your mouth is all Holy Jeez WTF was THAT??

    They sell them at World Market Bazaar.

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    @TenguPhule:

    Thank you. Apology accepted.

    Let’s just say that weepy Drunk Daddy blaming everyone else for his problems hit a more personal spot than even the rapey shit did.

  73. 73.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mandarama:

    Rescue dog Tully met our vet today for the first time, and the doctor’s opinion is that he does not have a lot of Great Pyrenees in him. (He does have double dew claws on the rear. ) Instead, vet thinks he is golden retriever mixed with Llewellin setter. I don’t know much about that breed, so if anyone else does I would love the info!

    But he is still a Velcro dog like all goldens, and he is sweet and spotted and cute. 100% Good Boy so far except for being an accomplished counter thief.

    I’d actually never heard of Llewellin setters! Wikipedia claims they’re a subset of English setters — which makes sense, there are a number of AKC breeds that have diverged into ‘show’ and ‘field’ lines (beauty contest versus working dogs), and quite often the ‘field’ breeders claim their dogs are not like the ones in the catalog, even to the point of saying their dogs are a separate (*cough*superior*cough) breed altogether. (Look up ‘Red & White Setters’, for instance — or English Cocker breeders vs. their American descendants, aka ‘American shi-tzus’.) So you can probably get some immediate feedback by checking setter / gun dog sites on temperament.

    As for the counter-surfing… I’m sure you know a LOT of rescue dogs never quite get over the trauma of not knowing when/where their next meal was coming from. One thing that really helped with our ‘resource aggressive’ rescue Gloria was hand-feeding her, kibble by kibble, after making a big deal about yay! it’s dinner time and all the dogs get dinner, in their assigned (crate, in her case) dinner places! I did this on the advice of my dog guru, and after a few days I could visibly see her relax as she was fed… she was gradually being convinced that we would always feed her, and that getting fed was something she could expect rather than whatever she could steal.

    (Of course, even after nine years, Gloria’s not to be trusted around an unguarded sandwich… or a reachable trash bin… or a used napkin, when she’s in the wrong mood. But she no longer attacks the other dogs if it looks like they *might* get between her & a potentially edible item, and she doesn’t bite if she thinks we might touch her supper dish. Most probably your new housemate is a lot less alpha than Gloria, but the hand-feeding trick is still a good bonding ritual.)

  78. 78.

    Anne Laurie

    @CarolDuhart2:

    I struggle with eating more vegetables. Maybe it’s all the unimaginative ways it was fixed when I was a kid. I do enjoy Indian vegetables though, despite all that. Maybe I’ll go find a cookbook somewhere.

    The problem, for my inner child, is that raw vegetables tend to be either bland (most lettuce, carrots) or aggressively chewy/bitter… and cooking vegetables always seems to require so much prep work / special equipment & ingredients. I want a cookbook that will tell me how to fix veggies with as little work as it takes to prepare pasta, or potatoes, or bacon!

  84. 84.

    randy khan

    Since it’s an animal thread, I’ll talk about our newest cat, who is confounding our others because he’s being too nice to them.

    To give you an idea, you know how cats you’re petting will roll over and then claw you when they’re too happy to be coherent? He rolls over and grabs at you with his paw, but without the claws out. Way too nice.

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyn

    @randy khan:

    My late great cat Boris would roll over and hold my hand between his teeth so he could rabbit-kick my arm and pretend to wrestle, but he would place his teeth very delicately so I would know we were just playing, and he never got carried away and bit down.

    Our current youngest cat Charlotte, on the other hand, is a love biter. A snuggle session is not complete until she can chomp down on your hand or arm, and if you pull away, she gets indigant. She doesn’t feel threatened or run away. She just likes to bite while she’s being snuggled.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne

    Crap. I just realized that I accidentally erased the last letter of my nym. Please to be released from moderation?

  89. 89.

    SectionH

    @Anne Laurie: Yes, I do. Broccoli, spinach, string beans of all sorts, arrows, squash ofall kinds: wash, peel as you want – I peel carrots and squash with an ancient Eco (Ecro?) peeler “as rec’d” by Cooks Mag years ago, when that peeler was already old), and pop them in the microwave – covered mind you! – for 45 secs to a minute or so depending on type and quantity. I put some butter on while still not. That’s a whole lot faster than pasta or taters.

    I am so not a cook, that’s Mr S’s role, but I can cook, and I am the baker once every few years whenI can get motivated.

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