Did you know some of the founding fathers kept birds as pets and livestock? It’s true — you can read all about it in the Federalist Papers. The right to keep and bear birds is as American as apple pie.
Now, some people claim that the right to keep chickens, parrots, ducks, peacocks, etc., shouldn’t extend to a right to keep and bear a T-Rex that has been cloned from DNA found in blood consumed by a mosquito that was fossilized in amber.
That’s an anti-science way of looking at it. Everyone knows modern birds are descended from dinosaurs like the T-Rex. On a DNA level, there’s very little difference between a parakeet and a T-Rex.
While it’s true that a T-Rex can bite people’s heads off and slaughter dozens in just a few minutes, a parakeet could kill you too, or at least peck out your eye if you didn’t stop it.
Every now and then, someone’s pet T-Rex gets loose and kills a bunch of people. It’s a tragic thing caused entirely by irresponsible T-Rex owners. So why punish responsible, law-abiding T-Rex owners for something they didn’t even do?
Owning a T-Rex is thrilling and manly. Maybe if everyone had their own T-Rex, we wouldn’t have to offer up our thoughts and prayers about these tragedies involving rogue T-Rex owners so frequently.
A T-Rex-armed society is a very polite society. Or at least a very STILL one.
[Image from Chicago Reader.]
Butter Emails!!!
How would one go about concealed carrying a T-Rex?
WereBear
@Butter Emails!!!: Very carefully.
SFAW
@Butter Emails!!!:
That’s why we need “open carry” laws in all 73 states.
SFAW
Betty –
Interesting picture of Badger, I’ve never seen him looking fearsome, only cute. Who knew?
geg6
@SFAW:
Nice one. LOL!
OT for those who know about our little feral rescue kitty. We are considering three names. Cleo, for the extended eye liner-like stripes around her eyes. Lucky, for being lucky that we found her before she starved or froze to death. And Snoopy, because my John likes her curiosity and comic dogs. Still can’t get a picture of her, but she’s adorable and loves tummy rubs the most.
opiejeanne
That was excellent, Betty.
dmsilev
@Butter Emails!!!: Disguise it as a large wooden horse?
BruceFromOhio
Got the Balloon Juice calendar? Got it open to November? The look on my face is the same as Odette’s.
Adam L Silverman
Mike in DC
One of the debates regarding background checks is whether to change HIPAA to permit a check of mental health records when someone tries to buy a gun.
The other question would be whether simply having certain conditions would be disqualifying and whether those denied would have recourse to an appeals process.
Ryan
T-Rexes don’t kill people. Owners kill people. Oh wait…
yam
I want the NRA to have arms… like T-rex.
rikyrah
Always open to Badger pics, BC.
He’s very calming with his cute self :)
Elizabelle
We are coming for your T Rexes.
Reposting this from previous thread, where it really did not belong. Following this story because I am angry. Mass shootings do not make me sad, per se. They make me angry.
Meanwhile, back to last night’s mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, CA: In roundup story by the LA TImes:
I guess it’s possible the niece is not in the venue, maybe at a hospital unidentified.
And why would anyone think “it is not going to happen to you”? Each of these shootings, you could also ask “why did that not happen in my community, to my loved ones?”
And the answer is: fate. And too many guns. It is the guns. It is not the PTSD. It is that this individual, who was reportedly known as a problem in his neighborhood, and possibly kicking in walls at his 77-year old mother’s home, bought a gun.
Yarrow
Jerzy Russian
Can you at least clean up after your pet T Rex? Those turds are pretty big and smelly.
lurker dean
off-topic, just saw this story, what the f*ck. i didn’t see anything about the “safety managers” being in prison, but they sure as hell should be.
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/11/07/verdict-reached-favor-sickened-workers-coal-ash-cleanup-lawsuit/1917514002/
“More than 30 workers who cleaned up the December 2008 spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant in Roane County are dead, and more than 250 are sick or dying.
The workers were – falsely – assured coal ash exposure was safe and were misled about its dangers, testimony showed. As many grew sick while working more than 60 hours weekly unprotected, Jacobs’ safety managers, including Tom Bock and Chris Eich, continued to insist coal ash exposure was not the cause.
Testimony showed Bock ordered dust masks kept on site for the workers destroyed and refused to provide them any protective gear. Jacobs refused an EPA directive to provide the workers showers and changing rooms and instead provided them a cat litter box filled with ash-contaminated water to clean up.
Jacobs also was accused in the case of manipulating exposure level testing – watering down monitors and sampling on rainy days that dampened the level of coal ash dust in the air – and tampering with test samples – dumping ash from the monitor filters before sending them off to a laboratory.”
TenguPhule
Until it came time to walk it and scoop up the poop.
Then those responsibilities get fostered on the significant other.
TenguPhule
@Jerzy Russian:
Your neighborhood Shovel Excavator dealer would like to thank you for his new yacht.
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Because it works the inverse of people’s belief in winning the lottery.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: I grew up in Thousand Oaks, I’m dreading seeing the names.
debit
@geg6: I love all of those names, but Cleo the best.
EricNNY
Snatch my guns = tyranny = Tyrannosaurus Rex
There’s a joke there somewhere but I’m too tired to figure it out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is almost unimaginable
zhena gogolia
Great piece!
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It seems that going to country music venues is more dangerous than any other place to go.
I really feel for the folks that were at both shootings. To happen twice.. I can’t even imagine. Or to die in the second one? Goddam.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I sincerely hope Housley’s niece is okay. Housley supposedly left Fox News because he was tired of the mandate to push Trump propaganda. Whatever happens, I wonder if this will change how he feels about that network’s relentless fear-mongering and cozy cross-pollination with the NRA, which is a factor in our country being ass-deep in guns…
geg6
@debit:
That one is my choice, too.
Ella in New Mexico
Another off topic but UGH:
Whenever I start warming up to Kamala Harris, she does something that makes me feel like she’s not all she’s cracked up to be…
You think you’re helping Stacy Abrams but half goes to…Kamala? For what?
Someone needs to talk to her about the optics of this if she’s really wanting to get into top leadership positions. We don’t need people who don’t have some really sound ethics there if we’re going to go after the other side.
I get she needs to raise money but this is kind of, well, Jill Stein-y. ICK.
Elizabelle
WaPost website has a great presser by Stacey Abrams’ legal team on right now. Video and audio.
Count the votes.
TenguPhule
@cain:
Booze. Bad Music. Mostly Conservative White folks.
A recipe for trouble.
TenguPhule
Oh FFS.
SHS is using doctored video to justify the Acosta expulsion.
Project Veritas is coming from inside the fucking White House.
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule: That should be a fireable offense. In any other organization, just about, except TrumpWorld and the rightwing propaganda machine.
Sanders should be fired, and the intern gone too.
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle: Its worse then that. They’re using it as the official fucking reason, which means this has Trump’s dick stamp of approval. So now in front of the whole fucking world is blatant evidence that the United States Government is use false evidence for even the pettiest of things.
Whatever remaining fragments of credibility we had remaining from President Obama are fucking gone now.
Nothing coming out of any official government information release can now be trusted by anyone. Not our allies, not our adversaries, nobody.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: I’m sorry, Obama was much worse than this, he wore a tan suit.
HeleninEire
The internet is a powerful thing. I’m in one of my favorite Queen’s restaurants. Would come here 3 times a week. I just signed into their Wi-Fi. With my Irish phone. They picked up my email from the phone and said “Hi Helen”
PJ
@Ella in New Mexico: Harris was doing this before the election with other candidates. I don’t know if she is aware of it or if it is something that her campaign put together without her knowledge, but it is bullshit. I have a lot of these where she asks for money for a particular candidate (Donnelly, O’Rourke, whomever) but then the fine print says the donation is going to that person and Harris. I delete most of these emails, but the oldest I have is from June, where she asks me to donate to Tammy Baldwin’s campaign, but the fine print says the donation will go to Baldwin and Harris (it’s unspecified how it will be split.)
Here is one I got from two weeks ago – I italicized the part where, after asking money for Nelson, it says that your donation is for Nelson and Harris.
ETA: I removed my first name from the email text because the internet.
Mike in DC
@Ella in New Mexico: I tend to doubt that Sen. Harris is too closely involved with the decision on how to split the funds raised.
The other thing I would note is that pols frequently contribute to others campaigns with money from their own.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Infowars actually.
Aleta
@Jerzy Russian: T Rex poop laws are unenforceable. The owners won’t slow down and too many officers have vanished during their shifts.
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Its worse then that. The latest cray cray excuse on the other side is that “Obama didn’t allow press conferences without scripted questions that he required CNN to ask him. All of the government spokespeople were in on this giant conspiracy to feed fake news to the gullible masses. Trump is finally holding the enemies of the people accountable for their support of liberals.”
They’re psyching themselves up for an escalation of violence against the media.
The Dangerman
@TenguPhule:
There’s going to be a lot of chaff tossed in the air, who knows, perhaps even including Trump dropping his pants to show the ink from the dick stamp on this thing. They’re going to have to distract from the new interim-AG knifing Mueller’s investigation.
Aleta
@TenguPhule: First House investigation to call an intern to testify against a dictatorship.
@Elizabelle: ‘Just following orders.’
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@TenguPhule: I heard about that, but also heard that the undoctored video is out there. I haven’t seen either one.
Didn’t the Republican Congress take away CDC funding to collect shooting data? We can add that to the list. A baby step to address the mass-shooting issues (“No way to stop this from happening, says only country on earth where it happens”) is better than none.
Insert Eeyore-reflex-comments on how the Senate will never let it happen if you must, but nevertheless that’s one of a zillion ways the NRA has polluted the national conversation that should be undone.
About the Eeyoring: I’m aware that one of our two Houses is full of Trump mini-me’s. What I expect to happen is that the lower house will pass a flurry of bills, and the Senate will table all of them and wait for them to die. But I think we just elected one hell of a lot of very determined fighters and the public pressure will mount. And mount. Add the Mueller investigation and its state AG spinoffs. Add the lawsuits. The Republican levee will be breached. This fight has only just begun.
I have been thinking in those terms today. The Blue Wave was not imaginary. The number of candidates and new voters were real. It’s just that across the US at the national and state levels, there were decades of levees put in place to stop that kind of thing.
We took the Congress. The levee was breached.
opiejeanne
@Elizabelle:
Because no one ever wants to think it could happen to them. When we lived in the East Bay of SF in the 90s, in Castro Valley, a 14 year old girl was murdered. My older daughter knew her, had been in a class together the year before. The murderer came in through a bathroom window and stabbed her to death after she got home from school. It is still unsolved, but the rumors that swirled around the murder were ALL to reassure the teller that it would not happen to them. The victim’s parents were from Viet Nam, so white people didn’t have to worry because the killer was only after Asians. Or, she was killed because her father was part of some Asian mafia; the father was an engineer and completely respectable. Or, there were gang marks on her body, the subtext being that she must have done something that made a gang mad at her. A sheriff’s deputy who was a friend of a friend said it was mafia-related, etc.
All of these rumors are crap and I told people that at the time. It was a crime of opportunity. He saw her get off the bus and followed her home.
The prime suspect is serving multiple life sentences because he murdered a bunch of people and he was in the neighborhood at the time of the murder, which is known because when he was arrested a year later he was in possession of items reported taken in a burglary three days after the murder.
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule: You are working yourself into a lather.
Who cares about the latest cray cray excuse? It is cray cray, and does not bear repeating here. Why do you want to be a conduit for that stuff?
That said, I think the danger of violence against the media has increased. Lotta crazies out there; lotta red meat being thrown at them as a distraction.
Maybe this week will be Mueller time, or at least some more appetizers.
Steve in the ATL
@lurker dean: I had a few drinks last night with Jacobs’ corporate counsel. Odd that he didn’t mention this….
What an awful story.
Emma
@TenguPhule:
I am feeling bloody-minded today because, hey, Florida. So…. good. Maybe it something terrible does happen they will get their heads out of their arses and face the fact that the Republican machine is not their friend. Maybe they’ll stop whining when people rightly complain about the Fox faux-news machine. Of course the problem is that a killer will not discriminate between the good guys and the bad guys, but *shrug”.
Tomorrow I will probably feel differently. Slightly. Maybe.
TenguPhule
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Worse then that. CDC is officially banned from collecting the data. We’d need legislation passed to override it first.
Which is not happening any time soon.
tobie
@Mike in DC: I’m uncomfortable with overturning HIPAA protections for patients. I hate when people say we just need to prevent the crazies from getting guns. Let’s just make sure assault weapons, bump stock, and high capacity magazines are treated like military equipment akin to tanks or surface-to-air missiles and are kept off the civilian market. This is perfectly in keeping with the second amendment’s opening clause, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Because one of the ways you get normal people to start killing other people is to lower their natural inhibitions to doing so.
Its what our military does to new recruits.
Their cray cray is getting worse and reinforcing itself.
This is the same shit the Germans thought was controllable. Until it wasn’t.
jl
I for one trust Lady Cracker to keep her pet T-Rex under control. That is the magic of Lady Cracker.
But, ownership of T-Rexes is regulated and licensed, and Lady Cracker needs to get with the lawful program.
There’s always a chance that, fore example, when she gets old, she goes a little goofy in the head, becomes a crazy T-Rex lady with two or three dozen of them underfed, infested with T-Rex parasites, pooping all over the place, and stuffed into her swamp paradise, and they get cranky.
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh come on. There was proof he rested his feet on the desk.
JPL
@lurker dean: The death penalty would be to good for them. That is horrifying.
chopper
hey now. don’t mess with TRexes.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cain:
I’m kind of wondering if there’s something to that. Maybe that the venues have more lax security that you’d see at a venue with a more diverse crowd(I should note that the kid is a country music fan). Also Thousand Oaks has been one of the safest cities in the country going back to when it’s population topped 100k back in the 70’s.
TenguPhule
@tobie:
Heller decision ruled that those words don’t matter. Because “original intent, liberal cucks!”
Gun Control laws are on much shakier legal ground now thanks to that piece of blatant bullshit by 5 corrupt judges.
Aleta
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Eeyore and Kanga were the intelligent ones.
tobie
@TenguPhule: Did the Heller decision gut all regulation? I thought it allowed for some with mightily curtailed parameters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: Yes, that was an affront to the dignity of the office, but a tan suit? That is much, much worse.
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’ll say this: He never wore the suit when he put his feet up.
The Lodger
@HeleninEire: All right, I’ll bite. Who’s your favorite Queen?
Steve in the ATL
@tobie: you are correct, sir
TenguPhule
@tobie:
It didn’t gut everything, just handguns. Unfortunately it also set the precedent that allowed the NRA and friends to challenge every other gun control law on the books using it as a basis.
Case in point, Hawaii’s gun control laws were recently weakened by a post-Heller decision using an expansion of the original argument in Heller.
Mike in Pasadena
Another white Christian terrorist. Time to lock up all white Christians.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
All right, I’m going to say one thing to the Eeyores then I give up, no longer having the conversation.
What exactly is accomplished by deciding it’s so hopeless in our legislative branch that the new Congress shouldn’t even try to pass any new laws? Shouldn’t even go to work?
TenguPhule
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Not saying its hopeless. House can and should propose legislation as is their duty and responsibility.
But do not expect any of it to actually pass in the Senate.
That’s the fucking reality we live in. The inmates are in control of the asylum.
trollhattan
Racoon(s) got in the courtyard pond last night and basically destroyed everything they didn’t eat. Fuckers. City living.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mike in DC: I bet she DOES know. and it likely has served her well. And I have no issue with donating to other campaigns from your own funds if you don’t need them.
But I DO have an issue with a Democrat with a track record of pulling people in with the impression they’re donating to someone else in dire need then keeping half yourself. See PJ’s post above @PJ:
Again, too Jill Stein-y for me.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: True, that would have been in “dogs and cats living together” territory.
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule: You are going back into pie status.
Maybe you get your jollies by stomping on our desire, and hard work, to make change. Our revulsion at this latest mass murder, which could spur change just as the Parkland kids got to work and made a difference (sadly, not enough in their home state, but Florida is Florida).
In your world, it is always black and gloom and can’t be done, can’t be done, and nothing ever changes for the better. You can be a licorice pie. Bye now!
Elizabelle
Betty, this was an inspired post. Love the artwork. Thank you.
Geoduck
A T-Rex can be a profitable pet.
BellyCat
But, but MY T-Rex is incredibly friendly and has NEVER bitten anybody’s face off at my swamp paradise.
I NEVER thought *I* needed to keep him on a leash at the public park.
Sorry ‘bout that…
(Non-pology to mother of twins that were just eaten alive, stroller and all, at the playground)
Jamey
Admit it: You’re just trying to fuck up Google’s search algorithm for “T-Rex Arms.”
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
What part of we don’t control the Senate did you miss? The House can propose legislation but the Senate will not pass it. You should know this by now. This is not rocket science.
JFC, this is what’s so fucking annoying about the pollyanna pie-devotees. You demand a world of unicorns and rainbows and that’s not the world we’re stuck with and rather then realize what I’m actually saying you just want to shoot the messenger.
The resemblance to Bernie Sanders supporters must be unintentional.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule: I am done with you.
ETA: Seriously. How dare you compare me to rainbows and unicorns and Bernie Sanders supporters, the crazed ones I presume.
You are one twisted dude.
opiejeanne
@TenguPhule: Ok, have some fucking pie.
Then have a Xanax and go lie down for a while. Jebus!
Mike in DC
@tobie:
The Va Tech shooter used a pair of handguns. It may be uncomfortable to look at altering HIPAA for this limited purpose, but access to guns matters at least as much as the type of guns available. Just counting involuntary commitments is not going to screen out too many people.
Boussinesque
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: late to the thread, but I like your levee analogy. Last night I was thinking of it in terms of the tide—the blue tide is coming in, and it’s only going to wash higher in subsequent elections if we can keep that enthusiasm going. We’ll breach the successive breakwaters as the tide rolls on.
JustRuss
If that were a real Murikan T-Rex he’d be packin’. If you think a T-Rex has no need to carry, that just shows you don’t understand the 2nd and Greatest Amendment.
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle: Fuck your passive aggressive bullshit. You make the fucking accusations, then fucking back it up or fucking back down.
Nothing in my post was ” get your jollies by stomping on our desire, and hard work, to make change.”
Then FUCKING TELL ME WHICH OF THE FIFTY FOUR REPUBLICANS IN THE NEXT SENATE ARE YOU SUGGESTING IS GOING TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR PARTY, or admit you were wrong and just fucking apologize for making an ass out of an assumption.
JFC, I said in plain english that the House can and should pass bills. But that’s all it can do because we DO NOT CONTROL BOTH PARTS OF CONGRESS YET.
Your insistence that somehow we can green lantern our way out of basic government civics is the same as theirs. When I make the accusation, I have a good reason to do so.
TenguPhule
@opiejeanne: Don’t you fucking start with me. She assumed incorrectly and this time I’m tired of the false accusation.
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
@opiejeanne:
@TenguPhule:
You guys need to decompress a little bit. The election is over now but for the counting and keeping score. We did indeed not win the Senate, no surprise there. But we smacked TrumpyDumpf in the face with a very dead stinky fish, and he may never get over the big obvious loss.
Can’t wait for Mr Mueller to drop some big juicy indictments.
But there’s no point in jackals attacking each other right now, or ever. None of you are trolls, none of you are Russian bots, although you are typical B-J jackals. Relax, take a nap. Wife just laid down, dog got in with her for free heat. 65 pounds of doggy kisses before snuggling up.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Sad update: Housley’s gut feeling was correct; the university released a statement that identified his niece among those killed in the attack.