Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

This really is a full service blog.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

A consequence of cucumbers

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

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

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The revolution will be supervised.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Respite Open Thread: Ducks and Puppies

Respite Open Thread: Ducks and Puppies

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As promised.

Respite Open Thread: Ducks and Puppies 1

Good puppies waiting for their after-bath treats.

As the weather gets warmer, puppies get a bit stinky and the shedding is out of control. So we had puppy bath night.

You may remember Bixby loves his baths.

Scout is not so fond of baths, but she really loves towel time, so she tolerates the bath for the spa-level towel down afterward.

And somehow, after two years, I finally caught her in full Elvis lip mode. Hound dog indeed.

And as promised, our final duck model: Mabel in her pretty scarf

Respite Open Thread: Ducks and Puppies

I love how MomSense color-coordinated the scarves to match each duck!  All our ducks-in-scarves can be seen here.

Bixby and I are off for his PT treatment. He hasn’t had one in months but seemed a good idea after a winter of sliding on the ice to make sure he’s all tuned up for spring.

Respite open thread

Reader Interactions

108Comments

  6. 6.

    CaseyL

    Love the duck fashion show! Are they more reconciled to wearing the scarves as long as you bribe them with romaine?

    Love Scout’s curled lip!

    Scout looks to be about half Bixby’s size.  Is she really that much smaller, or is it a trick of perspective?

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    Mabel’s rocking that scarf.  It is a good color on her.

    Did she keep it on for long?

  8. 8.

    MoxieM

    Just so beautiful. Gorgeous dogs, lovely ducks.

    If I had a place besides my own hard drive, I could share Murphy the Pyr-in-a-Tuxedo.  In the (almost) 4 years since she came to me at 8 from rescue, she’s become a mostly-entirely different dog. Cheerful, affectionate, asks for skritches. She’s never been a cuddle bug, but now she’s not on high alert 24/7. It’s beauty.

  10. 10.

    laura

    Spouse was out on his bike yesterday and stopped at a bridge along the American River and a mated pair of ducks skaddled up to him to see if he had some treats to share. After getting their pictures taken, they wandered away disappointed. I’m going to make sure he has a bag of greens scraps for the backpack just in case.

  12. 12.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @Aleta: Monkey died. Several monkeys died. But now he has his platypus (several) and for some reason he and Scout only snuggle with them, they’ve never tried to destroy them (unlike Every. Other. Stuffed. Animal.)

  16. 16.

    kindness

    Someone should photoshop burritos in the pups mouths with raised (clenched?) paws in solidarity with Bailey.

  19. 19.

    Elizabelle

    I went to Tamara’s what’s 4 dinner blogsite (link above) and took full size screen shots of each duck sporting her scarf.

    Those will come in handy whenever there is a spate of bad news to process. Who cannot smile at these ducks?

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    @laura: 
    Adorbs. Ducks gonna duck.

    And in other Sac area news, my kid’s HS informed us today that a student has been quarantined due to exposure to Corona virus and they “deep cleaned” the campus last night. Which, based on its usual condition, may have been a first.

    My presumption, not based on the communication, is they await test results before deciding whether the quarantine is necessary. (Something similar happened at UC Davis last week and quarantine was lifted after the students tested negative.) If it’s positive, then I suppose everyone sharing a class with the kid will have to get tested. Does anybody else sense a geometric progression here?

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    @joel hanes:

    “Not even Trump can save me.” would be the sweetest words ever spoken by Bibi.

    Here’s hoping. Good riddance to bad trash.

  25. 25.

    joel hanes

    @trollhattan:

    Does anybody else sense a geometric progression here?

    The number infected is increasing geometrically exponentially.

    (The exponential function increases faster than any polynomial as x gets large)

    The capacity to test is increasing linearly.

  26. 26.

    Jay

    @Aleta

    Monkey had filled out his/her/their donor card. His/her/their stuffing went on to save the lives of many critically ill Gunds.

    Silver lining on today is that I can finally tweet this truly epic shot of Warren staff reacting to Jacob Wohl claiming our boss was having a BDSM affair with a young marine. #GoCougars pic.twitter.com/LcmB1eSnFj— Lee Sova Claypool (@lee_gsc) March 6, 2020

  29. 29.

    Jay

    But there are smaller-scale sources of hydro generation that can have a lower impact. In fact, one of them is right under our feet — namely, the pipes that make water flow when we turn on the tap.

    Halifax is the first city in Canada to exploit in-pipe power. In a 2014 pilot project, it installed a turbine — basically a water pump that runs in reverse — in a single pipe in a Halifax suburb. Since then, the 31-kilowatt turbine has been generating roughly enough electricity annually to power 25 homes and selling that back to the grid for about $30,000 a year.

    “The technology has, I would say, a lot of great potential,” said James Campbell, a spokesperson for Halifax Water. “On larger scales, that could really be quite significant.”

    Campbell noted that there’s a lot of energy already in a municipal water distribution system: “It’s a constantly renewable resource that’s flowing anyway.”

    The energy comes from the fact that water is under high pressure when it flows downhill from a water treatment plant. That pressure has to be reduced as it moves through the system, “or else it would just be blowing the taps into people’s homes,” Campbell said.

    Typically, the system relies on pressure-reducing valves that use friction to release the extra energy as heat. Capturing the energy is a matter of running the water through a turbine instead. The turbine, which is made by U.S.-based Rentricity, has an estimated 40-year lifespan and has required little maintenance so far.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/what-on-earth-newsletter-in-pipe-hydro-1.5487356

  32. 32.

    catclub

    @joel hanes:
    important if true, but getting Avigdor Lieberman and the Joint List together on one team will be extraordinarily unstable.

     

    I suspect such a government will last to the end of Netanyahu’s trial.

    And no longer.

  33. 33.

    Aleta

    @Jay:   His/her/their stuffing went on to save the lives of many critically ill Gunds.

    Monkey was a good ‘un.  ? ? ?

  35. 35.

    joel hanes

    @catclub:

    It only has to last long enough for legal action against Bibi to get well underway.   IIRC, it’s been a Damocles sword suspended by a thread for quite a while, and all it needed was for him to be out of office.

    Corrections from the more knowledgeable positively desired.

  36. 36.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @misterpuff:

    I want to see a video of TaMara wrestling pants onto the ducks.

    I just got a post card from the auditor of the Iowa county where I lived until 18 months ago. They wanted confirmation of our move, saying we were no longer eligible to vote there. First time I ever got such a notice after a move.

  39. 39.

    catclub

    from TPM:

    Thomas Frieden, CDC Director from 2009 to 2017: “The CDC got this right with H1N1 and Zika, and produced huge quantities of test kits that went around the country. I don’t know what went wrong this time.”

     

    Time to read “The Fifth Risk”  by Michael Lewis,   …. again.

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    @catclub:

    While Trump himself is “Trump’s Katrina” his ginormous fuckup here, in tandem with the timing and downward tug on the economy, are pending self-disasters than even his syphilitic brain comprehends.

  43. 43.

    zhena gogolia

    Okay, I am finding very little to laugh about with the Covid story, but this is good (even though I’m all in for Uncle Joe):

    thanks to coronavirus I can’t even hold my nose when I vote for Biden in November— Matt Goldich (@MattGoldich) March 4, 2020

  44. 44.

    Gravenstone

    @catclub: 

    I don’t know what went wrong this time.”

    Sure you do, Tom. Think about it a second and it will come to you…

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle: Ha! I’ve also saved all the ducks-in-scarves photos to my phone, just for the pleasure of pulling them up and gazing at them whenever the need strikes.

  47. 47.

    West of the Rockies

    Not very respity, but I think we may have Covid 19.  My fiancee’s daughter, SIL, and granddaughter came down from the Seattle area in a rented car about a month ago.  They all got sick, and my partner really got it because of her asthma.  She’s been down for about a week.  I started feeling weird yesterday:  fever, chills, dry cough, headache.  I’m 58 but seem to have rebounded pretty well, but I also take vitamins and exercise a lot (about a marathon of walking and running each week during the course of the seven days).

    Anyway, if you’re in fragile health or north of 65, try to hole up if you can.  It’s no fun.

  48. 48.

    Jay

    To the surprise of absolutely everyone, none, former GOP congressman Aaron Schock has officially come out of the closet. No, he wasn’t out out yet, he had just been photographed tuggin’ peen at Coachella and was always at West Hollywood gay bars and there was that damn “Downton Abbey” office when he was a congressman and there was that belt and those pants and that hot personal photographer Jonathon with an “O” and all the other gay stuff he seemed to be using campaign cash to pay for, but he was NOT OUT.

    Now he is.

    Had to add the edit,…..

    https://www.wonkette.com/you-forgot-something-aaron-schock

  50. 50.

    laura

    @trollhattan: the deep cleaning is “A Thing”

    I used to rep classified employees in a number of school district and deep cleaning is done in a number of circumstances. Custodial and facilities workers do really good work on this and are well trained – it’s not trash and dash, there are layers of cleaning. I trust these workers – they have a deep connection and commitment to their students and families.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    @West of the Rockies:

    Does one carry identifiable antibodies after recovering? That would seem like an important component to a test regime in determining the actual spread, as opposed to Trump’s “Hardly any, and anyway it’s just like a cold we’ve got this.”

  52. 52.

    trollhattan

    @laura:

    The kids might be in shock today from not recognizing the place. Mine won’t normally so much as use the bathrooms.

    (IIUC they only get janitorial on the weekend, the rest of the week it’s just trash emptying and such. Budgets, you know.)

  54. 54.

    gene108

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I moved out of NC, after I graduated from college, in 1996. I didn’t bother changing my voter registration. I didn’t think about it, at all.

    In 2008, Obama volunteers knocked on my mom’s door asking for me, since I had not voted in some time.  Mom said I moved.

    That’s the horror that comes, with not quickly purging voter roles.

  55. 55.

    WhatsMyNym

    @West of the Rockies:   It’s the flu.   It was very late hitting us this winter.  I had relatives leave about that time from here in the boonies of Seattle and they came down with it when they got home.

  57. 57.

    Kent

    In the news today, the 50,000 student University of Washington in Seattle is shifting to 100% online classes for the duration.  I’m surprised this hasn’t gotten more news and who knows how this sort of thing is going to spiral with the absolute lack of direction from Washington DC.  Institutions are going to just start taking matters into their own hands.

    I had scheduled a visit up to UW with my daughter next Friday as she is a prospective student.  But I guess that is probably off.  Who knows.

  58. 58.

    trollhattan

    @Kent:

    Mine’s on pins and needles [heh] waiting to hear from her East Coast apps this month, after which there would be some fast turnaround campus visits but I’m having considerable doubts that travel will happen.

    She’s practicing her preppy look today in anticipation, pleated plaid skirt and polo shirt with a treasured pair of sneakers. Chameleons, these teens.

  59. 59.

    Another Scott

    @gene108: I lived in 3 places in Chicago in my 4 years there for college (early ’80s).  The last time I voted I somehow saw the roster that had me listed 3 times for the 3 places.  Even after I updated my registration when I moved.  I figured that there was no incentive for them to “purge” the rolls so they didn’t do so.

    Plus, it fits with the “Vote Early, Vote Often” mantra, also too, amirite?  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  60. 60.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kent:

    We’re on spring break, but we were just told that all events with people coming from Level 3 countries or from states with emergency status are now cancelled.

  61. 61.

    trollhattan

    @WhatsMyNym:

    Good news, such as it is, the flu test is very fast. Kid went to the doctor with a fever, who confirmed it was the flu at the office and got her on Tamiflu in time to limit it to two or three days instead of a week or more.

  62. 62.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Kent:   Spring break was coming up the following week anyway.  They had one office employee be tested “positive”, so they’re cleaning the place for the next 2 weeks.

  63. 63.

    Eljai

    Scout looks like me this morning when I found out they canceled Donut Friday at work.

  67. 67.

    Kent

    @trollhattan: @Kent: Mine’s on pins and needles [heh] waiting to hear from her East Coast apps this month, after which there would be some fast turnaround campus visits but I’m having considerable doubts that travel will happen.

    She’s practicing her preppy look today in anticipation, pleated plaid skirt and polo shirt with a treasured pair of sneakers. Chameleons, these teens.

    Mine’s a junior so there is no rush.  But the UW is currently on the top of her list which is something of a relief as the other options were all expensive privates or out-of-state publics that would be just as expensive.  We were going to go up and visit the Honors College.  I’ll have to contact them and see if they are still doing visits.

    We went out to WSU in Pullman for a visit over the summer.  She took one look around at all the endless sea of wheat fields and said “yah, no.  I’m not coming here.”  So UW it will have to be if we are going to do in-state tuition.

  69. 69.

    Kent

    @Another Scott:

    @gene108: I lived in 3 places in Chicago in my 4 years there for college (early ’80s).  The last time I voted I somehow saw the roster that had me listed 3 times for the 3 places.  Even after I updated my registration when I moved.  I figured that there was no incentive for them to “purge” the rolls so they didn’t do so.

    Plus, it fits with the “Vote Early, Vote Often” mantra, also too, amirite?  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

    Normally when you register in a new location they notify your old address to cancel that registration.  At least that’s what the modern efficient states do.

    In any event, the only people who have been caught double voting in 2 states are usually old Republican snow-birds who vote in NY or NJ and then go down and vote in FL.  Because of course they would.

  71. 71.

    Jay

    @Yutsano:

    yeah, their takedown/coverage of the recent FTFNYT’s “red baiting” of Wilmer is good,

    Sadly, if the FTFNYT won’t do Putin/Dump’s work for them, who will?

    The Epoch Times?

  72. 72.

    trollhattan

    @Cckids:

    IDK. Guessing the district has a crew(s) on call because they knew it was coming. I’ll get a report tonight on whether anything actually happened or if it was just three people racing around with Lysol so it “smells pretty.”

    So far as I know this is the first school in the district.

  74. 74.

    mrmoshpotato

    Weird.  I’m not seeing Scout’s Elvis lips in Duckduckgo, Firefox or Chrome.

  76. 76.

    Amir Khalid

    @Jay:

    Just wondering: how long has it been since there was a reason to give a damn about Aaron Schock?

  78. 78.

    Kelly

    Damn. A good friend that just returned from a cruise ship and a bit of other jetting around invited us to her birthday party. The gathering would be a welcome chance to visit with the tiny liberal community out here in RWNJ timber country but …

  79. 79.

    Jay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    wash hands for two happy birthdays, fill a clean facecloth with hot-ish water, press to eye area and gently rub, leave loose for a minute or two, while blinking and letting the moisture in,

    5 minute eye spa/rest,…..

  80. 80.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Kent: The UW Admissions site is supposed to have the latest info on tours, but it looks like they’ve stopped having them for now.

  81. 81.

    Feathers

    Just watched two cute videos.

    Who knew woodworking videos could be improved with cats? OK, it’s a guy building a gorgeous cat tree out of driftwood he scrounged off the beach. But the cats helped: https://youtu.be/qi5KyW3aTNw

    Where I saw the amazing cat tree: https://youtu.be/HvaQw77UQcw  Japanese meal for cats. Amazing feat of cat cookery. Cats like chicken breasts poached in a broth of catnip and dried sardines, minced in a mini-blender. Who knew?

  82. 82.

    Yutsano

    @Kent:

    We went out to WSU in Pullman for a visit over the summer. She took one look around at all the endless sea of wheat fields and said “yah, no. I’m not coming here.”

    I suppose as an alum I should be hurt with that. But to be honest, I would rather she figure that out early. Pullman is…not for everyone. But it definitely sparked with me and was a great 11 years of my life.

  83. 83.

    Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    he ruined a lot of lives in the past, did great harm,

    got away with corruption and helped “normalize” it,

    will probably do more evil going forward in life,

    identifying the “snakes” in your midst is always good,

    *using a common saying, not intending to malign snakes.

    Wasn’t Mahathir Mohamad supposed to be in the past, done, no longer important, not that long ago?

  87. 87.

    West of the Rockies

    @zhena gogolia: 

    My girlfriend went to the ER on Monday. She tested negative for influenza and pneumonia. They did NOT test for Covid 19 but said they thought the odds were low. They really seemed to have no plan, no diagnosis infrastructure in place.

  88. 88.

    Feathers

    @trollhattan: Read a study linked over on Josh Marshall’s thread from a hospital in Singapore (?) and it said that coronavirus is killed by the current recommended deep cleaning procedures, so there is that small ray of hope. The virus spreads easily, but is fragile to cleaning.

    My main takeaway was shut the toilet lid when you flush and keep it closed!

    Also, I was on the bus and heard a bunch of Cambridge Catholic school kids wondering if they should go to an away game in Tewksbury where students just came back from a school trip to Italy. Wanted to shout NO!, but they got off before I could. Also, they hadn’t talked to their parents yet.

  89. 89.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    In the news today, the 50,000 student University of Washington in Seattle is shifting to 100% online classes for the duration.

    I had not seen this.  Very interesting. I guess since presumably every student has a good laptop, this can be accommodated fairly easily.

    But yeah, the apparent lack of federal co-ordination is bad.

  91. 91.

    Kent

    @Yutsano:I suppose as an alum I should be hurt with that. But to be honest, I would rather she figure that out early. Pullman is…not for everyone. But it definitely sparked with me and was a great 11 years of my life.

    She’s kind of an urban kid, LGBT.  Doesn’t want to own a car in college.  Wants to take the train back and forth to school.  We did the LONG drive out to Pullman from the Vancouver area and she decided right away she didn’t want to be that isolated and car-dependent.  If we send her to UW or WWU or UPS she can just ride the Amtrak Cascades back and forth to home.

    Personally I was rather impressed with the actual campus at WSU.  They have poured a lot of money into student amenities and technology.  Looks like a pleasant place to go to school if you aren’t concerned about the lack of anything else nearby once you leave the boundaries of campus.  I have heard that Moscow ID is nice but we didn’t go over there to check it out

    I do think that WSU has to be just about the most physically isolated major university in the entire country.  You have to really try to get there as it isn’t on the way to anyplace else and is  what?…at least two hours from the nearest interstate?

  92. 92.

    Cckids

    @trollhattan: Sure. I was just surprised, every place here in Seattle that’s closed to deep clean has taken 3-4 days. Hopefully they’ll do it well, the idea of a campus of middle/high school kids only getting cleaned once a week made me nauseous.

  93. 93.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Best way to clean a keyboard is to wipe the top of the keys and then use sponge eye makeup applicators dipped in alcohol or peroxide between the keys.

  94. 94.

    gene108

    @Feathers:

    My main takeaway was shut the toilet lid when you flush and keep it closed!

    People should always do this, no matter what.

  95. 95.

    Kent

    There’s nothing in the NYT about Israel.  Usually they are right on top of the Israeli politics.  Am I missing something?

  98. 98.

    Jay

    @Kent:

    The FTFNYT is a little busy right now using John Birch Society/End of the Cold War talking points to attack Wilmer over a nothingburger,

  100. 100.

    Kent

    @Jay: Yeah, I know right?  Apparently the Sanders folks thought that was only allowed for Clinton.  Oops.  Maybe it’s karma for the Sanders campaign dragging every Clinton non-scandal through the mud in the summer of 2016 long after that race was decided.

  101. 101.

    catclub

    @Kent: In any event, the only people who have been caught double voting in 2 states are usually old Republican snow-birds who vote in NY or NJ and then go down and vote in FL. Because of course they would.

     

    There was also a GOP pol or two. I seem to remember one in Kansas or Missouri. Yes, of course they campaigned on illegal voters.

  102. 102.

    Yutsano

    @Kent:

    I do think that WSU has to be just about the most physically isolated major university in the entire country.

    Pretty much.

    You have to really try to get there as it isn’t on the way to anyplace else and is what?…at least two hours from the nearest interstate?

    Spokane is actually only an hour and a half away north. I-90 runs through it. The problem there is well…it’s Spokane. Yeah it’s the fourth largest city in the state but that doesn’t mean it’s exciting.

  104. 104.

    Yutsano

    @Kent: You’re not that far off. Pullman really is isolated. But that makes us get creative on how to entertain ourselves. And it’s not all just parties. Pullman is where my culinary skills really got a decent footing.

  105. 105.

    Kent

    @Yutsano: Heh.

    Is there reliable public transportation from Portland to Pullman of any sort?  I asked the admissions office during the campus tour and no one had an answer.  Sounded like students just sort of organically car-pooled.

    I’m getting my daughter a used Nissan Leaf to drive around here now that she has her license and that seems like the very wrong car to be using to drive back and forth to Pullman.  Don’t think there are very many charging stations along that route

    She would probably have to charge in the Dalles, again in the Tri-Cities, and then just white-knuckle it the rest of the way to Pullman.

  106. 106.

    Jay

    @Kent:

    lot’s of folks havn’t realized who their enemies are or how blatantly evil they have become,

    the FTFNYT has always swooned for Nazis and done their bidding, and yet, no shortage of Democratic Party Members have laid down for them,….

  108. 108.

    Kent

    @The Lodger: More isolated.   I’ve been to Penn State.  There are small towns and such scattered all over the region, although the nearest city, Harrisburg, is probably about the same distance away as Spokane is from Pullman.

    But Washington State is a different type of isolated.  Once you hit the edge of campus it is basically nothing but wheat fields and sagebrush for 70 miles in almost every direction.  Look at this photo and notice where the edge of the campus stops and what is beyond:

    https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/609/2018/01/Campus-Aerial-alt.jpg

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