Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

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Archives for 2020

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Best News from the Super Bowl Promos

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Maybe I should tag this as a respite thread. But we deserve a break!

After David MacNeil’s dog collapsed last July and was given a grim cancer diagnosis with a life expectancy of one month, he took the 7-year-old golden retriever named Scout to the University of Wisconsin at Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, hoping for a minor medical miracle.

The veterinarians pursued an aggressive treatment that paid off: Within two months, Scout’s heart tumor was 90 percent smaller than its original size. Today, the lucky dog is healthy and all but free of cancer.

MacNeil, the chief executive of WeatherTech, the suburban Chicago manufacturer best known for its floor mats and custom automotive liners, was beyond grateful. On Sunday, his gratitude will be on display in one of the most coveted forms of advertising: a Super Bowl commercial.

The 30-second spot, titled “Lucky Dog,” is set to air during the second quarter of Super Bowl LIV on Sunday and tells Scout’s story from diagnosis to recovery as it spotlights the veterinary school at UW-Madison. The commercial ends with a call to donate, in which all money raised through the advertised WeatherTech link will benefit the school’s medical research. The school said in a statement that funds will be routed through the University of Wisconsin Foundation…

In a statement, UW-Madison notes that dogs and humans share similar cancer rates — about 1 in 4 dogs and 1 in 3 people will develop cancer in their lifetime — and similar tumor characteristics. As a result, some cancer therapies that were first developed for dogs are used to treat cancer in people…

 
Too, also:

… Jason Levine, Sabra’s chief marketing officer, told the Advocate in a statement that the company is showcasing a diverse group of people in its Super Bowl ads and is thus offering “something for everyone.”

Kim Chi and Miz Cracker are among seemingly unrelated celebrities who will be part of Sabra’s football promotional blitz. Another commercial includes rapper and singer T-Pain auto-tune singing about being ready for hummus before placing a hummus-dipped chip in his mouth. Teresa Giudice and Caroline Manzo of “Real Housewives of New Jersey” fame also star in another ad where they icily say one another’s name in a way only cordial enemies do as they feast on bread dipped in Sabra hummus…

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On The Road – kmeyerthelurker – Lisbon, Portugal

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Good morning, everyone,

Sorry this didn’t run yesterday, I apparently missed the “make Public” button.  Grr

 

Today we’re off to faraway lands…

Very long time lurker here, starting around 2007. The spouse & I visit Europe every off-season because its more affordable. This year is Portugal, with a brief stop later in Morocco.

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On The Road - kmeyerthelurker - Lisbon, Portugal 5

‘Centered in Wuhan’ Coronavirus Update, Tuesday / Wednesday

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C’mon, you *know* I was gonna boost this! Per Deepa Shivaram at NBC:

As focus on the coronavirus intensifies, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is releasing a new plan on how to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases and better prepare for global outbreaks.

Her in-depth agenda focuses on fully funding global health agencies, investing in the development of vaccines and ensuring that health departments and hospitals are prepared to handle potential outbreaks.

“The best way to beat a pandemic is to prevent it from starting in the first place,” Warren’s plan says, “As president, I will work to build the foundations that help us catch infectious diseases before they spread.”

Though Warren does not specify where the funding would come from, a large portion of her plan revolves around funding organizations that would strengthen global health infrastructure. She specifically mentions fully funding the Centers for Disease Control, USAID and the Global Health Security Agenda, which involves 50 countries…

Of note, Warren makes a point to mention the importance of spreading factual information and countering misinformation in the process of combating global outbreaks. She says she will work with the private sector on this issue.

“Science will once again be in charge at the CDC,” the plan says.

The focus on science also ties into Warren’s portion of the plan that tackles the crossover between climate change and disease outbreak. Her plan folds in portions of her previously released plans on climate and adds in a focus on preventing spread of disease after natural disasters…

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Pawns of the Powerful Open Thread: More ‘Headaches’, But Not for Commander Bonespurs

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I’m seeing arguments that the White House is ‘downplaying’ these injury reports so that Trump won’t feel ‘compelled to escalate in retaliation’, but let’s be honest — Trump has already forgotten the whole American-base-getting-bombed incident. There’s no way for him to spin the results as a win, and he’s too lazy / cowardly to start anything that might require him to focus beyond the next news cycle. Between this and Trump’s favorite war criminal threatening his former SEAL teammates today, the GOP’s “pro-military” reputation is getting flushed most efficiently.

… Several Pentagon officials told CNN that the number of diagnosed cases is likely to continue to change. Approximately 200 people who were in the blast zone at the time of the attack have been screened for symptoms.

Although traumatic brain injuries are not always apparent immediately after they’ve been suffered, the disclosure of injured US service members indicates that the impact of the attack was more serious than initial assessments indicated. Tuesday’s announcement is the third time the Pentagon has updated the figures for the numbers injured.

The Pentagon and President Donald Trump had initially said no service members were injured or killed in the January 8 Iranian missile attack, which was retaliation for the January 2 US drone strike that killed a top Iranian general.

Last week Trump said he does not consider potential brain injuries to be as serious as physical combat wounds, downplaying the severity of the injuries suffered in Iraq…

“No, I heard that they had headaches, and a couple of other things, but I would say, and I can report, it’s not very serious,” Trump replied during a news conference.

An influential veterans group demanded Trump apologize for those comments.

“The VFW expects an apology from the President to our service men and women for his misguided remarks,” William “Doc” Schmitz, Veterans of Foreign Wars national commander, said in a statement Friday…

Look, if these troops had superior genes, like the very stable genius squatting in the Oval Office, they’d have been smart enough not to be stationed in a war zone. Trump likes soldiers who aren’t wounded, at least if those wounds are potentially gonna cost Trump any political capital.

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Pets of Balloon Juice 2020 Calendars – Ready to Order: Repost

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Order Pets of Balloon Juice 2020 Calendars at this link

or

Click on Our Store at the top of the site and choose the 2020 calendar on the left.

If your previous calendar order was cancelled, you will need to place an order again.

Why were many of the weekend orders cancelled?  The answer from Cafe Press went something like this:  we’re not sure, broken image… mumble mumble, no we don’t know why… mumble mumble, or how that happened, and no, no one actually fixed anything…  mumble mumble, but orders seem to be going through okay now so mumble mumble it should be fine now.

That didn’t inspire confidence, and in the end, Beth recreated the calendar on the Balloon Juice store on Cafe Press.

If you hadn’t already checked the calendar for your pets and pet names, please send email to WaterGirl and include the names of your pets, or share that information in the thread below.  Either way, I can check for you and let you know.  

2020 Calendars – Order Now!

It’s a really special calendar this year, with the inclusion of an In Memoriam feature, honoring jackals who have gone on before us.  You can read more about that at the link to the original announcement on Saturday.

Link to the original Pets of Balloon Juice 2020  announcement from Saturday.

Update: First 40 comments were from earlier today, before it got buried.

Update 2: 10:00 pm.  Someone asked for a direct link to MARC:

Marion Animal Resource Connection

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Election Year Open Thread: “Fighting Back Is An Act of Patriotism”

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This Washington Post article is by Annie Linskey, who’s professionally hate-stalking Elizabeth Warren like Amy Chozik did Hillary Clinton in 2016, but this still sounds like excellent politicking to me:

… Before her town hall meetings, Warren (D-Mass.) virtually always holds a private discussion with five to 40 carefully selected voters, from those who are wavering to potential endorsers. At a moment in the presidential campaign when raucous rallies are the order of the day, the sessions provide unusually intimate access for Iowans who have emerged as the high-value targets of this final, desperate sprint to the caucuses: highly active but still undecided Democrats.

These “clutches,” as the campaign calls them, are just one part of Warren’s obsessively detailed organization in Iowa, one that reflects the candidate’s methodical personality and sets her apart from every other contender. As her polls take an ominous dip just days before the Feb. 3 caucuses, Warren’s big bet is that her unprecedented organizing machine will rescue her showing in Iowa, essentially saving her candidacy.

“It’s been a year of town halls and questions and a lot of selfies — it’s been a lot of fun,” Warren told Democratic officials Saturday at a gala in Scott County. But, she added, “there’s also been a part that’s not quite so visible: It’s been a year of organizing. It’s been a year of people on the ground.” And that, she said, “is how we’re going to win in 2020.”

And it has been almost microscopic. The campaign made a detailed study of almost all of the state’s more than 1,600 precincts to determine how to maximize support. It divided Iowa into nine zones and made an early investment deploying numerous operatives in each one, including remote towns and areas unlikely to support Warren.

To decide whom to invite to her intimate clutches, which last 25 to 30 minutes, the campaign mounted an extensive data-gathering effort to uncover not only who supports her but also who might switch under the right circumstances…

For Warren, the bet on Iowa and organization was made long ago. One of her key early decisions was to bulk up fast in the state, hiring 50 staff members by the spring of 2019, far outpacing all other campaigns. Early in the campaign, Warren’s team handed out stickers that read: “It all begins in Iowa.”

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Site Commenting Policy

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Once again, to clarify, since this came up again this morning in a thread and was disruptive and a pain in the ass and has now taken another chunk of time from my evening- I make the final call on all commenter bannings. Fortunately they are few and far between, but it is me who makes the call. I alone. I am sure there are more than this, and I know there are more who have been automated bans from obvious spam accounts, but it would not surprise me if fewer than 25 people have been banned in the two decades this blog has been kicking.

But one more time- I make the final call. Me. It’s not me being manipulated or doing someone else’s bidding, it is me looking at what has happened and acting on it.

I try to be as lenient as possible, but some people just have way too much time on their hands and work overtime to make other people miserable or stir up shit for no reason. Sometimes I wonder if it was the right call, but then invariably the person banned sends me thirty sweaty emails or in one case about 150 fb messages (FROM TWO DIFFERENT FB ACCOUNTS) and the wisdom of my decision is confirmed. There are a whole lot of you and relatively few of us. When I am getting 100 emails about one person, it’s not ME who is the fucking problem.

Here is the policy again, btw.

This post will have no comments because there is nothing to fucking talk about. The end.

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