Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I was promised a recession.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Republicans don’t trust women.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

I really should read my own blog.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

This fight is for everything.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: FOCUS

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: FOCUS

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Book Club posts in an hour or so — here’s an Even More Open Than Usual Thread to tide y’all over…

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57Comments

  1. 1.

    Anonymous At Work

    Asking for a friend. What’s the maximum decibels at which a cat can lick their own a$$-hole?

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    Set the WABAC machine to 1990 and dial the Respite control up to 11.

    Opening Statement of Mr. Harold Schoff, attorney for Mr. Coyote: My client, Mr. Wile E. Coyote, a resident of Arizona and contiguous states, does hereby bring suit for damages against the Acme Company, manufacturer and retail distributor of assorted merchandise, incorporated in Delaware and doing business in every state, district, and territory. Mr. Coyote seeks compensation for personal injuries, loss of business income, and mental suffering caused as a direct result of the actions and/or gross negligence of said company, under Title 15 of the United States Code, Chapter 47, section 2072, subsection (a), relating to product liability.

    Mr. Coyote states that on eighty-five separate occasions he has purchased of the Acme Company (hereinafter, “Defendant”), through that company’s mail-order department, certain products which did cause him bodily injury due to defects in manufacture or improper cautionary labelling. Sales slips made out to Mr. Coyote as proof of purchase are at present in the possession of the Court, marked Exhibit A. Such injuries sustained by Mr. Coyote have temporarily restricted his ability to make a living in his profession of predator. Mr. Coyote is self-employed and thus not eligible for Workmen’s Compensation.
    [snip]
    As the Court is no doubt aware, Defendant has a virtual monopoly of manufacture and sale of goods required by Mr. Coyote’s work. It is our contention that Defendant has used its market advantage to the detriment of the consumer of such specialized products as itching powder, giant kites, Burmese tiger traps, anvils, and two-hundred-foot-long rubber bands. Much as he has come to mistrust Defendant’s products, Mr. Coyote has no other domestic source of supply to which to turn. One can only wonder what our trading partners in Western Europe and Japan would make of such a situation, where a giant company is allowed to victimize the consumer in the most reckless and wrongful manner over and over again. Source

    ;)

  7. 7.

    Mike in NC

    ABC News: Supreme Court votes 8 to 1 against Fat Orange Clown’s request to hide his treasonous activities.

  8. 8.

    Mallard Filmore

    “I’ll sit 2 feet away and stare at you so hard you will physically feel my steady, unblinking support.”

    When Cat’s pupils diallate he is ready to pounce, claws out and biting hard. I have to grab a plastic grocery bag, kept in easy reach for exactly this reason, and snap it loudly. I don’t heal as fast as I used to.

  9. 9.

    Scout211

    Reposting from a dead thread downstairs:

    PSA:  If you need a rapid in-home test before your free ones are delivered, Costco has the Flo-flex brand back in stock right now.  $47.99 for a box with 5 tests in it. Flo-flex.

    They had them in stock a few days ago and then quickly sold out. They are currently back in stock.  Delivery estimate for my address was January 24th.

  10. 10.

    Bill Arnold

    @Mike in NC:
    With Thomas saying he’d support obstruction of justice investigation. Because Republicans must be protected from the law, I guess.

  12. 12.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Mike in NC:  Tee Hee.  Wonder how things are at Mar a Largo this fine evening.

    “Get me my Lawyers!”

    “Errr, Sir you don’t have any more Lawyers, you refused to pay any of them”

  14. 14.

    Ken

    @debbie: Those cats have a definite look of “I don’t know why you did this to me, but for the rest of your life, you will need to check your shoes before putting them on.”

  22. 22.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Bill Arnold:

    With Thomas saying he’d support obstruction of justice investigation. Because Republicans must be protected from the law, I guess. 

    Thomas is no doubt trying to protect his POS, treasonous wife.

  26. 26.

    burnspbesq

    Trump could still petition for cert, and Kavanaugh thinks there are some circumstances in which a former Preznit should be able to assert executive (and, presumably, deliberative process) privilege, but I think the disclosure by the Archivist to the Committee would make the current case moot.

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    @Bill Arnold: Anyone who thinks that “Republicans are awful” is a new thing that started with Trump or at most Bush the Younger should remember that Bush the Elder nominated that guy to replace Thurgood Marshall.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    Resigning in disgrace is too much to ask.

     
    You should talk to Anne Laurie. She’s mapped it all out in the morning thread.

  38. 38.

    smith

    @dmsilev: Isn’t Rudy technically still a lawyer?

    Depends on what you mean by “technically.” His NY law license was suspended last summer, and I don’t think it’s been reinstated. Don’t know what that would mean vis a vis a federal case, though.

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    Kavanaugh’s concurrence is a complete non sequitur.

    The appeals court said that Trump loses twice, once because his arguments are bad and once because the law doesn’t support him even if his arguments were good.  Kavanaugh agrees that Trump’s arguments are bad but disagrees that the law doesn’t support him.  He wants to preserve the ability of future ex-presidents to win on similar cases if they can make good arguments.  That’s a relevant objection.

    Even if you disagree and think the law doesn’t support Trump either, you could still support the idea that the court’s ruling on the underlying law is dicta.  There’s a general legal principle that courts should rule on the narrowest basis that will support their decision.  So they should rule first on the specifics of the case and only go to the more general law if they’re forced to.  In this case, they could have stopped with the ruling on Trump’s case.  Because of that, it makes sense to say that the ruling on the applicability of the law is unnecessary and doesn’t have any legal force, i.e. it’s dicta.

  44. 44.

    sab

     

     

    @Roger Moore: Reeks of Bush v Gore. We hold this now, but defer to what other people we agree with will hold later, and meanwhile we held but left no precedent. ( Nifty magical legal reasoning there.)

  45. 45.

    Betsy

    Hey so a few days ago I posted about getting exposed to Covid at my job, in a meeting at work with masked people who are vaccinated but nevertheless one of them came down with Covid and tested positive a couple of days  after our meeting. My boss informed me of this but she never even expressed any sympathy or care or concernabout whether I might get infected? So anyway I did the quarantine thing, and waited five days and got tested and I’m negative so yay!

    Except that I asked my boss if I could work remotely because I don’t want Covid and I don’t want any more exposures and it would be impossible to avoid them at work, as demonstrated last week.  I can do my entire job remotely because all I do is sit in front of a computer screen all day and I’m not public facing and I barely even get a phone call every three days. And my boss said no and apparently her boss up the line said no. So I quit

  46. 46.

    CarolPW

    @Betsy: ​Wow, a combination of “Good for you!” and “I’m sorry.” What a shit show. Let me/us know if there is anything I/we can do.

  47. 47.

    Steeplejack

    @Betsy:

    What CarolPW said. Way to stand up for yourself, and I hope this doesn’t put you in a bind. And good luck to those assholes finding a replacement for you!

    I hope you didn’t give them any notice, because COVID is certainly not going to wait around for two weeks.

  48. 48.

    Roger Moore

    @sab:

    This is fairly standard legal reasoning and almost the opposite of what happened in Bush v. Gore.  In that case, they court really did have to decide what the law was, but they tried to weasel out of having that decision serve as a precedent.  In this case, they could very easily rule on the facts without ever touching the law, but they’ve chosen to rule on what the law is even though they don’t have to.  It’s that “they don’t have to” that Kavanaugh is objecting to.  If the court can rule the way they think is correct without touching the law, they should do so.  That’s standard legal thinking.

  49. 49.

    Betsy

    @Steeplejack: no, the word came down at 3:45 in the afternoon and I was out by 5:15ish.

    Supreme irony alert?:  My boss was out sick “working from home” so her cold refusal was by phone

    @CarolPW: Thanks.  I’ll need to make money some other way but at least I won’t be getting Covid. Although I’m double vaxed & boostered I want zero Covid.

    It’s kind of like polio.  I want zero polio. Even if I were to get polio and recover completely I would still not want polio!

    Boss thinks everyone is going to get Covid eventually and we all just better accept it. Glad I left that.

  50. 50.

    CarolPW

    @Betsy: I am doing everything in my power to not be one of the ones who get it – I have other things to do with my brain than let it turn into snot.

  51. 51.

    Betsy

    @CarolPW: Yeah, good for you! Even an asymptomatic case does something  to all the cells in your body, across multiple organs. I’m not able to restate what I read the other day in an article about this.   But even mild Covid does long-term cellular damage. God only knows what the long-term  effects of it will be on people. Kind of like post-polio syndrome maybe or shingles.

  52. 52.

    CarolPW

    @Betsy: I fear it may be more like lead exposure – an apparently slight cognitive reduction that leads to long-term adverse societal effects. Not sad I’m too old to last long enough to see if I am right or not.

  54. 54.

    sab

    @Roger Moore: As I have said repeatedly : IANAL. I passed the bar in 1980 on the multistate, gave it up in 1986. I have huge sympathy for non-lawyers who have trying to figure stuff out since then, and utter arrogant rejection of lawyers since then who sneer that we just cannot understand. Actually you guys have been winging it ever since (lawyerise for making shit up).

  55. 55.

    MobiusKlein

    @Betsy: It’s not just ‘getting covid’, as it seems we can get it multiple times.

    A job with some at home / at office flexibility should allow folks to tailor their in person attendance in accordance with current risk factors, such as spikes in your local situation.

  56. 56.

    Betsy

    @MobiusKlein: I agree. That didn’t happen.

    It was kind of a crappy job anyway. I need the money but now I am free to find my next step.

    Hell, maybe I’ll find a better, *truly remote* job based in *another state*!

    Meanwhile, I am so relishing the prospect of my alarm not going off at 5:40 AM tomorrow.

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