Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This really is a full service blog.

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

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Let me file that under fuck it.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Republicans in disarray!

Not all heroes wear capes.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

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

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Be Greater Than Average!

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Be Greater Than Average!

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Don’t be afraid to fly!


(Video at the link.)

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114Comments

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Ouka looks just absolutely miserable in that video. s//

    So yeah, if he didn’t want to go paragliding, he wouldn’t. Billie Jean probably would too. Percy? Fuhgeddaboudit.

  12. 12.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Funny you should share that cat-on-a-cake photo. I saw it about a week ago, saved it, and sent it first thing this morning to a cat-loving friend who has a birthday today!

  17. 17.

    p.a.

    How many more “shit I knew about tRump in real time” books are in the pipeline?  Because I’ll have to bank some outrage to not drain my supply on the current purveyors.  Although gotta admit that since the W admin the only physical resource that hasn’t downgraded as I age is my outrage production ability.

  18. 18.

    Mimi Haha

    @NotMax: Chicago Public Libraries were closed yesterday for the official state holiday and they’re closed again today. I hope it’s to give library workers a break, but I’m pretending they did it for Abe.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    And Washington’s on the 22nd! They were both very big deals in elementary school, with Valentine’s Day as a centrepiece.

    #constructionpaperhearts #secretadmirercards

  30. 30.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Was there anything more irksome than receiving one of those cheap punch-out Valentine’s messages signed “Me?”

    ;)

  33. 33.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    And then came St. Patrick’s Day, and after that we were all learning where to duck and when to dodge and who to pass in the upcoming Maypole Dance.

  35. 35.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Good morning jackals! I listened to Al Franken interviewing Jamie Raskin this morning during PT. Good interview, poignant and insightful, though at times maddening to be reminded about how truly awful Senate Republicans are. And so fucking cowardly. Anyway, it got the juices flowing. Here’s a link to it on YT:

    https://youtu.be/ta76-ZFwkHg

  37. 37.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    @OzarkHillbilly: My lab walked up these see through metal grate steps to a deck at Stowe last summer.  No problem.  On the way down I walked all 7 steps or so and he just stood on the deck still staring straight down at the top step very confused.  After a few seconds he leapt over every step like it was his job.  I freaked out thinking he was going to have 4 broken legs.  He was fine. Yogi the wonder dog.

  38. 38.

    OzarkHillbilly

    This is interesting:

    What would happen if we all had clear information about current and future flood risks to our properties?

    First Street Foundation wants to answer that question. The climate and tech non-profit is building up-to-date flood maps to estimate what could happen to homes and businesses in an era of rising sea levels and more frequent, stronger storms. The New York-based foundation says the free-to-use maps are based mostly on open source data and will eventually be granular enough to cover every property in the U.S.

    Through its recently announced Flood Lab project the foundation is now partnering with researchers from eight top universities—including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School—to analyze the data for broader social and financial impacts.

    First Street’s Executive Director Matthew Eby predicts the move will not only affect home prices but also municipal bonds and mortgage-backed securities linked to real estate in risk-prone areas. We asked him to elaborate. (The following interview has been edited for clarity.)

    They are doing the same with fire risk.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Once directed a Maypole inspired version of “Mata Hari” from Little Mary Sunshine.

    Principal singer on an elevated bed, chorines in various pastel colored bathrobes on which 6+ foot long contrasting sateen belts were wrapped. During the number the latter handed the ends of the belts to the principal and twirled in unison to unravel the belts, ending up simulating a Maypole dance.

    Much rehearsal ensued. It was a children’s theater production and ended up working flawlessly.

    ;)

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Old Dan and Little Ann: A few years back we took a trip south with the Woofmeister and stopped at a motel in Vicksburg MS. They gave us a 2nd floor room and we had to walk up a steel and concrete exterior stairway with open kicks. The poor dog was terrified that somehow someway he was going to fall thru the kicks. I ended up carrying 100 lbs of squirming black lab up the stairs.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    There was a very good interview of Stacey Abrams published February 7, titled “Stacey Abrams’ vision for ‘One Georgia’.” The publisher is http://atlanta.capitalbnews.org

    Abrams discusses with interviewer Jewel Wicker the challenges voters face in the Georgia Governor’s race and how she intends to help surmount them, the influence of Trump on her opposition, and policy in the area of crime and criminal justice. Good stuff from a shrewd political thinker and expert communicator.

  45. 45.

    different-church-lady

    At MIT there’s s bronze relief of some professor on the wall of one of the hallways. His nose has the same golden glow.

  47. 47.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    @OzarkHillbilly: lol….Mine is only 55 pounds.  I had to drag him onto the gondola going both up and down.  Both times when the doors shut he just splayed on the floor and didn’t move.

  48. 48.

    Ohio Mom

    Today would have been my mother’s 98th birthday. She was really born on the 13th but my immigrant grandmother thought it would be more patriotic to share Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. My mother was all grown up before she learned her real birthday.

    By then, the 12th was an established tradition and she kept it. Or maybe it was the idea of having a day off for a birthday.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    A new poll finds more than two-thirds of Canadians would support the use of military force to help clear out Ottawa protesters, while support for the truckers has fallen to 20 per cent – both for what they are protesting and how they are going about it.

    Two-thirds of Canadians believe Canada’s democracy is being threatened by the protesters while 67 per cent of those asked believe the truckers are being heavily funded by foreign interests. Six in 10 equate the current protests to the same mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol back on January 6, 2021.

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mike E:

    Whoever put the cake and sign up obviously knows nothing about cats. Cats always go for the most elevated surface in the room. Always.

    ALWAYS.

  55. 55.

    Betty Cracker

    @SiubhanDuinne: I share a birthday with George Washington, and my mom said when I was born, the OBGyn said, “Let’s see if it’s a George or a Martha!” (Spoiler alert: I was a Martha.)

    I guess schools had already mashed up Lincoln and Washington’s birthday into Presidents’ Day by the time I was in school, because I never remember getting my actual birthday off.

    My dad usually calls me on Presidents’ Day to wish me a happy birthday because, even though I am his firstborn, he doesn’t know when my real birthday is. But I’m having lunch with him tomorrow, so maybe he’ll ask. ;)

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    Regarding the “trucker” protests, TPM’s coverage suggests it’s kind of a mashup between Bundy-esque anti-state agitators and garden-variety schoolboard screechers of the type we see in the U.S. An exerpt from a paywalled Josh Marshall post:

    What’s happening in Ottawa, they were clear, is two separate events happening in tandem: there is a broadly non-violent (to date) group of Canadians with assorted COVID-related gripes, ranging from the somewhat justified to totally frickin’ insane. But that larger group, which has knocked Ottawa and too many of our leaders into what my colleague Jen Gerson so perfectly described as “stun-fucked stasis,” is now providing a kind of (mostly) unwitting cover to a cadre of seasoned street brawlers whose primary goal is to further erode the legitimacy of the state — not just the city of Ottawa, or Ontario or Canada, but of democracies generally…

    One thing that becomes clear reading this is that the important stuff happened before the authorities in Ottawa even knew what was happening. And then it was too late. Once you have an organized, fortified encampment of far-right agitators you can’t just dismantle that without the potential or maybe certainty of a lot of violence. I really hope U.S. authorities are watching this closely to prevent things like this from happening on the U.S. side of the border. At the beginning you can deal with it in a pretty straightforward way. If you let it get out of control, as they did in Ottawa, the options become really bad.

    This isn’t just more right wing crazy or the kind of white privilege performance art that we’re used to seeing from the Bundy clan here in the U.S. It’s both of those things. But this is a much more grave challenge to the authority of the Canadian state itself. They are showing that, at least so far, the Canadian state is unable to defend itself or the civic and commercial lives of its citizens.

    I share his hope that the U.S. authorities at every level are ready for this shit to go down here too. The anti-democracy party and their propaganda outlet are doing everything they can to encourage it. They must be defeated.

  61. 61.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker:

    Once you have an organized, fortified encampment of far-right agitators you can’t just dismantle that without the potential or maybe certainty of a lot of violence. I really hope U.S. authorities are watching this closely to prevent things like this from happening on the U.S. side of the border.

    That’s just down right hilarious. When in the fuck have they ever cared about cops beating in the heads of protestors?

    Oh, that’s right, these protestors are white.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    If decent people would unite instead of complaining about how imperfect other decent people are, we could fix so many things.

  69. 69.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @SiubhanDuinne: ​
      I think it might be that Illinois made a bigger deal of Lincoln’s Birthday than the rest of the world. It was a thing in school when I lived in Geneva but not once my family moved to Newtown, CT.

  72. 72.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Kay:

    20% support tracks with the vaccination rate in Canada, which is about 80%.

    Sounds like our 27% Crazification Factor still stands as a record, so…
    USA! USA! USA!

  73. 73.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @zhena gogolia:

     

    @The Thin Black Duke: I know. Why haven’t they been arrested? What is this shit?

    Apparently the police are going to the homes of protestors who have returned home and are giving citations and possibly making arrests, much of the IDing based on social media posts of the dumbfucks. Perfect. And, that seems like pretty fast work.

     

    ETA: Debbie beat me to it. :)

  75. 75.

    kindness

    Flying dogs.  What will they think of next?  If my boy dog ever had the steering wheel he’d go right off the road chasing things with the truck.  As such I never let him drive.

  76. 76.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:
    Here’s what he says (in the words of Pierre):

    — Я хотел сказать только, что все мысли, которые имеют огромные последствия, — всегда просты. Вся моя мысль в том, что ежели люди порочные связаны между собой и составляют силу, то людям честным надо сделать только то же самое. Ведь так просто.

    “I only wanted to say that all ideas that have huge consequences are always simple. My whole idea is that if evil [vicious] people are tied together and constitute a force, then honorable people have only to do exactly the same. It’s as simple as that.”

  77. 77.

    narya

    Add me to the list of folks who hated Valentine’s Day in grade school; as a social outcast, I never wanted any part of it. As an adult, I’ve been known to make heart-shaped sugar cookies, with the dough splattered w/ red food coloring, which is way more fun. Shingles/flu vax effects appear to be gone. Even though it’s very cold out, it’s also sunny, so a walk or run is on today’s to-do list.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    Trump’s vocal backing of COVID-19 vaccines puts the former President in a new, and possibly vulnerable, political position. While his support for the vaccine puts him in line with a majority of conservatives—57% have been willing to get at least one shot, according to a December Monmouth University poll—it also lands him squarely in the crosshairs of his most ardent base, many of whom see the federal government’s vaccination campaign as overreach. Thirty percent of Republicans say they “likely will never get” a COVID-19 vaccine shot, according to the Monmouth poll. According to data analysis by the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor, Republicans also make up an increasingly large share of the unvaccinated, comprising 60% of the unvaccinated in October, up from 51% in July.

    Republican politicians are all going to have to be anti vaxx. One of the GOP candidates for governor in Michigan is already.

  79. 79.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    My whole idea is that if evil [vicious] people are tied together and constitute a force, then honorable people have only to do exactly the same. It’s as simple as that.”

     
    Probably too long for a rotating tag.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @narya:

    My schools always did this rigorously fair Valentines where everyone had to bring one for everyone else. I approved of this, but I’m suprised more people didn’t have that experience in school. It was just a given that if you brought something in to school there had to be enough “for everyone”. I remember the focus on the number-  “24” students or “31” students. You got a little sheet to bring home with ironclad rules.

  82. 82.

    MagdaInBlack

    A friend just sent me a picture of one of the folks protesting masking/disrupting education at my home town high school.  Shame he used a company truck for his protest signage. I forwarded it his company, asked if that was their truck mid-day on Thursday

    Big suburban company.

  84. 84.

    Kalakal

    @narya: Good to hear you’re over the Shingrix, I seem to recall feeling a little rough, nothing to bad, for a couple of days and that was it

  90. 90.

    dexwood

    Hang gliders often land at the park near my house. On one of my morning walks last year I watched as glider circled a bit, getting lower, preparing to land. I could see something white and fluffy hanging from the pilot’s chest. He landed about fifty feet from me and I still wasn’t sure what was attached to him until he unhooked the harness and let his Pomeranian loose. The guy told me the dog loves the experience and co-pilots frequently.

  91. 91.

    MagdaInBlack

    @opiejeanne: & Baud & Ms Winsor:

    These a-holes have been calling in threats and disrupting the schools all week. The Superintendent sent her kids home because they were being bullied. They called a special board meeting Thursday and held it in the gym. Lotta hot air blown, nothing solved, of course

    Eta: Itty farm town HS, probably 400 students tops. Serena, IL

  92. 92.

    Sure Lurkalot

    If a convoy gets going here, I hope there’s massive social media pressure for the inviters/inciters* to be in the middle of it 24/7. Show their solidarity for reals not just on teevee or the Twitter.

    *Cruz, Carlson, Paul, Boebert to name just a few.

  94. 94.

    Ohio Mom

    @Kay: Yup, that is what Ohio Son’s elementary school did. And since he did not have um, strong enough fine motor skills, I was the one addressing the valentines; he scrawled his name. Which I guess was handwriting practice enough.

    @Chief Oshkosh: Arresting the truck protesters after the fact is better than nothing I suppose. Does not send the message breaking up the protest itself would.

    If you are going to stage an nonauthorized protest, getting arrested is a risk you’ve signed up for. There’s a reason the mug shot of Rosa Parks is famous.

    Relatedly, and it rankles my old inner hippie to say this, the state needs to exercise its monopoly on violence or it loses it legitimacy.

  95. 95.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Kay:

    Thirty percent of Republicans say they “likely will never get” a COVID-19 vaccine shot,

    They are saying that they want to live apart from society, that they have no responsibility to the common. What they haven’t quite thought through is that a large part of society is the protections that come from the common, and in our case, the rule of law.

    They are thus driving the breakdown of society, heedless that they will lose those protections. My response to these people is: Thank you for self-identifying. You have decided to no longer be a citizen of the United States of America. As a non-citizen, we can’t just let you wander around, so…Welcome to your new digs! Why yes, the building does look remarkably like an abandoned Walmart…

  96. 96.

    narya

    @Chief Oshkosh: I’m looking forward to the massive increase in their health insurance costs. Don’t wanna get vaccinated? Okay, here’s a $X00/month increase in your premium. It’s unethical to restrict their care, but it’s surely NOT unethical to charge them more. And if you have follow-on effects years down the road? You are charged more of THAT cost, too.

  97. 97.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @narya: Oh, that is coming.  Insurers will get theirs.  And so will karma*, because I bet that 95+% of them opposed any form of universal health care.

    *Karma meant loosely and colloquially.

  100. 100.

    Ksmiami

    • @narya: I wish them painful heart attacks and strokes in the not so distant future. Calculated Risk has metrics up today that we are at 216 million vaccinated; not enough for herd immunity.
  101. 101.

    narya

    @Baud: Yeah, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets added. Where’s that Mayhew guy when you need him (to tell us why I’m wrong).

  102. 102.

    MagdaInBlack

    Oh boy. Rawstory tells me trump has disowned Maggie over the toilet problem.  She doesn’t know him any better than any other writer. Tsk tsk.

  105. 105.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay:

    Thirty percent of Republicans say they “likely will never get” a COVID-19 vaccine shot, according to the Monmouth poll.

    Considering how tight the margins are in all our elections now, this does not bode well for the GOP. The anti-vax embrace is like the marshmallow test writ large.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    Ragnarok Lobster@eclecticbrotha·44mBill Maher siding with the racist, anti-science antivaxxers in Canada who are currently carrying swastikas and taking food from homeless people during their bridge blocking campaign….while Marianne Williamson nods in agreement.

    The bold contrarians only discuss what is currently on Fox News, and they always agree with Fox News.

    It’s Fox News for a younger demographic. Fox News for people who would be embarrassed to watch Fox News, or I guess admit to watching it.

    We’ll see, but I think going full bore anti-vaxx is a mistake.

  110. 110.

    Martin

    @zhena gogolia: Canada has slightly better sensibilities on this. If they committed crimes, convince them to disburse and then arrest them at home where there is no cameras, no backup, etc. I mean, consider Jan 6 where we’re steadily getting them arrested and convicted vs rolling in and trying to arrest them on the day which would certainly have resulted in more casualties, and turned them all into martyrs.

    Jan 6 isn’t really a rallying event – rather it’s still around Trump and the election, with the GOP struggling to build sympathy for the Jan 6 folks, which even leaders of the GOP aren’t buying.

    We’ll see if they arrest them later, but cameras just turn this into a symbolic act for both parties (why we will feel gratified to see them arrested on camera, and probably not notice if they are arrested off camera).

  111. 111.

    Martin

    @The Thin Black Duke: Agreed. But it remains to be seen if they get away with it. Just because they’re allowed to leave doesn’t mean they’re home free.

    That said, black suspects never get such courtesy. Gotta use these bullets up before they go bad.

  113. 113.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @The Thin Black Duke: “They have fucked around, and they are about to find out.”

    As one would expect of the USians funding this, they’re too stupid to know the laws in Canada are different.

    They’re gonna squeeze these “truckers,” and they’re gonna find out where their money is coming from.

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