Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

No one could have predicted…

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

“woke” is the new caravan.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

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

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It Must Be Your Lucky Night

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Glad I finally remembered to recharge the camera battery, because the animals are in full-on pose mode tonight. Lily looking adorable (she can’t help it!):

I simply can not tell you how much I love this dog. She’s the one I am happiest to see when i get home, she is the one that I wake up in the night and feel around for (she’s always between my torso and right arm, with her head on my chest or bicep). I love Rosie and Tunch, too, but in a different way. Everything mean and angry and grumpy (my natural state) is wiped away with Lily kisses. I would seriously hurt anyone who ever said or did anything mean to my lady (although the same could be said of anyone trying to harm Tunch or Piglet).

This pose from Tunch cracked me up (he was sitting like this when I walked in the room and took the pic above of Lily):

“I’ve eaten and I can’t get up.” Somehow or another, the love seat/couch has become Tunch’s new perch. He sleeps on the arm, the spine, and the cushions, and both dogs and guests alike respect his AUTHORITAH. It is kind of funny watching guests come in, walk slowly up to Tunch to pet him, and then cautiously lower themselves onto the couch, all while making sure they have his approval.

Love these animals. Sometimes wonder how I ended up with three of them, but I guess a lot of you breeders with kids often look around at the brood and wonder how you ended up with four children.

John +2 (I actually threw out the other half bottle of wine it was so disgusting)

*** Update ***

I’m sure this will not help with the fat jokes, but can you junior detectives figure out which side of the couch Tunch likes better:

I’m sure it is animal cruelty that I am laughing about this.

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Cuz I Got Cat Class and I Got Cat Style

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Long time since a Tunch pic, so here is one for you:

While it looks like he is just sitting there posing, there is actually a method to this position. He is sitting behind me as I sit at the computer, with his back to me, bitching up a storm for some vittles. He knows that eventually I will relent, and then, as soon as I make a move, he can bolt towards the bowl.

He’s fat, but he’s not slow when it comes to food.

*** Update ***

Completely unrelated, but I have to say, I am really, really loving the (GRATUITOUS AMAZON LINK) Viking knives. After Tammy and Brian bought the 8″ chef knife as a house-warming gift, I picked up the 6″ chef, the paring knife, and the 8″ slicing knife, and I just love them. They are weighty and just feel good in the hand, keep an edge very well, and after years of looking for the right knife set, these are the ones. If you like light knifes, though, these are not the ones for you. I don’t know how to describe it, but I cut with my shoulder, and with the weight and handle of these things, with my thumb and forefinger gripping the blade, I can get in a smooth, comfortable rhythm when doing my prep work. I’ve had no professional training, so I may just be doing it all wrong, but they work for me.

The only downfall is that they are expensive as hell, but other than maybe a boning knife, I don’t see myself needing anything else. If I had just bought these few knives years ago, I would have saved a lot of money in the long run. Actually, I’ve come to realize that all those knife sets are just a total waste of money altogether. No one needs 15 different varieties of knife. Hell- 99% of us would be fine with a chef’s knife and a paring knife.

Also, don’t forget Wasted Hippie tonight at 9 central!

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Open Thread: Oxytocin Junkies

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From an otherwise unremarkable NYTimes article on peer-to-peer rentals:

… Paul J. Zak, director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, says… he conducted a preliminary experiment indicating that posting messages on Twitter caused the release of oxytocin, a neurotransmitter that evokes feelings of contentment and is thought to help induce a sense of positive social bonding. He is now testing those ideas in research on a group of 40 people.
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The social interaction “reduces stress hormones, even through the Web,” he says. “You’re feeling a real physiological relationship to that person, even if they are online.”

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Paypal Update

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A very nice human being emailed me and gave me detailed instructions on what to do. Basically, the problem was/is Experian being unable to verify my address (probably because of my move), so I will be on the phone with them today at some point (depending on how things go, we may have a new worst company in the world). I’ll let you know how it works out, but right now, it is just nice to be out of the paypal infinite loop of computer-automated response.

And really, that is all I wanted. Someone to just tell me what to do. This might work out well in the end for me, but what do people without my resources (a complete lack of shame, a rather large mouth, and a website) do to resolve this. If I worked at paypal, this would be something I would think about.

I’m off to get a crown on a molar. Knowing that I now have to deal with Experian makes that the second worst thing I have to do today.

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Open Thread

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Actually forgot about the Presidential address, so I was accidentally spared the horrors of the post-speech chatter from the bobbleheads.

We have a fourth Fantasy football league:

http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/register/tos?league_id=637772&password=alsotoo

Go register.

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Open Thread: At Home in the World

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Change of pace, wind down for the evening. The NYTimes Style section recently printed an article on Mary Catherine Bateson entitled “An Anthropologist’s Take on Homemaking”.

In Dr. Bateson’s parlance, homemaking is not so much about decoration and renovation. Rather, it’s a metaphor for community, for the design of an environment — professional or domestic or societal — that challenges and supports its inhabitants, an ideal closer to the arrangement of a Samoan village than a perfectly appointed living room. “It’s critical that home not just be a place that you use whatever is there, but that it be a place you are truly responsible for,” she said. “It’s not just your home and you get to mess it up.”
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Homemaking, she added, is also a metaphor for longevity, a way of looking at the second stage of adulthood that precedes old age — what she calls “adulthood II” — which is the subject of her new book.
[…] __
“Home is a very important metaphor for me,” she said. “When I was working on ‘Composing a Life,’ I referred to it as ‘my homemaking book.’ How do you make a home when there is discontinuity? You are a single mother, there is a bad marriage, a job change. I started to define the word ‘home’ as an environment in which one grows and learns, rather than just a refuge. Think about where you started out as a little kid and you learned to walk. Sometimes there were things you tripped over. There were people who loved you but also made demands on you.”

I was born in New York City, but my parents took us to visit “Boston” (the Freedom Trail, Sturbridge Village) the summer before my sixth birthday. And for whatever reason, I was convinced that “Boston”, New England, was the place I wanted to live when I grew up. It took more than thirty years and a lot of detours before I actually relocated to New England, but this area — not just the climate, but the views along the highways and the attitude of its inhabitants and the way the light falls in the evenings — feels like home to me in a way that my actual birthplace never did.

Where is home to you? And how do you define it?

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