So why not treat yourself to a furry friend? Lots of adoption stories coming in, but I loved this one because it was a great story plus it had a picture of a pet in a compromising position, and I thought it would break up a dull afternoon:

This is Dolce, she is a greyhound rescued from Ireland. She was hit by a car after being released from the race track because she was too small to race so we don’t know her true age. She was found with a band of gypsies and a badly broken leg and an Irish rescue arranged with our greyhound rescue here in Mass. to fly her here for surgery. Unfortunately they could not save her leg and after multiple surgeries actually removed the entire leg and shoulder blade. This is her halloween costume and as you can see we gave her a peg leg, unfortunately she wouldn’t wear the pirate hat, but she would wear the witch hat. She is a very happy dog and gets around great on 3 legs, she really has been a sweetheart. Greyhounds really are wonderful dogs.

The rescue we use is Greyhound Friends Inc. of Massachusetts. They are at greyhound.org. Since we banned greyhound racing in the state they have a lot of dogs at this time. There are 44 currently listed on their website and the rescue is not equipped to handle nearly that many, and we already have 2 in a 500 sq ft apartment. My wife won’t let me get another one.

If you live in the area and think a Greyhound might be a good choice, you know where to go and what to do. But remember, pets are a lot of fun, but they are also a lot of responsibility and they cost money. They need medical care and food and attention and walks, so make sure you are prepared for the commitment.

Obviously, we can’t hold Congressmen to the same high standards as late night comedians:

On the House floor last night, Media Matters points out, Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) made his case against holding trials for 9/11 suspects in New York City, directing a question to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“I saw the mayor of New York said today, ‘We’re tough. We can do it.’ Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it’s your daughter that’s kidnapped at school by a terrorist?” Shadegg said.

I’m kind of surprised they haven’t used the “if it was your child strapped to that ticking bomb” argument in favor of torture more, to be honest with you.

SouthofI10, Shrimp Boat. On the Bayou Teche, near Patterson, LA.

Max, The Bees, from the 2009 ABQ Balloon Festival.

Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.

Click on the photo for a link to the photographer’s website. To see all photo threads, click on ‘photo blogging’ at the bottom of the post.

If your computer cannot read our email links at top right, my email is (remove the zeroes): portus0jackson0ii at yahoo dot com.

More good news about the Goldman boys and Tim Geithner:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York gave up much of its power in high-pressure negotiations with the American International Group’s trading partners last year, according to a government report made public on Monday.

Just two days before the New York Fed paid A.I.G.’s partners 100 cents on the dollar to tear up their contracts with the insurance giant, one bank volunteered to take a modest haircut — but it never got the chance.

UBS, of Switzerland, alone offered to give a break to the New York Fed in the negotiations last November over how to keep A.I.G. from toppling and taking other banks down with it. It would have accepted 98 cents on the dollar.

But UBS’s good-faith gesture was quickly drowned out by Goldman Sachs and the top French bank regulator. They argued, with others, that it would be improper and perhaps even criminal to force A.I.G.’s trading partners to bear losses outside of bankruptcy court.

The banks and the regulator were confident that the New York Fed was not willing to push A.I.G. into bankruptcy, because earlier in the fall the New York Fed had stepped in with $85 billion to prop up the insurer.

The New York Fed, led then by Timothy F. Geithner, who is now the Treasury secretary, therefore had little leverage in the negotiations, according to a post-mortem of what has emerged as the most inflammatory episode in the rescue of A.I.G.

In the Army, we had a saying called “Fuck up, move up.” Looks like that sure was the case for Geithner. And you just have to love the sense of entitlement from the Goldman boys- it would be illegal for them to not get paid in full! And, because of who they are and where their people are in our government, the gambit worked.

I seriously think Goldman Sachs and the folks like them are the biggest threat to the future of this country, but since they own everyone, they’ll just keep siphoning off the money until the nation collapses.

I got your latest poseur alert, right here. Here is Matt Continetti, who apparently drew the short straw at the Weekly Standard and was given the job of rehabilitating Sarah Palin’s image, writing in the WaPo. This is a gem:

Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin’s “Going Rogue,” I immediately thought of the German literary critic Hans Robert Jauss.

Why, yes. I bet the majority of the folks who buy Sarah Palin’s book immediately think of Hans Robert Jauss.

I agree with Atrios that the “great failure of the Right since their awesome adventure in Iraq has been to create a new Hitler for us to fear and fight”. I don’t think that Chavez or Kim Jong-Il cuts it. And I think the Hitler-within strategy they’re trying with Obama genuinely does alienate those moderate voters Cokie and Broder are always talking about.

The logical candidate for the next Hitler is China. While the right has yet to settle on a single Chinese leader as Hitleresque, that shouldn’t be a problem. There must be some with Maoist ties and, in the Beckian calculus, that pretty much makes them Hitler.

Yesterday, two prominent neocons, Bobo and Niall Ferguson, both started in on this (I’m positive they coordinated these things). Ferguson warned Americans about the dangers of Chinese aircraft carriers. Bobo explained that the reason Americans feel shitty right now isn’t that they don’t have jobs and health insurance, it’s that we’re jealous of China; the solution to this, interestingly enough, is to move to a Chinese-style government-directed economy.

Now, I don’t think an actual war, or even a Cold War, with China is in the cards. But I think conservatives could say things like “if China gets to Mars before we do, we lose” or “if we don’t build more aircraft carriers, then there will be an aircraft carrier gap and then what” or “if we don’t let Phil Gramm have control of the economy, we can’t compete”. And, of course, Obama can be accused of dithering about China, lacking a comprehensive Chinese policy, and so on.

I’m not sure this will work, but they’ve got to give it a try.

Update. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out how awful the first two paragraphs of Bobo’s piece are, not just because they summarize all of American history in four sentences, but because of the way the opening resembles an unholy marriage of Neil Young’s “Helpless” and the last chapter of The Great Gatsby.

Update update. This is interesting, from commenter comrade scott’s agenda of rage:

Hi, former intelligence officer here responsible for, among other things, Chinese naval stuff, back when I was at the Pentagon.

Yes, a lot has changed in the last 15 years in China’s military, new weapons systems, better production of higher tech things, etc.

One thing hasn’t changed: the answer to the strategic question regarding a Chinese aircraft carrier. That answer? They don’t need any. Sure, they might build 1-2 just to show the world they can do it but that’s it.

Just a beautiful day here this morning.

BTW- today’s wingnut nontroversy is that Newsweek is sexist because they used a picture Palin posed for willingly.

I suspect good progressives are too hip ever to have watched Judging Amy, but the new infotainment-friendly Sarah Palin strikes me as the runaway offspring that Tyne Daly was too embarrassed to tell Amy Brenneman and her siblings about…

Andrew Sullivan complains “She wants to be a celebrity, not a politician. And if she could get to be a politician using the prerogatives of a celebrity – and a propaganda channel like Fox News – she would be happy. That’s what’s at stake here – beneath this farce.” Which is a pretty good summary, assuming that the nouns in the second sentence got swapped in the heat of live-blogging: Palin wants to be a celebrity, and was willing to act out what she understood to be a politician’s role to get the prerogatives of celebrity. When Bill Kristol’s Cruise Ship of Fools Neocons breezed into Juneau, Palin had aged out of the beauty-queen pageantry competitions that seem to have been her formative social training, her unwillingness or inability to handle the tedium of actual governance had her underlings trembling on the edge of revolt, and her attempts to reclaim Modern Supermom status on her own or by proxy weren’t going so well. It was… providential!... that Someone should send unto her a Messenger, trailing clouds of astroturfing calculation, proclaiming that Sarah Palin could be chosen to stand among the Elect. For lo, all her life she had been journaling, recording both the firewood-stacking and the prayers that were the Aleph and Omega of her Real American™ small-town red-state life—and at last her determined piety was rewarded! Prosperity Gospel, unbelievers!

I’m shooting for pictures of animals that were adopted because of what people here have said in the comments or on the front page. I’ve read a number of you say that Lily and Tunch and other people’s pets have inspired you to get a dog or cat for yourself, now I’d like to see the pictures and a link to your respective pet adoption agency. That way I can show a picture of your pet and direct people in your area to a reliable place to adopt pets.

I just know that my quality of life would never, ever, be the same without these two. Between Tunch lying on my chest every morning purring, waking me up for breakfast, and Lily getting so excited any time I come home that she licks my glasses or slips me tongue while pretending to just kiss me (the SLUT!), I just don’t know what I would do without these two. I honestly can’t imagine life without them, and I don’t think people understand how much they are missing by not having pets. So let’s give more people reasons to adopt. Send us your pics, send us your stories, send us your misgivings before adopting, and tell us why it was the best thing you ever did.

And I’m writing this with Lily on my lap and Tunch attacking my hands while perched on the desk. And I would not have it any other way.

*** Update ***

For example, without pets, you will never have an action packed life that involves seat of the pants drama like this:

Let’s be serious, folks. There is a reason the action packed Tunch Cams are a hit!

Yes, losing to the Bengals twice in a season sucks, but at least my team can score against the Browns. Not being able to score against the Browns is like not being able to score with Jenna Jameson.

For chrissakes JSF, Flocco power is vastly overrated.

Also, I like Gruden as an announcer.

*** Update ***

Just checked memeorandum. They claim that a new poll states she is not qualified to be President. Glad shit didn’t change too much while I was eating a white pizza.

Seriously, when is this Palin bullshit going to stop? You know who else isn’t prepared to be President? Pauly Shore. How come there are no polls about him?

Jon Gruden drives me nuts. You wanna talk about a guy who yells too much? You wanna talk about a guy who thinks he’s being edgy when he says the obvious? You wanna talk about a guy who can flat annoy me?

Then again, the only football announcer I ever liked was Pat Summerall.

Update. Who is more annoying, the long-haired UPS white board guy or the faux-Native American IBM “smarter grid” guy?

John’s gone Galt for the evening and I’m feeling too down for politics, for various reasons I won’t go into. Okay, I will. I couldn’t sleep last night after the Colts-Patriots game.

So this is going to be a sad attempt at John-type post. I’ve been making steel-cut oatmeal in my slow-cooker and, while it’s delicious, it’s kind of a pain. Even with a four-to-one water-to-oats ratio, it runs out of water and starts sticking to the sides. Should I use cooking spray? Just add a ton more water? Keep it on “warm” the whole time instead of having it “cook” at all?

Any particular recipes people like for this? I like the idea of adding dried fruit.

It was sunny this afternoon so we went to rails to trails, and after Lily went to the bathroom for the eighth time, I caught myself singing:

I’m sure Slick Rick would kill himself if he heard me.

With FSM as my witness, I used to be cool. I swear.

Consider this an open thread, as I’m going out for dinner.

Even the liberal Mark Shields misses George W. Bush.

SHIELDS: We have a president of real intellectual horse power who is cool, detached and analytical and if anything you can watch the emotional side of him emerge in this whole process. … There’s an emotional aspect, the comforter in chief as well as the commander in chief. Both roles. And I think it makes me nostalgic for those days when we had a manly man in the White House who could say, “Let’s kick some tail and ask questions afterwards” you know? That’s what we really need instead of any reflection.

(via)

Update. I watched it again and I’m pretty sure he’s being sarcastic. If I’d known he was from Weymouth, I would have guessed this right off.

It’s easy to romanticize the past, of course. But I distinctly remember that 20 years ago, things like sudden increases in the number of people going hungry were considered important issues. Nowadays to even muse about whether this is something we can do something about as a society marks you as an unserious hippie. Even as we speak, Slate/Levitt/TNR are probably writing something along the lines of “you think that having a high percentage of the population without access to food is bad, but once you get past the conventional wisdom of our hippie overlords, you’ll see that blah blah blah.” David Brooks is probably on the Snooze Hour telling E. J. Dionne that the only solution is food vouchers and, anyway, in Red America, the hungry can always visit the Applebee’s Salad Bar for free. Robert Samuelson and Fred Hiatt are cooking up some bogus figures to tell us that there is no way that we, as a society, can do anything about this. And, anyway, Michael Moore is fat, so how can anyone really be hungry?

What the hell happened? How did all the conservative talking points become so thoroughly internalized in this country?