Yeah, I know. Cat blogging is Obama-first-term…
…but this morning the mighty Tikka captured the beating heartof cat-sunsplash interaction, and sharing it with y’all can only improve the afternoon:
No body-image issues for that one.
Looking forward to celebrating my son’s 16th birthday tonight. It is, of course, an impossible number — how dare he age his father so! Channeling my inner Terry Pratchett, I blame quantum.
But it’ll be joyous this evening. Might even involve truffle fries, my boy’s alpha and omega of foodstuffs. Anything rockin’ in your part of the world?
[Obligatory sound track,* from one band in my sprout’s broad category of “old people’s music” that the wretched mite has actually come to love.]*Fooled ya, didn’t I. You thought I meant this one.
Roger Moore
I think you need to go to HDR to fully capture that scene. There’s just too much contrast between the white belly in direct sunlight and the shaded room.
muddy
That’s a fine figure of a cat.
Major Major Major Major
Oh my.
Happy birthday to your child! And good luck with the quantum. Though personally I’d blame Narrativium.
Betty Cracker
Happy birthday to the youngling! And congrats on having such a distinctive cat.
My kiddo will be 18 this summer. How dare she make an old woman of me? But she will be a legal adult in time to vote for Hillary Clinton, so we’ve got that going for us.
Trollhattan
If that isn’t a feline “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” ad I’ll consume my chapeau. Push the button kitty, that’s what it’s for.
schrodinger's cat
Don’t dare rub my belly human, I will shred you.
Paul in KY
Great picture, Tom & I know you’ve got a great cat there!
Also, happy bday on the 16. Man, I was so happy back when I turned 16. Great time in his life.
Mandarama
Happy day to your kiddo! Your kitty is already having one, I see.
My oldest will be 15 this summer and is so much taller than his short old mom. To add insult to injury, his brother will be 12 next week and is also taller than I am. Kinda glad no one told me about this way their beauty constantly breaks your heart when they really start moving in the world.
And they both wish they could vote for Secretary Clinton already!
Gin & Tonic
My sprout passed 16 some time ago, and has musical preferences I don’t really understand (or even recognize some names of) but still has pretty catholic tastes – some time back he made a point of ripping copies of all my Charles Mingus CD’s. But if Charlie ever recorded ‘Happy Birthday,’ I am unaware of it.
singfoom
Happy birthday to your son! My twin boys are not yet 2. I cannot wait until they stop bah bah bahing and start talking to me in words.
Then I expect at that point I will wish that they would stop talking because most likely all they will be saying is “NO, Daddy, NO!”. I’m guessing it evens out.
That’s a mighty cat, makes me miss my old Tuxedo cat Socks. So many feels.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Where pray tell are those truffle fries asks a fellow Masshole, hopefully?
Good looking cat. They really know how to live, don’t they?
rikyrah
On the one hand, that picture is hilarious.
On the other hand, it scares me.
Germy Shoemangler
Bloomberg News:
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: He’s definitely hoping you make a tactical error & go for the belly scratch.
Germy Shoemangler
Odd coincidence. This morning our cat was posing the same way, basking in a pool of sunlight. She stretched this way and that, arching her back to expose her belly to the full sun. She dozed for about half an hour, her belly in sunlight, her head in the shade.
Now she’s on a chair, deeper in her snooze.
I see the price of catfood has been going up. I told her she might need to find temp work. She just stared at me. Made no effort to update her resume.
Carnacki
I remember – vaguely – what the sun looked and felt like. Been a very gray spring here overall.
Benw
Some cat
Major Major Major Major
@Benw: That’s not some cat, that’s lots of cat
WereBear
I love the way my kitties will follow the sunsquares, arranging themselves inside the “box” and letting everyone have a space.
Congrats on the growing kiddo!
Also, for anyone inclined, it is the:
Way of Cats Fund Drive!
The money is far better off helping the kitties than it is donated to Donald Trump, so there’s that.
Villago Delenda Est
My cat has been pestering me for sun rubs all morning. She’s very persistent about that.
Your son, Tom, is too young to remember 9/11. Too young to remember the Invasion of Iraq. And in just two short years, he’ll be voting. And eligible to join the military.
Teach your children well!
p.a.
Happy B Day! What kind of car is he eyeballing?
Striking Vz workers in RI & Mass have qualified for unemployment- the states feel Vz not bargaining in good faith. They’ve already gotten 2 checks.
NY unions didn’t get immediate unemp as they claimed lockout. NY: no it’s not. BUT NY provides unemp for strikers after 50 days anyway, so within the next few weeks they’ll get checks too.
If you see any Vz trucks on a Sunday note if anyone is actually working: I know for a fact in past strikes they paid managers just to drive around- show the flag as it were.
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Are you calling Tikka fat? He is not fat he is floofy. I love his disdainful expression.
rikyrah
Obama’s Gorgeous Goodbye
Frank Bruni
MAY 11, 2016
In this twilight of his presidency, Barack Obama is unlikely to deliver much in the way of meaningful legislation.
But he’s giving us a pointed, powerful civics lesson.
Consider his speech to new graduates of Howard University last weekend. While it brimmed with the usual kudos for hard work, it also bristled with caveats about the mistakes that he sees some young people making.
He chided them for demonizing enemies and silencing opponents. He cautioned them against a sense of grievance too exaggerated and an outrage bereft of perspective. “If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, ‘young, gifted and black’ in America, you would choose right now,” he said. “To deny how far we’ve come would do a disservice to the cause of justice.”
He was by no means telling them to be satisfied, and he wasn’t talking only or even chiefly to them. He was talking to all of us — to America — and saying: enough. Enough with a kind of identity politics that can shove aside common purpose. Enough with a partisanship so caustic that it bleeds into hatred.
Enough with such deafening sound and blinding fury in our public debate. They make for entertainment, not enlightenment, and stand in the way of progress.
Benw
@Major Major Major Major: this cat goes to 11
p.a.
test
NotMax
Your son has the perfect birthday.
A wish for him – and for me today, too.
(Am a mite further along in years.)
rikyrah
Trump prepared to keep tax returns hidden from public
05/11/16 12:42 PM—UPDATED 05/11/16 12:54 PM
By Steve Benen
…………………………………….
And what of this fine physical specimen’s tax returns? The Associated Press reported this morning:
Despite pressure, the billionaire also doesn’t expect to release his tax returns before November, citing an ongoing audit of his finances. He said he will release them after the audit ends. But he said that he wouldn’t overrule his lawyers and instruct them to release his returns if the audit hasn’t concluded by November.
“There’s nothing to learn from them,” Trump told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. He also has said he doesn’t believe voters are interested.
I can’t speak to what voters may or may not find interesting, but if the AP report is correct, it appears Trump will be the first major-party nominee in the modern era to simply refuse to disclose his tax returns. Mitt Romney spent months delaying disclosure and making excuses, but in his 2012 race, even he eventually released his 2011 returns and a topline summary, including his effective tax rate, for the previous 20 years.
Trump, in contrast, is prepared to move forward with no disclosure in this area at all, prompting all kinds of questions about what, exactly, the Republican may be hiding from the public. Is he far less wealthy than he claims to be? Has most of his income come by way of television, rather than the purported success of his business?
We could know the answers – even if Trump is telling the truth about being audited, there’s nothing stopping him from releasing these materials – but according to the GOP candidate, we won’t.
It’ll be interesting to see whether or not the media gets tired of asking for the materials Trump doesn’t want to share, or if this will become a major issue in the fall.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: Floofy in the great tradition of the absent yet never to be forgotten Tunch.
p.a.
Happy B Day! Is he eyeing any specific car yet?
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: The basic problem here is that Drumpf is a pathological liar.
Dog Dawg Damn
Trump won’t release his tax returns. Trump won’t debate Hillary. Just watch. He’s going to attempt to cruise to the Presidency bullshitting at WWF style campaign stops.
This is a nightmare.
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
……………………
Ted Cruz already looking beyond 2016 election
05/11/16 02:02 PM
By Vaughn Hillyard
WASHINGTON – Ted Cruz suggested last month Republicans are “looking at a bloodbath of Walter Mondale proportions” if GOP voters send Donald Trump out of Cleveland as the party’s nominee for president.
Mondale, the Democrats’ 1984 presidential nominee, won just one state over Ronald Reagan.
“This ain’t complicated – if the top of the ticket is blown out of the water by 10 points, we’re losing the Senate,” Cruz said at the time, addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. “And there’s not a thing that can be done to stop it.”
Cruz, the 45-year-old freshman senator from Texas, has already called Trump amoral, a serial philanderer, a bully, a pathological liar and “a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.” And he has refused to back Trump after being peppered by reporters at least a dozen times with the question in just the last two weeks.
But Cruz received more than seven million votes across the country in the three months since his Iowa caucus victory.
He repeatedly said on Tuesday the “conservative movement,” as he calls it, “will only continue to get stronger.”
But with Cruz seemingly its shepherd, there’s uncertainty in what the path ahead looks like for the “millions of grassroots activists” who Cruz praised on Tuesday as heralding it.
schrodinger's cat
@NotMax: Happy Birthday!
D58826
And I wonder just who might have lit the match?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/investigators-2013-west-texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-caused-by-arson_us_573371fde4b0398bbfcb9f85
Roger Moore
@Germy Shoemangler:
So she’s a moocher and looter rather than a job creator. What a surprise.
NotMax
@rikyrah
Slouching toward Armageddon, indeed.
@schrodinger’s cat
Thank you very much.
Iowa Old Lady
@rikyrah: Every return Trump ever filed is currently being audited? I could live with him withholding the last one and releasing the same number of past returns the Clintons have released. Somehow I doubt that will happen. Still I’d like to see a reported suggest it to him.
Calouste
@Germy Shoemangler:
Who was President again for most of that time?
Gin & Tonic
I know not every B-Jer is enamored of Twitter, but sometimes pithy comments are the best. So, apparently there is a gaming company that’s released a game based on WWI (not, I gather, a hot topic in gaming circles.) In response to their Tweet encouraging gamers to learn about that war, this is pretty close to the perfect response.
Poopyman
Well isn’t this just swell. East Germany isn’t gone, it’s just moved west:
Besides the obvious surveillance state, here are a couple more probable unintended (I hope!) consequences:
– Young hackers will not even bother trying to work for the government. Goodbye cyber parity.
– Influx of authoritarians into low- or mid-level surveillance positions. The East German model, IOW.
I’m sure you can think of a few others.
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: I have been reading up on the history of WW I since the 100 year anniversary. Put a lot of WW II in perspective for me.
dedc79
The Natural starring Bartolo Colon
Betty Cracker
@Dog Dawg Damn: I’ve heard speculation that Trump will refuse to debate Clinton. I don’t believe it. He sincerely believes he’s a terrific debater and that he won all the Republican debates handily, so why wouldn’t he want to debate Clinton? And if he did refuse to debate Clinton, he would look like a coward. Even our shitty MSM wouldn’t let him get away with that.
rikyrah
Media Glare Claims Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Dream House
The celebrated writer nixes plans of purchasing a historic Brooklyn, N.Y., brownstone after hopes of privacy vanish.
BY: RICHARD PRINCE
Posted: May 10 2016 1:00 PM
The landmarked brownstone in the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, a New York City borough, where writer Ta-Nehisi Coates had been planning to live
Ta-Nehisi Coates has given up his dream of moving back to his old Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood, he wrote on Monday, after the celebrated writer’s purchase of a $2.1 million townhouse drew such media attention that he feared for his family’s safety should he move in.
“You can’t really be a black writer in this country, take certain positions, and not think about your personal safety. That’s just the history,” Coates wrote on his Atlantic magazine blog.
“. . . No one keep secrets in Brooklyn,” Coates wrote. “A few weeks after we bought, another friend sent an item from a local blog gossiping about our possible purchase. We didn’t expect to live anonymously. We thought there might be some interest and we took some steps to dissuade that interest. Those steps failed.
………………………………
“Within a day of seeing these articles, my wife and I knew that we could never live in Prospect-Lefferts Garden, that we could never go back home. If anything happened to either of us, if anything happened to our son, we’d never forgive ourselves. Even the more likely, more benign, examples were disconcerting — fans showing up at your door (this happened once) or waiting for you on your stoop. Our old neighborhood was not as quiet as we thought. Nothing is quiet anymore — least of all us.”
Mustang Bobby
That cat is proof of the potential of passive solar energy collection.
When I turned 16 in September of 1968, I got my license just in time to volunteer for the Wood County (Ohio) Democratic party and drive around canvassing, door-knocking, and getting out the vote. We plastered the back of the family Country Squire with Humphrey/Muskie stickers and made the best of it.
Calouste
@Betty Cracker: Trump will just make up a bullshit excuse and the media will let him get away with that.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know – he’s proud of being “unpredictable”. He’s a bullshitter extraordinaire, and the press isn’t up to doing anything about it, and he knows it. The only people who are going to hold him accountable are the voters on election day, and Hillary and her surrogates – most importantly President Obama who will save us once again.
WarMunchkin
@rikyrah: I’m even more starstruck by Obama than I was in 2008 now. I used to live in Japan, and I can’t tell you how incredibly surprised and happy I am that he’s going to Hiroshima. Yes, I favor an apology, but the fact that he’s actually going is huge. I’m almost upset that he’s going to run out of great things to do before January and won’t leave any glory for Hillary.
And, as a Youth, I greatly appreciated the Howard University speech. Put lots of things into perspective.
benw
@Betty Cracker: our shitty MSM would also have no problem declaring Trump the winner of the debates as long as he spews a non-stop barrage of lies confidently, and Clinton answers some questions carefully with attention to fact. Ugh. I hate the debates already!
Origuy
@schrodinger’s cat: There’s a YouTube channel called The Great War that does a video for every week of the war, plus special editions. It’s very well done. They do a lot beside the Western Front that we’ve all heard about. The Eastern Front, the sea war, and action in Africa and elsewhere also get covered.
D58826
@Gin & Tonic: I would add 5. Have neighbor run hose to trench from running car exhaust pipe.
scav
@D58826: Did they specifically say arson was the crime or could the criminal act be something more along the lines of Blankenship and the mine explosion? The Guard and the Beeb use ambiguous language.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Betty Cracker: You were obviously a child bride and Mr. Cracker took you to summer camp for your honeymoon.
@Tom: Happy Birthday to young Mr. L, and pleasant sunning to Tikka.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
While Hillary couldn’t do it, I’d send nothing but women on tv to ask:
Why is Trump scared of a woman?
chopper
@Germy Shoemangler:
and the problem with an upcoming recession is, congress won’t do shit about it and the fed doesn’t have much ammo left. it’ll be a fun time for all.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@NotMax: Happy Birthday to you out there on an island somewhere, perhaps it’s part of the US?
Anoniminous
@Gin & Tonic:
World War One gaming is an acquired taste. The closer the game gets to an accurate simulation of the Western Front the closer to impossible it gets to achieve a tactical breakthrough, thus the game bogs down in attrition warfare, i.e., will your side run out of soldiers before the other side runs out of artillery shells and machine gun bullets?
Germy Shoemangler
@Roger Moore:
She keeps the house mice scared, and she flashes dirty looks at squirrels who wander close to our windows. Plus she purrs for me and lowers my blood pressure. I believe she’s paying her way here.
Elie
Maybe I’m just feeling a little anxious, but I sure hope we see a lot more energy from the Clinton campaign soon. It feels like she has gone to ground or something — Yes, she got shellacked in another open primary (WVA), but there is just no energy or light coming out. I am, despite generous contributions, being dunned to death by her campaign to give more, but I am loath to see where its going since she seems to have “skipped” several states… Sure, statistically she is still gonna win, but her campaign doesn’t seem sharp or quick and I have to agree with Charles Pierce on that – though I don’t take it as far as he does in the title to his piece. She has to start that energy real soon and not just passively slide into the nomination. Hopefully she is hatching a good plan up her sleeve, but I am getting a little restless.
Dog Dawg Damn
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: How is President Obama going to save us?
I really hope so. Honestly, the Bernie schtick has completely worn out its welcome with me. We are staring fascism and the collapse of the Republic in the face, and some seem to care about Goldman Sachs speeches. *pulls what is left of its hair out*
Dog Dawg Damn
@Elie: Surely, they are doing a timing thing. Trump is going to run out of fuel and hang himself. Let him suck up the the oxygen in the room and lose consciousness while they bide their time…..probably not a bad strategy.
We can reassess once after our penicillin shot and the burn goes away.
D58826
@WarMunchkin: I would disagree on the apology part. Unlike on the western front in Europe, the Pacific war really was a racist fight to the death on both sides. After thefight to the last man/banzai charges on multiple islands and the Kamikazes, esp at Okinawa, the US wasn’t looking forward to butchers bill that an invasion of the home islands would entail. Could Truman have waited a bit to give diplomacy more of a chance maybe but for much of the Japanese high command a glorious death in battle was the fitting end of a life well lived. I don’t know if the bomb gave the Emperor the political cover he needed to seek peace. I haven’t seen anything that says so explicitly but I’m no expert on the subject. I have read that elements of the Japanese military were opposed to the cease fire right then end. In fact the Allies took a number of precautions to make sure that the dead enders didn’t succeed in literally blowing up the armistice signing ceremony. So I understand why Truman decided what he decided and probably would have made the same decision if I had been in his place. The second bomb may well have been more problematic from a moral point of view but at that point the goal was to end the war with as few US casualties as possible. I don’t think Obama should apologize as such but maybe talk about how there terrible events of the Pacific war lead to making the decision to use the bomb seem easy.
As a side note, the war on the eastern front was just as racist and fight to the last man as the US Pacific war.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Will the serial child molester and NRA Board Member be visited by some folks from Treasury for his latest Facebook rant? I got your gun control right here bitch.
I can’t even.
ETA: Apologies if this was already discussed into the ground while I was
conqueringalmost successfully standing my ground against the thistle in my flower bed.muddy
@Germy Shoemangler: Probably more of a doorframemangler than a shoemangler I bet.
Andrey
RUB THE BELLY
Iowa Old Lady
@Elie: I thought she might be holding back until the Democratic primary is officially over in order to avoid offending Sanders’s supporters.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@WarMunchkin:
Co-sign. His speeches are treasures. I re-watched the mosque speech recently, and it’s profound. What’s hilarious is that the Berniebros seem to be unable to understand that in both the WHCD and the Howard U speeches, back to back, PBO called Sanders – and by extension his followers – out as misguided. It was a gentle chiding, but his message was clear – you chose to run against me with your purity shtick, and you chose… poorly.
Elie
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Ummmm — not sure that is a wise strategy but clearly what is happening appears deliberate… She has to guard against her nature to be cerebral and close to the vest practical. Sure the trains run on time but again, slidding into the nomination or seeming to, is not a good message to send. She has to dominate her space with confidence — I want to see that from her though I acknowledge that what you say about the oxygen thing may happen — some. She can’t let the dialogue out here continue to be all Trump… that would not be good for her — or our hopes to defeat this thing…
Elie
@Iowa Old Lady:
Yeah, but at some point you have to claim your place and push with confidence. Not sure she should just be letting him run uncontested in some of these states while also not giving him a little jolt now and again. She has to run Bernie off or at least give the impression cause as I said in previous comment, she is gonna have to exude dominant energy in her attitude to prevail… You don’t want an inferior opponent up in your face late in the fourth quarter… It signals weakness and she already is gonna have her hands more than full to avoid that with Trump
Germy Shoemangler
@muddy: Haven’t had a shoemangler since I said goodbye to the old dog back in 2009.
She’s a cat who runs this house with a firm but fair paw.
WarMunchkin
@D58826: Re – the apology debate, I never really viewed it as a repudiation of Truman or the extraordinary inhumanity of the times. My history teacher emphasized “judge within the era”, and I’m not advocating burning Truman at the stake or anything. I think it’s entirely consistent to apologize for a genuinely cruel action taken for the “greater good” while also understanding the frame of mind that brought us to that decision and the real damage to humanity caused by the era. But like I said, the sheer act of a sitting American President (Carter visited after, (of course he would)) visiting is a BFD.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: But that’s the thing – it wasn’t a taunt. Obama isn’t a guy trying to beat the Sanders dead-enders over the head or anything like that. He’s a shephard and a teacher. He’s gentle because it’s the right way to treat people and that he knows that these same passionate people can make a big difference with a little bit of guidance. That’s what makes him different from, I dunno, Ed Rendell.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Elie: Yeah, I hear you. People will start tuning out June-conventions, so she has a few weeks left to grab the spotlight, I suppose.
She went after Trump for the Tax Returns, but it was so freaking tepid. She needs to go strong on it:
What is he hiding? What is he lying about? Start building the narrative now:
He is a CON MAN, unfit for the Presidency. That is what people know in their heart of hearts, so we should just run with it, every second of every day until the orange man goes away.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
I think I disagree with you (and Charlie Pierce, by extension). I think she’s hanging back to let the Bernie supporters wind themselves down slowly. Judging just by what’s been going on here, I think it’s been working.
Here in California, we don’t even have our primary for another month. There’s no need to rush things to a conclusion just yet.
Roger Moore
@Poopyman:
I’m a lot less worried about that kind of thing than I am about East German style spying for two reasons:
1) This is intended to be used for people with access to classified information, who have already agreed to be subject to all kinds of intrusive monitoring as part of getting their clearance.
2) They’re talking about looking at stuff that’s posted publicly on social media. If you don’t like people knowing about your private business, don’t talk about it in public.
As far as this disqualifying people, I don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference in the big picture. If we try to maintain the same standards while massively increasing the amount of incriminating evidence we look at, the number of people who count as clean will plummet. In practice, we’ll wind up shifting the standard for what counts as disqualifying to exclude the kinds of minor peccadilloes that everyone likes posting on Facebook.
Mnemosyne
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I REALLY doubt that Trump is going to sit down and shut up between the end of the primaries and the start of the conventions. And I double-doubt that Hillary will let him yap unopposed once Bernie suspends his campaign.
Relax. She’s got this.
schrodinger's cat
@Origuy: Thanks I checked out your link. Can’t watch the videos just now but will later.
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
That’s my feeling, too. I’m not worried. We in CA haven’t even had our primary yet, FFS!
Dog Dawg Damn
@Mnemosyne: California has historically been irrelevant in the general. Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are already in general election mode, and she’s handicapped because Bernie supporters in California need to cast a meaningless vote. Doesn’t make much sense.
Mnemosyne
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Our vote in the general election is not meaningless. And when the complaint about you within your own party with the most traction is that you expect a coronation, it’s a good idea to avoid looking like you think your primary victory is a foregone conclusion while the other guy is still actively campaigning.
Roger Moore
@Germy Shoemangler:
Which is obvious BS. Yes, corporate profits may have peaked, but that peak was an all-time high, and we aren’t that far off. The wage pressures are so feeble that the Fed has publicly admitted that they aren’t going to be able to raise interest rates as fast as they had planned, and there’s obviously a ton of room to crank rates up if/when wage pressure is actually enough to push inflation too high. The biggest risk of a recession other than an external shock- which is always a possibility and doesn’t have much to do with the longevity of the expansion- is the Fed raising rates too fast.
Mnemosyne
For your dose of LMM news today, he and his wife are busy flirting on Twitter. Sometimes they’re so adorable I just hate them.
AdamK
That cat’s upside-down.
D58826
dead ender http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/bernie-sanders-could-still-win-the-democratic-nomination—-no-seriously_b_9898436.html
D58826
@WarMunchkin: We’re probably saying the same thing from different angles. After watching Obama speak for 8 years, I suspect he will hit it pitch perfect, as usual.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
Ok — just paranoid as I look at the horror of Trump.. It still bogles my mind that our country has that many crazy people in it that do not see what a poor quality person and leader he would be. Its scary as hell to me….
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
If Trump starts polling well with minority voters, then I’ll worry. If all he has are the same voters who voted for Romney, he can’t win.
If you need to worry about something, worry about voter access. Blocking eligible voters from the polls is the Republicans’ only shot at winning.
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826: Absolutely true. Both were fought with little regard for the Geneva Conventions.
Roger Moore
@D58826:
It’s not obvious that the nuclear bombings wound up killing more Japanese civilians than allowing the war to continue would have. The firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than either of the two nuclear bombs, and it’s likely that a lot of Japanese civilians would have died of starvation if the war had continued much longer.
Kenneth Kohl
Truffle fries?!
That boy of yours is being raised right! Hope it’s a great celebration (he gets all the ruffle fries) for your son.
D58826
@Roger Moore: Mostly true but if the civilians resisted like the military an invasion of the home islands would have resulted in huge casualty tolls on both sides. But in august of 1945 the last thing on Truman’s mind or the minds of his admirals or generals was the value of Japanese lives, military or civilian. Halsey had a sign at the entrance of fleet headquarters Tulagi – ‘kill japs, kill japs, kill more japs’. And the 5th Air force intelligence estimate in July of 1945 said ‘the entire population of japan is a proper military target – THERE ARE NO CIVILIANS IN JAPAN’. Caps in the original.
That pretty much sums up the American view of the war. Ironically Halsey didn’t approve of the use of the use of the bomb. He thought Japan would collapse by October.
Amir Khalid
Liverpool have avoided losing their last home game of the season with an injury-time equaliser against Chelsea. One-all. Whew.
sm*t cl*de
@Mustang Bobby:
Cats have solar panels on their tummies. Well-known fact.
Tom Levenson
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: The Abbey down in Milton is an otherwise undistinguished place, but has mean truffle fries. Got some decent ones last weekend a little closer in: The Boathouse in Cambridge, also not a brilliant kitchen. Some other places too — but this is really an indulgence for the kid, as the places that have them seem to be somewhat overpriced, over-confident bar-grill-ish kinds of joints.
Tom Levenson
@NotMax: Sent to the boy! Thanks.
Tom Levenson
@p.a.: Bugatti Veyron.
Miss Bianca
Heresy to introduce dog note on a cat post, but this…scenes like this are why I love Siberian Huskies (the most cat-like of dogs) (and no, Luna is not nearly this vocal about baths).
sacrablue
@Miss Bianca: I just played your video link, but I totally forgot that one of the cats was asleep on the bed behind me. I had to scrape him off the ceiling and now I believe I am marked for death.
Miss Bianca
@sacrablue: Ah, my work here is done…seriously, I shouldn’t be laughing like this, but dayum…
satby
@NotMax: a very Happy Birthday NotMax! Best wishes for the coming year.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Mnemosyne: I wasn’t a big HRC supporter. I was very anti-coronation and got shouted down around here, because I didn’t like the whole clearing the field nonsense (it did happen).
Anyway, I hope you’re right!
NotMax
@satby
Thanks to you and to all for the kind wishes.
Just arose from a much appreciated nap (a prerogative of age). Was so tuckered out from a major bill paying/food shopping trip yesterday that managed to put away only the frozen and perishable items before collapsing, so staring at five bags of groceries still to be dealt with today. After coffee.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Roger Moore: Indeed. The economy is so far from full employment and full capacity utilization that it’s hard to see a recession coming anytime soon. Unless the GOP can’t pass a budget, unless NK blows up for some reason, unless some other external thing causes a massive disruption. Looking back without looking at what’s going on now is senseless, but all too common.
“The taller person almost always wins the Presidency, so Hillary is doomed!!!111″
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: Many felicitations on your natal anniversary!
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Muchísimas gracias.
celiadexter
A fine and imposing beast, but I have a nagging suspicion you borrowed our Rosco for the photo shoot…