I don’t know about you, but I’ve had all the “real” news I can handle for the near future.
Here’s Mabel and Maddie for a bit of a break. Mabel spent two hours this morning hanging with that ball – didn’t even head over for breakfast when I brought it out. I have no idea why, unless she thinks it’s some kind of super egg. Her eggs are really big, just not that big. LOL She moved on finally and now they are dealing with sideways grapple. Snuggled down by the lilac bushes.
How is your day progressing?
Open thread.
ETA: Scout is 5 months old today, so I’m going to get photos together if the day cooperates. If you need to get caught up, here are most of her photos to date.
Brachiator
A “related news” alert tells me that Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan are scheduled to appear on tonight’s episode of HBOs Bill Maher show.
Does this count and cruel and unusual punishment?
TaMara (HFG)
Well, respite lasted all of one comment. Why do I even bother?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
who even asked for this
LAO
@TaMara (HFG): Scout is looking good (as are the rest of you menagerie)!
chris
Thanks, Tamara. Here’s some more warm fuzzies. Everybody say, Awww! Who knew bears could purr?
Brachiator
A fun bit of satire from The New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz:
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: Is it a panel discussion or an intervention?
Yutsano
@Brachiator: I know it’s the Onion but…any chance we could hold Mexico to that?
TaMara (HFG)
@chris: My day totally needed that. thnx
Brachiator
@TaMara (HFG):
An “open thread” is asking for trouble. ;)
Actually, not too bad. And the Mabel and Maddie pic and anecdote is a cool moment of fun.
arrieve
I’m going to ignore the news stuff and focus on the animals. Thanks, TaMara!
Major Major Major Major
Here is a lounging Samwise.
I am off to Japan for 16 days! Plane boards in 35 minutes. I bought the game Subnautica, which is so far amazing, to enjoy during my travels—I tire of books after x number of hours at a stretch, and like to stay in some evenings.
This morning I got wonderfully helpful and positive feedback on my short story from a magazine, and an offer by the editor to help me revise it, which I’m going to take. Great start to my vacation!
MattF
@Brachiator: Sullivan, Greenwald, Maher… and… no Flying Spaghetti Monster? That can’t be.
rikyrah
Scout is gorgeous :)
LAO
@Major Major Major Major: very cute! Enjoy Japan.
rikyrah
@Major Major Major Major:
Have a safe trip and a great time! :)
rikyrah
Um, where are the ducks?
Faithful Lurker
Good morning from the grey NW, at least it’s not raining at the moment. I really don’t know what a sideways grapple is, ducks or otherwise. Help,please.
schrodingers_cat
I discovered a new YouTube channel which totes rocks. From amchi Mumbai, Parsi chef Kayzad.
I am going to make his mawa cake recipe, this weekend.
Although, I am not Parsi myself, generations of my family have lived in Mumbai and our cooking has a lot in common with Parsi style of cooking. This takes me back to my childhood.
*Parsi == Zorastrian, Famous Parsis you may know, Freddie Mercury and Zubin Mehta.
Catherine D.
Not a great day. I have to take dog to the vet in a bit. He may have a bladder infection or prostatis.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Very cool! Hope you have a great time.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah: yes! We demand duck pics! (‘Duck pics’ is a phrase I will never tire of seeing)
Yutsano
@Catherine D.: Oof. Good luck with the pupper.
JPL
@Major Major Major Major: Congrats and have a wonderful trip.
rikyrah
@Catherine D.:
sending positive thoughts.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: Have fun and I wish you a pleasant journey.
manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: My boyfriend LOVES Subnautica. It’s quite pretty, too.
Also, safe travels and enjoy!
debit
I love your ducks, TaMara. And holy cow, Scout is getting so big!
Dani, the kitten from Wisconsin, is also getting so big. She was spayed a few weeks ago, and fully healed, despite her best efforts otherwise. (The Cone of Shame lasted until her anesthesia wore off and keeping an active kitten quiet is an exercise in futility.) We noticed that she has orange splotches coming in her coat and suddenly everything makes so much makes sense. She’s a torbie. Luckily, the other animals have already pronounced her Queen of the House, so her ascension to the throne will be a peaceful one.
Tenar Arha
@Brachiator: It would, if I’m stupid enough to watch it. (There’s the possibility that my stubborn hate-watch tick will kick in, so I should really make plans to be out).
debit
@Catherine D.: Fingers crossed the diagnoses is something simple, easily treated, and inexpensive.
satby
We’re still on impending kitten watch in the maternity ward of the rescue. I have never seen such a huge pregnant cat. Any minute now.
Pictures will be forthcoming.
Yutsano
@schrodingers_cat: Oh damn. I’m gonna get into a new channel here I can tell
Also: is he cooking Persian with an Indian twist or is there a traditional cuisine here? I know the Parsi have no dietary restrictions. At least that I can recall.
satby
@Catherine D.: Good luck to you both!
efgoldman
@Brachiator:
Nobody’s forcing you to watch it
Mnemosyne
When I need a break, I turn to the Oregon Zoo’s Twitter feed. This is a photo of their sea otter Juno with Lincoln, Prince of Sea Pups, snuggling on her belly.
Better than yoga, my friends.
Major Major Major Major
@manyakitty: I played for three hours yesterday it was great! Bit of a learning curve of course. Excited to play more on the flight.
Thanks everyone!
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Hooray on the story! Try not to buy all of the Gudetama merchandise.
schrodingers_cat
@Yutsano: Its an amalgam of west coast cuisine (Maharashtra+ Gujarat) with Persian flourishes, like the use of eggs. Also later on some British influences. Zoroastrians fleeing religious persecution in Iran settled in western India (Maharashtra and Gujarat) around the 10th century call themselves Parsis. The group that fled in 19th century call themselves Iranis. They mostly speak a dialect of Gujarati.
laura
That spotty pup is a soothing balm. Thanks for sharing her meteoric growth.
Also, IMHO the Evergood brand is hot dog is snappy and delicious whether simmered or grilled to a ripper.
Let’s go Giants!
Brachiator
@Tenar Arha:
I know what you mean. It will probably be a hot mess, but I’m tempted to take a look.
@efgoldman:
True enough. And yet, I would not be surprised to see a thread on it after the episode is shown.
TenguPhule
@TaMara (HFG):
Masochism?
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: there’s a gudetama subway train in Tokyo! Maybe I’ll end up on it!
Ridnik Chrome
I have a wingnut friend who posted that NRO piece about Kevin Williamson’s firing on Facebook. I started writing a comment, then deleted it, then started writing it again, then deleted it again, and finally just logged off Facebook. Said wingnut friend is a very smart guy, and often makes good comments on non-political stuff I post, but he’s also a hardcore Opus Dei type Catholic. I suppose I should consider myself lucky I just have that one wingnut. Most of the political derp I see on my Facebook feed is lefty derp…
TenguPhule
Markets dropping like a rock.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Yutsano: Technically it’s not the Onion. Andy Borowitz writes his column in the New Yorker. Kind of a one-man Onion.
Major Major Major Major
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: he’s like a one man Onion if the Onion was never funny beyond the headline.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Are you going to be traveling all around the country, or focused on a primary city or area?
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: flying into Osaka, seeing that and Kyoto and environs, a ryokan on our way to Tokyo, and the second half there.
Yutsano
@Major Major Major Major: Eat all the okonomiyaki!
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
If you end up anywhere near Niigata, there’s a museum exhibition that I worked on. You missed it at the Osaka venue by about a month.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Make sure to check out Ueno near the rail station for the best and cheapest places to eat.
TenguPhule
@Yutsano: Takoyaki or just go home. :P
Yutsano
@TenguPhule: Or both. Both are good.
I can pop takoyaki like there’s no tomorrow. It’s one of my danger foods.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: I’m still kind of octopus’d out from my trip to Portugal in January.
rikyrah
But Trump promised the big tax cut he signed in December would create so many more news jobs for the economy.
Jobs Created:
March 2016: 235,000
March 2017: 73,000
March 2018: 103,000#JobsReporthttps://t.co/kVDu6B7LVV
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) April 6, 2018
scav
Am I the only one to seemingly have become an obsessive weeder? Strikes me as at least a useful sublimation (one really probably shouldn’t go after noxious bipeds with a hori-hori or — my newest toy — a ninja onion hoe.)
Yutsano
@rikyrah: This could be fun. The economy’s about to get mushy right before the mid-terms.
TenguPhule
Trump to reportedly meet evangelical leaders to discuss Stormy Daniels
Oh to be the fly on that wall with a video recorder.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
8/10ths of it is the batter and toppings. The octopus is just the filling.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Economic anxiety with a dash of temporary pain.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator: Temporary?
Mnemosyne
@Ridnik Chrome:
Find one of the recent articles about women and babies dying in Texas because they closed down Planned Parenthood and ask him if he’s okay with killing women and babies right now to maybe “save” fetuses later.
trollhattan
BP: still dicks.
Lock them up. Lock them up. Lock them up.
Brachiator
US military announces that they have perfected Pizza MREs. A great day for human progress!
zhena gogolia
@chris:
So cute, but those claws!
Brooklyn Dodger
@Ridnik Chrome: what Mnemosyne said – “pro-life” does not mean women’s lives.
hueyplong
@TenguPhule: Note that their problem is not with Trump’s behavior.
It’s with his effect on the electoral chances of right wingers.
These evangelists are amoral shits posing as moral scolds.
FlipYrWhig
@scav: Fans will tell you Ninja Onion Ho is one of the least popular Stormy Daniels titles.
rikyrah
As He Promised, Trump Will Gift Syria to Putin
by Martin Longman
April 6, 2018
Far from effecting the overtly promised removal of the Russian sanctions and unable to stop his own government from cracking down on the oligarchs, I think Donald Trump is desperate at this point to produce a deliverable to Vladimir Putin. It’s not a good look:
Two days ago, I wrote about my discomfort with watching a president who wants to end a military conflict getting pushback from the national security establishment. In other circumstances, I’d take the president’s side and fight for him like a cornered wolverine. But this is not a normal situation, and Trump isn’t a representative of withdrawal on the merits. He owes Putin, obviously, and he basically promised him Syria during the campaign. I think Putin is tired of holding his fire and he wants to be able to show some benefit to his decision to intervene in our election, especially now that Mueller is closing in, his oligarchs are getting their assets frozen and their laptops and cell phones seized at our airports.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
I was using snark to echo Trump and Huckabee Sanders…
Obviously, these dopes don’t have a clue, but Trump is going to keep selling his Big Man bullshit even if the country goes down in flames.
The Moar You Know
I have a cute dog. An exceptionally cute dog. But he’s just the one. You put Bixby and Scout together and the cuteness is not additive but multiplies. Damn, those are some great doggies.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
This technology needs to trickle down to the backpacking-camping segment, STAT!
GregB
Watching what this man is doing to this country is like watching that footage of a passenger jet wiping out in slow motion.
He and his master are taking hammers to the foundations of the world as we know it.
Then there are the American plutocrats lust for all of the money in the world and the Republican political establishment gladly watching the crash as long as they can maintain their political power.
trollhattan
@GregB:
The overarching problem is the plane in this example has a seating capacity of 350MM.
TenguPhule
@trollhattan:
And is cabled to many other planes which are struggling to either save this plane or break free and escape from being sucked into the fireball.
NotMax
Ducks contentedly at rest in a field littered with bones is … disconcerting.
Ksmiami
Build a wall around red America then take away their meds and their technology
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
The Ducks of Caerbannog?
Ksmiami
@hueyplong: scaffolding and tumbrels
Aleta
Congratulations to young Scout! Looking at her 18 wk pictures with Bixby … how fortunate we are, to have ones who know peacefulness around us.
rikyrah
@hueyplong:
Complete and utter frauds.
Yutsano
@Brachiator: Shared with a bunch of my military peeps. And I actually want to try it myself.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
Oh, I would also happily give them a try. And as trollhattan noted, this might be good for camping and backpacking. This product has been in the works for a while according to an earlier story.
Yutsano
@Brachiator: Friend of mine who does supply for Guard absolutely loves MREs. He actually had a stack of them in his garage that got “appropriated” for future consumption. I have to somehow get him one of these.
Also showed my bud who’s deployed in Afghanistan. It may or may not annoy him. Which is part of the fun.
Miss Bianca
Scout puppeh!! And the ducks!! So cuuute!
Thanks for sharing photos!
Gelfling 545
@MattF: All 3 vying to see who can be the most self important pseudo intellectual jackass on the stage.
sukabi
Tamara, your ducks are either quite the cow killers, or you’ve decided the Santa Clarita Diet is up your alley.
Lots of big bones in your yard.☺
sukabi
@Brachiator: only if you watch it. Are you that much of a masochist?