Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everybody saw this coming.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

This is all too absurd to be reality, right?

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

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Let there be snark.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Every MSM headline appears to be written by DougJ. i hope he’s getting paid.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Just a few bad apples.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Good luck with your asparagus.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Hang Your Rhinos By Their Heels

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I’m not a fan of grief pr0n, so here’s something literally more uplifting:

… What could seem more daft than hanging 12 rhinos upside down for 10 minutes?

But wildlife veterinarian Robin Radcliffe, from Cornell University, and colleagues did exactly this in Namibia because they wanted to know if the health of the animals might be compromised when slung by their legs beneath a helicopter.

It’s an activity that increasingly has been used in African conservation work to shift rhinos between areas of fragmented habitat.

However, no-one had done the basic investigation to check that the tranquillised animals’ heart and lung function coped with upside-down flying, said Robin.

It turns out, the animals coped very well. In fact, there was evidence the rhinos did better in this unusual position than simply lying chest down or on their side.

“I think the reason for that is, when a rhino is on its side, you have positional effects of blood flow. So in other words, the lower parts of the lung are getting lots of blood flow for gas exchange, but the upper part of the lung, just because of gravity, is not getting perfused well, so when a rhino is hanging upside down, it’s basically like it’s standing upside up; the lung is equally perfused…

Other jackal-pleasing winners (full list at the link):

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Respite (In Its Fashion) Open Thread: Dan Savage Gives Good Interview

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… It was going to be a joke, Savage said in a recent interview. “I was going to give sex advice to straight people with the same contempt that straight people had occasionally given sex advice to gay people,” Savage says. He thought he’d have the job for six months to a year.

Thirty years later, the column is still going strong, running in newspapers all over the world — plus he hosts a podcast and has written several books. Savage has become a cultural force in the world of LGBT rights, sex, love and relationships. He has coined new words and ideas for how to be intimate and adventurous, and how to redefine commitment as relationships evolve. The Post spoke to him about this accidental career he loves…

Q: A lot has changed in the world of sex, love and relationships in 30 years. What changes would you still like to see?

A: Oh my God. No one’s asked me that question. I used to hammer away at wanting to see marriage equality. I have been hammering away at the need for comprehensive sex education, and we still don’t have it. If there’s anything that would benefit everyone, it would be comprehensive sex education that talks about consent, that talks about the existence of queer people, and talks in a smart way about gender. Even what a lot of progressives or liberals look at and think “this is good sex education” is usually just reproductive biology. That’s easy. You can cover that in an hour. And most parents do: with their children, because children are curious about how they came to exist.

What trips people up about sex is: negotiation, pleasure, confusing desires that you didn’t ask for. Or you’re attracted to the kind of person you’re not “supposed” to be attracted to. And that’s not just about being gay or straight or bi. That can be about being attracted to larger people when the culture tells you that you should only be attracted to thin people, or whatever it might be…

Q: So you’re saying that comprehensive sex education is more controversial than marriage equality.

A: And more controversial than ever! One of the tools you would come out of the sex ed program that I would design is: Part of talking about sex with someone is telling them that they can say no to you. Not only can someone say no, you should ask someone if they would like to — in case they want to and don’t feel comfortable saying that. You don’t want to realize like a week later that something happened that the other person felt violated.

I write about the four magic words, which are: “What are you into?” That is the question that I, as a young gay man, was asked by my first sex partner. It was incredibly empowering, because I could rule anything in and anything out. Straight people should steal “What are you into?” from gay people the way we stole marriage from them…

Q: It’s been over a decade since you and your husband, Terry Miller, recorded that video telling LGBT teens that “it gets better” beyond high school. If you were to give a new message to young people that relates to their mental health or sexuality, would it be “it gets better,” or something else?

A: Post-Trump and world-on-fire, it feels crazy to say “it gets better,” right? But I still believe it. “It gets better” is never passive. It gets better because you do something about it…

I see people who are traumatized by getting grief online, and my advice is always: “Turn off the computer and wait two days,” and there will be a different storm. If two days later, there’s something that you feel you need to apologize for, then you can do it…

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Late Night Open Thread: NYC Predators

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Trigger warning: TFG…

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Return of the Green Heron (Open Thread)

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I think this is the same Green Heron I posted a photo of the other day. He or she has been hanging out on our dock a lot lately — a most welcome visitor, even if not as green as advertised!

Return of the Green Heron

The other day in comments, we talked a bit about podcasts, and I recommended The Moth, which rebroadcasts stories people tell at live events (or did in the Before Times, anyway). It’s not political — just compelling tales from good storytellers all over the English-speaking world. (They may have a similar program in other languages; I hope so!)

I’ve just started listening to a podcast called “In Plain Sight” that is about Lady Bird Johnson. It’s fascinating; I had no idea how large a role Mrs. Johnson played in her husband’s career and in formulating domestic policy in his administration! The podcast is based on meticulous, contemporaneous audio and written records she kept during her time in the White House.

It’s a political podcast because Mrs. Johnson was a first lady who was heavily involved in 1960s-era politics and a witness to historical events like the Kennedy assassination. But it’s a break from current politics, at least for me so far, and that’s what I’m after.

What podcasts are y’all listening to, if any? This is an open thread for any topic, not just podcasts, but I’m curious if there are any more recommendations.

 

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Thinking of You…

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Seems like a good morning to share this. Postcards don’t have to be political, after all:

Dear Amy: I suppose this is a minor matter, but I’ve lost touch with some very close friends during the pandemic. Honestly, I was just feeling down (fortunately, not sick). I wouldn’t describe it as depression but more as just not having any energy.

I’m feeling much better now, but I’m a little unsure about how to pick up the pieces of these friendships.

Any suggestions?

— Distant

Distant: I believe that your situation is probably extremely common, as many of us seem to have been in a state of torpor.

I prescribe … postcards!

Write out a sincere message. Here’s a start: “Dear Friend, I’m sending this postcard from my couch, where I seem to have spent the past year or so. I am so sorry that I seem to have fallen off the edge of the world, but I am emerging now. I hope you will forgive me for not being in touch, and I am crossing my fingers that you’ll still take my calls, so we can resume where we left off.

I’ve thought of you so often and truly “wish you were here!”

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Oh Mah Gawd! Is That Floriduh! Man’s Music?!?!

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Floriduh says hold mah beer!

As a native Floriduhian, I guarantee someone in Miami actually owns one of these. I can also guarantee that either he or someone he knows will use it to try to self medicate against Covid.

And a whole bunch of people who live in the parts of the state we call BettyCracker land are right now trying to figure out how to illegally import them so they can self medicate with them against Covid.

This will all be followed by them being dumped, en masse, into the scrub in different parts of Floriduh creating a new non-native and invasive menace to go along with the monkeys that have herpes, the anacondas, the retirees from the rust belt living in the Villages who also all have STDs, and people from Long Island living in Broward and Palm Beach Counties!

Obligatory!

Looney Tunes Florida GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Open thread!

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Post-Ida Open Thread: Blue Bayous

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Please add your own suggestions in the comments!

… Two days after Ida came ashore in Louisiana, hundreds of thousands of people remained without power. With temperatures in the 80s and the heat index projected to make it feel like more than 100 degrees for the next several days, officials were concerned that heat-related illnesses could lead to more deaths across the state. There were reports that power would not be restored to some communities for 30 days…

It wasn’t only the heat and humidity and lack of power that had officials worried Tuesday. Water and sewage systems in several parishes were severely damaged during the storm. The state had set up more than 30 shelters to take evacuees without access to basic infrastructure. Edwards said his greatest concern was how long hospitals, which were already full of coronavirus patients before Ida, could operate effectively on generator power.

In the devastated community of Raceland, in Lafourche Parish, residents in the Bayou Country community were struggling to live in homes with ruined roofs, broken windows and leaky ceilings. Houses and trailers were destroyed, flipped off their foundations, or shredded by Ida’s intense winds.

But residents said the most heartbreaking impact of the storm hasn’t been the damage to their homes. It is living without electricity and running water. They wondered on Tuesday who, if anyone, would be coming to help.

Many residents, who sat outside on streets cluttered with debris and sought relief from the stifling heat, said they were looking for food and fuel. Without access to cellphones or televisions, they worried that all the help was “going to New Orleans,” as one woman put it…

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