Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

Mission Accomplished!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

This is a big f—–g deal.

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

Militantly superior in their own minds…

The Math Demands It!

A snarling mass of vitriolic vicious jackals

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

This Blog Goes to 11…

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

This is how realignments happen…

Word salad with all caps

No one could have predicted…

All your base are belong to Tunch.

I personally stopped the public option…

We still have time to mess this up!

Reality always wins in the end.

Yes we did.

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Tuesday Evening Open Thread

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Okay, deep cleansing breaths needed after the thread downstairs. Here are a few more nature pictures from Sunday’s hiking. First up, a gopher tortoise who wishes the paparazzi would fuck off:

Next, a softshell turtle with an interesting nose:

Here’s a close-up of that same damselfly (thanks, fauna pedants!) I showed ya’ll Sunday — and damned if he doesn’t look like he’s wearing a tiny insect-sized bike helmet, saying “WUT?” and making an exasperated gesture with his hands!

Last is another photo of the Sandhill family. I believe the one in the middle is a juvenile walking with parents — it looks a bit downier, and the crest on its head isn’t the bright red that adults birds of that type sport:

That’s kind of sweet if so since my hiking companions were my husband and our recently fledged nestling. Only in our human version of the family trio, the kid is the one with the brightly colored, spiky ‘do, and the adults are more drab.

Anyhoo, open thread!

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Woodsy Respite (Open Thread)

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We went for a hike this morning and saw these lovely Sandhill cranes:

We also saw a little dragonfly that was the most gorgeous metallic blue:

We spotted a couple of soft-shell turtles as well as a gopher tortoise and numerous wading birds. Plus the usual complement of cardinals, jays, mockingbirds, etc.

I hope you’re finding beauty in your corner of the world when you can. I’ve made a deliberate effort to look for it as an antidote to the ugliness in the current culture, and I swear it helps!

Open thread!

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Perspective (Open Thread)

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Something funny from the Twitters:

Man, it’s hot here in West Central FL today! Summer is going to be beastly. It always is, of course. But the sun-blasted hellscape will be even more hellish than usual, is my prediction.

Pursuant to the weather, I was looking for summer cocktail recipes online earlier. My search led straight to one of my pet peeves: a compendium of recipes (or livable towns, recommended hiking boots, sought-after vinyl records — anything that lends itself to the listicle treatment) that requires the reader to click through item by item instead of scrolling down or clicking a particular entry from a list of links.

I get why they do it; it’s more swipeable for mobile, and page clicks generate ad revenue. But it’s annoying AF, particularly when the separate page for each item then requires you to click yet again for the full recipe. I feel like someone’s Pomeranian being forced through a virtual agility course.

The navigation scheme of this one collection I saw made me want to hunt down the web designer and punch him in the dick: Not only do you have to page through to find the recipe, then click to see the ingredients and measurements, some of the recipes contain custom mixers with cutesy names like, say, “Buccaneer Betty Mix,” so you have to click through to that page to find out what the fuck it is!

I know — “boo-fucking-hoo, you have to depress a button on a mouse four whole times to assemble an entire cocktail recipe — wah!” Still, they’re gonna drive me back to print, I swear, the money-grubbing shitweasels.

Anyhoo, open thread. And feel free to share refreshing drink recipes (alcohol or nah)!

PS: I ultimately settled on an old favorite I invented a few years back.

PPS: For some reason, “St. Elmo’s Fire” is playing without the sound on our tiki bar TV. (Hubby’s golf tournament must’ve ended.) I will never hassle my kid about Gen Z fashion sensibilities again. Ever.

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A Little Reminder That Good Things Still Happen and Make the World a Better Place

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So this happened earlier tonight (h/t: Josh Marshall’s twitter feed):

(FYI: This is Noni crashing in the apartment building hallway)

Enter good people (in addition to everyone offering to help out in all the replies to the tweets)!

Little things, small actions, make all the difference in the world. Sleep well Noni! And well done Sara Morrison, Carmen Rita, and Chandler for stepping up and making things just a little bit better!

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A Holiday Public Service Announcement for Our Cat Owners

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While I’m sure all of our reader, commenter, and lurker cat owners are already aware, just a quick Easter weekend cat health PSA:

Easter Lilies are Deadly to Cats

Lillium sp. and Hemerocallis sp. of lilies, including Easter, Asiatic, tiger, and day lilies are all incredibly toxic to cats. It is not known what causes this toxicity.

Ingesting any part of the Easter lily plant causes acute kidney failure in cats. This appears to be due to the death of kidney cells, but the exact mechanism by which it occurs is not known. Cats can be poisoned by Easter lilies in the following ways:

  • Eating less than one lily leaf can cause a cat to develop kidney failure.
  • Cats may rub up against the lilies or walk through pollen that has dropped from the flowers. When they groom the pollen off of their fur or paws and ingest it, they can be poisoned.
  • Chewing on and swallowing the flower of the Easter lily results in toxicity.

Signs of Easter Lily Toxicity in Cats

The following signs are seen in cats that are poisoned by Easter lilies:

  • Within two hours of ingestion:
    • Vomiting is often the first sign of Easter lily toxicity.
    • Anorexia, or unwillingness to eat accompanies the vomiting.
    • The cat develops lethargy, and doesn’t want to move around or play.
  • Increased urination may be present in between two and twelve hours after the cat consumes the lily. After that, the cat may stop producing urine altogether, as the kidneys shut down.
  • Death usually occurs within three to four days of lily toxicity that is untreated.

If you know or even suspect that your cat may have ingested any part of a lily plant, take your cat and the plant, if you have it, to the veterinarian immediately.

The following therapies are all used to treat cats that have ingested lilies:

  • Induction of vomiting to remove as much of the plant as possible before it is absorbed into the cat’s system. This needs to be done fairly quickly after ingestion.
  • Activated charcoal is administered to the cat to absorb as much of the remaining plant product from the stomach as possible and carry it through the GI tract without allowing to be absorbed.
  • Intravenous fluid therapy is administered at a high rate in order to flush the system of the lily toxins and support the kidneys.

If treatment is delayed until eighteen hours or more have passed since ingestion of the lily, your cat’s prognosis for recovery decreases dramatically. When it is caught early and treated aggressively, lily toxicity usually carries a good prognosis for full recovery.

For those who observe have a Happy and (cat) Healthy Easter. Everyone else: have a nice weekend.

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Birdly Beauty Break (Open Thread)

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This hasn’t been a good week for many reasons. I think for some of us, the consequences of the election are sinking in anew, what with the elevation of Injustice Gorsuch and the inexcusable media fellating of Trump for scattering bombs ineffectively on a Syrian runway, possible harbingers of worse to come.

My liberal-but-doesn’t-follow-politics hubby was aghast at the Senatortoise from Kentucky’s boast on NPR about his successful theft of a SCOTUS seat. We can only hope these cumulative outrages wake people the fuck up.

Meanwhile, there’s still beauty in the world. Faithful reader “cope” provides evidence of it in this gorgeous photo of an osprey and prey:

It wasn’t a beautiful moment for the fish, but circle of life ‘n shit. Open thread!

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Beauty on the Links (Open Thread)

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I saw this shy gallinule (aka moorhen) hiding out on the edge of a pond at a golf course a while back:

And here’s a snowy egret, spotted at a separate golf course:

I hear the popularity of golf is plummeting, though the courses hereabouts seem to do a brisk business. Perhaps the shitgibbon’s fondness for the game and copious promotion of his branded courses will hasten its slide.

If golf does become passé, the courses should be converted into bird sanctuaries — at least the ones in Florida (until it is swallowed by the ocean). We always see a ton of birds on the links around here.

Open thread!

PS: In the Boston area? Cole is organizing a meetup on Friday.

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Long Read: “A Post-presidency Like No Other”

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Krissah Thompson and Juliet Eilperin, in the Washington Post:

… So far, Obama is trying to approach his post-presidency in the same way as his cocktail-hosting duties — keeping things low-key, despite clamoring from Democrats for him to do more. “He is enjoying a lower profile where he can relax, reflect and enjoy his family and friends,” said his former senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.

But the unprecedented nature of this particular post-presidency means his respite could be brief. Even while taking downtime at a luxurious resort in the South Pacific last week, Obama put out a statement urging Republicans not to unilaterally dismantle his signature health-care law.

Not only are the Obamas still young and unusually popular for a post-White House couple, but their decision to stay in Washington while their younger daughter finishes high school has also combined with the compulsion of the new Trump administration to keep pulling them back into the spotlight…

He has attempted to stay above the fray, watching from the sidelines as Republicans have pressed to unravel a slew of his initiatives — and emphasizing the need for a new generation of political leaders to step up in his place.

And yet, while other recent ex-presidents have devoted their retirement years to apolitical, do-gooder causes, Obama is gearing up to throw himself into the wonky and highly partisan issue of redistricting, with the goal of reversing the electoral declines Democrats experienced under his watch…

For now, Obama is delegating political work to associates — notably former attorney general Eric Holder, whom he has tapped to lead the redistricting project that aims to help Democrats redraw legislative maps that many see as tilted toward the GOP. He also endorsed Tom Perez, his former secretary of labor, in a successful bid to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His first major speech as a private citizen will come in May, when he will be awarded a John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award as part of a celebration of Kennedy’s centennial.

Michelle Obama, who has a team of four staffers in the office, is spending more time than her husband in Washington, working on her own post-White House book while remaining focused on the home front.

“She’s got one daughter to get off to college, another is a [sophomore] in high school. All of that comes first,” said Tina Tchen, her White House chief of staff. “Now she will also be working on the book and still keeping up her engagement with the community as she always has.”…

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TGIF Open Thread: Lizard Edition

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Here’s a lizard sunning on a painted bamboo:

Didn’t have my camera handy, so please excuse the poor quality iPhone photo. It’s amazing how quickly one becomes a camera snob! Unfortunately, my offspring’s entire childhood is documented with crappy phone camera photos. I suppose that’ll be her version of my “look at all these crappy Polaroids from the 70s!”

Open thread!

PS: There’s actually an existing tag for “Lizard Blogging!” Cole is right; we have too damn many tags!

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Excellent Read: “In Conversation: David Letterman”

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We need a respite, or at least I do. From NYMag, something to break the political monotony:

Since retiring after 33 years on the late night television, David Letterman has kept a low public profile — aided by the growth of a truly impressive beard. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been as fixated on politics as the rest of us. “If I still had a show,” says the 69-year-old, dressed in a baggy sweater and cargo pants and sitting high above midtown Manhattan in a conference room at his publicist’s offices, “people would have to come and take me off the stage. ‘Dave, that’s enough about Trump. We’ve run out of tape.’ It’s all I’d be talking about. I’d be exhausted.” Late-night TV comedy has offered some of the sharpest — and most-remarked-upon — responses to the Trump presidency. But despite the work of Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Saturday Night Live, and the rest, it’s hard not to wish Letterman, late-night’s greatest ironist and most ornery host, was still around to take aim. And so we’ve brought him out of retirement to weigh in on life after television and his old frequent guest and punching bag, the man he calls Trumpy…

David Marchese: Have you ever wondered what you might’ve said if you’d been doing The Late Show the night after Trump was elected?
No, I haven’t thought about it. See, I was out running one day when he was still president-elect, and I thought, Let’s call him. I’ve known the guy since the ’80s. I was one of a few people who had routinely interviewed him. I’m not blinded by the white-hot light of “president-elect.” I mean, we elected a guy with that hair? Why don’t we investigate that? He looks like Al Jardine of the Beach Boys. I don’t know. I’m sorry for rambling. I’m afraid something has happened to me hormonally. I can’t stop talking…

There’s this idea that reducing Trump to a punchline could make him seem harmless or helps to normalize him. Is there any validity to that argument?
I guess it’s a possibility. On the other hand, Donald Trump can be Donald Trump, but if he doesn’t help the people that need help, then he’s just a jerk. That press conference that he held berating the news media? I mean, how do you build a dictatorship? First, you undermine the press: “The only truth you’re going to hear is from me.” And he hires the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Steve Bannon, to be his little buddy. Bannon looks like a guy who goes to lunch, gets drunk, and comes back to the office: “Steve, could you have just one drink?” “Fuck you.” How is a white supremacist the chief adviser to our president? Did anybody look that up? I don’t know. How’s this interview going? Do you think you’re talking to a normal person here? Don’t I seem like I’m full of something?…

For probably the first half or so of your TV career, you stayed away from politics —
Because Carson was my model. I’ll tell you the other thing: All of that changed because of Jon Stewart.

Because what he did on The Daily Show influenced you?
I wouldn’t say that, but he made it so that not doing political stuff got to be the elephant in the room. And also it was having Monica Lewinsky and President Clinton. It was hard to ignore that. We’re always looking for the easiest path, the most obvious joke. Bill Clinton having sex with the intern, well, that’s not comedic heavy lifting. After that it became George W. Bush, and I thought he was funny in a harmless way. I mean, Dick Cheney was the guy to keep your eye on at a party, because he’d be going through your wife’s purse. But George W. was nothing but fun.

So the political jokes were about expedience?
We changed our attitude to make it easier on ourselves. And again, what defense do you have for ignoring these topics? None, really…

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