Is it February already?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Is it February already?
” Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator — and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale.”
When Bush was talking about human-animal hybrids … did he mean like this one ?
Seriously, WTF was he talking about? Jon Stewart made fun of it last night…. but didn’t explain.
Um, doesn’t Bush know that people get pigs’ valves, etc. placed into their bodies all the time in hospitals all over the U.S.? (Which, btw, I find deplorable, but it’s very common now …)
Lord knows Bush can’t write his own speeches. So that means a whole committee of dunces worked on that little gem.
Pathetic
Are you alleging that he doesn’t get as involved as, say, President Bartlett on “West Wing” or as Bill Clinton surely did?
Just seeing a picture of gwb makes me want to barf!
Only for two days already (snort).
I’m dying for daylight savings to come back so I can watch the coonies eating in the evening again … and, come summer, I’ll get to see more BABIES! Woohoo!
(They had terrible fights yesterday during the day — I could hear their high-pitched screaming even inside my kitchen. I wetn out and checked to make sure none were wounded bably. I think they’re fighting over the limited warm and dry spots in the huge fir tree in my backyard. I went to the foot of the huge tree, and talked to them soothingly, leaving bits of food for them in the huge gnarly roots of the magnificent tree. Checked on them three more times, and they’d quieted down.)
Things are almost set to go for Lisa, the stray female I feed every day. She will go to the wonderful veterinarian about five blocks from me. They’ll check her tummy to see if she’s been spayed or not — if not, they’ll spay her and abort any kittens.
The neighbors and I have been worried about kittens because she’s been schmoozing with a large long-haired orange male cat. He’s very wary, and he’ll be tough to catch.
Lisa rubs up against me all the time when I’m outside … she came with me to check out the coonie fight yesterday. But she never wants to come inside. She likes the outdoor life for some reason! So, after her surgery and check-up, I’ll release her outside here, and keep feeding her.
She has the same little problem that my other inside cat Althea has. If she’s petted too much — gets too stimulated — she’ll bite me to make me stop. So, I’m VERY careful about petting her, especially since when she bit me, it went deep and my hand was black and blue. Inside kitty Althea only nips hard…. and she feels INSTANTLY guilty when she does it. I YELL at her every time, and it’s become less and less frequent. I’ve read up on this condition — and it’s a real condition with some cats when they get over-stimulated. Thing is, they LOVE to be petted but it’s very hard to tell when they’re getting to the point of over-stimulation. Yesterday, Althea bit me when I was on the phone with BooMan, and I think that that’s because I wasn’t looking at her and wasn’t tuned in to her while I petted her. So, Lisa is best off outside — no one will likely adopt a cat that is a biter, sadly.
Must use spellcheck when not feeling well … must …
My in-laws at one time cared for two semi-feral cats (who have both now crossed the Rainbow Bridge 🙁 ). The only person who could get close enough to them to pet them or pick them up was my brother-in-law, who is bipolar with mild schizophrenia. Could it be that being semi-wild, they sensed a kindred spirit in him? I wonder…
I’m really good at it if I can bring the cat inside and take my time … it took months and months and months for Althea to come around … she wasn’t feral but she was extremely wary of people. And that’s because at the office bulding by Wal-mart, everyone hated her because they thought she stole another cat’s food that they liked better.
People would throw whole cans of sugary Coke at her, hit her, and it’d burst all over her … and they threw rocks at her .. and they never once fed her 🙁
When she got inside a car engine to get warm, and her tail got cut off, not a single person tried to catch her to take her to a vet.
The only reason I ever got her was because they were trying to catch the cat they like and accidentally caught Althea. They wanted nothing to do with her, so I drove over at night and picked her up…. kept her in a cage in my garage for over a month until she’d had her shots and they’d kicked in.
She took the confinement amazingly well. It was last winter, and it was bitterly cold in my garage, so I took out a freshly heated hot water bottle to her every couple hours day and night … and she’d curl up next to it.
It turns out she doesn’t handle cold well. Inside here, she curls up right by the electric wall heater when it’s on.
She must have been so miserably cold outside near Wal-mart 🙁 Breaks my heart.
Then all of her babies died except one. The other day, I had Animal Planet on, and they showed baby kittens mewing … and she heard the mewing, and went nuts, looking all over the TV set to find them.
If Darcy gets another batch of kittens to socialize, we think we’ll try bringing Althea over to her place to see if Althea will take care of them and mother them.
In bed at night, she loves to sit on my hip and I stroke her head, and we talk about all the pain and loneliness she’s felt in her life … and she looks so intently into my eyes … and I can feel her pain so intensely … and I hope it helps her to talk about it all … I get the feeling it does. (It seems unfair to simply assume that she’s glad for a warm home with steady food and affection, when she has such a sad past full of people who were cruel to her.)
Give her butter, and she will grow extra fur and become fat. Also, if you smoke, or know someone who does, crumple up an empty cigarette packet, with the plastic still on, and throw it on the floor where she can see it. Hours of fun! They love the smell, and the love the crinkling plastic, and they will bat it around the room, sniff it, and bat it around the room some more.
I don’t think I will comment on the people at the Wal-Mart.
I used to like to set a paper grocery bag on the floor and scratch the bottom of it with my fingernail. skritch skritch skriiiiiiitch The cat would stalk up to it, loooook inside the bag, and then POUNCE! at the back of the bag. I think she thought there was a mouse in there sharpening its teeth.
For extra bonus fun sometimes when she was in the bag I would pick it up by the handles and set it upright.
Great fun. Almost as fun as feeding peanut butter to a dog.
My Heather (she is now passed), always bit me when I was petting but not looking at her. I always thought she wanted my undivided attention.
There is nothing on earth I love more than breaking thur to a feral cat. I wish I could find a shelter like the one I use to volunteer at locally…
Denial never helps for long, Susan. Best to face reality now: Althea is a Bob Casey minion.
My sister’s cat used to bite me after I’d petted her for a while. I didn’t understand it, and had no idea this was a common thing.
There are a couple of cats in our neighborhood who make life interesting. They both have homes, so they’re not feral. The first, whose name I don’t know, has beautiful long black fur with touches of brown in it. This cat seems to think she lives in our house. If I’m not careful, for instance if I leave a window open during the summer, sometimes I’ll hear a “meow!” from inside the house, and I’ll find that this cat has gotten in. This is a problem, because I am very allergic to some cats. My wife’s sister’s cat used to make my eyes swell up to the size of coconuts, with a scratchy surface to match. I have no desire to find out if this cat affects me similarly, so I have to shoo her out. Sometimes bribing it with a piece of leftover chicken helps; other times I have to shoo it out with a broom.
The other is obviously well cared for; she belongs to an Oriental woman who lives across the street from our 86-year-old friend. When we go to visit she always comes over to say hi. I resist my inclination to reach down and pet her; I just say “Hi, Fat Kitty” as she rubs up against my leg.
I didn’t know she had any name other than the one I assigned her — Fat Kitty, because she is incredibly fat. She looks like something drawn by B. Kliban. Every time I see her she reminds me of a Danish story about a fat cat who gets that way by eating everyone who meets up with her and remarks “you are an incredibly fat (pause) cat. (pause)”
One day my grandaughter announced, “Her name is Ni-Chen” when I called her Fat Kitty. I assume she learned this by asking the owner.
“Really?” I said. “Do you know what Ni-Chen means?”
“No,” she said. “What?”
“It’s Korean for ‘Fat Kitty.'”
“Grandpa!!”
She doesn’t believe a word I tell her. It’s probably a good thing.
via thinkprogress. A message to President Carter. He’s needed in the House as they vote to elect a new GOP Leader.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/02/someone-call-the-carter-center
Ya think?
Upset win over Blount for Majority Leader of House.
Breaking on MSNBC.
From the U.N.’s news service:
I’m sure you all know about this since CNN/MSNBC/FOX have covered this story so well … but just in case …
Unfortunately. And I have a birthday coming up this month! DAMN!
but 4th quarter fund raising numbers are in at the FEC.
Fund raising numbers comparison in the now highly competitive New York 20 Congressional District race between Kirsten Gillibrand and incumbent Rep. John “Shut it down” Sweeney.
I just saw my first childhood crush on CNN as a cyberlaw analyst.
Detroit Free Press
Went to the local gas station yesterday AM to pick up my daily newspapers as always. A young guy(35-40) obviously blue collar, working clothes and a pick up at the pump is at the register. Asks me if I saw SOTU speech, which takes me back just a bit. I tell him I’m retired, have a heart condition, and chose not to watch for health related reasons. (blood pressure and all of that) Anyway, he launches into a tirade about GW. Where does he get these statistics about the economy? The economy is in a shambles. No jobs worth having are left, and so on. Just thought I would pass this along to you all. (In every cloud, the silver lining thing)
Been hearing a lot of that from people too–they are just venting to anyone!
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Debate in Dutch Parliament for expansion of NATO-ISAF troops deployment, one of the VVD MPs van Baalen in BBC interview: “The U.S. Forces are efficient in winning the war, Europe and Canada are better equipped to win the peace. Yes, you could describe it as mopping up the damage left by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.”
The result of the debate is a large majority to support Dutch troop deployment for the mission to Uruzgan province in Afghanistan.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
To keep America safe, there’s a certain congresscritter, Tom Tancredo who has proposed building a 15ft wall along the entire US-Canada border.
This I gotta see. And our cats will have a lot to say -since across our residential (17 ft wide street) is Canada. But guess Tancredo hasn’t looked at his map or visited north. He’ll need to move or buy up a lot of little towns – the international boundary winds (not in a straight line, through several houses (garage or bedroom in US-rest of house in Canada), farms, factories and theatres-not to mention the great waterways – Great Lakes and minor lakes.
Expected to cost billions.
Like Israel, we’ll wall ourselves in.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/1/195344/1903
the promo for next season’s Sopranos makes it look like it’s going to be worth the wait.