Open Thread – 12/22/2020

Posted by TomCat at 11:03 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 222020

It’s a tired hectic day here in the CatBox. Yesterday’s Safeway delivery was almost a disaster. When the driver arrived, he had just a couple bags in his arms. He said there had been a lot of cancelations. We brought them upstairs. He was in a hurry, but I insisted that we compare the cancellations with what he had. It was soon obvious that the vast majority of my order was not accounted for. We went back downstairs. He went out to check his truck and came back with the rest of my order that “had been hiding”. He needed a hand truck to carry it. We brought upstairs. It took me over an hour to put everything away. There were a few legitimate cancellations that were out of stock in the store. They included all my sweets. Nevertheless, it could have been far worse and would have been a disaster had I not been such a hard ass about it. Tomorrow please expect no more than a Personal Update. It’s a WWWendy day. I’ll be back in the saddle on Christmas Eve. Tuesday is Flush your Republicans Day. Take extra care. The closer it becomes to the end the harder they are trying to get away.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:06 (average 5:09). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Russian hackers attempting to disrupt the U.S. government were disappointed to discover that it had already been thoroughly disabled, the hackers have confirmed.

Expecting to find a well-oiled machine that they could impair, the hackers instead came upon a barely operational mess that had already suffered what appeared to be four years of degradation.

Dmitri X (not his real name), was assigned to hack the Environmental Protection Agency’s computer systems and was “shocked” by the agency’s weakened condition.

“My job was to access the E.P.A.’s database and delete all of the environmental regulations,” he said. “There was nothing there left to delete.”

That’s straight news, Andy! With Republicans working so hard, Russians need no help to destroy America! RESIST!!

From Crooks and Liars: Everyone wants to show the happy videos of people getting vaccine shots.

The Governors in the 12 states that haven’t passed mask mandates especially want to get in on this hopeful news. They will crow about how Their President got them the vaccine. Not said, but implied, is that their refusal to pass a state-wide mask mandate was justified before and is not necessary now.

Image from: CNN

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The experts say we will still need masks for months and we should NOT relax the mask protocols…

…Here are some ways to use the vaccination press conferences to pressure 12 Governors to pass mask mandates.

Method 1

Have the top medical experts tell the Governors behind the scenes, “You don’t get to be part of the vaccination press conference unless you pass a mask mandate.”

People in the public health medical community still want to believe that Governors will respond to facts and science. They won’t.

Withholding good PR at a press conference isn’t withholding their vaccine, just the reflected success of a vaccine.

But since most public health experts don’t want to be this direct, and the window for these first press conferences is closing, I suggest:

Method 2

PREPARE THE MEDIA for asking Governors why there is no mask mandate now and why they still won’t pass one.

This is especially important now that Trump botched the vaccine roll out!

First prep the experts to point out the EXCESS DEATHS that will happen because there is no MASK MANDATE. When the Governor still doesn’t respond with a mandate, post photos of DEAD NURSES to call out the GOVERNOR for NOT pushing a mandate before.

Click through for much more info. I fully support both methods. RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Maddow: U.S. Mired In ‘3-Way Split Screen’ Of Trump Crises

I agree with Rachel. The one thing that should have been included is that, Republicans wanted mass deaths, because such a high proportion of the deaths are Blacks. I also worry about Trump inciting violence., and agree that he is desperate to escape prosecution that must follow to prevent a Republican Recurrance. RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of Christmas): Beta Radio – Angels We Have Heard on High (Official Audio)

A beautiful arrangement of a classic carol! HUGS!!

28 Days (4 Weeks) Until the Big FLUSH!!

Personal Update – 12/21/2020

Posted by TomCat at 10:11 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 212020

It’s a hectic day here in the CatBox. I received a text from Safeway.com that my order is on the way with a link to track my order. I clicked the link and got a “tracking temporarily offline” message. Fingers crossed. For pizza this week, I tried Pizza Hut. Unlike Dominos, which was fine, it was not edible with my stent after a night in the fridge. So WWWendy picked me up sandwiches from Subway, and they are fine. Tomorrow, I should be back in the saddle, barring unforeseen circumstances. Oh God, it’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:26 (average 5:25). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Take:

From YouTube (a blast of Christmas): The First Noel

Beautiful harmony here. HUGS!!

29 Days Until the Big FLUSH!!

Personal Update – 12/21/2020

Posted by TomCat at 9:55 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 202020

It’s a busy day here in the CatBox. WWWendy came earlier than usual this morning. She’s going out of town with her boyfriend for the weekend. His name is also Tom, so I plan to suggest that he may have my room for the weekend, and I get the booty call! Please expect no more than a Personal Update tomorrow. I have a big grocery order coming from Safeway.com. In the past, their service around holidays has been crappy at best.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:09 (average 5:11). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Religious Agony:

1219Broncos19-Bills48

Useless stinking Orb! Seriously, If they had played the way they played against KC, they would have won, but they stunk.

Short Take:

From YouTube (a blast of Christmas): Silent Night

A lovely arrangement of an old favorite! HUGS!!

30 Days Until the Big FLUSH!!

Open Thread – 12/19/2020

Posted by TomCat at 12:09 pm Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 192020

It’s a tired day here in the CatBox, combined with a severe case of Republicitis. I’m late, because I just spent an hour on the throne. It’s a Holy Day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, and it will be tomorrow too. My Broncos are playing the Bills, and it will be televised here, because it’s a Saturday game, so I shall be meditating this afternoon. May the blessed Orb shine its holy light on your team, unless they dump Buffalo dung on the prairie. Tomorrow is a WWWendy Day, so please expect no more than a Personal Update.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:39 (average 5:12). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: Calling the prospect a “nightmare scenario,” Betsy DeVos warned that President-elect Joe Biden will pick an Education Secretary with a background in education.

The outgoing Education Secretary warned that putting someone with a “pro-education bias” in her job would be like “naming a fox to be Secretary of Hens.”

“For the past four years, I have worked tirelessly to keep our schools free from education,” she said. “It deeply saddens me to think that all of my hard work will go to waste.”

Even more alarming, she said, Biden may name a “knowledgeable person” to replace her, a decision she called “disastrous.”

“In order to be impartial toward education, an Education Secretary must be as ignorant as possible,” she said. “I don’t mean to boast, but I am going to be a tough act to follow in that respect.”

Dang Andy! Is it true that Betsy Blackwater took this to Trump* with the recommendation that he appoint Colonel Sanders as his Secretary of Hens! RESIST!!

From Daily Kos: On Thursday, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel of outside experts voted to approve providing an emergency use authorization (EUA) for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. The agency is expected to complete the creation of the EUA on Friday, which would free up shipments of the vaccine to get on their way across the country this weekend. But they may have to get in line, because the first vaccine that was approved is already failing to reach states in the quantities expected.

Despite months of listening to Donald Trump brag about the incredible military operation he had put together to distribute a vaccine that did not then exist, states are suddenly discovering that the shipments they were expecting have been drastically reduced without explanation. Meanwhile Pfizer seems just as confused—it says there are millions of doses sitting in its warehouse ready to go, but Trump’s team is allowing them to gather dust.

As Bloomberg reports, some states were informed on Wednesday that their supply of Pfizer’s vaccine would be cut drastically. For Oregon, that means a 40% drop in the 74,000 doses they had been expecting. Gov. Kate Brown tweeted that this was a federal decision made through “Operation Warp Speed.” Oregon is not alone. As The Washington Post reports, officials in multiple states were alerted that their shipments of the mRNA vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech would be “drastically cut” for next week.

Notices that they would not be getting what they were earlier told was on the way went out to at least six states. That list includes Illinois, Washington, and Maine, in addition to Oregon. Meanwhile, Florida officials seem to have lost their shipments of vaccine altogether, saying they disappeared from the online shipping system.

I trust that nobody is surprised that Oregon leads the shortage list, since the Republican Reich was unsuccessful attacking us with their Gestapo. I heard nurses in the hospital angrily speculating among themselves that it was intentional sabotage. As for Florida’s shipments, you will find the vaccine at Mar-A-Lago clinic. It may be obtained for $500,000 – $1,000,000 Bankster Bucks per dose. RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of Christmas): Low – Some Hearts (at Christmas Time)

I have never heard this tune before, but I consider it particularly appropriate, since this Christmas is such a lonely time for those who have lost loved ones and those separated from loved ones due to Trump* virus. May God grant them peace and relief, and may those of us who can comfort them do so. HUGS!!

31 Days Until the Big FLUSH!!

Personal Update – 12/17/2020

Posted by TomCat at 7:50 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 172020

It’s Horrible Hospital Day here in the CatBox. Don’t be surprised if the next you hear from me is a “back to bed” Personal Update in the morning. Hospital Horror Hugs!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:18 (average 5:48). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Take:

From YouTube (a blast of Christmas): The Most Popular Christmas Songs Ever!!! Best Traditional Christmas Music Playlist 2020

If you spend an hour listening to this, you will enjoy it more than I will enjoy my morning. HUGS!!

33 Days Until the Big FLUSH!!

Open Thread – 12/16/2020

Posted by TomCat at 11:06 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 162020

It’s a tired day here in the CatBox, and I’m hurrying to get back to bed. Tomorrow is gruesome hospital day. Please expect no more than a very brief Personal Update. Because of the notary appointment afterwards, I will probably not have the time or strength for a back and OK message, but if anything is wrong, I’ll text Nameless to let you know. Happy Hump Day!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:11 (average 5:08). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s campaign claims she had no idea she was posing for a photo with a former Ku Klux Klan leader who was once convicted of a violent assault on a Black man. Loeffler was photographed beaming alongside Chester Doles at a Friday campaign event.

“Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for,” a campaign spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But Loeffler was at a September event for QAnon candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene that Doles attended—and was kicked out of. You’d think that someone being a no-go for Greene would stick in the mind. After that event, a Loeffler campaign spokesperson said Loeffler didn’t know who Doles was. But again, that was her opportunity to learn. Apparently she didn’t bother.

We need all hands on deck to win the Georgia Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, and you can volunteer from wherever you are. Click here to see the Georgia volunteer activities that work best for you.

1216LoefflerKKKDoles

Perhaps the reason she doesn’t recognize him in plain clothes is that, when they are together, both are almost always dressed in their sheets and hoods. RESIST!!

From Crooks and Liars: The U.S. government pays disability benefits to people with a serious condition that leaves them unable to work full time. But the Trump administration has been trying to cut the number of people on the program for a while, and now Trump is planning to redefine full-time work as 30 hours per week for purposes of determining whether someone is disabled. Many people would lose their meager benefits as a result. Via Huffington Post:

This is not Trump’s* sole doing. Stealing money from the needy to provide more welfare to greedy billionaires is what Trump has to do to keep a few Republican elected officials actively supporting his election theft and sheeple-fleecing operations. RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of Christmas): The First Noël

Beautiful! Ah… the memories. HUGS!!

34 Days Until the Big FLUSH!!

Personal Update – 12/15/2020

Posted by TomCat at 7:16 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 152020

It’s an exhausted day here in the CatBox, with good news and bad news. The good news: Bye Bye Barrf!! The bad news: a midnight kitchen fire in the building ruined my night’s sleep. I need to go back to bed. Tuesday is Flush your Republicans Day. Be extra careful with the lid today. It might be Barrf!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:08 (average 5:05). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Take:

From YouTube (a blast for Christmas): Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (1959 Version)

Of course around here, it’s SantaCat! HUGS!!

35 days (5 Weeks) Until the Big FLUSH!!

Open Thread – 12/14/2020

Posted by TomCat at 11:33 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 142020

It’s a Republicitis day here in the CatBox. I just spent 45 minutes on the throne and cast an unbelievable number of electoral votes, among other things. Speaking of Republican feces, we just passed 300,000 Americans murdered by Donald Trump* and the Republican Reich with their plague. WWWendy is coming tonight. I want to get as much rest as I can this week, because Thursday is a Hospital/Infusion day, followed by a will notary appointment, followed by a WWWendy day all on the same day. Expect exhaustion. Oh God, it’s Monday!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:31 (average 4:48). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Cartoon:

Religious Ecstasy:

1213Broncos32-Panthers27

And a glorious, wonderful Orb it is!

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: One of the great strangenesses and perversions in the QAnon conspiracy theory is that part of what Donald Trump—a man who was good friends with convicted child molester Jeffrey Epstein—is doing in his fight against the “deep state,” is to clean up a vast child-sex human trafficking cabal. The idea that there are powerful people engaged in illegal human sex trafficking that involves underage children is very believable. In fact, Donald Trump seems to have intimately known some of those people, and even hired the former Florida Attorney General Alexander Acosta—one of the main guys who cut a deal to let one of those human traffickers off with a hand slap.

Anywhos, QAnon theorists have evolved the Hillary Clinton and Pizzagate and whatever else anti-Semitic globalist bullshit theory that makes them feel like they know what’s going on. It’s like chemtrail conspiracy theory with a touch of sex and child abuse because QAnon is even more of a religious cult than Pizzagate was. And religious cults usually help define themselves by saying other groups of people do terrible things to children. And guess what? Republican QAnon conspiracy theorist and failed Louisiana candidate Ben Gibson was just pulled into custody on Wednesday and charged for … yup: four counts of possession of child pornography “involving juveniles under the age of thirteen.”

I’m not surprised. Republicans are not original enough to invent new crimes and perversions for their conspiracy theories, so they fall back on their own behavior for reference material and accuse Democrats of doing it. We call this projection. RESIST!!

From NY Times: In Michigan, Democratic electors have been promised police escorts from their cars into the State Capitol, where on Monday they will formally vote for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

In Arizona, state officials are holding the vote at an undisclosed location for safety reasons, far from what is expected to be a heated hearing on election integrity issues that Republicans will conduct in the Statehouse.

Even in Delaware, the tiny, deeply Democratic home state of the president-elect, officials relocated their ceremony to a college gymnasium, a site considered to have better security and public health controls.

For decades, Electoral College voters have served as the rubber-stamping bureaucrats of American democracy, operating well below the political radar as they provided pro forma certification of a new president. Despite its procedural nature, the role has long been considered an honor, bestowed as a way to recognize political stature or civic service.

This year, the Electoral College is another piece of routine election mechanics thrown into the cross hairs of President Trump’s sustained assault on voting integrity. After five weeks of lawsuits, recounts and Republican inquiries into unfounded claims of fraud, Americans will turn to the 538 members of the Electoral College to provide a measure of finality to Mr. Biden’s decisive victory.

And as small-town electors face harassment and more prominent figures adapt to increased security measures, a duty long considered a privilege has also become a headache.

I find it shameful that these people have to perform their civic duty under the threat of death and violence from the Republican Reich! As of now 168 Biden votes have been cast. RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of Christmas): Frank Sinatra *☆* Adeste Fideles * (O’ Come All Ye Faithful)

Believe it or not, I first learned to sing this carol in Latin, as an assignment for sixth grade Latin class. Ah… the memories! HUGS!!

36 Days Until the Big FLUSH!!

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