Even as the US ponders getting involved in yet one more stupid war, and even as the rest of the human-occupied world waits in breathless anticipation, ‘out there’ amongst the unpretentious, the beat goes on as critters of all sorts do their level best to avoid the nonsensical. Here are a few randomly-selected “portraits” gathered over the years, photos of critters who really don’t give a damn about human stupidity, who simply ignore it and look the other way when encountered by it.
First, a Colorado Frog:
A happy fly:
Horses on a snowy day:
Rocky Mountain Chipmunk:
Siberian Husky named Balta:
Shivering bird in an October snowstorm:
And last but not least, one of Oahu’s finest beach dogs romping in the surf at Sunset Beach:
There. Hoping everyone here has, for at least the last couple of moments, managed to think about something other than war and idiots!
Reminds me: yesterday I spent some time wandering around and enjoying the massive wild sunflower population that’s ‘out there’ covering the prairie this year. It’s absolutely AMAZING! Within a two mile radius of my abode, I counted 1,117,321,489 individual flowers before I wore myself out and had to quit for the day leaving at least another billion or two uncounted! And here’s the thing: the six or seven pickup trucks that I also counted each did more to interrupt nature’s soliloquy than did those billions of sunflowers! How can that be, I wonder?
Not sure what it is, but there’s definitely something about humans that tends to bother me a LOT!
OPEN THREAD
TheZoo 
There’s a dog in that picture?
vinyl, you have to scroll down a bit more. but I must admit, I thought it a bit tacky to call the woman in the swimsuit one of the finest beach dogs….’till I scrolled down.
It is, however, a sunny beach.
😆
The dog’s name was Jesus Christ. I know, because there were a couple of mainlander dudes standing there on the beach not far from me, and I overheard one of them say, “Check out the chick with the dog Jesus Christ.” Or something close to that. 😀
Reminds me of the old Bill Cosby skit where his dad says to him “goddammit” and he says no dad “I’m Jesus Christ”.
The dog’s the one not wearing a watch.
On a different note, I just got a message from WordPress that we registered this Critter Spot 6 years ago. wow. It’s been that long, & gone by that fast.
Cheers, fellow Critters!
A tip of the hat to you all.
thanks. sigh..if only Colbert could do the same….
If The Zoo is six years old, then I’ve been here five years. 😀
Been here 6 years and I just turned 60. Time is going way too fast.
I know you’ll appreciate this house. I bought three tickets to see Alabama at Ravinia here for my husbands birthday present. The concert is tonight, it’s 100 degrees outside, and he’s not going with because he’s going fishing for the week in Canada leaving at 2 am. $90 each and I am a moron.
I thought they retired. Is there a way you can scalp the tickets?
They unretired apparently. Going with Taylor and my husband’s sister. I should have sold them.
Happy Birthday Zoo! As any self respecting 6 year old would say “I WANT CAKE”.
On yet another note, it’s the 50th anniversary of the cassette! Some great facts about cassettes. Things that surprised me: They are making a retro comeback. The Walkman was made until 2010. A Lexus was the last auto to have a cassette deck – in 2010!
Did you say you want Cake?
hmmm Cake. Thanks vinylspear.
Until 5 years ago today, we had never heard of Tundra Barbie, Sarah Grifter, Wasilla Whacko.
Thanks a lot, Steve Schmidt.
I hold Steve Schmidt personally responsible for introducing that dimwit into my life.
Remember when Glenn Greenwald’s partner was held for nine hours and it was an outrage? According to court documents, it turns out he was carrying 58,000 pages of classified UK documents, including a list of British spies worldwide.
http://joshuafoust.com/extraordinary-court-statement/
He was also carrying a scrap of paper with the decryption password written on it.
Oh you people. He’s just misunderstood.
Labor Day weather forecast.
Repost but, funny.
Sensible girl.
This is an amazing picture, a nation on fire.
http://www.b.weather.com/news/science/environment/north-american-wildfire-map-20130829
Looks like to me that the ‘bible belt’ is a lot more like hell than the rest of the country.
They can pray the fire away.
It’s not working, then.
Well, God did say he wouldn’t use water again.
Too funny.
Happy Zoo Anniversary, Critters & Zoosters!!
Six years already? Wow!
And thank you, Zooey and all the rest of the Critters, for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful community.
And I won’t post anything about weird spiders tomorrow. 🙂
Don’t post anything about common spiders either, Wayne! (Just covering that possibility) 😀
You got me! Oh, well, Time for Plan B. 🙂
(I’m just kidding. I wasn’t going to post anything about spiders. But I do like the idea of trying to stick to Science, somehow.)
How about a post on, say scorpions? Or snakes? They’re each and all at least as fascinating as spiders, and some are even more venomous! Took a class at ASU a few decades back on poisonous animals of the Southwest and I still have all my notes . . . might be useful!
And how many years were we all at Think Progress before we gave up and started here? Crap we’re old.
Six years ago I was on the verge of Medicare eligibility. So far so good, haven’t used it for much of anything but an ongoing Rx; hope that trend continues and continues and continues.
The one thing I can’t figure is why Medicare won’t pay for my walking shoes and/or my bicycle. In this day and age, they could set me up each year with brand new stuff and it’d cost ’em less than one Dr. visit plus all the bullshit blood work. Even if they’d just pay for maintenance, y’ know? For the bike, not for me! Think of all the money they could save.
Of course the GOoPers would revolt, but oh well.
Anyway, I don’t remember when I first Zoo’d, but it was at least three years ago, back when I was still a kid. If I ever grow up, hoping someone here might mention it . . . and come up with a remedy!
I wouldn’t mind a Medicare-provided gym membership. I’d even be willing to prove I was using it regularly by signing in each time I went there. I can’t take the humidity here for too much of the year to exercise outdoors, but I’d like to be able to work out in cool, dry conditions indoors. An indoor pool would be nice too.
Of course, I’ve got eight years before Medicare is even an option, thanks to Joe Lieberman.
Gregory Djerejian’s denunciation of the Obama administration deserves to be read in full. It begins:
“Several days ago I wrote I was extremely conflicted on the question of punitive action in Syria, but no longer. I am now staunchly opposed having better detected an utter lack of true seriousness by the Obama Administration. The myriad leaks around what type of mission, the palpable trigger-happiness among some, the British debacle (they won’t even have their poodle this time, the cat-calls will ring!) and the ‘shot across the bow’ nonsense showcases an Administration unready for an invigorated course correction of its flailing Syria policy. Frankly, I am astonished by the lack of seriousness and mediocrity on display.”
http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/2013/08/make_it_stop.html
What is Fox News going to do, after criticizing Obama incessantly for his inaction, if Congress votes, as the UK Parliament did, to not attack Syria?
John Kerry’s supposed to give a statement shortly about Syria. All the news services are showing a shot of an empty podium waiting for him.
I wonder how many pets are killed or injured each year because their jackass owners, while driving a vehicle, have them sit in their laps to be used as an added airbag.
Speaking of eejits, a local man is suing New Seasons grocery because he bought a lily for his wife, took it home and let his cat gnaw on it. Much money later, the cat pulled through after kitty dialysis but it’s the fault of NS because the warning on it said it was toxic to humans but did not mention cats. It may not be a coincidence that this guy is a personal injury lawyer.
Slime ball.
Poor little kitty, having such a stupid owner.
Please. People have their babies and young children sitting on their laps. You think they’re smart enough to worry about their pets?
I haven’t been around the Zoo lately, so if this is redundant I apologize.
Ordinarily I would have nothing to say about Miley Cyrus because Who Cares? Even the inclusion of that mountebank Robin Thicke didn’t pique my interest, but I was struck by the anger expressed by a number of tweeting/blogging Black women. I was trying to pay attention and get some understanding about why they were pissed, and then I ran across this blog entry and the penny dropped (more or less).
I encourage you to read this but at least look at the two imbedded videos. What I learned from the first is that Miley Cyrus is completely devoid of talent and her big song is pretty much the epitome of the death of pop music. The girl can’t sing, can’t dance and is pretty creepy as well. What I learned from the second video is that twerking, properly done, is remarkably athletic. Also, someone like Cyrus with absolutely no arse is the very last person on the planet to pretend to do it.
But the blog author is really good and I learned some things I did not know from her. And that’s very good.
That’s it, exactly.
Maybe her (and Robin Thicke’s) sense of entitlement got in the way of developing a fun and sexy performance, and resulted in a barely-rehearsed, embarrassing, and repugnant display.
Who is Miley Cyrus?
Who’s Robin Thicke?
Some one who took the spotlight off of Lindsey Lohan and the other one is a guy who does a rotten impersonation of Beetlejuice.
Miley Cyrus following in her fathers footsteps with another “achy breaky big mistakey”
“Beetlejuice”?? Who or what is that?
http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/beetlejuice-the-movie/images/30941852/title/beetlejuice-photo
Oh. Ick.
Happy Birthday Zoo!
I’m glad this place is here.
In honor of the anniversary I am giving away a digital subscription to the Washington Post that I got for free. Have whoever among you (Zooey?) who knows our e-mail addresses send me yours and I’ll sign you up.
Now I’d better get my lazy liberal self back to work.
Now Obama’s getting ready to speak. Reckon he’ll call Congress back from vacation?
Obama was on tape from the press pool wherever he’s off to today. Not live.
MSNBC just showed a clip of Inhofe saying ‘we don’t have the resources to get involved in another event, over there’. I think a vote could go against intervention.
A “no” vote is certainly likely, but what then? Does Obama bow to the will of Congress (and, presumably, the American people) or “hey, guys, thanks for your suggestion but I am the president so neener”?
Alan Grayson is on now, and he’s against intervention.
Kerry’s speech sure sounded like the official administration position is to do ‘something’. I don’t know whether Obama would go against Congress since Cameron isn’t likely to go along.
If Congress had ever read the Constitution, they’d know they can declare war. I know, there’s been legislation that gives even the POTUS some authority (enough to explain why there hasn’t been a declared war since WWII in 1941 . . . iow Korea, Nam, Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Iraq-I, Afghanistan, Iraq-II (I’m sure I missed a few) were never ‘declared’ wars, even though in each case the MIC made a lot of money anyway (and several million innocents died) . . . which is what war’s always about, right?
War sucks. It’s stupid. If Obama has a hair on his ass he’ll demand Congress do the “responsible” thing and demand that THEY declare war on Syria, along with whomever else their MIC mentors would like to profit from. Maybe on the world, on that subversive United Nations outfit that’s trying to take over America by . . . what was it they did? Bicycles in Denver?
BOMB the bastards! And if New York has to go, hey, what the hell. There’s money in it, right? 😯
As I mentioned another day, I think the “outrage” to chemical weapons being used is it can shorten the war, doesn’t destroy enough buildings (that need to be rebuild), doesn’t go through a bunch of disposable munitions (that cost millions), doesn’t destroy as many machines of war (which cost billions), so the MIC doesn’t get to make as much money off of war if someone does something drastic like use a chemical weapon.
As long as we’re bombing those responsible for chemical weapons attacks, can we also bomb the headquarters of Exxon-Mobil, on behalf of the people of Mayflower, Arkansas? They were the victims of a chemical attack when the pipeline leaked all that oil into their neighborhood.
I’d think bombing Wall Street would wind up being a money-saver for ordinary people everywhere, but yes, I know, I have a prejudice or two in re assholes and their bogus ’empires.’
I agree that the President should do something about Syria. Nothing comes immediately to mind.
Drop a bomb on Assad’s house & be done with it.
Ask Donny the Rummy about the *simplicity of war*…
Ask ‘war’ about the simplicity of Donny the Rummy, and the answer would probably be about the same.
This is the fourth or fifth tweet I’ve done on this subject, addressed to Obama. I’m sure whoever reads his twitter feed has seen them
Happy Anniversary!
I agree. See above. 😀
Several times this week Ed Schultz has run a ‘Best of Ed’ in the third hour. He’s running one again today. I’m not sure how much longer he can keep doing a three hour radio show and an afternoon TV show.
Tea Party Cat says:
State Department issued statement saying “John Kerry mistakenly read an old Cheney speech today. Secretary Kerry regrets the error.”
That should NOT enter into the
decision already made*discussion*.We do not learn from history otherwise we’d not be, still, discussing a damn war…
Wow. Two really big canyons that each are 6000 years old. Far out. The Hand of God: Amazing!
Vote Republican! Etc.
That Klingenschmitt asshole is on The Ed Show, speaking against Obamacare, because it’s not biblical. Or some such shit.
John Fugelsang is there to balance him out.
Insisting Obamacare forces christians to pay for abortions and contraception, and spouting off all the ignorant teabagger lies.
Isn’t there a rule in the bible about lying?
Apparently it says it’s ok . . . if it supports whatever biblical bullshit might be under question at any given moment.
Some christians want to pay for those things. We’re not all catholics. I believe a woman’s decision should be made in consultation with her conscience, her partner, her doctor, and her god.
I wish all christians were like you, Outstanding. You’re the best christian I know. 🙂
John was shooting doves off a power line. That guy never addressed one question he was asked. Having RWNJs on Progressive shows is a waste of time, even for Thom Hartmann.
I just found out today, that Thom is writing a column for Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller.
I think Thom has become a Starfleet officer. He’s always going where no ‘man’ has gone before.
Who knew that Ted’s wife wasn’t the sharpest tack in the box!
She-man…Shemale… what was that name again?
It’s been a long day. I am unwilling to even contemplate that there is someone willing to share a bed with Ted.
No Rachel tonight, just a repeat of Tweety. Sigh.
This means TRMS repeat early Sat. morning will suck too.
Yeah. I don’t have enough money to go anywhere else either. 😀
/At the Huggies diaper testing facility/
Is that cartoonist really Gary Larson, hiding under a new identity? Because his style and sense of humor are just like the old “The Far Side” cartoons.
You’re close Wayne.
oops! Placed in the wrong spot, apologies!