The Watering Hole, Monday, February 10th, 2014: Baby Love

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I thought I should start the week on an “awwwww” note:
giraffe and babyHippopotamus_with_babylionlickscubmountain-lionspolar bear mom and cubtiger mom cuddling cubzebrababytiger-mom and baby
(All photos from bing.)

There…everybody mellow?

This is our daily open thread–talk about whatever you want!

54 thoughts on “The Watering Hole, Monday, February 10th, 2014: Baby Love”

  2. Why do “scientific” teevee shows use the Empire State building as a reference for height?
    That’s like saying “larger than a bread basket”
    I don’t know what the hell a bread basket is or how tall is the Empire State building.
    Why not use leagues? That would really throw people off.
    Use a standard form of measurement.
    Ugh!

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      • Excellent article.

        Politicians who refuse to increase the taxes of millionaires have eagerly lined up in Congress in support of increasing the price of gasoline for working people to benefit a handful of billionaires. Every Senator that supported Hoeven’s bill to mandate approval of Keystone also voted against debating a proposal by Sen. Bob Casey (D.-Penn.) to increase the tax on the income of millionaires.

        Secure Energy or Dirty Oil?

        Proponents of the Keystone pipeline argue, as did the Financial Times on Nov. 6, 2011, that the oil is “a reliable source of supply from a friendly country.” Opponents say it is the dirtiest oil on earth, one whose use would increase global warming at the exact time humanity should be slowing it. Pipeline supporters say the decision is about jobs and energy security. Opponents say the issue is the unnecessary acceleration of global warming and devastation of local ecosystems

        I admit that I remain of mixed mind on things. On the one hand, it’s not quite yet too late for the human species to turn things around, to work diligently on all programs appropriate to preservation, to survival of ALL species for the betterment of the planet’s biosphere, and all the implications embedded therein. On the other hand, we appear to be so totally and completely fucked up by greed, lust, religion, stupidity, and . . . did I say Greed? that a human-caused mass extinction would probably work for the betterment of life’s recovery in, say, fifty million years, give or take a couple.

        Hard to know if it’s even worth the effort to hope for anything good, given all the idiots with loud voices, low IQ’s,and big bank accounts that one would have to somehow overcome.

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        • The arguments the proponents make are bullshit. All oil is sold on the world market, so it’s nonsense to talk about oil from a “friendly country.” It’s not like this oil is going to be refined and sold only to the US, so the idea that this will somehow add to “security” is also nonsense. As for the jobs, the ones building the pipeline are temporary and once completed there would only be a few dozen permanent jobs.

          The opponents’ argument, OTOH, are 100% valid. The pipeline is not needed and will only make a bad situation worse.

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          • The Koch Suckers (et al.) are very accomplished at properly wording bullshit arguments in order to make them saleable to the wingnut masses. Probably serves to explain why virtually ALL bullshit arguments these days are “properly worded to make them saleable to the wingnut masses.” But that sure seems to be the case.

            My conclusion is a simple one: Unregulated capitalism sucks, and is one of the most destructive forces available to today’s wannabe tyrants. It needs to be either abolished, or ‘socialized’ to make it work for more than the world’s one percent.

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          • That’s bang on Wayne – once it is out of the ground, it doesn’t belong to ‘you’ anymore, it belongs to the ‘market’, to ‘them’. The term ‘energy independence’ is at best a joke and at worst a bromide sold to the rubes – Obama’s SOTU pandering to this was just one more reason to note that he is about to sell out to the Kochsuckers.

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          • the pipeline is for ONE thing only…..creating the KOCHsuckers even more wealth by piping to gulf refineries, they can access Pacific and Atlantic markets.

            has anyone ever bothered to ask why the pipeline wasn’t ran from British Columbia to the eastern seaboard of Quebec and the Gulf of St Lawrence ? could it be the Canadians don’t want the volatile pipeline running across THEIR pristine countryside and contaminating their water supplies, air quality, and threatening the health and welfare of their citizens?

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    • Well, hey, just remember the notions of Rene Decartes who once provided huge solace to Christers everywhere (Catholics then, of course, more today) when he “articulated the belief that not only were animals put on earth for man’s use but they were distinctly lowborn; they were without souls and therefore man incurred no mortal guilt in killing them.”

      What could possibly be wrong with such a glorious premise???

      *barf*

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      • This is a Facebook rant from a dear friend of mine who is a vet:
        “Shame on Copenhagen Zoo – barbaric and cruel. I will not EVER step my foot in that place and it breaks my heart that they chose to slaughter a 18 month old “surplus” giraffe and feed his body to lions in front of children. So many petitions and offers were made to save this baby and yet these monsters decided to do their version of genetic cleansing and population control. Shameful.”

        I TOTALLY AGREE.

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    • From the link

      Correction: Right Wing News apologized Monday for misquoting Walker during its January interview. Walker said “a vote for” as opposed to “voted for” Reagan.

      “I remember, I was a teenager, had just become a teenager and voted for Ronald Reagan — limited government, you know, smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense,” he said. “You knew what you were getting. You knew how a Reagan administration, a Reagan presidency was going to be better for you.”

      —–

      Okay, so the line was supposed to be, “I remember, I was a teenager, had just become a teenager and a vote for Ronald Reagan — limited government, you know, smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense”

      How does that make it any better when he was still too young to be “a vote for Ronald Reagan” in either 1980 or 1984? What exactly was he trying to say?

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      • Well, y’know, what with his almost black, maybe really dark brown hair and all, it’s possible Walker just MIGHT have really been a Mexican, and, when he was younger, allowed to vote. Happens all the time, y’know.

        I forget who it was told me it happens all the time, but hey, illegals, right??

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  10. Times have changed?

    As recently as mid-January, CBS Sports projected that Michael Sam, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year from Missouri who came out as gay last night, was a second or third round pick most likely to go 72nd overall in April’s NFL draft.

    What? Missouri’s in the SEC? Always thought they were in the Big 8??

    Sum Ting Wong?

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    • nothing wrong, they bailed from the Big12 (formerly the Big 8 and remaining SWAC schools). i think this was their first year in the SEC.

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    • Missouri and Texas A&M were added to the SEC starting with the 2012 football season. The SEC has 14 teams now, with 7 in each division.

      When the expansion was announced, the speculation was that Auburn would move to the East division, as the easternmost team in the West division. Had that happened, the week after Auburn’s win over Alabama last year, the teams would have played again in the SEC Championship game. Missouri was placed in the East to keep that from ever happening.

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  11. Rancid Penis said Monday on MSNBC that the Monica Lewinsky scandal is fair game when it comes to evaluating Hillary Clinton’s potential presidential bid.

    Wait, did Hillary blow Monica?

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    • Guilt by association (only if you’re a Dem).

      If you’re a Repugnant, wear diapers and associate with hookers…it’s ‘all in the past’ and shouldn’t be considered.
      Or a Repugnant who has extramarital affairs while your spouse is in hospital recovering from cancer surgery (and you vote to have a president censured for having an extramarital affair…)
      otherwise….fair game

      (spit and double spit)

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    • Rand Paul is only one of MANY reasons why I am not, really, vehemently opposed to the prospect of Human-induced global mass extinction.

      What’s it called . . . that thingee where someone mainly feels sorry for only all the OTHER (non-human) species extinctions that will follow our own total and complete failure? Is there a word for that? If there ever was such a word, it appears to likely have been extincted. Somehow.

      I have one more curiosity: 50-100 Million earth years from today . . . and assuming the repeat? evolution of an intelligent? species, will there still be (or again) in that presumed reincarnation . . . ‘religionistas’?? Or Republicans?

      If such should be/has been predetermined, . . . well, then, fuck it.

      Count me out. 😯

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      • 100 million years from now, they’ll dig up OUR fossils and say God put this evidence of an advanced species that caused its own extinction to test their faith in God, and they’ll go on their merry business believing in God & destroying the environment….

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        • You’re probably right, but still there could be hope. Many years ago, a bunch of us weirdos decided that the most likely source of humans on this planet was that the earth was, once and a long time ago, an inter-galactic colony for the criminally insane. (see Bush, Koch, e.g.)

          I’m certain said thesis was accurate and therefore I have hope that maybe next time, after our self-imposed and definably idiotic extinction, the cockroaches that persist ‘neath the mire will, over the next hundred million years, evolve and become INTELLIGENT life. Finally. A species with the ability to REPEL! the intergalactic invaders!

          Or, whatever.

          No more Republicans. Y’know?

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  12. Talk about the ridiculous to the sublime…

    Today I worked on Robocop (2014) and tomorrow on episodes of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

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  14. Fox Freaks Out Over CVS Ending Sales Of Tobacco

    Fox Host: “Is It OK Legally … To Restrict Tobacco Availability In A Private Store Like This?”

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/05/fox-freaks-out-over-cvs-ending-sales-of-tobacco/197947

    Which is it? That they seriously believe their viewers are stupid enough to think this is a legitimate question to ask? Or that they, themselves, at Fox News Channel, are incredibly stupid.

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    • One of their mottos: Must stir up s**t at all costs.
      Fox and viewers are faraway from reality. It isn’t the government but the ‘corporation as citizen’ makings its own decision to stop selling! FauxNews truly can’t put the blame on ‘free enterprise’ or whatever they call it, so it must be big government….

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