Also dog owners: “We got a probably-pure-bred tricolor border collie for $200.” (Not counting the two shelter pups that cost us about $85 each, plus major pieces of our hearts.)
Puppies or kittens through rescues. And it is illegal to sell animals in pet stores (reptiles, fish, and birds, can be sold, but not dogs or cats).
$100 rehoming fee, and our hearts, for the purebred 2 1/2 year old English Toy Spaniel. Through our veterinarian, she was a surrender from the breeder when she lost her first litter; she never could have any puppies if she survived. I guarantee the clinic put a lot more than $100 into her in supplies and time to save her.
$600 for our current Pom/Chi as a puppy through a rescue. (Original litter, before surrender to the rescue of mom and pups, might have been a designer litter, or just a mistake; who knows.) OTOH, that did cover all first-year vaccinations and spaying through the local low-cost clinic. About $200, if we paid it ourselves. Not that we’d get a discount. They do use the “puppy” funds to supplement costs for older dogs and less healthy animals who come in. Not “supposed” to make a profit. But I’ve never personally audited one, or seen a public audit report (if there is one).
There seem to be numerous rescues. Locally, most of the rescue animals come from California, and from Mexico (the border closure due to the current crisis may have dried the Mexico connection up, just like the *dumping*, er shipping of horses south).
Well, since every commercial source has been labeled a “puppy mill”, that’s all that’s left. I think the pendulum may have swung too far.
All three of our dogs were rescues, but the first two came by a personal friend who also worked with the rescue. Minimum hassle.
Our latest one, Sugar, came from a rescue local to Plano who we hadn’t dealt with. Holy Jesus. We expected to have to pay $200. We allowed the initial home inspection, and provided our vet reference, who had been our vet since 2006.
Then they handed us the “adoption agreement”, which must have been drawn up by Amazon or Meta, because it basically allowed us to foster the dog as long as they could do random unannounced inspections, and confiscate the dog immediately if they didn’t like what they saw. No definitions, no recourse, and no appeal. I asked them if they were a rescue interested in placing dogs who are supposedly desperate for “forever homes”, or a dog laundering organization seeing how many “adoption fees” they could collect. That section was crossed out posthaste.
F-Falls shelter was (still is?) looser. We had two Italian Greyhounds from my aunt & uncle (they were successful breeders of showdogs) and the vet who treated them vouched for us. Both times, a phone call did it. $85 at the time (2005 and ’07).
Both dogs passed during Covidiocy. We stayed with one dog until she passed, then tried the shelter. Thanks to Despicable Kate Brown and her minions, the shelter was totally screwed up, and puppies were unavailable. OTOH, the notice board at the farm store had pictures, and I saw 5 pups for sale. Called home, and we went down, found one who wanted to cuddle (the other girl wanted to WORK), and we bought. (I told one of the workers at our mail drop, and her husband got the worker. Great fit for both parties.)
“allowed us to foster the dog as long as they could do random unannounced inspections, and confiscate the dog immediately if they didn’t like what they saw“
–
When I first heard of that clause, with some of the practices alleged, I was appalled.
No paperwork with the veterinarian adoption. But then we’d been with the clinic for 24 years, two dogs (if you count the in-laws husky we only had home a few days before we had to put him down), and I don’t know how many cats by then.
Our current dog, adopted as a puppy, I read the rescue’s paperwork thoroughly. Foster to adopt, for two weeks (allowing us an out … like that was happening). Agree to *spay (she was only 8 weeks old) around 6 months, follow vaccine schedules. If we ever need to surrender, she goes back to the rescue (even now; note, they do not get a ***vote on “quality of life” when that comes. That is between the three of us and our veterinarian). I suspect now, 9+ years later, at our ages, they’d want proof of estate planning if we are to adopt from them **again.
(*) Too many rescues will not release an animal not spayed or neutered. Thus, doing the procedure on too young and too small animals. I understand the reasoning. I do not like it, but I understand. Also prefer to use our own veterinarian for the early care, which was allowed. Wouldn’t decrease the fee. I used their clinic the fee paid for. The clinic wasn’t bad. Just there is a reason why the clinic’s fee structure is cheaper than our veterinarian clinic.
(**) Would I? VS going to a breeder? IDK
(***) I was willing to let the clinic have a say with our last dog, given they saved her life. But it didn’t come to that. Her heart gave out at home in my arms before the conversation got started. Knew it was coming. Didn’t think the timing was that close.
We adopted Sara the Lab-Aussie at arount 8.5 weeks. Spaying was mandatory, but our vet did it. Went sideways; she coughed after she got home and tore stitches. We called the vet’s emergency number (before we had cell phones) said We Were Coming In. Greeted by the vet and one of his senior assistants. They got it done, and Sara recovered.
Angie (maybe 12 weeks at adoption) did fine. When we bought Kat-the-dog, we talked to the vet (we changed practices during Covidiocy. The original vet burned-out/retired from small animal practice, and New Guy’s COVID policies sucked rocks. Both Angie and Sara needed near-end-of-life treatment, plus that final visit.
New practice did as best as they could. (Angie freaked out when deer ran across our front deck at night, and tore up something not-really fixable* in a foreleg. Sara’s pancreas went south–side effect of the Lab brain; she’d eat anything, and the antibiotics had side-effects. Sigh.) We got Kat two weeks after Sara passed. Our last puppy. No idea if there will be another dog after her. She’s 5, so not a big concern. ONLY dog in her mind…
(*) She was 13, fairly old for a border collie. They tried pain relief. Didn’t help.
We had to put down two dogs within 4 months of each other, in 1990/1991.
First, the in-laws Husky Kody. We’d brought him home because FIL had died previous spring. MIL sold the house that summer and was moved into limited assisted living. She could take the cat but not a large dog. We didn’t have him home more than two weeks, and he collapsed. Second time that we’d known of. The first time happened on the day of FIL’s funeral. Their clinic could not find anything wrong. Our clinic immediately discovered the reason. His spine was disintegrating. Nothing to do. Dog wheelchairs were not a thing back then and would not have helped him.
Shilo, my German Shepherd been having seizures. For over a year. Yes, I waited too *long. Final realization was a dog who absolutely adored **infants finally had one, for the last 6 months, in her home and she was too sick to care. She was 14 (to the day). Then I had to lose her again when the property she is buried in was sold (grandparents acreage).
We didn’t get our next dog for 19 years and 11 months.
Our first cats adopted us before our first anniversary. Have not been without at least one since.
(*) I was pregnant when she started having the seizures. Making the call then is not in my DNA.
(**) She was born a month after my cousin. Aunt and uncle could not keep the mother and even one pup (uncle tried). She was 8 months when I got her. Until then she ran in the countryside with two older boys, ages 5 and 8, and played with the infant as soon as he started crawling. Until I got her, she hadn’t had a collar on her, let alone a leash, ***kenneled, or chained out (lucky she hadn’t gotten pregnant, let alone her mother, again).
The Italian Greyhounds would travel in crates, but were allowed to roam in the house. Other dogs, it varied. Sara and Angie were in crates when young, then later we’d let them roam. (Turned out badly for Angie; she freaked out over a midnight deer invasion of our deck and injured herself.) Sara tended to piddle in her crate; I was on the RFD at the time, and she’d wake up when I got called out. Gotta go and she did.
Kat got crated the second night. (First, she was in a box, then got to watch TV with $SPOUSE. She had been outdoors with mama and her littermates, so TV was new to her*.) We used a Milkbone Marrow treat to tempt her; still do, and she’ll wait in front of the crate to go to bed. Mornings, she’s been known to jump on the bed to great $SPOUSE if I’m not careful. Not much anymore as she’s grown up.
(*) She loves her some HGTV and watches TV with $SPOUSE. A few nights a week, I’ll also watch and there’s a routine, including a short pee break early on.
Yeah according to the Canadian pet groomer channel i follow on YouTube, the fully hairless cats require a surprising (well less surprising when you think about it) amount of protection and maintenance.
Changed mind. It’s a warm, still day and just didn’t have the ambition to drive 30 miles round trip for four skein of perle cotton, even with lunch thrown in. Winding the wool that came in today for beloved’s (possibly) jinxed sweater.
Changed mind. It’s a warm, still day and just didn’t have the ambition to drive 30 miles round trip for four skein of perle cotton, even with lunch thrown in. Winding the wool that came in today for beloved’s (possibly) jinxed sweater.
Thank you. I just finished talking to the police about what I suspect is a case of child trafficking. Abuse at the very least. And I was sitting here second guessing myself and read that meme.
Ah, yes, but call it slavery and people argue that slavery doesn’t exist in the US. Call it trafficking, they pay attention. As if importing millions of frightened workers who will work for almost nothing isn’t slavery.
But they’ll argue definitions like a lawyer and pretend their conscience is clear because they’re hiring a worker (albeit far below a living wage) not buying a slave.
Slavery is illegal in the U.S. So are a lot of things, including at least half of what the various parts of government do to us every day. The leap from “It’s illegal” to “It doesn’t exist!” is worthy of an Olympic gold medal.
-Technically- “involuntary servitude” can in fact be imposed as a punishment for a crime, per the wording of the 13th amendment. (Really. Go read it. Its right there in plain sight. Not even slightly obscure.)
I therefore propose that anyone convicted for child “trafficking” or molestation be sentenced to Life of Chattel Servitude. Proceeds to the victims.
Yeah, any hereditary aspect is right out, but both “slavery” and “involuntary servitude” are explicitly constitutional “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”, though getting around the “cruel and unusual” thing could be a challenge.
And for those playing the future world building home game, note the “crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” is completely unspecified.
Yeah, that’s right down there with “birthright citizenship” as a thing that needs fixing (tho these days I sure wouldn’t trust either SCOTUS or the (unverified) voters to get it right).
My only* experience with prison comes from books and movies, but The Shawshank Redemption comes to mind, in which the Warden profited from contracting out his chain gangs, and that Larry Niven short (whose name escapes me) about harvesting organs from prisoners, which led to every crime (e.g. jaywalking) being punished by medical disassembly.
There was (at least one) real-world case not too long ago with a judge sentencing juveniles to a “privatized” for-profit prison and getting beaucoup kickbacks for it. (I don’t think they were selling the kids’ forced labor — it was some kind of Government Funding grift, but still…)
That’s why I want prisons to be money-losing operations — the only reason to imprison anybody is that it costs society more to let them run around loose than to lock ’em up.
[asterisk] Long, long time ago our Boy Scout troop got a tour of the local Police Dept, including the (unoccupied) lockup and drunk tank. The drunk tank had an observation window; we saw an empty room with white tile walls and no cots, toilets, sinks — no nothing.
One kid asked, “what if they hafta go to the bathroom?”
The cop leading the tour wordlessly stepped on a hitherto-unnoticed chrome pedal…
…and the whole cell flushed. Musta been a hundred gallons of water fwooshed out of a fixture on the ceiling, coanda’d down all four walls, and out the floor drain.
Maybe a dozen 12-year-old boys fell oddly quiet and reconsidered Criminality as a possible future career.
I was toying with a story where the MC was arrested for littering. When he got to court, he received a $50 fine and a letter that started, “Greetings . . .”.
Scouters are mandatory reporters. If you are involved in the program, even as a volunteer, you are a mandatory reporter. The training materials state, “Not your job to investigate what you are told (by a youth) or suspect. It is your job to report the incident.”
Only ran into one incident. That was a case of neglect and abandonment. Troop had the teen secure with a relative as the council and DCF were informed. It was up to legal avenues to determine if the relative was the permanent solution.
There have been other incidents locally. At least since the mid-90s, locally it has been abusers trying to get access to more victims through the victims they already have. The scouts who were approached, reported; the system works.
Well, I can guarantee that something questionable was going on. It’s hard to be absolutely sure, but no child acts that way unless they’re terrified of the person they’re with.
I wasn’t able to make contact in the store, but I got the license number. That’s about all I could do. Did I do enough?
My concern is, did my actions make it worse for her? If they look up the license number and go to the house, will she be hurt?
I remember a neighbor when I was growing up. After a while, as the police do nothing and every attempt to help puts the victim on crutches, or bandages, or missing from school, you try to stop listening.
-You- did -right-, and bravo for your courage to do so.
No matter how effed up you may think the system might be, you do -right- to report an endangered child, a trafficked child. The people who fight that fight pray for people like you to “Just once, Lord, let someone call it in. Just one chance Lord.”
Be truthful, and back it up when called. You are braver than most. Speaking as a former Infantryman, BRAVO for doing the right thing.
Plans? For the weekend? Dude. Weekends are for freedom from plans. 😛
Where have you been? Schools have always been a parking place for useless bureaucrats. After 0bamacare, so have hospitals. 0bamacare drove thousands of doctors and nurses clear out of medical practice. Now the tens of thousands of bureaucrats that replaced them can’t figure out how health care became so much less available and more expensive.
Have you been following the Eugene PeaceHealth ER debacle they’ve got going? A comedian has been making medical comedy *reels about it. Also, rural medical clinics and their problems.
(*) I see the reels on FB but presume they are on Instagram and TikTok too.
Regarding the sewing/embroidering argument, where the woman in the fantasy epic doesn’t have to be sword fighting to be strong — one might also mention that chain mail bra-panty armor combination probably chafes a little after a while.
Regarding The Odyssey — Missus and I saw it last night. I didn’t think it was bad at all, though the Alamo Drafthouse theater we saw it in played the audio at a volume just a little above a Who concert.
My daughter and her husband saw it a couple days ago, and I discussed it with her for a while earlier this afternoon. She’d actually read the thing, while I had not, and she remarked that written epic portrays Odysseus as more tricky and clever, whereas in the film, he’s a tired soldier wanting to go home. It seemed to me that he’s constantly reminded of the price one pays for defying the gods, brought home by how Athena is portrayed.
As yet unseen by me, likely thus until streaming commences, but from all reports this is the role Zendaya and her scowl, her single facial expression, were born for.
And note (again before my seeing it, but from reports) that scowly Athena is the only “god” from the entire vast Greek pantheon who ever shows up at all in the entire thing, with reviewers getting the implication that she’s a PTSD induced hallucination, sort of “Fight Club” Tyler Durden, albeit excessively scowly. Even the modern-audiences translator, Emily Wilson, has complained about Nolan excluding the Greek gods when they are so integral to the poem.
I had to work through it all with wikipedia, and then had to search because my transliteration was not clicking.
Partly it is not being familiar with Democritus. Partly it is that I only know some of the Greek alphabet, from mathematics, and had to look up sounds/transliteration. Partly the omicrons as atoms completely puzzled me.
Also, I had a lot of trouble because unit test/integration test did not work for me. It was a gif, that hadn’t displayed for me many times, I think until I had javascript on.
I’m with the monk illuminating the manuscript. A Mississippi kite swept just over my head Wednesday morning and caught a cicada in mid-air, banked hard, and departed northbound. I was impressed.
If you add parmesan to pasta, try grated asiago. This is how pasta is meant to be enjoyed. No pic, because Nastycat will not stay still for pictures for anything (even when dead asleep).
Did anyone else notice that the Cuba meme says “Gulf of Mexico”? What am I missing here?
Lovely Afghan! I had a black Afghan once a long time ago. Sweet girl, pure-bred and a gift from a friend who owned the parents as family pets. IIRC it was the female’s first (and unintentional) litter – 10 healthy puppies. My friend was desperate to find homes for them. Now? I’d take that adorable kitten in an instant!
The “performance review” imagine is a hilarious example of AI image mis-generation at work. That presumably is meant to be a coil of rope, but it’s actually a stack of grommers. Which is a real term but very hard to find on the Internet. Fun to make, too, I did it as part of a boy scout project.
According To Hoyt 
The “unit test vs. integration test” meme is absolutely spot on.
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Except not enough iterations……
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Party Head: “Come the Revolution, We’ll All Have Tapioca.”
Party Member: “But I don’t like Tapioca.”
Party Head: “Come the Revolution, You Will Like Tapioca.”.
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Also cat owners: “with the right skin color and blood line, these freaks are worth up to $10,000” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphynx_cat ;)
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Also dog owners: “We got a probably-pure-bred tricolor border collie for $200.” (Not counting the two shelter pups that cost us about $85 each, plus major pieces of our hearts.)
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Yeah, these people spending big money on designer crossbreeds stump me.
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Puppies or kittens through rescues. And it is illegal to sell animals in pet stores (reptiles, fish, and birds, can be sold, but not dogs or cats).
$100 rehoming fee, and our hearts, for the purebred 2 1/2 year old English Toy Spaniel. Through our veterinarian, she was a surrender from the breeder when she lost her first litter; she never could have any puppies if she survived. I guarantee the clinic put a lot more than $100 into her in supplies and time to save her.
$600 for our current Pom/Chi as a puppy through a rescue. (Original litter, before surrender to the rescue of mom and pups, might have been a designer litter, or just a mistake; who knows.) OTOH, that did cover all first-year vaccinations and spaying through the local low-cost clinic. About $200, if we paid it ourselves. Not that we’d get a discount. They do use the “puppy” funds to supplement costs for older dogs and less healthy animals who come in. Not “supposed” to make a profit. But I’ve never personally audited one, or seen a public audit report (if there is one).
There seem to be numerous rescues. Locally, most of the rescue animals come from California, and from Mexico (the border closure due to the current crisis may have dried the Mexico connection up, just like the *dumping*, er shipping of horses south).
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Kittens?
Haven’t paid a cent to get a kitten. Paid afterward for shots and spay/neuter, 100%.
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Well, since every commercial source has been labeled a “puppy mill”, that’s all that’s left. I think the pendulum may have swung too far.
All three of our dogs were rescues, but the first two came by a personal friend who also worked with the rescue. Minimum hassle.
Our latest one, Sugar, came from a rescue local to Plano who we hadn’t dealt with. Holy Jesus. We expected to have to pay $200. We allowed the initial home inspection, and provided our vet reference, who had been our vet since 2006.
Then they handed us the “adoption agreement”, which must have been drawn up by Amazon or Meta, because it basically allowed us to foster the dog as long as they could do random unannounced inspections, and confiscate the dog immediately if they didn’t like what they saw. No definitions, no recourse, and no appeal. I asked them if they were a rescue interested in placing dogs who are supposedly desperate for “forever homes”, or a dog laundering organization seeing how many “adoption fees” they could collect. That section was crossed out posthaste.
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F-Falls shelter was (still is?) looser. We had two Italian Greyhounds from my aunt & uncle (they were successful breeders of showdogs) and the vet who treated them vouched for us. Both times, a phone call did it. $85 at the time (2005 and ’07).
Both dogs passed during Covidiocy. We stayed with one dog until she passed, then tried the shelter. Thanks to Despicable Kate Brown and her minions, the shelter was totally screwed up, and puppies were unavailable. OTOH, the notice board at the farm store had pictures, and I saw 5 pups for sale. Called home, and we went down, found one who wanted to cuddle (the other girl wanted to WORK), and we bought. (I told one of the workers at our mail drop, and her husband got the worker. Great fit for both parties.)
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Oh, and for the last, vetting was through the sire and the dam, and by the seller. We played with the adults, they liked us, and it went well.
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–
When I first heard of that clause, with some of the practices alleged, I was appalled.
No paperwork with the veterinarian adoption. But then we’d been with the clinic for 24 years, two dogs (if you count the in-laws husky we only had home a few days before we had to put him down), and I don’t know how many cats by then.
Our current dog, adopted as a puppy, I read the rescue’s paperwork thoroughly. Foster to adopt, for two weeks (allowing us an out … like that was happening). Agree to *spay (she was only 8 weeks old) around 6 months, follow vaccine schedules. If we ever need to surrender, she goes back to the rescue (even now; note, they do not get a ***vote on “quality of life” when that comes. That is between the three of us and our veterinarian). I suspect now, 9+ years later, at our ages, they’d want proof of estate planning if we are to adopt from them **again.
(*) Too many rescues will not release an animal not spayed or neutered. Thus, doing the procedure on too young and too small animals. I understand the reasoning. I do not like it, but I understand. Also prefer to use our own veterinarian for the early care, which was allowed. Wouldn’t decrease the fee. I used their clinic the fee paid for. The clinic wasn’t bad. Just there is a reason why the clinic’s fee structure is cheaper than our veterinarian clinic.
(**) Would I? VS going to a breeder? IDK
(***) I was willing to let the clinic have a say with our last dog, given they saved her life. But it didn’t come to that. Her heart gave out at home in my arms before the conversation got started. Knew it was coming. Didn’t think the timing was that close.
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We adopted Sara the Lab-Aussie at arount 8.5 weeks. Spaying was mandatory, but our vet did it. Went sideways; she coughed after she got home and tore stitches. We called the vet’s emergency number (before we had cell phones) said We Were Coming In. Greeted by the vet and one of his senior assistants. They got it done, and Sara recovered.
Angie (maybe 12 weeks at adoption) did fine. When we bought Kat-the-dog, we talked to the vet (we changed practices during Covidiocy. The original vet burned-out/retired from small animal practice, and New Guy’s COVID policies sucked rocks. Both Angie and Sara needed near-end-of-life treatment, plus that final visit.
New practice did as best as they could. (Angie freaked out when deer ran across our front deck at night, and tore up something not-really fixable* in a foreleg. Sara’s pancreas went south–side effect of the Lab brain; she’d eat anything, and the antibiotics had side-effects. Sigh.) We got Kat two weeks after Sara passed. Our last puppy. No idea if there will be another dog after her. She’s 5, so not a big concern. ONLY dog in her mind…
(*) She was 13, fairly old for a border collie. They tried pain relief. Didn’t help.
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💔
We had to put down two dogs within 4 months of each other, in 1990/1991.
First, the in-laws Husky Kody. We’d brought him home because FIL had died previous spring. MIL sold the house that summer and was moved into limited assisted living. She could take the cat but not a large dog. We didn’t have him home more than two weeks, and he collapsed. Second time that we’d known of. The first time happened on the day of FIL’s funeral. Their clinic could not find anything wrong. Our clinic immediately discovered the reason. His spine was disintegrating. Nothing to do. Dog wheelchairs were not a thing back then and would not have helped him.
Shilo, my German Shepherd been having seizures. For over a year. Yes, I waited too *long. Final realization was a dog who absolutely adored **infants finally had one, for the last 6 months, in her home and she was too sick to care. She was 14 (to the day). Then I had to lose her again when the property she is buried in was sold (grandparents acreage).
We didn’t get our next dog for 19 years and 11 months.
Our first cats adopted us before our first anniversary. Have not been without at least one since.
(*) I was pregnant when she started having the seizures. Making the call then is not in my DNA.
(**) She was born a month after my cousin. Aunt and uncle could not keep the mother and even one pup (uncle tried). She was 8 months when I got her. Until then she ran in the countryside with two older boys, ages 5 and 8, and played with the infant as soon as he started crawling. Until I got her, she hadn’t had a collar on her, let alone a leash, ***kenneled, or chained out (lucky she hadn’t gotten pregnant, let alone her mother, again).
(***) Was never ever kenneled at home.
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The Italian Greyhounds would travel in crates, but were allowed to roam in the house. Other dogs, it varied. Sara and Angie were in crates when young, then later we’d let them roam. (Turned out badly for Angie; she freaked out over a midnight deer invasion of our deck and injured herself.) Sara tended to piddle in her crate; I was on the RFD at the time, and she’d wake up when I got called out. Gotta go and she did.
Kat got crated the second night. (First, she was in a box, then got to watch TV with $SPOUSE. She had been outdoors with mama and her littermates, so TV was new to her*.) We used a Milkbone Marrow treat to tempt her; still do, and she’ll wait in front of the crate to go to bed. Mornings, she’s been known to jump on the bed to great $SPOUSE if I’m not careful. Not much anymore as she’s grown up.
(*) She loves her some HGTV and watches TV with $SPOUSE. A few nights a week, I’ll also watch and there’s a routine, including a short pee break early on.
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we had a cornish rex….
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They have enough fur to look cute, unlike the Sphynxes :)
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Mostly we got the rex because she didn’t need sun block applied. That freaked me out.
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Yeah according to the Canadian pet groomer channel i follow on YouTube, the fully hairless cats require a surprising (well less surprising when you think about it) amount of protection and maintenance.
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Critters evolved fur for a reason. A lot of reasons, actually. 🤔
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My beloved and I both feel seen by the “Spending $20 on a hobby,” meme.
I’m about to head for Michael’s to pick up more perle cotton.
(When you realize at 3 a.m. that you bought perle cotton to weave trim and only calculated for warp, not weft).
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Changed mind. It’s a warm, still day and just didn’t have the ambition to drive 30 miles round trip for four skein of perle cotton, even with lunch thrown in. Winding the wool that came in today for beloved’s (possibly) jinxed sweater.
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Changed mind. It’s a warm, still day and just didn’t have the ambition to drive 30 miles round trip for four skein of perle cotton, even with lunch thrown in. Winding the wool that came in today for beloved’s (possibly) jinxed sweater.
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So not a warp drive…..
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”Scotty, if we don’t have weft drive in eight minutes, we’re dead!”
”I canna change the laws of physics. I’ve got to have thirty minutes!”
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Computer beeps. ”…and apparently four skein of perle cotton yarn.”
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Thanks to the single half-finished weaving project on the manual loom I bought (from Michael’s), I know what warp and weft mean.
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I liked the land-mine one.
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Luckily I had just swallowed my sip of diet coke before I read that, or I MIGHT have needed a new monitor…
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Right?
Not diet coke. My AM (okay PM) smoothie mix (mixed berries, banana, vanilla bean Nosa yogurt).
The meme itself? Capitalism at its best.
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blinks
Saturday memes. Doesn’t everyone know to not drink during a reading session?
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It was uplifting.
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It’s never too early for whiskey
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Though it can be too late for coffee.
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Coffee tends to make me sleepy.
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Corollary: It’s after 5 PM somewhere.
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I’m pretty sure Margaret Hamilton would agree.
Love the Comet Cat – no doubt sent here from Krypton by his father, Kat-El.
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With a video telling him to cat around.
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Is this from Texas, thus Big hat, no Kat-el?
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Compromise: time for Irish coffee!
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Thank you. I just finished talking to the police about what I suspect is a case of child trafficking. Abuse at the very least. And I was sitting here second guessing myself and read that meme.
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‘Trafficking’? Gah! Call it what it is: slavery! 😡
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Ah, yes, but call it slavery and people argue that slavery doesn’t exist in the US. Call it trafficking, they pay attention. As if importing millions of frightened workers who will work for almost nothing isn’t slavery.
But they’ll argue definitions like a lawyer and pretend their conscience is clear because they’re hiring a worker (albeit far below a living wage) not buying a slave.
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Slavery is illegal in the U.S. So are a lot of things, including at least half of what the various parts of government do to us every day. The leap from “It’s illegal” to “It doesn’t exist!” is worthy of an Olympic gold medal.
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-Technically- “involuntary servitude” can in fact be imposed as a punishment for a crime, per the wording of the 13th amendment. (Really. Go read it. Its right there in plain sight. Not even slightly obscure.)
I therefore propose that anyone convicted for child “trafficking” or molestation be sentenced to Life of Chattel Servitude. Proceeds to the victims.
Watch how fast we clean up -that- mess.
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See my 2-part post on last Sunday’s promo. The punishment is…brutal.
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Yeah, any hereditary aspect is right out, but both “slavery” and “involuntary servitude” are explicitly constitutional “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”, though getting around the “cruel and unusual” thing could be a challenge.
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And for those playing the future world building home game, note the “crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” is completely unspecified.
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Yeah, that’s right down there with “birthright citizenship” as a thing that needs fixing (tho these days I sure wouldn’t trust either SCOTUS or the (unverified) voters to get it right).
My only* experience with prison comes from books and movies, but The Shawshank Redemption comes to mind, in which the Warden profited from contracting out his chain gangs, and that Larry Niven short (whose name escapes me) about harvesting organs from prisoners, which led to every crime (e.g. jaywalking) being punished by medical disassembly.
There was (at least one) real-world case not too long ago with a judge sentencing juveniles to a “privatized” for-profit prison and getting beaucoup kickbacks for it. (I don’t think they were selling the kids’ forced labor — it was some kind of Government Funding grift, but still…)
That’s why I want prisons to be money-losing operations — the only reason to imprison anybody is that it costs society more to let them run around loose than to lock ’em up.
[asterisk] Long, long time ago our Boy Scout troop got a tour of the local Police Dept, including the (unoccupied) lockup and drunk tank. The drunk tank had an observation window; we saw an empty room with white tile walls and no cots, toilets, sinks — no nothing.
One kid asked, “what if they hafta go to the bathroom?”
The cop leading the tour wordlessly stepped on a hitherto-unnoticed chrome pedal…
…and the whole cell flushed. Musta been a hundred gallons of water fwooshed out of a fixture on the ceiling, coanda’d down all four walls, and out the floor drain.
Maybe a dozen 12-year-old boys fell oddly quiet and reconsidered Criminality as a possible future career.
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I was toying with a story where the MC was arrested for littering. When he got to court, he received a $50 fine and a letter that started, “Greetings . . .”.
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CoDominium BuReloc nods.
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Then most of our politicians and a good portion of the population are competing in that Olympic sport.
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You said something to the right people to investigate it? Then you did a good thing, and it can be checked on.
You are second-guessing yourself because you don’t have the powers to make absolutely sure? Well, normal citizens usually don’t.
Normal people are like neighborhood watch. We are the alarm system.
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Scouters are mandatory reporters. If you are involved in the program, even as a volunteer, you are a mandatory reporter. The training materials state, “Not your job to investigate what you are told (by a youth) or suspect. It is your job to report the incident.”
Only ran into one incident. That was a case of neglect and abandonment. Troop had the teen secure with a relative as the council and DCF were informed. It was up to legal avenues to determine if the relative was the permanent solution.
There have been other incidents locally. At least since the mid-90s, locally it has been abusers trying to get access to more victims through the victims they already have. The scouts who were approached, reported; the system works.
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Well, I can guarantee that something questionable was going on. It’s hard to be absolutely sure, but no child acts that way unless they’re terrified of the person they’re with.
I wasn’t able to make contact in the store, but I got the license number. That’s about all I could do. Did I do enough?
My concern is, did my actions make it worse for her? If they look up the license number and go to the house, will she be hurt?
I remember a neighbor when I was growing up. After a while, as the police do nothing and every attempt to help puts the victim on crutches, or bandages, or missing from school, you try to stop listening.
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-You- did -right-, and bravo for your courage to do so.
No matter how effed up you may think the system might be, you do -right- to report an endangered child, a trafficked child. The people who fight that fight pray for people like you to “Just once, Lord, let someone call it in. Just one chance Lord.”
Be truthful, and back it up when called. You are braver than most. Speaking as a former Infantryman, BRAVO for doing the right thing.
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Hugs.
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Anyone who has not participated in competitive toiletting has not been a teenage boy standing with friends next to a snowbank. Or so I’m told . . .
Food testing Lab +1
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Do not know about the first. I have the wrong plumbing.
We have a food testing Pom/Chi. Pom/Chi food tester doesn’t have the same vibe.
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Or the same capacity. Although Sugar the mostly-Puggle can eat more than her 20 pounds would suggest.
“I am the Stomach That Walks By Itself, and “consume mass quantities” is my motto.
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SFBS!
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The Reader is sure the food testing Lab belongs to his sister. His name is Raleigh.
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“What an odd dog. What kind is it? Some sort of Lab?”
“Meth.”
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Plans? For the weekend? Dude. Weekends are for freedom from plans. 😛
Where have you been? Schools have always been a parking place for useless bureaucrats. After 0bamacare, so have hospitals. 0bamacare drove thousands of doctors and nurses clear out of medical practice. Now the tens of thousands of bureaucrats that replaced them can’t figure out how health care became so much less available and more expensive.
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Have you been following the Eugene PeaceHealth ER debacle they’ve got going? A comedian has been making medical comedy *reels about it. Also, rural medical clinics and their problems.
(*) I see the reels on FB but presume they are on Instagram and TikTok too.
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Regarding the sewing/embroidering argument, where the woman in the fantasy epic doesn’t have to be sword fighting to be strong — one might also mention that chain mail bra-panty armor combination probably chafes a little after a while.
Regarding The Odyssey — Missus and I saw it last night. I didn’t think it was bad at all, though the Alamo Drafthouse theater we saw it in played the audio at a volume just a little above a Who concert.
My daughter and her husband saw it a couple days ago, and I discussed it with her for a while earlier this afternoon. She’d actually read the thing, while I had not, and she remarked that written epic portrays Odysseus as more tricky and clever, whereas in the film, he’s a tired soldier wanting to go home. It seemed to me that he’s constantly reminded of the price one pays for defying the gods, brought home by how Athena is portrayed.
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As yet unseen by me, likely thus until streaming commences, but from all reports this is the role Zendaya and her scowl, her single facial expression, were born for.
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Our family comment on her in Dune 2 was that she spent the movie looking like someone had stolen her gummy bears and eaten them in front of her.
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And note (again before my seeing it, but from reports) that scowly Athena is the only “god” from the entire vast Greek pantheon who ever shows up at all in the entire thing, with reviewers getting the implication that she’s a PTSD induced hallucination, sort of “Fight Club” Tyler Durden, albeit excessively scowly. Even the modern-audiences translator, Emily Wilson, has complained about Nolan excluding the Greek gods when they are so integral to the poem.
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I must admit that I had to try to look up the scientist name in Greek, since I don’t read Greek. At least I recognize that it is in Greek…
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I sounded it out, letter by letter. I love the Borlaug logo. He doesn’t get enough love.
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I am amazed I got it after I got the first four figured out. My Greek alphabet skills are rudimentary at best.
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I had to work through it all with wikipedia, and then had to search because my transliteration was not clicking.
Partly it is not being familiar with Democritus. Partly it is that I only know some of the Greek alphabet, from mathematics, and had to look up sounds/transliteration. Partly the omicrons as atoms completely puzzled me.
Also, I had a lot of trouble because unit test/integration test did not work for me. It was a gif, that hadn’t displayed for me many times, I think until I had javascript on.
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Democritus isn’t a verb meaning to point out logic fallacies of the Democrat Party?
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Considers calling out the carpapult team. Nah, they’d be overwhelmed by these comments…
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I’m with the monk illuminating the manuscript. A Mississippi kite swept just over my head Wednesday morning and caught a cicada in mid-air, banked hard, and departed northbound. I was impressed.
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they can’t think, they’ve only been taught how to feel…
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They’re not called “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” for nuthin’…
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Here you go, Sarah.
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If you add parmesan to pasta, try grated asiago. This is how pasta is meant to be enjoyed. No pic, because Nastycat will not stay still for pictures for anything (even when dead asleep).
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You are not prepared!
They wouldn’t have the rule if they didn’t need it….
Comet cat! So that’s how cat distribution works….
I can guess which one, yes. Oh dear.
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I am absolutely saving, and widely distributing that Unit test vs Integration meme.
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Did anyone else notice that the Cuba meme says “Gulf of Mexico”? What am I missing here?
Lovely Afghan! I had a black Afghan once a long time ago. Sweet girl, pure-bred and a gift from a friend who owned the parents as family pets. IIRC it was the female’s first (and unintentional) litter – 10 healthy puppies. My friend was desperate to find homes for them. Now? I’d take that adorable kitten in an instant!
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This is why I hope Elon’s AI vision doesn’t succeed as he hopes.
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The “performance review” imagine is a hilarious example of AI image mis-generation at work. That presumably is meant to be a coil of rope, but it’s actually a stack of grommers. Which is a real term but very hard to find on the Internet. Fun to make, too, I did it as part of a boy scout project.
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