This post is shamelessly ripped from Dave Futrelle’s April 1st cute kitten gif dump post… I’m not using every gif in the post, but I’m using the vast majority. Plus, I’m grabbing from the comments, as well.
Enjoy!
Sorry, but this made my Jewish heart so happy…
I really… really… want to comment on this, but… I can’t. I honestly don’t know what to say to this.
It’s terrifying, frankly.
What I will say is this… one thing many people say, and really do believe, in many cases, is that these conservatives and these conservative ideals are dying out. However, that belies a lack of understanding of how things get passed on from generation to generation. Sure, people are getting older today, but they’re also having children and grand-children who are being brought up to believe the same things. These extreme right-wing views infect each generation like a virus, and I don’t see the virus going extinct any time soon…
From Alternet… (ignore the rather hyperbolic title)
I remember reading these stories when I was a really young child. In fact, what drew me away from them was Harry Potter. I read Sorcerer’s Stone when it first came out. I was 11. So I ended up growing up with Harry Potter, reading each book as it was released.
And, sadly, I sort of forgot about Animorphs. Occasionally I would stumble on them, but it wouldn’t stick, until much later (or rather recently, depending on your perspective), when I started thinking about the books again. I re-read the first two, and was like…
Holy shit… I expected this to let me down, but it didn’t!
And then… I sort of forgot about them again…
Until a few days ago. I was on a friend’s Facebook wall, reading through a thread, when some comments went off topic to talk about Animorphs. I was excited, of course, but before I commented, I saw a comment saying something that made me way more excited than it should have…
They really… desperately… want to stop this whole Russia thing in it’s tracks, don’t they? Could it be because they know the election was illegitimate, and Agent Orange actually lost?
From the Washington Post…
The Trump administration sought to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates from testifying in the House investigation of possible links between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s campaign, according to letters provided to The Washington Post. The effort to keep Yates from testifying has further angered Democrats, who have accused Republicans of trying to damage the inquiry.
According to the letters, the Justice Department notified Yates earlier this month that the administration considers her possible testimony — including on the ouster of former national security adviser Michael Flynn for his contacts with the Russian ambassador — to be off-limits in a congressional hearing because the topics are covered by attorney-client privilege or the presidential communication privilege.
The issue of Yates’s testimony adds to the political controversy surrounding the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian meddling in last year’s election and any possible coordination between Trump associates and Moscow.
Now he’s calling for cuts to domestic spending…
From AP News…
President Donald Trump is proposing immediate budget cuts of $18 billion from programs like medical research, infrastructure and community grants so U.S. taxpayers, not Mexico, can cover the down payment on the border wall.
The White House documents were submitted to Congress amid negotiations over a catchall spending bill that would avert a partial government shutdown at the end of next month. The package would wrap up $1.1 trillion in unfinished spending bills and address the Trump administration’s request for an immediate $30 billion in additional Pentagon spending.
The latest Trump proposal, disclosed Tuesday, would eliminate $1.2 billion in National Institutes of Health research grants, a favorite of both parties. The community development block grant program, also popular, would be halved, amounting to a cut of $1.5 billion, and Trump would strip $500 million from a popular grant program for transportation projects. Some of that money would help pay for parts of the wall.
Spacewalks are honestly rather fascinating. I’ve been enjoying pics and videos of them for a long time, now.
I think everyone here already knows what a spacewalk is, but here’s the Wikipedia breakdown (of Extravehicular Activity, of which a spacewalk is the most common type), just in case…
Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut or cosmonaut outside a spacecraft beyond the Earth’s appreciable atmosphere. The term most commonly applies to a spacewalk made outside a craft orbiting Earth (such as the International Space Station), but also has applied to lunar surface exploration (commonly known as moonwalks) performed by six pairs of American astronauts in the Apollo program from 1969 to 1972. On each of the last three of these missions, astronauts also performed deep-space EVAs on the return to Earth, to retrieve film canisters from the outside of the spacecraft. Astronauts also used EVA in 1973 to repair launch damage to Skylab, the United States’ first space station.
A “Stand-up” EVA (SEVA) is where the astronaut does not fully leave a spacecraft, but is completely reliant on the spacesuit for environmental support.[1] Its name derives from the astronaut “standing up” in the open hatch, usually to record or assist a spacewalking astronaut.
EVAs may be either tethered (the astronaut is connected to the spacecraft; oxygen and electrical power can be supplied through an umbilical cable; no propulsion is needed to return to the spacecraft), or untethered. Untethered spacewalks were only performed on three missions in 1984 using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), and on a flight test in 1994 of the Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER), a safety device worn on tethered U.S. EVAs.
The Soviet Union/Russia, the United States, and China have conducted EVAs.
From Reuters…
U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said on Tuesday he will not divulge – even to other members of his panel – who gave him intelligence reports that indicated President Donald Trump and his associates may have been ensnared in incidental intelligence collection.
Asked by an ABC News reporter whether he would inform the other committee members about who gave him the reports he viewed on the White House grounds last week, Nunes said: “We will never reveal those sources and methods.”
This is a short-ass update from Reuters, so that’s the whole thing.
Normally I’m all about protecting sources’ anonymity, but in this case it honestly feels like yet another move to cover up the fact that the whole wiretap thing is either a lie, or it was a legitimate move that would make Agent Orange look absolutely horrible.
Either way, Circus-Peanut-in-Chief will not come out of this looking good.
From NPR…
The House of Representatives has gone along with the Senate and voted 215-205 to overturn a yet-to-take-effect regulation that would have required Internet service providers — like Comcast, Verizon and Charter — to get consumers’ permission before selling their data.
President Trump is expected to sign the rollback, according to a White House statement.
The measure is a victory for the ISPs, which have argued that the regulation would put them at a disadvantage compared with so-called edge providers, like Google and Facebook. Those companies are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission and face less stringent requirements. Congress’ approval is a loss for privacy advocates, who fought for the regulation, passed in October of last year by the then-Democratic majority on the Federal Communications Commission.