While they kinda sorta look alike, praire dogs are herbivores, while meekats being part of the mongoose family are carnivore/insectivores, eating snakes, lizards, spiders and scorpions etc...
We generally only get Richardson's Ground Squirrels 'round these parts, and if you are a farmer or a horseback rider they are regarded as a pest species.
I fondly remember that the Disney company made a series of 13 True Life Adventures during the 1950s, eight of which won documentary Academy Awards. The 1954 entry in the series, called "The Vanishing Prairie" featured these guys, as well as other native animals, as stars.
Prairie dogs are inordinately clever creatures with distinct personalities. I could sit quietly and watch the incredible creatures interacting all day long.
The minor league team in my hometown is named after prairie dogs, except they gave it a cutesy pseudonym - the Sod Poodles. The cover story behind it was that that's what the "old-timers" allegedly called prairie dogs. Now, I'm old enough to have hung out around some of the old-timers who settled the area. Hell, at 71, I'm an old-timer myself, and I never heard anybody call a prairie dog a sod poodle.
But I really like the naming conventions around minor league baseball teams, and Sod Poodles is one of the better ones, imho. So, to go with what the locals say - Go Soddies!
I went out to opening day to watch my local NWA Naturals lay as big a hurting on the Sod Poodles as I’ve seen in a while, including one of the longest home runs I’ve ever seen at any level. I hope that was an anomaly and that your Soddies have a better season!
I hope they have a good season, too, but it's not really my team. I haven't lived up there in 40+ years. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised they're getting such good support up there, but evidently they're drawing great crowds. I worked for the Giants farm club up there back in the late 60s, and we didn't draw well at all, even with a Texas League West Division champion. (Best job ever; I still have a champagne cork from the title-clinching celebration). I have the boringly named Round Rock Express now.
Among the many places I visited when I had to go to a wedding in Montana was a prairie dog town in SD. There was another at Ft. Niobrara Wildlife Refuge in Nebraska also, too.
As for the 2024 autopsy, better to put out a steaming pile of bullshit, and to call it for what it is, than not to put out anything. It's a starting point, rather than the ending point.
President Donald Trump is backing a House Republican bill that would make daylight saving time permanent:
“It’s time that people can stop worrying about the ‘Clock,’ not to mention all of the work and money that is spent on this ridiculous, twice yearly production,” he posted on TruthSocial on Thursday evening. “Many of these Clocks are located in Towers, and the cost of renting, or using, Heavy Equipment to do this twice a year is prohibitive!” [HuffPost]
The New Republic: How Bush Ruined Daylight Savings
"The primary beneficiaries seem to have been the retail and sporting-goods lobbies, who pushed for the bill because it makes people want to stay out later and shop or hunt. (Lobbies who opposed the bill included the Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, presumably because fewer people want to attend services before dawn.) In other words, like many other laws passed during the Bush administration, it was a sop to business that left ordinary folks holding the bag -- in this case a bag lunch packed during pitch-dark late October mornings."
I kinda stopped following local news a while back so a) I did not know that Duggan was no longer Mayor of Detroit. And b) that he was running for governor and c) that he was running as an independent. I would love an non-paywalled explainer for why he's not running as a Democrat. I gather his current trouble stems from the use of lead and arsenic contaminated fill dirt for demolished homes.
So new pre-med students will be required to take more Charlie Kirk school hours than Organic Chemistry hours?? Sure, that makes sense. Also this seems truly illegal.
Charming of Rebecca to echo--and remind us all of-- her enraged-toddler mode with a snide little drive-by about how GENOCIDE Kamala beat herself by supporting, like, GENOCIDE while Kamala gave GENOCIDE PARTIES. Of course, Felon Musk's buying the election etc etc etc ad infinitum had nothing to do with the loss.
I was neither snide nor enraged; I think Israel and Gaza lost us the election, mostly, and it would have been far far better if we had not given Bibi a blank check.
I didn't say anything like what you attributed to me, so can it.
I think it was the eggs (as well as being a "change" election and Dem's not rising to that occasion). But I can buy off on Gaza/Israel being a tipping point.
Slowly but surely, a few GOP senators and reps are visualizing their self interests as separate from trump. Day late, dollar short. But it is fun to watch the disarray.
I've made a conscious decision to not read the Dem summary of the 2024 election. What I have noticed is that despite some persons at the DNCC being engaged in this summary exercise, no one seems to have arrived at a cohesive plan for the midterms. Or if they have, no one is sharing. I do think the Dems will sweep the House this year, and that there is a chance of breaking even in the Senate (for instance, it looks like Platner will win Maine and trump's favored candidate in TX might lose to Tallarico). But these wins aren't because the Democrats are providing leadership - they are because trump and the GOP are so unbelievably fucked up.
A few things about that -- first -- it depends on who and what you're reading
AND it depends on what you're looking for
The tragedy of it to me is it reveals what happens each and every time Democrats LOSE en masse -- when Black people (voters, representatives, and consultants) are shafted, Democrats lose
and there are a lot of White people who still aren't ready to face that -- but if they *don't* face it ... the same outcome is almost predictable
Ken Martin is “not proud” of that report, I suspect, because it lays bare HOW WHITE DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANTS REAPED THE LION’S SHARE OF THAT BILLION DOLLARS WE RAISED BY STIFFING NOT JUST CONSULTANTS OF COLOR BUT ALSO BLACK VOTERS – who are not just an essential percentage of the Democratic base and the most consistent, but also who White Democrats have ALWAYS SHAFTED WHEN THEY LOSE
… which ties into the larger narrative Dr. Stacey wrote about in her essay about what Senator Whitehouse called the Thug Fund
“ America has never actually struggled to understand harm and intergenerational trauma. It has struggled to recognize certain people as fully harmed. This country compensated enslavers after abolition for the “loss of property.” It reimbursed white Americans for all kinds of grievances throughout history.
White homeowners received subsidies and protections designed to cushion them from integration. White farmers won massive discrimination settlements from the USDA. Industries get bailouts. Banks get rescues. Corporations get relief packages every time capitalism lights itself on fire. Police departments accused of abuse get bigger budgets. Political operatives get legal defense funds.
America always finds money when the suffering is attached to power, property, or proximity to whiteness.
But when Black folk demand reparations for slavery, segregation, redlining, lynching, medical experimentation, housing theft, school apartheid, predatory policing, environmental poisoning, and generations of economic extraction, suddenly everybody turns into a frustrated budget expert.“
So to your last point, the strategy is actually fairly simple -- and even Marc Elias has said the same:
Treat the treatment of Black voters as the national emergency it is and PUT RESOURCES INTO FIGHTING IT -- and win (because as Elie says -- voter turnout beats gerrymandering (and his father was a political gerrymandering expert)).
Ignore the Black electorate, like White Democratic "leadership" traditionally does -- and lose.
Good points M. I'll amend my statement to say, 'if they have, no one is admitting the silent part out loud.'
I also think that a great deal of what you said should be broadened out to include other communities of color and communities with language other than English. For instance, the Democrats lost Miami in 2020 because they just assumed the Cuban community was going to move in lockstep with all other Hispanics - Democrat leadership was thinking that, after all, aren't all people who speak Spanish the same????? (please read this as irony)
" For instance, the Democrats lost Miami in 2020 because they just assumed the Cuban community was going to move in lockstep with all other Hispanics - Democrat leadership was thinking that, after all, aren't all people who speak Spanish the same?????"
I have a whole rant about that and I'm trying to exercise some conversational restraint
That argument started in 2014 (it really started earlier than that, but I was active in the 2014 version) -- not leastwise because words like "socialísmo" DO NOT MEAN THE SAME IN VENEZUELAN SPANISH AS THEY DO IN ENGLISH
But as usual, tone-deaf White Democratic "leadership" could. not. hear. it.
And now -- here we are
o.O
Don't get me started on the infiltration of Spanish language right wing radio
It's hard to know just how many times that "We're White intellectuals, so we're the leaders and the rest of all the ideas of other people no matter how many times they've been right in the past just don't matter" have cost the country better programs and progress
Just saw that James Murdoch ( another one of Rupert's sons, the one he bypassed when handing down Fox News ) has just bought half of Vox Media, which includes "New York" magazine.
The enshittening continues with more oligarchs grabbing up "independent" sources
"And another Charlie Kirk-related pay the fuck up First Amendment moment!"
Yes, it's good that Ms. Brown got a just outcome, but bottom line is that no RethugliKlan will ever be deterred from committing evil acts by "losing" some tax dollars in court. Same goes for killer cops. You've got to take concrete measures against them, America, like voting the bastards out of office and ending qualified immunity. But good luck with that in the New Confederate States.
*sips coffee* I'm not sure I want to migrate to the DJTJr article yet.
My current physical location is such that I cannot access broadcast television in real time. Therefore, I will be watching the Stephen Colbert signoff show from the Ed Sullivan Theater after the fact, by streaming the episode in packets, possibly through CBS dot com itself, which I suspect will place me in the good company of millions.
This has led me to speculate, as is irresponsible not to do, that CBS will soon discover that their most-streamed content ever, a record not to be broken unless real-time over-the-air radio and TV are completely supplanted by "internet radio" and "internet TV", is this episode of The Late Show.
The least-streamed content? Literally anything touched by Bari Weiss.
And for all the sucking up that CBS and corporate owner Paramount have done to the Mango Menace and his FCC, they will be fucked hard nonetheless -- by the FCC, by That Fucking Guy, and by their own poor decisions.
Sheri Meckelenberg! Come on up. You seem like a MAGGATTy Senate's ideal candidate for a job as counsel to the senate judiciary committee. Wut? A bit of a problem with a grand jury? Tish and posh. We know, dear. That is why we hired you.
Hello, happy Friday!
Your hed gif info: https://martiniambassador.substack.com/p/prairie-dog-puppers
And meme chat: https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/334ecac6-c65e-4b34-a3b3-401eb0edf65a?utm_source=share
And bonus pic that I took just this morning: https://martiniambassador.substack.com/p/just-a-quick-picture
I already did Prarie Dogs so here's the chipmunk
The Chipmunk searches
the ground for food
and he’s always
in a happy mood
Prairie dogs are not
Dogs at all
But they are
Cute as heck
I wonder if meerkats would hang with prairie dogs if they lived on the same continent?
While they kinda sorta look alike, praire dogs are herbivores, while meekats being part of the mongoose family are carnivore/insectivores, eating snakes, lizards, spiders and scorpions etc...
So they wouldn't be competing for food.
And meerkats do hang out with ground squirrels in Africa, so ...
We generally only get Richardson's Ground Squirrels 'round these parts, and if you are a farmer or a horseback rider they are regarded as a pest species.
I fondly remember that the Disney company made a series of 13 True Life Adventures during the 1950s, eight of which won documentary Academy Awards. The 1954 entry in the series, called "The Vanishing Prairie" featured these guys, as well as other native animals, as stars.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/pv-target-images/49785d42f758ef8be630fbde914ab5f1f010e417a8c834d27953afd37a88b5da._SX1080_FMpng_.png
Also parodied in the opening minutes of this radio show: https://www.mixcloud.com/mcgrom1/the-keith-moon-radio-show-73/
https://youtu.be/SNfQda8ceGs?si=iJWL7T4Wq1-aK_A9
Obligatory
Also, I’VE GOT A PRAIRIE DOG POPPIN’!
I had no idea these cute creatures were so gregarious and sophisticated. Thanks Martini!
They're shorter meerkats!
Prairie dogs are inordinately clever creatures with distinct personalities. I could sit quietly and watch the incredible creatures interacting all day long.
We have a large prairie dog exhibit at our zoo. It is one of my favorites.
The minor league team in my hometown is named after prairie dogs, except they gave it a cutesy pseudonym - the Sod Poodles. The cover story behind it was that that's what the "old-timers" allegedly called prairie dogs. Now, I'm old enough to have hung out around some of the old-timers who settled the area. Hell, at 71, I'm an old-timer myself, and I never heard anybody call a prairie dog a sod poodle.
But I really like the naming conventions around minor league baseball teams, and Sod Poodles is one of the better ones, imho. So, to go with what the locals say - Go Soddies!
I went out to opening day to watch my local NWA Naturals lay as big a hurting on the Sod Poodles as I’ve seen in a while, including one of the longest home runs I’ve ever seen at any level. I hope that was an anomaly and that your Soddies have a better season!
I hope they have a good season, too, but it's not really my team. I haven't lived up there in 40+ years. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised they're getting such good support up there, but evidently they're drawing great crowds. I worked for the Giants farm club up there back in the late 60s, and we didn't draw well at all, even with a Texas League West Division champion. (Best job ever; I still have a champagne cork from the title-clinching celebration). I have the boringly named Round Rock Express now.
Ugh, “Express” is boring, and anyway I dislike singular names for baseball and hockey teams. It smacks of soccer-ism.
"Sod Poodles" sounds more like some kind of old-timey slur, or gay slang, depending on who was using it.
I dunno. Sod Poodles is a good name, but the Akron Rubber Ducks will give them a run for their money.
how about The Jacksonville Giant Shrimp ?
The Toledo Mud Hens gonna whup their butt.
We shouldn't be letting prairie dogs snort coke. Just sayin'
There's an opening line for a country song.
The prairie dog pup falling down the hole at the end is a metaphor for a lot of things in life.
Hey ‘tini, welcome to Edinburgh!
Great pic! Thanks.
Among the many places I visited when I had to go to a wedding in Montana was a prairie dog town in SD. There was another at Ft. Niobrara Wildlife Refuge in Nebraska also, too.
These little doggies are adorbs and I would rather have them as neighbors than a wolverine.
And thank you for the picture of the people in front of the tall building in Edinborough! ; - >
Prairie puppers perusing!
Well done!
Thank you!
As for the 2024 autopsy, better to put out a steaming pile of bullshit, and to call it for what it is, than not to put out anything. It's a starting point, rather than the ending point.
HuffPost: Of The 6,069 Refugees Accepted By U.S. Since October, All But 3 Are South African
The three refugees not from South Africa were from Afghanistan.
https://www.rpc.state.gov/documents/Refugee%20Arrivals%20by%20State%20and%20Nationality%20as%20of%20April%2030,%202026.pdf
President Donald Trump is backing a House Republican bill that would make daylight saving time permanent:
“It’s time that people can stop worrying about the ‘Clock,’ not to mention all of the work and money that is spent on this ridiculous, twice yearly production,” he posted on TruthSocial on Thursday evening. “Many of these Clocks are located in Towers, and the cost of renting, or using, Heavy Equipment to do this twice a year is prohibitive!” [HuffPost]
His logic may be bullshit, but he finally found a policy that I agree with him on. I'd still vote him into the sun if it were an option, though.
The New Republic: How Bush Ruined Daylight Savings
"The primary beneficiaries seem to have been the retail and sporting-goods lobbies, who pushed for the bill because it makes people want to stay out later and shop or hunt. (Lobbies who opposed the bill included the Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, presumably because fewer people want to attend services before dawn.) In other words, like many other laws passed during the Bush administration, it was a sop to business that left ordinary folks holding the bag -- in this case a bag lunch packed during pitch-dark late October mornings."
https://www.npr.org/2010/11/10/131211321/the-new-republic-how-bush-ruined-daylight-savings?ref=activitypub
I kinda stopped following local news a while back so a) I did not know that Duggan was no longer Mayor of Detroit. And b) that he was running for governor and c) that he was running as an independent. I would love an non-paywalled explainer for why he's not running as a Democrat. I gather his current trouble stems from the use of lead and arsenic contaminated fill dirt for demolished homes.
Reposting because Congress blows:
RANDY RAINBOW: WHERE THE HELL IS OUR CONGRESS?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4V7ejdO6Zk
So new pre-med students will be required to take more Charlie Kirk school hours than Organic Chemistry hours?? Sure, that makes sense. Also this seems truly illegal.
Charming of Rebecca to echo--and remind us all of-- her enraged-toddler mode with a snide little drive-by about how GENOCIDE Kamala beat herself by supporting, like, GENOCIDE while Kamala gave GENOCIDE PARTIES. Of course, Felon Musk's buying the election etc etc etc ad infinitum had nothing to do with the loss.
I was neither snide nor enraged; I think Israel and Gaza lost us the election, mostly, and it would have been far far better if we had not given Bibi a blank check.
I didn't say anything like what you attributed to me, so can it.
I was very glad to read someone with some reach admit that was a large part of it, and not so much the eggs.
I think it was the eggs (as well as being a "change" election and Dem's not rising to that occasion). But I can buy off on Gaza/Israel being a tipping point.
I love Lake Placid. It was such a short needled pine, reptilian surprise!!
Slowly but surely, a few GOP senators and reps are visualizing their self interests as separate from trump. Day late, dollar short. But it is fun to watch the disarray.
I've made a conscious decision to not read the Dem summary of the 2024 election. What I have noticed is that despite some persons at the DNCC being engaged in this summary exercise, no one seems to have arrived at a cohesive plan for the midterms. Or if they have, no one is sharing. I do think the Dems will sweep the House this year, and that there is a chance of breaking even in the Senate (for instance, it looks like Platner will win Maine and trump's favored candidate in TX might lose to Tallarico). But these wins aren't because the Democrats are providing leadership - they are because trump and the GOP are so unbelievably fucked up.
And. Fuck. Fetterman
"if they have, no one is sharing"
A few things about that -- first -- it depends on who and what you're reading
AND it depends on what you're looking for
The tragedy of it to me is it reveals what happens each and every time Democrats LOSE en masse -- when Black people (voters, representatives, and consultants) are shafted, Democrats lose
and there are a lot of White people who still aren't ready to face that -- but if they *don't* face it ... the same outcome is almost predictable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjjl6MQ5YwI
𝐃𝐍𝐂 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐲 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐛. 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝: 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐕𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞
Ken Martin is “not proud” of that report, I suspect, because it lays bare HOW WHITE DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANTS REAPED THE LION’S SHARE OF THAT BILLION DOLLARS WE RAISED BY STIFFING NOT JUST CONSULTANTS OF COLOR BUT ALSO BLACK VOTERS – who are not just an essential percentage of the Democratic base and the most consistent, but also who White Democrats have ALWAYS SHAFTED WHEN THEY LOSE
… which ties into the larger narrative Dr. Stacey wrote about in her essay about what Senator Whitehouse called the Thug Fund
“ America has never actually struggled to understand harm and intergenerational trauma. It has struggled to recognize certain people as fully harmed. This country compensated enslavers after abolition for the “loss of property.” It reimbursed white Americans for all kinds of grievances throughout history.
White homeowners received subsidies and protections designed to cushion them from integration. White farmers won massive discrimination settlements from the USDA. Industries get bailouts. Banks get rescues. Corporations get relief packages every time capitalism lights itself on fire. Police departments accused of abuse get bigger budgets. Political operatives get legal defense funds.
America always finds money when the suffering is attached to power, property, or proximity to whiteness.
But when Black folk demand reparations for slavery, segregation, redlining, lynching, medical experimentation, housing theft, school apartheid, predatory policing, environmental poisoning, and generations of economic extraction, suddenly everybody turns into a frustrated budget expert.“
https://drstaceypatton1865.substack.com/p/everybody-who-has-ever-been-screwed
So to your last point, the strategy is actually fairly simple -- and even Marc Elias has said the same:
Treat the treatment of Black voters as the national emergency it is and PUT RESOURCES INTO FIGHTING IT -- and win (because as Elie says -- voter turnout beats gerrymandering (and his father was a political gerrymandering expert)).
Ignore the Black electorate, like White Democratic "leadership" traditionally does -- and lose.
Again.
It really is that simple
Good points M. I'll amend my statement to say, 'if they have, no one is admitting the silent part out loud.'
I also think that a great deal of what you said should be broadened out to include other communities of color and communities with language other than English. For instance, the Democrats lost Miami in 2020 because they just assumed the Cuban community was going to move in lockstep with all other Hispanics - Democrat leadership was thinking that, after all, aren't all people who speak Spanish the same????? (please read this as irony)
" For instance, the Democrats lost Miami in 2020 because they just assumed the Cuban community was going to move in lockstep with all other Hispanics - Democrat leadership was thinking that, after all, aren't all people who speak Spanish the same?????"
I have a whole rant about that and I'm trying to exercise some conversational restraint
That argument started in 2014 (it really started earlier than that, but I was active in the 2014 version) -- not leastwise because words like "socialísmo" DO NOT MEAN THE SAME IN VENEZUELAN SPANISH AS THEY DO IN ENGLISH
But as usual, tone-deaf White Democratic "leadership" could. not. hear. it.
And now -- here we are
o.O
Don't get me started on the infiltration of Spanish language right wing radio
It's hard to know just how many times that "We're White intellectuals, so we're the leaders and the rest of all the ideas of other people no matter how many times they've been right in the past just don't matter" have cost the country better programs and progress
This is a very strange thing, feeling any hope at all that Texas maybe doing something like electing a Democrat to statewide office.
We'll see
James Talarico is still going to have to figure out how to address and relate to his Black electorate
https://www.wonkette.com/p/pay-the-fck-up-tabs-fri-may-22-2026/comment/263506301
Kind of like a 60s flash-back.
Ann Richards was a blue governor in Texas in the 90s, IINM
Just saw that James Murdoch ( another one of Rupert's sons, the one he bypassed when handing down Fox News ) has just bought half of Vox Media, which includes "New York" magazine.
The enshittening continues with more oligarchs grabbing up "independent" sources
"And another Charlie Kirk-related pay the fuck up First Amendment moment!"
Yes, it's good that Ms. Brown got a just outcome, but bottom line is that no RethugliKlan will ever be deterred from committing evil acts by "losing" some tax dollars in court. Same goes for killer cops. You've got to take concrete measures against them, America, like voting the bastards out of office and ending qualified immunity. But good luck with that in the New Confederate States.
It CAN be done
The question remains whether or not White Democratic leadership is WILLING to ALLOW it to be done
https://www.wonkette.com/p/pay-the-fck-up-tabs-fri-may-22-2026/comment/263506301
*sips coffee* I'm not sure I want to migrate to the DJTJr article yet.
My current physical location is such that I cannot access broadcast television in real time. Therefore, I will be watching the Stephen Colbert signoff show from the Ed Sullivan Theater after the fact, by streaming the episode in packets, possibly through CBS dot com itself, which I suspect will place me in the good company of millions.
This has led me to speculate, as is irresponsible not to do, that CBS will soon discover that their most-streamed content ever, a record not to be broken unless real-time over-the-air radio and TV are completely supplanted by "internet radio" and "internet TV", is this episode of The Late Show.
The least-streamed content? Literally anything touched by Bari Weiss.
And for all the sucking up that CBS and corporate owner Paramount have done to the Mango Menace and his FCC, they will be fucked hard nonetheless -- by the FCC, by That Fucking Guy, and by their own poor decisions.
*sips coffee* Well said.
Feelin' Squirrely after Tab's and Coffee ☕ TGIF 💯👍
I cant quit you Wonkette. You guys are my shelter in the hurricane. How poetic. 🤣
nice group of people for a vile little snark mob.
Sheri Meckelenberg! Come on up. You seem like a MAGGATTy Senate's ideal candidate for a job as counsel to the senate judiciary committee. Wut? A bit of a problem with a grand jury? Tish and posh. We know, dear. That is why we hired you.