Good god. It's Teapot Of Our Own: [link]

Who in hell saw that niche coming?

I've heard that statements that are publishable in the US might not be in the UK because the burden of proof in libel (or slander or whatever) is different and publishers won't want to take the risk of being sued. I think I learned that from The Good Wife, so, salt well.

No, that is quite true, the UK's laws make it very easy to be sued for libel: [link]

I am so tickled that that exists. Even as I grumble that it could be easier to navigate.

The US women have had a really good track and field Olympics this year.

But, right now, I don't even have words for the Jamaican guys. That's just fucking amazing. All that, and with Asafa injured to boot. The anthem is going off in my head again.

When I was out doing groceries I swung by the intersection with the plane crash to see if I could see anything obvious, but not at the bits I looked at.

Why did NBC spend an hour of Olympics time on WWII?

Because Americans saved the cheese eating surrender monkeys?

I am loving that there is at least one headline saying that the US women's 4x100 team beat Jamaica. I mean, that it's in the headline, not just in the article. They set the world record, and they beat Jamaica--both facts deemed important enough to not just be above the fold, but in bold type.

But the articles about the men's 4x100 seem to be being written more slowly than after the 200 yesterday. And the photos lagging way behind. There are no days off at the Olympics! What is this jokery???

Oh, hey, I think one of the relay running women is from around here. She lives and trains somewhere else, but grew up here, and I didn't grow up here, so it's a tenuous connection, but good for her!

Charlie Pierce on Paul Ryan as the Republican VP:

Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live. This now is an argument not over what kind of political commonwealth we will have, but rather whether or not we will have one at all, because Paul Ryan does not believe in the most primary institution of that commonwealth: our government. The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution make a lie out of every speech he's ever given. He looks at the country and sees its government as something alien that is holding down the individual entrepreneurial genius of 200 million people, and not as their creation, and the vehicle through which that genius can be channelled for the general welfare.

[link]

for a change, Hubby went to the ER and didn't get admitted. Yay! His intestinal tract is not fully blocked, this time. Here's hoping the drugs and the liquid diet allow all things to pass.

And kudos to Ramona the Wonder Phelebotimst, who got the IV into the vein in Hubby's elbow the very first time, whereas the last IV took four people, including the department head, and they started talking about using his neck for a site and they brought in the ultrasound machine to find a good vein.

I've never had a nurse pull out the ultrasound to get an extra-jugular IV, and they laughed when I told them the doctors at their sister hospital not only used an ultrasound for their EJ, but they also talked through it, with things like "Wait, no, that's an artery, right?"

I might be crap in most places, but I can pop a jugular. If you need machinery to find that...I don't think I want you sticking things into me. Please find an ER nurse.