Aw! I would like a comfort dog.

The Vatican finally declares sex abuse illegal.

That's something...

I often tell Kato he could be a comfort dog, because he's so easygoing and happy. (I realize there's more to being a comfort dog than being easygoing, including very specific training for the therapy/comfort part, but he's such a chill guy that I always want to share the power of Kato with everyone.) (Although his death farts are the opposite of comforting.)

Lucy would have made a great comfort dog. Darby is more suited to a personal space/stop looking at me dog. They need those, right?

Darby is more suited to a personal space/stop looking at me dog. They need those, right?

Actually, I think that would be great for someone who wants company, the presence of a dog, but doesn't want to have to pet/hug/skritch it. Just have a sympathetic dog in the room.

Kato does indeed dislike hugs as much as his mama does, bu he tolerates them because he loves skritches and knows they generally follow hugs.

Kato has to have his teeth cleaned tomorrow, and since he's close to 12, I'm a little worried about the anesthesia. He's ridiculously healthy, so he should be fine, but I worry. Our vet is superb, and I know he wouldn't have recommended the teeth cleaning if he thought Kato wouldn't be able to handle the anesthesia. But, you know, I worry.

The cat Toke also has to have her teeth cleaned tomorrow. I'm less worried about her, because she's fairly robust.

And the hilarious part is that Slinky, who is by far the oldest critter in the house, at almost 16, does NOT need her teeth cleaned because they are in fabulous shape. She could be the spokeskitty for kitty dental hygiene. They are clean and perfectly white, no tartar, no nothing.

She is eternal.

For anyone except me, Mr Peabody is more of a "why are you still here?" dog. He would be useful if students needed herding.

She is eternal.

Maybe she should be introduced to Clovis.

She is seriously Highlander kitty. She's still fairly spry, runs around, torments bugs, and can jump up on the back of the couch (although I think now she jumps to the couch seat and thence to the back). She's all black except a sprinkling of maybe 10 white hairs on her chest. And occasionally when a whisker falls out, the new whisker that grows in to replace it is all white. But she has only ever had one white whisker at a time; the rest are black.

She is eternal.

I don't know if anyone is following the 777 crash at SFO anymore, but this is a big WTF:

Eventually, the 777 screeched to a stop. That's when the lead flight attendant approached the cockpit and asked if they should evacuate. The flight crew, which was then talking with the air traffic control tower, said no.

An announcement over the aircraft's speakers told passengers to stay in their seats.

Then, one flight attendant noticed flames outside, around row 10, and told another attendant to relay the information to the cockpit. At that point, the evacuation process began.

This whole process -- from the plane stopping to the evacuation order -- took about 90 seconds, Hersman said. That's the amount of time, she pointed out, in which U.S. regulators say an airliner should be entirely cleared of passengers and crew.

They were lucky that delay didn't cause any more deaths.

Honestly, it sounds like one fuck up after another. Hard to believe. Now the elevator tells me that the pilot is claiming to have been blinded by a white light when they were at 500 ft. Not sure that passes the smell test given all the rest of what they did wrong.