Of course, this may not have been the intentional slight the press is making it out to be. That airport may have had some regulation limiting the size of carpets on site to that of "flying" carpets.
Either way, I'm liking those Canucks more and more every day. They seem to have their act together in more ways than one, meeting Trump's dizzying trade blithering and blathering one-upmanship / downmanship with practical and, um, sober solutions...
As some of you might remember I enjoy photography as a distraction from some of the nonsense around me. It helps a lot, and I think I'll start occasionally sharing some of my favorites on here for anyone also looking for distraction. Sunsets are a favorite subject, so I'll make that today's theme. Hope you enjoy. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H_M82cSt8s77iTgL1zDPhUHl7vjfyScT/view?usp=sharing
Huge fan. Your photography is stunning. Great composition, lighting, colors. What did you say your equipment was? Nikon SLR? Canon? Are SLRs still a thing? Do you use any special processing apps? What file types? Not that I’m about to become an amateur photog, but I do get curious about some of the details…
Thanks. Recently upgraded to a Nikon D810. Considered making the leap to mirrorless but not just yet. DSLR's are still a thing but mirrorless is taking over. I use Adobe Lightroom, shoot in RAW to allow maximum editing capabilities.
I’ve got a long-standing resentment of Adobe—probably a side-effect of being an Apple fanboi. The short version is that Adobe always tried to charge for PDF, whereas it’s been a native file format in the OSX-derived OSes.
Been playing around with Affinity as an alternative, but haven’t had enough time to dedicate to *really* understanding it. It’s a steep learning curve if you’re not a long-term graphics editing user…
At any rate, the Affinity model/ sales pitch is that you *own* the software rather than renting it via perpetual subscription…
I’ve had both versions with LR. I purchased a version and used it for about 5 years until I thought I wanted to learn Photoshop and subscribed for the package deal. After trying to learn PS for a while I decided LR does what I need just fine and I didn’t want to spend a ton of time learning PS. I might still do that but not now.
Yeah: PS has a steep learning curve if you’ve never worked with it—or so I’ve found trying to get familiar with Affinity Photo, which supposedly is PS-derived. It’s all powerful software, though, just not beginner friendly. I mean, even some of the better YouTube tutorials for beginners are hard to follow.
My reason for having interest is drone imagery, for which I haven’t found much local demand, unfortunately… I end up just using unedited RAW or JPG files as needed for stills, with video being generally more attention-grabbing if you’re going to capture aerial imagery.
Good morning. Off to a late start. Was 35 first thing this morning, now about 50, getting to the high 60s.
The mothership is covering the effects of the trump on-again off-again tariffs on Wall Street, which has spooked the markets and dropped the market indexes, efen though the economy is strong (for now). As the article explains, economic statistics are backward-looking, while the stock markets is forward looking, And the stock market does not see a predictable future.
Yes because it is actually the atmospheric ring around the circumference of earth. It is simultaneously sunsets and sunrises. It's a thing we see with a common duality and uniqueness.
Everyone sees the same general object. Like stars.
But, each pair of eyes do not literally see the same thing. Because each human receives unique photons. From the same source yes. But we all see a unique view.
Wired Doug factpids of trivial interest.
Consider. Our oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules we breath circulate. Not beyond rational estimates that we breath some molecules of Socrates, DaVinci, Newton.... 🫣🤔
RE: "But, each pair of eyes do not literally see the same thing. Because each human receives unique photons. From the same source yes. But we all see a unique view."
In 1970, there was a total solar eclipse across much of North America (I was in the partial zone in Ohio; I remember it well).
The Peanuts cartoon strip played up anticipating the eclipse. when the day finally arrived, the strip shows Charlie Brown, outside in the rain. Linus walks up and says, "How's the eclipse?"
Those evil kodkod are why egg prices are up! They kill domestic chickens, so fewer eggs! 😡 Trump oughtta slap a tariff on chili in retaliation!
Come to think of it, maybe he oughtta slap a tariff on people he doesn't like. I might enjoy wearing a t-shirt with Tweety bird on it singing "I taught the tariff, but I did not kill the deputy".
I have a neighbor who would shoot them too. He raised chickens, until someone (not me) called it in (city limits forbids it), and he had to get rid of them. Fortunately he is living away from the neighborhood, as he appears to have both guns and dementia.
Guy down at the Rural King, which sells all sorts of chicks, was saying how folks who thought they’d start raising chickens soon found out it was a lot more aggravation and expense than they’d expected. The more rural you are, the more you have to fight off the raccoons, weasels, foxes, coyotes, and other hungry wildlife to keep a flock for yourself.
Katie's father raised cattle on his farm, could never take a real day off as a result. Not my idea of fun.
I do grow tomatoes at my office in the windowsill. I water it once a week, and not much else. I may plant a sunflower this year, just because I have a 6' high window and it'd grow that high.
lol I plant daffodil bulbs every year. Last year Holland Bulb had a clearance sale around Thanksgiving, so I fed the squirrels a nice Thanksgiving meal. 🤦♂️ but a few dozen still appeared. No blooms yet, but they are getting close.
This is generally true of all home gardening. No economy of scale. Growing your own food is the most expensive food imaginable...but it's delicious and feels righteous. So, I continue doing it.
My wife raises chickens (the stranger looking the better). She pays for the feed out of her teaching salary.
I once did a rough estimate of how much the eggs actually cost her. The most expensive eggs I can imagine. But she enjoys it as a hobby. And the eggs are far healthier than the watery looking ones from the store. As a side benefit, they are free ranging in the warm weather and keep the bug population way down. We no longer have fleas that get on her dogs.
Not sure how true it is, but there’s a claim that bug-fed poultry meat and eggs are healthier than the grain-fed sort. I’m guessing it might be slightly better, but who knows really? It’s sort of like the claimed benefits of grass-fed beef, organically grown vegetables, or vitamin supplements: The claims makes sense, but they haven’t been verified by controlled trial to any satisfactory extent.
There’s probably a much greater health benefit in the extra activities involved in raising the chickens and tending the hobby garden than the benefits achieved from consuming the resulting foods.
I read everything I could get my hands on about grass-fed meat and 'free-range' chickens (using 'chicken tractors') back in the 80's when 'management intensive grazing' started gaining traction. I went to many seminars exploring the benefits of grass-fed meat and how to raise animals using that paradigm. A friend of mine was a veterinarian who started doing lab tests on grass-fed meat. His findings were eye opening for me. I feel confident in saying that grass-fed is clearly healthier, for both the animals and humans who consume them. At least that's my perspective :)
I’m convinced that it’s better for the animals, too, even with probably less extensive research. It’s intuitive that this must result in healthier meat.
My wife and I have this discussion on occasion. Tractor Supply sells a cool metal barred 6 sided cage to protect the chickens. Not snake proof. But good for the Coyote and bobcat cheering section
"I’ve noticed that both Aylene and Cynthia appear to have taken a sabbatical from posting here.
I suspect the insanity of Trump 2.0 is wearing on them and they need time away from The Dispatch. I hope it’s not permanent, they are part of the heart of The Morning Dispatch."
You can tell them it's Lent. I can't say it feels like penance, though. I don't miss it.
The auto stuff is penance. We're down two cars today, and Fang, whoops, just realized he has work. He'll have to sit around the town hall waiting for a pickup.
We're going to have to replace the Avalon asap, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
"My understanding is she's taking her customary Lenten break. (She's a serious church lady.)
"But other things that may figure into people's absence can include The Dispatch's occasionally maddening attitudes toward subscribers, the unacknowledged frustrations of Disgus, troll infestations, and sniping between experienced commenters who should know better than to behave in a way that turns the rest of us off.
"Commenters like Cynthia who have regularly gone the extra mile to help keep the Dispatch comments section civil, by taking up space with content that encourages people to have friendly discussions that lead them to view each other as fellow humans, sometimes get to feel like it's a waste of their time."
Yes, I mentioned that I don't really miss it. I didn't even finish reading the G-file last night. Just went to bed after the Troop Committee meeting.
F has a meeting with his Envirothon team, and Georgia and I are relaxing by the pool of someone's apartment complex watching construction workers build balconies.
She didn't like it when they used power saws, but now they're just cleaning up.
Me too. Some days I’ll scan TMD but I can no longer handle so many people needing to react to every single thing that happens, and having what looks like pure, rabid hatred for Trump. When I realized a couple of frequent commenters I disagreed with over time had blocked me, I guess I realized it’s pointless to participate. Maybe writing “We know you don’t like him, we knew it from the first hundred times you wrote it” wasn’t the most diplomatic way to make my point.🤔 Maybe I’ll change my mind, we’ll see.
Well heck, Brian, if you wanted diplomacy, you should have hired Marco Rubio before Trump got him. We know that's a guy who can change *his* mind. But I don't think Rex Tillerson is really up to a whole lot these days and may have some free time if you want to give him a call.
Then again, Tillerson may not be a very good choice if you're looking for any advice about "diplomat speak" vis a vie the subject of Trump...
I can’t talk politics without getting very angry about it. So I make an effort to avoid it.
Prior to our online world, you didn’t really exchange political (or religious) views with complete strangers. It’s only online life where it seems “normal” to castigate total strangers, as if hectoring them enough would cause them to change their minds over politics. Whoever went online thinking: “Let me get some ideas about what my political opinions should be”?
In other words, the entire effort at getting worked up is completely futile—unless the feeling of glowing anger is something you like to do in place of cardio or something…
I feel your pain. I comment less there for the same reason.
What scares me is in reading Nick's "group therapy session" (JohnM's term); not how much hatred there is for Trump, but for voters. They call them stupid, misinformed, hateful bigots, I could go on. It scares me people not only think so little of other people, but that they are blind to their own biases about it.
I think voters wanted a change in 2020, and again in 2024. And they got it; whether it is the change they want or not is tbd.
I have many progressive friends, and I continue to be their friends, because they are good people; they simply disagree with me on politics, economics, etc.
Yes, I forgot to mention I feel like I have a bullseye on my screen name for pushing back on the hatred and I didn’t even vote for the guy. Some seem to assume that my comments mean I’m one of those “stupid people” who voted for him. I’ve shared these thoughts with TD team but there’s nothing they can do about it. So I’m mostly tuning out.
I've never been online much, tried it a couple times in the last couple weeks, and it weirded me out. This thing with the green card guy getting deported/maybe deported/whatever...every rando online has their own slam dunk legal analysis. It's bizarre.
I'm confused. "....the smallest cat species in the Americas. Native to Chile, plus an adjoining bit of Argentina, the kodkod is about 20 inches long, with a tail of 8 to 10 inches, and weighs 4 to 5.5 lbs."....doesn't sound small. I have friends with smaller cats than that. The video said they're teeny and could "fit in the palm of your hand", which also seems to contradict the stated size of 20" and 5-ish pounds.
Other than that, cute little thing. Eyes 5x more powerful than our own.
The rusty-spotted cat's typical weight is apparently 2.0-3.5 lb. Meanwhile, the black-footed cat's typical weight is apparently 2.4-5.4 lb (guys heavier than girls). (Wikipedia) These apparently rival each other for world's smallest wildcat.
The kodkod is adorable, maybe even more so than the manul. Where’s that tilde on my phone keyboard? Hamza took his first steps Sunday and now he’s toddling all over. He will he one in 13 days. I’m going to watch him a few hours today, things are going to be different now!
Is anybody having problems with Disgus?
EDIT: Yes, they probably were. All part of the regular service we pay for! It's back now.
Yeah, it appears to have dropped a letter at the end of its name?
Nope. I haven't looked in a few days.
That's certainly a cat!
I don't suppose the chickens hanging around Cynthia at the stable were expecting protection from kodkods. But I could be wrong.
No kodkods around here. A dog came by, though, and wagged at me, and the chickens left.
Sounds like a peaceful scene.
The dog was very interested in rolling in horse droppings. It was a lab-and-something, probably less than a year old.
I just realized I sent the wrong link to my photos and only shared one. I meant to share several: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Fg-nEN4z2tXi4exBJ2NBSiLnZVUcBMRb?usp=sharing
Nice X 5.
Thanks.
Speaking of Itty-Bitty...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/international-relations/marco-rubio-humiliated-by-tiny-red-carpet-rolled-out-as-he-lands-in-canada-for-g7/ar-AA1AQThz?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Of course, this may not have been the intentional slight the press is making it out to be. That airport may have had some regulation limiting the size of carpets on site to that of "flying" carpets.
Either way, I'm liking those Canucks more and more every day. They seem to have their act together in more ways than one, meeting Trump's dizzying trade blithering and blathering one-upmanship / downmanship with practical and, um, sober solutions...
https://mooseheadbeershop.ca/products/the-presidential-pack
Caveat emptor... one Canuck wag fairly noted that at the rate things are going this may not be enough for him to get through Labour Day.
Available for all (maybe not our friend K).
Remember the Wizard of Oz? Don't look behind that curtain Dorothy and Toto.
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-03/chinese-nuclear-weapons-2025
I'm personally in favor of Taiwan, Japan and South Korea each having their own nuclear weapons.
Why? Because the Orange dude will pause his retaliation with the line - Think of the Real Estate ruined! No!
As some of you might remember I enjoy photography as a distraction from some of the nonsense around me. It helps a lot, and I think I'll start occasionally sharing some of my favorites on here for anyone also looking for distraction. Sunsets are a favorite subject, so I'll make that today's theme. Hope you enjoy. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H_M82cSt8s77iTgL1zDPhUHl7vjfyScT/view?usp=sharing
Nice.
Huge fan. Your photography is stunning. Great composition, lighting, colors. What did you say your equipment was? Nikon SLR? Canon? Are SLRs still a thing? Do you use any special processing apps? What file types? Not that I’m about to become an amateur photog, but I do get curious about some of the details…
Thanks. Recently upgraded to a Nikon D810. Considered making the leap to mirrorless but not just yet. DSLR's are still a thing but mirrorless is taking over. I use Adobe Lightroom, shoot in RAW to allow maximum editing capabilities.
I’ve got a long-standing resentment of Adobe—probably a side-effect of being an Apple fanboi. The short version is that Adobe always tried to charge for PDF, whereas it’s been a native file format in the OSX-derived OSes.
Been playing around with Affinity as an alternative, but haven’t had enough time to dedicate to *really* understanding it. It’s a steep learning curve if you’re not a long-term graphics editing user…
At any rate, the Affinity model/ sales pitch is that you *own* the software rather than renting it via perpetual subscription…
I’ve had both versions with LR. I purchased a version and used it for about 5 years until I thought I wanted to learn Photoshop and subscribed for the package deal. After trying to learn PS for a while I decided LR does what I need just fine and I didn’t want to spend a ton of time learning PS. I might still do that but not now.
Yeah: PS has a steep learning curve if you’ve never worked with it—or so I’ve found trying to get familiar with Affinity Photo, which supposedly is PS-derived. It’s all powerful software, though, just not beginner friendly. I mean, even some of the better YouTube tutorials for beginners are hard to follow.
My reason for having interest is drone imagery, for which I haven’t found much local demand, unfortunately… I end up just using unedited RAW or JPG files as needed for stills, with video being generally more attention-grabbing if you’re going to capture aerial imagery.
Good morning. Off to a late start. Was 35 first thing this morning, now about 50, getting to the high 60s.
The mothership is covering the effects of the trump on-again off-again tariffs on Wall Street, which has spooked the markets and dropped the market indexes, efen though the economy is strong (for now). As the article explains, economic statistics are backward-looking, while the stock markets is forward looking, And the stock market does not see a predictable future.
Constant chaos makes business planning challenging, to say the least…
As in "impossible".
In case you haven't heard Vladimer Horowitz playing his amazing piano solo rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever. 1951
https://youtu.be/FnWmODg5EUk?si=N6kb7EBAoowCCcYV
Tonight - Total lunar eclipse of Full Worm Moon - March 13-14!
Bonus questions!!
A. Why is it red inside the Earths shadow, not black?
B. How come a solar Eclipse lasts less than 6 minutes, but also Lunar eclipse lasts 66 minutes!?
https://earthsky.org/space/why-does-the-moon-look-red-during-a-total-lunar-eclipse
Time it begins, maxes ends.
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/total-lunar-eclipse-march-13-14-2025
Not appearing in China this time Kurt.
I assumed A. was simply the glow from the red states reflected back. 😑🫠
I read in the paper this morning that what it is is a reflection of all the sunsets in the world at that moment in time.
Yes because it is actually the atmospheric ring around the circumference of earth. It is simultaneously sunsets and sunrises. It's a thing we see with a common duality and uniqueness.
Everyone sees the same general object. Like stars.
But, each pair of eyes do not literally see the same thing. Because each human receives unique photons. From the same source yes. But we all see a unique view.
Wired Doug factpids of trivial interest.
Consider. Our oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules we breath circulate. Not beyond rational estimates that we breath some molecules of Socrates, DaVinci, Newton.... 🫣🤔
RE: "But, each pair of eyes do not literally see the same thing. Because each human receives unique photons. From the same source yes. But we all see a unique view."
So. You're a Moody Blues fan, eh?
Cold hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is gray and yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion
https://www.songlyrics.com/the-moody-blues/nights-in-white-satin-including-late-lament-lyrics/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqaiS-sDQyY
That's it!
It's cloudy and raining.... :-(
In 1970, there was a total solar eclipse across much of North America (I was in the partial zone in Ohio; I remember it well).
The Peanuts cartoon strip played up anticipating the eclipse. when the day finally arrived, the strip shows Charlie Brown, outside in the rain. Linus walks up and says, "How's the eclipse?"
I suppose one might say Charlie Brown's plans were eclipsed by the rain, if one wanted to be eclipsed by a door. So, I won't say that.
Those evil kodkod are why egg prices are up! They kill domestic chickens, so fewer eggs! 😡 Trump oughtta slap a tariff on chili in retaliation!
Come to think of it, maybe he oughtta slap a tariff on people he doesn't like. I might enjoy wearing a t-shirt with Tweety bird on it singing "I taught the tariff, but I did not kill the deputy".
I have a neighbor who would shoot them too. He raised chickens, until someone (not me) called it in (city limits forbids it), and he had to get rid of them. Fortunately he is living away from the neighborhood, as he appears to have both guns and dementia.
There are many people I'd like to slap in the Trump administration, starting with the Big Kahuna.
Guy down at the Rural King, which sells all sorts of chicks, was saying how folks who thought they’d start raising chickens soon found out it was a lot more aggravation and expense than they’d expected. The more rural you are, the more you have to fight off the raccoons, weasels, foxes, coyotes, and other hungry wildlife to keep a flock for yourself.
Fact check: true
Katie's father raised cattle on his farm, could never take a real day off as a result. Not my idea of fun.
I do grow tomatoes at my office in the windowsill. I water it once a week, and not much else. I may plant a sunflower this year, just because I have a 6' high window and it'd grow that high.
lol I plant daffodil bulbs every year. Last year Holland Bulb had a clearance sale around Thanksgiving, so I fed the squirrels a nice Thanksgiving meal. 🤦♂️ but a few dozen still appeared. No blooms yet, but they are getting close.
This is generally true of all home gardening. No economy of scale. Growing your own food is the most expensive food imaginable...but it's delicious and feels righteous. So, I continue doing it.
My wife raises chickens (the stranger looking the better). She pays for the feed out of her teaching salary.
I once did a rough estimate of how much the eggs actually cost her. The most expensive eggs I can imagine. But she enjoys it as a hobby. And the eggs are far healthier than the watery looking ones from the store. As a side benefit, they are free ranging in the warm weather and keep the bug population way down. We no longer have fleas that get on her dogs.
Not sure how true it is, but there’s a claim that bug-fed poultry meat and eggs are healthier than the grain-fed sort. I’m guessing it might be slightly better, but who knows really? It’s sort of like the claimed benefits of grass-fed beef, organically grown vegetables, or vitamin supplements: The claims makes sense, but they haven’t been verified by controlled trial to any satisfactory extent.
There’s probably a much greater health benefit in the extra activities involved in raising the chickens and tending the hobby garden than the benefits achieved from consuming the resulting foods.
I read everything I could get my hands on about grass-fed meat and 'free-range' chickens (using 'chicken tractors') back in the 80's when 'management intensive grazing' started gaining traction. I went to many seminars exploring the benefits of grass-fed meat and how to raise animals using that paradigm. A friend of mine was a veterinarian who started doing lab tests on grass-fed meat. His findings were eye opening for me. I feel confident in saying that grass-fed is clearly healthier, for both the animals and humans who consume them. At least that's my perspective :)
I’m convinced that it’s better for the animals, too, even with probably less extensive research. It’s intuitive that this must result in healthier meat.
"Victory gardens" were common in WWII (so I'm told).
Many of them were community gardens, so there could be economy of scale.
My wife and I have this discussion on occasion. Tractor Supply sells a cool metal barred 6 sided cage to protect the chickens. Not snake proof. But good for the Coyote and bobcat cheering section
A “small cats unknown” playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLp_Uzlh36zW49WF-wCJBQB3Dyback1l_&si=BuzDlT83m-DFMiJI
Ronnie B over at TMD comments posted
"I’ve noticed that both Aylene and Cynthia appear to have taken a sabbatical from posting here.
I suspect the insanity of Trump 2.0 is wearing on them and they need time away from The Dispatch. I hope it’s not permanent, they are part of the heart of The Morning Dispatch."
Nancy H heartily concurred.
8 likes last coint.
You can tell them it's Lent. I can't say it feels like penance, though. I don't miss it.
The auto stuff is penance. We're down two cars today, and Fang, whoops, just realized he has work. He'll have to sit around the town hall waiting for a pickup.
We're going to have to replace the Avalon asap, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
Here's a couple of replacement possibilities for you...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMTZ3QhjXr0
Maybe something with slightly fewer miles on it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p97T_QnkIw
Or maybe something with fewer miles yet and a little sportier...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tbN1J29eW8
Lol.
I posted on that thread, commenting on several factors that can cause people to pull back from the mothership, temporarily or permanently.
Here's what I posted.
"My understanding is she's taking her customary Lenten break. (She's a serious church lady.)
"But other things that may figure into people's absence can include The Dispatch's occasionally maddening attitudes toward subscribers, the unacknowledged frustrations of Disgus, troll infestations, and sniping between experienced commenters who should know better than to behave in a way that turns the rest of us off.
"Commenters like Cynthia who have regularly gone the extra mile to help keep the Dispatch comments section civil, by taking up space with content that encourages people to have friendly discussions that lead them to view each other as fellow humans, sometimes get to feel like it's a waste of their time."
If I understood correctly, I think Cynthia was giving up some “latest news” consumption for Lent—at the risk of speaking out of turn here…
Yes, I mentioned that I don't really miss it. I didn't even finish reading the G-file last night. Just went to bed after the Troop Committee meeting.
F has a meeting with his Envirothon team, and Georgia and I are relaxing by the pool of someone's apartment complex watching construction workers build balconies.
She didn't like it when they used power saws, but now they're just cleaning up.
Nah, she said it herself a couple days ago.
Me too. Some days I’ll scan TMD but I can no longer handle so many people needing to react to every single thing that happens, and having what looks like pure, rabid hatred for Trump. When I realized a couple of frequent commenters I disagreed with over time had blocked me, I guess I realized it’s pointless to participate. Maybe writing “We know you don’t like him, we knew it from the first hundred times you wrote it” wasn’t the most diplomatic way to make my point.🤔 Maybe I’ll change my mind, we’ll see.
Well heck, Brian, if you wanted diplomacy, you should have hired Marco Rubio before Trump got him. We know that's a guy who can change *his* mind. But I don't think Rex Tillerson is really up to a whole lot these days and may have some free time if you want to give him a call.
Then again, Tillerson may not be a very good choice if you're looking for any advice about "diplomat speak" vis a vie the subject of Trump...
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-vs-rex-tillerson-insults-1250396
I can’t talk politics without getting very angry about it. So I make an effort to avoid it.
Prior to our online world, you didn’t really exchange political (or religious) views with complete strangers. It’s only online life where it seems “normal” to castigate total strangers, as if hectoring them enough would cause them to change their minds over politics. Whoever went online thinking: “Let me get some ideas about what my political opinions should be”?
In other words, the entire effort at getting worked up is completely futile—unless the feeling of glowing anger is something you like to do in place of cardio or something…
The larger the comments sections, the harder it is to have meaningful conversation.
It definitely favors the most hyperactive, passionate, and/or aggressive participants. Meaningful conversation, as you say, becomes impossible.
Glad you are here Brian!
Ditto. It's like a potluck conversation. Everyone brings what they got that day, with a little politics mixed in.
I feel your pain. I comment less there for the same reason.
What scares me is in reading Nick's "group therapy session" (JohnM's term); not how much hatred there is for Trump, but for voters. They call them stupid, misinformed, hateful bigots, I could go on. It scares me people not only think so little of other people, but that they are blind to their own biases about it.
I think voters wanted a change in 2020, and again in 2024. And they got it; whether it is the change they want or not is tbd.
I have many progressive friends, and I continue to be their friends, because they are good people; they simply disagree with me on politics, economics, etc.
That's good, better than my experience in The People's Republic of Evanston.
Yes, I forgot to mention I feel like I have a bullseye on my screen name for pushing back on the hatred and I didn’t even vote for the guy. Some seem to assume that my comments mean I’m one of those “stupid people” who voted for him. I’ve shared these thoughts with TD team but there’s nothing they can do about it. So I’m mostly tuning out.
Welcome to the mostly tuned out.
I've never been online much, tried it a couple times in the last couple weeks, and it weirded me out. This thing with the green card guy getting deported/maybe deported/whatever...every rando online has their own slam dunk legal analysis. It's bizarre.
Kodkods, a rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus)… Add a black-footed cat (Felis nigripes), and you’ve got an itty bitty kitty committee.
And if they're all mommy cats, they'd be the...
Oh, nevermind.
As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks
Each sack had seven cats
Each cat seven kits
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives
How many were going to St. Ives?
Probably just 2 - the man and the observer.
Ain’t no way a husband is taking his wives to St. Ives, especially not with 343 cats each.
Maybe everyone was going to St. Ives: you can meet people who are going the same direction as yourself.
https://youtu.be/VCbiReNQSAs?si=-REta0W_VrgPMlpJ
Fast-forward to the 3-minute mark.
That made me smile.
I'm confused. "....the smallest cat species in the Americas. Native to Chile, plus an adjoining bit of Argentina, the kodkod is about 20 inches long, with a tail of 8 to 10 inches, and weighs 4 to 5.5 lbs."....doesn't sound small. I have friends with smaller cats than that. The video said they're teeny and could "fit in the palm of your hand", which also seems to contradict the stated size of 20" and 5-ish pounds.
Other than that, cute little thing. Eyes 5x more powerful than our own.
The palm-of-hand cat narrated in that delightful Scottish accent was the rusty-spotted cat, not a kodkod.
OK, I didn't hear that part. What about the "smallest species" thing? I have friends who have cats that are smaller than 20" and 5-ish pounds...(?).
Not that it matters, I was just curious.
The rusty-spotted cat's typical weight is apparently 2.0-3.5 lb. Meanwhile, the black-footed cat's typical weight is apparently 2.4-5.4 lb (guys heavier than girls). (Wikipedia) These apparently rival each other for world's smallest wildcat.
And least-creative cat name.
One of the best SAF's I've read, and that's sayin' something. I 'd never heard of a kodkod before, but I won't soon forget them. Thank you, Cynthia.
You're welcome.
The kodkod is adorable, maybe even more so than the manul. Where’s that tilde on my phone keyboard? Hamza took his first steps Sunday and now he’s toddling all over. He will he one in 13 days. I’m going to watch him a few hours today, things are going to be different now!
That's very exciting. We have Georgia today. She's helping us with an escalating series of auto issues.
Goin' mobile....beep beep...
Keep me moving
Over fifty
Keep me groovin'
Just a hippie gypsy
Come on, move now
Movin'
Keep me movin', yeah....
Game changer! Mobility is revolutionary.
Watching them grow and blossom, is a real joy every day. Messy on some days, especially if they discover where you keep crayons, but still a real joy.
Press down and hold the letter; a menu bar will appear above the letter with diacritics/accents. Slide up and over to select the desired mark.
Ñ
Bingo.