Rough weather day yesterday here in Houston. 100 mph winds toppled many trees in my area, including a couple of big ones right across the street from me. So much good fortune that most fell away from the houses, and mine is fine.
Exactly. I think that was a federally mandated/subsidized policy. It was to end CSX’s and other rail owners’ legal liabilities as well as to reduce unneeded infrastructure that was getting left in a state of decay.
The Germans have a harder time decommissioning abandoned infrastructure. The railroad cabs are certainly innovative, but I doubt they’re anywhere near cost-effective. They used to subsidize diesel-driven rural commuter rail serving areas with declining populations where everyone who needed practical transportation relied on passenger cars.
But the government is currently doing all it can to make passenger car use unaffordable for everyone in the name of saving the planet from the dread carbon dioxide. So they market “alternatives” to the hilt.
That may sound excessively cynical, but years of watching German politics tends to make the observer very cynical.
Interesting. We humans need to learn to govern with a lighter hand, out of humility.
I read a piece this morning about the presence of lithium in fracking water, in quanties that would go a long way in meeting US battery production needs. And with no new environmental intrusion. Win-win?
But - it's fracking! What an existential conundrum. (Eye roll.)
Note to self: Look at the altitude next time you book a bike trip in the spring, We climbed to 10,200 ft on Wednesday. It was sleeting up there. I rode in the van down the mountain. Yesterday was a 79 mile ride around the Enchanted Circle. Weather was dodgy so we rented a car and drove it instead. It was nice to have a day to ourselves. Sunny and beautiful today. We are ready to get back on the bikes!
Good morning. Rainy morning today. The mothership is reporting on the Presidential debates which Biden and Trump have agreed to. The mothership is also breathlessly reporting on its “new look”: which we all (who subscribe) will see Monday.
Hi, Phil... I know you often link to David French stuff. I like the guy fairly well, too. In fact, he was the original reason I subscribed to The Dispatch. Anyway, I thought this may be of interest to you (and maybe a few others here) if you haven't seen it. Really, you just can't hardly make this stuff up...
Yep. And, as the article noted, French had recently left the PCA and his wife had been "too critical" of it in a recently published memoir. Maybe a drop or two of sour communion grapes at work here as well...
The new look should enliven today’s comments there for at least a few days.
I have not found their version 2 look to be that appealing in general. They’ve been using WordPress as the backbone, which accounts for about 40 percent of the internet’s content, as I understand. It has a good degree of flexibility, but the Dispatch hasn’t really found a good graphic design language, IMO.
The screen shots they provide look better as far as I’m concerned. And I think that despite some of the weaknesses with the Discuss comment system, it works quite well—or did ten years ago when I used to use it a lot. The screen grabs suggest that Discuss is what they plan to use.
I understood they went in-house from Substack for many reasons relating to the need for a more robust website or something like that. So this doesn't make much sense to me.
Meanwhile, I made some frank remarks over on the mothership, reminding everyone of all the loose ends from the last time they tried this, and wondering why they could not be bothered to ask for any input this time.
I think it’s been more than ten years since I used Disqus. So I don’t know how that service has evolved in the meantime.
Some of their innovations were ahead of the competition: liking, deeper threads, the ability to mute other users if you can’t tolerate them (blocking them from your view).
I don’t know how much control they allow on the host site, but they could enable auto log-in with the user’s login info. They should also let the media host do forum moderating as much as the host wants.
Unmoderated, they were widespread enough that they attracted aggressive spammers and trolls who could make a comment section unbearable.
Still, to have a technically capable comment section would require having a tech department, it seems to me. It makes sense to outsource it to a third party.
On the other hand, I’m in agreement with Cynthia in large part. If they were going to choose Facebook as the forum provider, I’d never look at comments again. I just really, really dislike Facebook.
If that happens, I'll cancel. I dumped NR over that. I don't want to get involved with registering for a social media site: I could already be on Discord or Reddit if I wanted to.
Today's special animal friend is the ostrich, one or two species of very large, flightless birds in the genus Struthio. The one or two species are S. camelus, the common ostrich, and S. molybdophanes, the Somali ostrich. The two-species classification has been accepted by "most authorities"; make of that what you will. Ostriches are the only members of their family and order. They belong to the "ratites" subclass, which includes emus, rheas, kiwis, and some lesser-known flightless birds found on distant isles where everything is bizarre.
Ostriches are native to Africa. They are found in a wide band across the continent south of the Sahara and north of the equatorial forest belt, as well as in a large area of the southern tip. S. molybdophanes is found in the Horn of Africa, that little bit sticking out toward Arabia that includes Somali, Eritrea, Djibouti, and stuff. Their habitat is open or lightly-forested grasslands.
Males grow over nine feet tall and females over six feet tall. Adults usually weigh between 250 and 300 lbs. They have a round body with short wings and a bit of a plumy, brown tail. Males have black feathers, while females' bodies are brown. Their muscular legs, long claws (up to 4" long), snake-like neck, and strong beaks remind us that the ratites are the most obvious descendants of the dinosaurs. Around 7 people per year are killed by ostriches. At the Tulsa Zoo, one hissed at me in a very entitled way and pecked my knees, which the sidewalk by the exhibit placed at the ostrich's head height. I had bruises. Johnny Cash was nearly killed by an ostrich in 1981. This is true:
Unlike Velociraptors, ostriches are largely herbivorous, feeding on grass, leaves, seeds, fruit, and flowers, with some opportunistic snacking on insects or small reptiles. They consume pieces of rocks – gastroliths – to help grind their food in their gizzards. They can go several days without drinking, but they enjoy regular drinks and water baths.
Ostriches are polygamous. Males establish a harem of several hens. One hen will be the primary mate, while the others are side chicks. After mating, the male scrapes a nest in the soil, and all the females lay their eggs in the communal depression. The senior female will discard eggs of lesser females until about 20 in total remain. The eggs are incubated by the least-conspicuous parent: females during the day and the male at night. They hatch in 35 to 45 days, and all the adults help to guard and rear the young. Infant mortality is high: only about 15% of chicks survive the first year.
Nature is red in tooth and claw in the African savannah. Predators of adults include cheetahs, lions, leopards, wild dogs, hyenas, and crocodiles. An adult ostrich can outrun most predators; they are most often taken by ambush. Predators of nests and young include all the above plus jackals, birds of prey, warthogs, mongoose, and vultures. The Egyptian vulture will throw rocks at ostrich eggs to crack the shells and eat the embryos. Despite all this, ostriches are a species of Least Concern.
Reading "Males grow over 9 feet tall," looking at the height of the wall and contemplating a 300 lb bird that would have to stoop to stand in the room is an interesting image with which to start the day.
One of the reasons I admired Johnny Cash was that he was honest about the fact that a lot of the hardship in his life was the result of his own lousy choices.
In the early 1980s, my (eventual) husband was training to be a Russian linguist for the Air Force. By the time he finished the course, they didn't need as many, and he ended up on a different trajectory; otherwise, he'd have been in a basement or attic in Europe somewhere, listening to Russian radio.
It would not have been an attic or basement. He might have ended up in the large building I worked at in Augsburg Germany, along with other Russian and Eastern Bloc linguists, Morse Code intercept operators and other specialties.
Yes. It acted as if it didn't know me and I had to re-sign in 3 times before it would let me "like" something. Although I no longer subscribe to The Dispatch, I get TMD (though I cannot read the main article) and I saw that they are going to make big changes to their site. Perhaps that includes crushing our merry little band of outlaws...
I don't like change, because I'm a conservative and also an older Southern lady with ten, I tell you, ten! children. I think the website should look like what you get when you choose "Latest" from the menu: A list of articles and podcasts in the order published. But nobody asked me.
Honestly, if I hate it too much, I'll consider it a sign.
We'll see. I mentioned over there that it looks the comment section from UnHerd. I hated their comment section and canceled my subscription after I'd read all the interesting articles from the back catalog.
Rough weather day yesterday here in Houston. 100 mph winds toppled many trees in my area, including a couple of big ones right across the street from me. So much good fortune that most fell away from the houses, and mine is fine.
Yikes!
In other news, this was really cool:
https://newatlas.com/transport/monocab-self-balancing-monorail-commuter-pods/
In our area they ripped out all the orphaned rails about 30 years ago. 🙁
They have done the same here, and turned the right of ways into biking and walking trails.
Exactly. I think that was a federally mandated/subsidized policy. It was to end CSX’s and other rail owners’ legal liabilities as well as to reduce unneeded infrastructure that was getting left in a state of decay.
The Germans have a harder time decommissioning abandoned infrastructure. The railroad cabs are certainly innovative, but I doubt they’re anywhere near cost-effective. They used to subsidize diesel-driven rural commuter rail serving areas with declining populations where everyone who needed practical transportation relied on passenger cars.
But the government is currently doing all it can to make passenger car use unaffordable for everyone in the name of saving the planet from the dread carbon dioxide. So they market “alternatives” to the hilt.
That may sound excessively cynical, but years of watching German politics tends to make the observer very cynical.
Interesting. We humans need to learn to govern with a lighter hand, out of humility.
I read a piece this morning about the presence of lithium in fracking water, in quanties that would go a long way in meeting US battery production needs. And with no new environmental intrusion. Win-win?
But - it's fracking! What an existential conundrum. (Eye roll.)
Note to self: Look at the altitude next time you book a bike trip in the spring, We climbed to 10,200 ft on Wednesday. It was sleeting up there. I rode in the van down the mountain. Yesterday was a 79 mile ride around the Enchanted Circle. Weather was dodgy so we rented a car and drove it instead. It was nice to have a day to ourselves. Sunny and beautiful today. We are ready to get back on the bikes!
Good morning. I hope you have a great biking day 😁.
Good morning. Rainy morning today. The mothership is reporting on the Presidential debates which Biden and Trump have agreed to. The mothership is also breathlessly reporting on its “new look”: which we all (who subscribe) will see Monday.
I will be on retreat this weekend. I will talk with you all on Monday. Have a good weekend!
Likewise, Phil! Enjoy the retreat.
Hi, Phil... I know you often link to David French stuff. I like the guy fairly well, too. In fact, he was the original reason I subscribed to The Dispatch. Anyway, I thought this may be of interest to you (and maybe a few others here) if you haven't seen it. Really, you just can't hardly make this stuff up...
https://religionnews.com/2024/05/15/pca-cancels-anti-polarization-panel-with-david-french-for-being-too-polarizing/?utm_source=RNS+Updates&utm_campaign=f3c8293377-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_05_16_01_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c5356cb657-f3c8293377-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
Thanks, I heard about that. What they mean when they say David is "divisive" is that he is not a Trumper.
Yep. And, as the article noted, French had recently left the PCA and his wife had been "too critical" of it in a recently published memoir. Maybe a drop or two of sour communion grapes at work here as well...
The new look should enliven today’s comments there for at least a few days.
I have not found their version 2 look to be that appealing in general. They’ve been using WordPress as the backbone, which accounts for about 40 percent of the internet’s content, as I understand. It has a good degree of flexibility, but the Dispatch hasn’t really found a good graphic design language, IMO.
The screen shots they provide look better as far as I’m concerned. And I think that despite some of the weaknesses with the Discuss comment system, it works quite well—or did ten years ago when I used to use it a lot. The screen grabs suggest that Discuss is what they plan to use.
I understood they went in-house from Substack for many reasons relating to the need for a more robust website or something like that. So this doesn't make much sense to me.
Meanwhile, I made some frank remarks over on the mothership, reminding everyone of all the loose ends from the last time they tried this, and wondering why they could not be bothered to ask for any input this time.
Wasn't it Disqus?
Yes. I couldn’t remember the spelling.
ETA: This site is super-janky today.
That would mean that they are outsourcing their comments section which might require a separate login. Not sure I like that.
I won't do it.
I think it’s been more than ten years since I used Disqus. So I don’t know how that service has evolved in the meantime.
Some of their innovations were ahead of the competition: liking, deeper threads, the ability to mute other users if you can’t tolerate them (blocking them from your view).
I don’t know how much control they allow on the host site, but they could enable auto log-in with the user’s login info. They should also let the media host do forum moderating as much as the host wants.
Unmoderated, they were widespread enough that they attracted aggressive spammers and trolls who could make a comment section unbearable.
Still, to have a technically capable comment section would require having a tech department, it seems to me. It makes sense to outsource it to a third party.
On the other hand, I’m in agreement with Cynthia in large part. If they were going to choose Facebook as the forum provider, I’d never look at comments again. I just really, really dislike Facebook.
Anybody tries to make me use Facebook, I'm out. I don't do Facebook. And I must be able to use a handle for commenting. Period.
The comment thing NR uses is called Insticator.
If that happens, I'll cancel. I dumped NR over that. I don't want to get involved with registering for a social media site: I could already be on Discord or Reddit if I wanted to.
It sure is, but at least we know it's not because you personally decided to louse it up.
Today's special animal friend is the ostrich, one or two species of very large, flightless birds in the genus Struthio. The one or two species are S. camelus, the common ostrich, and S. molybdophanes, the Somali ostrich. The two-species classification has been accepted by "most authorities"; make of that what you will. Ostriches are the only members of their family and order. They belong to the "ratites" subclass, which includes emus, rheas, kiwis, and some lesser-known flightless birds found on distant isles where everything is bizarre.
Ostriches are native to Africa. They are found in a wide band across the continent south of the Sahara and north of the equatorial forest belt, as well as in a large area of the southern tip. S. molybdophanes is found in the Horn of Africa, that little bit sticking out toward Arabia that includes Somali, Eritrea, Djibouti, and stuff. Their habitat is open or lightly-forested grasslands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YTeasbvJ2E
Males grow over nine feet tall and females over six feet tall. Adults usually weigh between 250 and 300 lbs. They have a round body with short wings and a bit of a plumy, brown tail. Males have black feathers, while females' bodies are brown. Their muscular legs, long claws (up to 4" long), snake-like neck, and strong beaks remind us that the ratites are the most obvious descendants of the dinosaurs. Around 7 people per year are killed by ostriches. At the Tulsa Zoo, one hissed at me in a very entitled way and pecked my knees, which the sidewalk by the exhibit placed at the ostrich's head height. I had bruises. Johnny Cash was nearly killed by an ostrich in 1981. This is true:
https://folsomcasharttrail.com/the-trail/blog/did-johnny-cash-fight-an-ostrich-10-outlandish-but-true-cash-stories
Ostriches can run over 40 miles per hour. Some people have more fun with this than seems wise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kotWv4MCxNI
Unlike Velociraptors, ostriches are largely herbivorous, feeding on grass, leaves, seeds, fruit, and flowers, with some opportunistic snacking on insects or small reptiles. They consume pieces of rocks – gastroliths – to help grind their food in their gizzards. They can go several days without drinking, but they enjoy regular drinks and water baths.
Ostriches are polygamous. Males establish a harem of several hens. One hen will be the primary mate, while the others are side chicks. After mating, the male scrapes a nest in the soil, and all the females lay their eggs in the communal depression. The senior female will discard eggs of lesser females until about 20 in total remain. The eggs are incubated by the least-conspicuous parent: females during the day and the male at night. They hatch in 35 to 45 days, and all the adults help to guard and rear the young. Infant mortality is high: only about 15% of chicks survive the first year.
Nature is red in tooth and claw in the African savannah. Predators of adults include cheetahs, lions, leopards, wild dogs, hyenas, and crocodiles. An adult ostrich can outrun most predators; they are most often taken by ambush. Predators of nests and young include all the above plus jackals, birds of prey, warthogs, mongoose, and vultures. The Egyptian vulture will throw rocks at ostrich eggs to crack the shells and eat the embryos. Despite all this, ostriches are a species of Least Concern.
Reading "Males grow over 9 feet tall," looking at the height of the wall and contemplating a 300 lb bird that would have to stoop to stand in the room is an interesting image with which to start the day.
Excellent point, thanks. I hadn't contemplated the ostrich's height relative to my own.
I read that Johnny Cash article, which I found fascinating. Johnny Cash led at times a hard life but ultimately a good and eventful one.
Cash / ostrich... Speaking of "you can't make this stuff up"....
One of the reasons I admired Johnny Cash was that he was honest about the fact that a lot of the hardship in his life was the result of his own lousy choices.
It seems while in the Air Fore, Cash did the kind of "I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you" work that I did in the Army.
In the early 1980s, my (eventual) husband was training to be a Russian linguist for the Air Force. By the time he finished the course, they didn't need as many, and he ended up on a different trajectory; otherwise, he'd have been in a basement or attic in Europe somewhere, listening to Russian radio.
It would not have been an attic or basement. He might have ended up in the large building I worked at in Augsburg Germany, along with other Russian and Eastern Bloc linguists, Morse Code intercept operators and other specialties.
Does he still know Russian?
No. He understands some, enough to grasp what a conversation in Russian is about.
"...some lesser-known flightless birds found on distant isles where everything is bizarre."
Like Staten Island?
Shot fired!
I haven't looked up animals of Staten Island.
I'm finding this website glitchy this morning. Maybe spiritual gremlins have come over from the Mothership.
Yes. It acted as if it didn't know me and I had to re-sign in 3 times before it would let me "like" something. Although I no longer subscribe to The Dispatch, I get TMD (though I cannot read the main article) and I saw that they are going to make big changes to their site. Perhaps that includes crushing our merry little band of outlaws...
One of the changes is supposedly "a more intuitive comments section".
Intuitive to whom?
Exactly.
I don't like change, because I'm a conservative and also an older Southern lady with ten, I tell you, ten! children. I think the website should look like what you get when you choose "Latest" from the menu: A list of articles and podcasts in the order published. But nobody asked me.
Honestly, if I hate it too much, I'll consider it a sign.
"with ten, I tell you, ten! children."
Not that has affected your sanity or anything. 🙂
Nope. Not in the slightest.
I noticed that The Dispatch, or at least TMD, is now moving to a "thumbs up", "Thumbs down" comment section. What could possibly go wrong?
We'll see. I mentioned over there that it looks the comment section from UnHerd. I hated their comment section and canceled my subscription after I'd read all the interesting articles from the back catalog.
Wow, 10 children. If only we had known. I'll bet you refer to them by alphabet letters or even cute nicknames, like Thor, or something.....
And Fang.
" One hen will be the primary mate, while the others are side chicks."
That is truly well done.
Queen Camilla could not be reached for comment.
Vice President Harris cackled.
Because that gave me a chuckle, I'll let that pass.
(Note that my humor was Not-A-Pun).
My comment was just an accurate observation, too.
Touché 🤣
Excellent, Phil! You DO have a sense of humor!
More highbrow than yours. 🙂
"shot fired" is highbrow? We need to talk.
That was an observation!
Thank you.
Good morning.
"... because I feel like he reports in good faith and has a style I like, I’m willing to listen."
I find that quite reasonable, and one could substitute "read" for "listen," as well.