The day's not over, but this Link Log is getting long. I'm still neck-deep in e-mails...the good news for Blogjob friends is that Blogjob updates come in the e-mail, so I'm not falling behind on Blogjob reading the way I am on Live Journal, Persona Paper, Twitter, and the good old Blogspot blog feed. Categories: Animals, Books, Flowers, Food (Yum), Funny, Green, Interior Decorating, Politics, Psychology, Travel, Writing.
Animals
Koko the gorilla
has been Ko-opted! Steve Milloy 
shared the link to the Daily Mail report on Koko's reaction to watching a documentary, carefully coached with leading questions from the authors of the movie.
has been Ko-opted! Steve Milloy shared the link to the Daily Mail report on Koko's reaction to watching a documentary, carefully coached with leading questions from the authors of the movie.
Dan Lewis 
shares an "Awww..."-some report about designing railroad tracks to protect turtles.
shares an "Awww..."-some report about designing railroad tracks to protect turtles.
Taylor Swift's cats remember 2015:
Here's a terribly cute pet-bonding idea, which I suspect Iris (the only cat I've ever allowed to sleep on my bed) would have rejected out of hand. "Curling up on a soft, vulnerable, concave part of my human is the point, silly!" she would have nonverbally said. Possibly you are blessed with a more reasonable pet.
Books
This link opens a half-dozen more links to book lists. Mine? Er, um...half of my Blogjob is one big long ongoing book list. Yesterday's hasty rant about a sniffly cat being dumped at the Cat Sanctuary in the middle of a dark, cold night does not contain a book link, but that's an aberration. Most of my Blogjob posts will contain more than one link, including at least one photo link, to a book page at Amazon; books linked as citations for things I say, not even in book reviews, are usually the ones of which I own physical copies I don't plan to sell.
Flowers
Dave's Garden is a reliable source of pretty flower images (that can be memory hogs) and garden stories, which can be inspiring in winter. Here's their story about a wonderfully bizarre desert flower, the Lithops or Living Stone:
This cactus also has a wonderfully bizarre bloom--it looks like a starfish:
In which category does this one go? I think of lavender more as a flower, although some people do use it, in moderation, as a spice.
Food (Yum)
The time to harvest hickory nuts is long gone. This is the time to sit around the fire and crack and eat them. Shagbark hickory nuts, the only ones my family used to bother eating, are basically hard-shelled pecans. Shellbark hickory and mockernuts...well, she's right; they taste more like English walnuts, which I've always put in the category of "survival food."
This is also a good time for simmering dry beans into soup, and here are some ways to add variety and flavor to bean soup:
Belatedly, Anna Burke offers some additional reasons to choose a rosemary "Christmas tree," which is small enough to grow to its full size indoors, over the usual pine or fir tree. Rosemary is a natural preservative. If you're a busy yuppie single or half of a couple, you can cook big batches of vegetables on the weekend, season them with rosemary, and keep leftovers for two or three days at 40 degrees Fahrenheit, for several months in a freezer.
We've all heard that chop suey was not originally a real Asian food. Apparently it's become one!
Funny
It's the Huffington Post, sorry if that site doesn't work on your computer, but it's funny.
Green
Green and Frugal in sunny Spain...in parts of the U.S. where this would work, it may be illegal under some kind of local zoning ordinance or building code, but we should be working on this problem.
Interior Decorating
What appeals to me most about the glass coffee table shown here is that, if it weren't the current fad or if you can't afford one as the current fad, you could make it yourself--recycling old, broken glass, if you wanted to.
Marketing
Does your doctor call you at dinnertime to "remind" you to schedule a checkup? asked Dan Smith, via e-mail. The e-mail included a link he claimed "you can use" to get an audiodisc that contains more intelligent marketing advice advertisers should use instead of annoying ads. The link doesn't work for my computer, but if you make an e-friend of Dan Smith, and if you're advertising and would like to generate ads that actually win trust and respect rather than dislike, I'm sure DS will send you the tips in a format you can use.
Music Video Link
I can't watch it, but maybe you can:
Politics
Big surprise...Ben Carson had some supporters (and staffers) who wanted him to fit into a stereotype. If these people had read his books, they'd know that Dr. Carson is not and has never been a stereotype. That's one reason why I'd like to vote for him for President; I'm not a stereotype, and most of you U.S. readers aren't either. Ben Carson could find at least one major point of agreement with the Devil, as could I, and as should you. (Clue: James 2:19.)
But check out what Newsmax says is causing some Republicans to desert the Carson campaign:
"Carson, a Seventh-day Adventist, has seen his core evangelical voters flee in the wake of reports he used fetal tissue from aborted fetuses in medical research he conducted during the 1990s. He also backed gay rights initiatives at several Fortune 500 companies he served as a director."
In other words, although fiscally conservative, the doctor is also pragmatic, scientific, and liberal in the sense of broadminded about other human beings. He's a person who would hire a qualified employee without asking inappropriate questions about the employee's private life or opinions. He's not the right-wing fanatic some Republicans wanted to imagine a Seventh-day Adventist has to be! Ooohhh, panic! Need it be added that by sharing this link I'm encouraging fair-minded twenty-first-century Republicans to rally around the candidate who speaks for some of us?
Excellent news from Washington, D.C. ("Yes, we are talking about the same Washington..."--does anyone else remember "Goosemyer"?) e-mailed from Popvox.
"By now you know -- "reconciliation" is an expedited process for special bills that reduce the budget deficit to come up for consideration in the Senate without a 60-vote cloture threshold. The current reconciliation bill, H.R. 3762 from Rep. Tom Price [R, GA-6], would repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act: the individual mandate, the employer mandate, and the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), and would defund Planned Parenthood for one year.
The bill passed the House on 10/23/15 with a vote of 240-189 and passed the Senate on 12/04/15 with a vote of 52-47. While the House has voted many times on various bills to repeal the health care law, this will be there first to clear the Senate and reach the President's desk. The bill is expected to pass Congress this week and go head to the White House, where it will likely be vetoed.
Sponsor: Rep. Tom Price [R, GA-6]"
Another big surprise: Tom Toles 
stereotypes Republicans with cheap name-calling and hostile cartoons. Did I laugh? Yes...but at Toles, not at the Republicans.
stereotypes Republicans with cheap name-calling and hostile cartoons. Did I laugh? Yes...but at Toles, not at the Republicans.
Thanks to Jason Pye from Freedomworks for sharing Remso Martinez' guide to activism (for people who have jobs). I recommend that all U.S. readers join both Popvox and Freedomworks. They're free, they won't jam your in-box with spam, the sites work beautifully about 90% of the time with almost any computer, and although you won't make money on either site you probably will make e-friends.
Psychology
Peter Bregman 
offers help to anyone who needs to correct someone else's behavior without going through a ritual dance of hostile ego defense. Some things will vary depending on the communication "dialect" people learned--to me, "calling" the person by any name, whether it's "Sweetie" or "Fred" or "Dr. Bregman" or even "Your Honor," sounds most likely to communicate either (1) "I'm counting the initial greetings on the phone, where it's not possible just to look at the person for a second to 'address' him or her, as part of the conversation transcribed" or (2) "I am having a mental breakdown" (the only time I've ever watched a person go into a full-blown psychotic fugue, she kept "calling" the name of someone who was already there) or (3) "I am being rude." In my family, the non-hostile conversation would not include any "calling" terms, at all, ever. But the models Dr. Bregman uses work for many people.
offers help to anyone who needs to correct someone else's behavior without going through a ritual dance of hostile ego defense. Some things will vary depending on the communication "dialect" people learned--to me, "calling" the person by any name, whether it's "Sweetie" or "Fred" or "Dr. Bregman" or even "Your Honor," sounds most likely to communicate either (1) "I'm counting the initial greetings on the phone, where it's not possible just to look at the person for a second to 'address' him or her, as part of the conversation transcribed" or (2) "I am having a mental breakdown" (the only time I've ever watched a person go into a full-blown psychotic fugue, she kept "calling" the name of someone who was already there) or (3) "I am being rude." In my family, the non-hostile conversation would not include any "calling" terms, at all, ever. But the models Dr. Bregman uses work for many people.
Travel
Frankly, the Hawaii resort shown here turns me off. It looks too much like too many places where we stayed during my parents' nomad phase. But some readers may want to go there, so here's the link you can use to reserve your space for a vegan vacation with Mary 
and John McDougall
and friends.
and John McDougall and friends.
Writing
Are you attracted to the natural sciences by the sheer beauty of nature? Do things you learn about biology, geology, astrology, move you to write poetry? If so, this contest is for you. Thanks to Hope Clark for sharing the link.
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