Addictions
Now there's a category this site doesn't use often...Tom Woods addresses workaholics. (More for them under "History," below. I can relate. I get all the sleep I need, but more than half the dreams I remember are about blogging.)
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=77713d21ff56f1c126607d2c5&id=0abc23a107&e=39cf8b2be9
Animals
He doesn't look old enough to have emigrated all the way from Alberta...but y'never know... (Joke. Probably baby beaver's home is Rock Creek Park.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/05/05/man-captures-video-of-baby-beaver-at-d-c-metro-station/?tid=sm_tw
For those who do want to "Keep-Peep," or keep peeps...chickens and ducks...how to use the less satisfactory light bulbs that are available these days, if you didn't stockpile old ones and can't borrow a broody bantam hen...
http://www.selfreliancecentral.com/2016/05/02/raise-backyard-chickens/?
Available Writing Job for Frustrated Blogjobbers
I can't do it. I don't understand Wordpress well enough. Some of you can and do, I'm thinking of +Andria Perry and @rextrulove particularly, and Blogjob is a Wordpress-hosted site, so click and bid away. (I can't often say much in support of Freelancer--it's global, many of the job offers they claim to recommend "just for you" don't even involve a language "you" can read, they sell certifications of competence rather than letting customers read what other customers say about you, and U.S. freelancers will always and forever be underbid by some dang Asian...but once in a while competence does seem to count.)
https://www.freelancer.com/projects/Articles/Write-some-Articles-10406593/?
Books
Today's Amazon book link was shared by a Twit ( @Kenyaspeaks2u ) and the promotion prompted me to add it to the Wish List. I don't know how good it is, but it might be excellent. I want to know.
Disaster
Yes, in this dark and fateful hour for the Portal Paper, this web site still encourages people to care about real disaster areas. Today it seems to be Alberta. (Need I type ", Canada"? I hope not.) And yes, this web site can find room for a comment (which PP won't): As a hack writer, last winter I wrote a guest post about the recently approved plans to build fifty-storey yuppie-type apartments in Calgary. I have no idea how often this kind of thing happens out there. I was paid to write up the facts about what had been approved, and I did. But I'm glad I'm not in a fifty-storey apartment in any part of Alberta now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/05/05/what-canadas-wildfire-disaster-looks-like-from-earth-and-space/?tid=sm_tw
Funny
Irony: fake masterpiece paid for with fake money...
http://nowiknow.com/an-unreal-art-caper/
Marc Okrand
has a serious chance to go down in history as the first "language constructor" whose made-up language is actually used. (I know people who've used Elvish, and I've used Laadan
myself...so here I stand to testify how hard it is to make a "conlang" real.) But his greedhead employers don't want him to make history.http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/05/paramount-objects-to-klingon-language-am
Gardening
What are Neonics? A class of poisons that soak into living plants and destroy the ecosystem of which those plants are part. Humans should be predators, not poisoners.
https://www.soilassociation.org/better-food/our-campaigns/ban-neonics/
History
I said that there were things to admire about Alexander Hamilton, but, in my judgment, his politics were not among them. So what were those things? The Wikipedia article to which I linked focussed mainly on his military service. What can peaceniks admire about Hamilton? +Arianna Huffington highlights one. (Politics apart, conservative readers, it's a good read.)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/alexander-hamilton-father-american-banking-burnout-arianna-huffington?
Conservatives who've had their sleep, and taken blood pressure meds if they need them, can join the chorus of sarcastic laughter here...President Obama claiming he's done as much for the economy as President Reagan did? (Now, admittedly...President Reagan didn't do as much for the economy as some thought, or hoped, or currently believe he did, and neither did President Clinton...but during those administrations I would never have found the time to blog, because my voice mail box was full of messages from people who could afford to admit they needed my help with Other Things. Duh.)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemoore/2016/05/04/obamanomics/#c121c8427186
In another bid to demean the Reagan image, Will Ferrell reportedly signed up to play the former President in a movie about "when [Ronald Reagan] falls into dementia and an ambitious intern is tasked with convincing the Commander-in-Chief that he is an actor playing the President in a movie." Mind you, he was--always a "B" actor in Hollywood, but truly America's greatest actor of all time in the nonstop "newsreel movie" that is the White House. And he did have unmistakable senior moments during his second term. But must that be the part of his administration singled out for movie highlighting by a comic actor? Will the temptation to ham up Reagan's case of Alzheimer's Disease become more "real" to the young than the reality of a tough, smart human being fighting off a debilitating, demeaning disease?
Politics
This e-mail from ""Duck Dynasty's Alan Robertson & Zach Dasher"
"
We are sorry we missed you at the Guardian Fund Boot Camp this weekend in Georgia – it was a great, momentum-building event for commonsense conservative grassroots action– but you still have a great opportunity to make a difference for America's freedom and security!
As a member of TV's Duck Dynasty family, you probably know our claim to fame – it all started with our family business making duck calls.
But Priscilla, we've got a call you really need to heed – the call to help elect brave patriots who served America in the United States Armed Forces to Congress this November..."
"Trump and his candidate"? The typo got it dead right. Divisive Donald #NeverTrump has a candidate he's boosting, as a favor to an old friend. Most call her "Hillary."
http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/03/republicans-are-coming-around-to-donald
Senator Sasse (R-NE) also gets it right. I'm still burning trash in a barrel--burned some before the computer center opened, this very morning--until funding comes in to restore my chimney, and, y'know, right on.
http://reason.com/blog/2016/05/05/trump-clinton-or-burning-trash-you-vote
Science
A pound of feathers can actually weigh more than a pound of gold.
http://nowiknow.us1.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=2889002ad89d45ca21f50ba46&id=4a5a9644ec&e=30f140a4bc
Technology
An outdoor dehumidifier that helps grow greenhouse plants? Ohhh baby...where have you been all my life?
http://thespiritscience.net/2015/10/23/this-billboard-in-peru-sucks-water-out-of-the-air-to-grow-vegetables/
Just don't hook it up to this mess. Siri, Cortana, and now there's Viv; some people have never absorbed the truth of "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," or all your information on one computer. Something about that name, "Viv." Who, in public life or fiction, last answered to "Viv"?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/05/04/siris-creators-say-theyve-made-something-better-that-will-take-care-of-everything-for-you/?tid=sm_tw
Travel
Going to Washington? This interactive art project might be open. Or not. Fun if you can get in, anyway. And cool, due to the permanent shade.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2016/05/05/underneath-dupont-circle-a-playground-for-democracy/?tid=sm_tw
Going (or coming) to Natural Tunnel? On Saturday, you can buy plants you might not have been able to buy in Gate City's Friday Market...
http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/park-event-info?id=NT160017-00
...On either Saturday or Sunday, you can explore history at the Block House...
http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/park-event-info?id=NT160040-02 (Saturday, 2-4p; next Saturday, too)
http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/park-event-info?id=NT160040-03 (Sunday, 2-4p)
...And for $5, on the fourteenth of May, you can join a nice, long, slow guided tour all the way into the Jefferson National Forest. Wear boots! The trail is rough, steep, and wet, although the guides promise to take it at a pace children and their grandparents can enjoy.
http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/park-event-info?id=NT160010-02
On the eleventh, for Gate City residents only, and it's on the wonky side...help our Sanitation Authority save money, anyone? It's a business meeting. "The public is invited to attend."
https://www.mygatecity.com/document-center/#tab-df1b140dfdc14241528
On the ninth of May, Monday, there'll be a free educational cookout in Grogan Park. With Shawnees, or at least they say they'll be cast as Shawnees. And fiddling. And real live rifle shooting. (Does anyone remember the verses to "For the rifle in our hands will prove no trifle"? I don't.)
https://www.mygatecity.com/press-releases/americas-frontier-history-expedition-coming-grogan-park-gate-city-va/
What Next?
Readership surged up today. I'm glad, although some of the readership is in Turkey, home of the Yahoo hackers...so please, if you get an e-mail containing what appears to be a commercial link, report it to Yahoo immediately. I may post commercial links here; I never e-mail them, nor do I e-mail petition links to people unless I know them in real life and believe they want to sign the petitions. The computer also reports new readers in countries where I've never been, don't know anybody, don't speak the language. I read enough French to be able to run this reported source of referrals through the Barracuda filter on the public-access computer. Barracuda says it's a legitimate commercial site, if you want to buy meat products from France...which, if you're in France, you might very well do. Since some readers are in France, here's the link.
http://andre-ritou.jimdo.com/nos-produits/
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