Animals
Cat chooses unusual nap position.
http://www.itsjustlife.me/wordless-wednesday-grandkitty-picture/
(Cat Sanctuary update: "How does your cat sleep?" Usually either out of my sight or on my lap, except when they're curled protectively around young kittens. All adults in my social cat family, including the males and the dumped-out stranger Inky, curled around this spring's kittens--including Inky's five, all of whom succumbed to Manx Syndrome before they were even one month old. After we lost Ivy, last winter, Heather started demanding a nap-on-my-lap every day or two until the weather got too warm. Heather and Irene sometimes nap in ying-yang position; so did Tickle and Elmo as kittens, last fall, and so did Tickle and Inky, and Elmo and Sisawat, as young cats this spring. Elmo and Sisawat have "graduated." Both have come home to visit, recognized and been recognized by their family, and expressed a preference for a home of their own. Tickle and Inky still don't have laps of their own, and Inky, sadly, remains unspayed for financial reasons. Donations toward protecting Inky from giving birth to more doomed kittens will be used for that purpose and no other.)
Constitutional Rights
Cato recommends this short and insightful commentary on the idea of "gun violence as a public health crisis": The surprising fact is that, after the 1970s when people thought they'd identified a positive correlation between the presence of guns and violence, we're seeing a steady increase in guns contemporaneous with a decrease in gun violence.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorburrus/2016/06/16/no-guns-are-not-a-public-health-crisis/#24ba78391eb1
Or do you prefer John Lott's more detailed study?
This web site is sorry, Democrats, and this web site understands that if Capitol Hill is catching this week's wave of heat'n'humidity sitting down on the floor probably felt like the right thing to do, especially if the tiles happen to be concrete...but at this point the only reason to carry on the tired old gun control "debate" is that it boosts gun sales, which is, according to the current evidence, a good thing for all of us.
This web site's favorite gun store has been selling a lot of stickers that this web site considers cool; here's a version nonlocal readers can get from Amazon. (If you go to an ISIS-infested country and drive really, really badly, do you get off with a recommendation to attend "55-Alive Safer Senior Driving" classes and/or buy new glasses?)
Economy
The trouble with Twitter is that it moves so fast, after you have a few hundred connections, that you lose track of whom to thank for quotes like this one:
Work is a good thing – not punishment. The punishment is in laboring so hard to get so little.
Warmly seconded, because there's no better job than being a writer, but after that "Cow Patty" I have to make a choice between a more solid dinner today and being online from the cafe again tomorrow...Gardening
Recommended...especially for that follow-up article linked at the bottom...
http://time.com/4133353/pesticides-lung-function-children/?xid=tcoshare
Gluten-Free
While online at the Family Bakery in Gate City, which smells nicer than the McDonald's, I've decided to subject myself to another scientific experiment and find out whether their "Gluten-Free Cow Patties" are safe for me to eat. I can say that they taste good--similar to the "Kindergarten Patties" for which Rodale Press circulated recipes when I was a kid, only made with sugar and chocolate rather than honey and carob; basically peanut butter and oatmeal cookies/candies, anyway. Later in the week we'll know whether they make me sick. Oats are becoming safer as awareness of gluten sensitivities rises. I've eaten Cheerios without ill effects, this year...fantastic!
Health News
I have some reservations about how this weight-loss feat might be accomplished, but it's doable...if he added a lot of exercise, if he switched from eating even greasier beef or pork dishes instead of chicken, if he switched from constant face-stuffing to eating only two or three meals a day. I'll take his word for this.
http://kluv.cbslocal.com/2016/06/28/wow-texan-loses-140lbs-by-eating-chick-fil-a/
Nature
Seldom seen in my part of the world--sunrise with thin enough clouds to form pink wisps in the sky, as opposed to heavy, low-hanging clouds of fog.
http://thevagabondtabby.tumblr.com/post/146638912947/mistymorningme-morning-stillness-photograph-by
Obituary
Elvis Presley's old band lost its lead vocalist last week; this week, it's the lead guitarist:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/06/29/scotty-moore-elvis-presleys-pioneering-guitarist-dies-at-84/
Also, last week, the world lost Ralph Stanley.
http://www.heraldcourier.com/news/ceremony-honors-life-of-music-legend-ralph-stanley/article_9f523fdd-2c3a-5ab5-9923-48801b5efadf.html
Turkey Update
The Huffington Post broke this story; The Blaze's Dave Urbanski is following it. "You can hear people wailing," he says. I've disabled the sound on this computer, but they have plenty to wail about. You can see from the pictures that this is a "liberal" Muslim community, with relaxed dress codes and U.S.-friendly government policies, and they've been attacked by their alleged brethren in the faith for that reason...oh, people! Waaaail! I don't know how God puts up with us! Continued condolences to our Turkish readers...
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/06/29/death-toll-at-41-in-triple-suicide-attack-at-istanbul-airport/?
Venezuela Update
What Bernie Sanders wants to do for the United States, continued. One benefit of membership in a church that's part of a large denomination is that your church can help you send food, etc., to victims of practical socialism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/venezuelans-are-storming-supermarkets-and-attacking-trucks-as-food-supplies-dwindle/2016/06/28/70020a14-37c8-11e6-af02-1df55f0c77ff_story.html?tid=ss_tw-amp
Weird
In Louisiana, the law doesn't ban prostitution as such, it doesn't ban people between the ages of 18 and 21 from doing whatever sexual acts they choose to do, it doesn't even ban teenagers from having sex with other teenagers...but it has just now decided that, although a 14-year-old girl is old enough to decide to have sex and get pregnant, a 19-year-old girl is not old enough to choose to work as a stripper (and not have sex or get pregnant). Bottom line: The fundamental truth that females (of other species as well as ours) can collect rewards for sexual acts while males usually have to provide some sort of reward for sexual acts, has always been a source of profound frustration, confusion, and distress for males.
http://reason.com/blog/2016/06/24/adult-women-cant-consent-to-sex-in-louis
On a happier note, though still sort of weird: Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for sharing this article, with pictures, of plastic that changes color when it stretches.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/g00//news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/06/28/this-futuristic-plastic-changes-color-like-a-shimmering-opal-as-you-stretch-it/
And, about the great public-toilet issue...the issue is pretty gross, and the language at this post is appropriate, but it's nice to find someone else detaching from the false dichotomy and acknowledging that single-user public restrooms is the way to go. Why hassle the genuinely gender-confused? Why subject males to homosexual harassment? Why subject any of a business's customers to other customers' disease germs, especially rapidly airborne but short-lived Norwalk Flu, which you can indeed get just by smelling that peculiar, strangely familiar odor wafting across from another toilet in a group restroom...
https://thebarefoot.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/laws-that-belong-in-the-toilet/
My favorite kind of weirdness is people (or other creatures) that do things that should not, in theory, be possible...but they're doing those things. In theory it's impossible for bumblebees to fly, which explains why they do tend to "bumble"! Here's an interview with a quadriplegic yoga teacher:
http://www.dailygood.org/story/482/the-body-s-grace-on-being/
Writing
One reason why "good" writing doesn't get due respect (and payment): there's a lot of it out there, and those who are paying for writing are entitled to choose only the very best (by whatever standards they hold--there are a lot of publishers whose working definition of "the very best" really means "the piece that contains an apparently gratuitous, I mean, I didn't specify this or anything, but the writer just happened to mention my brother-in-law's line of business").
Another is, of course, that too many people are willing to let writing that contains actual research be published on terms that don't pay for that research.
http://www.jerryjenkins.com/mean-ol-publisher-rejected-make-say-yes-next-time/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/20/what-makes-bad-writing-bad-toby-litt
Zazzle
Not one of +Ruth Cox 's photos, but this shower curtain reminded me of hers...
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