Animals
It's a cat day. This cat opens Christmas box (mostly a photo essay):
http://www.mochasmysteriesmeows.com/2016/12/secret-paws-2016.html
Her heart was in the right place, but unfortunately Glenda Delawder left her estate to those who want to render domestic animals extinct (shelters), not to the animals themselves (sanctuaries)...
http://wjhl.com/2016/12/28/carter-county-woman-leaves-1-2-million-estate-for-carter-county-animals/
I think the Cat Sanctuary has received another cat, possibly another dumpee, possibly a girlfriend for near-adult Tickle. Last night I heard the sounds my cats use to summon help in case of an attack. I went outside to scare off the possible predator, heard raccoon chittering, immediately put my cats in protective custody (a.k.a. Cat Jail) indoors and set the'coon trap. But, as I closed the door and walked back across the porch, I felt...another cat?...leaving the older part of the house along with me. It was smaller than a raccoon, friendlier, completely unafraid of my cats and me and familiar with a fast route from the porch to the warm crawl space below, and it didn't have the rank odor of a skunk or possum. I think it may be another young, tame cat, and it may be in the trap, sentencing my cats to another day in Cat Jail, when I get home. Sigh. I seriously considered staying home to entertain Heather through this period of unavoidable delay in her life, today, and have thought about her all day...so here are today's Petfinder links to polydactyl cats, in honor of Heather and Tickle:
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| Melanie from Charlotte (N.C.) is in foster care, unfortunately through an HSUS-tentacle program: https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/18236386 |
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| Mario from Herndon...unfortunately in the custody of one of those nasty control-freak shelters. Research the shelter carefully if adopting this precious kitten: https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/36747749 |
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| Smokey from New Jersey: https://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/36193182 |
(Heather has big, splayed paws with fully developed extra toes, like two of the cats shown. Tickle has normal-sized paws with only vestigial extra toes, like the other one. Although it affects the way the cats hold their paws, the trait doesn't seem to affect their ability to run or hunt.)
Armed Citizen Fights Crime
Again...
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/12/27/to-men-attempt-to-rob-a-gun-store-and-the-story-ends-how-you-would-expect/
Art
Alena Matuch has some good advice for artists (and some cool drawings of women who probably have major PCOS but are living with it):
https://asexualartists.wordpress.com/2016/12/27/interview-alena-matuch/
Books
What better way to salute Michelle Malkin's tribute to (not dead, just retiring, 86-year-old) Thomas Sowell, than with an Amazon link to the book she highlights?
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/443370/print
Food (Yuck)
Prodded to help new readers catch up, since the computer says our readership is growing...Jeffrey Smith summarizes the history of his opposition to genetically modified food products. I add: one specific gene-tweak, and the pesticide pollution the gene was tweaked to facilitate, just happen to make me sick in a way that other people could actually see, but I'd never ask them to look. The part that normally shows is that, after having privately been sick, I might look "older" or more tired than otherwise. Please just accept that this indicates a lot of things going on that this web site has a contract not to discuss in further detail. They are disgusting. Anyway I think JS sometimes gets out into left field, but he's done a lot to help people understand how and why GMO "food" may be poisonous to them, too, or if it's not they should at least have a little compassion on those of us to whom it is. It's been a long uphill slog. If you need more last-minute tax donation ideas, Food Revolution is one left-wing site I commend to your consideration. (You could, of course, also support this site, which is classically liberal, not left-wing; it wouldn't be tax-deductible, but you could get all kinds of lovely books and/or guest posts and/or advertorials.)
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/food-politics/gmos-trump-take-action/
Food Democracy Now summarized in an e-mail, from which the quote is linked to their fundraising page, just to be fair:
"
Last month, in our new groundbreaking report, Glyphosate: Unsafe on Any Plate, we found alarming levels of glyphosate in common foods such as Cheerios, Doritos, Stacy's Pita Chips, Oreos and more -- the same glyphosate that’s the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup -- the most heavily used weedkiller in food and agricultural production in human history.
The report shows that glyphosate can lead to potentially devastating health effects such as an increased risk for cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Parkinson’s, leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome, ADD, serious reproductive and neurological problems and kidney and liver diseases. Alarmingly, previous independent research has found that people who are already chronically ill showed significantly higher glyphosate residue in their urine than healthy people.
These alarming glyphosate residues in popular American foods have given us grounds to demand a federal investigation from the FDA into the likely harmful effects of glyphosate as well as demanding that they investigate the relationships between the regulators and the regulated corporations like Monsanto, DuPont and Dow Chemical, which too often minimize or cover up the harm to the public that are being exposed to an increasing number of toxic chemicals in our food.
"
Food (Yum)
Shared by Bruce at Grassfire, and endorsed by this web site because, if you can trust your source of rice-based pasta, it'll be gluten-free.
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/spinach-tomato-pasta-recipe
If you don't spray poisons on your yard or drive motor vehicles past it, here's a quick guide to totally free food. (This site barely squeaked past the new #ReadersRevolt filter, with one pop-up, and lots of graphics that kept the text squiggling away as I scrolled down...shape up, Rodale!)
http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garden/8-weeds-you-can-eat/
Health
Chest pain isn't always a heart attack...and other things sometimes are; Sue Palmer's heart attack felt like Norwalk Flu.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/she-thought-it-was-only-a-24-hour-bug-what-she-really-had-almost-killed-her/2016/03/07/32e6cbfa-c5f5-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html
Michigan Update
Is it possible that Providence is giving rich Michiganians a chance to recover their honor by Taking Care Of Their Own?
https://www.rt.com/usa/371972-detroit-fraser-sinkhole-sewage/
Movie
Kaitlyn Schallhorn makes a case for a forthcoming movie:
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/12/27/making-a-case-for-christ-in-life-and-on-the-big-screen/
Phenology
Right. I don't resolve to do a full-length phenology post every time I go online, but at least a comment in the Link Log...Below is a link documenting an afternoon high of 75 degrees Fahrenheit in Alabama on Christmas Day. Today, Holy Innocents Day, where did that thaw go? Someone shared a link to an Annoying Web Site claiming the temperature in Siberia was -80 degrees Fahrenheit, and that's what's heading our way. Well, that's Siberia for you, but in Virginia a thin layer of ice had formed on the cats' water dishes this morning.
https://niume.com/post/204597
Pictures
One of those places that market themselves mainly to honeymoon travellers:
http://themarthareview.com/mr-and-mrs-was-established-august-28-2016/
Someone who was online this morning, which is (in and of itself) an excuse for a certain bleakness of outlook, branded 2016 a bad year because a lot of beloved elders died. My comment was that if that's our criterion for a bad year, we're in for a lot of them as the Greatest Generation passes...and then as we become the older generation...This cartoon strip seems to address the same idea:
http://www.dailygood.org/story/1472/heavy-things-grant-snider/
Politics
Ridiculous quotes. When I think of the context--he sent so many non-supporters into exile that people who have continued to be Cubans undoubtedly did feel proud of Dear Leader Castro, and those who admire Al Capone or Kinnie Wagner undoubtedly admire Fidel Castro's survival--I can believe the memorial tribute about pride in Fidel Castro. But...President Obama resembles Abe Lincoln...and Julia Roberts...at the same time? Well, yes; not only do those three famous people have oxygen-breathing in common, they even have dark hair...
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2016/12/27/newsbusters-year-review-most-outrageous-quotes-2016-part-i
The Daily Caller has shaped up, with a printer-friendly version only one click through the nasty graphics mess:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/27/the-united-nations-gets-krauthammered-trump-should-turn-it-into-condos-video/?print=1
Jonah Goldberg: right on:
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/443364/print
Virginia Tea Partiers only...I'm not sure I even endorse this idea. I don't want my phone to blab to the world what my real address is. Arguably the police need to be able to track emergency calls and/or criminal use of phones to a physical location; the pests of the world do not need to be able to annoy me at home. However, for those who want two-click communication with your legislatures during the General Assembly, the app is here:
http://virginiateapartypatriots.us3.list-manage.com/track/click
Psychology
Marketing psychology: What's a "talent stack"? This post is obviously an excuse for Scott Adams to brag about a friend of his, which is nice, but it's more than that.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/155029617616/the-kristina-talent-stack
Well, it's also an excuse for him to advertise the current Dilbert Calendar. (I enjoy day-by-day, tearaway cartoon calendars, so if anybody out there wants to buy me one, it'll be welcome.)
Travel
Patricia Heaton from "Everybody Loves Raymond" goes to Zambia. It's kind of ironic...my real-world friend who survived a visit to that country (few North Americans do) was Jewish, and aggressively evangelical Protestant World Vision was not on her top ten list of charities. Whatever works!
https://blog.worldvision.org/content/everybody-loves-patricia?campaign=108929282
Venezuela Update
The crisis escalates...
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-violence-idUSKBN14H1PJ
Weird
Or should the heading be "More Courage than Common Sense"? Couple of stranded tourists get separated in a blizzard (after trusting GPS for directions). Woman wanders in wilderness for thirty hours, pushing herself to keep moving to rescue her husband and child. Man wanders for shorter distance, stumbles into cell phone reception area, summons help and rescues his literally clueless wife. Er. Um. Both of them did show heroic fortitude, but...don't go exploring unknown wilderness roads in midwinter, Gentle Readers. (The story would be a classic Ohio joke if the couple weren't from Pennsylvania.)
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/12/27/mother-hikes-26-miles-in-freezing-weather-to-rescue-her-family/
What I want to see here is the offender's picture. If he's a natural blue-eyed blond, it's a joke.
http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/26/drexel-professor-tweets-all-i-want-for-c
And speaking of Reason.com...
http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/20/11-worst-free-range-moments-of-2016
Writing
The way this web site looks is the way I prefer that yours look. Or the way Ozarque's looked:
http://ozarque.livejournal.com/
I seriously want to avoid messy, flashy web sites in 2017. If you want to load up with all the latest graphics and forty different kinds of pop-ups and pull-downs and roll-overs and self-loading videos, go ahead...but if you want me to read your content, please cross-post it to a Minimalist Text-Only Version site. I keep promising to transfer what's worth preserving, even at this web site, to a graphics-free site at
http://cat_sanctuary.livejournal.com/
Science fiction comes to life...the creepy would-be councilman from my short story, "Kylene Has Two Children," presupposes that all adults who stroll, eat lunch, jog, or relax in parks are as creepy as he is:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-playground-ban-20161227-story.html
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