I never cared much for blue jays; they’re so commonplace. But when you really look at them, they’re beautiful:
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Open thread 2/17/2022 — 65 Comments
My favorite bird is the owl.
I wish I knew how to get them to relocate to my back yard.
Where I used to live we had woodpeckers (2 to be precise) in the yard; I was really surprised how big they were and they all had a shocking-red-streak on their plumage. They were really handsome birds.
When they were pecking , you could hear it from 100 yards away.
Are you going to update your blogroll, Neo?
Are you going to update your blogroll, Neo?
She’s not going to update the blogroll until Mike K starts dancing like Buddy Ebsen.
Something’s up in Ottawa. A fence has appeared around Parliament Hill. Stay tuned.
Speaking of blogrolls, what the heck is going on over at PowerLineBlog.com?
Paul, who lives in a deep blue state (Maryland?) is forever writing posts based on an absurd acceptance of pro-Dem propaganda dished out by the MSM … and despite daily counter-examples offered by co-bloggers Steve, John and Scott.
Apparently Steve is at the point of wanting to punch Paul’s lights out … and take his popular “The Week In Pictures” feature with him when he leaves the blog.
JimNorCal on February 17, 2022 at 10:55 am said:
” … what the heck is going on over at PowerLineBlog.com?”
Paul’s having an affair with Yoko, who wants to break up the band.
If you have the wrong opinions and support the wrong people, well, they’re coming after you.
Meanwhile, in this “beacon” of tolerance and decency, intimidation and threats have become the name of the game.
Canada—or at least the Trudeau MINORITY government—in its current incarnation, has been swallowed whole by the “Biden” regime.
(Which clarifies, in stark detail, just what “Liberal” means…as well as “New Democrat”.)
Cute video. The narrator’s accent has a little Canadian accent but also seems similar to the US midwest farmland accents that I grew up with. Her style reminds me of the old Warren Miller snow skiing docus.
In my community, as you move from our house, a couple miles from the beach, to the beach, to the slough 10 miles up the coast, there are probably a couple hundred different bird species. The folks who rent watercraft at the slough document 76 species just there. I’ve never seen a magpie though.
Last summer I was weed wacking the weed patch in our yard and I noticed that one particular California blue bird would come within about two yards of me even while the cutter was spinning (electric). He/she was going after the seeds I was knocking loose. A couple days later I finished the job and then 3 or 4 of these blue birds came in. When the cutter was off they’d move in to within a foot or two of me.
Blue Jays can be very aggressive, including towards humans. Not my favorite bird. An ornithologist’s dream is to view the incredible assortment of birds in Kreuger National Park in South Africa.
Art D, thanks for the Video. Few people know that Buddy Epsen was a dancer. He did what was called “the Rubber Dance”. All very loose limbed dance.
I just read that they arrested a woman for the Jan 6 “meeting”. Yet no word on the pipe bomber.
Barry Meislin,
I helped a friend build owl boxes on his vineyard for natural rodent control of his vines and fruit.
I was once driving home from kayaking and heard a thud overhead. I pulled over and somehow an owl had gotten swept up into the cockpit of the upside down kayak on my roof. I left the car parked and walked about 15 feet away, as I didn’t want to make the bird nervous. In short order it flew out of the cockpit and landed right in front of my car, in the beams of the headlights. I was amazed at how large it was! It seemed a bit stunned by the ordeal and after about 15 seconds shook its head back and forth, like it was shaking itself out of a daze, and then flew off into the night. Beautiful bird!
Huh, it’s a Steller’s Jay commonly misspelled (by me) as a Stellar Jay. Who or what is a Steller?
Noun 1. Steller – German naturalist (1709-1746)
Georg Wilhelm Steller
Maybe?
JimNorCal – I’ve been following the Powerlineblog drama too. I really like Steve Hayward’s writing, and also Paul Mirengoff’s. I followed their back and forth over Trump’s document destruction issue. I don’t get it. There must be something more going on out of public view. Are we not allowed to disagree about Trump? I’m thankful that neo allows us to do that here.
I was disappointed years ago when I read that Jay’s are not really blue, but just another kind of black bird that looks blue because of light scattering .
I was also surprised at how small Blue Birds really are. I expected them.to be closer in size to Robin’s, than to Sparrows.
Apparently because of their habitat choices or needs, I had just not seen any for decades until the (abt 5 acre) grove surrounding the “cottage” attained the right character. All of the sudden there seem to be at least a handful of them flitting across the lawns between the house and the barn, and around the mown pathways through the big trees, out to the fields.
Granted bluejays are beautiful.
Of this I must agree.
That bluejays are the thugs of birds
Is also plain to see.
Well, I suppose those who find their wives’ or girlfriends’ blue eyes attracrive, ought not to sniff at how Jays attain their coloring.
Steller has a lot of species named after him. My favorite: the since-extinct Steller’s Sea Cow.
There are small flocks of turkeys I see quite often at two of the locations I work. Saw a very large hawk at another just last night, he perched for a short time maybe 25 yards from me. Maybe a month ago I saw what looked like a bald eagle. I remember reading of there being a nest of them maybe ten miles away as the eagle flies about 20 years ago, hopefully they’re spreading.
My favorite bird though is clearly the hummingbird.
Sounds like fun. Those owls seem to have voracious appetites…. (Perennial teenagers?) I had the good fortune of spotting a rather large one floating through a pine forest in the middle of the day. Square-headed but elegant flyer with an impressive wingspan.
Then there was the time I saw a huge bald eagle flying westward just south of the Prudential Tower in Chicago. I was on the 20th or so floor, facing south, and happened to be looking out the window when this awesome, graceful thing winged by, as if it were participating in a US Postal Service commercial.
I’ve been lucky….
Random Corvid Thoughts:
I love magpies — they always look so dapper. Like they are going to a white-tie affair. They are fun to watch — they are very smart birds. There is a great video about a woman in Australia who is kind of a magpie whisperer.
I read that at some place with captive crows, one ( or more) of the crows have started to caw with a “human accent.” That is, it/they hear humans try to imitate them so much that it/they are now imitating the humans. I haven’t looked for a video yet, but I am sure there is one.
I also love the videos about how smart crows are. You know, the ones where they do all sorts of clever things to get food. I have tried to make friends with the crows in my yard, but with no luck. I find it fascinating that they hold a grudge for a long time.
Very good Gerard. Your off hand, spur of the moment bit of versification works.
There was obviously a spot for you in the 10th century Mead Hall.
Let’s see if we who have no liking for verse at all, can rework it slightly, and then give some other reader a shot at revising that.
“That Blue Jay’s are quite beautiful
On this we all agree.
Their thuggish way with other birds
Is also plain to see.”
From, “The Children’s Blue Jay Reader” G. Van Der Leun 2nd printing, Editor, DNW,
Scrub jay, I think. Nice bird.
The real bird thugs are cowbirds, who take over others’ nests.
Cornflour “Paul’s having an affair with Yoko, who wants to break up the band.”
Now it all makes sense!
And thanks for the Steller info (whose name I also misspell). I always assumed he was a Russian. They explored down the west coast of North America in earlier days.
I saw a huge bald eagle flying westward just south of the Prudential Tower in Chicago. I was on the 20th or so floor, facing south, and happened to be looking out the window when this awesome, graceful thing winged by, as if it were participating in a US Postal Service commercial.
I’ve been lucky….
If I have said this before, Neo please delete it.
Gun slung, I was trudging southward from Johnson’s Crossing Grade on the snowless valley road two track, when I looked up in the trees lining the road and there, by hasty count, were ten or twelve large birds that I momentarily took for turkey vultures.
A second or two.later I realized they were Juvenile Bald Eagles, one or two having begun to develop white caps. They were all sitting calmly, each in a separate tree and all were staring down at me.
I quickly halted and considered what in the world could be the deal … when I eventually noticed an area of bracken meadow on the east bank of the track, strewn with huge dog food bags containing parts of poached deer carcasses.
At least 5 probably, and more like eight were there. Heads and hind quarters were missing; tenderloins and backstraps removed.
The missing parts had not deterred a flock of eagles from gorging on the remains though. Whether some other animal had helped drag or rip the carcasses out of the kennel quantity bags, I don’t know.
Eventually the birds calmly and one by one went flapping off to the south west.
What made it all the more startling was that the area had been select cut a few years before and the trees along the two-track were of the 10 inch at gauge height variety, and by and large no more than 40 feet tall.
Frankly, my initial impression was that there might be some dangerous turn of events – for me- in the offing.
Turned out it meant no such thing.
Reported it to the DNR. Don’t think they even bothered to look.
Steller’s wiki entry paints a life echoing Aubrey and Maturin in Patrick O’Brian’s novels. Example:
They “made landfall in Alaska at Kayak Island on Monday 20 July 1741. Bering wanted to stay only long enough to take on fresh water. Steller argued Captain Bering into giving him more time for land exploration and was granted 10 hours.
During his ten hours on land Steller noted the mathematical ratio of 10 years preparation for ten hours of investigation.”
For the owl lovers on this thread: here’s a video of the owls who-o-o-o call the campus of Rice University their home:
The sea lion really ought to be called “sea bear” in my opinion.
Gerard’s four-liner–
Granted bluejays are beautiful.
Of this I must agree.
That bluejays are the thugs of birds
Is also plain to see.
reminded me that Cyanocitta cristata (which even Wikipedia describes as “noisy, bold, and aggressive”) is the ideal mascot for Toronto’s AL team: here’s Ace getting ready for the home opener a few years back:
More on the decadence and uselessness of organized intellectual life. Note, some board hired this James Rondeau person. Who is on that board? How did they get on that board? What’s their excuse?
I doubt Art Deco will be surprised by Rondeau’s specialization in modern and contemporary art. Rondeau’s academic background? A.B. Middlebury, 1991; M.A., Williams, 1994.
From the AIC’s 2016 press release about Rondeau’s elevation to his current perch: “Rondeau has organized and contributed to some of the most groundbreaking exhibitions and installations in the Art Institute’s history, including: Charles Ray: Sculpture, 1998-2015 (with Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, Kunstmuseum Basel), 2014-2015; Steve McQueen (with Maja Oeri, Schaulager, Basel), 2012; Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, (with Sheena Wagstaff, Tate Modern, London—toured to National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris), 2012; Cy Twombly, The Natural World, Selected Works, 2000-2007, 2009; Jasper Johns: Gray 1955-2005 (with Douglas Druick—traveled to Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.”
The chair of the AIC’s Board of Trustees who announced Rondeau’s appointment is one Robert M. Levy. From the press release: “James has proven himself one of the most innovative and accomplished curators and museum leaders anywhere,” said Levy. “He understands with great insight what makes the Art Institute so powerfully exceptional—the parallel strengths of our founding encyclopedic vision and our remarkable dedication to art of the moment. He has masterfully leveraged that vision and our legacy of excellence to make sure our world-class collection feels inspirational, dynamic, and relevant. James brings a true commitment to the highest standards of scholarship and connoisseurship and deep expertise in exhibitions, research, and publications. He has a natural ability to forge strong relationships with artists and collectors and the day-to-day experience of collaborating across museum operations. These are the exact qualities we need to take the Art Institute’s international reputation and prestige to the next level.”
Yeah, it’s sick-making. AD can probably track down Levy’s qualifications for issuing public-relations gush and gabble. Anyway, here is the link to the 2016 press release:
Interesting about Rondeau: (1) no research degree or any contact with a research institution and (2) inside hire. He’d been plotting to wreck the place for 17 years. The board is unweildy as such boards typically are, and chosen according to an esoteric process.
Good news for all my fellow Washingtonians here our benevolent King Jay has announced our mask mandate will be lifted.
On March 21.
Yes, over a month from now.
I have never hated an elected official as much as I hate this guy.
This is a very good overview of what has gone wrong with public health responses and what has to be different next time because our hysterical society will invent one just because.
I remember reading that the Art Institute recently fired all its extensively trained volunteer docents because too many of them were white.
Griffin! I was just coming here to post the update king jay’s news. Why the heck it has to wait another month is beyond me, but I’m with you on the hatred for him. He makes me sick.
Levy is Partner, Chairman, and Chief Investment Officer for U.S. Equities at Harris Associates L.P., an investment firm with approximately $125 billion in assets under management.
You ever get the impression that the financial sector is very adept at causing trouble, as if it were staffed with Loki figures?
gwynmir,
Inslee is basically saying another month to flatten the curve and he is not giving up his emergency powers either.
New Mexico ended theirs today effective immediately.
Science must be different there.
Griffin–
March 21 is J.S. Bach’s birthday (according to the Julian calendar in effect in Saxony in 1685). So celebrate the end of King Jay’s mask mandate by playing Bach’s “Jig Fugue,” BWV 577, and dance in the street:
Our governor, in not entirely deep-blue New Mexico, has lifted the “indoor mask mandate,” effective immediately. I assume there remains no “outdoor mask mandate.”
The midterms approach.
Inslee’s press conference was something else. He said data and science about a hundred times no exaggeration.
Data and science, science and data, data and science.
That’s what it’s all about people, data and science.
This a really good episode from the Professor Of Rock on ‘The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald’ by Gordon Lightfoot.
Lightfoot is an absolute genius and a treasure to be cherished.
Our governor, in not entirely deep-blue New Mexico, has lifted the “indoor mask mandate,” effective immediately
MollyG:
Huzzah!
However, we’ll see how this plays at UNM. You’re still practically shot on sight for not wearing a mask inside.
I had to sign a document saying I understood there would be only one mask warning, then I would be dropped from class for a second offense.
OMG, I can’t believe you actually watched it. I can’t bring myself to do that.
Not giving up the emergency powers? God help us. Hopefully one of the two bills will pass.
PA Cat,
That was amazing! The keyboard proficiency was incredible, but then when the camera moved to his feet and the pedal work. I can see why it’s called the “Jig Fugue!”
Watching that Professor of Rock on ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’ put me in the mood for more Gordon Lightfoot.
That’s a great song. Thanks for the link. Lightfoot did such a good job! It really sounds like a 300 year old shea shanty. I did not know Lightfoot changed the lyric when investigations negated the likelihood of an open hatch.
One of the eeriest things to me; she sank in 530 feet of water.
Seems impossibly deep, and it is, but the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was 729 feet long! If it had sank completely perpendicular to the bottom it still would have had 200 feet (nearly 20 stories) above water level to keep the crew safe. I know boats don’t sink that way, but that fact still astounds me.
29 men dead. Do you know of the other Great Lakes boat disaster, 60 years earlier, that killed over 29 times (844!) as many men, women and children?
Re: UNM masking
So at class tonight I saw masking continues at UNM. I mentioned the Governor’s Order, but no one really believes UNM will let go of masking any time soon.
When I returned home, I managed to find UNM’s response:
_____________________________________
The University of New Mexico’s indoor mask mandate will remain in place, unless otherwise announced, until University leadership reviews the Governor’s updated health order, which was announced today modifying the State’s mask mandate. Masks remain available to those who need them when they are on campus.
_____________________________________
The Governor’s Order is clear that other bodies may keep masking in place as they wish.
My sense is that UNM enjoys the control and virtue-signaling masking provides.
Here’s the latest from Powerline on the family quarrel.
The amazing thing is that the comment threads on the first post, which initiated the brawl, was upwards of 1550 when I gave up reading it and now has logged 1796, and this second one is also a record-setter.
Steven explains most of what fans need to know, which is by no means all we want to know.
RE: Powerline
I must say it’s refreshing to see the ‘Adults’ going at it.
Expect to see more ‘Conservatives’ fighting each other: it’s so much safer than fighting the real Enemies.
What y’all need is a nice refreshing Foreign Adventure (not really).
@ Art Deco > “She’s not going to update the blogroll until Mike K starts dancing like Buddy Ebsen.”
I was impressed by Lee J. Cobb, who was not a song and dance man like Buddy!
@ Barry > “The thugs running Canada, like their counterparts currently in DC, have exposed themselves for what they are, and seem not in the least perturbed by doing so.”
The Daily Mail always has the best pictures.
Justice Minister David Lametti made the remark in an interview with CTV News Channel on Wednesday night, where host Evan Solomon pressed him on whether average citizens who donated to the protests should be worried about account seizures.
‘If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried,’ said Lametti.
Lametti defended the government seizure of bank accounts tied to the protests against vaccine mandates as a simple ‘extending’ of the procedures used to stop ‘terrorist financing’.
…
The donor list to a GiveSendGo campaign that raised more than $8.6 million to support the protest is now public information after hackers stole the information and released it.
Numerous protest organizers have reported freezes on their bank accounts, but it is unclear whether Trudeau’s government has moved to seize the assets of ordinary citizens who simply donated to the protests.
Under the Emergencies Act, Mounties have already requested freezes on more than 30 cryptocurrency wallets thought to be connected to the protests, multiple Canadian exchanges told the Financial Post.
… Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, waded into the controversy on Twitter by posting an incendiary meme comparing Trudeau to the genocidal dictator Adolf Hitler.
‘Stop comparing me to Justin Trudeau… I had a budget,’ reads the meme featuring an image of Hitler, which Musk tweeted in response to an article about the freeze on certain crypto wallets.
GiveSendGo founder Jacob Wells on Wednesday slammed Trudeau’s administration as a ‘group of terrorists’ and called on the FBI to investigate the hackers who shut down its site on Sunday and released the information of its more than 92,000 donors.
‘This is illegal, and these people should be going to jail,’ Wells told Fox News. ‘The FBI – I mean, it’s surprising that we haven’t heard from any investigative services. We will be reaching out ourselves to just see that there’s some investigation into this. This is completely unacceptable.’
Twitter has freely allowed the sharing of articles based on the hacked donor list, despite a policy against hacked materials that the social media giant cited in blocking articles based on material from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.
…
Canada’s state-funded national broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, has gone through the list of 92,844 donors to contact and publicly out them.
It revealed that the former leader of the country’s Progressive Conservative Party Ches Crosbie made an $800 donation. He was unapologetic when confronted by CBC journalists, saying: ‘Indefinite states of emergency, such as we are under in most of Canada, are a dangerous thing, a very dangerous thing. I support the right of peaceful protest and I see the Freedom Convoy as a peaceful protest.’
The CBC also outed a prominent business owner in London, Ontario, as giving the largest single donation to the Freedom Convoy. Holden Rhodes, who owns Killarney Mountain Lodge, donated $25,000.
Another donor outed in the leak was Tammy Giuliani, owner of Stella Luna Gelato Cafe in Ottawa, who was forced to shut down her business after she received an onslaught of threats over her $250 donation.
Real scary, those donors.
So far, no one has donated hundreds of thousands or millions, but Musk might take a notion to if they push things far enough.
However, the particular canard about terrorists (aka extremists) got shut down by the official officially in charge.
Two recent recordings exclusively obtained by The Federalist from a source with knowledge of the recordings provide further evidence that systemic problems plague the large Pennsylvania county.
The newest recordings provide some of the frankest discussion on how bad the behind-the-scenes situation was, with one election worker describing a part of the post-election situation as “abominable” and the attempt to do the impossible—reconcile some precincts’ voter sheets—as “a nightmare.”
The whistleblower, Regina Miller, began recording conversations involving Delaware County officials after she became concerned with what she saw as a contract worker assisting election employees. A source familiar with the videos explained that Miller made the recordings as election workers scrambled to find—and in some cases create—documentation in response to a “Right to Know” request that sought copies of the paperwork that would confirm the accuracy of the vote tallies certified for the 2020 election.
To date, the videos have exposed a wide array of problems with election integrity, including on-tape admissions that the election laws were not complied with, that 80 percent of provisional ballots lacked a proper chain-of-custody, that there were missing removable drives for some of the voting machines, and that election workers “recreated” new drives to response to the Right to Know request.
The most recent video, however, reveals a new area of concern related to the reconciliation of the voting totals in the precincts. Captured on film in this video was a conversation between one election worker and the whistleblower. With boxes of voting sheets lining the basement floor of a Delaware County building, the election worker tells Miller, “There were six precincts in one location and all of the machines were, all of the scanners were, programmed to accept any ballot of those six precincts.”
“It was a nightmare,” the Delaware County official explained, adding that “you couldn’t, there’s no way you could reconcile” the results.
…
More detail on the widespread problem of missing and comingled machine tapes was also revealed in a second conversation, with this discussion captured only on audio. That discussion began with the whistleblower again noting the chain-of-custody issues previously reported, where provisional ballots were transferred in unlocked bags.
This conversation added more insight to the potential risk caused by the lack of a chain of custody by exposing the number of hands the unsecured ballots passed through, each time providing a new opportunity for fraud. The unsecured ballots went from the “poll workers’ hands, then to return locations, then to the police officers, and then to us,” the whistleblower explained.
… “When the community service people cleaned out the cages, they were finding tapes in there because someone just didn’t know what to do,” the election official noted in reference to the locked areas where the election machines are stored after the election. Then “we all panic, is that the fifth tape or the first tape?” he added.
Some precinct workers thought if they just sent the tapes back, we’d figure out where they went, the recording continued. “You know, we couldn’t,” he told the whistleblower.
When the whistleblower asked if it is a legal requirement or just the practice to staple the tapes to the return sheet, the election official said, “I think it’s a combination of both.”
He’s right. Under Pennsylvania’s election code, the return board must carefully review the tally papers and machine tapes and reconcile them with the general return sheets, but if the tapes are missing, such a reconciliation is impossible.
That wasn’t the only reconciliation problem, however, as the undercover recording made clear. “We haven’t even talked about reconciling used and unused ballots,” the election worker noted, which Pennsylvania law also requires to be reconciled.
… Yet the county certified the election results.
What other counties in what other states likewise certified their election results notwithstanding similar, or worse, problems? We may never know, because what goes on in the canvasing of elections apparently stays in the basements and warehouses dotting every county in our country.
Without video evidence confirming cases of election malfeasance or fraud, politicians on both sides of the aisle will continue to put allegations—even from insiders—down as mere conspiracy theories. Sadly, even when there is video evidence such as here, the story is largely ignored by the corrupt press—or it will be until Democrats next take a beating at the polls.
Given the disaster Joe Biden has been, that is likely imminent.
Democrats taking a beating is by no means assured, if the states leave their elections in the hands of corrupt and incompetent partisans.
The events in Canada are important, but there are still other things going on that we need to keep aware of, like the election revelations (peeling an onion) and the Durham investigation. J. E. Dyer does two very deep dives into the details of what “spying on the Trump campaign” really means.
Bottom line: of course Obama knew what was happening in the Clinton-Steele Dossier Caper, because only the Executive Office of the President had the access to all the data being fished through and processed into the final fish-wrap.
“Involvement by the Obama administration, by the way, is how you account for this being done basically in the open. The email trove from the Joffe team so far is sanguine and has no hint of furtiveness to it. Hillary didn’t have to pay anyone to “steal” anything. If Durham proves his case, she was paying them to misuse it.”
AF, those links are absolutely breathtaking.
Thanks….
Loved Blue Jays as a kid growing up in the Jersey Shore–later found out they were quite nasty to other birds. We always had a healthy assortment of Blue Jays, Cardinals & Orioles to watch with wonder–here in San Diego we have plenty of birds–but not like the ones in NJ.
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My favorite bird is the owl.
I wish I knew how to get them to relocate to my back yard.
Where I used to live we had woodpeckers (2 to be precise) in the yard; I was really surprised how big they were and they all had a shocking-red-streak on their plumage. They were really handsome birds.
When they were pecking , you could hear it from 100 yards away.
Are you going to update your blogroll, Neo?
Are you going to update your blogroll, Neo?
She’s not going to update the blogroll until Mike K starts dancing like Buddy Ebsen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUMO26Qmlgg
Something’s up in Ottawa. A fence has appeared around Parliament Hill. Stay tuned.
Speaking of blogrolls, what the heck is going on over at PowerLineBlog.com?
Paul, who lives in a deep blue state (Maryland?) is forever writing posts based on an absurd acceptance of pro-Dem propaganda dished out by the MSM … and despite daily counter-examples offered by co-bloggers Steve, John and Scott.
Apparently Steve is at the point of wanting to punch Paul’s lights out … and take his popular “The Week In Pictures” feature with him when he leaves the blog.
JimNorCal on February 17, 2022 at 10:55 am said:
” … what the heck is going on over at PowerLineBlog.com?”
Paul’s having an affair with Yoko, who wants to break up the band.
“Ottawa”
The mask has dropped. The thugs running Canada, like their counterparts currently in DC, have exposed themselves for what they are, and seem not in the least perturbed by doing so.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10523525/Trudeaus-justice-minister-compares-Freedom-Convoy-donations-terrorist-financing.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10520353/Showdown-Ottawa-looms-Police-hand-notices-evacuate.html
If you have the wrong opinions and support the wrong people, well, they’re coming after you.
Meanwhile, in this “beacon” of tolerance and decency, intimidation and threats have become the name of the game.
Canada—or at least the Trudeau MINORITY government—in its current incarnation, has been swallowed whole by the “Biden” regime.
(Which clarifies, in stark detail, just what “Liberal” means…as well as “New Democrat”.)
Cute video. The narrator’s accent has a little Canadian accent but also seems similar to the US midwest farmland accents that I grew up with. Her style reminds me of the old Warren Miller snow skiing docus.
In my community, as you move from our house, a couple miles from the beach, to the beach, to the slough 10 miles up the coast, there are probably a couple hundred different bird species. The folks who rent watercraft at the slough document 76 species just there. I’ve never seen a magpie though.
Last summer I was weed wacking the weed patch in our yard and I noticed that one particular California blue bird would come within about two yards of me even while the cutter was spinning (electric). He/she was going after the seeds I was knocking loose. A couple days later I finished the job and then 3 or 4 of these blue birds came in. When the cutter was off they’d move in to within a foot or two of me.
California blue bird. An OK looking bird, but nothing fancy.
We also get a number of Stellar Jays. A prettier or at least more distinctive bird.
Yellow cardinal, revisited…. (Posted this last week or so. Not sure anyone say it, though….)
https://www.theepochtimes.com/man-spends-500-plus-hours-filming-extremely-rare-yellow-cardinal-who-visits-his-backyard_4174049.html
Oh, I did click on that previously Barry, but I let my subscription lapse. Drat. Pretty bird, at least before the blocking screen came up,
For owl lovers….
Using barn owls instead of rodent pesticides to kill rodents: an ecological agricultural project in Israel-Jordan-Palestinian Territories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWdtOValDTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jifgi0nMf58
Blue Jays can be very aggressive, including towards humans. Not my favorite bird. An ornithologist’s dream is to view the incredible assortment of birds in Kreuger National Park in South Africa.
Art D, thanks for the Video. Few people know that Buddy Epsen was a dancer. He did what was called “the Rubber Dance”. All very loose limbed dance.
I just read that they arrested a woman for the Jan 6 “meeting”. Yet no word on the pipe bomber.
Barry Meislin,
I helped a friend build owl boxes on his vineyard for natural rodent control of his vines and fruit.
I was once driving home from kayaking and heard a thud overhead. I pulled over and somehow an owl had gotten swept up into the cockpit of the upside down kayak on my roof. I left the car parked and walked about 15 feet away, as I didn’t want to make the bird nervous. In short order it flew out of the cockpit and landed right in front of my car, in the beams of the headlights. I was amazed at how large it was! It seemed a bit stunned by the ordeal and after about 15 seconds shook its head back and forth, like it was shaking itself out of a daze, and then flew off into the night. Beautiful bird!
Huh, it’s a Steller’s Jay commonly misspelled (by me) as a Stellar Jay. Who or what is a Steller?
Noun 1. Steller – German naturalist (1709-1746)
Georg Wilhelm Steller
Maybe?
JimNorCal – I’ve been following the Powerlineblog drama too. I really like Steve Hayward’s writing, and also Paul Mirengoff’s. I followed their back and forth over Trump’s document destruction issue. I don’t get it. There must be something more going on out of public view. Are we not allowed to disagree about Trump? I’m thankful that neo allows us to do that here.
I was disappointed years ago when I read that Jay’s are not really blue, but just another kind of black bird that looks blue because of light scattering .
I was also surprised at how small Blue Birds really are. I expected them.to be closer in size to Robin’s, than to Sparrows.
Apparently because of their habitat choices or needs, I had just not seen any for decades until the (abt 5 acre) grove surrounding the “cottage” attained the right character. All of the sudden there seem to be at least a handful of them flitting across the lawns between the house and the barn, and around the mown pathways through the big trees, out to the fields.
Granted bluejays are beautiful.
Of this I must agree.
That bluejays are the thugs of birds
Is also plain to see.
Well, I suppose those who find their wives’ or girlfriends’ blue eyes attracrive, ought not to sniff at how Jays attain their coloring.
Steller has a lot of species named after him. My favorite: the since-extinct Steller’s Sea Cow.
There are small flocks of turkeys I see quite often at two of the locations I work. Saw a very large hawk at another just last night, he perched for a short time maybe 25 yards from me. Maybe a month ago I saw what looked like a bald eagle. I remember reading of there being a nest of them maybe ten miles away as the eagle flies about 20 years ago, hopefully they’re spreading.
My favorite bird though is clearly the hummingbird.
Sounds like fun. Those owls seem to have voracious appetites…. (Perennial teenagers?) I had the good fortune of spotting a rather large one floating through a pine forest in the middle of the day. Square-headed but elegant flyer with an impressive wingspan.
Then there was the time I saw a huge bald eagle flying westward just south of the Prudential Tower in Chicago. I was on the 20th or so floor, facing south, and happened to be looking out the window when this awesome, graceful thing winged by, as if it were participating in a US Postal Service commercial.
I’ve been lucky….
Random Corvid Thoughts:
I love magpies — they always look so dapper. Like they are going to a white-tie affair. They are fun to watch — they are very smart birds. There is a great video about a woman in Australia who is kind of a magpie whisperer.
I read that at some place with captive crows, one ( or more) of the crows have started to caw with a “human accent.” That is, it/they hear humans try to imitate them so much that it/they are now imitating the humans. I haven’t looked for a video yet, but I am sure there is one.
I also love the videos about how smart crows are. You know, the ones where they do all sorts of clever things to get food. I have tried to make friends with the crows in my yard, but with no luck. I find it fascinating that they hold a grudge for a long time.
Very good Gerard. Your off hand, spur of the moment bit of versification works.
There was obviously a spot for you in the 10th century Mead Hall.
Let’s see if we who have no liking for verse at all, can rework it slightly, and then give some other reader a shot at revising that.
From, “The Children’s Blue Jay Reader” G. Van Der Leun 2nd printing, Editor, DNW,
Scrub jay, I think. Nice bird.
The real bird thugs are cowbirds, who take over others’ nests.
Cornflour “Paul’s having an affair with Yoko, who wants to break up the band.”
Now it all makes sense!
And thanks for the Steller info (whose name I also misspell). I always assumed he was a Russian. They explored down the west coast of North America in earlier days.
If I have said this before, Neo please delete it.
Gun slung, I was trudging southward from Johnson’s Crossing Grade on the snowless valley road two track, when I looked up in the trees lining the road and there, by hasty count, were ten or twelve large birds that I momentarily took for turkey vultures.
A second or two.later I realized they were Juvenile Bald Eagles, one or two having begun to develop white caps. They were all sitting calmly, each in a separate tree and all were staring down at me.
I quickly halted and considered what in the world could be the deal … when I eventually noticed an area of bracken meadow on the east bank of the track, strewn with huge dog food bags containing parts of poached deer carcasses.
At least 5 probably, and more like eight were there. Heads and hind quarters were missing; tenderloins and backstraps removed.
The missing parts had not deterred a flock of eagles from gorging on the remains though. Whether some other animal had helped drag or rip the carcasses out of the kennel quantity bags, I don’t know.
Eventually the birds calmly and one by one went flapping off to the south west.
What made it all the more startling was that the area had been select cut a few years before and the trees along the two-track were of the 10 inch at gauge height variety, and by and large no more than 40 feet tall.
Frankly, my initial impression was that there might be some dangerous turn of events – for me- in the offing.
Turned out it meant no such thing.
Reported it to the DNR. Don’t think they even bothered to look.
Steller’s wiki entry paints a life echoing Aubrey and Maturin in Patrick O’Brian’s novels. Example:
They “made landfall in Alaska at Kayak Island on Monday 20 July 1741. Bering wanted to stay only long enough to take on fresh water. Steller argued Captain Bering into giving him more time for land exploration and was granted 10 hours.
During his ten hours on land Steller noted the mathematical ratio of 10 years preparation for ten hours of investigation.”
For the owl lovers on this thread: here’s a video of the owls who-o-o-o call the campus of Rice University their home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYl184VBTDk&ab_channel=RiceUniversity
Rice’s sports mascot is (no surprise there) Sammy the Owl.
Another video about owls from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Academy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIuIxeCAAec&ab_channel=CornellLabofOrnithology
Where I live in the Pacific Northwest we don’t have blue jays, but Steller’s jays. There’s some other livestock of his wandering around these parts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller%27s_sea_eagle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller_sea_lion
The sea lion really ought to be called “sea bear” in my opinion.
Gerard’s four-liner–
Granted bluejays are beautiful.
Of this I must agree.
That bluejays are the thugs of birds
Is also plain to see.
reminded me that Cyanocitta cristata (which even Wikipedia describes as “noisy, bold, and aggressive”) is the ideal mascot for Toronto’s AL team: here’s Ace getting ready for the home opener a few years back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulUSLdKfyD4&ab_channel=CityNews
Yes, some of us are still hoping for something resembling a baseball season this year.
The most beautiful bluejay is Billie Bluejay of the Creighton Bluejays!!
We had a different name for them in Colorado, camp robbers
https://www.city-journal.org/art-institute-of-chicago-redefines-its-purpose-as-antiracism
More on the decadence and uselessness of organized intellectual life. Note, some board hired this James Rondeau person. Who is on that board? How did they get on that board? What’s their excuse?
I doubt Art Deco will be surprised by Rondeau’s specialization in modern and contemporary art. Rondeau’s academic background? A.B. Middlebury, 1991; M.A., Williams, 1994.
From the AIC’s 2016 press release about Rondeau’s elevation to his current perch: “Rondeau has organized and contributed to some of the most groundbreaking exhibitions and installations in the Art Institute’s history, including: Charles Ray: Sculpture, 1998-2015 (with Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, Kunstmuseum Basel), 2014-2015; Steve McQueen (with Maja Oeri, Schaulager, Basel), 2012; Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, (with Sheena Wagstaff, Tate Modern, London—toured to National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris), 2012; Cy Twombly, The Natural World, Selected Works, 2000-2007, 2009; Jasper Johns: Gray 1955-2005 (with Douglas Druick—traveled to Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.”
The chair of the AIC’s Board of Trustees who announced Rondeau’s appointment is one Robert M. Levy. From the press release: “James has proven himself one of the most innovative and accomplished curators and museum leaders anywhere,” said Levy. “He understands with great insight what makes the Art Institute so powerfully exceptional—the parallel strengths of our founding encyclopedic vision and our remarkable dedication to art of the moment. He has masterfully leveraged that vision and our legacy of excellence to make sure our world-class collection feels inspirational, dynamic, and relevant. James brings a true commitment to the highest standards of scholarship and connoisseurship and deep expertise in exhibitions, research, and publications. He has a natural ability to forge strong relationships with artists and collectors and the day-to-day experience of collaborating across museum operations. These are the exact qualities we need to take the Art Institute’s international reputation and prestige to the next level.”
Yeah, it’s sick-making. AD can probably track down Levy’s qualifications for issuing public-relations gush and gabble. Anyway, here is the link to the 2016 press release:
https://nocache.www.artic.edu/press/press-releases/193/the-art-institute-of-chicago-appoints-james-rondeau-as-new-president-and-eloise-w-martin-director
Interesting about Rondeau: (1) no research degree or any contact with a research institution and (2) inside hire. He’d been plotting to wreck the place for 17 years. The board is unweildy as such boards typically are, and chosen according to an esoteric process.
Good news for all my fellow Washingtonians here our benevolent King Jay has announced our mask mandate will be lifted.
On March 21.
Yes, over a month from now.
I have never hated an elected official as much as I hate this guy.
This is a very good overview of what has gone wrong with public health responses and what has to be different next time because our hysterical society will invent one just because.
He refers to Minnesota but it is true everywhere.
https://healthy-skeptic.com/2022/02/17/what-gov-walz-and-doh-got-wrong-and-still-get-wrong/
I remember reading that the Art Institute recently fired all its extensively trained volunteer docents because too many of them were white.
Griffin! I was just coming here to post the update king jay’s news. Why the heck it has to wait another month is beyond me, but I’m with you on the hatred for him. He makes me sick.
Levy is Partner, Chairman, and Chief Investment Officer for U.S. Equities at Harris Associates L.P., an investment firm with approximately $125 billion in assets under management.
You ever get the impression that the financial sector is very adept at causing trouble, as if it were staffed with Loki figures?
gwynmir,
Inslee is basically saying another month to flatten the curve and he is not giving up his emergency powers either.
New Mexico ended theirs today effective immediately.
Science must be different there.
Griffin–
March 21 is J.S. Bach’s birthday (according to the Julian calendar in effect in Saxony in 1685). So celebrate the end of King Jay’s mask mandate by playing Bach’s “Jig Fugue,” BWV 577, and dance in the street:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuoxijdFKA0&ab_channel=MatthiasHavinga
Our governor, in not entirely deep-blue New Mexico, has lifted the “indoor mask mandate,” effective immediately. I assume there remains no “outdoor mask mandate.”
The midterms approach.
Inslee’s press conference was something else. He said data and science about a hundred times no exaggeration.
Data and science, science and data, data and science.
That’s what it’s all about people, data and science.
This a really good episode from the Professor Of Rock on ‘The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald’ by Gordon Lightfoot.
Lightfoot is an absolute genius and a treasure to be cherished.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLg83dMCShs
Our governor, in not entirely deep-blue New Mexico, has lifted the “indoor mask mandate,” effective immediately
MollyG:
Huzzah!
However, we’ll see how this plays at UNM. You’re still practically shot on sight for not wearing a mask inside.
I had to sign a document saying I understood there would be only one mask warning, then I would be dropped from class for a second offense.
OMG, I can’t believe you actually watched it. I can’t bring myself to do that.
Not giving up the emergency powers? God help us. Hopefully one of the two bills will pass.
PA Cat,
That was amazing! The keyboard proficiency was incredible, but then when the camera moved to his feet and the pedal work. I can see why it’s called the “Jig Fugue!”
Watching that Professor of Rock on ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’ put me in the mood for more Gordon Lightfoot.
This may be one of the greatest love songs ever.
‘Beautiful’ by Gordon Lightfoot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPMe9dMFHEA
Griffin,
That’s a great song. Thanks for the link. Lightfoot did such a good job! It really sounds like a 300 year old shea shanty. I did not know Lightfoot changed the lyric when investigations negated the likelihood of an open hatch.
One of the eeriest things to me; she sank in 530 feet of water.
Seems impossibly deep, and it is, but the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was 729 feet long! If it had sank completely perpendicular to the bottom it still would have had 200 feet (nearly 20 stories) above water level to keep the crew safe. I know boats don’t sink that way, but that fact still astounds me.
29 men dead. Do you know of the other Great Lakes boat disaster, 60 years earlier, that killed over 29 times (844!) as many men, women and children?
Re: UNM masking
So at class tonight I saw masking continues at UNM. I mentioned the Governor’s Order, but no one really believes UNM will let go of masking any time soon.
When I returned home, I managed to find UNM’s response:
_____________________________________
The University of New Mexico’s indoor mask mandate will remain in place, unless otherwise announced, until University leadership reviews the Governor’s updated health order, which was announced today modifying the State’s mask mandate. Masks remain available to those who need them when they are on campus.
_____________________________________
The Governor’s Order is clear that other bodies may keep masking in place as they wish.
My sense is that UNM enjoys the control and virtue-signaling masking provides.
Ritual Humiliations Will Continue:
https://apnews.com/article/sports-college-sports-swimming-014ac0dda10984bf8de1d0baaaec57c2
Trannies blitzing the pool.
Here’s the latest from Powerline on the family quarrel.
The amazing thing is that the comment threads on the first post, which initiated the brawl, was upwards of 1550 when I gave up reading it and now has logged 1796, and this second one is also a record-setter.
Post the First (if you missed it).
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/chutzpa.php
Post the Second.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/a-public-statement-about-our-current-internal-drama.php
Steven explains most of what fans need to know, which is by no means all we want to know.
RE: Powerline
I must say it’s refreshing to see the ‘Adults’ going at it.
Expect to see more ‘Conservatives’ fighting each other: it’s so much safer than fighting the real Enemies.
What y’all need is a nice refreshing Foreign Adventure (not really).
@ Art Deco > “She’s not going to update the blogroll until Mike K starts dancing like Buddy Ebsen.”
I was impressed by Lee J. Cobb, who was not a song and dance man like Buddy!
@ Barry > “The thugs running Canada, like their counterparts currently in DC, have exposed themselves for what they are, and seem not in the least perturbed by doing so.”
The Daily Mail always has the best pictures.
Real scary, those donors.
So far, no one has donated hundreds of thousands or millions, but Musk might take a notion to if they push things far enough.
However, the particular canard about terrorists (aka extremists) got shut down by the official officially in charge.
https://tnc.news/2022/02/17/financial-intelligence-chief-shuts-down-claims-of-extremist-convoy-funding/
The True North site has had excellent coverage of the protest from a conservative point of view.
AesopFan:
Thanks for the Powerline links. They are on my feed, but I don’t read all posts.
I had come to find Mirengoff annoying too. And more to the point, I couldn’t follow his reasoning.
As with most NeverTrumpers, he seemed to be in the grip of a tractor beam dragging him to bien-pensant conclusions.
The other URL Barry cited doesn’t do justice to this post on the central command camp and the amenities that Canadians are providing for the truckers . https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10520353/Showdown-Ottawa-looms-Police-hand-notices-evacuate.html
The meme from Musk is spot on, especially given Trudeau’s hysterics about Nazi and Confederate flags (one of each, at most, and denounced by the truckers).
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/02/17/20/54322137-10523525-Elon_Musk_waded_into_the_controversy_on_Twitter_by_posting_an_in-a-9_1645128148031.jpg
And just so you know …
https://babylonbee.com/news/disturbing-here-are-10-extremist-found-at-the-trucker-protest
(some of these could go on Neo’s Roundup post, of course)
Amazing how that donor list gets hacked but Ghislaine Maxwell’s client list does not get hacked.
@ huxley > “As with most NeverTrumpers, he [Mirengoff] seemed to be in the grip of a tractor beam dragging him to bien-pensant conclusions.”
That’s gentler than the characterizations shared by most of the commenters.
@ Zaphod > “Amazing how that donor list gets hacked but Ghislaine Maxwell’s client list does not get hacked.”
It’s a miracle!
In all the excitement of the coming Revolution in Canada — a bit behind the times (what’s 2022-1776?), but maybe they can take the torch when America hands it off — let’s not forget that our own Revolution will end “not with a bang but a whimper,” if the states don’t get their election systems fixed before November.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/15/exclusive-systemic-voting-issues-in-pennsylvania-county-even-more-extensive-than-previously-known/
Democrats taking a beating is by no means assured, if the states leave their elections in the hands of corrupt and incompetent partisans.
The events in Canada are important, but there are still other things going on that we need to keep aware of, like the election revelations (peeling an onion) and the Durham investigation. J. E. Dyer does two very deep dives into the details of what “spying on the Trump campaign” really means.
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/new-durham-filing-in-sussmann-case-hits-paydirt-at-home-plate-although-not-the-way-you-may-think/
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/02/16/and-there-it-is-important-distinction-regarding-the-surveillance-at-issue-in-the-sussmann-case/
Bottom line: of course Obama knew what was happening in the Clinton-Steele Dossier Caper, because only the Executive Office of the President had the access to all the data being fished through and processed into the final fish-wrap.
“Involvement by the Obama administration, by the way, is how you account for this being done basically in the open. The email trove from the Joffe team so far is sanguine and has no hint of furtiveness to it. Hillary didn’t have to pay anyone to “steal” anything. If Durham proves his case, she was paying them to misuse it.”
AF, those links are absolutely breathtaking.
Thanks….
Loved Blue Jays as a kid growing up in the Jersey Shore–later found out they were quite nasty to other birds. We always had a healthy assortment of Blue Jays, Cardinals & Orioles to watch with wonder–here in San Diego we have plenty of birds–but not like the ones in NJ.