Interesting take by Kevin O’Leary on Trump’s troll of making Canada the 51st state.
He proposes that the US and Canada form an open economic alliance: common currency and open trade, along with common defense. Interesting 3min clip to watch:
Just found out that humble me has been suffering from the Mandela Effect, or maybe something similar (?!), since 1953-1954.
The bald eagle has been a symbol of power and strength in the US for more than 240 years but has only recently been declared the national bird.
***
‘Am I the only one who thought the bald eagle was the national bird already,’ one person asked on X. ‘Swear this was something I learned in elementary school.’
*** The bald eagle was only deemed a national emblem of the US, used on The Great Seal since 1782.
Apparently a big difference between the meanings of “national emblem” and “national bird” – no wonder I always hated English classes…
I, and those around me, all thought the Bald Eagle was the National Bird. Glad it is now official.
I have had Laser work on my right eye twice, torn retina. Awake, no anesthesia since no pain receptors in the eye. Quick, hundreds of laser “shots”. Kind of weird though.
Marvelous about technology
I read Oliver’s Sack’s “To See and Not See”upon which that horrible ValKilmer / Miro Sorvino movie was VERY LOOSELY based. It doesn’t sound like this woman went through some of the issues that Virgil from the essay did. When his sight was restored, he didn’t recognize things until he touched them. He would look at an apple, and have no idea what it was until he touched it, and then knew immediately. He also had a very difficult time with colors. And I am not sure to what degree he got over either before he again lost his sight.
Like this woman, it was a very stressful time for him — the overwhelming of his sense of sight.
I would’ve thought that her doctors’ might’ve been at least a little familiar with Oliver’s Sacks’s essay and would’e been able to warn her about the stress that she might go through. And maybe suggest she read it herself.
I went to school with a girl who I think had similar problems. She was sent away to a school for the blind for a couple of years. Back then, it wasn’t expensive (unless it was private) because there were state schools for the blind. (We’re talking the 1960s.) She came back home in fourth or fifth grade. While I am sure that some kids did bully her, overall, she was well liked and treated nicely by the a lot of the in crowd girls. But I remember her reading like that — with the paper right at her face.
I wonder how much taxpayers’ money was spent to anoint the bald eagle as the National Bird, something most native born Americans already understood.
Democrats also ended up on the wrong side of the gender gap, with men backing Mr. Trump more than women backing Vice President Kamala Harris.
Republicans underwent a similar post-mortem exercise after the 2012 election when Mitt Romney fell short in what Republicans thought was a winnable race against President Obama.
The outcome was a report done for the Republican National Committee. It concluded the GOP needed to be more welcoming of illegal immigration and less willing to listen to consultants.
Mr. Trump would defy the immigration recommendation, embracing the toughest stance in history en route to his 2016 win — and then again this year.
In 1978 John Varley won the Nebula Award for Best Novella for “The Persistence of Vision,” about a hitchhiker who discovers a commune of deaf and blind people who have developed ESP abilities to make up for their deficits.
He lives with them for a while and tries to fit in except he discovers that in the world of his commune friends he is the deaf and blind one. Saddened, he leaves.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
After several years in the normal world, he fails to find a home as fulfilling. He returns to the deaf and blind commune.
Pink, an old commune friend, tells him with her hands:
__________________________________
“Hold this part-of-me–who-speaks-mouth-to-nipple,” she said and handed me her infant daughter. “I will give you a gift.”
She reached up and lightly touched my ears with her cold fingers. The sound of the wind shut out, and when her hands went away it never came back. She touched my eyes, shut out the light, and I saw no more.
We live in the lovely quiet and dark.
–John Varley, “The Persistence of Vision”
__________________________________
Wow.
DuckSpa
Bandit! Twelve o’clock high!
I have mentioned before that we call our place The DuckSpa (“Quack the Duck Spa”). This place is reclaimed industrial property that was pretty dead when we got it. No ducks. Now, often when they are driven off they turn around and come right back.
In the following, the situation is the camera is facing almost due west and the wind is out of the north or right. There are a couple of hundred ducks sleeping in the sun on the spa. These are Mallards. Some of them sleep with one eye open and they can spot an eagle a mile away in their sleep. About 40 seconds in these ducks will spot an eagle about a mile away off camera to the right. This will cause an emergency sortie and the flock will exit to the south.
Rule 1 When the eagle is far, fly away from it.
As they exit the frame, the eagle will come into view from the right above the mountains. This will panic a second flock that will fly towards the eagle.
Rule 2 When the eagle is near, fly at it.
The eagle turns and flys off and flock 2 turns onto the downwind leg to return to the spa while entering the frame from the left is flock 1 already on final approach. All the while several flocks of Dunlins, a small shore bird, fly back and forth. They are white underneath and gray above so they seem to appear and disappear as they change aspect to the camera.
Be sure to view in 1080p, YouTube some times defaults to a lower resolution.
*BIG* State Govt blocking your Porn Sites? REPs & DEMs – always looking to use *BIG* Govt to cram their views down the throats of others.
Just noticed that some of my favorite porn sites are blocking me or looking for some kind of ID to confirm your age – called Data Collection in China and Russia, which is sorta like the DEMs Data Collection on firearm & ammo buyers. Yes, you buy ammo with credit card or check, then your Data gets sent to some DEMs massive Firearm Data Collection storage place.
Epic Privacy browser couldn’t even get past Florida’s *BIG* State Govt blocking Porn Sites.
Tor browser easily got past Florida’s *BIG* State Govt blockers & Data Collectors. Suspect downloads of Tor browser to go up here in Florida and/or VPN subscriptions to go up.
TMI
Chases Eagles:
Thanks for your piece! I confess I don’t see the eagle either way, but I appreciate your loving documentation.
If this is what you see from your property, you are a Lucky Man, and a good writer.
Mark Strand, a celebrated poet, and one of my favorites, wrote his first book and titled it, “Sleeping with One Eye Open.”
I’m guessing that “Quack the DuckSpa” is an allusion to the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah.”
I wouldn’t have figured Joe Strummer for a Telecaster guy.
Hopefully Trump doesn’t blow it and lets Russia end up with bleeding edge Drone technology from Ukraine.
Here’s a first: two Russian helicopters attacking a MAGURA V5 unmanned surface vehicle (USV) – a drone boat. Sounds like shooting a duck in a barrel. Machine gun fire is shown all around the drone boat—video apparently taken from the drone boat.
“I’m Hit, Going Down” – ‘…intercepted radio communications include the pilot saying “482, I’m hit, going down!”’
How does one maneuver an “18 ft” drone boat in a sea whilst trying to avoid two Russian helicopters trying to destroy it – then also be able to thermally target the helicopters, fire missiles from that rocking ‘n running “18 ft” drone boat, then knock one helicopter “Down” and apparently damage the other helicopter enough that the “18 ft” drone boat survives the battle!?!
UPDATE: this was apparently done at night…”Nighttime video from an onboard camera showed a Ukrainian Magura V5 naval drone moving through choppy seas at high speed and under fire from at least two circling Russian Mi-8 helicopters.”
Chases Eagles, that was a neat sight there.
physicsguy, I think there would be a certain amount of sense in dissolving NATO and forming up a US/CAN North American alliance of the type that you mention. My motivation in that, as far as allying with Canada goes, is that Canada by itself has far too much territory to cover and nowhere near enough population to do so. We could help them take care of that if we were to continue to work together. I do think that one plausible future war scenario is China, Russia, and whoever else invading through British Columbia for exactly that reason.
The burned woman has been identified. Debrina Kawam
The camera is a parking lot type turret camera sitting on the back deck. It is about head height if you were sitting in a chair. I can steer it with a mouse. The tree in the middle of the frame is about 30 ft away. The point where the land turns is about 100 ft from the camera. The part of the spa in view is where we launch our kayaks in the summer and I throw dog toys down there from the deck when there are no ducks are around. My dog goes in and out about 50 times a day and the ducks ignore her. I stand in the open doorway and it’s OMG, A HUMAN! Let’s get out of here! I close the door and it is coast is clear and they race back to the shore.
Usually, it is a hen out front trying, I presume, to get to her favorite spot before anyone else.
Here are some eagles. There were three. Third one flew under the camera. My dog had just walked out the door and just about took eagle three in the face.
Interesting take by Kevin O’Leary on Trump’s troll of making Canada the 51st state.
He proposes that the US and Canada form an open economic alliance: common currency and open trade, along with common defense. Interesting 3min clip to watch:
https://rumble.com/v64edgs-trump-can-do-it.-kevin-oleary-wants-it-most-canadians-do-too.-bam-us-and-ca.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
Just found out that humble me has been suffering from the Mandela Effect, or maybe something similar (?!), since 1953-1954.
Apparently a big difference between the meanings of “national emblem” and “national bird” – no wonder I always hated English classes…
I, and those around me, all thought the Bald Eagle was the National Bird. Glad it is now official.
I have had Laser work on my right eye twice, torn retina. Awake, no anesthesia since no pain receptors in the eye. Quick, hundreds of laser “shots”. Kind of weird though.
Marvelous about technology
I read Oliver’s Sack’s “To See and Not See”upon which that horrible ValKilmer / Miro Sorvino movie was VERY LOOSELY based. It doesn’t sound like this woman went through some of the issues that Virgil from the essay did. When his sight was restored, he didn’t recognize things until he touched them. He would look at an apple, and have no idea what it was until he touched it, and then knew immediately. He also had a very difficult time with colors. And I am not sure to what degree he got over either before he again lost his sight.
Like this woman, it was a very stressful time for him — the overwhelming of his sense of sight.
I would’ve thought that her doctors’ might’ve been at least a little familiar with Oliver’s Sacks’s essay and would’e been able to warn her about the stress that she might go through. And maybe suggest she read it herself.
I went to school with a girl who I think had similar problems. She was sent away to a school for the blind for a couple of years. Back then, it wasn’t expensive (unless it was private) because there were state schools for the blind. (We’re talking the 1960s.) She came back home in fourth or fifth grade. While I am sure that some kids did bully her, overall, she was well liked and treated nicely by the a lot of the in crowd girls. But I remember her reading like that — with the paper right at her face.
I wonder how much taxpayers’ money was spent to anoint the bald eagle as the National Bird, something most native born Americans already understood.
“Drug cartels have become Mexico’s 5th-largest employer”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/dec/31/drug-cartels-become-mexico-5th-largest-employer/
“Democrat punished for pro-life stance casts doubts on his party’s post-election soul-searching ”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/dec/31/ex-rep-lipinski-punished-pro-life-stance-casts-dou/
In 1978 John Varley won the Nebula Award for Best Novella for “The Persistence of Vision,” about a hitchhiker who discovers a commune of deaf and blind people who have developed ESP abilities to make up for their deficits.
He lives with them for a while and tries to fit in except he discovers that in the world of his commune friends he is the deaf and blind one. Saddened, he leaves.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
After several years in the normal world, he fails to find a home as fulfilling. He returns to the deaf and blind commune.
Pink, an old commune friend, tells him with her hands:
__________________________________
“Hold this part-of-me–who-speaks-mouth-to-nipple,” she said and handed me her infant daughter. “I will give you a gift.”
She reached up and lightly touched my ears with her cold fingers. The sound of the wind shut out, and when her hands went away it never came back. She touched my eyes, shut out the light, and I saw no more.
We live in the lovely quiet and dark.
–John Varley, “The Persistence of Vision”
__________________________________
Wow.
DuckSpa
Bandit! Twelve o’clock high!
I have mentioned before that we call our place The DuckSpa (“Quack the Duck Spa”). This place is reclaimed industrial property that was pretty dead when we got it. No ducks. Now, often when they are driven off they turn around and come right back.
In the following, the situation is the camera is facing almost due west and the wind is out of the north or right. There are a couple of hundred ducks sleeping in the sun on the spa. These are Mallards. Some of them sleep with one eye open and they can spot an eagle a mile away in their sleep. About 40 seconds in these ducks will spot an eagle about a mile away off camera to the right. This will cause an emergency sortie and the flock will exit to the south.
Rule 1 When the eagle is far, fly away from it.
As they exit the frame, the eagle will come into view from the right above the mountains. This will panic a second flock that will fly towards the eagle.
Rule 2 When the eagle is near, fly at it.
The eagle turns and flys off and flock 2 turns onto the downwind leg to return to the spa while entering the frame from the left is flock 1 already on final approach. All the while several flocks of Dunlins, a small shore bird, fly back and forth. They are white underneath and gray above so they seem to appear and disappear as they change aspect to the camera.
Be sure to view in 1080p, YouTube some times defaults to a lower resolution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNs7Mabi4oM
*BIG* State Govt blocking your Porn Sites? REPs & DEMs – always looking to use *BIG* Govt to cram their views down the throats of others.
Just noticed that some of my favorite porn sites are blocking me or looking for some kind of ID to confirm your age – called Data Collection in China and Russia, which is sorta like the DEMs Data Collection on firearm & ammo buyers. Yes, you buy ammo with credit card or check, then your Data gets sent to some DEMs massive Firearm Data Collection storage place.
Epic Privacy browser couldn’t even get past Florida’s *BIG* State Govt blocking Porn Sites.
Tor browser easily got past Florida’s *BIG* State Govt blockers & Data Collectors. Suspect downloads of Tor browser to go up here in Florida and/or VPN subscriptions to go up.
TMI
Chases Eagles:
Thanks for your piece! I confess I don’t see the eagle either way, but I appreciate your loving documentation.
If this is what you see from your property, you are a Lucky Man, and a good writer.
Mark Strand, a celebrated poet, and one of my favorites, wrote his first book and titled it, “Sleeping with One Eye Open.”
I’m guessing that “Quack the DuckSpa” is an allusion to the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah.”
The Clash – Rock the Casbah (Official Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ9r8LMU9bQ
I wouldn’t have figured Joe Strummer for a Telecaster guy.
Hopefully Trump doesn’t blow it and lets Russia end up with bleeding edge Drone technology from Ukraine.
Here’s a first: two Russian helicopters attacking a MAGURA V5 unmanned surface vehicle (USV) – a drone boat. Sounds like shooting a duck in a barrel. Machine gun fire is shown all around the drone boat—video apparently taken from the drone boat.
“I’m Hit, Going Down” – ‘…intercepted radio communications include the pilot saying “482, I’m hit, going down!”’
How does one maneuver an “18 ft” drone boat in a sea whilst trying to avoid two Russian helicopters trying to destroy it – then also be able to thermally target the helicopters, fire missiles from that rocking ‘n running “18 ft” drone boat, then knock one helicopter “Down” and apparently damage the other helicopter enough that the “18 ft” drone boat survives the battle!?!
UPDATE: this was apparently done at night…”Nighttime video from an onboard camera showed a Ukrainian Magura V5 naval drone moving through choppy seas at high speed and under fire from at least two circling Russian Mi-8 helicopters.”
Chases Eagles, that was a neat sight there.
physicsguy, I think there would be a certain amount of sense in dissolving NATO and forming up a US/CAN North American alliance of the type that you mention. My motivation in that, as far as allying with Canada goes, is that Canada by itself has far too much territory to cover and nowhere near enough population to do so. We could help them take care of that if we were to continue to work together. I do think that one plausible future war scenario is China, Russia, and whoever else invading through British Columbia for exactly that reason.
The burned woman has been identified. Debrina Kawam
https://www.foxnews.com/us/woman-burned-death-horrific-subway-attack-identified-police
The camera is a parking lot type turret camera sitting on the back deck. It is about head height if you were sitting in a chair. I can steer it with a mouse. The tree in the middle of the frame is about 30 ft away. The point where the land turns is about 100 ft from the camera. The part of the spa in view is where we launch our kayaks in the summer and I throw dog toys down there from the deck when there are no ducks are around. My dog goes in and out about 50 times a day and the ducks ignore her. I stand in the open doorway and it’s OMG, A HUMAN! Let’s get out of here! I close the door and it is coast is clear and they race back to the shore.
Usually, it is a hen out front trying, I presume, to get to her favorite spot before anyone else.
Here are some eagles. There were three. Third one flew under the camera. My dog had just walked out the door and just about took eagle three in the face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXOAhtk63CY
And a Northern Harrier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKPdaApxa9Y