He defended Epstein and Trump. I will allow a small business the right to refuse him service.

Tomato acidity can do a number on you cast iron’s patina.

I don’t know what percentage is in parking lots versus in buildings, but once you leave the south, those pools are IN BUILDINGS in the strip malls so they can generate revenue year round. Note the article shows examples of inside pools, and that works better for harsher weather.

Yup. Buy dry beans and dry rice – none of that precooked stuff. Buy fresh potatoes tho. If you can afford it, I’d also get a bag of onions, maybe carrots, and some spices that do NOT contain salt. You can also buy salt, but it is way cheaper per-gram to get salt and other spices on their own. Note that brown rice has more vitamin content than white rice (thiamine deficiency), but most white rice is enriched to compensate.

The science folks document attacks that succeed and those where the prey escapes (possibly wounded, but still not a meal). Here’s a PDF on some hawk rates – it is just a few pages from a larger work. Excerpt:

Relatively high successrates of 89 and 82% have been documented for the fish-eating Osprey (Pundion haliuetus)in Europe (Brown and Amadon

1968. and North America (Ueoka and Koplin 1973). Success rates of 33- 65% have been reported for the insectivorous and rodent-eating American Kestrel (F. spurverius),depending upon season, prey type, and geography (Jenkins 1970, Sparrowe 1972, Rudolph 1982, Collopy and Koplin 1983). Various success rates have been reported for raptors that feed mostly upon mammals, but supplement their diets with birds and reptiles. Mader (1975) documented a rate of 16% for Harris’ Hawks (Purubuteo unicinc- tus). Wakeley (1978) reported that Ferruginous Hawks (Buteo regulis) were successful 17% of the time in Idaho. Orde and Harrell(l977) reported a successrate of 79% for Red-tailed Hawks (Buteojumuicensis) in South Dakota. Nesting Golden Eagles (Aquilu chrysuetos)in Idaho were suc- cessful on 20% of their capture attempts (Collopy 1983). Clark (1975) calculated a success rate of about 20% for the rodent-specializing Short- eared Owl (Asioflammeus).

If you like livermush and you’re ever near D.C./Maryland, try scrapple, which is almost the same thing.

Maybe souls reincarnate anywhere into anything.

Or maybe a soul only reincarnates into related beings. In the story of the The Goat Who Saved the Priest, the goat itself had been a priest in a past life. There was a relationship to its actions in past lives and the form it took. I’ve heard versions of that story that suggest the goat had been the very priest it ‘saves’ (because souls can reincarnate in the past or future?).

Perhaps if we had intergalactic flight and our actions impacted creatures on other planets, we’d reincarnate into those creatures. Then again, perhaps we already do.

I agree. Smoked sausage is tasty :-)

I was trying to say that a fresh meat would have been healthier than a smoked sausage with nitrites and all. You CAN get nitrite-free sausage, but unless you’re looking for that in particular, any given smoked sausage probably has questionable additives.

Random info:

• https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/01/bacon-cancer-processed-meats-nitrates-nitrites-sausages
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9654915/

This you?

you vote with your money in a more efficient way than any election

If you look, I was the person explaining that per Doctorow collective action is good. You’re replying to a post where I said, “…or even vote Z, then together the difference will matter.” Maybe you meant to reply to someon else, or maybe you’re a sock puppet that forgot to change accounts.

Given that you could be anywhere on the planet and my guess was only one country off – one with a shared border and where both are (mostly) above the 60th parallel – I am content with my guess. The growth issue explains why she doesn’t look quite like a registered Siberian, and the fact that she’s she’s shedding is just expected. Of course you know that the never ending cycle of a new winter coat is already on the way. :-)

If I may chime in, like Sundray, I am used to the author’s style, which preempts critics by acknowledging the difficulty before getting to the positive. He’s had enough people tell him ‘recycling plastic is a joke!’ to now start by saying, yes, I know, BUT you should still do it and then he’ll get to the positive. He’s not suggesting people are foolish for doing it, he’s simply letting the reader know that it ought to work better than it does and the failure is NOT on the citizenry, but on the deep pockets trying to escape blame. He wants you to know how they profit off the backs of the working class and he wants us to fight back together (and to keep recycling).

Boycotts work because boycotts are collective . That’s his point. If you get enough of society together to boycott X, or to call their government out on Y, or even vote Z, then together the difference will matter. What doesn’t matter is a bunch of people buying an item, while you are making your own private ‘boycott’. Personally, I ‘boycott’ youtube. Guess what? They don’t care. They have enough eyeballs that they don’t miss me at all.

P.S. I was happy that Paramount+ asks “why?” you cancel your subscription because I got to explain it was due to the 60 minutes settlement and firing Colbert… but I doubt they care that 1 person stopped giving them money over that.

Spiced french fries with cheese are always going to be tasty, but you’ve made it healthier by adding fresh veg! And then made it less healthy by adding smoked sausage! I’m sure the sausage makes it tasty, tho.

Are y’all in Alaska? Cuz that dog is bred for sledding rather than an AKC-recognized breed. Scratch that. You said “reindeer”, so… Finland? Alaskans would call those caribou hides. Either way, the dog’s shedding pattern hints at a far north locale.

Ask, “What about the Epstein Files?” as the first volley.

Re: The Man from Earth – there’s a sequel . It isn’t as good but I had to try it after seeing the first one.

My personal feeling on Waking Life is: it wants to be smarter than it is.

I know I watched Prince of Darkness in the theaters way back when, but I guess I ought to re-watch it because every detail has evaporated from memory… though perhaps that’s an indicator that it wouldn’t be worth a re-watch. Instead, I’m remembering Angel Heart from the same year. I’m not saying Angel Heart is great, but I remember a lot of that one and none of the other.

Based on your description of Better Man, I’m still not sure if I’ll watch it. I missed his Take That years, but I’ve seen Robbie Williams sing on Graham Norton and some British specials, particularly when he hosted a New Year’s show. On that one, there was a point where he shook hands with a fan and then made a face. He got called out for it and explained (on Graham, maybe?) that the hand was WET. Do I need to know more about this guy?

• Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025): Documentary. I don’t know if it would appeal to anyone outside the fanbase, but I enjoyed it.
• On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2024): I’m on a little bit of an African binge, and this film worked for me. We watch Shula interact with her extended family after finding her uncle laying dead by the road. Those unfamiliar with her culture (like myself) learn certain customs and mores while learning about the dead uncle and his family with most the voices coming from the women.
• Beau Is Afraid (2023): Surrealist story of a man riddled with anxiety. fear, and neuroses. At almost 3 hours long, I kept thinking Pink Floyd’s Mother was a more succinct exploration of the same character in less than six minutes – but that’s not really fair because it is part of the double album The Wall (1h 21m), which has its own surrealist movie (1h 35m).
• Sisters (1973): Early Brian De Palma thriller. Well, ‘early’ in the feature film sense. I’m not saying it is fantastic, but he does a good job with a limited budget.
• Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021): Why did I bother? I should know by now that SNL people generally make stupid movies. It was certainly the lightest and happiest movie of the week.
• Street Scene (1931): Pre-code story about people at an apartment building in NYC. I really liked this call back to a bygone era.
• Gentleman’s Agreement (1947): Gregory Peck plays a writer who pretends to be Jewish to feel what it is like to face American antisemitism. It felt appropriate to watch given the ongoing horrors in Israel, but as a movie it is only so-so.

See: I rewatched this a while ago after not seeing it for more than a decade and I came away thinking, “This holds up so well. Everything in it is still relevant.” We still have the same sorts of racism, in-group dynamics, cross-cultural issues and on and on. Mostly, though, I can’t take my eyes off Sidney Poitier.

I don’t know. I’m usually ready to watch a meandering film with slow pacing, but I know people who won’t put up with that, so I might like movies you find unwatchable. In contrast, there’s a subset of French slice-of-life movies that I just generally dislike while other people love them. Anyway, I’ve only seen 4 Tarkovsky films, and they all move more slowly than, say, a superhero blockbuster. Of those 4, I guess the most accessible is Solaris. Some days/weeks later, I’d watch Andrei Rublev as a change of pace, then after another wait try Stalker.

Those should be enough to give you a feel for the director, and then maybe you can try Mirror and tell me what I’m missing. I feel like a bunch of symbolism is going over my head. Are those Maoists shaking little red books? What does that evoke from a Russian perspective?