Guard Dog

OK seriously now. If you are using a person's politics to decide whether you like their books/songs/movies/etc. then you are waaaay too uptight about politics. That is like disliking someone because they cheer for a different sports team than you. Unless of course they are Yankees fans. Then hating them is perfectly acceptable.

You didn't get the joke!

I hear there are Stranger Things in Indiana though.

That isn't what Gromnir did at all.

It was but as they said the price of having wolves is sometimes going to be killing wolves. At least it is done in a way that is careful and thought out. Wildlife management is a thing. I usually don't bother the local coyotes but there have been times they have compelled me to thin their numbers a bit. But it would break my heart if they were gone because I love hearing them.

Cthulhu 2020: Don't vote for a LESSER evil!

This is a fascinating story about wolf pack management in eastern Oregon. https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-very-old-man-for-a-wolf?utm_source=pocket-newtab

About half way through this one: I have read MANY books about the intelligence and cognitive abilities of canines. The truth is... no one really knows except the dogs. And you can't ask them. You can observe behavior but you can't really KNOW causation. I think dogs are extremely observant and really quick to remember patterns. I also think they are very sensitive to subtle body language queues. This book is interesting but it isn't plowing any new ground.

Possible replacement for the Aegis in the works: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/13/the-us-navy-is-looking-to-get-serious-about-a-next-generation-large-surface-combatant/

There is a reason why I've stopped watching the SOTU address. You need a cart to haul the BS shoveled that night. Although that is hardly new to Trump the BS that gets shoveled by him is definitely heavier, wetter, and smellier than his predecessors.

Or even better... a hippo:

Unless you live in the sticks.

No it isn't. It's not even a terribly reliable historical document. I was just playing devil's advocate with Gfted

So if creationism is true we are the product of inbreeding. If it's purely undirected evolution we're just slightly improved upon animals. Or if TV right we're all descended from a half Cylon. There are no good options.

Obama gave us a different kind of bad thing. The selected a bunch of people he deemed subject matter experts, his so called "czars" and placed them in charge of multiple regulatory agencies. The people were not confirmed by nor answerable to the Senate. Meaning they could wield executive power with no accountability to the people they wielded it over. That is scary. Trump just runs off anyone who tells him he's wrong. That is a different kind of scary. No President knows enough to do everything himself. Especially not this fool.

What if evolution is the process by which creation happens?

I never thought we'd have an administration where someone says a President is like an elected king. And here we are. Of course the 44 before this one had more than a little idea of who and what the President of the United States is and does. I suppose it was inevitable we were going to elect someone who has no idea what they were doing. Now that we've gotten that out of our system hopefully we will never do THAT again. No matter what happens in November I'll be a lot happier in January as long as Congress remains split with unbridgeable divides and not in the control of any one Party. Especially not the one the President represents. Like I've said before, nothing is often better than something.

More and more Donald Trump is in complete control of the Executive Branch. He listens only to his own whims and fires or runs off anyone who isn't a sycophantic yes man. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/white-house-quietly-trims-dozens-of-national-security-experts/ar-BBZWzfK?ocid=spartandhp I should probably be sweating as Pidesco said. Somehow I just can't make myself give a s--t anymore. We are getting the government we deserve and getting it good and hard and right in the....

Insomnia has been a problem for me for as long as I remember. Sometimes I just can't turn my brain off unless I drown it in booze. I've tried melatonin but you build up an immunity to that real quick. It's a hell of a thing to be exhausted and still unable to sleep. I'm sitting on the couch in my darkened office listening to Bela snoring next to me and Sunny snoring in her bed downstairs. I listen to them and envy them their fortune. They never worry about tomorrow. They waste no time brooding over past wrongs and roads not taken. Old ghosts never visit them to torment them at night. When they get sleepy no anxiety hold them from it. Lucky bitches! Actually they are really lucky I'm more considerate than they are. When they get up at night they don't give a thought to waking me up!

That feeling is seriously overrated. Besides... Tesla's are not that much fun when the inevitable battery replacement rolls around.

I'm sure you guys have heard of this but the story of the cyclical FRB the earth is receiving like clock work every 16 days is just fascinating to me. Both because of it's predictable regularity and the distance from it's origin. Amazing stuff and sadly and unsolvable mystery. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/12/fast-radio-burst-signal-outer-space-repeats-every-16-days/4726301002/

DNA analysis of early human remains in Africa indicate crossbreeding with an "unknown" humanoid species: https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2020/02/13/early_humans_in_africa_may_have_interbred_with_a_mysterious_extinct_species_111291.html I think we might have an exclusive pic of that species... ah yes... here it is

My opinion of Hillary Clinton is so low I can't say I'd be entirely surprised by that example. But then again maybe I would be. I would assume in her 20+ years in and around politics she just might have picked up an inkling of ethics. Certainly nothing she would not freely ignore when circumstances dictated. But an inkling that would have made some of that surprising. As for the indifference of our countrymen I'm afraid it's worse than you realize. Fully 1/2 of the 1/2 do not even believe he did anything wrong. The media is lying, the Democrats are lying, it's all a coup attempt, etc. We live in a world where objective truth does not exist. Of course the people who supposedly trade in the objective truth, namely the news media, has damaged their own credibility. After crying wolf so often it really sucks when an actual wolf moves in. You are an educated man. Have you ever heard of The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary? It defines a cynic as "a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be.”