Tuesday: Hili dialogue

November 5, 2024 • 6:45 am

IT IS ELECTION DAY in America, and already at this hour people are casting ballots on the East Coast. (Many of us have already voted by mail.) I needn’t remind you to fulfill your duties as a citizen of a democracy. And remember, whatever happens, the Republic will stand!

Sadly, Andrzej and Malgorzata are ill, struck down with a debilitating virus or bacterium.  Please send them your well wishes in the comments.

And it’s National Donut Day.  Here is reader Michelle, who made my cat cookies for CSICon, about to scarf a S’mores donut from Blinkie’s Donut Emporium in Woodland Hills, California, reputedly the best donut shop in the state. Look at that thing, complete with marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate!

Welcome to Tuesday, November 5, 2024, and Google Doodle reminds us that it’s Election Time. Click below to find out where to vote.

It’s also American Football Day, National Chinese Take-Out Day, Skeptics Day International, National Love Your Red Hair Day, and, of course, Election Day. 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 5 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Obituaries first: Quincy Jones died at 91 on Sunday.

Quincy Jones, who died at 91 on Sunday, was a colossus of American music, leaving a profound influence on nearly every genre he touched, from the 1950s on — jazz, funk, soundtracks, syrupy R&B and chart-topping pop.

The scope of his career is so vast, it seems almost impossible that it’s the work of a single person. He cut his teeth as a trumpeter in Lionel Hampton’s touring band in the early ’50s, then studied in Paris under the great classical pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He produced jazz albums for Mercury Records, made fast friends with Frank Sinatra — who called him “Q,” a nickname that stuck — and recorded “It’s My Party,” a No. 1 hit by a teenage Lesley Gore.

Then came gorgeously textured movie scores, slithery funk and a fantastically successful partnership with Michael Jackson, whose 1982 LP “Thriller,” produced by Jones, is the biggest seller of all time. And it didn’t end there. In a 2018 documentary, “Quincy,” Kendrick Lamar, the reigning rap laureate, is seen bumping fists with Jones and crediting him as the inspiration for “combining hip-hop and jazz.”

Here is a sampling of some of Jones’s essential work, as a producer, arranger, composer, bandleader and recording artist in his own right. (Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.)

The NYT lists 14 of his “essential” songs as a producer, and I’ll just give five with links to YouTube videos:

Lesley Gore, “It’s My Party” (1963)

Frank Sinatra, “Fly Me to the Moon (1964)

Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean” (1982)

USA for Africa, “We Are the World” (1985).  “For the ultimate charity single, Jones was the ideal captain — conducting an ensemble of dozens of stars, and managing a complex session as producer (with Michael Omartian). Video of the sessions shows Jones leading the chorus sections, directing soloists to their microphone positions and working with Stevie Wonder to guide Bob Dylan through his lines.”

Don’t bother looking for the linked video; they’ve taken it down.

But here’s the recording of “We Are the World”, which I quite like. Best “charity ensemble” ever! How many singers can you recognize? (I recognized 22 of the 30 singers shown in closeup.) Quincy is directing.

*Here are the results of yesterday’s readers’ polls on which candidate got readers’ votes and who people thought would win. As expected, the readers were overwhelmingly in favor of Harris, and also were pretty sure that she’ll win today—more sure than the real polls.  We have 72% voting for Harris, 11% for Trump, but also 11% for “I’m not going to vote”.

Readers are far more optimistic about Harris winning (62% think she will), even though the best polls show that the race is neck and neck. This was a considerably larger vote than we’ve had here before.

*In a NYT op-ed clearly aimed at voters (and probably the basis of the Bill Maher video I posted the other day), Steve Pinker argues that, contra Trump, America really is getting better (article archived here).

Narratives of national decline have intensified in recent years. Most prominent, of course, is Donald Trump’s vow to “make America great again,” in response to what he has called “a nation that is dying.” But there is also doomsaying on the far left, which sees a “late-stage capitalist hellscape” (to quote the journalist Taylor Lorenz) and is often resigned to voting in protest for a long-shot candidate or sitting out the election altogether.

The doomers can always find ammunition in the news. News, by its very nature, consists of things that happen, and it’s easier for things to go wrong suddenly — a war, a terrorist attack, a hurricane — than to go right suddenly. When things do go right, it usually means either that nothing happens (a country remains at peace, for example) or that improvements creep up a few percentage points every year and compound over time, transforming the world by stealth.

As a result, one can get the impression that the state of the world keeps getting worse when, in fact, it keeps getting better.

An antidote is to look at trends. Actual data seldom tells a simple tale of disaster or triumph, but in this case, indicators of national well-being over recent decades suggest that the reports of our nation’s demise are greatly exaggerated, if not downright delusional.

Here are two indices and Pinker’s writing:

People often identify the state of the nation with the state of the economy. Since inflation and unemployment are both bad things but at any given time a government’s policies can trade one off against the other, it’s helpful to look at a measure called the Misery Index, which is simply the sum of these two measures of badness.

The line since 2020 shows a spike in unemployment from the Covid pandemic, which was brought down by government stimulus payments and loans, which then jacked up inflation, which is now getting back under control. The most recent Misery Index (from August) has not returned to pre-Covid levels but is lower than it has been in 88 percent of the quarters since 1970. And the post-Covid U.S. economy is the envy of our peer democracies.

And poverty:

The left is often pessimistic about the efficacy of antipoverty policies, and the right can be downright cynical, as in Ronald Reagan’s quip that “the federal government declared war on poverty, and poverty won.”

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In fact, poverty is losing. Between 1967 and 2021, the poverty rate fell from 26 percent to 7 percent, before a small bounce to 10.5 percent in 2023.

To be sure, not all is peaches and cream. To be sure, happiness is where it was in 1970, and Pinker notes that a cleaner environment seems to be incompatible with a rising standard of living. But overall, considering crime, life expectancy, and women’s political empowerment, we’re doing better. Most of the dips we see were pandemic-induced and are recovering. This is part of his message, which isn’t inevitable, of course, but the data speak for themselves.

*I’m sick of election news: all we know is that it’s a squeaker: about dead even. Instead, let’s hop over to the Wall Street Journal, which has an exclusive story, “Russia suspected of sending incendiary devices on U.S.-bound planes.”

Western security officials say they believe that two incendiary devices, shipped via DHL, were part of a covert Russian operation that ultimately aimed to start fires aboard cargo or passenger aircraft flying to the U.S. and Canada, as Moscow steps up a sabotage campaign against Washington and its allies.

The devices ignited at DHL logistics hubs in July, one in Leipzig, Germany, and another in Birmingham, England. The explosions set off a multinational race to find the culprits.

Now investigators and spy agencies in Europe have figured out how the devices—electric massagers implanted with a magnesium-based flammable substance—were made and concluded that they were part of a wider Russian plot, according to security officials and people familiar with the probe.

Security officials say the electric massagers, sent to the U.K. from Lithuania, appear to have been a test run to figure out how to get such incendiary devices aboard planes bound for North America.

Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office said authorities there have arrested four people in connection with the fires and charged them with participating in sabotage or terrorist operations on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency. Poland is working with other countries to find at least two more suspects.

“The group’s goal was also to test the transfer channel for such parcels, which were ultimately to be sent to the United States of America and Canada,” the prosecutor’s office said, without saying who was orchestrating the group’s efforts.

But the head of Poland’s foreign-intelligence agency, Pawel Szota, said Russian spies were to blame and such an attack, if carried out, would have represented a major escalation in Moscow’s campaign against the West. “I’m not sure the political leaders of Russia are aware of the consequences if one of these packages exploded, causing a mass casualty event,” Szota said.

Great!  It doesn’t seem that hard to create such devices and send them as cargo, so now we have to worry about Putin and his thugs downing flights to America or Canada. It’s like 9/11, but with the Russians behind it.

*Reader Patricia informs me of a reprehensible event: Animal “influencers” Peanuts the Squirrel and his friend Fred the Raccoon were needlessly euthanized!

A man who took in an orphaned squirrel and made it a social media star vowed Saturday that New York state’s decision to seize and euthanize the animal “won’t go unheard.”

“We will make a stance on how this government and New York state utilizes their resources,” Mark Longo said in a phone interview.

He declined to specify his possible next steps but said officials would hear from him soon about what happened to Peanut the squirrel and Fred, a rescued raccoon that was also confiscated and put down.

AP correspondent Julie Walker reports the owner of a pet squirrel euthanized by New York officials after being seized wants justice.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation took the animals Wednesday from Longo’s home and animal sanctuary in rural Pine City, near the Pennsylvania border. The agency said it had gotten complaints that wildlife was being kept illegally and potentially unsafely.

State law requires people to get a license if they wish to own a wild animal. Longo has said he was working to get Peanut — also known as P’Nut or PNUT — certified as an educational animal.

The DEC and the Chemung County Health Department said Friday that the squirrel and raccoon were euthanized so they could be tested for rabies after Peanut bit someone involved in the investigation.

. . . . .Longo said he started caring for Peanut after the animal’s mother was hit by a car in New York City seven years ago. Tens of thousands of users of Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms glimpsed the animal sporting tiny hats, doing tricks and nibbling on waffles clutched in his little paws.

Longo said Fred the raccoon was dropped off on his doorstep a few months ago. After helping the animal recover from injuries, Longo said, he and his wife were planning to release the creature into the woods.

I have been bitten twice by squirrels, and the doctors didn’t even recommend a rabies shot. In fact, no person in America has ever contracted rabies from a squirrel. They killed a beloved and beautiful squirrel for no reason!  Here is a sad report on the demise of Peanuts, who was NOT rabid:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is philosophizing again, but about what?

Hili: Individualism doesn’t have a future.
A: Why do you think so?
Hili: The herd instinct in humans always prevails.
In Polish:
Hili: Indywidualizm nie ma przyszłości.
Ja: Dlaczego tak sądzisz?
Hili: U ludzi stadne odruchy zawsze biorą górę.

 

*******************

From Cat Memes:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:

From They Walk Among Us:

From Masih, who was falsely accused of stripping in a subway and then getting raped. This woman was incarcerated in a mental hospital despite no evidence that she was mentally ill. The tweet includes this: “One student who witnessed the entire incident says: “On Saturday, November 2, we saw the university’s security and Basij forces trying to forcibly drag a female student into the security room, under the pretext of her not wearing a proper hijab. She resisted, and in the struggle, her hoodie was pulled off, leaving her with only her undergarments underneath. Shocked, the security officers let her go, after which, in a moment of rage, she removed her pants and threw them at the officers.” This eyewitness account directly contradicts the regime’s narrative and shows the extent of brutality Iranian women face for the most basic acts of defiance.”

Two from Simon. First, a tough DA in Philadelphia warns those who would “play militia” with the voting system:

. . . .and a hopeful cartoon:

From J. K. Rowling.  They’ll never put her in jail–but they could!

From my feed, and a tweet relevant to Peanuts the Squirrel, who in a horrible and malicious act, was euthanized to be checked for rabies (squirrels have never infected a human with rabies):

From the Auschwitz Memorial. something I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. The first, he says, are domesticated horses, but let out to run on the North York Moors. Lovely!

. . . and listen to these ravens. Freaky!

62 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Nate Silver: “At exactly midnight on Tuesday, we ran our simulation model for the final time in this election cycle. Out of 80,000 simulations, Kamala Harris won in 40,012 (50.015%) cases. She did not win in 39,988 simulations (49.985%).”

    That’s rather close! (Though everything depends on the polls being an accurate representation of the electorate.)

    1. Looks like Nate Silver may use a Monte Carlo analysis method. Be interested in the range of max wins and losses for the candidates across the 80,000 runs.

      1. Interestingly, my X/Twitter “For You” feed is also split 50-50, with half the posts claiming that Trump is clearly ahead and will win by a large margin, and the other half claiming that Harris is clearly ahead and will win by a large margin. 🙂

        My only prediction here is that, come the outcome, 50% of Americans will not be happy. 🙂

  2. So sorry to hear that you both are under the weather, Andrzej and Malgorzata. Wishing you a rapid and complete recovery from here on the East coast U.S.

    1. Second that. Malgorzata personally translated my column into Polish.
      PCC(E)’s visit there last year was excellent. I looked up their little town and it made me envious of his trip.

      Get well soon my friends,

      D.A.
      NYC

  3. Andrzej and Malgorzata, wishes for a speedy recovery from Texas, and may Hili be sympathetic during this illness.

  4. Ravens’ ability to mimic human speech isn’t as famous as parrots’, but it’s been known about for over a century. For example, Edgar Allen Poe was aware of it in the 1840s when he wrote about a raven saying the word “nevermore”. His poem is fiction, but it was based on real knowledge about what ravens can do.

  6. So let me get this right, the Wapo is reporting right before an election that anonymous sources said that the Russians were planning to do something nefarious? That ain’t worth the price of the paper it’s printed on.

      1. It’s doesn’t surprise me. Putin is ruthless and he’s mad about not successfully seizing Ukraine.

  7. • I was wondering if PCC(E) was going to highlight the demoralization precipitated by Peanuts. Bravo. People who are demoralized cannot assess true information. This is heartening.

    • Best wishes to the Dobrzyn family – I offer a lame bromide, maybe it will get a scornful laugh :

    gotta take the lows with the highs.

    (I just had to lay out for 24hrs too – my own thought was from Taoism:

    follow the Tao).

  8. Squirrels in the wild don’t survive bites from predators long enough to incubate rabies and then infect humans. It’s true that squirrel bites don’t prompt rabies vaccination of ordinary residents if the biting animal cannot be captured or shot for examination, which is usual for wild animals. In this case the employer was likely worried about occupational health and safety implications of its employee being bitten by a captive squirrel.

    Nonetheless the state has a legitimate interest in prohibiting the ownership of wild animals. Wild animals seized from unlawful owners have to be euthanized because they won’t survive in the wild and there is little interest in squirrels and raccoons from wildlife sanctuaries. Those who don’t want to see wild animals put down should not feed them or keep them as pets. Squirrels and raccoons are abundant and prolific.

    The on-line pillorying by the mob of the woman who made the complaint is shameful. If my neighbour was harbouring a raccoon I would do the same as she did.

      1. Leslie MacMillian’s peremptory and know-it-all comment makes no sense. Leslie writes: “Wild animals seized from unlawful owners have to be euthanized because they won’t survive in the wild .” The key noun is ‘owners’ and the key verb is ‘seized.’ The animals were effectively pets and were not ‘in the wild.’ They were taken from situations in which they did not have to ‘survive in the wild.’ The same logic could be used to seize and euthanize every pet dog. State authorities could have told the Raccoon’s owners that they would have to keep and care for their pet and not release it. In the interests of avoiding a needless and time-consuming to-and-fro, I’m closing this correspondence.

        And: I’m sorry to hear that Andrzej and Malgorzata are unwell and I wish them a speedy recovery!

    2. I had the same concern about the woman in Texas who reported the squirrel-owning man in New York. I assume she learned about Peanut on Instagram — and I also assume she’s some sort of animal rights activist with a focus on ppl trying to domesticate wild animals or influencing others to do so (it’s hard to watch that adorable squirrel without wondering if you’d like one yourself.) In other words, she wasn’t being gratuitously malicious or out for personal revenge: she had a not unreasonable reason.

      I still think she’s a busybody and was out of line for reportedly complaining repeatedly to the authorities. If I knew her I might tell her that.

      Thousands and thousands of people are telling her that — and much, much worse. What’s merited scolding in small social situations is amplified into a monster on the internet. Poor Peanut, yes. But poor woman, too. She’s been doxxed and is hated by animal lovers around the world, who can be vicious. Her life as she knew it is probably over. This punishment doesn’t fit the crime.

  10. Elon Musk has numerous tweets about that poor squirrel. E.g.,

    “If they will raid a house for a squirrel, tbey’re sure as shit going to come after you”

    “Go out there and vote… for Peanut… How can it be that we live in America, supposedly land of the free and the government can barge into your home with guns?”

    “They’re allowing violent criminals to go free, but they’re spending your tax dollars to come in and execute your fucking pets – We’ve got to fight back against this.”

    The fact that Trumpsters have had to resort to magnifying incidents about pets or outright inventing them (e.g., the Haitians eating pets) in order to demonize the dems shows you how very little substance there is to their entire campaign.

    Anyway, I gotta go to take a shower and then it’s “Heigh Ho, off to the polls I go” – not so much to vote for Kamala as to vote against the malignant idiocy of the Trumpsters. (I live in GA, so I guess my vote counts)

    PS Best wishes to Hili’s staff for a speedy recovery!

    1. Not that evidence or civic literacy is much of a priority for the MAGA cult, but the squirrel incident also reveals a profound ignorance about levels of government. The federal government had no involvement with the euthanized squirrel and it is not the kind of thing that a president would (or should) be concerned with. Malignant idiocy indeed!

  11. Andrzej and Malgorzata I hope you are recovering and enjoy many years of health. I enjoy your posts and look forward to reading more.

  12. Get well soon, Andrzej and Malgorzata. If it turns out to be COVID, I hope you are able to get Paxlovid.

  13. Re. Corvid vocalization, my grandmother always said that there was crow that would fly to the window in the attic where my uncle slept and say, “Time to get up, boys.”

    1. Maybe my best idea ever: my wife at the time was rehabilitating some pre-fledgling crows in our back yard, and I tried to teach them to say “I’m a magic crow!” before their release to the small-town wild.

  14. Here in Britain, it’s Guy Fawkes Night (aka Bonfire Night), which marks the failure in 1605 of a plot to blow up the King and all of his ministers at the State Opening of Parliament using barrels of gunpowder hidden in the basement. The gunpowder was discovered by the Yeoman Warders (aka Beefeaters) during a search.

    Traditionally, every village builds a bonfire on this day, and Guy Fawkes, one of the conspirators, is burned in effigy atop it. There is also a firework display.

    1. Happy Bonfire night! I have spent one in the UK years ago and have fond memory of it.

      I was also told that the noun “guy” for man originated from Guy Fawks – kids will ask for “a penny for the guy” and so with time the word guy was used for any poorly or shabby dressed fellow. Since most men are poorly dressed (due to either lack of funds or sense of style) the noun transformed to mean any man.

      I’m curious if this is true.

      1. According to Time it is:

        In the fires they burned effigies of the Pope, Guy Fawkes and other archenemies of the moment. They referred to the effigies of Fawkes as “guys.” And then some people began to use “guys” to refer to actual people: men of the lowest and most depraved kind. This was early in the 18th century, more than 200 years ago.

        https://archive.is/f6n2a

        And best wishes for a speedy recovery to Andrzej and Malgorzata.

  15. “Pinker notes that a cleaner environment seems to be incompatible with a rising standard of living.”

    Pinker criticizes this view. He notes that even CO2 pollution has been falling for the last 12 years even as GDP has been growing, and other pollutants have been falling for more than 30 years.

    He says we should not be complacent about this success, not that achieving success is impossible.

    1. Global CO2 levels have continued to rise. See the Mauna Loa data. US CO2 output has (modestly) fallen. US CO2 output has declined mostly as a consequence of shift away from coal. However, the US decline has been far more than offset by the growth of China’s CO2 output (which leads the world, by far). China burns coal to run its economy. The global CO2 impact is rather large.

      1. This is what we mean by a collective-action problem. De-industrialization in the west with out-sourcing to Asia (done for reasons of labour cost, not CO2 emissions) and importing of the manufactured goods results in increased global CO2 emissions because Asia uses more coal to do this than the west would, particularly in generating electricity (plus the CO2 emitted from long-distance shipping.)

        Dr. Pinker is correct that as countries get wealthier they are more willing to spend money to clean up their local environment: coal-smoke smog, ground-level ozone and oxides of nitrogen, heavy metals, organic chemical poisons etc., because doing so directly improves quality of life for the local population. But there is no similar incentive to reduce local CO2 emissions because of the global disconnect between local CO2 and local climate. Reducing local CO2 emissions by local de-industrialization is counter-productive if the goods still demanded are manufactured in high-emissions countries….and leads to direct economic losses for de-industrialized communities without off-setting benefits.

        This confusion comes from calling CO2 a “pollutant” like mercury and DDT.

  16. Everything that S. Pinker says is true. The “misery index” is quite low. Unemployment is quite low. That’s all good news. However, the outlook is cloudy at best. The national debt is out of control. The Federal deficit is vast. See “Timeline: 150 Years of U.S. National Debt” in the Visual Capitalist. A simple fact should show this. The national debt is approaching WWII levels (as a percent of GDP). Reagan started the modern (post-WWII) boom in the national debt. Obama/Trump/Biden have done their share as well.

    1. I know I’m shouting into the wind here, but . . .

      The U.S. government is the issuer of the U.S. dollar. As such, it cannot run out of those dollars.It literally spends them into existence.

      The U.S. has what is called a sovereign (its own) fiat (doesn’t promise to trade it for some other commodity) currency. A government with such a currency cannot INVOLUNTARILY fail to meet its financial obligations.

      Which means that what people call the U.S. debt is merely an accounting of the net of dollars spent into the economy minus the dollars taxed out of the economy.

      Therefore, the true limit to our Federal government’s spending is inflation. To paraphrase Alan Greenspan, the challenge is creating a system that produces enough of the stuff that people want to spend those government created dollars on.

      And, in an attempt to anticipate a common objection: there’s actually no reason to issue treasuries in amounts that roughly match deficit spending. Treasuries are an anachronism left over from when we were on the gold standard and did promise to exchange gold for dollars.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNCZHAQnfGU

      Oh, and Andrzej and Malgorzata, get well soon!

      1. US government spending does not create dollars. That is (part of) what the Fed does. If the government creates too many dollars, inflation is the inevitable consequence. If US government spending is matched by taxation (so the amount spent is matched by the amount collected), then the government can spend any amount with no inflation as a consequence.

        The Federal debt is real. It is owed to citizens, banks, corporations, foreign government, etc.

        If the Federal government prints money, rather than issuing debt, inflation will inevitably result.

        MMT is just the latest insanity. It is very PC. It is just not true. See “A Skeptic’s Guide to Modern Monetary Theory” by N. Gregory Mankiw.

  18. Wishing you a speedy recovery Andrej and Malgorzata. So sorry to hear you aren’t feeling well.

  19. Andrzej and Malgorzata, all my cats and I hope you will be over this virus soon! I hope Hili and Szaron are contributing to your recovery with lots of purrs.

  20. Good wishes to Andrzej & Malgorzata. I’m also laid low by a virus. And that donut is an abomination.

    1. The PNUT women’s trial that bought out every NUTjob on the planet and no doubt reasonable people expressing dismay, all the same I’m disappointed we have to be a part of it in my daily reading.

      Andrzej and Malgorzata get well, being poorly is no fun… especially when you want to crack on and get things done.

      The Russians have shown life of innocents means diddley squat to them. Dropping them with missiles twice that we know of. I’m horrified, screening of freight, courier parcels, just went up in my estimation. It may do very little I conceed. Better technology might help and there is that Israeli / Hezbollah pager where it was undetectable. By volume it will be no mean task post Covid as I’ve seen (in NZ) it skyrocketed… eh, with online shopping. Cages of it to the warehouse ceiling.

      Two rather large Kererū (wood pigeons) are courting outside the window in a manuka tree… better start my day.

  21. Speaking of Donut Day: if you’re in Portland, Oregon, check out Voodoo Doughnuts! They are famous, with fun flavors like hibiscus and Memphis Mafia (peanut butter & banana). Their bestseller is the voodoo doll doughnut, stabbed with a pretzel stick. It has raspberry jam filling, so when you bite into it, it looks like it’s bleeding.

    Best wishes to Andrzej and Malgorzata for a speedy recovery!

  23. Get well soon Andrzej and Malgorzata! Being sick is no fun.

    If true, the Russian terrorism probes are very worrisome. It seems that they are testing the waters for something bigger.

    1. Best wishes to Andrzej and Malgorzata from Trigger in Australia.
      Trigger’s staff has been following Hili since 2018, trying to keep her minimal knowledge of Polish alive. Thank you.

  25. Malgorzata and Andrzej, this someone in the Midwest is joining your cats in hoping you get better. I presume they can all snuggle — may they do so!

  28. I have no idea what most of the facts are surrounding the Peanut the Squirrel case, but the concerns raised on social media are about more than the euthanizing of the squirrel and raccoon. The man and his wife claim that they were held in custody at their home for over five hours, unable to use their own restroom without armed escort, while ten government agents, at least some of them armed, executed a search warrant on their home and went through their home and belongings. What’s next? A swat team sent after people for harboring wild ducklings?

    If these details are correct—and I’ll repeat “if”—it suggests government excess, and people would be correct to be incensed about it. Send animal control to the home, tell the people the laws about wild animals, give them time to release the animals, maybe even offer to relocate the critters for them. This should not have been hard. Nor should it have required armed agents of the state. Nor should it have required holding anybody in custody—whether at their home or elsewhere.

    I fully assume that this story will get exaggerated, but it gains traction because aspects of it resonate with preexisting concerns. I see it as a small exhibit for why arguments like Pinker’s gain little traction with much of the population. Tell them all you like about how grand things are, but many feel increasingly powerless against ever-encroaching governmental power and regulations at all levels. Perhaps we can investigate whether this could be contributing to a general dissatisfaction, rather than suggesting that people are simply too ignorant to realize that they should be happy.

  29. I Forgot to note – yes, a sad moment, Quincy Jones is dead.

    But what an amazing career – you’d think he was just a pop producer, but when I got Birk’s Works (Dizzy Gillespie), I saw Jones and realized this guy was not just a sort of pop star.

    Since then, I’ve found lots of GREAT recordings of Jones, either playing, directing, or arranging – I think maybe one of the famous Sinatra recordings of Fly Me To The Moon?… might have been Basie … maybe both?!.. YES!!

    This :

    On youtube, put in ZEcqHA7dbwM?si=gDbg6D56jRc3jxQq

    Hopefully that works! So swingin, so tight!

    check it out!

    Also did a lot for the art, e.g. giving Jacob Collier a massive listener audience.

  30. Hope you get well real soon, Malgorzata and Andrzej. I neglected saying that earlier. I looked up the temperature in your neck of the woods and if I’m not mistaken, it’s cold enough to snuggle under the blankets. Will Hili bring you tea, though?

  32. Great “THANK YOU” to all who wished us well. Yes, we are both on the mend and hopefully the situation will return to normal quite soon. Hili and Szaron were of great help warming us and cheering us up with their purring. (No, unfortunately neither of them knows how to make a cup of tea.)
    Thanks again,
    Małgorzata and Andrzej

  33. Mount Kinka 🐿
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kinka_%28Gifu%29
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=RKQ_6hAoH7Q

    Hida Takayama 🐿
    https://tgh.hida-ch.com/e1272307.html
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ1T5JbtQlk

    Machida, Tokyo 🐿
    https://x.com/risuen_official/status/1825372595258269865
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=SEQ3iHevqj4

    There are at least three “squirrel parks” in Japan. 🐿
    Japanese people think “squirrels are safe and adorable animals”. 🇯🇵
    In Japan, you can freely keep squirrels and rabbits at home. 🐇🐿🏡

    The “Peanut the Squirrel” incident is really sad. 😢
    May Peanut rest in peace. 💐💐💐

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