No, Laura Ingraham did not give a Nazi salute at the GOP convention

July 22, 2016 • 8:15 am

Jebus, is the Left becoming as fond of conspiracy theories as the right? This photo (and gifs) of conservative author and radio host Laura Ingraham, waving to the crowd after her speech at the Republican convention, are all over my Facebook page, with some posters seriously suggesting that she’s giving a Hitler salute.  (I really should stop going to FB.) When I said, “People, it’s just the beginning of a wave—she’s not giving the Nazi salute!”, I was contradicted by some who said it’s just too strange to be a real wave.

Slate, for example, posted this, without giving the video (click on screenshot for link):

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Here’s a video of her entrance to the stage and then her final wave. Note her stiff-armed wave as she walks onto the stage at the beginning, and then her final salutations (including the “Nazi salute”) at 2:48. She’s just an awkward waver, for crying out loud!

Come on, people! That stiff-armed bit was just the beginning of a general wave to the crowd. Do you really think that Ingraham, conservative as she is, would covertly give a sign of sympathy to Hitler? Are we so mired in hatred of Republicans that we’ll even entertain conspiracy theories like this?

Ingraham is odious enough without us making fools of ourselves by suggesting she’s a Nazi sympathizer. That makes us akin to creationists: we take one bit of a wave out of context; creationists take a few words out of context from the writings of evolutionists.

Readers’ wildlife photographs

July 22, 2016 • 7:30 am

Don’t forget to send in your good photos (most people aren’t professionals, but by now you’ll have an idea of the quality of stuff that appears here), as I can always use more. Today’s batch comprises “peeps”, which is what birders call the five smallest sandpipers of North America. The photos were contributed by reader Mike McDowell, and his captions are indented:

Surprise! Fall bird migration is underway! This may seem like comforting news for those of us enduring the present Midwest heatwave, but the humid weather is going to be with us for a while. However, shorebirds are heading out. They’re among the first southbound migratory birds to leave northern Canada for destinations in the southern United States, Central America and beyond. Some shorebird species have already made it to southern Wisconsin from areas as far north as the Arctic Circle.

Last weekend I was searching for tiger beetles on a sandbar along the Wisconsin River and came across a flock of peeps (common birder slang for the 5 smallest shorebird species). These tiny birds are a mere 5 to 6 inches long and weigh 20 to 30 ounces grams, roughly the same size and weight of a House Sparrow.  Anyway, there were around 20 Semipalmated Sandpipers Calidris pusilla and Least Sandpipers Calidris minutilla foraging together for invertebrates in the shallows along the sandbar.

These images were digiscoped with a Nikon mirrorless camera and Swarovski spotting scope.

Semipalmated Sandpiper, Calidris pusilla:

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Least Sandpiper, Calidris minutilla:

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And here are two from Stephen Barnard in Idaho, who apparently has taken up insect photography and—equally apparently—is good at it:

Honeybee [Apis sp.] with nearly full corbicula [“pollen basket”], pollinating Shasta Daisies [Leucanthemum × superbum]:

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Drone fly (Eristalis tenax), introduced from Europe:

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Friday: Hili dialogue

July 22, 2016 • 6:15 am

It is July 22, and a Friday, so we’re all one week closer to death. On a lighter note, it’s both Ratcatcher’s Day (a chance forLarry to redeem himself) and Pi Approximation Day, since it’s 22/7, which is 3.14285. . . . .close enough.

On this day in history, Wiley Post completed the first solo flight around the world (1933), and, a year later, John Dillinger was gunned down by The Law outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago. On July 22, 1942, the Nazis began removing Jews from the Warsaw ghetto, bound for liquidation, and, in 2011, Anders Breivik went on his Norwegian killing spree.

Notables born on this day include Emma Lazarus (1849), Edward Hopper (1882), Tom Robbins (1936), and Don Henley (1947). Those who died on this day include Carl Sandburg (1967) and Illinois Jacquet (2004). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Cyrus pose for a photo when suddenly nature calls to the d*g:

Hili: Cyrus, for God’s sake, this is a photo opportunity.
Cyrus: They explained to us that during picture taking we are to behave naturally.
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In Polish:
Hili: Cyrus, bój się boga, to jest sesja zdjęciowa!
Cyrus: Na zajęciach tłumaczyli nam, że podczas zdjęć mamy zachowywać się naturalnie.

Leon et famille are still scouring southern Poland for the right house; Leon is inspecting every nook and cranny.

Leon: Oh, I haven’t been there yet.

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Larry the Chief Mouser defeated in battle

July 21, 2016 • 2:30 pm

Larry the Cat is the Official Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, and his brief is to mouse at 10 Downing Street. (There has been such a mouser since the days of Henry VIII!) Sadly, Larry was an ineffectual mouser, and his job (but not his title) has been usurped by Palmerston, a tuxedo cat who mouses well.

As if that humiliation weren’t enough, Larry has now returned to 10 Downing Street after an overnight scrap that seriously damaged his paw and apparently made him lose his collar. Here’s a picture of the injured moggie from the Torygraph piece. He can’t put weight on that front paw.

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Photo credit: Barcroft

It’s not yet clear how Larry came a cropper, but it could be that he’s gotten into yet another scrap with Palmerston, perhaps motivated by jealousy. The Torygraph has reported on and given photos of Larry’s recurrent scraps with his rival:

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Stay tuned for further updates:

h/t: Aaron

A scary article about Trump

July 21, 2016 • 1:30 pm

As I made a visit to Facebook last night, and saw that about 40% of the posts were about Donald Trump, all saying basically the same thing—the man is an idiot—I began to experience the phenomenon of Trumpfenschmerz, or “Trump Weariness.” I wanted to write on my page, “Can we talk about cats instead?”, but I knew I’d be excoriated for it. I refrained. But now there’s one more thing to say about Trump—to call your attention to a new article about him in The New Yorker.

As much as I disliked and distrusted Trump before I read the piece, and figured that it couldn’t get worse, it has. The article, now called “Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All” (in print it was called “Donald Trump’s Boswell”), discusses the revelations of Tony Schwartz, the guy who ghostwrote Trump’s book The Art of the Deal. And he’s repudiated Trump, describing him as a completely self-absorbed man with not a jot of empathy for anyone, no deep knowledge of anything, and no attention span. Trump would, says Schwartz, be a horrible President—even worse than we envisioned given Trump’s minuscule attention span.

Schwartz feels so bad about having written this book (his description of how he wrote it is fascinating) that he’s donated all the profits, which are considerable, to charities Trump wouldn’t like—such as those helping migrant workers.

You owe it to yourself to read this piece, though I suspect 99% of the readers here already despise Trump. I wonder what Republicans who read it will think—if any Republicans do read the New Yorker.