conuly

They were already a bit more semi than feral, and now they've been upgraded! Nellie is Sociable, and Kid Blink is Friendly But Shy. It is crucially important that we don't fall into the trap of giving Nellie more attention just because she is friendlier.

***********

Found: A Letter to the Future From 1995

Your car has just been crushed by hagfish: Frequently Asked Questions

More Than Bread: Sourdough As a Window Into The Microbiome

A Window Into Windex

How Cellophane Changed the Way We Shop for Food

Scientists marvel at creatures' 'precise' body clock

Hyenas spark admiration, not fear, in Ethiopia's Harar city

Marrying Later, Staying Single Longer (Nifty animated graphs!)

The Power of Inclusive Sex Education

Tech giant releasing 20 million mosquitoes in Fresno; that's a good thing, really

Tribes commit to uphold Paris climate agreement

Under siege by liberals: the town where everyone owns a gun

The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

Swiss glacier yields bodies of couple missing for 75 years

The Prisoner Who Painted Dachau’s Horrors (Some of the paintings are reproduced in the article.)

Puerto Rico economic crisis hits island's only zoo

The Summer of Misreading Thucydides

'Inappropriate' and 'Insulting.' Most Americans Disapprove of Trump's Twitter Use

More hospital closings in rural America add risk for pregnant women

Republican attempts to replace Obamacare fail

Separatists proclaim a new state to replace Ukraine

A video of a woman in a skirt sparks outrage in Saudi Arabia

Australians see woman's shooting by police as US nightmare

Children of the Opioid Epidemic Are Flooding Foster Homes. America Is Turning a Blind Eye.

'It's raining needles': Drug crisis creates pollution threat

UAE orchestrated hacking of Qatari government sites, sparking regional upheaval, according to U.S. intelligence officials

And on the way I sat in the same car as one of my sister's friends, which was fun. She texted Jenn that there was a woman there who looked just like me, and Jenn texted me that she was 95% sure I was sitting opposite Melissa. And so I was! So I showed off J's awesome backpack, because it has a hood and a cape and is just the coolest backpack ever.

And then I picked up my CSA and headed home, and by the time I reached the boat I realized... I had actually managed to not eat anything all day. It was really hot! I wasn't hungry! But that won't do, and I was starting to get cranky, so I took my remaining $4, borrowed $3 from the boys' mom, and bought myself some food from Wendy's.

This is where the older boy spoke up: I like Wendy's food. They're my second favorite, after Burger King. I don't like McDonald's at all.
Me: Why not?
Kid: Because it'll make you fat!
Me: Hm. *munchmunchmunch* Are you perhaps operating under the impression that Wendy's or Burger King are somehow healthier than McDonald's?
Kid: ...aren't they?

It's interesting how kids get these ideas, isn't it? (Of course, I took pains to point out that skinny != healthy, and that fast food in moderation can be part of a healthy diet so long as you mostly eat healthy and get a reasonable amount of exercise, and that at his age he shouldn't be thinking about his weight at all.)

I should really start referring to him with a letter, like I do with most kids. Trouble is, his usual name is his initials already! So I can't just use those. He likes the Flash, maybe I'll call him Flash. Can't just keep calling him "the older boy", it's ridiculous.

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

Canceled $30K wedding becomes dinner for Indiana homeless

Actor and rapper Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, commissioned Sam Spratt to do the art for his 2012 mixtape “Royalty.” However, the project took on a life of its own and Spratt created ten limited edition prints inspired by Norman Rockwell.

Jane Austen, Home Brewer

The Story of the ‘Portofess,’ the Prank Confessional Booth at the 1992 Democratic Convention

New boy muppet in Afghanistan promotes gender equality

How transgender-friendliness may help in battling female-unfriendly toilet culture (In their analysis, they forgot two factors as to why women wait longer on line to pee. First, cisgender women have smaller bladders even we aren't pregnant, and sometimes we have to handle periods, two things which make us visit the bathroom more often. Even a small increase in potty usage can lead to lines. Secondly, children, regardless of sex and gender, are more likely to use the ladies' room than the men's room, because they're more likely to be with a female caregiver. Add that to the factors they did mention and - yikes!)

Sword belonging to commander of black Civil War unit found

If Disney Princesses Were Engineers…

Filipino church feeds expansion by buying ghost town in US

Generous people live happier lives

Baby squirrels are more likely to survive if they’re born early (The article just restates that in a wordier way. Ignore the words, look at the pics. SQUEE!)

How Goofing Off Helps Kids Learn

The Insolent Chauffeurs of America’s Early Automobile Era

‘400 years is long enough’: Virginia’s ‘first contact’ Indian tribes demand federal recognition

Females with autism show greater difficulty with day-to-day tasks than male counterparts

A Victorian Wife's Best Friend: The Role of Cats & Dogs in Cases of Spousal Abuse (This is not, of course, limited to the past.)

The Librarian Who Took On Al-Qaeda

A small, vocal group of Conservative rabbis is pushing the movement to accept marriages between Jews and non-Jews. The fight is really about the future of the religion.

After a Harrowing Flight From U.S., Refugees Find Refuge in Canada

A mission to the Pacific plastic patch

She’s His Rock. His Parole Officer Won’t Let Him See Her.

America Keeps Criminalizing Autistic Children

Police killings: the price of being disabled and black in America

The Reckoning Over Young Prisoners Serving Life Without Parole

Should NYPD lawyers step in to prosecute? Protesters say no

Mass Arrests of Protesters: Outrageous in Russia, Barely Worth Mentioning in US

Pakistan’s secret atheists

Rohingya villagers tell media of abuses during army crackdown

Hi all :)

I was super bored, and went through Ursula Vernon's subscriber list. If this is all too weird, poke me and I'll unsubscribe.

With her sister for company, Nellie has decided she is scared of humans after all. Luckily, a little more food helped there, and once they'd eaten enough to make their tummies bulge out, I tossed around a cat toy for a bit, gave them something to do besides hide in a corner and avoid me. Kid Blink still isn't interested (though she's interested enough in food to get real close) but Nellie came and pet me a few times, and let me pet her so long as my hand wasn't at all in her face. I accidentally did that once and she bolted, and wouldn't come out again. Playtime is over, but I'll try another session in a few hours, before I go to bed. I'll also bring down some books and read there for a while. I'm contemplating the merits of sleeping down there. Pro: kittens can get used to me. Con: no a/c, and kittens are nocturnal. They might "get used to me" by jumping on my face!

I want to insert something here. I am, I'm told, actually pretty smart. I don't usually say this, because there's no reason to, but other people sometimes tell me that. Never know how to respond, but they do. (At least nowadays, they say it in a good way. When I was a kid, they said it in order to criticize me for not doing my schoolwork.)

But I'm the one saying it now, and I'm saying it so you know not to judge me too harshly for the events in this story.

I was walking home from the grocery store, laden down with two very heavy bags (among other things, each had a six-pack of snapple), when I saw my chance to nab one of the two tortie kittens I've been worried about. Not the sicker one, the friendlier one!

Turns out this kitten is friendly enough so long as you don't act like you're trying to snatch her. This is unsurprising - apparently, two of her five siblings got picked up in just this way. (A third died. You can see why I want to TNR Mama.) So I waited until she was very close, and then I grabbed her nape. Well, kittens will settle when you do that, but she wouldn't let me hold her close, and I had no way to pick up my groceries!

As luck would have it, a family was walking towards me right then. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers, and had no hesitation whatsoever in asking them to help me with my bags if they were going my way. They dropped me off at the corner and I ran home, stashed the kitten in the front entryway, and ran back to grab my bags and the antibiotics from my neighbor.

Naturally, after having been isolated for five minutes in a strange place, the kitten decided that I must be her best friend. I've encountered this before when rehoming semi-feral kittens. If you'll excuse the armchair psychology, I figure it's some sort of Stockholm thing. They're away from everything they know, but you're familiar and you haven't actually hurt them, so you must be a friend! She purred up a storm and let me hold her properly to put her in a larger room with food. (FOOD!) There was medicine on the food, which is the important thing, but not what she cared about. (That medicine is crucially important - this kitty's eyes are better, but she's sniffling. Sniffles + eye troubles = bad news for kittens.)

Then I got a little overawed with my own mad skillz, and decided to get her sister. Guess what I forgot? Yes, I forgot to bring a carrier. Like I said, I'm usually smarter than this, so don't judge me! Her sister's eye is much worse, and looking at it, I'm not sure that there isn't any permanent damage. But at least it's only one eye. This kitten was not so friendly, and smart enough to avoid me after my first attempt, so I had to enlist the man who's been feeding her. Smart kitty - she wanted the food, but she was wary of approaching any human with me still right there! He wasn't clear on what I meant by grabbing her neck either, but between the two of us I eventually did manage to grab her nape and lug her home, so now she's ensconced with her sister. (This was the third not-so-smart move on my part. I should've isolated her for half an hour first, and then had her warm up to me before putting her in with family. Well, I don't care that much.)

I'm tentatively calling the one with the bad eye Kid Blink, so I guess that makes the other one Nellie Bly.

So Eva's friend N is a bright kid. Doesn't like to read. She can read, she just doesn't like to.

However, any kid who goes anywhere with us - and she does - is expected to haul a book around, and eventually Eva will open up her own book and read. I've been handing N graphic novels to limited success, but yesterday I had the best success ever. I gave her a copy of Hamster Princess, and she said "Oh, good, I'm bored. And you know what? I think I'm kind of getting used to reading."

Then she literally read it while walking and laughed out loud as she did so. Ursula Vernon is a genius, and I'm going to pop over to her journal and tell her so.

This was discovered when Ana and Eva were casually re-enacting The Mysterious Ticking Noise and I joined in.

Jenn: Sometimes it's like you guys have a whole life I'm not part of.

So here, Jenn. For your edification: The Mysterious Ticking Noise! (Special anniversary edition.)

They just appear.

"Holy goodness, did we drink a lot of hard liquor in the late 1800s"

The graph doesn't show the late 1800s; it shows the late 19th century. The late 1800s would be 1805-1809.

Two different people corrected him, but he's still holding firm, three years after the first comment:

So, how do you describe the decade betwene the 1790s ("seventeen nineties" and 1810s ("eighteen tens"), then?

I couldn't resist, I made my own reply. That decade is, of course, the early 1800s.

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

Amelia Earhart's Travel Menu Relied On Three Rules And People's Generosity

How to pluralize the word "octopus": a flowchart

Scientists are about to change what a kilogram is. That’s massive.

American Reportage: documenting the American experience – in pictures

Chaos Makes the Multiverse Unnecessary

Why Do Stop Signs Have Eight Sides?

City of Sydney is axing fines for overdue library books because they don’t work

Why babies in medieval paintings look like ugly old men

Strange silk: Why rappelling spiders don't spin out of control

Why Coastal Tribes Are Growing Clam Gardens That Look Like Asian Rice Fields

Lynx could return to Britain this year after absence of 1,300 years

Bananas: Scientists Create Vitamin A-Rich Fruit That Could Save Hundreds of Thousands of Children’s Lives (If they're luckier than Golden Rice. Hey, why is it always Vitamin A they add to foods?)

Mexico And U.S. Team Up To Create Low-Cost Wheelchairs

Where did giant novelty checks come from?

For 23 World Cities, a Visual Inventory of Parking Lots

American Cities Are Chipping Away at the Burden of Parking Mandates

Watch Your Mouth Around My Kid

Texas border city considers helping US jail immigrants

Dying In The Desert Is Easy — These Activists Are Trying To Change That

The politics of fire: from Ancient Rome and San Francisco to Grenfell Tower

Teen bit in head by bear wakes up to "crunching sound" (OMGWTF!?)

Turkey’s opposition stages massive rally in a show of strength against Erdogan

Black homeowners struggle as US housing market recovers

Lisa, Laquanda, Machelle, and Kenya Were Sentenced as Children to Die in Prison. Decades later, a Supreme Court ruling could give them their freedom.

Gluten-free bread for Holy Communion is toast, says Vatican (Don't Catholics officially believe in a literal transubstantiation? Seems a bit strange if it doesn't work on gluten-free bread.)

Frustrated with North Korea? Welcome to The Land of Lousy Options This is a longer and more in-depth take, from The Atlantic)

Once Dominant, the United States Finds Itself Isolated at G-20 (And I bet Trump thinks being alone is a sign of strength and "independence".)

Goal of nation's first opioid court: Keep users alive

While Corals Die Along The Great Barrier Reef, Humans Struggle To Adjust

Here’s how hot your city might be by 2100

30 percent of the energy sent to Earth bounces back into outer space. Climate change could upend that. (Is that a Wrinkle in Time series reference in the subtitle?)

Gonorrhea is becoming harder and in some cases impossible to treat with antibiotics.

Teen's suicide emblematic of problems at New Orleans jail

U.S. Air Pollution Still Kills Thousands Every Year, Study Concludes

I don't know what precipitated this, but the dogs have started playing together. This is a huge step from treating each other like roommates. I'm very carefully watching them out of the side of my eye and not interacting at all.

Edit: It gets better. Moonpie, ever the quieter dog, started barking wildly a little while ago. At first I thought it was Finn, then I thought it must be some outside animal! Eventually I realized who it must be, and when she came up the stairs I hugged her. She barked some more, ran downstairs, and practically gave me her leash. This marks the first time she has ever used barking OR running ahead of people to communicate a wish or desire. Good girl, Moonpie! (Finn does it all the time, but he's starting to figure out that he doesn't always need to bark to get our attention. And he's finally stopped howling. Good boy, Finn! It's funny, but I want each dog to be more like the other one!)

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

Harry Potter and the Neural Network fan fiction (Sample - Birds of a Saturday: Harry Potter is drunk and discovers he is an alternate universe.)

Cockatoos make their own lil drumsticks to play music

At Tom Thumb Weddings, Children Get Faux-Married to Each Other

This Secretive Billionaire Makes The Cheese For Pizza Hut, Domino's And Papa John's

The Pyramid Builders

Jellyfish use high-powered 'syringes' to shoot venom into your skin

40 Percent of the Buildings in Manhattan Could Not Be Built Today

The Quest to Make Vertical Living Family-Friendly

A Year Gardening the Grave of a Stranger

Can America's Farms Survive the Threat of Deportations?

Trump’s Deportation Surge Is Harming Domestic Abuse Survivors

Grasping At Straws

A Modest Proposal For Separating Blue States From Red

Confronting the Myths of Suburban Poverty

Shunned by the rich, Cairo's subway speaks of economic woes

What “The Merchant of Venice” taught me about ethnic hatred and the literary imagination.

When It Comes to Historical Markers, Every Word Matters

Under pressure, Western tech firms bow to Russian demands to share cyber secrets

Sheriff won't let his deputies carry overdose antidote

The Detransitioners: They Were Transgender, Until They Weren't (Interesting article, not sure what I think about it. The profiled people say they're just fine with transgender people, they just realized that they aren't. I suppose it would be stranger if that never happened. The comments are about 75% productive conversation, 25% transphobic and terfy trolling, but at least even they can form coherent sentences, so, you know, it's high quality.)

The Republican Backlash Against Trump's Vote-Fraud Commission

Voter fraud commission may have violated law

These Three Lawyers Are Quietly Purging Voter Rolls Across the Country

Trump's Master Class in Tax Deceit

The Heroin Crisis in Trump’s Backyard

Scientists are starting to clear up one of the biggest controversies in climate science

Meteorologists are running out of colors to map extreme heat

How the Death of a Muslim Recruit Revealed a Culture of Brutality in the Marines

Does the Militarization of Police Lead to More People Killed? Research Says Yes

Also, art projects that aren't all either "Uh, here are some supplies, get messy" or "These are the carefully cut out parts, please make yours exactly like mine". Gosh, I hate the latter. I want all teachers of young children to memorize the phrase "it's the process, not the product" and apply it religiously.

Anyway, trying to do some fun and lightly educational things over the summer to make up for forcing Eva to do - gasp! - math every day. (The math is not optional.)

1. If you have small children, take this advice. One day they'll scribble all over themselves with marker. When they do, don't panic. You can't scrub it off, so let them go to town, and if people question you, look down your nose and say "I don't need to explain my art to you" or, better, "Don't question my art". I stole that line gleefully from Empire Records and have never forgotten it.

2. Eva remembered that's her mom's favorite movie, but she's never seen it and therefore forgot the name. I asked her to tell her mom it was airing once - "Do you want to see The Emperor Archives?"

Missed a few 4th of July links, so here they are now:

18 Vintage Photos of People Celebrating Independence Day

Photographs of Independence Day in America

This woman’s name appears on the Declaration of Independence. So why don’t we know her story? (Fascinating story, though half of it is the Post conspicuously equating patriotism with journalism. Well, can't blame 'em, and they're right anyway.)

Why are Danes celebrating the Fourth of July?

How Americans Celebrated Independence Day in 1777

The government’s annual mannequin murders, ranked

Before America Got Uncle Sam, It Had to Endure Brother Jonathan

Why I Love (And Question) Independence Day

Moonpie isn't the smartest dog, I'll admit, but she does learn. Today she slipped out when I opened the door after her short midday walk, but when I called her back - she came! I didn't have to chase her! So I hugged her and praised her and didn't let on that I was annoyed. She's a good girl!

(Unlike a certain cat I could name who hid and I couldn't find her for her vet appointment. She is a very annoying animal. Well, I'll reschedule, it's just a follow-up, nothing critical.)

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How an Organic Chemist Invented the Bone-Shaped Dog Treat

A Newly Discovered Manuscript and Its Lesson on Islam

Why do planes still have ashtrays?

A Big Dumb Button

Argentine woman becomes first nursery teacher with Down's syndrome

Why This Composer Made Melodies Out of Mountainsides

Meet the Rare Swimming Wolves That Eat Seafood

The German and British children who became post-war friends

Helping Homeless New Yorkers by the Books

The Advantages of Autistic Employees (Article's not that interesting, but wow, is it ever exciting in the comments! Not very enlightening, but exciting!)

Restaurants Can Be a Lifeline for the Formerly Incarcerated — and Vice Versa

States refuse Trump commission request for U.S. voter data

Beijing's struggle to win Hong Kong's young hearts

Oregon infant's illness prompts warning about placenta pills (Okay, I think the whole placenta-eating thing is a little weird, but a careful reading of the article shows that this warning could just as easily be phrased "be sure to cook it thoroughly first".)

'Carrot, not stick': Israel pushes its curriculum in Palestinian schools

Puerto Rico struggles to save historic buildings amid crisis

If Americans Can Find North Korea on a Map, They’re More Likely to Prefer Diplomacy (FFS, it's the Korean Peninsula. It has to be on a peninsula.)

Some would-be immigrants left in limbo after Supreme Court travel ban order

Texas Medicaid cuts leave special needs kids without therapy

The Deep Roots of Writing Violence Out of U.S. History

Japan considers detaining some asylum seekers to curb abuse of refugee system (This from a nation that only accepted 27 refugees last year!)

Visiting an Inmate You Love Is Its Own Kind of Prison

Feds will now target relatives who smuggled in children

Indonesia's gay community driven underground after police raids

This chilling NRA ad calls on its members to save America by fighting liberals (I was actually in NYC during/after Sandy. Reading this, I'm livid.)

As coal dwindles, mining states trim safety inspections

Facebook’s Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men from Hate Speech But Not Black Children

Eva is friends with N. N is friends with J. Eva doesn't particularly like J, but she tries to get along with her most of the time. (Some of the time they mutually ostracize each other.)

J's mother tends to overprotect her relative to the rest of the neighborhood. N's mother follows the more usual neighborhood tradition of letting her children roam completely unsupervised.

So, yesterday Eva asked if she could go to the pool. I said she shouldn't, but I guessed she could if she got back in time for her dentist appointment. (Spoiler, she didn't get back in time.) Later, as I'm walking around, J's mother stops me. "You don't look like you just got back from the pool!"

Apparently, J had told her I went there and supervised, because J isn't allowed to go to the pool without an adult. And J's mom thought this was a bit unlikely - she's known me 20 years, she knows I can't swim and don't particularly like crowds - but went along with it. Except I blew it right then and there.

So I got home and chewed Eva out. No lying to people about me! At least loop me in!

The plot thickens - J's grandmother (according to Eva) thought her daughter was being a bit overprotective and told J to tell her that I was there. Now, I'm with J's grandmother here, buuuuut... I would not have gone along with this. She's going to be gone long before her daughter will, nobody ever moves away from this block.

I told Eva that if this sort of thing happens again, she needs to be out of the room when the actual lying is going on. If she's not officially party to it, it's not her problem. I think that was the right thing to say. Was that the right thing to say?

(Well, J doesn't seem to be grounded, anyway, at least not while her mother is working and her grandmother is watching, so my guess is Eva was telling the truth.)

And when I came back I wandered around a bit on the conviction that if I headed downhill and generally towards the bridge, I'd eventually come out somewhere I recognized. (Gee, there are a lot of dead end streets in that neighborhood!)

This was completely accurate. I came out at Stone Street. Stone Street is a very narrow, very steep street leading from St. Paul's to Van Duzer. The street is exactly one (narrow) lane wide, no room on the sides for parking. The sidewalks, which have rails, are very narrow. Oh, and there's a tree growing in the middle of it.

20-odd years ago, when I first discovered Stone Street, there was a sign about how it was some sort of experiment. That sign appears to be gone. Now there's just a sign saying "Dead End", you know, in case you didn't see the tree. But it's only a dead end for cars. People and doggies can walk down easily, which we did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jordan's 'pay as you like' bookstore saved by crowd-funding

Which Books Do Americans Take on Vacation?

Kindling Curiosity on a Low-Tech Urban Scavenger Hunt

Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, And Christians Showed Us What They Wear When They Worship

State: 111 terminally ill end lives under new California law

Beekeepers Feel The Sting Of California's Great Hive Heist

Dutch sleuth hopes for breakthrough in biggest US art heist

Cantonese v Mandarin: When Hong Kong languages get political

Philippines bill proposes jail time for unenthusiastic anthem singers

The Lifelong Learning of Lifelong Inmates

The Moral Code of Chinese Sex Workers

Report: Black girls thought to need less protection

Three Big Ableist Myths About the Life of Helen Keller

New computer virus spreads from Ukraine to disrupt world business

Governor declares state of emergency for NYC transit system

No one is paying attention to the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II

Amid Turkey’s Purge, a Renewed Attack on Kurdish Culture

Philippine police use hospitals to hide drug killings

Mutant Strains Of Polio Vaccine Now Cause More Paralysis Than Wild Polio

Planned Parenthood Still Believes It Can Win the Culture Wars

Time Asks Donald Trump’s Golf Clubs to Remove Phony Magazine Cover

Trump's new foil: a silent Barack Obama

I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People

Good Health Never Lasts

Global sea level rise accelerates since 1990, study shows

If you want to be intensely spoiled for next season, clicky clicky. I can't wait!

Edit: Yeah, the nod to a certain government official — we thought we were being cute, and now, I find myself longing for George Bush, wishing we could have George Bush back in the White House and remembering him fondly.

Yeah, Rob, you and me both. Never ever dreamed I'd be nostalgic for those days.

Alaska lauds black soldiers' work on famed WWII highway And there's photos! I can never resist the photos.

Moisture-responsive 'robots' crawl with no external power source

Scientists Try To Break Nigeria's Cycle Of Replanting Bad Yams

The Soccer Academies Preparing African Children for Division I Competition

If You Can't Stand the Heat, Stay Out of Arizona (Ye gods, it's like that painting with the clocks)

New limbs for growing bodies: Mutilated albinos get refitted

U.S. top court backs church in major religious rights case

62 seconds of Sean Spicer not answering a simple question (Spicer, please, stop embarrassing yourself. Go home, and reconsider the life choices that led you to this place.)

Majority Of Global Poll Respondents Find Trump Arrogant, Dangerous (He's a uniter, not a divider)

Trump's 'emoluments' defense argues he can violate the Constitution with impunity. That can't be right

More Than 100 Federal Agencies Fail to Report Hate Crimes to the FBI’s National Database

Vandals obliterate info on Emmett Till marker in Mississippi

Hours after Trump’s travel ban took effect, someone burned down a small-town Texas mosque. Since then, the mosque has drawn $1 million in donations and countless rosy headlines — so why are its members still terrified?

U.S. Supreme Court breathes new life into Trump's travel ban

Comment here and he'll get you in touch. You gotta pick them up in Kitchener, though - at this point, I doubt she'll lug them to the post office to mail them, even if you promise to pay shipping and your firstborn.

we certainly have a lot of classic cars. Not just old cars, but old in very good condition and the sort that even people with no real knowledge of cars (hi!) can say "Wow, that's a nice looking car!" over.

Yesterday when I walked the dogs with Eva, we passed one such car with a front bench seat.

Me: That's a nice car!
Eva: It's weird, it doesn't even have two seats in the front.
Eva: Wait, it has three seats. COOL! So you can have six people in the car! Why don't they do that now?

I didn't know the answer, but here it is. They were an option for much longer than I thought! I'd assumed they were regulated away, but apparently not. Whodathunk? (Random tangent - I wonder which is more common in English, "whodathunk" or "whodathunkit"? Google ngram viewer is completely unhelpful here.)

Anyway, today I saw three nice Cadillacs from the 50s or 60s... though given that they were all together, there was probably a thing they were going to. And last week I ran across an Oldsmobile that I'm pretty sure is from the 40s.

So as you can see, we do have a lot of classic cars in this neighborhood that you might randomly run across.

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

Chatter in the deep brain spurs empathy in rats

The day after Sweden switched from driving on the left to driving on the right, 1967 (LOL!)

'50s Ladies in Kodachromes: Looking Back to Women Fashion Over 60 Years Ago

Chickens may illuminate how humans developed sharp daylight vision

The story behind the dark Times Square subway poem (Yo, that's a really long tunnel, btw.)

Mosul celebrates first Eid without Islamic State in years (I didn't know henna was an Iraqi thing, but judging from those pictures I guess so...?)

Eid al-Fitr: What you need to know (Starting this year, NYC schools take off for Eid, but they're doing it tomorrow. And then I think school ends Wednesday. This is typical of the NYC school system. It'd make just as much sense to not take those two random days off in June and then end the year last Friday, but noooooooo. Don't know why I'm complaining, I don't have to deal with that nonsense, anyway.)

Muslims in Asia pray for peace as Ramadan holy month ends (There is a girl in one of those pictures wearing a red hijab with white polka dots and Minnie Mouse ears. It is so adorable, it must be seen to be believed.)

A Middle Eastern Spin On A Classic Latino Dessert: Rose Cardamom Tres Leches (Tres Leches is apparently quite popular in Turkey nowadays anyway.)

This Common Butterfly Has an Extraordinary Sex Life (Extraordinary and a little stomach-churning.)

Famous Women Have Been Defying Gender Norms and Rocking Menswear for Years

Gay pride parades sound a note of resistance - and face some

Stories About Disability Don’t Have to Be Sad

Planes aren’t the only things with wings buzzing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

The base was the first military installation to earn the “Bee City USA” designation: The number of pollinator honey bees swarming around hives has flourished five fold in two years as the bees indulge in abundant food, water and nesting sites, officials say.

Philippine, Vietnam navies play sports on South China Sea island

The decline of electric guitar

Websites and apps are designed for compulsion, even addiction. Should the net be regulated like drugs or casinos?

Joe Arpaio on trial over immigration actions echoing Trump's

A Battle Over Prayer in Schools Tests Canada’s Multiculturalism

A risky fix to repair a city's gutted streetlight grid

The TSA is going to look through your books but promises not to notice what you're reading (When we talk about things that we should never have accepted as normal, the TSA and their shenanigans is top of the list.)

Journalists Condemn Trump Press Restrictions, But Don’t Expect Them To Boycott Briefings

Two factories Donald Trump bragged about saving are now laying off workers

Canadian leaders have given up on Trump—so now they're going around him

Shifting Dollars From Poor to Rich Is a Key Part of the Senate Health Bill (No shit.)

Pro-Trump group's health care offensive warns GOP senators to get in line

The Danger of Yemen's Secret Prisons (Content note: like all descriptions of torture, this is nauseating)

So first, two signal boosts:

1. I found out about this via the League of Women Voters. This act, introduced in both the Senate and the House, has the stated purpose "To require States to automatically register eligible voters to vote in elections for Federal office, and for other purposes."

Among other things, it would automatically register eligible voters via information they provide to various government offices, such as the DMV. A number of states have take this kind of legislation up, and a few have passed it, but it would be wonderful to have this on a federal level, for all states.

It's S. 1353 in the Senate and H.R. 2876 in the House. Call your reps and ask them to support this act by co-sponsoring it.

What we're seeing right now in Washington with the AHCA is what happens when the elected officials are not sensitive to the needs of their constituents. To force them to care, we have to make it easier for those constituents to make their voices heard in the voting booth.

http://thisfinecrew.dreamwidth.org/98278.html

2. There is a new friending meme going around, so if you've already posted at 2017revival and addme and are still thinking "I need more people", you can try that. Boost it, anyway, would you? These things only work if they get shared.

Anyway, I want to get rid of my last few tabs, so bear with me.

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The Frog Log Saves Wildlife in Your Pool

Here's what happens when lightning doesn't hit the ground

The Last Picture Show

America’s Short-Lived ‘Black Army on Wheels’

What vampire bats can teach us about cooperation

The Green Energy Revolution Will Happen Without Trump

The fact is: Facts don’t matter to climate deniers

The Canadians helping refugees start anew

What's the Problem With Al Jazeera?

White People Keep Finding New Ways to Segregate Schools

London tower blocks evacuated as 34 buildings fail fire tests

Insurers Battle Families Over Costly Drug for Fatal Disease

Trump won't hire poor people for a top post - many Americans agree

Science Says Summer Is Going to Be Ruined for Many Years to Come

How Charlottesville, Virginia’s Confederate statues helped decimate the city’s historically successful black communities.

To Make Sense of American Politics, Immigrants Find Clues From Lands They Left

Venezuela's Maduro confronts perils of his reliance on the military

Bill Cosby Is Planning Town Halls About Sexual Assault And The Law, Spokesman Says (Gross!)

'No doesn't really mean no': North Carolina law means women can't revoke consent for sex

Nursing Home Workers Still Posting Nude and Vulgar Photos of Residents on Snapchat

Psychologists Open a Window on Brutal C.I.A. Interrogations

So, went out to walk the dogs earlier. Everything was going great, until Moonpie found a patch of grass. It looked to me to be identical to all the other patches of grass, but not to her....

Moonpie: YAY! Grass!
Me: C'mon, we're on our way home now!
Moonpie: Sure, sure, but hold on, I gotta roll around here.
Me: C'mon!
Moonpie: Busy flopping around like a dead fish!
Me: Indeed, you are.
Moonpie: LIKE A DEAD FISH!!!!
Finn: Smells good. Maybe I should take a leak.
Moonpie: LIKE A DEAD FISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We did eventually get home, where I found out that when Eva agreed to take out the compost for me in exchange for $7, she actually just dumped it on the ground sort of near the compost bin instead of actually in the bin. She's not getting her $7, and I don't care what she says, that's plenty fair.

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While trust is inherited, distrust is not: study

Massive, ‘Dead’ Galaxy Puzzles Astronomers

Bioengineers create more durable, versatile wearable for diabetes monitoring

Legal or not, more American women are opting for abortion by medication. We asked doctors: How safe is it?

Self-folding origami: Chemical programming allows Nafion sheets to fold and refold

A Better Touch Screen, Inspired by Moth Eyes

Scientists spy on the secret inner life of bacteria

Sea sponges stay put with anchors that bend but don't break

Some clouds are full of little lollipop-shaped ice crystals

How did bird babysitting co-ops evolve?

Why Do Bird Eggs Come in So Many Shapes?

Saying 'climate change' instead of 'global warming' decreases partisan gap by 30 percent in U.S.

Wave beams mix and stir the ocean to create climate

Are you forgetful? That's just your brain erasing useless memories

Cancer cells may streamline their genomes in order to proliferate more easily

This glass frog wears its heart for all to see

How a wildfire kicked up a 45,000-foot column of flames

A 100-year-old physics problem has been solved

I'll never understand how sunrise and sunset work.

Also, be sure to do today's Google doodle. I could do that all day.

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Cow herd behavior is fodder for complex systems analysis

Making Cents of Currency’s Ancient Rise

The Lion-Shaped Maps That United a Nation

African farmers’ kids conquer the marshmallow test

Summer solstice: the perfect day to bask in a dazzling scientific feat (First comment: "How did they know it was noon?" I can't even...)

Discovery could lead to sustainable ethanol made from carbon dioxide

She May Be The Most Unstoppable Scientist In The World

Dinosaurs got an evolutionary assist from huge volcanic eruptions

The Great Uprising: How a Powder Revolutionized Baking

Why the 'peculiar' stands out in our memory

Incredibly pictures of NYC when it was covered in farmland

'Human Project' study will ask 10,000 to share life's data

The App That Does Nothing

DNA reveals how cats achieved world domination

The ATU Fable Index: Like the Dewey Decimal System, But With More Ogres (I don't really care what happens in "Bunnies Beware of the King", but I'm more than a little perturbed that I can't even read the entire synopsis for 910J: Never plant a thorn tree.)

Chimps' cultural traditions extend beyond family

A Good News Story About Diarrhea — With One Surprising Exception

The Forgotten Trains of India (Photojournalism)

South Africa's District Six Cookbook Helps Preserve A Lost Community

Forever green: Cemeteries make more room for natural burials

Debate heats up over teaching climate change in US schools

Bosnian students keep up their protest against segregated schools

Afghan de-miners cling to hard but much-needed jobs

What Is the Point of Sean Spicer's Briefings? (I've got a question for Sean Spicer. "Do you know that you make yourself a laughingstock every time you hold one of these briefings? How much are you getting paid to shred your dignity to bits? Are you sure it's really worth it?" Damn, that's such a good question, rather than waiting for a journalist to ask it, I should send him a postcard. Or I could go traditional - "How do you sleep at night?" Postcards are cheap, I can send both questions.)

Iraqi forces advance on Mosul mosque where IS declared caliphate

What Is Putin Up To in Syria?

US interrogates detainees in Yemen prisons rife with torture