Quote of the day:

Apart from the fact that everyone’s opinion is different regarding what constitutes a healthy meal, what is accepted as scientific truth today may be disproved tomorrow. The problem arises when government — the monopoly on violence — enforces a Procrustean solution of “one size fits all”, metaphorically (and sometimes literally) stretching people on a rack or cutting them to bits in order to force a round peg into their square hole.

Okay, now, if he'd just said literally I would've chalked it up as "really" and maybe rolled my eyes or snickered a little at the image, but not said anything.

But when he deliberately contrasts it with "metaphorically", I have to ask - WTF? Where has this happened, and when, and why haven't I heard about it?

In the same comment thread, let me just say that apparently red leaf lettuce is damn healthy. TONS of vitamin A and K in just one leaf. I had no idea!

Iceberg lettuce is largely "nutritionally void", though.

OMG!

So, yesterday I went out in the yard to dump some compost and kill a mouse. Snap traps are amazingly successful, but yesterday they caught one by the back legs and didn't kill it. (Ana didn't realize he was already caught, and when she heard him said "Go away mouse, we have traps." I've told her to stop warning the mousies.)

This really upset me, because the point of a snap trap is to kill them instantly and with a minimum of pain. Being caught by the hind legs sounds incredibly painful and terrifying to me. Moral learned? Check them more frequently.

Well, he was injured, so no way I was going to do a rescue operation. No, I dumped trap and mouse into a plastic bag, went outside, and dropped a heavy rock on him a couple of times. It's not quite as instant as it should've been, but hopefully he stopped suffering fast. Ana thought I should just let him go, but I tried to explain to her that once you take the responsibility for killing them you have to do it *right*. Letting him go severely injured would not have been doing the poor mouse any favors. It would be cruel!

Anyway, while I was out there with the mouse and the compost I saw an ugly gray fluffball with a yellow mouth! It was a starling chick, trying to fly. I'm pretty sure it was a starling because an adult starling hung around and squawked at me, and when I googled "starling chick" the image matched. OMG! So I called Ana out to look at this little guy, and I saw we also had some baby sparrows or chickadees fluttering about.

And now I'm annoyed. Our backyard is an unholy mess right now. It's still just turned over dirt from when they made the ramp, and leftover bits of scaffold, and some rocks and bricks. Oh, and this terrible weed that grows from the roots and I'm going to try putting a tarp over to kill it because I hate it hate it hate it.

When our backyard was nice and pretty and had plants, I never saw baby birds in it. Now, when it's a mess, now I see 'em?

But maybe the birds were there before but hiding, I don't know. Well, I shouldn't cry over starlings anyway, invasive pests that they are. But they are pretty enough birds, as the name indicates, with 'stars' all over their feathers.