Sunshine!

Thank Amun-Ra It's Friday!

"If you see Tutankhamun, tell him I'm looking for him."

Words Fail...

Please do read Kevin D. Williamson's short essay on the topic. Please.

Speaking of sunshine, some say it is "the best disinfectant." We'll see. The scandal involving Planned Parenthood may or may not have any significant consequences, but it has not been my experience that public abhorrence of the abortion-on-demand industry when its practices are exposed to scrutiny has ever been sufficient to effect any genuine reforms. There will be a lot of angry public disputes for awhile, but since actually doing anything about the problem would involve a messy political fight, nothing will change. Sometimes sunshine is just sunshine.

What bugs me this morning is the shameful use of euphemisms by Planned Parenthood officials (and their defenders in the media) in a desperate attempt to deny the horror of what they do every single day. I honestly don't know how people who pervert language in this way can look at themselves in the mirror every morning...

Things That Make Me Happy: Double Dip Edition

Baseball resumes today after the traditional All-Star break, and my beloved Kansas City Royals will be playing a double-header against the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field, thanks to an earlier rain-out. As is the common practice nowadays, it will be a day/night doubleheader, not a true doubleheader the way they used to be played.

Edinson Volquez is scheduled to start for the Royals in the afternoon game against Jeff Samardzija.

Chris Young will take the mound in the game tonight against John Danks.

"How are you doing with the whole Alex Gordon situation?"

Just taking it one day at a time...

Science and Humor

Scientists, mathematicians, and engineers have a reputation for being dry, humorless types, and in my own experience there is some evidence for that generalization. But part of my morning ritual each day is reading xkcd, an online panel comic published three times a week by Randall Munroe. He describes his work as "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." I excel at two of those things, and and fail wretchedly at two of them, but to say that Mr. Munroe's sense of humor almost never fails to put a smile on my face would be an understatement. He has a new book coming out next month, which will be a Weekly Recommendation in due course.

In the meantime, Munroe had some fun with the first images of Pluto that we got from the New Horizons fly-by:

"Do you think there are ants on Pluto?"

It seems highly unlikely, old friend...

Wild Kingdom Bed and Breakfast Update

I've been having some issues with a couple of the finches who are basically only interested in the thistle seed in the feeder. They thrash stuff around looking for that one item, and the result is that almost everything else in the feeder winds up on the patio by the end of the day. Some of my customers don't seem to mind...

"We're fine with it, really."

...but it has been bothering me a bit that the birds who like the feeder have been finding it basically empty by late afternoon every day. So I decided to add a new item to the B&B:

Since this feeder has nothing but the thistle seed in it, I was hoping that it would keep the finches from tossing all the rest of the food out of the other feeder.

At first, as usually happens when I try something new, the birds were a bit wary. But soon enough...

...they figured it out.

And in the realm of happy endings, the original feeder is still popular, but after filling it Wednesday evening it is still half full on Friday morning. It looks like it will take quite some time for the sock to need replacing, too. Progress...

Until Next Time...

Blues music doesn't necessarily have be sad and mournful. A fair number of blues songs are humorous, and even jaunty. Today's send-off is one such sprightly number. It is Eric Clapton's take on the Jimmy Cox classic "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," from his legendary 1992 appearance on MTV Unplugged. Enjoy...