bookbind

Belle likes to sit on the pull-out board and supervise the selection of the can 🤷🏼‍♂️ I told her that today she had to eat her Fancy Feast beef gravy dinner because in *this* house we eat beef. She said oh no you don't and gave me this look, because of course we don't eat beef.

I was going outside to put the umbrellas down but saw this little guy cooling his jets in the fountain. So I waited. And I waited. Hummingbirds buzzed all around him but he didn't move. I got a bit worried and went down to check and he told me he's just fine and to clear off!

#birds
#hummingbirds

Benny Hill had a similar skit "21 today"!

We just got a new bird feeder and look who showed up!
A male Pin-Tailed Whydah.
Next to Griffith Park.

#birds

This is different, you can see his beak and tongue! You need to open the full picture.
#birds
#hummingbirds

I came across this composite of photos of our tortie Rini. It's from a few years ago but honestly, nothing's changed 🤣
#cats

We're in Los Angeles so they're here year-round!

Just now at dusk.

It is!

A reminder that I need to add more sugar to my Costco order!

5 hummingbirds on feeders

Sheesh. I currently fill 12 8-port 32-ounce feeders almost daily now! I can't believe that I'll have to hang more feeders.

#birds
#hummingbirds

Normalize pronouncing DOGE as DOUCHE.

A hummingbird preens his wing feathers

He's making sure that last feather is perfectly in place before checking out the girls at the feeders. We're now up to 12 8-port 32-oz feeders and I'm refilling them every other day.

#birds
#hummingbirds

I love this shot, after the rain moved on a few years ago. The hummingbirds were hungry!

#birds
#hummingbirds

Anna's are bigger than Allen's..

#birds
#hummingbirds

A hummingbird is perched on the edge of a fountain scattering water drops as they bathe.

Being beautiful takes a lot of work!

#birds
#hummingbirds

I'm sure there will be some strongly-worded letters.

I guess we're now in for more of this.

Wow, this is wonderful. The first California Condor release at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument was on December 12,
1996.

At a time where it feels like we're losing, we need to remember our victories that not only have happened in the past, but continue to exist today.

Thus I give you, California Condor 926 of the SoCal flock.

Great grandchild of Condor # 1.

We as humanity can still do good things.

#birds

Four examples of Democratic messaging since yesterday. I know which one I'm supporting. And voting for.

Josh Hawley also said it. He also said that only the male head of the household should vote.

#BookClubFriends

!

♥️
<< I am also commuting the life sentence imposed on Leonard Peltier so that he serves the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.>>

Love this.

A bird sits in the middle of a bowl of dry cat food

A bird sits in the middle of a bowl of dry cat food

A bird sits in the middle of a bowl of dry cat food

A bird sits in the middle of a bowl of dry cat food

We put dry cat food out in the morning. Truthfully it's for the ground birds because they really like it. The Towhee hops in and roots around, kicking almost all of the food out of the bowl. Then the little Wren comes in for the smaller bits. The skunks and the possum come much later and do cleanup.

Douthat: I can imagine a remarkable new plan for making the federal government in various ways much more efficient. I can totally imagine that. I am skeptical that such a plan would, in the end make a big dent in the federal government’s costs. Let’s say you have tons of dead wood in a particular federal agency. Well, you’re going to get rid of that dead wood. But in fact, you’re going to need to hire better people to replace those people. And you’re going to need to pay those people appropriately and so on. And all of this is in the shadow of Social Security, Medicare and a range of federal commitments. There is no magical argument on social media that will suddenly make cutting those commitments popular. But this is, of course, the traditional, institutional, cynical Washington view. Andreessen: I was going to say, but this is the traditional, institutional, cynical Washington view. And the way that reads to a normal person is absolute contempt for the taxpayer. Absolute contempt for the taxpayer by saying, “We can sit here in Washington, and we can ladle out $50 billion here and $100 billion there, and when we’re challenged on it, the answer is, ‘Eh, it’s a rounding error.’” Right? Douthat: No, no. The answer when we’re challenged on it is: The actual spending that the federal government does is either big-ticket things that the average taxpayer supports or smaller things like funding for students with disabilities across public school districts or something that if the average taxpayer doesn’t support it, at least a very vocal and influential constituency supports it.

Those are the two groups. It’s not dripping with contempt for the taxpayer. It’s the taxpayer that because of their desire for large amounts of federal spending tends to support. Andreessen: I will just tell you that what you just said comes across as total contempt for the taxpayer. Just absolute contempt. This will be part of the — Douthat: But who is the taxpayer? I wrote many, many columns in support of various versions of Paul Ryan’s plan to cut Medicare or reform Medicare and reform Social Security. And the reason those plans went down to defeat was not that federal bureaucrats had contempt for the American taxpayer. It was that the American taxpayer, in election after election, likes and supports and votes in favor of Medicare and Social Security. Andreessen: They’re not exposed to it. This is a big part of the bet. And look, maybe it’ll work, and maybe it won’t. But this is a big part of the bet, which is that the American taxpayer doesn’t experience it that way because they don’t actually have the insight into it. Take what you would think would be a bulletproof program, like child disability in schools. It’s far from clear to me that the median taxpayer would support that if they really knew what that was. As you and I both know, what that has become is basically a medicalized mental illness. To the point where students in schools now are basically using fake diagnoses of mental illness in order to get drugs and in order to get extra time on tests. That whole program has run completely out of control, and everybody with kids knows that, but it’s not a discrete thing that people can wrap their heads around and understand. And it’s not a thing that gets exposed in the bright light of day.

Revealing exchange between Douthat and Marc Andressen. Douthat says that DOGE won't save money b/c most programs are popular and you need people to run them. Reasonable!

Andressen: the existence of the program reflects contempt for the taxpayer. Social media will allow us to weaken public support.

I looked up his size, 9-13" the size of a blue jay.

A hawk is perched in a tree, looking around

A hawk is perched in a tree, looking around

An oldie but goodie: Sharp-Shinned Hawk outside the kitchen window, no hummingbirds were harmed!

#birds