Interesting - thanks for sharing the links! I'll give them a try. My "new" thing has been Pilates. I saw videos of an instructor on TikTok - and after ogling appreciating her fitness, I thought it might be a good counterpoint to my weightlifting routine inasmuch as it's focus is on bodyweight and hand weights. It's part of an online program called Ladder, and the benefit of that is that should I desire, I can switch to a whole other universe of fitness activities should I find Pilates not to be my thing. I thought I'd only do 3-4 programs a week - but now I've upped it to 6 days a week. Still, after a few weeks, I'm finding it does precisely what I was looking for - exercising muscles I wasn't working on, enhanced flexibility, and a great warm-up for my heavy lifting. On the cycling front, I'm thinking of getting rid of my bicycles - and now is the time of the year to do that. I'm thinking of that for 2 reasons - one is a fall at my age - no longer desirable and secondly, I really don't want my wife to ride - as it is even more undesirable for her to have an injury - where risk of crippling is much higher due to her bone density issues. If I abandon cycling, it is very unlikely that she'd go out on her own.

I loathe golf courses. It's a fine idea in theory but a pesticide hell in practice.

Tangentially related… I have been fascinated by the words for various animals in Ojibwe. Some are related to the sounds the animals make. Baakaakwenh is chicken. (aa is a broad a sound, the “enh” syllable is kind of a nasal short e sound.) When I have heard it spoken, the second syllable is stressed and held for an extra moment. In fact, in some dialects they spell it Baaka’aakwenh. Owl is Kookookoo (oo is somewhere between oo and long o) It is sometimes spelled Gookooko’oo, depending on dialect. Chickadee is Gijigijigaaneshiinh (ii spells the long e sound, e says long a). I am not an Ojibwe speaker but a friend taught me some words several years back and my students and I learn some through the year. But any errors in spelling or pronunciation descriptions are on me.

The UK is practically a vassal state of the US. Why wouldn't they?

Bernard, I'd like to hear more about the Granger movement. This is the first time I'm hearing about it. It sounds interesting.

Omg. He was actually raised as an apartheid fascist by apartheid fascist parents.

I like the Guardian. Yahoo News works too.

Beautiful! !

The EU response of from their normal playbook. Hit at anger points. Motorcycles -- Wisconsin. Peanut butter -- Georgia. Bourbon -- Kentucky. Orange juice -- Florida. Yes, some "blue states" will take a hit. Jeans are made in California, in a blue area. But agricultural products, even if from blue states, come from ruby red rural areas within them.

Canada on Wednesday announced new trade duties on some $21 billion worth of U.S. goods in response to President Donald Trump implementing universal steel and aluminum tariffs. America's northern neighbor is the largest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the U.S., and experts have warned Trump's duties would be passed on to consumers. In a news conference Wednesday announcing the retaliatory duties, a Canadian government spokesman called Trump's tariffs "completely unjustified, unfair and unreasonable." "The U.S. administration is once again inserting disruption and disorder into an incredibly successful trading partnership and raising the costs of everyday goods for Canadians and American households alike," said François-Philippe Champagne, Canada's minister of innovation, science and industry. Canada's announcement comes despite a detente having been reached Tuesday with the Trump administration to resolve threats of a 25% surcharge on American consumers of Canadian electricity. Trump had threatened Canada with steel and aluminum tariffs climbing to 50% if the province of Ontario followed through on the surcharge. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/canada-retaliatory-tariffs-21-billion-us-goods-trump-tariffs-latest-rcna196012

@ShiroKuro I was actually referring to the steep decline in the stock market as "The Trump Slump"....

I've been reading it from my daughter's subscription. Notices appear that her sub expires in 3 days. Looks like she's not renewing.

Most interesting.

I did a lot of work on DVD plants/machinery over the years - pretty much up to when most companies moved production overseas. I remember the techs predicting that those discs wouldn’t last as the process they used was crap

She's a poor choice for a poster child - for anything.