W
@Bernard wins the fauna of the day award! My squirrels are nothing compared to your bear.
I keep the bird seed in some old metal tins in the garage. The biggest critters we might have would be raccoons, but they've never tried to get to the seed stored in there.
Bloomberg seems to have gotten a copy of a draft of the MOU.
The linden trees are blooming here. My best friend's birthday is June 22 and the lindens are always in bloom for her birthday. The lovely scent (especially strong in the evening) always remind me of her. We had a birthday dinner for her with her family when she turned 40 at a restaurant that was near a grove of lindens. The scent takes me back to a wonderful celebration.
Near my house:
Makes me crave a cup of linden blossom tea!
So, fellow birders....I gave up on bird feeders years ago..got tired of the mess and all the squirrels they attracted. It was a pain with the dogs around.
No dogs here anymore. I picked up a nice feeder with a solar powered camera for cheap at Costco. Online it's $110, but for some reason they were on closeout at the warehouse back in January for $25. I can't resist a bargain.
I got some seed and put up the feeder where the squirrels can't get in it. Of course the birds drop seed all over the ground, and the squirrels are ground feeding amongst my hostas. Four or five at a time, and when they scuffled with each other to protect their access to the seed, they did a number on the two really nice hostas that are at the base of the post with the feeder. Had to dig half of each plant out in order to save them. Anyway...
I find that I'm basically feeding the house sparrows right now, with them consuming probably 99% of the seed. Cardinals, blue jays, brown-headed cowbirds, and a downy woodpecker are seen every so often but clearly the sparrows outnumber them bigly.
The new feeder is empty right now and I'm thinking about not filling it until fall or winter. Do you guys feed birds during the summer? Or do you let them forage their own food during the summer and focus more on late fall/winter feeding? I bought a small finch feeder, too, and filled it with nyjer seed and we've been enjoying the goldfinches who show up pretty regularly.
Yea, the Albanians aren't happy about this. At all.
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/16/g-s1-128162/albania-resort-protests-kushner-trump
DUBAI, June 16 (Reuters) - A $300 billion private fund designed to trigger investment into Iran is outlined in the U.S.-Iran framework agreement and more than half that sum has already been committed, a source with direct knowledge of the deal told Reuters.
The fund is designed to give both sides an economic incentive to conclude a final deal, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not yet been announced as Washington and Tehran prepare to sign on Friday.
And Tom Nichols in the Atlantic:
Trump Celebrates While America Capitulates
The peace deal with Tehran is an Iranian victory.
A comprehensive analysis of what's been/not been accomplished:
https://mrandrewfox.substack.com/p/anatomy-of-a-debacle?r=z0uop&triedRedirect=true
Been collecting a bunch of links about the deal with Iran. Thought I'd post them all in one thread.
Seems like lots of folks, including some in the GOP, are pretty skeptical.
Also from inside the administration. From Axios:
Move over pumpkin spice. There's a new flavor trend elbowing its way onto menus, grocery aisles, cocktail bars, snack shelves and social media feeds — pickle everything.
From dill pickle popcorn and pickle margaritas to pickle-flavored chips, ranch dressing, nuts, vodka, smoothies and even frozen treats, the briny, tangy flavor profile is now becoming a full-fledged food identity.
Once relegated to burger baskets and deli counters, pickles have evolved into a full-blown cultural obsession. National brands are rolling out pickle-inspired products at a dizzying pace, restaurants are building menu items around bold dill flavor, and social media is fueling the craze with viral reviews, taste tests and over-the-top mashups.
Pickles even have their own festivals now, with events held all over the country, including this weekend's Canton Pickle Fest.
https://www.aol.com/news/big-dill-pickle-everything-pumpkin-100722991.html
I'll just have pickles, straight up. None of the funky pickle-flavored stuff for me.
The Canton Pickle Fest was Memorial Day weekend, so you Ohioans will have to wait till next year.
Are you interested in learning from human experts about how AI could impact the future of work and the customer experience? If so, it turns out that you could have unknowingly been getting some of your responses from AI.
KPMG, one of the largest consulting firms in the world, is accused of publishing a report on the future of AI with 40 of 45 citations that appeared to be at least partially AI hallucinations. In one instance, uncovered by the AI safety firm GPTZero, the report claims that the Japanese East Japan Railway Company (JR East) is using agentic AI for customer service, linking to a 2019 press release, years before agentic AI became mainstream.
In another instance, the report falsely claimed that Austrian electricity provider Verbund is using AI agents in households to conduct real-time analytics as part of its “energy-as-a-service ecosystem.” Although Verbund invested in a start-up using agents for grid optimization, there was no evidence to support the claim of real-time analytics in households.
Many citations linked to existing studies, but the titles, authors, or dates were incorrect. Researchers were unable to match many citations to existing studies due to insufficient information.
The report, which has now been taken down, has been referenced by multiple customer service publications and a major newspaper in the Czech Republic. In addition, researchers noted that the paper is now being referenced as a resource on customer experience by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini. GPTZero alleges that an LLM research tool was asked to find appropriate case studies of companies using agentic AI worldwide.
The problem is already being felt by the average worker. More than 40% of US desk workers reported receiving "workslop"—low-quality AI-generated content—in the past month, according to a September survey from the Stanford Social Media Lab and BetterUp Labs.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/kpmg-allegedly-published-ai-report-filled-with-hallucinations
Am getting back into making my own bread. Tried this Breadtopia recipe for the first time this morning. Thumbs up!
https://breadtopia.com/light-wheat-oatmeal-bread/?utm_content
The dough is quite soft and moist and has some whole wheat in it, so a bit messy to work with. I used some sourdough starter that the sourdough zealot would have deemed discard (I had sort of neglected to feed my starter for the last several weeks), but it worked perfectly well.
Nice chew to the crust. Definitely a keeper.
A community initiative.
My home in Washington, D.C., seems perfectly designed to be a mosquito breeding ground.
Between the high humidity and my water-trapping, shady garden, in warmer months we spend about five buggy minutes outside before we inevitably give up and pack it in, covered in bites.
I didn’t want to spray insecticide because it can also harm mosquitoes’ natural predators like dragonflies, spiders and birds, but none of the natural repellents I tried worked. I began to think mosquitoes were simply an unpleasant but inevitable part of life, like waiting in line at the DMV or paying taxes.
Then a few months ago, I found out about a group in my neighborhood called the Itty Bitty Mosquito Population Committee, which is trying to use the same techniques to fight the swarming hordes that scientists have used to all but eradicate mosquitoes on an island in the Philippines.
I had to find out who was behind this effort, what they were doing and how I could take steps to prevent my family from being eaten alive.
The Itty Bitty Mosquito Population Committee:
An 88-Year-Old Woman Was Brought To My ER. When Her Family Told Me Why, I Was Stunned.
"I cleared my throat. 'So, I was wondering, why did you bring Maria to the hospital today?' Instantly all three sets of eyes filled with tears."
Robert MacNeil interviews Rubenstein.
Link to video