Stefan Pastis does it again! Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
I sense a business opportunity here. I still have farmer friends in South Africa who aren't far from major inland rivers, complete with Nile crocodiles. How many crocodiles per yard of moat, do you think? Given enough wetbacks moatbacks, they wouldn't require much feeding, either!
There's a video on X.com showing a Russian army officer opening some of the candies and chocolate that have been found in the battle zones in Ukraine. If you're logged into X, here's the link. If you aren't a member of X, here's an alternative link that will let you play the video. The candy is loaded with explosives and a detonator, proving that too many sweets really are bad for you!
There are plenty of comments following the video that are worth reading. My favorite is from user Bitcoin Wizard - mavensbot:
"I'm starting to think that these processed foods are not healthy."
You can say that again!
Peter
I'm going to embed a video clip below. It shows Gina Plata-Nino, the Director of SNAP Policy and Advocacy at the Food Research and Action Center, being questioned by Rep. Brandon Gill. The topic of discussion is efforts to remove unhealthy food choices - in this particular case, sodas - from the list of items eligible to be bought using funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Ms. Plata-Nino is clearly left-wing and populist in her approach, defending peoples' right to use SNAP benefits in any way they please. Notice how she avoids, evades and dodges any attempt to get her to admit that sugary sodas are in no way nutritional, and aren't really "food" as the SNAP program was originally intended to fund. She literally can't be persuaded to acknowledge facts. Instead, all she can do is repeat her pre-programmed talking points.
It's a bit like medical administrators and professionals who absolutely cannot admit that only biological women can become pregnant and give birth. They daren't acknowledge that fact, because in doing so they would be forced to acknowledge that "trans" women are not, in fact, women at all - merely cosmetically adapted males.
Here's the video. It's only about five minutes long, but I think it's worth watching.
That's what we're facing in every election in this country. Districts dominated by people who use government benefits will listen to advocates and politicians like Ms. Plata-Nino, and vote in lockstep with those who promise them more benefits without cost to themselves. Districts dominated by people whose taxes have to fund those benefits will be (legitimately) angry at how they're wasted, exploited and abused by the recipients.
Sadly, more and more districts are dominated by those who want something for nothing, and vote accordingly. Many of those votes are, of course, illegitimate, as the widespread investigations into voter fraud and electoral register mismanagement are demonstrating. Will that be enough to put things right? Your guess is as good as mine . . .
Peter
I was amused to see this list over at Raconteur Press's Substack. Click the image for a larger view.
I've used literally all of them - they're more common in English-English than in American-English. To one, however, there hangs a tail (you should pardon the expression).
Shortly after I came to this country, thirty years ago, I noticed a number of references to berries that I hadn't encountered in South Africa. There were blueberries, and white mulberries, and more. However, although I occasionally heard the term "dingleberry", I never saw one. Intrigued, I asked a family one day (with whom I was staying for a few days) where I could find "dingleberries".
You can imagine my puzzlement when the father cracked up laughing, the mother had to leave the table with her hands clasped to her face and her shoulders shaking from suppressed merriment, and the two daughters blushed red as roses. When Dad stopped laughing, he explained the true meaning of the word ( for the benefit of non-American readers, it's the third meaning of the noun in the list provided).
My innocence shattered, I declined the opportunity to sample a dingleberry pie . . .
Peter
Gathered around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
And now for something completely different, as they say in the classics! Ernest Tomlinson, who died in 2015 at the age of 91, was an English composer of light music. One of his better-known works was this "Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne", composed in 1976. The fun part about it is that it includes many very short excerpts from other classical pieces - more than 120 of them. (A list of included works may be found here.) For a piece that's less than 20 minutes long, that's going some!
A commenter on the video's YouTube page says, "Only an insane genius could have produced this." I'm not sure about the "insane" part, but it's certainly a remarkable piece of arrangement, if not entirely original composition.
Peter
