SeniorJunior

I Always Hoped to Find a Religious Figure in the Logs Bet I've cut about a thousand juniper logs in our 20 years in the New Mexico mountains.  I ALWAYS look at the cross sections, since the central red wood makes a collection of shapes worthy of Dr. Rorschach. Surely I would find a holy relic, maybe a saint or the Virgin Mary. After chainsawing a log, what to my wondering eyes should appear but this wonder. A compound trunk sliced right at the point where a branch emerged and LO...        Saint Dowitcher, the Longbill! Who can doubt my sainthood?... check that halo! Look up Dowitcher in your Audubon, ye doubters. Not only does St. Dowitcher the Longbilled have a halo, it has a penumbra .   Talk about your holy glow. There are several varieties of Juniper hereabouts. I think this one is a "single seed," but I'm not positive.

This Stuff Doesn't Work on This Olde Democrat Email campaigning that starts with "fear shots" just doesn't do it for me. I think it is alarmist and mostly ridiculous to start donation appeals with stuff like this. Gimme six Duff Beers, fast! These are the subject lines of five recent emails I've received from various Democrats in the last few days: Five from Downerville California HEARTBREAK.   WILL, WE’RE OUT OF TIME: D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R for Democrats’ chances to take back the House!! If the election were held tomorrow, we'd lose. James Carville  : K iss all hope goodbye.                 Will, we've just received some dire news. Ick! HINT: I've got plenty of "dire news" in my in-box. I don't need more from my political party! Who told the Dems this was a good communications tactic? It makes me want NOT to read the message. Just saying.... Homer credit

DARPA To the Rescue! Better hurry before the Chinese figure it out first . IBM's Watson , Google's AlphaGo Zero , Hanson's Sophia ,  Robots Without Borders'  Luna ,  even your humble house spy Alexa are all A.I.s to one degree or another, and the computation and tech worlds are flooded with all the new machine learning and A.I. endeavors.  Problem is, most of these astounding programs don't leave a clear record of just how they did what they do. Now DARPA is working on how to find out. I'm reassured. I SEE you.  I think. AI pioneers are ready to move beyond today's 'basic' machine learning and closer to AI that actually  thinks  instead of merely churning out data.  The    report . *eye credit

Republican/Industry Attack on Endangered Species Act Sneaking it in a "must pass" bill Hey, you @#$%! Trumpublicans. BACK OFF. I'm sure you've read/heard about this anti-nature attack, but in case you haven't, and in case you don't think this is insane, read THIS .  The "Great Die Back," of species* going on right now is about to be given a huge boost by the Trump administration. For years industry, ranchers and Libertarians have been trying to weaken the Endangered Species Act, and now they are really rolling. Then write or call your Congressman, your Senators and all your friends who might not be OK with this. (Call your mom while you're at it.) Please. *Mass extinction underway

Hummingbirds, a July Evening in the Manzanita Mountains New Mexico I started out to shoot video of our feeders when the famously aggressive and territorial rufus hummers, typically guarding "their" feeder ferociously, were mixing with the more peaceful hummers. I only caught a couple, but believe me, something about the Olde Scooter (and Dorothy) feeders tames the wild beasts, and they integrate into our continuous swarms very peacefully and respectfully. There is nothing so lovable as a reformed bully. Some of the stars of the video:    I'm Calliope                                     I'm Broadtail                                          I'm the golden boy, Rufus Here is two minutes and fourteen seconds of video , narrated by the man who fills the feeders three or four times a day. (Ok, Dorothy does at least half.) Calliope credit Broadbill credit Rufus credit

"Superbugs" Are Lurking to Eat Our Tender Flesh..  All Antibiotics Are Becoming Impotent...       We Desperately Need     New Antibiotics....                 I'm coming to getcha. So what Big Pharma company has the next super antibiotic in the pipeline  to save us from the coming germopocalypse? Basically NONE The "Plutocrat's Paper" Forbes Magazine put it this way: Big Pharma has basically given up on antibiotics . It’s not that the risks are too high, it is that the rewards are too low . New antibiotics   are   being introduced. But their sales are a tiny fraction of sales in other drug classes. A Headline Last Week Novartis joins the Big Pharma exodus out of antibiotics, dumping research Big Pharma started bailing on antibiotics research years ago, discouraged by the notable absence of profits . That left R&D to a small group of biotechs looking to come up with new approaches that could be used as drug-resis

When You Just Can't Bear It The Joys of Living in the Mountains Trump's on TV again? I'm outta here. This guy (I'm pretty sure) was having a drink last night from a pond about  a mile away. Looking good. Ripped. He'll gain some weight in the fall for the long winter's snooze.  We've had three bear visits to our house this year, but I haven't gotten any pictures, so I'll use this one. Our Airedales love it when the big boys drop around.  We have a high powered electric fence ("Will Stop an Angry Bull" - Lowes) around the outside of the top of our fence, and the bears have learned about the yellow wire. No intrusions in a couple years. Amidst all the craziness going on these days, these guys just improve my attitude.