5 Thoughts for August 10, 2017

1. Emotional Distress: I've heard dogs, cats, birds, and now monk seals in distress, and it's fascinating how you can automatically understand it. Once, my dog broke his leg and his cries were powerful and painful to hear. At the pet ER, I've heard cats meowing in distress. I've previously written about seeing a mama duck freaking out over her ducklings stuck in metal grates. Now, I've seen the video of the Hawaiian monk seal mama and her pup crying out to each other in distress, online. It's very emotional, pushing you to want to react and help.
2. The Curiosity of Animals: Like us, other animals are curious creatures. A few weeks ago, as a Norway rat was casually walking past me, it stopped and stared at me for a few seconds before moving on. This morning, a hummingbird and I stopped and stared at each other for a couple of seconds, just two feet from each other. Tonight, a different Norway rat ran away towards a grated gutter, paused for a second to look at me, then ducked between the grates into the sewer. The dog doesn't particularly enjoy walking the same street over and over. When he realizes we're going on a different route he perks up.
3. Picky Eater, Dog: I've gone and done it, my dog is now a picky eater. Long before I started preparing complex chow for him, he'd happily eat his regular dry dog food from TJs. He wasn't all that happy about the Costco brand, but he'd eat that, too. Lately, he's become extremely selective with the cooked chow. He's decided that he doesn't like bitter or tart flavors and has nixed anything that looks like it's been boiled together into a homogenous goop. If it doesn't smell good, he's not eating it. On the bright side, I've reduced it down to a much simpler process and fewer ingredients. There's no more boiling. I simply stir fry ground beef and diced chicken breasts if I have it, with a couple of different green veggies and sometimes chopped carrots. If I have it, I'll also add in some cooked white rice. I used to use brown rice, but I've come to realize that, unless it's ground into a flour, brown rice works against his digestive system and leaves him with very soft poop. White rice is perfectly fine.
4. Political Cycle: There is the election cycle and then there's the political cycle. The election cycle is every two years, but the political cycle consists of roughly 15 months of major legislations and 9 months of recesses and campaigns for a midterm election cycle and 12 months of legislations and 12 months of recesses and campaigns for a presidential election cycle. When they come back on September 5, the current political cycle will have just 9 months left. In the current two-year session, just 44 bills have been signed into law. The current Congress is set to surpass all modern records for lowest productivity. Normally that would be a bad thing; with a GOP remaining stuck in dogmatic fights, this may not be such a bad thing.
5. The Ridiculous but Scary Scenario: Imagine NK did something really dumb and tried to fire missiles towards the US, in this case, Guam. Donald panics and thinks this is the big one. He orders US subs to fire back. Five minutes before any NK missile lands, half of NK has been wiped out by nuclear missiles. Ten minutes go by and nothing is hit in Guam. It turns out that those two missiles launched by NK were meant as a show of force and landed 200 miles short, in international waters. An hour later, prevailing seasonal winds push a radioactive cloud towards mainland China, eventually reaching Beijing. Millions of people are affected. Multiple nations lodge criminal complaints in the International Criminal Court and file criminal charges within their own country against Donald and multiple members of his administration. American conservatives, initially shocked and angered at Donald's actions, see the move by other nations as an attack on US sovereignty, promise to impeach Donald. It is insufficient. We have a tense standoff that leads to a nuclear world war. It could happen. I'm going to flesh this out in the near-future.