– The lego bird definitely looks like a Kakapo.
– That red-capped manakin is crazeee and really does the moonwalk. I thought it was a manipulated video at first, but no!

– Steven Miller is one scary guy, the kind of person one might imagine pulls the wings off butterflies for idle fun.

– That arithmetical construction, whatever-it’s-called, is very nice; I find it quite mwnrLLY satisfying to contemplate, but I don’t know why.

– I’d heard about the flaws in Zimbardo’s experiment quite a while ago, too; it bears investigating. The study is still frequently cited without caveat.

– It was touching watching that kangaroo nuzzle the man, crazy for hugs. I assume it was a kangaroo, and not a wallaby or wallaroo.

I do remember it, though not that well as there are a few in the Ring of Fire that we’re part of. But that one does stick out as being a particularly big one. I remember the climate was affected quite badly for a least a year because of all the dust in the atmosphere, making it much cooler. Plants etc didn’t grow as well, which affected food availability, especially closer to the region.

There is a cool book by Craig Childs titled Apocalyptic Planet. Each chapter is about a certain way the planet has in the past and will in the future become “apocalyptic”. Boiling seas, expanding deserts, mass extinctions, ice-ages/melts etc. One of the chapters deals with volcanoes and orbital strikes. Some of the descriptions of ancient and especially prehistoric volcanic eruptions were truly apocalyptic.

2000 since 2016…not one is complimentary. ‘Nuff said.

Speaking of volcano eruptions I was going to mention the other day, 15 June 1991, the anniversary of Mount Pinatubu. Not sure if you recall this one but probably do since it was in your part of the world. I see it was the 2nd largest of the 20th century and I remember it well. It caused great changes to the area for miles around. One being the U.S. military simply left the Philippines, closing down Clark AFB and Subic Bay Navel Base. It seemed strange to me that we just abandoned these places but that is what happened. I had been to the Philippines 3 or 4 times in the 80s and thought this a great lose.

In NZ most, maybe all, of the deaths in relation to volcanic activity on mountains relate to lahars which I think of as a secondary effect.

Not sure why the videos won’t play. I had that problem on Jerry’s site recently. Restarting my computer fixed the problem.

Very disappointed about the Darwin and Beagle project, would have been great. I would certainly have bought it for my children (and myself, of course) . Let us hope the ‘Kakapo project’ will materialise.

If that photo doesn’t move you, nothing will.

Thanks Mark!

It’s disgusting about Rogers. He’s a great cartoonist and has produced some of the best about Trump. I’ve used a lot of his. And there are a lot of cartoonists out there producing the same stuff on a regular basis – you just have to go through my Twitter account to see that. Or get a look at my computer. There are even more there. I have c. 2000 in my collection about Trump starting in 2016. Not one is complimentary.