Originally posted by @thetnholler.bsky.social , now with alt text:

How it started vs. How it’s going NOW 👀

LA tow truck driver who towed ICE’s car found NOT GUILTY 🦸🏽‍♂️

Household tradition is to light a flame at sunset before the moment of #solstice, and keep it burning until after sunrise after solstice.

This year that means lighting the flame on the evening of 20 December and keeping it through solstice at 10am (ish) on 21 December until sunrise on December 22.

Some things were easier when stoves had pilot lights.

Kids today don't understand what it was like to decorate a tree before LEDs. Individual light bulbs were big and heavy. A strand could only have 25 lights or so -- more than that would be too heavy and too dim. Instead of connecting end-to-end, you'd connect them base-to-base, planning out how each one would reach the extension cord and still get to the high branches. Light bulbs would burn out, and the whole strand would go dark. And the strands would get tangled....

This is the origin of the phrase "incandescent rage."

Anyway, light the lamps before the longest night. Stay warm and stay well. Peace of earth, good will to all.

#Solstice

From Alan Lamoreau, seen on Bsky:

Oh! A neat goose hybrid posted to "What's this Bird?’ but when you zoom in on the photos the bill details have been too manipulated by Al photo editing to be accurately assessed for which species may be involved.

Scroll on... A cool-looking Red-tailed Hawk that someone is wondering which subspecies it might be - right up my alley! But when you zoom in on the photos literally every feather group has been so heavily manipulated and altered by #Al editing that it's impossible to determine subspecies because the photo is essentially fake now; just a mashup of whatever Al thinks parts of a Red-tail
should look like.

Scroll on... WOW! That's a remarkable trail cam photo of a Bobcat! It almost looks like a painting... but the head looks oddly small... hmmmm. After some prodding the original photo is produced and sure enough it had been so heavily altered by Al ‘post processing’ that the photo posted was essentially a digital mock-up with totally different proportions and fur markings. No longer the photo off the trail cam; it may as well have just been ‘created’ by Al from scratch.

This stuff is killing me. My days on social media are becoming very limited. We can't even trust simple, everyday photos of animals to be real. The wildlife community needs to quit editing with Al, and we need to start calling out photographers that are using it. Our reality is being destroyed all
around us.

21 years after Zeetha meets Agatha!
17 years after she introduces herself to Gil as "Zeetha, daughter of Chump"!

Today, we get this lovely piece of GG dialog!

And Gil is in the room!

And Bang is in the room -- and she just told the Baron that the green-haired girl is the one who wiped out her crew!

Squee!

#GirlGenius
#ThankYouProfsFoglioWeveBeenWaiting

#OneOfMyGoodThingsAndTheDayHasBarelyStarted

#3GoodThings #ThreeGoodThings for Sunday

Got most of my holiday lights up outside;

Battery-powered heated vests;

Signed up for #mandolin camp this summer.

The reporters at Washington Post got the lede right today.

(h/t to @joshuaeaton.bsky.social)

Paywalled article at https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/20/coast-guard-swastika-noose/

#Samhain -- the festival of the last harvest.

And here is the last tomato.

The little park on the #Philly end of the #Manayunk bridge attracts donations from friends and neighbors: wooden picnic tables, plastic chairs, sturdy kids' toys. Things that can withstand getting left outside.

But a #BabyGrand #piano got left there about 2 weeks ago. And even with a tarp to cover it, it's going to get ravaged by weather soon. Local report is that it got dropped off by someone who had to move on short notice and couldn't find a home for it. In the days of electronic keyboards, real pianos are a glut on the market.

But it breaks my heart to see it outside as the winter comes.

Spread the word: if you want a baby grand and have a way to haul it, it's waiting for a home. (Or a church, or a school....)