Open Thread - 1-23-2026 - Collection of Oddities
Good Morning - At the moment life seems a bit absurd. Dealing with daily trivialities while watching our country unwind and the world separating into teams for conflict.
US researchers discovering commonly held knowledge without recent published scientific confirmation.
Horses can smell human fear when we sweat Phys.org Jan 17, 2026
This discovery could have major implications for animal welfare, as it suggests that a handler's emotional state can be communicated to a horse through scent, even when the handler tries to hide their feelings. This could affect how we approach horse training and their overall welfare.
"Practical implications include acknowledging the importance of handlers' emotional state and its potential transmission through chemosignals during human-horse interactions," added the researchers.
The list of what to fear keeps growing. We can not escape the surveillance state.
You think you’re being watched by satellites and smartphones—but the real surveillance network is perched on power lines above your head.
Scientists recently trained artificial intelligence on thousands of hours of crow vocalizations, expecting meaningless animal noise. Instead, the AI detected structured language, syntax, planning behavior, and something far more disturbing: humans are the primary subject of crow communication.This documentary explores how crows recognize individual human faces, assign identifiers, share reputations across generations, and coordinate warnings through a global avian network. From facial recognition experiments and tool-making intelligence to crow funerals, justice systems, and possible encrypted communication, the evidence suggests crows are not reacting to us—they are studying us.
Scientists Used AI to Decode Crow Sounds — What They Found About Humans Is Terrifying (20:54 min) Dec 15, 2025
Congress's attempt to reign in some of the powers transferred over the decades to the Executive branch failed with past couple of weeks. The votes taking place in the Senate and the House failing to restrict further military action in Venezuela without working with Congress.
At least the subject came to a vote. The National Security Powers Act of 2021 introduced in July 2021 during the Biden administration never came up for a vote.
If current abuses of military action by a President do not prompt Congress to take take back constitutional powers I doubt they will in my lifetime. The issue is not limited to a single party or individual serving as President.
Another breakthrough for independence of China from Western economies.
China manages to “crack” the mystery that could allow it to dominate a $6.54 billion market by 2032: high-performance carbon fiber Prototyping China January 20, 2026
China has just switched on its first large-scale domestic production line for T1000-grade carbon fiber. That sentence sounds technical. What it really means is simpler: a material that only a handful of countries could reliably make, China can now produce — in volume.
...
The fibers coming out of Datong measure 5 to 6 micrometers in diameter. Less than one-tenth the width of a hair. Yet they can handle over 6,600 megapascals of tensile stress. Put another way: a strand weighing half a gram can lift more than 440 pounds.
...
Carbon fiber sits at the foundation of entire industries: aerospace, rail, electric mobility, hydrogen systems, drones. When supply is fragile or controlled abroad, engineers design around limits.
Comments
That is quite the basket of goods
.
Horse snouts, human sweat, crow spies and carbon fibers. Wow.
If I could draw a cartoon to encompass those concepts it would
be something to behold.
Turns out DHS has circumvented the 4th amendment to the US constitution
by writing 'secret' memos to ICE managers instructing their troops it is OK
to bust down peoples doors without a warrant. Scary times indeed. Gestapo
tactics coming to a town near you soon. Protect yourselves.
Hope all is well on the ranch.
Thanks for the OT.
Zionism is a social disease
Food for thought
concerning the 4th amendment.
MAGA
Morons
Are
Governing
America
Heh. Actually, it doesn't say anything like that.
Even though it is clearly a joke "@jayblackisfunny", this country is overloaded with thin skinned humorless types who could cause a load of grief for the site over jokes like that. Just something to keep in mind.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Thanks
for the response.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Part of my normal day
a little of everything from deliberate Luddite practices to publicly available cutting edge technology. The ranch is my own quirky world. If everything proceeds as planned the cold spell with be no problem. So far only at knitted wool cap level and tennis shoes. Still 3 more levels to traverse before need a new plan.
The Gestapo came to Oregon during the Bush years. It has been spreading to the rest of the country to all social levels.
On Judge Nap yesterday
COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : The Rules-Based Order Was a Lie
24:45 to 26:42
US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Colin Powell's chief of staff when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—at the same time Addington was Cheney's personal counsel as Secretary of Defense—and then later when Powell was Secretary of State, stated in an in-depth interview regarding extraordinary measures taken post 9/11: "The man who, to me, brings all of this together more than Cheney himself, because he has one foot in the legal camp—and I must admit it's a fairly brilliant foot—and he has one foot in the operator camp, that's David Addington."[34]
Wikipedia Jan 24, 2026
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Good morning...
Horses recognize fear. I think dogs do as well.
As Pepe has said for a few years, the US is at war with BRICS+
Got a helper coming soon so better go. Thanks for the OT!
Hope all is well on the farm. We're prepping for a possible ice storm. Fortunately looks like we may dodge the bullet. We'll see.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
He was the first commentator
with similar beliefs of myself on the US/China relationship only with better sources and analytical process. Learned a lot over the years.
Hope the prep goes well.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
A little tune
.
Listening to a Puerto Rican radio station as a back-up to empty brain syndrome.
At least they speak a language I can understand. (Español). Their spoken expressions
are like music. The blending of words become a harmony of thought transference.
https://www.emisoras-puertorico.com/radio-activa-fm
Zionism is a social disease
Good morning, soe!
Well, I thought it was common knowledge that various wildlife and domesticated animals could smell whatever scent emanates from humans who are afraid. So, what we thought forever might be true?
Now, those wily crows are even worse than Hitchcock made them out to be?
I only worked an hour at the office. Today is a day of appointments and errands, among them being a bit of weather prep shopping. The ice comes Saturday night and Sunday, but no telling how long we will have no electricity. Sometimes just hours, then other times it lasts months. Lots of dread in the neighborhood.
Remember when the wealthy and influential family from Spain's helicoptor lost a rotor in NYC last year? They all died.
Some say Spain is having bad luck, others say it is caused by Mossad. Hmmm...
https://www.rt.com/news/631349-spain-another-train-crash/
I hope you will not be affected by the cold spell, friend.
Thanks for the OT!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Yeah, absolutely into storm prep mode here
Between the cold snap and major snow dump
this weekend, today is 'gettin ready'. Start the
generators as a back-ups. Get some cash to pay the
shovelers, oil company is filling the tanks just now.
The rest is food. Freezers are in good shape.
Wood is stocked so we are ready, as a back-up.
The rest is just sit back and watch it happen.
Good luck.
Zionism is a social disease
afternoon
Anyone who has spent time training and showing horses, dogs or other domestic animals has learned the importance to control their emotions. Otherwise it is reflected in the animals behavior.
Spain is having a string of bad luck. It does make one wonder if he moral opinions of the current government has been supporting is a trigger to others.
Hope the day of prep went well.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Good morning soe. Interesting column and information today.
Extra interesting is that video, not the information conveyed but the tone, the oh my gosh, we have found something very scary tone of voice and phraseology. Also, the extent to which they are quietly pumping the utility of AI. It will take a ton of actual human study and research to verify the details of the discovered syntax, but nothing else is new. I sarcastically await the next such video about Ravens, Jays, Magpies or Clark's Nutcrackers.
The birds I listed are all corvids. They are all well known to be smarter than shit. Real old school studies long ago showed that they can recognize and remember individual people and sort them into categories such as "trustworthy" versus "not trusty" and other criteria of good and bad and that they can communicate this information. Cross generational communication (teach your children well) has been documented as to various types of behavior including tool use. They identify, track, warn of, and muster forces from far and wide to attack avian predators. They have been known to lure terrestrial predators to their prey, such as wolves to deer, so as to be able to share in or scavenge on the prey carcass.
And yes, they study us. We are manipulators of the environment, sometimes to their benefit and sometimes to their detriment, and they know the difference. Certain tortoises are becoming further endangered because some of our habits have altered tortoise gehavior in a manner which has allowed the crows and ravens to prey on juvenile tortoises in ways that they never could before.There are are non-ai, human studies as to all of this except the syntactical details of their communication.
Personal - I have a small family of California Scrub Jays for whom I provide in-shell peanuts where only birds can get to them. None of my other yard birds can make use of these nuts and hence they are exclusively for the Jays. Of late, the local crows have caught on, when I enter the back yard, any in the vicinity who spot me put the word out and they gather and steal the food, driving off the Jays if need be. Hence, I have to hang around and if they show up, retrieve the food and stash it until later in the day when I find an opportunity when I know at least one Jay is around and no crows are, at which point I can put the food back out. When our little court attracts raptors due to the high number of songbirds that hang out, significant flocks of crows quickly assemble from all points of the compass, drive them off, and follow them. (I live only a few miles from the aptly named "crow canyon".
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
crows eat tutles
turtles don't eat crows
Zionism is a social disease
Yes, and, it's actually mostly Ravens. They can only prey
on the Juveniles. Specifically, they prey on juvenile desert tortoises. It was never too big of a problem, from a tortoise perspective, because their environment is so hostile that very few corvids can live there, especially on a birds per square mile basis. Since there were few of them around, the predation rate was low enough that it wasn't too big of a problem.
Enter increasing numbers of humans. The corvids start supplementing their wild diets with leavings from trash bins, dumpsters, garbage dumps and occasional parking lots. As a result, the Ravens per square mile numbers skyrocket resulting in a much higher rate of predation on the juvie tortoises, to the extent that in some areas almost no juvie tortoises survive to carry on the species.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
that is a damn shame
.
I root for the turtles. They live a much longer life.
Cravens are fly by night stealth fighters. Not a fan.
Zionism is a social disease