Taomeow

Another cat communication tidbit. They do understand human language. They just don't necessarily react the way a human does, or show you that they understand, but sometimes you can catch them red-pawed. Only cats know why they hide a lot of what they know from people, but then, human sages do too. Also, like people, some cats are linguistically gifted and understand a lot, and others don't learn "humanese" as readily and understand as a foreigner might understand, somewhat, a vaguely comprehensible language in which he or she isn't fluent, however. Interesting phenomena are sometimes observed in bilingual families with cats. They occasionally prefer one language to the other, and sometimes they don't care. In my home, e.g., the tendency is to not even notice when you switch from one language to the other, typically within one sentence, often several times within one sentence -- and the cat seems to understand this weird version of "humanese" as well as each language separately. But my friends who are French have a cat who understands English, understands a mix of English and French, but gets very nervous when they are on the phone with someone in France and speak pure French. The cat gets visibly upset and attempts to interrupt the conversation one way or the other, or meows in a protesting way. "I don't understand! Are you talking about me? Are you talking shit about me?"

Definitely. Many animals and birds puff up and/or arch their backs or go rampant to appear bigger and scarier when they feel threatened. I sometimes hike on the trails where mountain lions are occasionally sighted (the trails cross their territory), and at the entry to the trail they have instructions posted -- what to do if you encounter one. Among other things, they suggest spreading out a jacket with arms outstretched wide and standing tall and yelling threats, rather than trying to hide or run away -- they warn you that once you're spotted you can't hide from a mountain lion, she is likely to have been stalking you for a while before showing herself to you, and she will most definitely outrun you if she has a mind to catch you. Your best bet, toward convincing her to retreat and leave you alone, is to appear more aggressive and intimidating. Of course (this is not posted in the instructions) if you have the guts and absolute confidence in what you're doing, you can try showing her your love and fascination... I would probably do something like "here kitty kitty, come kitty," but it's purely theoretical, and possibly stupid. But that's how I think I would go about it.

Yup. There's a Russian proverb that condenses some of this wisdom: a badass against sheep -- against badasses, a sheep.

I suggest you start by learning the cat's body language. It's very expressive and speaks volumes. Every pose is a statement. The tail actually "chatters" -- it talks nonstop. What people express quite clearly with their facial expressions, cats express with their whole body, and the tail is the equivalent of human eyebrows, the most expressive part (except in those injected with botox). You can start communicating by matching and imitating the cat's pose. This is a skill used by human empathetic communicators as well, but with cats it works even better. A good pose to start with is, e.g., that of social ease and relaxed trust -- the cat might lie in the middle of the room on his (her?) side, one front paw curved inward, the other stretched out, both thighs flat on the floor, tail calm, only the very tip twitching slightly. Lie down in the same position facing the cat, and just relax. The thighs part is not easy without practice when you're lying on your side but want them both flat on the floor, but just do the best you can. Try to study this pose in minutest details and imitating it as closely as you can. Cats use it to start getting onto common ground with other cats -- or with humans who get it.

This is such an interesting question. The power of intimidation lies in the intimidating party being perceived (often correctly, sometimes erroneously) as someone who has the potential to hurt you -- physically, emotionally or socially. A cop stripped of his uniform or a judge stripped of his robes are not as intimidating as when they wear them, because the power of intimidation in this case (and most other cases) lies not with the individual but with what he stands for, what he represents -- a force that literally dispenses your life and death, freedom and captivity. A doctor, an employer -- same thing, the power of intimidation lies in the fact that they are potentially capable of dispensing your well-being or stripping you of same. In most cases, a normal person who perceives an intimidating force is correct, and someone who does not is not attuned enough, not perceptive enough. What to do about such force when it is perceived is of course the function of who you are. But to simply fail to perceive it is a function of what you're missing. The timid may be overly intimidated by people and forces that are in reality quite harmless, while the cocky may feel falsely secure around people and things quite capable of doing harm -- physical, emotional or social. The balanced assess the extent of the threat accurately, and choose their attitude accordingly. The balanced/efficiently-self-cultivated also choose their own "presentation" for others to perceive with full consciousness of what they are doing and what for. They may choose to appear intimidating or harmless, counter-intimidating (causing the intimidating party to fail to intimidate) or reassuring (for the benefit of the timid, helping them to find confidence). Ultimately knowing how to play this gamut is a survival skill. Well worth mastering, and not blowing it either, not deviating from the genuine gamut one has lived and therefore knows how to access without stretching it too unrealistically. E.g. there's people who present a warm-fuzzy-loving persona in order to manipulate others while in reality being angry and bitter inside -- I find such manipulations utterly ridiculous and pathetic. By the same token, someone who feels weak and powerless is better off not playing a mighty macho man. Not around me anyway.

I use one of two methods. Either visualizing numbers -- huge, so I can't miss them. Or moving my awareness into each consecutive finger, without moving the fingers.

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 76 A man is born gentle and weak. At his death he is hard and stiff. Green plants are tender and filled with sap. At their death they are withered and dry. Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life. Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle. A tree that is unbending is easily broken. The hard and strong will fall. The soft and weak will overcome.

A firefly hums: Keep calm, Babylon shall fall, its lanterns snuffed out.

OK, so Brian would harass the holy grail seekers. Sounds like fun. A perfect life along these lines for me could be something like this:

What a vision, Thelerner! Terrariums? And "preferably nothing magical?" Well, you can't fool me -- your non-magical terrariums are a very transparent allusion to what you really want to do magically: terraforming! In which case we have the same dream. I used to fluctuate between two visions. Terraforming the earth back to what it was for the last million years BB ("before bullshit.") Restoration is what they call it when they are resurrecting a damaged piece of art... I'd want to do that for our planet. And a more ambitions vision still. I used to want to be the author of the cat. The one who originally created the cat. The Creatress of the Cat. All cats, of course, the pussycat and the sabre-tooth and the Sphinx. So I would be sitting there playing with various designs. I would probably want this animal I'm in charge of creating to be made not exactly in my own image and likeness, that's for total narcissists, but not entirely unlike me either -- they say that all real artists ultimately paint their self-portrait no matter what they paint, landscapes or battle scenes or animals. So I would make it very lazy yet capable of bursts of most efficient and productive activity. I would make it very carnivorous, with no sweet tooth to speak of. I would make it very flexible and adaptable, capable of living as part of a community or alone, as a completely social animal and as a completely self-sufficient one. I would... well, I would have to work on it for a few million years. It's not the easiest protect, the cat. But It would keep me interested.

"Black Mirror," I think it's a must-see. Here's the wiki description: Black Mirror is a British television anthology series created by Charlie Brooker that features speculative fiction with dark and satirical themes that examine modern society, particularly with regard to the unanticipated consequences of new technologies.[1] The show was first broadcast on the British broadcaster Channel 4 in 2011. In September 2015, Netflix commissioned a third series of 12 episodes.[2] The commissioned episodes were later divided into two series of six episodes; the third series was released on Netflix worldwide on 21 October 2016. Regarding the programme's content and structure, Brooker noted, "each episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality. But they're all about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes' time if we're clumsy."[3] The series has received critical acclaim, and has seen an increase in interest internationally (particularly in the US) after being added to Netflix.[4]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers/story?id=41715661 According to his government's records, mostly people previously convicted of a crime. Given that the system of private prisons that flourished under Obama to an extent not seen since I don't know when, medieval times? -- was set up to thrive on convictions, and that the US has 5% of the world's population yet 25% of the world's prison population, it's anyone's guess who those "convicted criminals" were. If they were indeed illegals committing crimes in this country, I would be interested in finding out why people lament the intent of Trump to deport such individuals, and why they didn't stand up to protect them under Obama but now are dying to.

Incidentally, Obama deported more people (around 2.5 million) in the course of his presidency than all presidents of the 20th century combined. Where were all those oh so compassionate protesters who now don safety pins (a piercing black magic technique in many traditions, a zombifying, soul stealing spell)? So far, Trump has deported nobody. The circus moves on but the clowns stay put.

I don't know if it says something about his politics, but here's a story about his backbone. Mind you, my hatred for the KGB whence he comes is relentless and undying, and far from abstract -- me and my family lived that history and not all survived it. But this is about something else methinks. In 1989, when the Berlin wall came tumbling down as they say, what they don't say is that a lot of looting and rioting took place immediately following the event, all the pent-up feelings and behaviors temporarily let loose. At the time Major Putin was the head of the Dresden office of the KGB. (Which explains his fluent German.) When it became known that the rioting crowd was headed toward that office, all the personnel fled, abandoning it to its fate. Files of spies and double agents and what not, perhaps enough material to execute or lynch a whole lot of Germans right on the spot. At the time, everybody spied on everybody there, so... Anyway, everybody fled except for Putin. His colleagues were admonishing him before fleeing, telling him he'd be killed by the mob. He said, I have no choice, I have to try defending the office, it's my duty. So he waited on the steps, armed with a pistol, aiming it at the mob. They shouted at him telling him to step aside. He politely responded that he hates to be stubborn and uncooperative but it is his service duty to defend the building, and that he will defend it for as long as he has bullets. The mob yelled and cursed and backed down and moved on to loot something else. The story appears to be well documented as there were many witnesses. I think politicians who like to use scare tactics against Putin need to familiarize themselves with this story before playing chicken with him.

Apparently this has already occurred to someone in Lithuania. Lithuania, a little Germany-wannabe (where I once used to forage for wild mushrooms and berries while listening to all manner of political nonsense from the locals who could never forget that they were the mighty Rzeczpospolita in the 16th-17th centuries and now blame Putin for its demise), may warm up toward Russia now that her president seems to be making out with a guy whose original family name was Drumpf.

Nice, but the animal emblem of China is not the panda. It's the dragon. And dragons are extremely versatile. They can hibernate longer than bears and strike faster than eagles. They can be so huge they cover the sky, and so tiny they can live in the inseam of your jeans. They can shapeshift, mate with other animals, and appear as humans. Dragons are not endemic to China, they live everywhere. But in the past they supported China because it was the land where they were venerated rather than vilified. However, they say the construction of the Great Wall broke the back of China's main dragon, and of course dragons have a very long memory, they take hundreds of thousands of years to forget and tens of thousands to forgive. So if in modern times the dragon sides with the eagle against the bear, it may be an act of revenge. And if the dragon sides with the bear against the eagle, ditto. They are dangerous animals all of them. The only way to appease the dragon would be to allow it to mate with the tiger, which is what taoists are trying to facilitate. I hope we succeed.

Out of context it is impossible to understand who he is, what he did, and how and why he did it. But I can reasonably predict what he will do because I do know the context. He will make Russia great again. Or he will ruin it trying. Russia is an old, old empire, a thousand years older than the US. it is not easy to ruin on a permanent basis, though there were, historically, hundreds of attempts. In the '90s of the last century they came pretty close though. Putin, for reasons best known to himself, managed to put a stop to the process. He keeps trying to backpedal from the edge of the abyss that has swallowed so many countries in the past 25 years. Not gently, not expertly, not cleanly. Do an experiment yourself: stand on the edge of the abyss, ask a few strong bullies to push you (that's what his predecessor, Yeltsin, did), and try not to fall. You are likely to grab frantically at whatever you can grab onto, flailing your arms, kicking your legs, dirt flying, stones rolling, it won't be pretty. But the last thing on your mind will be to attack anyone in this position. Perhaps you'll accidentally sock one of the bullies in the face, give him a bloody nose or a black eye. But you are fighting for your life, and they are trying to kill you. They will scream that you are the aggressor of course. But you are just someone who is trying to survive a very deadly form of bullying. Try it and you will know first hand what happened in Russia almost as well as most Russians do.

Those of you who know my widely unpopular (strike that: incomprehensible to most) political views may have noticed something that has been bothering me about holding them... If not, here it is: it's no use knowing what needs to be done if your model for how it's done resides in the remotest past. Who cares that we were able to do it right at some time immemorial no one has lived in of the people alive today or of their traceable ancestors. People are only interested in the future when they choose their political stance. In what they want and don't want to happen. I am very clear on what I want and don't want to happen. So why don't I try taking it where it belongs. Back to the future. I believe that there's only two fundamental forces shaping the world today: AI and NS. That is, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Stupidity. All other parties and views are covered by either this or that umbrella, though they do partially overlap too. All environment-destroying, technoloy-shoving-down-your-throat, genetically modifying, microchipping, blanket surveilling-spying-privacy-eliminating, transhumanist man-machine merging, robotic, DARPAesque, etc., developments are implemented and executed by AI. All reactions to, not this but something else, all feelings and words an actions that constitute the knee jerk response to the multiple distractions created by AI to divert people's attention and awareness from its ever-growing rule, its immediate actions and its ultimate agenda (to wit, elimination of all things alive and replacing them with things created in AIs image and likeness) are reactively implemented and executed by NS. Look at the big picture and you will see that there's nothing happening in the world today that does not fall under one of these two categories, or under both simultaneously. Is this how we want our future to unfold?.. The only thing that can save us is a third force, NI -- Natural Intelligence. It is stronger than both AI and NS put together. But it is not organized, not trained in fighting the real battle, and does not have a leader. It does not have a party, a program, the means to defend itself and to advance its cause. It has been rendered artificially feckless and unnaturally timid. It has been marginalized and discarded by the two ruling parties, AI and NS. It's not NI's rightful place. Its rightful place is at the helm of history. I propose the creation of NIP -- the Natural Intelligence Party -- and I propose to put it on the political map fast so its presidential candidate wins in 2020, before it's too late. With the campaign slogan that might read, e.g., Taomeow 2020: Because She Knows The Way Meow?..

Brilliant! Thank you. I think we have a campaign manager!

It's Closing Time.... Twenty years ago, I was positively obsessed with this song.

Please don't cater to my dark side, Karl. The dark side is strong.

Non-negotiable Inviolable Peace for TheWhiteRabbit (and for the black, brown, yellow, red, grey, spotted ones too). Whirled peas for Brian -- if he can present a naturally occurring whirled variety, I'm not genetically modifying peas to whirl his way. In fact I will ban genetic modifications. Retroactively too, so anyone who is a cross between a human and a glowing jellyfish, a whirled pea, or a politician should start worrying. Free catnip for all, of course, Zerostao, and now that pot is legal, but no sooner than they genetically modified it into a soft lobotomy kind of a deal instead of the gentle entheogen it used to be, I won't let it happen to catnip, and I will ban the modified pot too, while of course allowing and encouraging the restoration of the original species. And, yes, let's party! Nip in the bud what's in the way of the true bud. Notice of Intended Prosecution for Karl unless he can offer a better name.

A craving for cold drinks is a symptom of anemia, typically of the iron deficiency kind, or of low hemoglobin. Of course there's a TCM explanation too, but I am too tired to unravel it. In any event, I would recommend a blood test. Good luck.

Gladly. Now we would have to change one law to pull it off. i wasn't born in the US, I'm a naturalized citizen. I think the historic role of Trump could be to prove, now that he can, that so is Obama, and repeal the law that disallows it, since it would be impossible to retroactively repeal a president of 8 years without the aid of the time-traveling presidential candidate Andy Basiago, but of course he will be campaigning for himself and is likely to refuse to help.