Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Friday Catblogging: Panthers in Florida with a mysterious Illness

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/23/2019 • Comments

Daily Bread for 8.23.19

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/23/2019 • Comments

Good morning.

On this day in 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact.

Recommended for reading in full:

Damian Paletta, Robert Costa, Josh Dawsey, and Philip Rucker report The month a shadow fell on Trump’s economy:

Top White House advisers notified President Trump earlier this month that some internal forecasts showed that the economy could slow markedly over the next year, stopping short of a recession but complicating his path to reelection in 2020.

The private forecast, one of several delivered to Trump and described by three people familiar with the briefing, contrasts sharply with the triumphant rhetoric the president and his surrogates have repeatedly used to describe the economy.

Even as his aides warn of a business climate at risk of faltering, the president has been portraying the economy to the public as “phenomenal” and “incredible.” He has told aides that he thinks he can convince Americans that the economy is vibrant and unrattled through a public messaging campaign. But the internal and external warnings that the economy could slip have contributed to a muddled and often contradictory message.

Administration officials have scrambled this week to assemble a menu of actions Trump could take to avert an economic downturn. Few aides have a firm sense of what steps he would seriously consider, in part because he keeps changing his mind.

Noah Lanard reports Trump’s New Indefinite Family Detention Plan Completes a Cruel Agenda:

On Wednesday, the Trump administration rolled out the last major piece of that crackdown: A regulation that would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain families indefinitely, instead of the current legal limit of about 20 days. The rule is set to go into effect in October and would lead to families spending months, if not longer, in family detention centers.

Department of Homeland Security officials under Barack Obama and Trump have argued that detaining families who cross the border together is necessary for deterring people without strong asylum claims from crossing in large numbers to find work or reunite with relatives. But since the 2015 court ruling that created the 20-day limit, families have usually been quickly released after seeking out Border Patrol agents. Adults who cross the border can already be subjected to indefinite detention and increasingly are under Trump.

Immigrant advocates have strongly opposed family detention under both presidents. They point to DHS’s often terrible track record of overseeing family detention centers and argue that short periods of confinement can cause lasting trauma to people fleeing persecution.

A Robotic Wheelchair Revolution:

CDA, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty

Common Council, 8.20.19: Fiscal & Economic

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/22/2019 • 4 Comments

Yesterday, I posted about part of a Whitewater Common Council meeting that addressed a traffic signal at a dangerous intersection. See Common Council, 8.20.19: Misperception.

There was another topic at that meeting: the annual audit of the city’s fiscal condition (link below). In another place and time, the fiscal condition of government might be decisive of a community’s economic condition. Whitewater is not that place at this time: difficult economic conditions have overrun conventional government efforts.

Whitewater’s problems do not stem from her finance director (Hatton), and one can assume generally that he’s doing the best he can for a small rural town. His presentation (using slightly different metrics from the Johnson Block audit, appears at 13:30 to 32:33 on the video.)

A bad fiscal condition (a government matter) might make circumstances worse, but a sound fiscal condition will not attract anyone when general economic conditions (of the community and area) are weak. It matters that a finance director does his work well, but he cannot be expected – no one in his position could be expected – to heal and uplift this city through municipal fiscal management. It’s enough that he brings order and competence where it was previously missing.

Government in Whitewater stoops low in a different place — in actions like those of her Community Development Authority.

If you build it, they will come is a futile mantra when residents have greater immediate needs and there’s no one able to come except at an exorbitant price that satisfies none of those greater immediate needs. See The Rural Condition: Life expectancy for Wisconsin babies falls and The rural America death spiral (‘Many of the nation’s current pathologies are taking a heavy toll on the majority-white population living in rural America, which was severely impacted by the opioid crisis and has dealt with falling populations, job losses and rising suicide rates’).

If a community development authority does not see gains in individual and household income, then community development is a hollow term. In a cardinal measure of meaningful gains, Whitewater’s CDA is a tragic, years-long failure. See A Candid Admission from the Whitewater CDA and Reported Family Poverty in Whitewater Increased Over the Last Decade.

The very measure of a successful free-market economy is the ability to lift people out of poverty by producing gains in individual and household income through the private productive efforts of capital and labor.

Whitewater should, wherever possible, redistribute what it can from over-priced capital projects to immediate human care, re-orient city employees into a genuine community enforcement that begins with the assumption that many are in need and that no residents are adversaries within their own town, and speak plainly about these needs.

Honest to goodness: even the Soviets knew how to build offices, roads, centers, and hotels. Even the Soviets knew how to put names and slogans on the sides of buildings.

And yet, and yet — their people were still poor.

See 2018 Johnson Block & Company Audit for City of Whitewater.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.22.19

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/22/2019 • Comments

Good morning.

On this day in 1485, Richard III meets his end at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

Recommended for reading in full:

Jim Tankersley and Emily Cochrane report Budget Deficit on Path to Surpass $1 Trillion Under Trump:

The deficit — the gap between what the government takes in through taxes and other sources of revenue and what it spends — will reach $960 billion for the 2019 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That gap will widen to $1 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said in updated forecasts released on Wednesday.

The updated projections show deficits rising — and damage from Mr. Trump’s tariffs mounting — faster than the office had previously predicted. In May, the budget office said it expected a deficit of $896 billion for 2019 and $892 billion for 2020.

That damage would be even higher if not for lower-than-expected interest rates, which are reducing the amount of money the government has to pay to its borrowers. Still, the 2019 deficit is projected to be 25 percent larger than it was in 2018, and the budget office predicts it will continue to rise every year through 2023.

By 2029, the national debt will reach its highest level as a share of the economy since the immediate aftermath of World War II.

Elaina Plott writes Trump’s Phone Calls With Wayne LaPierre Reveal NRA’s Influence:

Earlier this afternoon [8.20], according to a person briefed on the call, the president told LaPierre in another phone call that universal background checks were off the table. “He was cementing his stance that we already have background checks and that he’s not waffling on this anymore,” the source told me. “He doesn’t want to pursue it.” In the call, the source added, Trump said he wanted to focus now on “increasing funding” for mental-health care and directing attorneys general across the country to start prosecuting “gun crime” through federal firearms charges from the Justice Department.

The NRA has been consumed by internal strife in recent months, including attempted coups from within, investigations into questionable spending by top executives, and a messy battle with its former advertising agency—all of which the group’s officials calmly refer to as “family issues.” Accordingly, many have speculated that the gun lobby’s clout is not what it once was, that its so-called family issues have caused the NRA’s grip on the GOP to soften. But as the conversations between Trump and LaPierre show, the NRA continues to influence gun policy, or lack thereof, in the Republican Party. Even with its leadership in disarray, the group has once more ensured that modest gun-control efforts are a nonstarter, turning a president who once boasted that he wasn’t “afraid” of the NRA into one of its most reliable advocates.

Looking at Mass Shootings That Happen Every Year:

America, Blogging, History, Newspapers, Press, Press Release, Public Relations

Sullivan on Public Officials as Reporters

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/21/2019 • Comments

Editors of small-town newspapers sometimes lack the judgment (and self-respect) to remain independent of government. During these lapses of decision-making, one finds that elected or appointed officials become, themselves, reporters on their own stories. (For a case like this in Whitewater involving a school board member, see Public Officials Should Not Be Reporters.)

Margaret Sullivan, of the Washington Post, replies to an account of a local paper (the Kinston Free Press of North Carolina) that decided to run a government press release as a front page, above-the-fold story:

Someone should be writing about a serious indictment – that person should be an independent reporter, not a government official.

Margaret Sullivan – online @Sulliview and at the Post – is always interesting: a strong thinker and compelling writer.

Press releases, under Sullivan’s sound formulation, are a form of advertising, not reporting.

There’s much conceit publications telling the world that they are legitimate newspapers, when they’re simply running press releases and government announcements.

Blogs like FREE WHITEWATER are modern-day versions of the pamphlets that played a large measure at America’s founding. (See Bailyn’s Ideological Origins of the American Revolution for a discussion of pamphleteering’s influence in that formative era.)

This website’s description as one of commentary is plain: “FREE WHITEWATER is a website of commentary on politics, policy, and popular culture, published from Whitewater, Wisconsin since 2007.”

Editors and officials who mix government and reporting respect neither good government nor commendable reporting.

Accidents, City, Common Council, Local Government, State Government, Transportation

Common Council, 8.20.19: Misperception

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/21/2019 • 5 Comments

A portion of Wisconsin [U.S.] Highway 12 rings Whitewater. Called by residents simply the bypass, it takes traffic around the city, with a few points of intersection to Whitewater along the route.

A traffic signal at one of those intersections has had its own green light for a left-hand turning lane, and this likely causes drivers to misperceive the risks in turning left despite possible oncoming traffic. (That is, the green light in their lane may cause the drivers to believe mistakenly that they have a clear right of way.)

Two recent crashes at the same intersection along this route have been tragic: with multiple injuries in both, including two children (Kaylinn Wilken, aged 14, and Olly Koelsch, aged 7) dying in a crash on August 1st.

For every accident, there likely have been other near-misses, that might have been far worse moments but thankfully were not. Collisions would be known to all; near-misses might have been known only to a few.

State, county, and local political representatives met before Whitewater’s 8.20 council meeting and have begun changes to the intersection:

Local officials and community members met with Rep. Don Vruwink, Sen. Janis Ringhand, Sen. Steve Nass, Walworth County Sheriff’s Department, Captain Dave Gerber with Walworth County Sheriff’s Department and WISDOT officials this afternoon to discuss changes to the HWY 12/CTH N intersection.

Crews were replacing poles and signals today and this should be completed by the end of the week. By Monday, August 26th, the WISDOT will have installed a flashing yellow signal for Northbound and Southbound traffic making a left turn at the intersection. Cameras will also be installed to observe traffic patterns in the coming weeks. Officials will plan to convene this fall for a follow-up discussion about the intersection changes.

This seems a quick and prudent response. (It’s possible that, after further consideration, more changes will be made to the turning lane’s signals.)

It’s true (but inadequate) to observe, as a council member did during the meeting (video @ 12:50), that

The other things I wish people would remember from the basics of driver training is that when you’re turning left make sure the traffic coming towards you is making a stop.

It’s a misperception of behavior generally (and of drivers’ behavior specifically) to see the world this way.

It’s a mistake – of how people, themselves, perceive ordinary events – to expect that a lesson about paying attention would be adequate across thousands of motorists – year in, year out – at an intersection. Even the most prudent motorists might – for just a moment in a day, in conditions of weather, sunlight, traffic signals, or even the color of other cars – misunderstand the opportunity for turning.

While there is a cautionary teaching that says people should be careful when turning, careful people may misperceive a traffic situation, and that’s why one has traffic signals, and why these signals must offer easily-intelligible, safe guidance to motorists.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.21.19

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/21/2019 • Comments

Good morning.

Whitewater’s Tech Park Board meets at 8 AM and the Police and Fire Commission at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1944, Allied armies close the Falaise Pocket, trapping tens of thousands of German soldiers, and assuring the liberation of Paris.

Recommended for reading in full:

Will England describes Seeking democracy on the streets of Russia:

Protests in Moscow this summer were ignited when independent candidates for the city council in next month’s elections were stricken from the ballot for various implausible reasons. Demonstrators are calling for a genuine, democratic choice.

….

The crowds this summer have been younger, more raucous, edgier than in that long-ago time [the ‘90s]. Their clothes look like clothes the world over. They’re jaded, but angry. The police are a lot less sympathetic. Protesters I’ve spoken with are curiously pessimistic, yet committed. Andrei Kolesnikov, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, told me they don’t expect the government to listen to reason, as that ’60s generation did. They’re looking to force change through numbers.

So where does Russian public opinion stand? Denis Volkov, of the independent Levada polling organization, told me that while support for the protests is strong in Moscow, they haven’t made a substantial impression on the majority of Russians.

Nationwide, nevertheless, support for the authorities has been trending downward. Putin’s party, United Russia, has less than 30 percent support, and some candidates for local office are running away from it.

Matthew Luxmoore reports Teenage Sexual Assault Victim Fights To Break Russia’s Culture Of Victim-Blaming:

“Women are afraid of being blamed — by relatives, by society, and by the state,” she said. “They’re afraid to hear ‘it’s your own fault.'”

Against the backdrop of her arrest and prosecution [for defending herself against an assailant], Ageny has emerged as a prominent advocate for justice for rape and assault victims. She launched a website and the Instagram hashtag …. “it’s not my fault” — under which assault and rape victims are posting their stories and supporting one another.

Ageny is also working to bring attention to resources available to such women and to shed light on what she and others allege is a lack of action and an unsympathetic attitude on the part of state officials.

Her trial is yet to begin, as investigators continue to compile the case. In an interview, Salomatov said Ageny’s main problem is a lack of evidence of her assault. She has no obvious injuries, and no witnesses to summon. It’s her word against the word of her alleged attacker.

“This is the main legal shortcoming in Russia: There’s no clear law on how to defend oneself when the perpetrator has left no physical mark,” Salomatov told RFE/RL.

(This isn’t only a Russian problem.)

The Rise of Toyota:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.20.19

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/20/2019 • Comments

Good morning.

Whitewater’s common council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1794, American troops under General “Mad” Anthony Wayne defeat a confederation of Indian forces led by Little Turtle of the Miamis and Blue Jacket of the Shawnees.

Recommended for reading in full:

The Washington Post‘s editorial board writes Trump risks turning a chance for success in Afghanistan into a shameful failure:

U.S. NEGOTIATORS are reportedly racing to complete a flimsy peace accord with Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents in the coming days before President Trump unilaterally announces a U.S. troop withdrawal. If so, they and Mr. Trump are repeating the mistake for which they long blamed President Barack Obama — committing to troop pullouts from conflict zones without first ensuring that the result is not a military and political disaster. While an accord that ends Afghanistan’s decades of war — and the nearly 18-year-old U.S. mission — is much to be wished for, it should not happen on the terms Mr. Trump appears prepared to accept.

….

If the result of a quick withdrawal is the collapse of the government and the reestablishment of sanctuaries for terrorists, the United States could be dragged back into the conflict at a far greater cost — as happened in Iraq three years after the pullout.

An acceptable agreement with the Taliban would condition the final withdrawal of U.S. troops on a settlement between the insurgents and the Afghan government. It would also provide for a continuing presence of U.S. counterterrorism forces to strike the Islamic State and other emerging terrorist threats. If Mr. Trump agrees to a pullout that omits such requirements, he will risk turning what could still be a successful outcome for the United States in Afghanistan into a shameful failure.

A.C. Thompson reports “Dirtbag,” “Savages,” “Subhuman”: A Border Agent’s Hateful Career and the Crime That Finally Ended It:

Border Patrol agent Matthew Bowen had been investigated for years before he used his 4,000-pound truck to assault a fleeing migrant.

Bowen climbed behind the wheel of a Border Patrol pickup truck and used it to strike a Guatemalan migrant in a dusty parking lot in southern Arizona. Bowen eventually was arrested by federal authorities in May 2018 and charged with using his Ford F-150 pickup, a 4,000-pound vehicle, to menace the man as he tried to flee Bowen and other agents on foot. The truck, according to an affidavit filed by prosecutors in court, hit the man twice and came within inches of running him over. Prosecutors accused Bowen of using “deadly force against a person who was running away from him and posed no threat.”

Reversing Extinction for the Northern White Rhino:

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Economics, Economy, Poll, Taxes/Taxation, Trade, Trump

Americans’ Support for Free Trade Reaches New High

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/19/2019 • Comments

A strong majority supports free trade and rejects Trump’s anti-market trade wars and tariffs.

Mark Murray reports that

Amid President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they support free trade with foreign countries, according to the latest national poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

That represents a new high in the NBC/WSJ survey on this question, and it’s a 7-point increase from the last time it was asked in 2017.

Most people know that tariffs are taxes, that trade wars bring economic hardship to consumers, and that it’s not foreigners but Americans who are paying for this federal administration’s economic ignorance.

Babbittry, Boosterism, Economy, Health, Wisconsin

The Rural Condition: Life expectancy for Wisconsin babies falls

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/19/2019 • 1 Comment

Boosters’ ceaseless distortions to ‘accentuate the positive’ – so common across the state and in Whitewater before, during, and after the Great Recession – meet their tragic refutation in life expectancy declines for Wisconsin.

The Wisconsin Public Policy Forum reports on Troubling trends in Wisconsin: Life expectancy down; alcohol, drug and suicide deaths up:

The life expectancy for babies born in Wisconsin from 2015-17 was 80 years, down from 80.1 in 2014-16 and from 80.2 in 2013-15, according to the state Department of Health Services. Though slight, these consecutive decreases buck a longstanding trend and may reflect the deeper impact of several troubling issues facing the state.

Wisconsin residents still continue to have a longer life expectancy than the national average. While precise comparison is not possible due to methodological differences, national life expectancy in 2017 was 78.6 years. Yet mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control show Wisconsin losing ground in some areas, including deaths due to alcohol and increased mortality rates among black residents and people in their 20s and 30s.

Our research did not evaluate if the state life expectancy decline is statistically significant, as that is not calculated by the Department of Health Services. But it is clear that the national life expectancy downturn is something not seen in a century. The last such occurrence was from 1915-18, when U.S. life expectancy briefly declined during a period that included World War I and a global influenza epidemic.

Today’s decline comes amid a new epidemic: deaths from overdoses of opioid drugs. CDC experts say overdoses and rising suicide deaths have driven the national decrease in life expectancy, with an increase in alcohol-related deaths also playing a role. These changes have happened at the same time other trends, such as declining rates of death from heart disease or stroke, enabled some to live longer and caused overall mortality rates among older Americans to decline.

In Wisconsin and nationally, the rate of death due to suicide, drugs, or alcohol has increased steadily since 1999. Drug and alcohol death rates in Wisconsin have more than tripled in that span. Total drug and alcohol deaths increased from 593 in 1999 to 1,985 in 2017, the most recent year for which data are available. The rate of increase in such deaths also accelerated the last few years.

See (as a .pdf) Troubling Trends in Wisconsin: Life Expectancy Down; Alcohol, Drug and Suicide Deaths Up).

Note well: There are stated limits to this statewide study, as properly-presented research acknowledges its own limitations. (In this case and others, there is a profound difference with public officials’ and residents’ use of sham studies as marketing tools. That will prove a subject of consideration all its own.)

For those in Whitewater and other small towns who doubt what they own eyes – if open – would reveal, see more generally The rural America death spiral (‘Many of the nation’s current pathologies are taking a heavy toll on the majority-white population living in rural America, which was severely impacted by the opioid crisis and has dealt with falling populations, job losses and rising suicide rates.’)

Agriculture, Dairy, Economy, Wisconsin

The plight of a Wisconsin dairy farm

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/19/2019 • Comments

The Voelker family’s dairy farm in Wisconsin has been around since 1942. But economic pressures have led the family to sell off their remaining cows.

Music

Monday Music: Depedro, Te sigo soñando

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/19/2019 • Comments

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.19.19

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/19/2019 • Comments

Good morning.

On this day in 1812, the USS Constitution earns her nickname Old Ironsides by defeating the HMS Guerriere in an engagement 400 miles southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Recommended for reading in full:

Mary Papenfus reports Mississippi ICE Raids Separate Mom From Her Breastfeeding Baby Girl:

The massive raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at Mississippi food-processing plants earlier this month has separated a young mother from her nursing 4-month-old daughter, the Clarion Ledger reports.

The mom, arrested at Koch Foods in Morton, where she had worked for four years, is now being held in a Louisiana facility while her husband cares for the couple’s three children and continues to work. He faces his own deportation hearing, but not until 2021, according to the Ledger, which didn’t reveal the identities of the parents, who fear reprisals.

All three children, who were born in the U.S., are American citizens.

Erin Doherty reports Democrats’ Desire For Electable Candidates May Be Driven By Older Voters:

Many Democrats say the most important quality they look for in a 2020 candidate is that the person can beat President Trump. But this might not be true of younger Democrats, many of whom are saying that they care more about a presidential candidate’s policies — and less about their chances of beating Trump.

Recent polls from YouGov/HuffPost and Gallup show an age split on whether voters prioritize policy or electability. Both polls found that younger Democrats tended to prioritize nominating a candidate whose positions on issues were closest to their own over a candidate who they believed had the best chance of defeating Trump. Conversely, older Democrats were more likely to want an electable candidate even if they disagreed on the issues.

And this generational divide may be reflected in the patterns of support for former Vice President Joe Biden. Voters of all ages often name Biden as the candidate with the best chance of beating Trump. But a Quinnipiac University poll from early July found that while 28 percent of Democrats over 50 rate Biden as their first choice, just 17 percent of Democrats between 18 and 49 said the same.

It’s possible that the reason more older Democrats prioritize choosing a candidate who can win in the general election is that they have lived through other administrations and have seen how they’ve governed, according to Rey Junco, a senior researcher at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Junco said older Americans could be “more concerned about the autocratic tendencies in the current administration” than younger Americans, and as a result want a candidate that has the best chance of winning in 2020.

But by prioritizing electability, older Democrats may wind up backing a candidate with a major weakness: an inability to drive youth turnout.

How The NRA Ended Up On The Verge Of Bankruptcy:

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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 8.18.19

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/18/2019 • 4 Comments

Good morning.

On this day in 1864, the 2nd, 6th, 7th, 37th, and 38th Wisconsin Infantry regiments take part in the Battle of Globe Tavern.

Recommended for reading in full:

Progressive evangelical (and Sanders supporter) Elizabeth Bruenig writes delicately of Trump-supporting evangelicals in In God’s country (‘Evangelicals view Trump as their protector. Will they stand by him in 2020?’).

Conservative evangelical Michael Gerson writes more fittingly of Trump-supporting evangelicals in Some white evangelicals are difficult to recognize as Christians at all:

Massive budget cuts to hunger-relief programs in Africa, refusing to take in desperate Syrian refugees and separating crying children from their parents at the border are tolerable, but using the Lord’s name in vain is a bridge too far? Pathological lying, spreading conspiracy theories, misogyny, making racist comments and dehumanizing others are permissible, but swearing somehow crosses the line?

How we order our outrage says much about us. Do we feel the violation of a religious rule more intensely than the violation of human dignity? Do we prioritize our religiosity above our anthropology — above our theory of human beings and their rights?

This kind of Pharisaical preference for rules over humans reveals a large gap of spiritual education. In a poll conducted last year by the Pew Research Center, only 25 percent of white evangelical Christians said the United States has a responsibility to accept refugees, while 65 percent of those not affiliated with a religion affirmed that duty. What could possibility explain this 40-percentage-point gap in inclusion and compassion? For a certain kind of secularist, this reveals cruelty, corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of the Christian faith. But traditionally, many of the institutions that do refugee resettlement have been Christian.

The problem does not lie in Christianity but in the moral formation of Christians. Are they getting their view of refugees from Christian sources? Or are they taking their view from Fox News, talk radio and Trump? I suspect the latter. And the worship of political idols is ultimately a spiritual problem — a different kind of blasphemy.

These challenges run deeper than politics. Many white evangelical Christians hold a faith that appeals to the comfortable rather than siding with the afflicted. They have allied themselves with bigots and nativists, risking the reputation of the gospel itself. And, in some very public ways, they are difficult to recognize as Christians at all.

(Both Bruenig and Gerson are – in the complimentary language of our era – gifted. Yet Bruening’s admirable intellect fails her here, as she gives too much credence to self-identification at the expense of identity. Gerson comes closer to the truth that self-identification becomes incredible when in opposition to any reasonable identity. Tabbies can, if they wish, call themselves lions; no one else is obligated to believe them.)

India’s Swimming Camels:

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