I love Spain, and its occasional surprising simplicity. Libraries in Badajoz are open hours later than in Elvas (Portugal), so I decided to see if it were possible to get privileges. "Why not?" said the librarian. "It's free, and everyone is welcome." Ten minutes later I left with a book.

Portugal now has a nationwide electronic lending system for e-books and audiobooks, but some local libraries are ignorant and claim it's only for citizens. Not true. These screenshots from the BiblioLED app show how anyone with a library card can request access.

"Did you really buy a sleeping bag?" "Yes." With some trepidation, I ask "Why?" "To sleep with the puppy and the new goats when they come." Hmm. Camping in the new stalls? Sounds like an interesting adventure. Waking to baby goats dancing on your gut.

Seeing badgers on the MMS camera feed is always a special thrill for me. Tonight is the first time I have captured one in this area, far from the usual favorite spots. That bowl of guts on top of the rocks from yesterday's bird hunt is a strong motivator!

Patinho's first day outdoors. He's come a long way for a little duckling who would have died in the failed attempt to hatch. Still behind his four siblings in development, but he is vigorous and follows me all around the yard now.

Lunchtime for the garden bantams.

Behold "Quartus", our future goat guardian, inshallah. A Castro Laboreiro who will be the fourth one to watch over our quinta. A wonderful Portuguese breed.

Vance says it is "totally reasonable and acceptable" for people to not want to live next door to people who speak a different language than they do

The latest training equipment acquired by my fencing club in Badajoz. I prefer this to versions I've seen with pipe, a sword, and bungee cords on a pillar.

Madeline Miller's "Circe" is a masterful work, and the audiobook reading of it does full justice to the writer's art. This afternoon I revisited the death of Odysseus and the reception of Penelope and her son on the island.

Made an afternoon excursion to the olive groves with Harmat, who visited with the rabbits while I gathered green ripe olives for the first batch of cured olives this year.

nmwa.org/exhibitions/... wonderful exhibit- go if you are in town. Women highly esteemed in their lifetime cut out of the art canon so have been invisible for centuries. Who gets included in the telling of our history and culture is critical

"Tzefardea Tzedek" (Frog of Righteousness) As soon as the Portland Frog became a meme, Jewish social media blew up with jokes about the 2nd Passover plague - tzefarde'a (frogs) - and the Rabbinical commentary around it. I knew I had to make a calligraphy piece encompassing all of it. (more in alt.)

Whatever nonsense Trump and the Reagan Library are claiming about the Canadian anti-tariff ad using selective excerpts from Ronald Reagan's 1987 radio address, the full address is every bit as bad or worse for Trump's stupid tariff argument. www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/spe...

I am offended by library availability only during ordinary business hours of a working week. No weekends, no evenings. Are we to assume that people with a typical work schedule don't need libraries?

They celebrate punching down. Gleeful when people in desperate circumstances get deported. We can support border security and the law without getting off on the misery of others.

Say what you will about Twitter but at least...no, actually there is nothing redeeming. 😀

Today, Mike Johnson will keep the House adjourned for the 81st day out of the last 93. 12 days of work in over 3 months. With full pay and benefits. The senate has been working, so this is not about the shutdown. It is about avoiding a vote to release the Epstein files.

I love Libby and use it with three libraries in Southern California, though I moved away from there in 1992.

I use the library. This is a good alternative to audible, it looks like. libro.fm/audiobooks/9...

Joyce narrated the audio version herself. For several years now, she has been on my short list of experts to help me understand the legal issues in US politics today.

Check out our latest Open Access titles! Download your copy now on our website: buff.ly/UCOKeOi #OAweek

I face the same question at the breakfast table from my companheira, who lived through Portugal's Carnation Revolution as a young, leftist medical student. That largely bloodless overthrow of the Portuguese dictatorship required military action.

Valuable reporting here. I think the key thing is the use of Venezuela to accustom American armed forces to lawless murder. The goal then is to get them to do the same thing inside the US. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

The Badajoz fencing academy is holding its first internal tournament this Saturday. My new sport thanks to inspirations at #Celsius232 in Avilés last July.

Same here. Machine translation is helpful if you want a general idea of what is in a text, but it's unreliable, unreadable, and extremely complicated to proofread and fix because IT'S JUST STATS

A conquering army.

There is something extra special about a woman who can surprise me in the bedroom... with a small toad!

My lucky day. I decided to replace the JLab sports earset that my dog ate (really!), and the upgraded version (JBuds Sport ANC 4) just happened to include interval training features for which I thought another app was needed.

YouTube has interesting suggestions, mostly from the pandemic lockdown, for DIY epée targets. This inspired one comprised of a cork board, a pillow, a puppy-chewed rug, some bungee cords and two hooks to hang on the garden fence. Perfect!

I get by with a little help…

A nice PDF glossary by Tim Rivera for Iberian swordplay in period from the 15th to 18th century centuries. I ran across this while researching Spanish fencing terminology for better communication with members of my #fencing club in Badajoz. spanishsword.org/files/common...

The mass shooter's anthem.

Hot off the presses! If you need a bigger size to print your stickers let me know!

Breaking: Disturbing scenes out of Portland, 2025 — authorities warn the situation could escalate.

Seriously, Judges *do no do things like this* They don't give their opinion to the media They don't criticize how SCOTUS works This is them breaking the emergency glass, folks www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Biden wasn’t president yet. These folks aren’t too bright

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation Depraved. www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

I've finally found a Portuguese beach town entirely to my liking: Setúbal, about 45 minutes by public transportation from Sete Rios station in Lisbon. In a 4 day stay at an old farm, I enjoyed the marina quiet beaches, great restaurants and a great cosmopolitan vibe.

A useful article shared by a colleague that has helped me reduce the AI intrusions on my phone. I look forward to the same on my laptops! www.consumerreports.org/electronics/...

If I didn't have AI to inform me, I might have thought this was a rabbit instead of an "antlerless deer"!

@warnock.senate.gov: "As a man of faith, here's something that I have noticed about evil... Evil always gets a little bit too impressed with itself. It's filled up with hubris. Evil always goes too far, and because it goes too far, it contains within itself the seed of its own destruction."

Turns out that when Americans said "If it weren't for us you'd be speaking German now..." their objection was to learning a second language, not fascism.

Be that nobody.

Confs: 3rd International Conference on the Asturian Language

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

Langston Hughes is one of those poets left out of my American literature courses, but one I turn to when I need the sense of things. A beautiful reading of one of his best works. youtu.be/kU4_nS2YDLk

I try to focus this account so it's for my readers, but hey writers: NEVER sign a contract where the publisher keeps your rights indefinitely. For short stories, there should be a point when you can sell reprints. and NEVER sign your movie/TV/etc adaptation rights to a publisher. Those are yours.

(AP) - An experimental medication made from marijuana successfully reduced back pain in a new study, offering further support for the drug's potential in treating one of the most common forms of chronic pain.