Category: FWIW

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Unintended Consequences

Probably. (As Napoleon is said to have opined, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.)

In the last few weeks, Congress has once again validated two aphorisms:

The eight most dreaded words in the English language are, “I’m from the government; I’m here to help.”

and

“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”- Mark Twain

(Perhaps I should add another Twainism to the list of aphorisms Congress has recently validated: “There is no native criminal class except Congress.”)

Anywho…

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 that was signed into Law by Dhimmi Kahtah had ostensibly good intentions: allow folks who were being redlined (supposedly because of race but actually because they were BAD RISKS) to obtain mortgages for homes. Eventually, this led to

Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, passed during a lame duck Repugnican’t presidency by a Dhimmicrappic Congress, ” …required the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, commonly known as Freddie Mac, to devote a percentage of their lending to support affordable housing. This in part, contributed to increased Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pooling and selling of such loans as securities , (i.e. securitization), and expanded the secondary market for those loans.”*

In part. The 1992 act required “a percentage” of Freddie/Fannie lending to support so-called “affordable housing” but it was in the hands of the Clintoon Administration that the practices accelerating the downfall of mortgage lenders reeally took off. Contra Bubba’s recent disclaimers, “In early 1993 President Clinton proposed new regulations for the CRA which would increase access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities.[7] The new rules went into effect on January 31, 1995… “*

And so it goes.

More recently,

“In 2002 there was an inter-agency review of the effectiveness of the 1995 regulatory changes to the Community Reinvestment Act and new proposals were considered. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Office of the Controller of the Currency put new regulations into effect September of 2005. The regulations were opposed by a contingent of Democrats because the action ‘undercuts the statutory purpose of the Act for institutions to meet the needs of low and moderate-income persons and communities by OTS.'”*

So, Dhimmis conspired to leave the CRA free to wreak havoc on our financial system by appealing to two base traits shared by many humans: risk avoidance (after all, don’t make those loans to people who might default and you KNOW the Feds are gonna squeeze your privates for “discrimination” or some such bullshit) and greed (“If I have to make these crappy loans, I might as well get as much as I can out of ’em before they go toxic”).

Let me leave you with this video. Watch the whole thing. Yes, the whole thing. Get a cuppa joe or two to help you sit still that long if you’re AADHD or whatever, but WATCH IT!

Now, go watch this one, too.

Do note, America’s Third World County isn’t participating in the CRA-Freddie-Fannie-Wall Street kerfuffle. Sure folks elsewhere are losing their shirts, but around here, the banks are solid (don’t ask about St Louis or KC, though–those places on on another planet far, far removed from America’s Third World County), business and life goes on.

NOTE: I did use Wikipedia for the citations, despite its notoriously uneven content. The key to using Wikipedia wisely is filtering. One must learn a great deal from elsewhere about a subject so that filtering out the B.S. and outright stupidity that frequently creeps into Wikipedia articles–Jerry Pournelle has given up on correcting misstatements of verifiable fact in the biographical Wikipedia article on himself, for example–becomes simply an exercise in doing ones own homework. When, as here, I find a Wikipedia article worth citing because of accuracy and concise treatment, I’ll use it. But that doesn’t happen all that often.

Trackposted to Diary of the Mad Pigeon, , Faultline USA, Woman Honor Thyself, McCain Blogs, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, Cao’s Blog, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Hard Left Turn Away from Current Events

From slightly off-the-wall territory, seeing this video of Joe Biden at Nuke’s place sent me down a rabbit trail. (Some might say down the rabbit hole. *heh*)

Let’s start with the premise that p-sychology is about as scientific as voodoo and p-sychs might as well wear dreadlock wigs and shake chicken bone rattles as inflict any one of the current fads in p-sych on their unwitting victims. Still, voodoo does help some folks deal with life, and so does p-sych. Seriously. It’s not all bad, and some perceptive p-sychs can actually do genuine good despite their training.

That said, I do find some personality theories/p-sych models interesting and even useful constructs for viewing the world. Without much comment, here’s a list of some p-sych thinkers I find intriguing, even sometimes useful:

Roberto Assagioli–Psychosynthesis
Viktor Frankl–Noetic counseling (more useful than most, IMO)
Medard Boss–Daseinsanalysis (useful framework)
William James–known as a Pragmatist who attempted to present psychology as a natural science (failed, IMO), but his “Varieties of Religious Experience” is a p-sych tome that’s a very interesting read.
Ludwig Binswanger–a pioneer existential p-sych

It’s interesting to me that while James attempted to cram p-sych into a natural science mold, Medard Boss–who attempted no such thing–came closer to actually providing some sort of falsifiable model of personality (close but no cigar–still, he wasn’t trying to do so). No, I’ve never heard a p-sych professor claim this, but then I’ve yet to meet a p-sych professor who had much understanding of scientific modeling. (OK, OK, one.)

There. A throwaway post having not much to do with anything at all, just one of those voices in my head (or two or three) clamoring* for an opportunity to speak… *heh*

Addendum: I guess this’ll be a kind of catchall post. Here’s an unrelated thought found while reading about eating pine bark:

It has been my frequent observation that many writers merely regurgitate what they have read elsewhere, rehashing over and over the same errors so much so that eventually the error becomes embedded in nearly all literature on the subject and is thought of as the gospel truth even by those considered an authority on the subject.

Well, of course. Glad someone else has noticed that as well. *heh* “Conventional wisdom” often isn’t, of course. Oh, it’s conventional, all right, just often not very wise. I’m reminded of self-described “conservative” writers touting “traditional values” who, when asked to define them, often stumble and mutter a bit about “family and religion or something” demonstrating that all they’re really doing is parroting someone else’s catch phrase. And even when they can delineate what they really mean by the term (indicating they’ve given it some thought) just as often they’ll reveal a stunning lack of historical knowlege while doing so.

Ditto with ideologues of other persuasions (heck, anarcho-tyranist lefties often can’t even define their terms at all, because, often, all they have is parroting-points).

Off to catalog stands of pine trees in America’s Third World County, now…

* I always seem to have to pause and think to differentiate between “clamor” (make an outcry, hubbub, commotion) and “clamber” (climb awkwardly, scramble, struggle gropingly), although here either would probably have worked. 😉

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Pitchin’ a concept…

Off-the-wall

For all the folks missing their “Harry Potter” fix cos Rowling’s not doing that gig any more, hows about someone comes up with a series about a Canine Witch… with a crab family for her “familiar”.

Yep, a Canine Witch with crabs. Hey! I can see the first movie already! Bitchin’! (As Sherry M. wrote in my first high school yearbook, many, many, many decades of moons ago… Hey! I earned that by letting her copy my tests in biology. *heh*.)

Be hard to come up with a catchy name for the central character, though, since NOW has a lock on all the really good ones.

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The Bell Curve

No, not that one (although there are strong corelations); I’m talking about the reality bell curve, where the left-hand side indicates propensity toward fantasy unrelated to reality (or “reality-based fantasy” among its most rational inhabitants) and the right-hand side indicates a propensity toward a connection with “real” reality in ones thinking. Or think of such a bell curve as left-hand side: arational; right-hand side: rational.

In such a model, the political Left/Right divide begins to make sense…

Those of us stuck in the middle can only fantasize about politics driven by reason.

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Hmmm… Harvey has another take on the issue.

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Among Likely Voters, Whatsisname/Palin by 10 Points?

That’s apparently what Gallup says, now. (h.t. STACLU)

When the redes are in your favor, though, check your six…

And…

What of the likely Electoral College breakdown in the polls? Subtracting the “tossup” states parameter at Real Clear Politics’s composite of the pollsters’ output yields an eight point spread between The Obamassiah/The Plagiarist Hack and Whatsisname/Palin. Advantage: The Obamassiah/The Plagiarist Hack.

And there are still what? 63 Days til November 5?

A long row to hoe in tall cotton…

[micro-mini update: *argh!* I know election day is November 4th this year, but I keep getting it wrong because “Guy Fawkes Day” is November 5th… seriously, that is the reason. It’s a BIG holiday for me… *heh*]

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“The Stupid Party” Strikes Again

Longtime Republicans have called their own party “The Stupid Party” because of phone calls like I just recieved from the McCain Campaign. Seems I’m invited (only God knows why) to a McCain-Palin “Victory Rally” 75 miles away from twc central. The doors open at 8:30 a.m. and the rally begins at 10:30 a.m.

Monday morning.

Cluebat to The Stupid Party: Your base isn’t manufactured “victim” welfare Democrats. Your base actually works for a living.

Dumbasses.

Trackposted to Pet’s Garden Blog, No Apology, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Pink Flamingo, Woman Honor Thyself, and Democrat=Socialist, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Travel Through Time in the Middle East

For a cool, not entirely inaccurate OK, OK, moderately accurate, within the constraints of the medium (just quibbles for the most part) 90-second overview of the past few thousand years’ history of the Middle East, check this flash animated map out.


CLICK HERE for the animation

While it won’t illuminate much for folks who don’t already have some grounding in the area’s history, it’s a pretty cool review for folks who do.

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Heigh-Ho…

Or perhaps, “Eighteen tons and what do you get… ”

Well, at least I have refuge from the word (and activity) that gave Maynard G Krebs heart palpitations every time it was uttered…

Yeh, that’s the ticket: home sweet home, refuge from a world gone mad. But then…

Lovely Daughter has planned on moving back into the twc central catacombs (finished basement), which means… the room that we’ve used for storage for the past five or six years must be cleaned out. Unfortunately, that happens to be the single largest room in the house, about 10 SF larger than the living room, in fact. And it is (was) packed to the gills.

*heh*

Sooo, in the past week, as time and energy has permitted, Son&Heir and I have been sorting and re-packing and throwing stuff out, no matter how appealing the junk may be. Including, but certainly not limited to, a storehouse of “ancient” computers and computer parts, 8088/8086/286/386/486 and old Pentiums/586/686 computers, stripped of usable (or even potentially usable) parts (which are now packed away and stored much, much more compactly) and hauled out for disposal. Eleven of ’em so far.

Oh, I’m keeping 6 of the older, rarely-booted 486 and Pentium boxes, primarily just for fun, although I do have some old files archived on a 486 I really ought to transfer elsewhere. Heck, it’s an old Win 3.11 for Workgroups comp I no longer even have a network card in… getting that thing on the network ought to be a buncha fun all by its lonesome. *heh*

And then there are all the peripherals. Most of them are sorted pretty well, but many of them just need to be tossed. Who needs a bunch of perfectly usable, but slow, CD read-only drives, anyway? (OK, I’ll hang on to the NEC CD changer drive, cos it’s cool, and I can use it building a media center. A six CD shuffler would be OK in a multi-drive system. Besides, the faceplate’s already painted black, which should match up well with the rest of my components.)

And, of course, the computer related junk is just the tip of the iceberg, as it were. Boxes of books that we want to hang onto are going in pastic tubs and then into the newly-emptied storage shed outside (and yes, that was a fun chore, too :-)).

More fun ‘n’ games? Yeh, what I want to do in that room, after a thorough cleaning, is reseal and “plaster” the walls, add a ceiling fan (have one) and ethernet cabling (2 of 4 of the other rooms downstairs already have ethernet, and I think the bathroom doesn’t really need it, do you? :-)). Oh, and a little work on the closet in that room might be in order. Already have a “new” door set aside for the place and Lovely Daughter will need to pick out her own paint color(s). Yep. Another two weeks from today should be about right.

So, who needs [that word that drove Maynard G Krebs around the bend] to stay busy?

😉

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Distrust Authority

This is a re-run from “I don’t know when; I’m too lazy to search” *heh*

I believe people today are too “credentials crazy” and rely too heavily on someone’s C.V. to provide validation for their opinions, including blog postings. While I have gone the university/grad school route (in a couple of different fields), I try to avoid citing those degrees or even my experience in those fields, as much as possible, to stamp “authority” over an opinion. If a particular personal experience (or set of experiences) can serve as support for other material from other sources, then that seems valid, but just saying “I have a (or several) degree(s) in such-and-so and work in the field” as an argument in and of itself for or against a position is just so much bullshit.

OK, rabbit trail (although this does indeed go somewhere, and will be revelatory). Authority has several faces, and several sources. Some legitimate and others not so (or not at all).

Two classes make religious authoritarian statements (although one denies it): actual, well, “religious leaders” and soi disant “scientists” who make religious claims about “science” (yes, there’s a good reason for the scare quotes).

In the area of relatively above board religious statements, there’s divine authority and human opinion. Wanna argue with God? Be my guest. (Glutton for punishment.) Some religious leaders claim divine authority. Tricky question. If one accepts the Bible as divinely authoritative, then a religious leader within Christianity (or I’d suppose Judaism) could claim to speak with authority if what he’s saying is… scripture. Otherwise, it’s just his opinion, and that’s only as authoritative as it is subject to reason, morality and scripture itself (we are talking about a particular set of authority here, after all). Any religious leader who simply asserts his opinion as authoritative because of his position within some religious hierarchy is playing at being the devil.

And yeh, if you wanna make an issue of it, I’ll argue that assertion from scripture.

Scientists as religious dogmatists? Global warming. There. That should be enough to tell any reasonable person to check the data, examine the processes, testing instruments and underlying assumptions at the very least before accepting any likely lie beginning with “scientists believe” or “scholars are in agreement” or any such crypto-cultic balderdash.

Oh! Lambasting “authorities”! Kicking the Sacred Cow by James P. Hogan. Just buy it and read. I don’t claim Hogan’s an “authority” on any of the subjects he touches on (nor does he), but he does point out some serious holes in the (really) religious statements of faith in scientism. Anthropogenic Global Warmism? Neodarwinism? Heck, “Einsteinism”. *heh* All just sects of the religion of scientism. And none of them nearly so authoritative as scientism would have you believe.

But what of darned near all other authority?

First, I distrust ALL assertions of authority. Unless a person can prove by citation of verifiable fact and via sound reasoning that their assertions are valid, then I don’t consider their assertions to have any authority at all. Credentials don’t count with me.

That includes doctors.

Lawyers.

Preachers.

Teachers (of anything). Particularly, if a teacher cannot do–competently–what they are purporting to teach others, then I tend to write them off as blowhards.

I will always place more credence in a carpenter telling me “This is how it’s done” (cos the carpenter’s authority can be checked by looking at his work) than I would a politician telling me, well, anything (because a politician can be checked by looking at his work *heh*), but particularly, “This is just political reality.” “Political reality” is a self-referential construct, only as “real” as the power we give to (or is illegitimately seized by) the politician claiming it.

What of authority as exercised by various civil governments? More and more, if measured by the principles this nation was built on as articulated by the Founders’ generation particularly, civil government authority is illegitimate. Think Kelo or Martha Stewart or Ramos and Compean or Ruby Ridge or the TSA or… (yes, the list is long and growing)

In fact, the more powerful the government entity, the more abusive and illegitimate its authority seems to be. Which is why so many of the easy pickings in governmental/bureaucratic abuses are from federal exercises of authority.

In fact, if all I were to say about the illegitimate use of “feddle gummint” authority–indeed, abuse of citizens that is in exactly the same vein as those abuses the Founders decried in the Declaratiion of Independence–were “Lon Horiuchi” then that would be enough to demonstrate absolute proof of Samuel Francis’ “anarcho-tyranny” label of bureaucratic/governmental abuse of authority.

And oh, my! did the Department of “Justice” cover itself in shame in the Ruby Ridge/Lon Horiuchi coverup or not? Department of “Jam-up-citizens” would be a more accurate name…

Authority: distrust it. Make it prove itself worthy of respect. Martha Stewart is my hero(ine). If only because her case made manifest the depravity of abusive “feddle gummint” turf-building anarcho-tyrannists. She was punished under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 for “Lying to Government Agents”–according to testimony by the government agents in question AND a witness the “feddle gummint” persecutors later indicted for perjury for his testimony against Stewart. (Yeh, I don’t recall reading how that ended, but that they themselves indicted their own well-coached witness, the one who was THE critical nail in Martha’s coffin, says a lot, doesn’t it?)

At least some good, of a sort, has come out of the Martha Principle: “How to Avoid Going to Jail under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 for Lying to Government Agents.”

Read it. Somewhere, there’s a feddle prosecutor or bureaucrat who can nail you for breaking a law or regulatory rule you don’t know exists. All that’s needed is for a feddle gummint bureaucrat or prosecutor to set his/her sights on you and decide they want your hide. That’s an essential element of anarcho-tyranny: the ability to pick and choose among thousands of regulations and laws and selectively enforce them for personal gain–turf-building, career-enhancement or simply petty revenge.

That’s where abuse of Constitutional authority has led us.

ANY abuse of authority is just as evil. Yes, evil.

Distrust authority. Men lie, usually for short-term gain. Bureaucrats are more likely because they are petty, venal, corrupt and/or incompetent than not. Politicians are more likely to be all of those AND consumate liars than not.

And that brings me back to a revelation. Yeh, I have some academic creds. They are all crap. At best. From my earliest years, I learned to tune out the bullshit artists who claimed to be teachers (though I was fortunate to have some at all stages of my formal education path who were able doers in their field, as well). I consider myself semi-literate. Not a day goes by that I don’t make a new (to me) discovery, a “Hey! I didn’t know that!” kinda experience. Not all are as shocking as picking up an uncle’s “Bible”… to discover that it was in Greek (“But, but, I just heard him reading a passage aloud in English!”). Put me in a mind to get me one-a those thangs, too…

No, not all my “Aha!”s open up what seems to be a whole new world, as that experience did, but daily I learn new things that remind me–daily–how much there is to know that I do not.

And that also makes me a bit suspicious of folks who say with “authority” that things are such-and-so, when not only can I see exceptions to their model, but once firmly held their (false) view myself…

Question authority. Give persons “in authority” only the respect they are due… which means, only when they are right or at least honestly attempting to argue from reason and verifiable fact. When they are wrong, blow them a big, fat, juicy-wet raspberry. Ridicule is the highest, best response to false authority, the most generous response false authority deserves.

Want my C.V.? Go suck on a rock. My C.V. is irrelevant.

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It’s Wednesday; Do You Know Where Your Summer’s Going?

Yeh, and what does Wednesday have to do with anything, anyway? I dunno, but the voices in my head told me to say that. 😉

The other day, I read the most hilarious “guest editorial” in a paper from a couple of countues north of America’s Third World County. The author accused averyone in politics except himself of being biased in viewpoint and speech. Now, by “bias” one can safely infer from the tone of this guy’s article that he means something very much like, “a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment” or “an instance of… prejudice,” but the hilarious thing is that the guy never even sees the huge, honking beam in his own eye.

Silly puppy.

*Tearing hair out* OK, so strangely enough, one of this curmudgeon’s fav movies of all time is Matilda. If you’ve not seen it, just do. It’s one of the very, very few movies of the last 25 years or so I feel is worth watching more than once.

So why the *Tearing hair out*? New comp. Decided to watch a bit of Matilda. No joy. Errors reading the DVD. *sigh* Check on regular old everyday DVD player. S’all right. Is it the drive(s)? If so, another $60 (or less) should fix that, but then I’d be moving over my target “Mr. Tightwad” budget for this thing.

Oh. Well. Some tests today (OK, much later today) should tell the tale.

What’s with the Obamassiah? Why are so many “idjits” under this snake oil salesman’s spell? Oh. Answered my own question, didn’t I? What I simply cannot get, in any way, shape, fashion or form, is why this stublebum speaker has the reputation as a powerful public speaker. His delivery alone (let’s not even count his almost complete lack of content) would earn him low “C’s” in my high school speech classes lo these many years ago, and I’ve heard better public speaking from some of the worst preachers I’ve heard over more than half a century. So why do folks think Obamassiah’s public speaking is the bomb?

Again, idjits. Very nearly absolutely illiterate bums and oafs and dummies making the assessment of Obamassiah’s speaking ability.

What marrons.

Then again there are the maroons on the other side of the disappearing “aisle” who have given the Repugnican’t nomination to Juan Mexicain. Brush up on your Mexican Spanish, folks, cos Juan Mexicain wants to surrender the U.S. to Mexico. Oh, and isn’t it sweet that he wants to drill for oil offshore? Of course, readily accessible sites with loads of infrastructure available for moving oil pumped to the surface? No to ANWAR (among others). Go ahead and gimme my $0.18/gallon forgiveness of “feddle gummint” extortion, Juan, but don’t expect me to see you as serious about energy and the environment until you simply say, “Drill Here, Drill Now” and “build those 200 nuclear power plants” and STOP saying silly and stupid things about CO2 and Anthropogenic Global Warming.

What a maroon.

Gee, supposed to hot up today in America’s Third World County. Had to use a light blanket with the windows open last night, though. Sleeping with a blanket in UNair conditioned space oward the end of June. In America’s Third World County. Never thought I’d do that. Must be global warming.

Speaking of…

Finnish Finish Global Warming

The Goracle needs to have someone read that to him… slowly.

The other day, in comments, Perri Nelson expressed a wee tad of surprise that I’m regularly getting better than 40mpg on my lil 11-year-old Saturn. Actually, he knows better. 🙂 Apart from simply not driving at all, the single greatest boost to fuelk economy one can make is to drive a stick. Manual transmission. No automatic tranny (unless one is talking about some of the new CVT trannies–they’re hard to beat) can approach offering the fuel economy of active intelligence applied to a manual transmission vehicle.

Note the qualifier: folks who are dumber than a bag of hammers (easily 80-90% of the drivers on the roads today) need not attempt this fuel saving measure. It does take an active, intelligent, constantly monitored approach to ALL driving conditions.

So if you are unable to chew gum and refute the dogma of the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming at the same time, you should just pass this lil tip by…

OK, a couple more things I miss using Ubuntu/Linux (w/nice GUI) on a daily basis:

–middle mouse button/scroll wheel behavior in my browser of choice. In Windoze I can “CLICK” the thing and set a scroll speed and just let it scroll away. Nice for reading ebooks hands off.

–RIGHT-CLICK on desktop context menu is sorely lacking in options. Heck, RIGHT-CLICK context menu options in general are kinda thin

–I seriously need to find a better file browser than the built-in crippledware GUI file browser. Less than genuinely useful.

HAdn’t really missed those things in earlier uses of Ubuntu, cos my previous usage was more limited.

Apart from those things (and the probably hardware-related DVD issue mentioned above) and a couple of lil niggling things like HIBERNATION *heh*, Ubuntu is proving to be all I had come to expect of it: about halfway between Win98 and WINXP in ease-of-use. At least an order of magnitude more stable. Quicker than any Windows version (and yeh, I am discounting some for speed of newer hardware, since I’ve experienced the nimble footedness of Linux GUI distros for years on old, OLD hardware). As nice an experience, overall, as any Windows upgrade I’ve done in the past, save for perhaps Windows 2000 Pro (now there was a nice, stable Windows. Still a resopurce hog, but solid in my experience. When it did come apart, though… *sheesh!*).

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Democrat=Socialist, , Conservative Cat, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.