This is the craziest thing you will see today.

Some guy jumps out of a helicopter over extremely pointy snow-covered mountains, gliding at high speed just a few meters above the ground, and finally comes to earth with a parachute.

If this stunt isn’t in an upcoming James Bond movie, they’ll be missing something.

Odyssey Marine Exploration, a U.S. company formed to locate and recover sunken treasure, had one of its ships boarded and seized by the Spanish government in international waters, according to BBC News. So what’s the big deal here?

1. Odyssey has recovered potentially $500 million in gold and silver coins from a shipwreck which it has not yet identified but is likely to be several hundred years old.
2. Spain claims that all its sunken treasure remains the property of Spain, no matter where it is found.
3. If the shipwreck is indeed from a Spanish treasure ship, then it was stolen from the peoples in Central and South America. This does not make it Spanish property, unless countries in the 21st century are playing by rules of “I stole it fair and square”.
4. No matter what the original nationality of the ship, I don’t see what claim a country would have to a several hundred year-old wreck in international waters unless they have been trying to recover it themselves. If not, wouldn’t it be unclaimed salvage?

If Spain really wants to pursue this in international courts, perhaps it would make sense for descendants of people who were affected by Spain’s numerous affronts to human dignity to make a claim against Spain. For instance, people with Aztec or Mayan heritage; descendants of the Jews who were thrown out of Spain; and anyone affected by the Spanish Inquisition.

Spain has a lot to answer for.

P.S. I have no connection to Odyssey. I wish!

Last night, Jennifur slept right next to my leg, all stretched out and just high enough that I could put my arm next to her.

I stayed up as long as I could to treasure the feeling and finally fell asleep with a big smile on my face.

Tags: cat behavior, cat love

This morning Charger seemed out of sorts. He started wrestling with Yang, but Yang thought things were getting too rough, started fighting back in earnest, and finally jumped up and ran away. Next, Charger went over to look out the glass door, joining Jennifur and Yin (who were getting along for once). Suddenly there was a shriek from Yin, who took off like mad with Charger chasing him.

Charger doesn’t normally hurt anyone like that, so we became concerned and Susan said, “What’s the matter with Charger?”

Like I knew. So (not being the cat whisperer in the family) I said, “Why don’t you ask him?”

There was a long silence. Things were quiet…too quiet (insert your favorite similar cliche here). Finally Susan told me what Charger had to say.

It seems that Charger’s mother had “called” to say goodbye. She was sick and her human had decided not to spend the money to have her made well again, so they were euthanizing her. In fact, Charger was saying his last goodbyes to her at that moment, having shown her what his life was like here, surrounded by friendly humans and other cats.

That kind of put a serious damper on the morning, but we’ve taken extra time with Charger to comfort him today.

Tags: animal communication, cat behavior, cats

Today I decided to see if my guess was right about Jennifur talking to Little Kitty yesterday. I asked Susan to ask Jennifur whether this had happened.

Susan came back in a little while and said that while Jennifur was her usual laconic self, she had said that Little Kitty had been talking with her about survival and loneliness. Apt topics for feral cats to discuss!

But I’m really happy that Jennifur is talking to an outside cat. This is a nice change for her.

Tags: animal communication, cats