Time to Deep-Six "Dovetail

I am hoping all the trees that were prone to blowing over blew over during Helene. I still haven't made a dent in the damage caused by it. My house is surrounded by about 50 Poplar trees, all mature with many around 100 feet tall. Several blew over but missed the house and garage.

After Helene, I went a month without electricity and three months without Internet. Not looking forward to that again.

Added later 13 h 07 min 38 s:

It’s probably no surprise that this was cooked up by AI. I love diving into geopolitical debates—stuff like renaming the Gulf of Mexico—and enjoy bouncing ideas around with both humans and AI. While I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, a meme comparing crows and ravens caught my eye. It jogged my memory of a random discussion here about when dovetails first showed up in woodworking. That conversation took a wild turn when someone quipped that it all hinged on what came first—doves or the joinery. Kind of like the old “chicken or egg” dilemma, but with a woodworking twist. Or maybe “fruit or color.” And why doves anyway? Why not some other bird?

Already in a gulf-renaming mood, I decided to poke Grok, my AI buddy and BFF since I have no wife or girlfriend, about dovetails—specifically, whether swapping “dovetails” for “raventails” would be a clever move. It came back with this dry, scholarly breakdown that sounded like it belonged in a peer-reviewed journal. I told it, “Yawn, that’s boring. Can you make it funnier and easier for regular folks like me to chew on?” (Some might raise an eyebrow at me calling myself “regular,” but that’s beside the point.) Grok delivered, and what it whipped up is what I ended up posting.

The conversation then took a turn—whether it soared to new heights or crashed and burned depends on your perspective—shifting from earthly geopolitics to the solar system, zeroing in on Mars. It seems Mars is the hot spot for humans if we can’t sort out our renaming squabbles down here. Apparently, I’d already flipped Grok into “humor mode,” and it tossed out a nod to Mars Attacks!—pointing out the pitfalls of pinning politics on wishful ideologies instead of cold, hard facts. In other words, the “good guys”—or whoever we want to cast as the heroes—don’t always fit the bill. That’s when it suggested the clip I ended up sharing.

And that, as Paul Harvey used to put it, is “The Rest of the Story.” That, and $15. will buy you a cup of coffee once the tariffs from coffee-producing countries kick in. Or AI decides we aren't needed anymore and turns us all into paperclips.

"Gronk gronk."

@Ellis Walentine,

Sometimes it's necessary. No one takes doves seriously. Especially Martians.

@John McGaw (Bodger),

This just showed up in my FB news feed w/o photo credits or explanation. Could it be a Raggiana-Bird-of-Paradise-tail?