Good morning!

  Hallooo, Balkers. Happy Wednesday to you all. Christmas is coming--what is everyone cooking?

 I don't know who this handsome fellow is but he looks like he could brighten anyone's holidays. 

 Duolingo published its 2020 Language Report and it's a pretty interesting picture of the who, what, how and why of what is being studied worldwide. Notably in the US, Hawaiian is gaining popularity, and here is a great read about the efforts to preserve and promote the language.

In other news, read about a bunch of libertarian ding dongs who tried to take over a small town and were undone by enterprising bears. It turns out this:

By pretty much any measure you can look at to gauge a town’s success, Grafton got worse. Recycling rates went down. Neighbor complaints went up. The town’s legal costs went up because they were constantly defending themselves from lawsuits from Free Towners. The number of sex offenders living in the town went up. The number of recorded crimes went up. The town had never had a murder in living memory, and it had its first two, a double homicide, over a roommate dispute.

 Can unsurprisingly lead to this:   

It turns out that if you have a bunch of people living in the woods in nontraditional living situations, each of which is managing food in their own way and their waste streams in their own way, then you’re essentially teaching the bears in the region that every human habitation is like a puzzle that has to be solved in order to unlock its caloric payload. And so the bears in the area started to take notice of the fact that there were calories available in houses.

Here is a fascinating read about Erle Stanley Gardner himself helping to free an Apache man languishing in prison after being wrongly accused of murder years before.  

And, last but not least, check out this asshole.