Actual information from the Enchantment Pet Resort & Spa:
Enchanted Canine Experience
Includes comfortable bedding, daily maid service, bedtime turndown service with a cookie, gourmet breakfast and dinner, and supervised day camp with other dogs.
(This isn’t the place with the TV mentioned previously — which actually is “television and ice cream treat.”)
“CodeWeavers has announced plans to release CrossOver Mac this summer. The $60 software will allow Intel Mac users to run Windows applications — including some games — without having to buy or install Windows itself.”
“Millions of Americans will celebrate July 4 by watching a fireworks show. How do they choreograph those midair pyrotechnics?”
Here’s how from Slate.
And here’s How to Photograph Fireworks.
Albuquerque has the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds this weekend.
3:00 Saturday. You’ll hear them.
This year’s Tour de France likely winner, given all the disqualifications for doping.
Idea and photo thanks to John Fleck.
So, Germany and Argentina and it comes down to penalty kicks.
Maybe baseball should just play three extra innings and if the game remains tied go to a homerun derby.
(Even so, soccer’s tie-breaker is better than the NFL tie-breaker.)
“You can burn the flag as many times as you want and the concept of freedom is not only still there — it’s stronger. I like that about my flag. I would go so far as to say it’s my flag’s best feature.
“I wouldn’t mind if Congress were considering changing some other feature of the flag. For example, if they wanted to represent Rhode Island with half a star, I could get behind that. But I’d hate to chip away at my flag’s freedom feature. That just seems wrong.”
Excerpt from a good piece by Scott Adams
… we honor two venerable American institutions.
On this date in 1864 Abraham Lincoln signed the land grant preserving Yosemite Valley.
And Lena Horne is 89 today.
A friend needed to board her dog for a few days. When she called to make the arrangements they asked if she wanted the suite with television. She thought not, but began to wonder what the dogs would watch.
NewMexiKen wondered too. Surely re-runs of Rin Tin Tin and Lassie. Probably Scooby-Doo.
But most likely, dogs playing poker.
From a report in the Los Angeles Times:
When referring to the Trinity, most Christians are likely to say “Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.”
But leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are suggesting some additional designations: “Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Life-giving Womb,” or perhaps “Overflowing Font, Living Water, Flowing River.”
Then there’s “Rock, Cornerstone and Temple” and “Rainbow of Promise, Ark of Salvation and Dove of Peace.”
The phrases are among 12 suggested but not mandatory wordings essentially endorsed this month by delegates to the church’s policy-making body to describe a “triune God,” the Christian doctrine of God in three persons.
The Rev. Mark Brewer, senior pastor of Bel Air Presbyterian Church, is among those in the 2.3-million-member denomination unhappy with the additions.
“You might as well put in Huey, Dewey and Louie,” he said.
“If the battle to protect marriage takes even five more years, liberal judges and activists will have destroyed this 5,000-year-old institution, which was designed by the Creator, Himself.”
James Dobson, Focus on the Family Action, for CNN, via Andrew Sullivan
Why is it that we tip in restaurants, taxis, airports, hotels, and so on, and yet no one has thought to establish a service station with attendants to fill your tank for a small salary plus tips?
When it takes $40 or $50 or more to fill a tank, how many of us might be perfectly happy to tip (say 10 percent) to have someone do the nasty work, and possibly clean our windshield and headlights. I certainly would. Most women I know would.
… was born on this date in 1900. In January 2003 Outside Magazine listed its 25 essential books for the well-read explorer. At the top was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
Like his most famous creation, The Little Prince, that visitor from Asteroid B-612 who once saw 44 sunsets in a single day, Saint-Exupéry disappeared into the sky. Killed in World War II at age 44, “Saint Ex” was a pioneering pilot for Aéropostale in the 1920s, carrying mail over the deadly Sahara on the Toulouse-Dakar route, encountering cyclones, marauding Moors, and lonely nights: “So in the heart of the desert, on the naked rind of the planet, in an isolation like that of the beginnings of the world, we built a village of men. Sitting in the flickering light of the candles on this kerchief of sand, on this village square, we waited out the night.” Whatever his skills as a pilot—said to be extraordinary—as a writer he is effortlessly sublime. Wind, Sand and Stars is so humane, so poetic, you underline sentences: “It is another of the miraculous things about mankind that there is no pain nor passion that does not radiate to the ends of the earth. Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world.” Saint-Exupéry did just that. No writer before or since has distilled the sheer spirit of adventure so beautifully. True, in his excitement he can be righteous, almost irksome—like someone who’s just gotten religion. But that youthful excess is part of his charm. Philosophical yet gritty, sincere yet never earnest, utterly devoid of the postmodern cop-outs of cynicism, sarcasm, and spite, Saint-Exupéry’s prose is a lot like the bracing gusts of fresh air that greet him in his open cockpit. He shows us what it’s like to be subject—and king—of infinite space.
… was renamed and redesignated on this date in 1938. It had been Mount Olympus National Monument since 1909.
Glacier capped mountains, wild Pacific coast and magnificent stands of old-growth forests, including temperate rain forests — at Olympic National Park, you can find all three. About 95% of the park is designated wilderness, which further protects these diverse and spectacular ecosystems.
Olympic is also known for its biological diversity. Isolated for eons by glacial ice, and later the waters of Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Olympic Peninsula has developed its own distinct array of plants and animals. Eight kinds of plants and 15 kinds of animals are found on the peninsula but no where else on Earth.
Click on image to enlarge and learn more.
“Things not looking good for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They have now lost 11 games in a row. To give you an idea of how bad they are, today they got beat by Ghana.”
Jay Leno (Tuesday)
“[D]o we really need every single scientist in the world to agree with every single word of the movie before we see the bigger picture and take action?”
Here’s the current weather warning for northern and central New Mexico:
SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ARE NOT ANTICIPATED TODAY OR TONIGHT. HOWEVER…
STRONG THUNDERSTORMS CAN BE EXPECTED ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE STATE
TODAY WITH HAIL UP TO ONE HALF INCH IN DIAMETER…WINDS UP
TO 55 MPH…AND HEAVY TO VERY HEAVY RAIN. RAINS WILL RESULT IN
LOCALIZED FLOODING OF ARROYOS AND SMALL STREAMS…AS WELL AS SOME
LOW LYING AREAS AND STREETS IN THE URBAN AREAS.
Hail to half an inch, 55 mph winds, very heavy rain and flooding. But severe storms are NOT anticipated.
“Severe” thunderstorms must include frogs, boils, locusts and death of the first born.
Functional Ambivalent pokes a little fun at NewMexiKen —
Best blog buddy NewMexiKen is celebrating actual rain after months or years or maybe decades of little or none in his home town of Albquerque, New Mexico. Which, I feel obligated to point out, is in the middle of a desert. Still the normally sensible NewMexiKen seems shocked and disturbed that it doesn’t rain there.
but goes on to tell a funny story about L.A. TV weathermen. (Whose ranks once included Pat Sajak.)
“Oh, for crying out loud.
“The whole point of America is that you can burn the flag. Nothing sums up her greatness so succinctly.”
… was created on this date in 1954, when President Eisenhower signed a bill authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to acquire the site and remaining structures.
Fort Union was established in 1851 by Lieutenant Colonel Edwin V. Sumner as a guardian and protector of the Santa Fe Trail. During it’s forty-year history, three different forts were constructed close together. The third and final Fort Union was the largest in the American Southwest, and functioned as a military garrison, territorial arsenal, and military supply depot for the southwest. Today, visitors use a self-guided tour path to visit the second fort and the large, impressive ruins of the third Fort Union. The largest visible network of Santa Fe Trail ruts can be seen here.
… was assassinated in Sarajevo on this date in 1914, igniting what we know as World War I.
Franz Ferdinand was the nephew of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary. After the Emperor’s son had committed suicide and Ferdinand’s own father had died, Ferdinand was first in succession to the Emperor. He was considered likely to be a reformer, which upset Balkan nationalists.
In all, there were seven assassins along the route of the Archduke’s car, all Bosnian Serbs. The third of the seven, Nedelko Cabrinovic,
threw a bomb, but failed to see the car in time to aim well: he missed the heir’s car and hit the next one, injuring several people. Cabrinovic swallowed poison and jumped into a canal, but he was saved from suicide and arrested. He died of tuberculosis in prison in 1916.
The seventh was Gavrilo Princip.
Princip heard Cabrinovic’s bomb go off and assumed that the Archduke was dead. By the time he heard what had really happened, the cars had driven by. By bad luck, a little later the returning procession missed a turn and stopped to back up at a corner just as Princip happened to walk by. Princip fired two shots: one killed the archduke, the other his wife. Princip was arrested before he could swallow his poison capsule or shoot himself. Princip too was a minor under Austrian law, so he could not be executed. Instead he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and died of tuberculosis in 1916.
It was the Archduke and Sophie’s fourteenth wedding anniversary. The Archduke’s last words were, “Sophie dear, Sophie dear, don’t die! Stay alive for our children.”
In the aftermath of the assassination, diplomatic efforts failed, perhaps because both Austria and Serbia feared loss of national prestige. Austria declared war on Serbia. Germany sided with Austria; Russia supported Serbia as required by treaty. France was obligated to support Russia in any war with Germany or Austria-Hungary. Britain was obligated to support France in an any war with Germany.
Source for quotes and some background: The Balkan Causes of World War One
“Heavy rains caused so much flooding in Washington, D.C. they had to close down the National Archives where they keep the Constitution. Luckily, the Bush administration’s not using the Constitution anymore.”
Jay Leno
… at Casa NewMexiKen this evening. Will this horrible weather ever stop?
A satellite photo of the Florida peninsula (left) and another (right) indicating what it will look like when the sea rises 18-20 feet.
From The New York Review of Books, “The Threat to the Planet,” by Jim Hansen.
Kind of silly to pour billions of dollars into rescuing the Everglades, don’t you think?