Wednesday, August 31, 2011

WHO WOULD YOU PREFER FOR PRESIDENT? Obama or a sack of hammers? The sack of hammers looks pretty good right now....
CLASSY: Obama To Give Jobs Speech as GOP Contenders Debate. I like Krauthammer's suggestion -- move the debate back 1 hour to 9 pm and then let the contenders shred Obama's proposals (assuming of course that they're not more hot air).

In any event, you can safely assume the one I'll not be watching is Obama.
I KNEW IT!
The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various groups of animals.

We are all familiar with a Herd of cows, a Flock of chickens, a School of fish and a Gaggle of geese.

However, less widely known is a Pride of lions, a Murder of crows (as well as their cousins the rooks and ravens), an Exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise, a Parliament of owls.

Now consider a group of baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?

Believe it or not ... a Congress!

I guess that pretty much explains the things that come out of Washington.
From my email.
BACK FROM ALASKA: here are some photos.


Anchorage from the hotel room. About 10 pm Alaska time.


A view from the water's edge about 8 blocks from the hotel. The Alaska railroad runs along the water at the bottom of the photo.


Mt. Whitney taken from Highway 3 just north of Wasilla.


Taking off from Fish Lake on a floatplane tour of Mt. Whitney and the Denali National Forest.


Path carved by a long ago glacier. We could see occasional pools of bright blue glacier water in the ice beneath us. This photo was taken at about 6,500 ft.


Mt. Whitney at our peak altitude of 8,000 ft. We flew among the peaks, occasionally only a few hundred feet from sheer rock walls.


Seward Harbor as we prepared for a marine tour of Renaissance and Aialik Bays. The weather was perfect, and we got lucky, seeing otter, seals, whales, salmon, and puffins (a bird that lives solely in the water).


Holgate Glacier in Aialik Bay. The ship you can (maybe) see at the base of the glacier is the same size as our own tour boat.