After my walk with Qila and Jennie every morning, we wait for at least twenty minutes before breakfast. This wait has several very specific purposes. First, Samoyeds are one of the dog breeds that can succumb to bloat or gastric tortion. I’ll talk more about this in a later post but bloat isn’t pretty, its onset can be sudden, and it’s frequently fatal. Eating too soon after exercise has been given as one of the causes of bloat.
The other purpose the wait gives is that it provides an opportunity for me to make and eat my own breakfast. [continue reading…]
After the recent signing of the Interim Constitution for Iraq and the various attendant commentary, I became interested in how it compared to the other national constitutions in the area. This post will be the first of several discussing these national constitutions. I have concentrated my attention on the constitutions of the Arab world and within those constitutions I have put most of my attention on general structure and the issue of rights. I have not paid a great deal of attention to procedural details e.g. succession, the legislative process, etc.
My source for most of these constitutions is the International Constutional Law Site. I would very much appreciate any comments or corrections.
More than fifteen days after it began, the 2004 Iditarod is over. At 12:50:36 pm local time Perry Solmonson drove his team across the finish line and, as the last competitor to finish the race, became the “Red Lantern” winner for this year.
The Iditarod, called “The Last Great Race”, is a 1,049 mile sleddog race that commemorates the 1925 serum run from Anchorage to Nome in which a relay of sleddog teams carried diphtheria anti-toxin to save the children of Nome. Although a statue of Balto, the lead dog of the team that ran the last leg of the relay, stands in Central Park in New York, it was Leonard Seppala’s great lead dog Togo who led the longest and most difficult leg of the journey across bare ice.
This year’s winner, Mitch Seavey, came in March 16 with a winning time of 9:12:20:22. Is there any other race in the world in which the last competitor to finish is “honored” quite like this?
The Internet is truly a wonderful resource. When reading an article by William F. Buckley, How Long, How Long? on Townhall.com I found the following statement:
“Bush vs. Kerry? Looking back on Bush vs. Gore, Professor Joseph Olson of the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, gives us a shrewd perspective. Adding up the counties in the U.S. won by the two candidates, it was Gore 677, Bush 2,434. Taking the population of those counties, it was 143 million for Bush, 127 million for Gore. In square miles of land won, Gore 580,000, Bush 2,427,000. The murder rate in Gore counties, 13.2 per 100,000 residents, contrasted with 2.1 in the Bush counties. “
I was so intrigued by these statistics I went to track them down. I found Professor Olson’s web site on which he bitterly complains about this quote:
DISCLAIMER: There is an e-mail floating around the internet dealing with the 2000 Bush/Gore election, remarks of a Scotish philosopher named Alexander Tyler, etc. Part of it is attributed to me. It is entirely BOGUS as to my authorship. I’ve been trying to kill it for 3 years. For details see: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp.
The gist of the Snopes de-bunking is that Professor Olson never said it, the county voting statistics are correct, the murder rate statistics aren’t.
What a wonderful thing the Internet is! Even an amateur fact-checker like me can find out pretty easily what to believe and what not to believe.
In homage to Joe Katzman over at Winds of Change why don’t I reserve my Sunday posts for stories of good people and good deeds?
Niklaus von Flüe known as Bruder Klaus is the patron saint of Switzerland and of judges and magistrates. He was born in 1417 in canton Obwalden in Switzerland.
After a successful career as soldier and farmer, he married Dorothy Wyss in 1447 and together they had ten children. In 1467 he asked and was granted permission from his wife to become a hermit. He withdrew to a cave in the mountains and spent the rest of his life there contemplating the sufferings of Jesus and attracting pilgrims from all over Europe. [continue reading…]
I thought for quite a while about posting on the anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq but I realized there wasn’t much that I could say that hadn’t been said better by someone else. Then on One Hand Clapping I found a reference to a post by an Iraqi blogger and I was moved to respond.
Dear Sarmad:
I was moved to tears by your eloquent post and felt I had to respond to you. [continue reading…]
When you have one dog the dog becomes a member of your family. When you have two dogs the dogs become members of your family. But when you have three or more dogs you have become a member of a dog pack. [continue reading…]
I sincerely wish I could like John Kerry more. I didn’t vote for GWB in 2000. The simple explanation is that I didn’t think it was a good time to have a president who was a Texas oil man who also happened to be a member of an aristocratic Eastern family. [continue reading…]
Steven Den Beste over at USS Clueless has had a typically excellent series of posts on the aftermath of the train bombings in Spain and the recent Spanish elections. Keep scrolling. To be honest I don’t think that I share his pessism and those who know me can tell you what an extraordinary statement that is. Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t that optimistic to begin with. [continue reading…]
Last Friday night my wife and I attended the last opera in our Lyric Opera subscription for this year: Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The production was Hal Prince’s sublime production which I’ve seen for, what is it, twenty years now. You can see pictures of the gorgeous set designs here. This production is well worth seeing for its own sake.
Sylvie Valayre sang Cio-Cio San and Roberto Aronica sang Pinkerton. They were vocally adequate but their acting was below par. While each might been okay individually they simply did not click. By comparison Kim Josephson’s nicely sung and acted Sharpless came very close to dominating the show. When you realize how greatly Cio-Cio San dominates Madama Butterfly you can see I’m really saying something here.
I just don’t get the Lyric management. Our last two productions–Madama Butterfly and Lucia di Lammermoor–were simply not worthy of a world-class opera company (I’ll post more about Lucia later). And they’re staging The Ring next season!
There’s only one reason for any company to expend the money and energy necessary to mount a complete Ring: to demonstrate that they are, in fact, a world-class company.
To offset this achievement with what were essentially student productions of Madama Butterfly and Lucia simply confounds understanding.
Niklaus von Flüe known as Bruder Klaus is the patron saint of Switzerland and of judges and magistrates. He was born in 1417 in canton Obwalden in Switzerland. 
