Moko the dolphin saves the whales

I love stories like this -- from the New Zealand Herald:

Mr Smith received a call early Monday morning to say the two whales had stranded on the south end of Mahia Beach.
"Generally speaking when pygmy sperm whales strand they end up dying, or they are refloated only to strand again later in the day and die.
"We worked for over an hour to try to get them back out to sea ... but they kept getting disorientated and stranding again.
"There is a large sandbar just off the shore so that could have been very confusing for them - they obviously couldn't find their way back past it to the sea."
After about four unsuccessful refloating attempts it was becoming highly likely the pair would have to be euthanased.
"The whales were getting tired and I was getting cold when Moko [a local dolphin] turned up," he said.
"It was amazing. We'd been working for about an hour-and-a-half when the dolphin came directly up to us.
"[Moko] had them moving parallel to the shore - for about 200 metres or so - within about a minute."
"The whales were sitting on the surface of the water quite distressed, they had arched their backs and were calling to one another, but as soon as the dolphin turned up they submerged into the water and followed her."
Moko led the whales about 200m along the beach towards the headland then led the pair all the way out to sea.
...
" She obviously gave them enough guidance to leave the area because we haven't seen them since."
Moko however was seen straight after - the playful dolphin swam straight back close to shore to play with local residents.

Here's a video about Mahai Beach that includes footage of Moko:

Shorter

Shorter Geraldine Ferraro:

I was a token woman 25 years ago, so Barak Obama must be just a token black today. He couldn't possibly really be more deserving of the presidency than I was!

Six-Word Memoirs

The legend is that Hemingway was once challenged to write a short story in six words. He came up with this "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn".
Now there is a project called Six-Word Memoirs at SMITH Magazine which is publishing a book titled "Not Quite What I Was Planning" which challenges people to describe their lives in six words.
Some of their submissions so far: "Waiting for the drugs to work." "God called, you have 1 message." "Nothing but curveballs. Hit some too." "20's women, 30's career, 40's sleep."
So here's mine: "Husband and children bring unexpected happiness". Not exciting, but it's my own.

Great video of the day

YouTube - Simon's Cat 'Let Me In!'



I shamelessly stole this from Canadian Cynic. It is hilarious.
When I was growing up, we had a black cat, which we called "The Black Cat", who would leap onto the screen door whenever she wanted inside. The result was that when you opened the inside door, there was The Black Cat splayed out at eye level on the screen with all four paws gripping the mesh. This, of course, made it impossible to open the screen door without causing her to lose her grip. So you had to stand there and wait because she would lose her grip eventually anyway, and slide gracelessly down, nails screeching off the screen, landing on the stoop with a thump. THEN you could open the screen door and she would glide in with the "I meant to do that!" attitude.
Then five minutes later, she wanted to go out again.

Stephane, just do it

It's time.
A spring vote, with Ontario and Saskatchewan and Manitoba and Newfoundland mad at Harper, with middle-class parents wanting that Liberal education tax credit, with enough tarnish to quell the Tory squeaky-clean image, with the American housing recession hitting Canadian lumber sales, with higher gas prices across the country, with everyone grumpy following a long winter ... as Steve says:

This is as good as it gets.

Yes, the sky actually IS falling

Wanna read something really depressing? Also informative, of course, but also pretty much of a down trip -- Mike Whitney's wrap up of the economy, Picking Through the Rubble in Post-Bubble America highlighted by this prediction:

Expect to see the Dow hugging 7,000 by year end.

I might think he is being unnecessarily gloomy if I wasn't also reading Ian Welsh and Bonddad and Stirling Newberry. Keep your chin up!

Today's next great line

In counterpoint to my post about Wolcott, here is John Cole:

If there has been a dumber, baser, more self-destructive campaign than the one waged by Hillary Clinton this year, I am not aware of it. She isn’t content to go down alone. She is taking the party with her.

In regard to the 3AM ad, which Cole is mainly talking about, the funniest version of this I heard was that Hillary answers the phone and hears "Is Bill there?"
I do disagree, however, that this fight is hurting the Democratic Party -- I think they will find themselves stronger in the end because through the battle of Hillary vs Obama they are defining what they really are and what they really stand for. They have needed to do this ever since the American voters turned away from Democrats in 1994.

Great line of the day

James Wolcott writes about the rants of the Obama supporters:

Hillary and Obama don't need to be told the facts of life, but such instruction seems to have eluded Obama's supporters, many of whom seem to be in a hurry to go from hoping to moping, from feeling better about the future to feeling sorry for themselves. God forbid she wins Pennsylvania--that'll really give these crybabies something to cry about.

I know what he means -- over at Daily Kos, the meaningless plethora of Obama-si-Hillary-no posts, along with hundreds of people who think hitting the "recommend" button for every pro-Obama post is a worthwhile way to spend their time, is making this site virtually unreadable these days.

Two remarkable events

Two remarkable events today -- International Women's Day, and my birthday! Let's celebrate:

Another Nelson moment

This Nelson moment -- Tories implore Senate to quash RESP bill -- has been brought to you by the Liberal Party of Canada.

Great line of the day

Dave at Galloping Beaver alerts us to Newsweek's report that Canadian terrorist prosecutions are excluding CIA evidence, quoting Bernard Beckhoff, public safety ministry spokesperson:

"The CSIS director has stated publicly that torture is morally repugnant and not particularly reliable. CSIS does not knowingly use information which has been obtained through torture."

I'm glad to hear it.

So what is the truth of it?

Personally, I don't care about who leaked what about whom.
What's important is the truth of it -- will either Clinton or Obama actually renegotiate NAFTA or not?
This time, will the Americans negotiate a deal they can live up to, or will we have to go through another decade of court cases with obstructive American industries blaming Canada for their marketing problems?
And for our part, will the Harper government actually negotiate with the best interests of Canada at heart, or will their basic operating principle be just the protection of industries in Conservative ridings?

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.
As Birth Pangs describes it so well, the Unborn Child Victims of Crime bill (AKA the Kicking Abortion's Ass act) is a "back-door attempt to again make women’s pregnancies public property". And tonight the pro-lifers are thrilled that the bill passed second reading.
SoCon Or Bust writes:

... the momentum is clearly moving in our direction. If not this time, it will happen in the future. It’s inevitable now.
Just give us a little crack and we’ll drive this

RIGHT THROUGH IT!
Little baby steps….easy does it.

And its not just the bloggers who hear the dogwhistle. The ordinary people who write letters to the editor all hear it too, like this one and this one.

Emery update

I was wondering what was going on with this case.
Apparently there's a deal being cooked up between the Canadian government and the Americans over Marc Emery, though it might not work out.

Marijuana crusader Marc Emery is blaming a clash of judicial cultures for delays in a plea bargain that would send him to prison briefly in the United States before serving several years in Canada. . . .
"What's at stake is the Canadian prosecutorial service doesn't think that it's possible to make a deal where a Canadian judge is compelled to do something specific, like put me in jail for a minimum length of time or set some kind of parole date," he said.. . .
A plea bargain was in the works that would see charges dropped against Williams and Rainey while Emery would plead guilty and receive a prison sentence.. . .
Emery said he finds the whole process odd.
"The Canadian government could just have me charged and that would lay the matter to rest and they wouldn't have to be concerned because some judge would come to a determination as to whether I should be incarcerated," he said.

But Canada won't charge him, because no Canadian court would convict him.
And that wouldn't satisfy the Americans at all.

Shorter

Well, given today's news, I guess we can do a Shorter Stephen Harper:

Why would anyone believe we would try to buy Chuck Cadman's vote ? It's the AMERICAN vote we're trying to influence!