Ya just gotta love the headline:

Rescued Whale Recovers in Fla. Hot Tub

ISLAMORADA, Fla. - A rescued pygmy sperm whale was recovering Friday in a resort hotel's heated saltwater pool, being treated for dehydration and wounds possibly inflicted by a harpoon.

The 11-foot, 1,200-pound pygmy sperm whale, nicknamed Kokomo, was found stranded on a Florida Keys sandbar earlier in the week and taken to protected waters behind the U.S. Coast Guard station on Islamorada, near Key Largo.

Concerned about the cold, caretakers from the Marine Mammal Conservancy later moved him to The Islander Resort, which turned its heated saltwater swimming pool over to the whale's care.

The whale, monitored constantly, was being given supplemental drinks and distilled water to combat its dehydration, Maalox to settle its stomach and antibiotics to fight pneumonia and infection.

What exactly is a supplemental drink for a whale? I have a mental image of him kicking back on an inflatable raft, shades on, bottle of Maalox in one fin, sippin' on a foo-foo cocktail with an umbrella in it.

[Pass the sunscreen.]

The French: making friends wherever they go. I guess the "why can't we all just be friends" approach to diplomacy isn't working well in the Ivory Coast either.

French Embassy Attacked in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - Mobs attacked France's embassy and army base, looted stores and beat foreigners Sunday as Ivory Coast's key city erupted in anger over a French-brokered peace deal that government supporters said yielded too much to rebels.

Rampaging crowds looted whatever French institutions they could break into and ransacked the city's main shopping center and a radio station.

The furious protests erupted late Saturday and early Sunday as news of the peace deal reached the heavily pro-government commercial capital, Abidjan. The wide-ranging plan, aimed at ending the four-month insurgency, envisions a power-sharing deal between the government and rebels.

No, no, I know it's not funny, and I hope that this doesn't escalate into an even more violent situation. But you have to figure that there's just a touch of satisfaction being felt in some places. Like, umm, Washington.

I said I wasn't going to watch the Superbowl - being bummed out about the Eagles and all - but what the heck. It's still better than anything else that's on.

[And I don't have to care about who wins.]

Quote du jour:

"Football combines the two worst features of American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings."

-- George Will (1941 - ____) US journalist, TV personality

previous ~ home ~ next