Yoho National Park wallpaper. Nice to think there is an actual place called Yoho. The park was established in 1886.
Feds say new cap could contain Gulf leak by Monday
The BP oil leak could be completely contained as early as Monday if a new, tighter cap can be fitted over the blown-out well, the government official in charge of the crisis said Friday in some of the most encouraging news to come out of the Gulf in the 2 1/2 months since the disaster struck.
Crews using remote-controlled submarines plan to swap out the cap over the weekend, taking advantage of a window of good weather following weeks of delays caused by choppy seas.
“I use the word ‘contained,'” said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen. “‘Stop’ is when we put the plug in down below.”
I’m a little surprised by the optimistic tone as they have been somewhat downbeat lately. Hope for the best and expect the worse.
Long notorious for its bone-chilling frigidity, Lake Superior is far warmer than normal, and could be headed for record-setting high temperatures later this summer.
Maybe connected to global warming, not a certainty.
Dr. Livingstone Letter Deciphered at Last
The contents of a long-lost letter written by 19th century explorer David Livingstone have been deciphered. The nearly 140-year-old missive was written by Livingstone as he struggled against extreme conditions in the African village of Bambare, in present-day Congo. With the famed explorer out of paper and low on ink, he tore pages from books and wrote with a pigment improvised from the seeds of a local berry.
Livingstone was a missionary but became more famous for his explorations of Africa. He named Victoria Falls after the then queen of England. While he deserves credit for his missionary work, the geographic discoveries that would acquaint the world with the African continent and his attempts to stop the slave trade, he was also a bit of an arrogant colonialist.
Egypt unveils discovery of 4,300-year-old tombs
Egyptian archaeologists have unveiled their latest discovery – two 4,300-year-old tombs carved out of stone and unearthed in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara near Cairo.
The tombs have false doors with paintings depicting their owners – a father and a son who served as heads of the royal scribes. Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass says the new findings are “the most distinguished tombs ever found from the Old Kingdom,”
The father’s sarcophagus was destroyed by humidity and the sons ransacked by grave robbers.
Obama urges boosting clean energy tax credit
President Barack Obama urged the U.S. Congress on Friday to pass a $5 billion expansion of tax credits for clean energy manufacturing that he said would generate tens of thousands of new jobs.
…While campaigning for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is in a tough fight for re-election in Nevada, Obama called on Congress to extend a tax credit program to foster private investment in clean energy manufacturing.
He estimated that a the $5 billion expansion would generate nearly 40,000 jobs, and the $12 billion or more in private sector investment it is expected to trigger could create up to 90,000 more jobs.
A now-depleted $2.3 billion in clean energy tax credits was part of a $787 billion economic stimulus Obama signed last year to help lift the economy out of the worst recession in a generation. Many independent economists credit the package with helping to stave off a worse crisis.
Whether some of those senators who seem determined to sabotage any initiative Obama proposes will have enough maturity to stop playing games and pass a new credit is another matter. Senator Reid (D-NV) does support renewing alternative tax credits.
tangledwing 