From The Economist, “Politics this week: 19th-25th July 2008″ edition: “Italy’s parliament approved a controversial law giving four senior officials immunity from prosecution, including the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The law still has to be signed by the president; it is likely also to be challenged in the constitutional court.” This comes on the heels of the [...]

This past May, Ligia and I visited the National Arboretum here in DC. We try to go there at least once a year. The grounds are huge, and they have both outdoors and indoors facilities. Admission is free, and the grounds are open from 8 AM to 5 PM daily, every day of the year [...]

During our last trip to Baltimore, we visited the Baltimore Aquarium and also attended their dolphin show, called “Play!”. The show lives up to its tame name. You will see dolphins at play, and that’s all you’ll see. It lasts about a half hour or so, and it’s geared toward kids — more specifically, kindergarten-age [...]

This past spring, I took a few photos of the goose you see below. It had been resting in the middle of that parking lot for several days, driving away any other geese that wanted to be there as well. The odd thing for me is that I’d never seen a goose defend a parking [...]

The Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse is the oldest surviving screw-pile lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay. It was built in 1856 (before the Civil War), and installed at the mouth of the Patapsco River, where it marked the shoal known as Seven Foot Knoll for 133 years. We visited it during our recent trip to Baltimore. The [...]

I’ve recently had the chance to try out three noise-canceling headphones: Bose QuietComfort 2 Creative Aurvana X-Fi Philips SHN9500 I looked at these criteria as I used the headphones: Effectiveness of noise-canceling technology Quality of sound Fit and comfort Price What may or may not surprise you is that all noise-canceling headphones block only low sounds, like the rumble of jet airplane engines. They [...]

At least for now, I’m removing my Flickr feed from my main feed. If you are a feed subscriber, you’ve been able to see my Flickr photos appear as separate feed items in my main feed, thanks to a feature at FeedBurner that allows me to splice my site feed with my Flickr photos feed. But [...]