Whales' alimentary tracts also produce ambergris, a fatty lump created to coat and pass squid beaks along with all the other excreta. Only shat out by some whales, and killing others through intestinal blockages, ambergris is an underground and little understood commodity valued as a status symbol and (for its unique and binding scent) component of traditional perfumes, fetching $1,000 to $5,000 or more per pound.

In 1877, New York was well on its way to becoming the world’s greatest city. This was the year that a group of sporting gentlemen decided that this would be a good time to hold a dog show in Manhattan. It didn’t take long before the Westminster Kennel Club, following the lead of its home town, would be on its way to becoming the world’s greatest dog show.
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“Westminster gets its name from a long gone hotel in Manhattan. There, sporting gentlemen used to meet in the bar to drink and lie about their shooting accomplishments. Eventually they formed a club and bought a training area and kennel. They kept their dogs there and hired a trainer.

“They couldn’t agree on the name for their new club. But finally someone suggested that they name it after their favorite bar. The idea was unanimously selected, we imagine, with the hoisting of a dozen drinking arms.”
– Maxwell Riddle, from a newspaper story quoted in “The Dog Show, 125 Years of Westminster” by William Stifel

It was at one of those meetings that the members decided that they would stage a dog show so that they could compare their dogs in a setting away from the field.
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In the early Westminster years, some interesting names showed up in the catalogs. In the first show, there were two Staghounds listed as being from the late General George Custer’s pack and two Deerhounds that had been bred by the Queen of England. In 1889, the Czar of Russia is listed as the breeder of a Siberian Wolfhound entered, and the following year, one of the entries is a Russian Wolfhound whose listed owner was the Emperor of Germany.

It is one of Canada’s stealthiest predators, so spotting a single lynx is rare enough for travelers in the country’s hinterland. But a driver in the western province of Manitoba recently managed to capture on video an entire family of the wild cats as they crossed the road.

Shaun Kirchmann was travelling along Highway 6 from Grand Rapids to Winnipeg, when a silhouette close to the treeline caught his eye. The Manitoba Hydro employee pulled over to the side of the road, hopeful the shape he had spotted would move closer into view. Moose and deer are common sights along much of the country’s highway systems, and wolves and coyotes can occasionally be seen too.

But Kirchmann was shocked as a mother lynx and her five kittens emerged from the trees, cautiously padding through the snow towards the highway.

Text:
latest update—
Roger Stone: going away for a long time
Gates: jail & 3 yrs probation
Cohen: 3 yrs prison
Manafort: 4 yrs prison
Flynn: awaiting sentencing
Individual-1: FUCKING IMPEACHED

Hillary: enjoying a nice walk in the woods

me: laughing at all you "lock her up" morons

Text:
"Putin told me he didn't meddle"
"Kim Jong-un told me he would destroy his nukes"
"Bone Saw Arabia told me they didn't kill Khashoggi"
"Erdogan told me he didn't mean to fire on our troops"

how much you want to bet the next thing we hear is "Xi told me he didn't hack Equifax"

A Cuban medical programme that has helped some of the world’s poorest communities has become the latest target of the Trump administration’s escalating attempts to pressure Havana’s faltering economy.

Dubbed “Cuban doctors”, the celebrated – if controversial – humanitarian medical mission was founded more than half a century ago in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s revolution, in part to enhance the country’s international influence. Currently active in over 60 countries, the scheme has provided healthcare across the globe, from indigenous Amazon peoples to slum residents in Africa to the victims of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

Now its work has come under renewed fire via a combination of allegations, led by Washington, which has accused Havana of using the doctors to undermine democracy, not least in Venezuela – which hosts one of the biggest missions.
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The US campaign against the Cuban doctors has intensified amid recent political changes in Latin America, which have led to the expulsion of the missions from several countries, including Bolivia and Brazil, where left-wing governments have been replaced by right-wing regimes closely aligned with Trump and Washington.

At the forefront of the allegations is US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who has both depicted the deployment of Cuban doctors in countries from Venezuela to Brazil and Ecuador as sinister interference in their affairs, and congratulated countries – like Bolivia – that have expelled them.
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Instead, for Dr Yoandra Muro, until recently the head of the expelled mission in Bolivia, the threats came instead from the new right-wing government that ousted left-wing president Evo Morales. She said they were accused of “being a white-coated army”. “[Towards the end of the mission] the police entered our houses and took belongings of our colleagues. These were the same people we’d been giving healthcare to. It was very difficult to understand how overnight you turn from a doctor into a terrorist.

“We were in 35 hospitals where the majority of our professionals were specialists. This means there are 35 hospitals– where children are being born, where urgent surgery is required – that today don’t have those professionals. “You can imagine the insecurity that they feel. There were lots of patients who cried when we left, that felt the pain of their doctor going, that said ‘what am I going to do now? Who will treat me now’?”
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For Kirk, the outlook is worrying. “If Trump gets re-elected all bets are off. The US policy is a continuing process. Death by a thousand cuts.”