CLINTON DEFENDS HIS RELEVANCY, URGES GOP COOPERATION

President Clinton, taking advantage of a congressional recess to refocus attention on his presidency, said Tuesday night that he is satisfied he remains relevant in a Republican-dominated capital. He challenged Congress to send him an acceptable welfare bill by July 4. "I am willing to work with Republicans. The question is, are they willing to work with me," Clinton told a prime-time news conference shunned by two of the three major television broadcasting networks ...

Mullfoto of the Day


This was the headline in yesterday's Northern Virginia edition of The Examiner newspaper.

The sub-sub-headline reads: "As rodents move downstream, dams are being abandoned and officials must work to preserve wetlands."

It turns out the "rodents" in question are beavers who are moving into, I guess you could say, better neighborhoods.

I live along the Potomac River and our townhouse development (aside from a hurricane or two) is not a wetland. And, I have never seen a beaver.

The only wetland which has ever been in evidence around our house was the time the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices turned on a thing called "the soaker hose" to water the flowers and Japanese Maple out front and told me, as she left to visit her mom over a long weekend, to remember to turn it off in about an hour.

That was on Friday.

On Monday, I remembered and, running to the front door (like I used to do when I was going to be late for school on the incorrect theory that if I ran around fast enough I could go back in time) only to find the Japanese Maple lying on its side across the sidewalk the roots having lost their grip in the liquid goo I had created.

Had I seen this article, I would have blamed it on the beavers. In the event, I had to go to Home Depot and buy a timer for the hose.

Catchy Caption of the Day

Actual Caption:

An exhibition at London's Science Museum, celebrating the 100th birthday of the world's first entirely synthetic material, plastic, opens Tuesday. Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland created his phenol-formaldehyde polymer resin, Bakelite, in 1907 and it sparked a revolution in manufacturing, transport, fashion, design, and more.

100 years of plastic. And I'm alive to see it. Who'd'a thunk?

(AP Photo/Science Museum)