When there is nothing in view everything seems clear.

Today's Tids Issue 2,910
Opening Stuff:

There are those times of perfect contentment when you don't really know what you did, but what it was was truly exceptional.

Nice to see you all again after a bit of a word drought. The clear and endless seas, devoid of man or life except the surfacing of the occasional whale or dolphin, emptied my mind like draining the battery of your smartphone to zero for a new start. It only means that my mind will now refresh uncluttered; Without the foggy, daily repetition of old news.

Either Assad is using gas because he wants to suck the US into his war...and the billions of dollars that will flow, or he was embolden by the inaction of the US the first time he crossed Obama's "Red Line".

The Question:
What is the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise?

The Headlines:

--Global Uptick In Manufacturing Has Dow Above Water Early; Retailer Sales Reports Sketchy.

--NSA Surveillance Covers 75% Of Internet Traffic.

--White House Offended At Turkey PM Tayyip Erdogan's Remarks Accusing Israel Of Overthrowing Egypt's Morsi.

--Syria Brings Attack To Alleged Gassed Areas.

--Rockets From Lebanon Reach Northern Israel.

--Filthy Filner Accused By 18th Woman; San Diego Reaches Settlement With Plaintive In Sexual Harassment Lawsuit.

--Mubarak Supporters Eagerly Await His Release.

--Manning Says He wants To Go To Woman's Prison.

--German Female Tourist Dies From Shark Attack In Hawaii.

Nobody should ever worry about little idiosyncrasies they may possess. There is always an average, and you always need extremes at both ends of the spectrum.

I'm thinking that Claiborne Pell became one of the great and admired political figures because at the time of his first election, he was not the chosen one, now even on the radar, of the RI Democrat Machine.

It bothered me a couple of days ago when I saw that the S&P broke it's 4 day losing streak while the DOW nosedived for the fifth day. I'm thinknig that while the Dow supposedly represents the bigger safer stocks, that they may indeed be overvalued with little prospects of upward movement. So what if they are paying the best dividends -- is it enough to overcome downward pressures? Just musing.

I was standing with my two friends in this ice cream line in a well known Maine tourist attraction harbor, when the woman with a young child in front of us turned to comment on one of our remarks. It was a mini coincidence which led to further conversations as we withed and inched forward. After she had her cone, I saw her smile at the rapture of the creamy delight, and commented to her that if we gave the Islamic extremists ice cream we would have at least a starting point of agreement. Everybody likes ice cream regardless of what they believe or who they are. And, nobody ever frowns while inhaling the nectar. The woman looked up at the ceiling thinking for a moment, "I think you could be right." I'm spreading ice cream diplomacy one ice cream line at a time.

I see where Zuckerman is on a "humanistic" mission where he is joining his FaceBook with other internet delivery hardware companies like Samsung and Nokia to bring access to the Internet to the 5 Billion people in the world who don't have it. He calls the Internet access the new "Human Right". This is a profoundly noble way of describing a new marketing ploy to convince five billion new losers to give away their privacy to the world so he can add to his $$$$'s.

The title of my next Non-Fiction book will be, "How I sailed for four days with just a bag of Cheetos".  Or, "They knew it was me entering the harbor by the orange fingerprints on the sails". Didn't Pat Boone have a hit song similar to that?

If they weren't so much fun, you have to be honest and say that boats are pretty stupid for transportation. For instance, you can sail 20 hours to get to a location that car can reach in 2 hours.

The Answer:

Dolphins and Porpoises appear quite similar and some may even think they are just interchangeable words. But the two are vastly different in many ways. Visual differences may be subtle but they are there. The dolphin has a pointy snout while the porpoise is rounded. The dolphin is lean and could grow to 10 feet while the porpoise will appear to be pudgy and only grow to 7 feet. The dolphins teeth are cone shaped (If you can get close enough to see them) and the Porpoise teeth are flat and rectangular. Their personalities really differ. Dolphins swim in very large families, are friendly to humans and will often surface to play along side of a boat. A porpoise is shy, and lives in small pods. They are rarely seen near a boat. A dolphin will live to about fifty while a porpoise finds 15 to 290 years old age. (Note: Porpoises breed much more often and it has been assumed that that wear and tear leads to earlier deaths.) Humans can hear the sounds of a dolphin but not that of a porpoise. So if you see a dolphin that seems to be playing the part of a mime, it is probably a porpoise.

Yahoo! had more unique visitors than Google in June. Yikes! The world is crumbling.

We have also learned that the dolphin is the only mammal that engages in casual sex. So, if you can't get close enough to see the teeth, drop an X-Rated video into the water and see what happens.

It's funny how when sitting upon a boat doing nothing, you always feel like you're doing something. It's one of those delightful intriguing mysteries of life.

Well, that's about it. Now I have to read 237 emails that came in while I was beyond Internetville.