Watch this, and then you will look at the picture below with a new perspective.

Loch Ard Gorge and the Milky Way secretly make their way through the night.

One should always wait to pull up the landing gear until the plane is actually in the air.

EMBED-Pilot pulls up landing gear while on runway!! - Watch more free videos

Scale from Brad Goodspeed on Vimeo.

Great leader Obama parties and watches basketball while the Middle East burns. Jimmy Carter's second term continues.

Simply unreal colors. Truth is stranger than fiction.

This is Europa, moon of Saturn, photographed by the Galileo spacecraft. It is about the same size as our moon, but without major features such as mountain ranges or large impact craters.

Scientists believe that may be because its surface is covered by a liquid sea, crusted over by ice, which shows enormous moon sized cracks in this picture. An additional dedicated mission to Europa is being planned in about 2020, where a landing craft will see just how deep the outer crust is. If it isn't too deep, or an opening via a crack or fissure can be found, the plan is to inject a hydrobot into the liquid below to explore for life.

This weekend, it has been foggy, clammy, and a bit cold. Right now, as I sit and type this, it has begun to rain outside. In this kind of weather, it makes one want to get out the Dutch oven and cook up a dinner of "man food."

So it was off to the store to get a pot roast, dust off the Dutch oven, and get the "fixins" all out on the counter.

Here below you see everything in the pot and ready for the magic to begin.

Outside, the first job is to get the coals going.

Next, bring out the oven, and strategically place those coals so the heat is even from both top and bottom.

Two hours or so later, the big cut of tough meat has now been slow tenderized in all the goodness I put in there with it, namely onions, olive oil, pepper, Italian seasonings, garlic, etc. As the meat cooks its juices all blend with the other ingredients to make a really wonderful liquid, which is perfect as a gravy for the mashed potatoes.

It's ready!

After basketball practice, the 15 year old and I stopped on the way home to explore an abandoned bridge over the Cosumnes River. There was quite a flow in the river, which by August will be dry as a bone.

Railroad spike, oak leaf, and a spider web.

The Opportunity Rover on the Martian surface was only expected to last three to six months. Now, seven years later, it is still going strong, and has traveled over 26.7 kilometers from the landing site.

In this picture we see the rovers current location at the edge of the Santa Maria crater, and soon the rover will be off on a six kilometer trip to another, much bigger one. The Santa Maria crater is about 90 meters in diameter. Click this picture a couple of times to see it bigger and in all its glory.

Another perspective of the same thing, but this time from space. It looks like the rover's faint tracks can be seen coming down from the top of the picture.

Saturday porch pictures.

The Chinese are caught using scenes from Top Gun in a film supposedly showing Chinese fighter jets shooting down another.

Looks like the Iranians aren't the only one using fake military film footage to claim they have advanced technology. I thought the Chinese were supposed to be an unstoppable military and technological juggernaut? Guess not so much.

Good photography from this guy.

Like I said earlier, our Lord God King Obama is running in circles babbling while the Egyptian house is burning. Now the flames are licking at Yemen, which might also go up in smoke and blood.

Just like during the Iranian festivities last year, the leader of the world's most successful democracy shows how he tends to side with the dictators and tyrants, and against the people.

The average man here at home should look on this behavior with suspicion and even alarm.

If the O'jesus can't recognize which side he ought to be on in these kinds of conflicts, he certainly is no democrat (in the classic sense, of course).

If he cannot see that our interests lie in supporting the people and true democracy, if it is not his first reflex to stand with the people on the street in their fight against tyrants, then he has forgotten the nature of our own revolution. He has forgotten, if he ever knew it, why our land is so exceptional in history.

The issue isn't whether these people in the street will be successful in liberalizing their countries ... they may indeed only open the door to a worse tyranny ... it is who Obama instinctively chooses to support that should be of concern to all of us here at home.

And that is to be feared. Eyes wide open, powder dry.

Waivers from complying with Obamacare are growing every month, and now over 700 entities have been declared exempt from it, covering about 2.2 million people. Most are government entities, labor unions or other politically connected groups.

The Democrats teach us another lesson in "the laws are for thee and not for me."

Here on Earth, excitement continues as Mount Kirishima on Japan's southernmost island unexpectedly erupts, for the first time in more than 50 years.

Is this an image of the smoke from your neighbor's leaf fire rising into the night sky, or is it a 15 light year wide picture of McNeil's nebula?

Take a gander at this 34 ounce nugget from Gaines Creek, Alaska. What a chunk of gold that is!

The guy who found it was swinging a metal detector over tailings piles.

President O might get a bit "wee wee'd" up about this. Arizona legislators have now proposed a law to require anyone running for President to prove up their eligibility. This may not be the only state that makes such a law given the importance of the 2012 election, the new Republican state houses all over the country, and the obvious and extensive effort made by Obama and the Democrats to keep this information secret.

Meanwhile, the SEIU goons must have paid a late night visit to this fellow. Now he says he "misspoke" when he said the governor of Hawaii had been unable to find a real long form birth certificate.

Or, is it all a clever head fake, designed to make people spend time and effort on an issue that isn't there? After all, one would think Hillary or maybe even McCain would have found the dirt during the primaries if it was there.

On the other hand, he bears only the most superficial resemblance to Obama Sr., who in turn had nearly zero interest in the kid who was supposedly his.

Maybe we really should see what that birth certificate says. Even if it does exist, it likely has some other interesting revelations.

Unlike the dancing unicorns fed to a passive audience in the SOTU last night, this is important news.

You know that the rats are leaving the sinking ship when you see the dictator's family and gold leaving the country. I hope this sort of thing doesn't simply open the door for the Muslim Brotherhood to take over Egypt. If so, the Israelis are going to have to get serious about defending themselves, and our boy president will find himself running in circles and babbing when bad things happen.

After being inexplicably stuck inside the spacecraft that brought it into orbit, NASA's NanoSail D satellite has now extricated itself somehow and successfully unfurled its 10 square meter sail. For the first time, this small spacecraft has now sailed around the Earth at 650 kilometers above the Earth's surface.

Scientists now have to figure out why it got stuck in the first place, and how it seemingly got unstuck on its own. It is believed that the NanoSail D will orbit the Earth for another 120 days or so before the sail catches enough friction with the very upper levels of our atmosphere to pull in back out of orbit. At that point, it will burn up meteor style, and the first sailing satellite mission will come to a close.

Heavy drop.

Nine east Texas Democrats switch parties to the GOP. Hope and change, baby!

Maybe those former Texas Democrats are jumping ship because of things like this!

The Chi Coms insult Obama and America to their face at the state dinner that they wanted so much.

Why we have such a disgusting loser as a President, and why we tolerate this from these communist tyrants, I will never understand. Thanks 52%, you did well.

Meanwhile, here at home, a pillar of the MSM blames the act of an insane man on America. Last I heard, America actually stands for something quite different than that, contrary to what Newsweek wants us to believe.

It seems the Chinese communists and Newsweek hate our country and it's ideals about equally.

Classic. What genius had this idea?

Via Curmudge

Since it was a sunny nice day here in California, the three kids and I loaded ourselves in the car and went off on an expedition to see what was happening. The Sierra foothills are always bucolic, but especially so this time of year when everything is green and every gully has clear water running.

Below, we have a miniature forest of moss growing on top of a fence post, although it could just as well be some exotic New Zealand rain forest or a Jurassic copse of odd greenery from pre historic times (cue the dinosaurs).

How one is supposed to get to the boat with out swimming, I don't know.

These fuzzies below were nicely waving in the cool breeze.

This red tailed hawk leapt off a fence post as we passed by in the car, and the 13 year old caught this image while we paced it on the country road we were on. Surprisingly, it flew parallel to use for a long time, seeming to purposely offer us the chance to get this shot. Our hawk was likely watching us just as much as we were watching him/her. As the 13 year old said, it was a short but "epic" experience for us.

Not all the fall leaves have left the branch. These blackberry leaves were still gamely hanging on to the thorny bush, which is really amazing given the two weeks of windy and rainy weather we recently had. Nice color.

Well, the 16yo turned 17 today. Her facebook page is filling up with "happy birthdays," and she gets to have whatever she wants for dinner tonight (in addition to the gifts).

The now 17yo started her day with her choice of these fat bombs, picked out by her brother for her amusement.

Yum! You can only eat this kind of stuff when you are a teenager.

Saturday porch pictures

This is the paw on a 1300 pound grizzly shot on Afognak Island, Alaska. How would you like this guy prowling about in the woods outside your vacation cabin?

File this under "what did you do this weekend?"

Or

If you had to choose, who would you be in this picture? Me? I'm pulling on the gal's leg.

Mark Visser Rides JAWS at Night! from Fortrus Sports on Vimeo.

Njål Gudbrandsen took this excellent picture of the northern lights in Norway. The series of bright blue lights in the lower center of the picture are from a bridge that was covered in fog.

The photo was a 16 second exposure using a Tokina 11-16 lens on a Canon camera, at f3.2, ISO 400.

Oil men now estimate that the Bakken formation in North Dakota has up to 20 Billion barrels in recoverable oil, or four times the original estimate. In addition, there is significant deposits of natural gas.

So how long do you think it will take the Democrats to shut down this huge source of wealth and national independence from foreign producers?

A new and interesting storm has been brewing on Saturn over the last few months. Now, the swirling effects reach almost halfway around the planet. What causes it is unknown.

From space, we have here the aurora borealis shining green and eerie above a dark purplish blue Earth. This is a perspective rarely seen.

Below is the iconic Ayers Rock in the very center of the Australian outback, taken from the space station.

It's always nice to think of muscle cars. Here are a trio of nice ones. Check out the skinny front tires on this Mustang.

Now that is a blower from hell.

Beautiful fastback on this 68.

Here's your morning puppy. That's a good looking dog, excellently photographed.

Now legislators in ten states have introduced proposed laws to make gold and silver legal currency, fit to use to pay bills and taxes. This is a true statement on the lack of confidence in our national fiat currency, and the acts to debase it foisted on us by the Federal Reserve and Mr. Bernanke.

With many mainstream voices now saying that we will never be able to repay the debt that has and continues to be incurred, perhaps making PM's into money again is the right way to go.

The next few years should be quite interesting.

And, half way around the world, the Germans are facing what has been described as the greatest fear they have as a people and a nation. According to this article, they will need to decide what they will do about the Irish printing the money the Germans use at home in the reich within the next couple of months. How long before they begin talking in Deutchland about replacing the Euro with a PM based currency? All hail the Mark.

Here is an incredible photo mosaic capturing 24 hours from Sounio, Greece. Night is the top half of the picture, day the bottom. The sun was photographed every 15 minutes. Click to enlarge the photo for best effect.