Terra not so firma. Canadian prairie goo inhales farm equipment at its pleasure.

Construction at 45 doctor owned hospitals slams to a halt because of Obamacare. What a great way to improve healthcare and stimulate the economy .... thanks, Democrats!

And take a gander at our Democrat engineered future, just to the north of us in Canada. A 127 day wait for medically necessary surgery. I for one can't wait for our new Democratic/Progressive/Socialist healthcare to kick in at full power. Or maybe I can.

This is a really cool concept that some entrepreneur has made real. Go here to get one custom built just for you.

Hat tip: Ace

Juan Jose Manzona captures the legendary green flash from the Canary Islands in Spain.

Once, while idly watching the sun go down one summer evening over the Pacific, I was surprised to see the green flash. After that serendipitous experience, I usually look every time I happen to be somewhere outside when the sun happens to be going down, but I have never seen it again.

California, run by and for Democrats, begins the process of turning out the lights. And see this too!

Might as well go dark, cause the Democrats have already shut off the water.

Think your toilet paper might be next?

And who did we elect to be our governor? A 72 year old hyper liberal, formerly known as "Governor Moonbeam," who is guilty of starting the state on its road to finacial ruin by allowing government workers to unionize.

We are so screwed.

Domestic oil production is expected to fall 13% from last year, thanks to the de facto ban on off shore oil drilling still being imposed through regulation by the Obama administration and the Democrats.

The number of drilling permits issued since the ban was lifted is zero. None expected until 2012.

Say hello to 5 dollar a gallon gas.

A few local images are in order, taken at various times around the homestead.

Rainy leaves are a favorite. New leaves on roses seem to make the water bead up beautifully.

Skies can ignite if the conditions are correct. It is naturally the right time to pull the camera out from under the seat and do a little impromptu photography.

This summers leaves begin their slow journey back to the soil, as we all must eventually. A shadow of their summer glory. A reflection of long, sunny, hot days, now turned cool and wet. A metaphor for mortality.

These are amazing and unprecedented color enhanced topographic maps of the surface of the moon, done by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite.

This image is centered on the point where the Apollo 15 landed. Red represents higher features, blue shows the lowest areas.

A new species of crocodile is discovered in limestone slabs originally destined to be kitchen countertops.

Department of Defense polar orbiting satellites are recording sinuous bands of auroras just north of Scandinavia. This image is from December 30th. They are just as bright, or brighter, than the lights from urban areas.

That's what they look like from the high ground of space, but from our perspective here on terra firma, the two images below are what you might see. These pictures are from last winter, but they are not only excellent photographs, but works of art as well.

The first was done by Lance Parrish up in Alaska.

This fantastic work was captured by the wonderfully named Öystein Lunde Ingvaldssen, half a world away from Lance, in far northern Norway. Wow. Well done Öystein!

Just in case there is anyone out there that still worries about the junk science of anthropogenic global warming, here is a bit of perspective that might help put the issue into focus.

First, let's consider recent times. Oohh, scary! Let's allow the politicians to regulate and tax everything we say and do so we can stop this trend of warming weather. Al Gore, please help us!

But, before we sell our souls to the devil, perhaps we ought to look out over a longer time frame. If we do that over a 500 years, this is what we see. If anything, we are near the mean temperature over this 500 year time frame. Seems like there really isn't much to worry about. Nobody was holding their temples and shrieking about gloom and doom back during the 1915 to 1945 warm period.

Finally, for an even better view of where we are, lets look back 5000 years, using temperatures from Greenlandic ice cap studies.

Wow. Looks like warmer weather is by far the norm, and what we are experiencing now is chillier than virtually all of the last five thousand years. Bring on the heat.
For a better explanation of all this, go here. And Al Gore, for getting this idiocy off the ground, perverting the science, and attempting to shackle us all with the chains of government regulation and taxation, you can go here.

More facts combined with entertaining snark here.

Saturday porch pictures, up a bit late.

This was the scene this afternoon up at Mono Lake, near the California/Nevada border, in the high desert country.

Borders bookstores stock price tumbles after delaying payments to some publishers.

Not good. When I buy books, it is mostly from these guys. Looks like a cash flow crisis for them is imminent.

I got up early this morning and took the boys paintballing over at the Infinite Edge course. Lots of fun, even if it was really wet and muddy.