I am continually amazed at how much this chick has gotten in the heads of those on the progressive side of the political spectrum. She must really intimidate them somehow.

Here is an interesting map comparing the size of a states GDP with that of the GDP of an independent country. Interesting to say the least.

"I am extremely emotional about this and was up all night in tears."

This is older but just as funny as it was the first time. Read and laugh.

A large and very active sunspot is now rotating around the corner of the sun to our side. It is now visible from Earth based monitoring devices, as seen below. While on the other side, it has produced several large eruptions, as you can see here.

Brace yourselves.

Saturday mornings are a fine time for random musings, for cruising the internet to see where the imagination might take you. During such a wandering, I came across the picture you see below of the celebrity Kim Kardashian, a person (in)famous for no real reason that I can see. In other words a true celebrity, someone famous for being famous.

However, there is clearly something about Ms. K that draws our attention. Something like the bold, sultry "come hither" look, the long flowing chestnut hair, the lurid red lips, the generous bosom. Yeah, something like that!

One can be led to wonder, on a Saturday morning, whether it has always been this way.

Well, using some Google fu, I found the picture, which depicts a statue of Parvati, consort to Lord Shiva, circa 1000 AD, from India. There is certainly a similarity between the consort Parvati and Ms. Kardashian, no?

In the same way, behold the ancient Egyptian statues below, from several thousand years ago. Again, many similarities.

Egyptian again, Queen Nefertiti, wife of the legendary King Ahkenaten.

A Roman mosaic from what is now Palestine, and known as the Mona Lisa of Galilee.

Finally, a portrait of a Roman girl, from the first few centuries AD. Some things change, and some certainly don't.

Saturday porch pictures.

This is an amazing composite image created from 50 images, taken of the solar eclipse as seen last July 11th on Easter Island. Well composed indeed. Please click twice to enlarge to its greatest extent for the best effect.

teenager dude rescues a baby hummingbird and teaches it to fly. I bet having a pet hummingbird is a chick magnet.

You do not just walk into Mordor..... or Sicily. Mount Etna is erupting at this time, but the Italians are not evacuating, as this volcano in old Europe does this all the time. First Eyafjallajokul, now this.

Activity on the far side of the sun is flaring up. The active area is almost directly below NASA's Stereo B spacecraft, which has recorded this movie of a large solar eruption and consequent shock wave. Watch carefully just after the image shifts left and you can see the shockwave move over most of the surface of the sun.

The solar rotation will bring this active area around toward the Earth in the next few days, so we may see more enhanced solar wind and aurora in the northern hemisphere.

Awesome military pictures. First, an incredible near miss.

A sub breaks the ice somewhere in the arctic.

Teaching the next generation that Americans are cool was not a subject they learned at boot camp, but rather a natural reaction to seeing a crowd of boys hanging around. What else to do but put a smile on their faces?

Wow, I live just down the road from this and I have never heard of it. Well worth the time to watch, just be sure it's full screen and on HD.

Politicians. This spoof is surprisingly professional. Must be easy.

Guns, lightsabers, fighting, creepy old guy. Ok.

A very rare view of a sun halo, taken in winter in Stockholm, Sweden. Caused when sunlight shines through small ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere, it is usually most prominent at sunrise or sunset, when the angle of light is most favorable.

Here we see two parhelia, or sundogs, to the right and left of the sun, and a clear 22 degree halo. If one looks closely, a much rarer 46 degree halo is faintly visible.