There have been numerous dramas and documentaries about Jack Kennedy’s life and death. Today marks the 43rd anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

Now there’s a new docudrama about Bobby Kennedy’s life and death: Bobby - the story of the assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, on June 6th, 1968, which centers around 22 people who were at the Ambassador Hotel where he was killed.

But wait — they left brother Teddy out — I think Hollywood should do a docudrama about Teddy Kennedy (even though he’s still alive). They could call it “Chappaquiddick — How I would have done it - if I had done it.”

Retired Geezer and Mrs. G at Blog Idaho have a tragedy on their hands. Please offer your thoughts and prayers for their son and his passenger.

UPDATE: From Retired Geezer . . .

Mrs. G just got off the phone with Flyin’ Brian.
He sounded really old cause he is drugged up with pain meds.

He has a compound fracture of his leg, broken nose and multiple cuts.

He got choked up when he told us that if it wasn’t for the other people on the ground, searching for the woman, they both would have died because they crashed in the river. The other searchers pulled them out.

We’re going to drive to SLC tomorrow.

Brian comes under the heading of Praise but please continue to pray for Kevin Orr.

Yesterday, Damsel took some great pictures along the shoreline as we drove home from Santa Monica. I liked this shot so much that I wanted to work it into a blog. I looked up some stuff about where we were when she got the picture:

A tanker sits offshore at Dockweiler State Beach, near the departure end of Los Angeles International Airport. Nearby is an industrial complex that includes Chevron’s El Segundo oil refinery, the Hyperion Sewage Treatment Plant, and the Scattergood power plant owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, at Playa del Rey. Dockweiler Beach has many barbecue pits and is popular with families, despite the airplanes that roar overhead from Los Angeles International Airport. These plants burn natural gas, but can also use oil piped in from oil refineries, especially the adjacent Chevron refinery. The marine oil terminal offshore serves the refinery. SCE built the plant, and continues to operate it, but it is now owned by NRG/DESTEC Energy Co. of Houston.

Photo credit: Damsel

UPDATE: (This is your Cap’n Speaking) Fix4RSO managed to come up with his own California dreamers at the beach - cute li’l kids! I bet they’ve grown a lot by now, too.

Hey — thanks to FIX4RSO for the honorable mention! A very beautiful picture of the Hotel del Coronado, which of course, we do recognize (been there, done that).

Yep, we like the Eagles, but the Mamas and Papas had it going also. We happened to be at the dentist today (in the people’s Republic of Santa Monica) for cleaning and checkups - we drove up there in our little Chrysler Sebring — on the way back, the Cap’n drove along the beach and I snapped this picture of the late afternoon Sun on a 75 degree California Dreamin’ afternoon.

Oh, and don’t forget about our other weather.

APOD has a nice astrophoto of the Great Orion Nebula today.

I highly recommend watching the The San Diego Supercomputer Center’s great video Volume Visualization of the Orion Nebula to get an amazing perspective on this immense phenomenon.

The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the above deep image, faint wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye just below and to the left of the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known as the Trapezium, the Orion Nebula contains many stellar nurseries. These nurseries contain hydrogen gas, hot young stars, proplyds, and stellar jets spewing material at high speeds. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

Image, story courtesy APOD and NASA.

Captain Ed and the First Mate are visiting Southern California and we say welcome. Glad the weather is nice for them - we were out in our Chrysler Sebring convertable today as well. It was just beautiful!

Just remember, however, that the chamber of commerce will be reluctant to tell you about the other weather we have hereabouts:

Continue reading » Welcome to California

Well, this is another lovely specimen featured as my pick for the prettiest orchid seen in the hothouse this week.

These mums with their glorious autumnal colors are destined to become the centerpiece on our Thanksgiving Day table.

Late Wednesday night, as Damsel and I were walking the dogs, the skies were exceptionally clear for the urban Los Angeles area. We were looking towards the “Seven Sisters” near the zenith when we saw a shooting star. It was probably an early Leonid meteor. This weekend will be a good time to look skyward, especially in the wee hours before dawn when the radiant (located in the constellation Leo) will be above the horizon and your part of the Earth will be plowing head-on into the dust trail left by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle.

Image: A Leonid “green fireball” meteor. (Courtesy NASA)

According to experts, you just might be able to see up to a hundred meteors per hour — that’s better than one a minute!

Continue reading » 2006 Leonids Meteor Shower

I recently read a report on the CO2 Science website in which the author analyzed a paper published in Space Science Reviews about solar influence on the climate over the past several thousand years.

The study provides more evidence of the actual effects taking place as a result of solar fluctuations; it completely disarms the notion of the “hockey stick” climate model and discredits politically-motivated and disingenuous individuals and groups who claim that warming is largely the result of human industrial activities.

In spite of each additional Climate Clue, global warming alarmists remain clueless. Read on . . .

Continue reading » Climate Clues