Friday, when we passed the floral section at the supermarket, we saw these nice phalaenopsis orchids on display. So, as an early valentine, we decided to get one. I took this shot of this beautiful flower this morning.
February 2007
First Daffodil
After the last cold spell, the bulbs around the garden started to wake up and sprout. This is the first yellow daffodil of the season. Bright yellow daffodils are a powerful symbol of sunny spring days, and the most representative of all the daffodil flowers. You can buy bunches of these in the local supermarket, but I like growing them in our yard! They are big, bright and beautiful.
Winter Wanderlust
As most people working for corporations know, there aren’t any work holidays between New Year’s Day and Memorial Day – a span of over 20 weeks. That’s when the wanderlust settles in. So to provide a visual aid for our collective wanderlust, I present you with this magnificent sky over the red rocks of Arches National Park near Moab, Utah.
A Knockout for Winter
This got me chuckling, so I thought I would post it here. I really liked the rant that went with it and the little image of ALGOR (a.k.a. OZONE) fretting over his champ having been K.O.’d.
From Sam Ryskind’s cartoon site, Fresh Meat: NOAA and NASA Want Antarctica To Melt
You don’t hear much about the ozone hole any more. Has it gone away? Nope. NOAA and NASA say in 2006 it was bigger and deeper than ever.
But wait, you say, we implemented the Montreal Protocols in 1989, eliminating ozone depleting CFCs. Kofi Annan called the Protocol, “Perhaps the most successful international agreement to date.” CFC concentrations have been falling since 1995. How can the ozone hole be worse?
It’s not worse, says NOAA, it’s better. It’s just that you can’t see how great the Protocol is working because colder than average temperatures in the Antarctic mask the benefit. Cold weather result[s] in larger and deeper ozone holes, while warmer weather leads to smaller ones.
Colder in Antarctica? Al Gore told me it was melting! Al Gore told me there was consensus. Consensus!
Hat Tip John at Power Line
Stargazer Lily
Last weekend we purchased a bouquet of stargazer lilies for the dining room table. I took this picture yesterday of two of the flowers already open. There are more to come today and later in the week. These are my favorite flowers — I found the “meaning” of them on a floral website:
Primary Significance: The floral celebrity, stargazer lilies are young, bold, beautiful, and dramatic. The meaning of these fragrant flowers can be one of wealth and prosperity, but their white variety can dress down to genuinely express purity and sympathy.
Read more about the meaning of the Stargazer Lily at proflowers.com.
The Greenbat Mentality
I take a large interest in the visitors to this site. I regularly scan the logs to see where the hits are from, which sites have linked to us, and what search keywords score hits from the search engines. At one point today, if you Googled “sunspots global warming hoax NASA,” you would see us at the top of the page of returned websites. It makes me glad to see that we’re having an impact, even if somewhat minor, on the discussion in the blogosphere.
I also look at some of the referring sites to read some of the discussion there. One forum was in the referral list today, so I went there and looked at the thread. Someone had referenced our article Correlating Sunspots to Global Climate in a discussion about global warming. The person who referenced the article was in a cyber-discussion with some of those folks that have taken the position that warming is indeed an anthropogenic artifact rather than looking at the actual science involved.
After the link to the article was posted, one of the Al Gore fans responded after having looked at our website and the article. Despite the references in the article to peer-reviewed sources and the obvious relationship between sunspot count and global temperature, this individual dismissed the science because it was on a conservative website. He wrote: “Wow, capnbob’s blog… A far right wing website where he goas [sic] on and on with temper tantrums about democrats. I don’t see any scientific proof. [name deleted] are you and capnbob the same person?”
Typical of most liberal thinkers, this misguided individual is blind to the truth merely because the source is from someone who disagrees with their political views. Quoting an old adage, “there are none so blind as those who will not see” applies to this case of Greenbat induced myopia.
Painted Daisies
“Looks Fake!” That’s what I said the first time I saw the faces on Mount Rushmore. That’s what I said when I first saw Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon. We have all seen images of these places, yet when suddenly confronting them, they seem to have an air of having been painted there or something.
That’s the feeling I get when looking at some of the flowers in the local garden shop. I never get tired of flowers — especially the ones that look as if they are the product of an artist’s brush. And, when I think about it, maybe they are.
