I took a photo of a pretty gazania in the patio garden this morning. Click on the image to enlarge.

Ramirez’ droll observation of the state of the economy . . .

Dozens of plumerias in the neighborhood have had flowers for weeks, but for some reason, my plumerias are usually late. However, they are reliable and produce flowers every year. Click on the image to enlarge.

I am quite certain that this is not exactly what President Ronald Reagan meant when he spoke about “The Shining City on a Hill.”

From President Reagan’s Farewell Speech to the Nation:

I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.

How do you think the Democrats and Obama see their “City?” My guess is they see it as depicted above.

Hat tip to The Patriot Post for the cartoon.

Cabela, our new miniature pinscher, quickly adapted to her new family. She has been with us for a month now and find that she has two speeds: sleep and play. The first few days after we adopted her, we were in a hotel room, but when we got to the California house she suddenly had a lot of room to romp and believe me, she does!

Image - Cabela playing chase - click on the image to enlarge

This is her peering under the handrail on the stair landing. She just finished a fast lap around the family room and ran up to the landing, crouched on her forelegs and challenged me to chase her up the rest of the way. She was still just long enough for me to snap this photo and then she bounded up the rest of the staircase. When she gets cranked up, she runs like a gazelle, bouncing on her front and hind legs together, sometimes jumping two or three times her own height.

She’s a handful, but we’re not complaining.

Massive government spending means more taxes to you and me. Now, thanks to a new on-line calculator, you can see what your lifetime tax obligation is going to be. You will also see how much that money could have earned had you invested your enormous tax bite. This is my sad story:

The calculator is easy to use; there are three pieces of information you need to provide: highest level of education, age and income. The results are what is shown above plus what your monthly tax bill is going to be - it ain’t pretty.

You can enjoy the misery at MyGovCost.org.

About two weeks ago, I posted a photo of this flower cluster growing on the Crassula Falcata succulent adjacent to our front porch. At the time, the tiny individual flowers were not open. Today, I took this photo of the flowers that are now open exposing the yellow stamens. The flowers also have a nice fresh fragrance. Click on the image to enlarge.

During our return trip to California over the weekend, we passed this billboard on Interstate 10 near Quartzsite, AZ. The sign admonishes readers to “DO THE MATH” with regard to greenhouse gasses. I checked out the website www.psnorac.com and navigated to the Greenhouse Gasses write-up. In the lengthy treatise, the author breaks down the numbers of the composition of the atmosphere and in layman’s terms, explains the extremely small part of the atmosphere that can be considered as greenhouse gasses.

Image: billboard - click to enlarge

We did some research and found some graphics from the National Center for Policy Analysis and posted them in February of 2008. If you read the greenhouse write-up on psnorac.com, you will be able to visualize the numbers in the graphics in our post from 2008. You can download the National Center for Policy Analysis pamphlet (PDF), “A Global Warming Primer,” at this link. There is a lot of other information in the pamphlet that relate to the AGW issue.

It might be difficult to see at this time, but this construction project will soon be a Santa Fe style territorial cottage. In the second image, the garage is shown facing forward. The final placement is with the garage door facing to the right.

Above: The current state of the cottage. Click on the image to enlarge.

Below: The model we originally selected for our retirement home.

Ramírez offers this view of the Administration’s economic policy making process . . .