This is one of the flowers growing on the Crassula Falcata succulent adjacent to our front porch, Every year this interesting plant grows flower stalks that produce an array of tiny red flowers. When the little flowers open up, they have yellow stamens which give the flowers an orange appearance when seen from a distance.

According to Desert Tropicals, this plant does not tolerate direct sunlight in hot Phoenix summers, so we’ll try and grow one in a shady spot on the patio at the new Wickenburg house. Our back patio should be shady all day.

I wanted to post a picture of this flower today to see if Sig94 will tell me he’s got one of these growing out of his other leg. Click on the image to enlarge

Maybe not.

Anybody who has taken a college physics course or studied thermodynamics knows there are no free sources of energy. Of course, actual science, these days is seldom taught anywhere but in the secondary schools. “Scientific indoctrination” is the crap that the teacher’s unions are pushing in the primary K-12 system - global climate is mankind’s fault, yada yada . . .

Alternatives to fossil fuels will take decades to develop and deploy to the point that we can abandon burning coal and oil for energy. The reality may be that worldwide, that may never happen. Hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear are generally out of the reach of third world nations from both fiscal and technology standpoints.

Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso posted an article at CO2 Science that analyzed a recent paper by Goncalves da Silva, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the State University of Campinas (Brazil). They conclude that the good professor sees the flaws in the free energy model:

So what does the professor finally conclude? He finds that “the new technology may actually be an energy sink, instead of an energy source, relative to the global total primary energy supply for many years or decades, depending on its intrinsic energy costs and deployment path, even though stated aims for its gross energy output are achieved [italics added].” Consequently, he says that “to achieve terawatts output from renewable sources, in order to displace massive quantities of fossil energies, will be a slow process, extending over many decades,” and that we should “not place undue hope in new energy technologies to save the world from fossil energies until well after many decades of deployment.” Or, we would add, if ever!

Emphasis mine. The entire post is here.

We stopped at the garden shop for a few supplies today. While there, as usual, I took pictures of some of the pretty flowers on display. I took this picture of a sunlit cluster of plumerias. Click on the image to enlarge.

I originally had this lantana shrub in the plastic pot it was in when I bought it at the garden shop. Over last winter, I thought it died, but I planted it in a partial sun spot in the back flowerbed. To my surprise, it came back in the springtime and is almost two feet tall and wide today.

According to Floridata, lantana is a native to tropical regions and exists as dozens of strains and varieties. A lantana may look orange from a distance but when the flower head is examined at close range it consists of individual yellow and red flowers that blend when viewed from afar. You can see that detail in this photograph.

Click on the image to enlarge.

As usual, “The One” misses the target and Ramirez does not. With the GDP in the cellar, the chief executive of the country goes bike riding and golfing. Like the sports panelists say on ESPN Football pre-game show, C’mon, man!

This is one of two bromeliad flowers that we’re getting out on the front porch this summer. Click on the image to enlarge.

Speaking of solar activity, a giant coronal hole opened up in the Sun’s northern hemisphere earlier this week, triggering auroras at high latitudes. Image made by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), via APOD. Click image to enlarge.

We used a coupon to get a discount on a dozen Vendela roses today. I arranged them in the vase where I already had some Asian ‘Stargazer’ Lilies. Click on the image to enlarge.

The Dow Jones Index closed below 10,000 today. The Administration and Congress not only wreck the economy but they spook business as well. C’mon November . . .

We got Cabela a couple of toys after we got her back to California. One of those, “Bobo” is a doggie toy with a squeaker in it. When she is in a playful mood, she will grab Bobo, and dash merrily around the family room squeaking Bobo and playing keep away.

The other day, I gave her a greenie, a doggie treat that cleans their teeth and sweetens their breath. She grabbed it and made three laps around the family room at full speed before stoping to chew it. When I said she was playful and energetic, I didn’t know the half of it.

Play the video at the right to watch a 24 second portion of Cabela’s afternoon session with Bobo.

The end of night-blooming cereus flower season is coming soon. In the meantime, we’re enjoying a daily show - in the morning, that is, since they fade after a couple of hours of sunlight. Click on the image to enlarge.

A couple of days ago, I received feedback from a reader who wanted to use our “Correlation Between Solar Activity and Global Temperature” animated graphic in his classes on Meteorology. “Professor Bob” who teaches at a community college in Virginia Beach, VA, is a rare find in academia these days. He shares our skepticism of the whole “Climate Change” hype. How refreshing is that?

The graphic, embedded at the right, originally appeared in a post we wrote back in August of 2006, “Correlating Solar Activity to Global Climate.” The post dealt with observations of sunspot activity and global temperature from 1600 to 1998 and correlated the two together. The graphic is an animated visual summary of the correlation between solar activity and global temperature.

Since the Professor wanted to include the graphic in a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation, I did some research on linking Flash™ to the presentation. I found some pretty good support from Microsoft on how to link to the graphic. I tried it here, saw that it worked, and sent the information to Bob. He emailed me this morning to say he had succeeded in getting the link to work at his end.

The whole climate scam, of course, is aimed at higher taxes on anything that emits CO2. That’s why Al Gore, most Democrats and the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the U.K. have been lying about the temperature figures ever since they started to decline after 1998. We intend to continue debunking the scam as long as we’re able.

Congratulations to Professor Bob for getting the thing working, and just as importantly, for passing the information along to his Meteorology Students.