This was such an unusual happening, the local Fox remote Catalina camera got these shots of heavy surf in the normally pond-like Avalon Harbor. I took these shots of the TV yesterday morning as the waves were happening. None of the usual open air putt putt cars seemed to be going up and down Crescent and Via Casino as normally is the case.
“Fairyland” is the nickname for this view from the top of Bryce Canyon. I cannot disagree with that . . .
Click to see the ginormogantic size.
Today, we drove from Prescott, AZ, Northward to pick up Historic Old Route 66. Then, we drove from Ash Fork along the old highway through Seligman and on down to Kingman. When in Kingman, we stopped at the Harley Davidson dealership to look at the nice hardware and buy a souvenir tank top with the “Mother Road” and Kingman, AZ art on it.
You’ve seen pictures of the highway before, but I wanted to share this beautiful “Red Bird of Paradise” or “Pride of Barbados” blooming outside the Harley building. People often mistakenly call this the Mexican Bird of Paradise, but either of the two names I mentioned are correct. This is one of my very favorite shrubs – sadly, it doesn’t do well in our garden – too cool and not sunny enough, so I’ll just have to keep coming to visit them. Better yet, maybe I’ll live somewhere soon where they thrive.
Click the image to humongify . . .
I generally head for the office early in the morning, often arriving before 0630. Today, unlike most spring and summer days in this area, there was a beautiful sunrise. Our norm for this time of the year is coastal low clouds and fog, burning off late in the morning. I stopped the car and snapped this view over (yet another) construction site on the way to work.
As is generally the case, you can click on the image to see the really big version.
I just read a pretty good editorial in the Orange County (CA) Register. The title, “You Can’t Ride a Polar Bear to Work”, intrigued me and so I read the item (hat tip Opinion Journal). So, I thought I would pass it along here. Plus, it gives me another chance to post this silly polar bear picture.
The article starts with this news item about the reversal of John McCain’s attitude toward offshore drilling:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain this week reversed his position and drew environmentalists’ wrath when he came out in favor of lifting the federal ban on offshore oil drilling. Mr. McCain apparently realizes he needs motorists’ votes more than environmentalists’ endorsements. Better late than never.
And concludes with this encouragement for McCain to similarly reconsider drilling in ANWR:
We hope that even if it’s only a crass appeal for votes, Mr. McCain rethinks his opposition to drilling in ANWR and also pledges to overcome Democrat opposition to leasing interior federal lands that may contain 1.8 trillion barrels of oil in solid shale rock, which a RAND Corp. study estimates could be enough to meet U.S. energy needs for centuries.
The U.S. realistically can’t become energy independent, but it can become energy self-sufficient by drilling closer to home, reviving shunned technologies such as nuclear power and by encouraging private companies to seek new technologies and approaches in support of that goal.
There are a lot of good points made in between the start and finish of the article. Take the time to read some interesting things about energy consumption and production in our country.
Reggie has been in the zoo for a year now.
We followed the story about Reggie, the suburban alligator, almost from the start:
Alligators in the Sewers – Still!
Alligators in the Sewers – Part IV
Alligators in the Sewers – Part V
Alligators in the Sewers – Part VI
Alligators in the Sewers – Part VII
Alligators in the Sewers – Epilogue?
Alligators in the Sewers – Reggie, Where Ya Been?
Alligators in the Sewers – The Epilogue
Unfortunately, some of the earlier posts (Parts I, II and III) were lost when we converted from our old blog format to WordPress.
The story started when a San Pedro resident introduced the alligator to Machado Lake in a Harbor City Park when he decided that he couldn’t keep his exotic pet any longer. Authorities later traced the animal to the resident and brought appropriate charges.
The alligator, however, managed to elude potential captors for a couple of years and laid low in the park’s lake. The ‘gator became a celebrity in his own right as sightings by park visitors continued to be reported.
A year ago, a team from the Los Angeles Zoo managed to snare the reclusive reptile.
Here’s a report on the health and welfare of our favorite ‘gator from the Daily Breeze:
This week, the Department of the Interior caved in to the Greenbats by declaring a thriving species “endangered.”
From Planet Gore:
Polar Bears: More Journalistic Malpractice [Henry Payne]
How do you declare a species endangered when its numbers are increasing?
Once again, my profession — journalism — failed its fundamental duty to report the facts Wednesday as the Interior Department bowed to political pressure from green groups to declare polar bears an threatened species due to global warming. This, despite the fact that bear populations have increased from 5,000–10,000 in the early 1970s to between 20,000 and 25,000 today (during the very period their habitat was allegedly shrinking). This is in part due to concentrated efforts to impose harvesting controls that have allowed this once-overhunted species to recover.
Indeed, Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a bear biologist with the Canadian government, wrote in 2006: “There is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”
GLOBALONEY wrote an excellent article on thriving polar bears in January. Included here is a very entertaining animation of thriving bears I found on Globaloney. Click for full size.
According to new research, the numbers of the giant predator have grown by between 15 and 25 per cent over the last decade.
Some authorities on Arctic wildlife even claim that hunting, and not global arming, has been the real cause of the decrease in polar bear numbers in areas where the species is in decline.
A leading Canadian authority on polar bears, Mitch Taylor, said: “We’re seeing an increase in bears that’s really unprecedented, and in places where we’re seeing a decrease in the population it’s from hunting, not from climate change.”
Mr Taylor estimates that during the past decade, the Canadian polar bear population has increased by 25 per cent – from 12,000 to 15,000 bears.
UPDATE: Iain Murray offers that this is NOT about polar bears.
Quite right. This was nothing to do with the polar bear and everything to do with advancing a ludicrous “alternative energy now” agenda.
It appears that Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne is listening to whoever beats the drum louder. In the case of the polar bears, science disagrees with the listing, but Kempthorne is concerned about a ‘legacy.’ In an unrelated issue, that of carrying firearms in National Parks, Kempthorne listened to 51 U.S. Senators who recommended a rules change to allow the NPS to comply with local state law on carrying.
This puts Kempthorne in a position to be embraced by greens and gunners alike.
Don’t you just love politicians?