True Love

FW:FW:FW: this to all your Aunts on Facebook! This lucky frog hit the jackpot - true love exists!

Sincerely, I'd marry for money in a heartbeat, because it would be true love - I'd love the money.

Family

Betty Sue's been sleeping in Bobby Lee's bed since they were both piglets, and teenage obesity ain't gonna change that.

Superb Owls

A wholesome Owl family dinner. Don't judge!

The Making of You (No Escape)

The urge to share, to record, to transmit your meaning to others is a powerful part of being human - we're social animals to the extreme, and technology has allowed us to be social in ways never seen before.

Look at this high tech stuff! All replaced of course in the glorious 21st century by

The smart phone, which is truly a wonder. And a horror, for so many reasons - the Selfie high among them.

So don't worry about privacy anymore - not only will the streets and skies and oceans be filled with cameras, but we'll be recording ourselves and others all the time, uploading it onto a cyberspace that will always be fully monitored by governments and corporations.

You have nothing to fear, of course, if you have nothing to hide. Unlike this poor cat.

Fun for the whole family

Relive the excitement of the Spanish American War with this classic board game, guaranteed to entertain Mom and Dad and the kids! Like "Chutes and Ladders", but with more pork wrapped corpses. Buy now!

Bill Clinton Fan-o-Gram

I kinda bad mouthed Bill Clinton in the last post. I don't take it back, and there's more, but I also wanted to state for the record how much I like Bill Clinton as President and as former President, and as a person. For the following reasons:

1. He's self made - Daddy long gone, raised by his not rich Mom and Grandparents. Like Barack Obama, I'd add.

2. He's motivated and intelligent, personable and funny.

3. He's a lover. Check out this incredible shot of Bill and a young, hot Hill. What a couple - their relationship goes back all the way.

4. He's got great hair.

5. He worked his way to the top.

6. He knows history.

7. He's aged well.

Insert your own love (and internet macro) for William Jefferson Clinton if you would, or will. Some - plenty - won't. To them I say, c'mon! Dude's awesome, even if you don't agree with his policies. You're telling me you wouldn't want to have a beer with Bill Clinton?

LIAR! Or teetotaler.  Either way, pshaw!

Knowing is half the battle

Click for big. I'm wrapping up our exploration of the Solar System's moons, and so I give you REDSHIRTS TOP TEN MOONS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM!

Based on coolness/interest/possible exploration potential.
10. Mimas - Death Star moon, y'all. Also reminds me of Mimosas, which I've only had like twice in my life, but gosh do I love the word.
9. Phobos - interesting example of captured asteroid, and will serve as an ideal staging base for trips down to Mars.
8. Triton - a captured planet, the other moon with an atmosphere and cyrovolcanoes
7.Ganymede - the biggest, but kinda boring.
6. Io - HELLFIRE!
5. Luna - boring, but we're married, and we love her so.
4. Enceladus - so much coolness
3. Europa - More water here than on Earth - by many factors. Probably home to weird ass alien whales too. We'll find out eventually.
2. Titan - just so exotic yet familiar. It's Earth, if you replaced oxygen with methane and lowered the temperature by 200 degrees C.
1. Calisto! - Big moon, with ice sitting on the surface, right at the edge of the asteroid belt, and out of the radiation field of Jupiter. It's got it all for a future truck stop.

For bonus reference:

Coda 1: Many moons ago, as they say, there was a dust up here on ye olde Redshirt's Lament about the perception that the moon seems bigger when rising/setting than when directly overhead. The common answer to this is it's an optical illusion, caused by the brain comparing objects on the horizon, whereas there is no such comparison available when it's high overhead. And while this is no doubt correct, it's not 100% correct. Witness:

Luna is not in a perfect orbit, and thus it is closer to us at some times. This closeness does translate to a perceived size difference, shown here. Also, more controversially:

From the ISS. You can see the changes in shape as the moon rises above the distorting affects of the atmosphere. Close up:

Also from the ISS. Conclusive proof the atmosphere does change the way we see Luna, stretching it out, making it seem bigger. So take that! Bonus Luna pic:

I knew the sun could show a "green flash" when setting, under certain conditions. I was unaware Luna could do the same - but here it is. All green flashy.

And now you know.

Tutankhamon of the World

All pictures from 2008/early 2009 - either during Obama's trip in the Summer, election night, or the day Obama was sworn in. This guy's got it right - like it or not, the leader of America has enormous influence over all the people of the world in a variety of ways. And thus, about 10 million people in a handful of states thus determine the fate of the world. Choose wisely, America! The world already has.

Socialism! Communism! Ismism!

Totally spontaneous celebration in Islamabad - ain't that an awesome name for a city too?

This drunk guy in Norway loves Barry!

As do these drunks in London.

And these folks in Nairobi.

And this family in Bosnia.

As well as this family in Sadr City.

It's an Obama party in Kabul!

Yes, rare Wingnut who might be reading this blog. I'm well aware that the rest of the world does not get to vote for President of the USA. However, surely (ha!) even you would agree better to have a leader that the rest of the world respects and is eager to work with, rather than some Corporate empty suit espousing idiocy in the form of "American Exceptionalism". Right? Ha, yeah, right.

The vast majority of the world truly respects Obama, and yet we here in America are forced to endure the overly loud opinions of a small minority of idiots and bigots, who somehow have coerced the American media establishment to defer to their every raving. It's sad, and scary, but it's also not working.

America will re-elect Barack Obama, and he can get back to work in fixing the disasters of W. and the rest of the Republican Radicals.

Family is what you make it

Or, longer.

This appears to be an adult cat suckling or pseudo-suckling three Ryan Goslings (he's a thing, right? Mary Hartman help me!).

Proving that the mother instinct overrides the predator instinct. Which makes sense - the mother instinct comes from the oldest mammal relative. It's one of the mammalian defining features. Whereas predation is a general skill practiced by all higher level species regardless of families - the strong feed on the week.

Thus, one of the defining features of mammalian behavior is caring for the young, and not just necessarily your young. The root of compassion.

Birds exhibit many similar behaviors to mammals in the loving scale, but I suspect they're faking them all. As they all are monsters, down to the cutest of them. Don't trust birds, man.

This owl, for example, is just biding time before wrecking that gosling's life - not just by killing, but a long slow, torturous psychological undoing. Then killing. Owl's are twisted.