The Rosetta space probe has completed its final orbital insertion maneuvers, in the process returning spectacular pictures of Martian clouds and weather. This makes something like half a dozen gizmos orbiting Mars (some long dead, others brand new), with more to come. Getting kinda busy over there, eh?

Every time I think the Dems have wised up and actually started thinking about new things, they go and prove me wrong again. I'm reasonably impressed with how Pelosi et. al. have managed to leash their baying loons so far. Then again, it took about two years for my side to lose control of ours, so the clock is definitely ticking on this one. Of course, two years puts us on the other side of an election.

Which means, if things stay the course, America has a good chance of one side in charge of one part of the government, with the other side holding the other part. The names'll change, but the song will stay the same. Hell, there's a decent chance it'll all get swapped around with a Clinton in office again. Lordy, lordy.

Via Econlog.

I always knew Australians treat drinking the way, say, Russians treat chess (albeit with less staring and more belching), but I had no idea it could be this elaborate. It even varies from state to state!

Via Siflay, who will be receiving a no-bill for unlicensed use of our no-prizes. Because you do know the whole thing is original to us, right? Right?

More updates on the Dumas tornado. Fatalities still standing at zero, although there are a few people with "critical injuries." This is the town I grew up in, and by the looks of it there's not too much left. A real shame, as last time I visited (this previous summer) was the first time I saw evidence of recovery/growth in more than a decade. Article includes a link to a video story.

Sometimes they depart, but sometimes they also arrive. Includes hedgehogs!

Update: No Ellen, you can't have one.

Sink hole, meet city block. City block, sink hole. And we all thought sink holes that'd eat a few cars were impressive.

Fark linked up this nifty image of what the aftermath of the Feb. 16th snow storm looked like from space. At least Sunday's storm didn't freeze over solid and then stick around for a week. Nothing like having your whole town turned into a hockey rink!

Ajax memorial has been configured, as I'm sure you've all now found out. We'll leave it up for awhile. Site updates will be slower, but we're all doing OK.

A placeholder until I get something more appropriate up. Please note the details may change once I get better information.

At about 4:30 today Ajax, the Emergency Backup Cat and easily the nicest cat almost everyone has ever met, had a stroke. He was paralyzed and in a great deal of pain, and so was euthanized approximately one hour later.

Only the good die young...

Most of the time, the extreme colors drove the white balance in the camera crazy. This time, however, it got it just right. This very small chapel was simply filled with these vivid colors.

Possible tornado tears through Arkansas town

Several Dumas restaurants, a Mad Butcher grocery store and some nearby homes were leveled, KTHV reported. Video from the scene showed several buildings rendered nearly unrecognizable. A sign for a street located a mile away was lying in the grocery store parking lot.

Scary thing is, Scott grew up there. He has family there. All of those stores I saw, gone. Even my beloved Sonic.

One of the things discussed frequently about HDR imaging is how difficult it is to create such pictures without "ghosts" of moving objects. Personally, I think such ghosts add a very interesting touch. To me, they provide a kind of "19th century " feel to the pictures.

Note that, even though the window looks tilted, the base of the columns prove the camera was level. I'm not sure if this "tilted" effect is purely an optical illusion, or an artifact of using a very wide angle lens.

Making the rounds: New Zealand fishermen have caught the largest colossal squid ever seen. Thankfully, the fishermen went to great lengths to recover the specimen intact, so this should be a real boon to scientists and people who like freaky-large sea creatures (Ellen).

Suzanne gets a no-prize she can erase at will for bringing us news of the development of "reusable paper." It'll be interesting to see if they can make this technology competitive with regular paper. Considering the cost of paper is so low right now it's measured in fractions of a penny per sheet, this would seem to be a very real challenge.