Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  That bowl of luscious-looking soup at right is Debbie's homemade tlapeno (Mexican chicken soup), moments before I ate it last night.  I had another bowl this morning.  I think it was her best ever, and that's saying something – she's made this many times.  This version was made with homemade stock (based on the turkey carcass), with both chicken and turkey meat in it.  The other ingredients include carrots, onions, celery, garbanzo beans, avocado, and cilantro.  Ah, heavenly!

The solar guy was here today, and we got the inverter talking with our network  I'm not sure it's all working correctly yet, though, as the inverter keeps dropping and reacquiring its IP address.  I'll do some network troubleshooting on that tomorrow.  By happy coincidence, the Rocky Mountain Power guy came out today (at the same time!) to change our meter to a “net” meter, which will allow us to sell power back to them.  That's all turned on and running now, and the solar array is producing power.  Not much, though :)  The panels are covered with snow!

The photo at left is of the sunset here tonight.  Just gorgeous!

Paragraphs like this...

Paragraphs like this ... are why I love The Daily Shot, Ricochet's daily email:

Also for the record, Alan Grayson is from the Bronx, but he wasn’t “born” so much as he congealed in a cesspool. He’s running to take Marco Rubio’s Senate seat next year, so perhaps he said this to get attention. But there’s an equal chance that he would have said the exact same thing if he were in a straitjacket, rocking back and forth in the padded cell of a lunatic asylum.

You can subscribe here.  It's free.  Ricochet itself isn't free, but it's worth every penny of its (very modest) cost...

A bit of perspective...

A bit of perspective...  Petrophysicist Andy May has published an updated version of his timeline showing climate and human civilization (low resolution image at right).  The first version was the best graphical summary of why I'm a global warming skeptic I'd ever seen.  The updated version is even better.  You can download the full resolution PDF; that's the only way you can read it well online, or print it (if your printer can handle big paper).  It's well worth your while to do so, if for no other reason than to gain a bit of perspective about warmist claims...

Not a happy read...

Not a happy read...  A former U.S. nuclear missile launch control officer believes that we're at risk of an inadvertent nuclear war with Russia...

“…destroyed its soul.”

“…destroyed its soul.”  If Britain's socialist trends herald the U.S.'s ... then this is what we have to look forward to:

The fact that more than half of Britain’s households, 13.7m, receive more in welfare benefits than they pay in taxes. The fact that this represents a rise from 45.9 per cent of households in 1997 to 51.5 per cent today. The fact that 20.3m families now receive some kind of state benefit. The fact that for 9.6m of these families, benefits account for more than half of their income. The fact that nearly five million people have their rent paid by the state. The fact that vast numbers of people, first through Incapacity Benefit and then through Employment Support Allowance, have been redefined by the state as ‘incapable’ — of work, of independence, of dignity, in effect — and have been put out to pasture. There are parts of Britain where a state-sanctioned culture of incapacity has deadened community spirit, destroyed its soul.

This is by Brendan O'Neill, who wants to blow up Britain's welfare system and start over.  Others (and perhaps him, as well) also want to blow up Britain's vaunted National Health Service.  Its dysfunctionality has been much on display this past year, and serves as a sobering example of where ObamaCare is headed unless our politicians work up the courage to kill it.

The Paris climate “talks” this week are a total waste...

The Paris climate “talks” this week are a total waste...  Just looking at the roster of attendees is enough to infer that, but James Delingpole explains in more detail.

A local note: I have yet to run into even a single resident of Cache Valley who finds the global warming alarmists credible.  Not one.  Now, mind you, I don't know any of the academics at Utah State University (in Logan, 12 miles north of us), and I'm sure some of them are firmly on the warmist bandwagon.  But not out here, where people actually work outside.  The farmers, especially, dismiss the global warming alarmism as twaddle that is refuted by the evidence visible to them.  Many of them wish there really was some global warming, as a couple of degrees C warmer here would make a huge difference (in a good way) to their productivity.  But there's nothing.  They either see no changes over their lifetime, or they think temperatures average slightly cooler...