Saturn produced quite the spectacle for astronomers in 2011. The storm in the image above began in December of 2010 and lasted for over 200 days before finally petering out and was the largest ever seen on Saturn. It measured about 15,000 kilometers from north to south and quickly encircled entire planet, covering a surface area of 5 billion square kilometers at its height. In contrast, the entire surface area of the earth is only a little over 500 million square kilometers. The image above is a false color one, compiled from several other images. The image below is a true color image, making it easier to see why the Saturnian tempests are called Great White Spots.

More details from Science Daily and from Space.com. Lots more images of this and other events on and around Saturn including info on how the images are compiled from the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations, or CICLOPS.

…may you at least catch the starlings.

Really is a pretty nice pale blue dot we’ve got here when you stop, take a deep breath, and look.

May you all have many moments like this in the upcoming year.

It appears that the artist who created the iconic Obama image for the 2008 campaign is undergoing a change of heart. The image above is not a photoshop but a recent creation by Shepard Fairy himself. Note to Fairy: he’s not on our side.

Bushwa Barry knows where his bread is buttered and his coddling of the bankers for the last few years has only emboldened them even more. Obama tried to get all 50 state Attorneys General on board for a slap on the wrist settlement with the largest banks which would preclude any further penalties by any other entities but a few of the AGs with some integrity balked and have made attempts to prosecute the banks themselves. Bankers really don’t care much for integrity.

To wit, Mass. AG Martha Coakley recently sued Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase , Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and GMAC over their deceptive mortgage practices. GMAC, which you may recall was massively bailed out by taxpayers not that long ago, responded by suspending all mortgage lending in the state. Because how’s a banka supposed to make a buck when you got to obey the damn law. I’m sure GMAC believes this will have some serious repercussions for the state housing market, but my first reaction is don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you on your way out.

Things took a more sinister turn in Nevada recently. A few weeks ago came the news that AG Catherine Cortez Masto filed a 606 count indictment against two mid-level title officers who had supervised the filings of thousands of fraudulent foreclosure documents. My speculation is that the AG was hoping to get those two to turn against their own higher ups. The AG got the two names from a low level employee named Tracy Lawrence who had apparently been signing the fraudulent documents herself. She cooperated with the AG, pled guilty to reduced charges, and was set to be given a suspended sentence. But she never showed up for the sentencing hearing this past Monday morning. She was found dead in her apartment later that afternoon. More on this if any updates become available.

Authorities continue to crack down harshly on peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters. Earlier I had wondered how long the LAPD would be able to contain themselves. Evidently not very long as the LAPoPo were scared shitless that they might be pelted with gravel. Much of violence against protesters there was committed after they had been hauled away and taken into custody. What astounding bravery. Doucherocket extraordinaire Michael Bloomberg is now openly boasting that the NYPD is his own personal army.

Now you might think Bloomberg’s equating the civilian forces under his command with the military was just an unfortunate slip of the tongue. Maybe, or maybe he is simply aware that for the oligarchy that runs this country there is little difference left between the two. The US Senate has just passed the National Defense Authorization Act by a 93-7 vote, a development that has not received much press in the corporate media (surprise surprise) which -

…redefines the US homeland as a “battlefield” and makes US citizens subject to military apprehension and detainment for life without access to a trial or attorney…

Glenn Greenwald notes that the legislation also -

…renews the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) with more expansive language: to allow force (and military detention) against not only those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and countries which harbored them, but also anyone who “substantially supports” Al Qaeda, the Taliban or “associated forces” (Sec. 1031)

That “substantially supports” language is awfully vague, huh? Wonder who these Senators have in mind? And let’s not forget, the Powers That Be have been making plans along these lines for several years now with Halliburton subsidiary KBR winning the contract to build detention facilities on US soil back in 2006. Once again, it’s awfully vague as to exactly who these facilities are intended to house -

KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said.

In light of the preceding, this advice seems particularly apt -

Look out kid, don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tiptoes, don’t try No Doz
Better stay away from those that carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose, watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

Get the hell out there and Occupy something, Occupy everything, before all you’re allowed to occupy is a cell.

And who knows, besides just pissing off the cops, you might even do some good.

And if you’d like to save that biodiversity, then get out there and raise some hell and fight for the world you want instead of acquiescing to the one corporate interests deem good enough for the rest of us.

Unless of course you like eating genetically modified peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches. The latter ingredient are doing quite well what with warming oceans and vertebrate marine life rapidly disappearing.

Who says the moon isn’t made of cheese???

Picked up the new album from everyone’s favorite space cowboy the other day and it is the Shat. More fun than a tub full of tribbles. Highly recommended, especially in the immediate aftermath of an attitude adjustment.

Denny Crane!

Took the picture of the bugger above as it and several of its friends were trying to dispatch my potato plants. Hard to tell from the picture but they were up to an inch and a half long. Never seen the like of this before and it is a rather interesting and beautiful insect with its deep metallic blue carapace so I allowed its feast to continue until I could determine what it was.

Turns out it’s a member of the genus meloe, also known as the American Oil beetle or blister beetle, thusly named because if disturbed it plays dead and secretes an oily liquid from the joints of its exoskeleton which blisters human skin. And then there was this -

First-instar larvae climb to the top of a grass or weed stalk as a group, clump together in the shape of a female solitary ground bee, exude a scent that is the same as, or closely resembles, the pheromones of the female bee, and wait for a male ground bee to come along. When he does, he tries to mate with the clump of larvae, whereupon they individually clamp onto his hairs. He then flies away, finds and mates with one or several real female bees, and the larvae transfer to the female(s).
Each impregnated female bee then flies off and builds one to several nests in burrows she digs in the soil, and the larvae transfer again to the new nests. The female bee stocks these nests with honey and pollen for her own young, but the hungry blister beetle young are there to gobble up the provisions. They eventually pupate and finally emerge as adult flightless beetles. Brothers and sisters find each other and mate, produce eggs and the hatchlings start the process all over.

I’d had quite a few honey bees and bumble bees enjoying my sunflowers this year. I’d kind of like them to come back for the next. And this was just lovely-

Then there are the bipedal primates who use cantharidin from blister beetles to manufacture the notorious date rape drug, Spanish Fly…

After weighing the pollinators against those who would eat them and my potatoes and having visions of the next decade’s teenage boys pocketing a couple beetles before taking the squidlette to the drive in, the beetles’ fates were sealed. They attempted to retaliate as I took a stick and knocked them from their perches, trying to give me gangrene by spitting their oily yellow pus at me, but resistance turned out to be futile and they were eventually squashed under a heavy block of granite. No baby bees for the blister beetles this year but I imagine their carcasses made the ant colony in my back yard very happy and the circle of life continues.

Happy Birthday squidlette!!

But what with the grandparents and neighbors coming to visit a house torn apart by a three year old, it would have been really nice if you had taken a nap.

Well well well! It’s been several years since reading the morning news brought as big a grin to my face as it did today.

It wasn’t just the banks and insurers whose financial sleight of hand caused the financial meltdown that began in 2008; the debt rating agencies aided and abetted the rest of them by issuing bogus positive ratings in exchange for large fees from the clients they rated. None of them have been held to account as much of what passes for a regulatory regime has been captured by the very industries it’s supposed to regulate. So, rather than receiving punishment for this illegal activity, the bankers and insurers were rewarded with trillions in government cash while the rest of us have been harnessed with “austerity measures” wherein we all pay for the money the ratfuckers stole. Oh sure, there were attempts to make it appear to the rubes that reforms were being instituted like the toothless Dodd-Frank legislation. Jon Oliver from the Daily Show did a much better job of describing why it’s such an abysmal failure a couple weeks ago and if you haven’t seen this absolutely hilarious bit, do yourself a favor and watch it here.

The government had made some tepid attempts to regulate the ratings agencies like Standard and Poor’s, requiring them to issue honest assessments or face stiff penalties. Of course an honest assessment of their clients would likely mean those clients wouldn’t pay S&P for any further ratings so S&P fought the attempted reforms tooth and nail.

Until last week when they suddenly got religion and now all hell is breaking loose.

S&P decided first to threaten and then actually downgrade US government debt from its historical AAA rating which to this blogger seems like a very transparent attempt to get the government to back off from regulating them. It caused the US and foreign stock markets to crater beginning at the end of last week. Today brings the news via Zerohedge that S&P is focusing its sights on the financial titans it once coddled, with Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway being the first to receive the bad news. S&P seems to be of the opinion that if it’s going down, it’s going to take a few others with them. Side note : Buffet is certainly no saint but he has been critical highly critical of how the financial industry is run and has called for much higher taxes on those in his income bracket. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is why S&P chose to target him.

Tim Geithner, who presided over this financial free for all and had absolutely no problem with it as long as everyone could pretend the banks were doing us all a favor, has now chided S&P for its recent assessments claiming they have gone too far. Boo fucking hoo.

Meanwhile, Bank of America is being sued from all sides for passing fraudulent loans up the securitization chain, with enormous bailout recipient AIG being the latest to seek their pound of flesh. Of course AIG is hardly blameless as they were more than happy to issue insurance against these bonds and take the easy money, even though there has been ample evidence presented that at least some high ranking AIG execs were well aware of the fraud as it was going on and chose to look the other way to keep the big bonuses rolling in. Since B of A looks like it might go tits up real soon, good luck AIG in trying to get blood from a sinking stone.

So the rats, having devoured all they can from the rest of us, are now turning on each other. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Here’s hoping this is the beginning of the end of this ridiculous charade.

What with elected “leaders” everywhere fighting it out for who can fuck over their constituents the most, the above might come in handy. Coming soon to a vermin infested refuse village near you!

Used the same musical accompaniment in a different context in this post a couple years back but it is more appropriate then ever with today’s news that Bushwa Barry is set to slash the country’s social safety net to benefit his Wall Street pals, using the blatantly hypocritical excuse that the government cannot simply just raise the debt ceiling, which of course they could if they actually gave a damn about anything other than enriching their cronies. This isn’t really news to anybody who’s been watching Barry’s sharp right turn ever since election day but it is a little surprising that he’s pushing to slash more than even the republican troglodytes had demanded. Glenn Greenwald has an excellent summary of the latest here so I won’t blather on too much about it. The George Carlin video that Greenwald included gives you all you need to know if you hadn’t already learned it from Frank -

In other news, SPAM futures skyrocketed today.

If people in this country are actually going to fight back, now would be the time to do so. Otherwise, start stocking up on the potted meat.