We Are Not Alone - 50 billion planets in the Milky Way.

Scientists have estimated the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical - at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way.
And some 500 million of those planets are in what is known as the Goldilocks zone, where the climate is thought to be not-too-hot and not-too-cold, and life could exist.
The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA's Kepler telescope, almost two years though a three-and-a-half year mission which has cost an estimated $600million. More at The Dail Mail

Shared Sacrifice

And here is Obama talking the talk two years ago:




And here is the President's new spokesman explaing it all explaing how serious Obama really is:

Pisces (February 19 - March 20)

Last March we were elated by one of our crafty yet dashing bar patrons with an astounding astrology post. Little did we know it would turn into an inconceivably month to month quest as even skeptics waited patiently to see their astrological charm transform before their very eyes. It has been an entertaining and enchanting ride and brought a sense of warmth to the bar just when it was needed. With Pisces being the last of the zodiac Souls-R-Us has fulfilled their contract here at The Elephant Bar. It's my honor to bring you last but certainly not least, Pisces. ~MeLoDy

"Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions." ~Edgar Cayce

Dominant Keyword ~ I Believe

Just as the first sign, Aries, represents new beginnings, the last sign, Pisces, closes the circle in the twelfth house. It's the sign of eternity, reincarnation, and spiritual rebirth. It also governs disappointments, trouble, accidents, and self defeat. Many astrologers believe Pisces is linked to the spirit world. They believe anyone born under this sign to be an old soul, for they believe Pisceans to have experienced past lives.

Like other water signs, Cancer and Scorpio, you have great ability to see deeply into the human psyche. But it's Pisces who is the most intuitive and psychic of all zodiac. Because of your strong spiritual connection you feel things before you know them and your feelings are rarely wrong. If you have a hunch people would be wise to pay attention. The fact that your premonition is so strong is because you think with your heart first and only then do you rationalize what you know intuitively.

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." ~Albert Einstein

Ruled by Neptune, planet of illusion, mystery, glamour, and deception; your personality is whimsical, elusive, and harmonizing. Neptune, God of the seas, rules the oceans of the earth. You are intensely imaginative and quite addicted to make-believe. You are a dreamer and strive to create a world that comes closer to your own unique vision. You do this to avoid all the pain and realities in the world. It's because you take matters to heart that gives you extreme compassion and the ability to feel pain of others; so when something goes wrong in the world you feel it deeply. So what if you view life through rose colored glasses. It's not that you can't deal with reality, it's just that you like to think of life as an ultra romantic movie filled with happy endings where everyone has the best possible motives.

Danger and Deception

Because of Pisces intuition you understand the moods and behaviors of others so well, you can be quite the manipulator behind the scenes. You have an ambiguous nature and never give a straight answer even if you could. This perplexing vagueness can trick people to comply to your wishes. A fatal flaw is to flee from what you don't want to deal with which could lead you into a world of addictive behavior. Not just compulsive eating, risk-taking, or gambling but a thirst for liquor, drugs and even love.

~ Compassionate ~ Selfless ~ Kind ~ Sympathetic ~ Romantic ~ Intuitive ~ Adaptable ~ Devoting ~ Accepting ~ Imaginative ~ Unworldly ~ Mystical ~ Perceptive ~ Impressionable ~ Easy Going ~

Feelings define Pisces. You have sympathy for everyone and anything that crosses your path; sick plants, hungry animals, and friends in need. It's obvious your TRIPLICITY is a water sign in that you let surrounding influences touch your life. As a Pisces, you are extremely sensitive and loyal, and will go out of your way to help a friend. You have a unique ability to get under another person's skin, literally, to take on their problems and suffer right along with them. You do this because making others feel good in turn makes you feel good. This is a downfall for you because at times you give away the very strength and emotional security you need for yourself, making it easy for you to lose your own identity. Your vulnerability to reject another person leaves you susceptible to someone else's hard-luck story.

Most likable trait ~ Compassion

Your SYMBOL, two fish tied together swimming in opposite directions signifies hidden depths, shifting emotional currents, conflicting desires, and an extreme temperament. Pisces is a sign of self-undoing and it's usually you who is the creator of bad luck and unfortunate events. You allow yourself to become jaded by overindulging, laziness, and the knack of picking poorly suited friends. Though, you want people in your life to stir up emotions because this helps you to practice emotional stability. Your inner conflict frequently mirrors being torn between two pathways. Trying to fit in the real world while the spiritual world clouds your vision, therefore, creating a problem for you to make concrete decisions. You're not only changeable and adaptable but you have an open mind and tremendous understanding, but still Pisces is always misunderstood. The way I see it you have two choices. You can focus, be strong and overcome your weakness in self destruction or you can dissolve in self pity and become a victim of your own vulnerabilities. Either way you are constantly in need to develop a positive self image. Your life lesson is to learn self-doing. Despite your sensitive and nurturing personality you really are a survivor.

~Indecisive ~ Self Pitying ~ Lazy ~ Escapist ~ Deception ~ Addictive ~ Manipulative ~ Non-Commital ~ Oversensitive ~ Irrational ~ Vague ~ Impractical ~ Aloof ~ Unrealistic ~ Secretive ~ Malleable ~

By all means this doesn't mean you lack back bone. Although, you can be impractical you certainly are capable of great sacrifice and hard work. You won't take well to a leadership position or a cut throat business type due to your lack of self-dicipline and self confidence. But you are capable of high intellectual achievement and are very successful. When you put your energy into creating fantasies you're the most creative and talented artist in the zodiac. Many Pisceans find gratification in the arts, music, marketing, teaching, and healing. But it's your sympathy and mental wanderlust combined with your creativity and ability to enter into the feelings of others that your fulfillment is on stage.

Famous Piscean creators--Pierre--Auguste Renoir--Frederic Chopin--Enrico Caruso--Vaslav Nijinsky--Rudolph Nureyev--Elizabeth Barrett Browing--Edna St. Vincent Millay--Albert Einstein--Karen Carpenter--Johnny Cash--Fabio--George Washington--James Taylor--Jon Bon Jovi--Wyatt Earp--Victor Hugo--Dr Seuss.

While, Pisces is the sign of dreams and mysticism and you trust your intuition and feelings you tend to seek more spiritual values in life. Virgo, your POLARITY is the sign of work and service. Virgo people deal in facts and reality (they probably don't have much fun) they are also practical and strive for material success.

Pisces in 2011

Your MAGICAL BIRTHSTONE is aquamarine. It magnifies you magical powers and brings serenity of mind. It also protects you while traveling on the sea. Of course, your special COLORS are pale green and turquoise the dreamy colors of that very sea. Your LUCKY DAY is Friday and your LUCKY NUMBERS are 2 and 6. Pisces love to travel, especially to far away places. The CITIES that might interest you are Casablanca, Alexandria, Lisbon, Seville, and Dublin and the COUNTRIES are Portugal and the Sahara Desert.

There is no better way to express art and compassion with feelings and soul

Pisceans are very mysterious and alluring people. It's your fascinating earthy passion and unworldly fantasies that captivates the very people you charm right into your bed. You are a romantic and will completely devour yourself in a relationship. But just like everything else in your life when things are going well you're on cloud nine and when they're not nothing else matters. Pisces needs to be needed and tends to fall into a nurturing relationship. You take great pleasure in your compassionate and imaginative nature and love to cater to others. You go out of your way to dream up tasty treats for your lover. Of course, you hope the same in return, rejection is not your strong suit.

Daydreams and fantasies are your truest reality. One of the things people find bewitching about you is that you bring those fantasies to life in the bedroom. Pisces like to role play and are accomplished at all types of erotic behavior. You also like to seduce. Your feet are the most sensitive spot and massaging them and sucking on your toes will get you steamed up every time.

You connect on the deepest level with Cancer and Scorpio.

Capricorn and Taurus and Aries are potentials and compliment each other very well but if these relationships are to work there will be problems to work out.

You know how the saying goes, opposites attract. But with Virgo it will most likely be a road to nowhere. You could say the same with Leo as it's a mix of fire and water.

Forget about Sagittarius and Gemini and Aquarius. They would be out the door too soon on their own adventures instead of staying home with a dependent home body.

Libra will seem a likely mate…on the outside and you will have fun while it lasts. But on the inside you both take separate paths.

Pisces with its own would either have a hot and heavy passionate relationship revolved around the bedroom or two self indulging bon-bon eating couch potatoes with no one to give them the push they need.

Peace

Shared Sacrifice. Here is how our teachers do it. We do trust our children to these people.

G20 Leaders Voice Worry on Trade

Here is the thinking of our leaders and representatives: Any questions?

"The extent to which advanced economies are lagging emerging markets is a major preoccupation among policy makers here. The United States Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, told the group that forecasts for growth of about 5 to 7 percent in emerging markets, 3 to 4 percent in the United States, and 1 to 2 percent in Europe this year seemed accurate to him. The question, he said, was: 'How do we get sustainable durable growth in the advanced economies?'"

Let's see:

• The Chinese manipulate their currency.
• The Chinese government subsidizes the manufacture, infrastructure and delivery of their manufactured products.
• The US government permits the Chinese to not buy  US manufactured goods by borrowing the Chinese surplus  by the boat load. The Chinese instead of having dollars to buy goods from American factories,  loan those dollars  to Wall Street and The US government.
• The Chinese do not allow majority ownership of facilities  built in China. They become more than equal "partners."
• The Chinese insist on access to all technology of the plants built by Westerners in China. Mysteriously, inexplicably, this technology shows up in competitive Chinese factories.
• Trade secrets and patents, what's that?
• The Chinese erect tariffs and barriers to US manufactured goods.
• Our Masters and Rulers have manipulated the tax code to favor imported goods over domestic goods.
• Wall Street awards the big rewards for those that break companies and import foreign goods.
• Our politicians subsidize the entire farce in every way possible.

What could possibly go wrong?


Read more here

A Dirty Little Secret About De-Funding Obamacare

Several members of Congress, like Rep. Denny Rehberg (R, MT) and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R.-Wash.) are offering amendments that would prevent any new spending from being used to implement Obamacare.

Good for them. Those are important additions to the big spending bill pending in Congress.

But here’s the dirty little secret: Much of Obamacare is being implemented with money that was already appropriated last year. These billions are already available for bureaucrats to put Obamacare into force.

("We'll have to pass the bill to know what's in it.")

Denying additional funding for Obamacare does not de-fund the huge amounts it already is using for implementation. That requires additional action.

Even though the last Congress failed to pass other appropriations bills (creating the need for the currently-pending spending measure), that former Congress DID provide billions to get Obamacare launched. The money was directly appropriated as part of the health care legislation, rather than included in a separate appropriations bill as is the normal practice.

The details are in a Congressional Research Service report issued last October, “Appropriations and Fund Transfers in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).”

CRS devotes seven pages to describing the billions of dollars already appropriated and which the Obama Administration even now is spending to promote that law.

Conservatives agree with the American people that Obamacare should be repealed. Short of outright repeal, leaders from 32 conservative groups in the Conservative Action Project have unitedly stated that the next-best strategy is defunding. As their report states, “The safest route for legislatively combating Obamacare is to defund it. Now that the statute has been declared unconstitutional, Congress should use the power of the purse to deny funding for the individual mandate, employer mandates, and writing the 100s of regulations need to impose Obamacare. Such legislation will not in any way jeopardize the ongoing litigation efforts.”

It’s good that a federal judge has declared Obamacare unconstitutional, but the White House insists it’s going forward anyway. It’s good that the House may cut off any new money to implement Obamacare.

But unless Congress deals with the pot of money already provided, we won’t meet the goal of defunding Obamacare.

Senator Jeff Sessions and the Unbelievable Testimony of Tim Geithner on The Budget

Peregrine Falcon & Gos Hawk

You have never seen a better pilot than this, Watch the Gos Hawk go through the trees.

Outdoors: A love affair with those fickle hawks

By Pat Wray, For the Gazette-Times | Posted: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 7:45 pm |

Here's the thing about hawks - I mean, other than their beauty, ferocity, speed and extraordinary aerodynamic abilities.

Hawks are fickle. I say this with absolute conviction. I've conducted a lifelong love affair with hawks. I love them all, though I'll admit a special fondness for accipiters, the bird hunters.

They love me, too. I'm sure of it. Their feelings stem from the fact that I have never tried to kill one, even back in the days when everyone I knew shot hawks as a matter of course.

In return, hawks have gone out of their way to provide some of my most cherished memories. Not all of those memories were positive, but that's because hawks are fickle.

I once spent several happy hours watching a kestrel catch mice in my daughter's pasture, then land 10 feet above me, kill the mouse with a single bite and place it in an abandoned oriole's nest. It was a magnificent gift and warmed my heart, until a few weeks later when a sharp-shinned hawk made strafing runs on me as I sat on a tree stand at dawn. It was a dangerous situation and impressed on me the undependable nature of the animal.

Most of the gifts I've received from hawks were viewing opportunities: the redtail taking off from a rimrock above me carrying a three-foot snake, ospreys grabbing trout from the water 30 feet away, in one case latching on to a fish too heavy to lift and almost drowning.

Sometimes, those opportunities have been just a little too close. While driving near Ukiah, I looked out to my left and saw a hawk chasing a magpie. They were on course to cross the road just in front of my vehicle and I slowed down hoping for a er, bird's-eye view of the climax. Sorry. Couldn't help it. Suddenly the magpie changed course and ran directly into my window, exploding in a shower of feathers. His pursuer passed within a few feet of me, close enough for me to see him laugh and wink.

On several occasions, hawks have actually put food on my table. A Cooper's hawk killed a chukar in the air 40 yards away and left it on the ground for me. Some people might argue that the chukar was not an offering of love; that the arrival of my setter kept the hawk from adjusting his grip to carry the bird away. Those people would be wrong.

On another occasion I was able to net a large trout that had been badly injured by an osprey and was swimming in circles near the surface. I guarantee that trout was a gift from the osprey.

But not everything has been peaches and cream. The hawks were jealous when I began raising pigeons for dog training. After killing a couple dozen over several years, a Cooper's hawk became greedy, went into the coop, killed four birds and trapped himself inside in the process. I did not take revenge, though I will admit to providing some avoidance training ... for the hawk's own good.

This hunting season was a microcosm of my up-and-down relationship with hawks. After hunting unsuccessfully for most of the day in deep snow, I was ready to pack it in when a covey of chukars landed on a ridgeline nearby. Knowing they would run uphill after landing I decided not to try for them ... until I saw a red-tailed hawk make multiple passes over their location. With him in the area I knew the chukars would still be there when I arrived. Sure enough, they were. I got a couple and waved thanks to the hawk.

The next day, everything changed. With three coveys above me talking like mad, I headed up through 12 inches of snow. In the hour and a half it took me to get to the chukars' location, four different hawks spooked birds. Every 15 minutes or so I would see another chukar rocketing down the hill, screaming in panic, with a merlin, Coopers, goshawk or prairie falcon in close pursuit. By the time I reached the top, none of the chukars remained.

Yet another reason why my relationship with hawks is tortured. Hawks giveth and hawks taketh away.

Pat Wray writes about the outdoors and can be reached at patwray@comcast.net.

Hat Tip on video: powerline