The peepers and chorus frogs could be heard in the neighboring wetlands last night and this morning. The spring bulbs have been lured into sprouting.

We’re not done with winter yet, though…

Worked on getting the performance up on the desktop computer today. It is amazing what a 17 & 13 year old boy can do to mess up a computers performance. I think I got it back to some semblance of working like it should. Looking forward to getting the fiber optic line to the house!

Went to see Avatar this evening. Definitely lived up to what friends are saying – the effects are really something. But there is a good story here, and as an Environmental Science professor I thought it was particularly relevant. What folks need to realize is that this could easily be a documentary about what people are doing today. How about “Mountain Top Removal Mining” for starters.

What’s really scary is that there are plenty of people who would are definitely in line with the crazy colonel and greedy mining executive.

Sad and scary.

Some day some folks are going to have a lot of ‘splainin to do…

A nice day for the second day of class for Spring Semester 2010 at Chattanooga State.  I would not be surprised to hear some peepers and chorus frogs this weekend!

This wonderful little fellow came by last week for a visit, and I enjoyed our time together.  He was very cooperative for having his portrait made!

We get treefrogs on our deck from time to time; this is the first this year.  We hear them more than see them, and they really put on a summer concert.

This was the first opportunity I’ve had to try my Canon S5 out on a treefrog, and I am pleased with the results.  The camera can focus to 0″ (correct – your subject can be touching the lens!) in supermacro mode.  I was actually about two inches away or so for this image.  I used the camera’s onboard flash, with the addition of a CCRRFD flash diffuser.  This device does wonders for closeup flash photography, and the price is right!

Frogs and Toads of Tennessee

Atlas of Amphibians of Tennessee

I must preface this with letting you know that I did not come up with this.  This came from a discussion with a fellow professor (and my best friend) at work.  But it is a point that is so valid that I wanted to share it.

Have you ever noticed how many people seem to think that it is a given that speed limits were made to be broken?  As a general rule, I observe speed limits.  And I have never had a speeding ticket (OK, I got a warning in 1993 and have been on the straight and narrow since).  I also have people passing me left (that’s OK) and right (that’s scary) and giving me looks like I’m some kind of idiot.  What is with this obsession to speed?

Think about this.  Speeding is illegal.  Speeding is dangerous.  Speeding doesn’t prove one is better than anyone else.  Speeding increases insurance premiums.  But of most interest in the current age of nearly $4.00/gallon gasoline – speeding wastes gas!

The faster you go, the less efficient your vehicle is.  The reason we had 55 mph speed limits for so long was because that was the speed where most vehicles were the most efficient.  But the bottom line is, the faster you go, the more gas you use.  The more gas you use, the less there is for anyone else.  And the price goes up.

If Americans would just lighten up on the accelerator, we would use less gas.  That means you would not have to buy as much (you’d save more than you would with the silly “Gas Tax Holiday” that is being proposed).  Demand would go down, and then what would happen?  Economics 101.

Folks, the price of fuel is genuinely affecting a lot of people.  We need to take some responsibility for this situation.  And the one thing that all of us can do right now that won’t really cost us anything but can actually make a difference in the long haul is simply slowing down.

Look at it like this:  when we speed, we use more gas.  Which means we are using more oil.  Which means we have to import more.  Much of which comes from people who don’t like us.  And try to kill us.  So when we speed, we are actually helping bankroll terrorists who are trying to kill us.

IT IS TIME TO GET THE WORD OUT:

SPEEDING IS UNPATRIOTIC, UNAMERICAN, AND JUST PLAIN WRONG!

First, let me say that we knew what we were getting into when we bought the 4Runner, so I am not in any position to complain about the price of gas.  And as a general rule, I don’t.  I made an informed choice to purchase that vehicle, knowing full well it would not be cheap to operate and it was only likely to get worse in the future.  We do use it extensively for Scouting activities and family activities, and it has served us well.

The Camry was a gift.  It will not die.  Anyway, I digress.

I am an Independent.  My vote goes to the candidate that makes the most sense and has a reasonable environmental record.  Yes, that narrows the field considerably, doesn’t it?  I tend not to vote for the candidate that goes on too much about how religious they are (I am a Christian, and have yet to see a self-avowed Christian politician actually behave like one despite all the attention it gets – Jimmy Carter does a great job, especially since he’s been out of office – I’d vote for him if he were running in ’08).

So now we have high gas prices.  What’s amazing is that people are surprised by this!  There is a finite amount of oil, yet demand keeps increasing.  What else is going to happen to the price?  It had to happen sooner or later – we just have not wanted to face up to it (I well remember the gas shortages of the 1970′s, but as a society we sure have a short collective memory).  Later has arrived, and it’s time to pay the piper for the tunes we’ve been calling for the last 50 years.

So now everybody’s all up-in-arms about the price of gas.  We are in reaction mode again – we wait until there is a problem and then complain and fuss about doing something about it.  What are we going to do?

Candidate McCain suggests a “Federal Gas Tax Holiday” over the summer.  Drop the price by 18.4 cents per gallon.  Well, that would help if it actually would happen that way (more on that later).  My initial response to this was “Great – lower the price and what will happen?  People will drive more because gas is a little cheaper!”  This plan has real political appeal – it seems like nobody in this country likes taxes anyway – this sounds like a winner.  You can just hear the country moving over to the McCain candadicy and thinking come November “This guy has ideas that will help us right now!  I’ll vote for him!”

Now I will admit that after the last 7 years that I have absolutely no intention of voting for a Republican.  Not that all Republicans are bad, but the US is in a real mess right now and it isn’t Al Gore’s fault.  Anyway, so what happens?  Hillary Clinton, who I was leaning towards, jumps on this bandwagon of political expediency and announces her own version of the “Federal Gas Tax Holiday”.  Oh, puh-LEASE!

Which leaves Barack Obama.  And what does he do?  He says that the “Federal Gas Tax Holiday” is gimmick that is not really going to help anybody (except maybe the oil companies) and will probably cause larger problems down the road (so to speak).

And he’s absolutely right!  We don’t need a reduction in the gas tax.  What America really needs is gas that costs $5-$8 per gallon (like a lot of the rest of the world pays).  Then maybe we would get over this addiction to huge, high-powered, gas wasting vehicles (me too!) and we would have affordable choices in economical, efficient vehicles from our own auto industry. 

The answer is efficiency and conservation.  Nobody wants to hear that, but at least Barack Obama has the guts to buck the “easy, sure sounds good to me” nonsense that the other candidates are proposing.

Senator Obama’s stock has gone way up with me!

BTW, check out this FactCheck.org article on this whole issue, with some of President Bush’s own ideas about how opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling will solve our problems (not!).