Will Rogers once said, “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.” Today, however, we could use more of that government to protect our southern border. One of the prime responsibilities of the federal government is to protect citizens from foreign invasion. And it is the responsibility of our legislators to read and understand bills before they vote, something few did for the “bailout” bill and for Obamacare. We are just now beginning to see the consequences of this dereliction of duty.

Instead of using funds for its prime duties, the Obama administration and Congress spend our money, very inefficiently, on political and politically correct projects.

For instance, how much did the feds spend to fight Arizona’s new immigration law, SB1070, a law which was thought necessary by the failure of the feds to do their job? At the same time, the “Justice” Department will not pursue blatant voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party.

More examples:

Government regulations will cost the economy $789 million to establish “critical habitat” for the arroyo toad in California.

Obama has committed $2 billion more of the taxpayers’ money to pursue his solar energy fantasy by subsiding solar plants in Arizona, at a cost of $386,000 per job, which is more than seven times the median household income in this country. Pajamas Media opines, “It would be bad enough for the federal government to subsidize the construction of solar power projects if they worked. It would still be an inefficient use of resources; it would still exceed its constitutionally enumerated powers; it would still be an immoral redistribution of wealth to politically connected companies. But at least in that case American taxpayers, somewhere, might get a Hoover Dam out of the deal. In this instance, that’s simply impossible. There is no known solar technology that can reliably deliver large-scale power in a cost-effective way. There is nothing even in the research stages that promises that result anytime soon… This is nothing less than a sheer waste of public funds to create a mere appearance, a chimera to satisfy the vanity of a powerful Green demagogue longing to appear visionary.”

And unless Congress acts, we are about to pay much more for government. The largest tax hike in history will take place January 1, 2011:

If Congress does not extent or make permanent the “Bush” 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief regulations, all personal income tax rates will rise. The child tax credit will be cut in half, the “death tax” of 55% of inheritances over $1 million will return. Capital gains tax will rise from 15% this year to 20% in 2011. The tax on dividends will rise from 15% this year to 39.6% in 2011.

Obamacare results in twenty new or higher taxes . Congress’ failure to index the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) to inflation will ensnare 28 million middle-class families versus 4 million last year. Taxes will also increase for businesses large and small.

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” –John Marshall

Obama and Congress are shirking their duties and expanding government much beyond Constitutional authority. They seem to have forgotten their oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” We should remind them. These practices will ultimately destroy our economy and our freedom.

The Fallen Sky is a richly detailed account of meteorite hunters and meteorites. The author’s narrative style is often lyrical and introspective, reminiscent of the style of Loren Eiseley.

The Fallen Sky is arranged into ten “books” tracing the adventures of meteorite hunters from the early 20^th Century to the present, through which Cokinos weaves history, science, and a personal memoir. The book also has an introduction, prologue, and glossary.

In the Prologue, Cokinos describes melted cosmic dust found in meteorites (chondrules) as “stipples on creation’s body.” “You need not be a meteorite scientist or a meteorite collector to touch this body, for it reaches us every day, though in forms – dust and micrometeorites – too small to notice without fancy equipment.” You probably eat this cosmic dust with your lettuce. Upon seeing the flash of a meteor in the sky, “You can tell what the meteor’s made of by the color of its tail – red for silicon, yellow for iron, orange-yellow for sodium, bluish-green for magnesium, violet for calcium.”

The chronicles of meteorite hunters take us through North America, Australia, Europe, Greenland, and Antarctica.

Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona, figures in two of the stories. “Anyone intent on reaching that drab crinkle had to cross country shaped by paucity and violence: miserly rainfall…and mile-high air.” The first story concerns Daniel Barringer who sought what he thought would be a very large buried meteorite beneath the crater. He wanted to sell it to an iron-mining company. Meteor Crater figures again in the story of Harvey Nininger, perhaps America’s greatest hunter of meteorites. During his lifetime, he found nearly half of all meteorites found in the United States.

Book VII is “Passions of the Dealers.” Cokinos made several trips to Tucson’s Gem & Mineral show and visited with some of our local meteorite hunters, “quite simply, eccentrics.” Cokinos says that Robert Haag, The Meteorite Man, “has been the most influential meteorite dealer since Harvey Nininger,” and devotes several pages to Haag’s adventures. Another collector Cokinos describes is Geoff “Colonel Carbo” Notkin, who writes the Logical Lizard blog at the Tucson Citizen. Notkin wrote about The Fallen Sky: “The Fallen Sky may appear, on the surface, to be an exploration of the history of meteorites and meteorite hunters, but it is much more: a subtle journey through the author’s mind and memory on a quest for knowledge and understanding. While examining the lives of important and wildly eccentric figures in meteorite history—such as Ellis Hughes, an Oregon farmer who spent months absconding with the 15-ton Willamette iron meteorite in 1902—Christopher also shines the hard light of reason on his own life and motivations.” I agree with Notkin’s assessment of the book.

Book IX takes us to Australia to inspect large impact craters. There Cokinos discusses and speculates about the origin of life on earth and its possible connection to meteorite impacts. “Impact craters still deserve their reputations as scenes of devastation, but as they cool, they become ideal spots for life to re-emerge.”

To give you another peek at the flavor of the book, here are the first two paragraphs of the Introduction:

“On any clear night, under a dark enough sky, we can see shooting stars. We wish upon them, even if we don’t quite know what they are… and even if we don’t know where they come from or what they might tell us about the universe. It’s as if we’re eager to pin our chances on something strange and sudden, something beautiful beyond our ken. Across cultures and time, we have written ourselves into the sky. We create constellations, transforming the random spatter of stars into shapes and stories. We name planets after gods. And we associate meteors and meteorites… with the most elemental aspects of our lives: good luck, ill fortune, and even death.

Meteorites are, in fact, implicated in the seeding of life’s ingredients on Earth. And even the most indifferent know that these bits of former asteroids have rained devastation in the past and threaten to do so in the future. Meteorites are the alpha and omega of geology. These rocks – mere rocks – encompass the origins of life and the reality of death on our planet.”

The Fallen Sky is well worth reading. It should not, however, be read in a hurry. It should be savored, enjoyed, and contemplated.

The Fallen Sky is published by Jeremy P. Thatcher/Penquin. It is available at Amazon.com.

Three old bachelor prairie dogs were joined by 24 new, younger animals from the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas. The new animals (six males, 15 females and three of indeterminate sex) are out of quarantine, and now on display at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. They are already renovating the network of tunnels in the exhibit.

Black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus, one-to three pounds, 14-to 17 inches long) are the most abundant and widely distributed of the five species of prairie dogs in North America. They are distributed across the great plains from northern Mexico to southern Canada, and they once inhabited southern Arizona.

Mexican prairie dogs also have a black-tipped tail, but are smaller than the black-tailed of the U.S. White-tailed, Gunnison’s, and Utah prairie dogs all have white-tipped tails and are limited in range.

The estimated prairie dog population in the late 1800s is put at 5 billion. The largest single colony, in Texas, measured 100 miles wide and 250 miles long and was estimated to contain 400 million prairie dogs. Prairie dog populations declined when the bison herds were thinned. Apparently the bison ate the long grasses, leaving the short grass prairie dogs eat. But prairie dogs will not colonize areas of high grass because they cannot see predators in that situation.

It was once thought that prairie dogs competed with cattle for forage. About 80% of prairie dog diet is grass (about two pounds per week). They also eat broad-leafed, non-woody plants. They sometimes eat insects, seeds, and plant roots. Government programs of poisoning prairie dogs, beginning in the early 1900s, have reduced the population to about 1% to 2% of what it was in the mid-1800s. However, newer research indicates that although their diets overlap, prairie dogs do not limit cattle forage because cattle prefer the more protein-rich plants that grow within the prairie dog colonies, as did the bison. The research shows that drought and overgrazing by cattle actually encourage prairie dog colony expansion.

Prairie dogs communicate with each other with at least 11 distinct vocalizations and with various postures. Members of a coterie (family) will appear to kiss; they are touching teeth. This behavior allows them to distinguish coterie members from strangers.

Black-tailed prairie dogs breed once a year, usually in January or February. The female is in estrous for only 3-to 4 hours on one day each year. One to six pups are born after a gestation period of only about 35 days. The pups are naked, blind, and helpless and stay underground for about six weeks. The pups reach maturity by fall and the males tend to disperse. Normal life span is up to eight years for females (who stay in their original coterie) and about five years for males, who face the dangers of travel. The normal coterie consists of one male, four or five females, and up to 30 young less than two years old.

Predators include badgers, weasels, ferrets, coyotes, bobcats, foxes, hawks, and eagles. Snakes may take the young, but usually do not threaten adults.

Prairie dogs carry fleas which contain bubonic plague. This disease may wipe out prairie dog colonies and is a danger to humans. It is the “black plague” that caused the death of one-third of Europe’s population in the 1300s. Rattlesnakes and black widow spiders are common residents of prairie dog towns.

Because prairie dogs dig holes and otherwise scratch the soil, their presence, in short-grass prairies, tends to increase the diversity of plant species, particularly perennial species. Besides predators, prairie dog colonies attract other animals, particularly birds, including the burrowing owl.

Prairie dogs are cute critters, but you wouldn’t want them in your front lawn.

The Desert Museum’s summer hours are 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sundays through Fridays, and 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays. The prairie dogs are more likely to be out early in the morning when it is cool.