Science artist Mark Whitton offers a unique snow scene on his greeting card.

Trouble in the Message Centre, originally uploaded by Mark Witton.

Hark, the herald pterodactyl sings,
“Peace to all on leath’ry wings.”

I am so stealing this! Thanks, Sven DiMilo!

P.S. See “Happy Winter Solstice!“

We’re going to have a tree this year, maybe, if we can find room for it. With a lapsed Anglican, a non-practising Jew, a pagan, and a couple of lesbians, it won’t be exactly a Christmas tree. Perhaps a tree of rational thought? Or a science tree, like this one on Flickr.

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“There’s so much good in the worst of us
And so much bad in the best of us
That it ill behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us.”
–attributed to several different people

I didn’t realize how old the expression, “I’ll be hornswoggled” was until the discovery of this fossil: it has three eyes on the ends of its horns so that it can ogle from a vantage point. Luckily for both etymologists and entomologists, it was preserved in amber.

Unicorn fly, or Hornswoggler, in amber