It’s blistering hot outside again, the weekend is nigh, so let’s keep it short and sweet. Two must-sees:

First up, Krakatoa. Simon Winchester’s marvelous book on this subject was a fantastic read – I read it two years ago while on vacation in Bermuda – and this article today brought the story back home for me. Check it out – the pictures alone are breathtaking. Enjoy!

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In this era of mass communication and 24/7 images-are-everything cable/Internet news cycle, count on this photo to be circulated everywhere in the coming days and weeks. Talk about a picture saying a thousand words! The true character of President Barack Obama revealed for all to see in all its breathtaking arrogance and lack of compassion.

Thomas Lifson nails the potential impact of this photo in the upcoming health-0care reform debate:

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

I think this photo constitutes another major Obama blunder.

As some [American Thinker] commentators point out, this picture becomes a metaphor for ObamaCare. The elderly are left in the back, with only the kindness of the Crowleys of the world, the stand up guys, to depend on. The government has other priorities.

…I think he is going to get deeper and deeper into trouble. He is no longer repeating the familiar scripts dreamed up for the campaign. He was a master performer.

But when he goes improv, as a president must do, he lets his true character show. This helps widen the level of doubt that Obama is the same guy a majority voted for. Those doubts can only grow.

Think about it: look at the photo again and ask the question that positively begs here: this is the guy leading the charge on “reforming” the nation’s health care in his own image? Elitist. Arrogant.

That’s not just your soon-to-be single-payor healthcare provider, that’s your President.

One other question: as Lifson so accurately points out, what does it say about the White House communications office that they’d even let a photo like this see the light of day?