Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held a rally on the National Mall yesterday. Just one month of planning led to over 200,000 people showing up. How’s that for the power of social media?

H Street, NE, is an up-and-coming neighborhood in DC. Right now, the roads and sidewalks are torn up from ongoing construction, the streetcar tracks are only partially laid down, and many storefronts and buildings are still in need of rehabilitation. But there are enough establishments, new and old, to sustain a vibrant nightlife that will only get better as the community’s revitalization continues.

Yup, I went to Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally on the National Mall on August 28. Truthfully, I wasn’t too impressed — I looked forward to seeing signage and hearing people shouting and chanting Tea Party and anti-Obama slogans. But instead, the demonstration seemed to be a religious revival meeting, with Beck setting himself up as a Billy Graham-esque spiritual leader.

I’ve been on a bit of a hummingbird kick lately. After finding several DC hummingbird hotspots at the National Garden, the Smithsonian’s Mary Livingston Ripley Garden, and the Butterfly Garden at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, I’ve spent time trying to get these tiny birds on (sorta) film. If you happen to visit these areas in the next month or so, pause for a few minutes, and maybe you’ll see one too!

This time next year (if all goes well, of course), NASA’s MESSENGER probe will be in orbit around Mercury, becoming the first man-made object to achieve this feat and map the planet’s entire surface.

Meanwhile, Venus has been visited by multiple probes from several nations, and future mission possibilities include orbiters, rovers, and landers. NASA’s Magellan probe mapped 98% of the Venusian surface, while JAXA’s Planet-C (Akatsuki) hopes to explore the planet’s thick atmosphere.

The night before the House passed health care reform, the moon passed near the Pleiades open star cluster. I got a few shots of it at the Capitol before the cops told me to put away my tripod.

A few yards away, a few hundred protesters shouted and chanted and sang as they opposed the health care bill, a scene that belied the calm of watching the sky above.

Record snow followed by serious flooding? And allergy season is right around the corner.

I think nature owes us one. Maybe she’ll give us a break from mosquitoes.

We’ve already had our snowiest winter in several years, and February is still beckoning. February might be short, but it has produced some of our biggest winter storms on record. Keep those snow shovels handy!

Abbey Road this ain’t.

When a tether is the only thing keeping you from plunging several stories to your death, you’re a lot braver than I.

The Metro has always been a great place to shoot. Just don’t let the transit police hassle you.