Cactus and the Administration

Posting has been a little light, as of late.  I'm annoyed with myself, this is my aide de memoir for when the details of the second coming of Satan fade from memory, so I should be more diligent.  But first there is the setting sun and baby cactus.

Jim took this on January 3.  It was quite impressive.  His phone camera is better than mine, because my phone is old.  Since I hate getting a new phone more than anything, I'm not moving on just yet.

We put some more rocks on the bank in the back yard.  While we were up there we found some volunteer cacti.  I think this is a saguaro growing under some sort of yucca.  Saguaro do best with a nurse plant, it gives them some shade.

The is a red hook cactus, growing amidst a lantana.  When they're large, their spine clusters can pierce a shoe.  

I think this is a prickly pear.  He's growing on the bank in the rocks, and so he will be removed.  There shall not be anything growing on the bank.

There was a walk in the desert Monday.  We both went in for dexa scans in the early afternoon, which took up prime bike riding time.  The light was really good.

The scan results were interesting.  I'm slightly better in the spine and hip, but worse in the back.  Jim's T scores are similar to mine.  I think, given our ages, that we're not that bad off.  Our lifetime risk of fractures is about  8.8%.  However, the GP is advocating quite strenuously for Jim (but not me) to take Fosamax.  Fosamax has two terrible possible side effects, osteonecrosis in the jaw, and thigh fractures.  Apparently the radiologist is using the fact that Jim has already experienced a "low trauma fracture" as a criteria for medication.  From the report, we can't tell if they're talking about the acetabular fracture, or the compression fracture at L1.  The acetabular fracture is a bike accident from 2006 wherein Jim launched over the handle bars of his bicycle, somersaulted through the air, taking skin off the shoulder blades, then progressing to break two ribs and driving his femur through his acetabulum.  At the time he departed the bike, we were riding about 18-19 mph.  Does this sound like a low trauma fracture to you?  So, we need clarity on what fracture they're using for decision making.  There are physical therapists that specialize in bone building exercises, I think we're going that route first.  I should work on it, as well.  

47 is back on the topic of he wants Greenland.  Never mind the fact that Denmark first colonized Greenland in 1721.  Never mind the fact that the US renounced a claim to Greenland in 1917.

The US bought the Danish West Indies during 1916. The two sides agreed to a sale price of $25,000,000. As part of the sale, the United States accepted a Danish demand for a declaration stating that they would "not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland". Although the US had a claim on northern Greenland based on explorations by Charles Francis Hall and Robert Peary, the United States decided that the purchase was more important, especially because of the nearby Panama Canal. Historian Bo Lidegaard questions the utility of such a declaration, as the country had never disputed Danish sovereignty.

There are words on the subject in this Wiki.  

If the US invades Greenland with troops and guns, it will break NATO.  NATO will defend Denmark.  Denmark today said that if troops come on the island, they will shoot to kill and ask no questions.  

47 is now badgering the oil companies to go to Venezuela and upgrade their oil producing infrastructure.  They want the US to pay for it.  That would be the tax payers.  I'm linking to a substack about how the billionaire oligarchs will benefit from all of this.  Apparently there can never be enough money for these people.  Venezuela has continued to say no to any thought of the oil companies returning to their land.  They kicked us out last time for good reasons.

DHS and 47 both covered themselves with glory yesterday by immediately declaring that the ICE agent who murdered Renee Nicole Good acted to defend his life.  Video shows a completely different story.  No agent was hurt by the car.  The murderer in question was standing beside the car and shot through the driver's window.  These people are animals.  Schools are closed in Minneapolis due to an incident involving ICE attacking high school kids on school grounds.  Who does this?  There is an article here.

I used to think it could never happen here because I had faith the the military would uphold their oaths to the Constitution.  Never thought the military would follow illegal orders; yet here we are, performing extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea, invading Venezuela and kidnapping the President and his wife, and now we're talking about invading Greenland.  I guess when 47 declares martial law, the military will take up arms against us, the citizens.  ICE, CBP and the other armed federal sub-groups will probably do so, as well.

Mike Franken put this up on twitter.  He's right. "His actions will only get worse. He wants domestic upheaval. He wants civil uprising. He wants martial law and no elections. He wants unbridled power. He wants his history. He doesn't think like us. He is abnormal. His ear grows back." 

This is from people who live in Minneapolis. 

I will close with this photo of a cyclocross race.  They don't stop for weather.

 

January 3rd Kidnapping

Happy third day of the new year.  Imagine my surprise this morning when Jim turned on his laptop and yelped What !?!  We kidnapped President Maduro and his wife.  The Attorney General plans to prosecute them in the Southern District of New York using a 1934 US law.  Basically it's a law that says you can't have a machine gun.  Maduro is the president of a country that has a standing army, and some of those people have machine guns.  How in the name of all that is holy does AG Bondi have any jurisdiction to prosecute Maduro?  Yes, he's a bad man, but we kidnapped him!  This is just stupid, he's not a US citizen and not subject to US laws.

This is from twitter, I forget who posted it.  "The United States invaded and bombed a foreign country and seized its leader, against international law, and with no stated rationale for it that passes muster. The stated rationales are all laden with hypocrisy. And Congress was not informed in advance. This is one whopper of a distraction from Epstein and bad polling, and one colossal infusion of narcissistic energy for a declining old man who had been weakened, diminished, and embarrassed by ill health."

So, 47 has said the US is going to run Venezuela, and the oil companies are going to improve oil extraction and sell the oil. Who is going to guarantee the security of the oil workers?  What could possibly go wrong?

This was in the paper this morning.  It's a story about bullets hitting the RV park where we used to spend winters, and then where we bought the park model that was a failed idea.  I think it was just dumb luck that we were never hit by bullets fired in to the air.

We rode today.  It was chilly when we left, but quickly warmed up a bunch, so we had to return to the house and off load clothing.  

This is humor from the internet.

So.... we shall stand by to be amazed by this latest development by the mad king.

This happened later.

 

Cactus and Other Things

Greetings Earthlings!  We seem to have overcome most of the plague that entered the house.  There is some residual fatigue, but that's getting better.  There has been a ride and a hike, neither caused a relapse.  Jim's level of mucous is much decreased and I am feeling better.  So, there is hope that we will survive this.  

I have photos which I like.  This was taken in 2023 at Dove Mountain during the winter of staying in AirBnBs.  I found it the other day looking for photos suitable for printing on canvas.  The cactus are nicely grouped there.

We had rain, which cleared up, and then cloudy skies.  We went for a hike which was delightful.  I took the top photo, Jim took the bottom one, standing slightly to the left of me.  His light was better than mine.  When we lived in the house on Ten Star we could see this mountain from the front door.  I miss seeing that, but I do not miss the giant wall of windows and sliding glass doors that were facing towards the setting sun.  It was too hot.  This house has no view, but it's much more tolerable in summer since the westward facing window is small, and there are deep overhangs front and back.

 
This was the sky coming back from the grocery store.  It was fairly cloudy all day. 

The yard guys are coming back tomorrow with some more rock and they are going to dig up the agave.  It's too close to the golden barrel cactus, and it's too enthusiastic of a pupper.  Agaves, if not constrained, will become ground cover. Apparently this batch are deliriously happy.  Note the little green off shoots that are barely out of the ground.  Look down and slightly left.  Those are pups.  They grow on runners and are many.

So, the agaves go so that the barrels can prosper.  I hate to do it.  However, we have more agaves in the yard.

This is our neighbor's driveway.  His agave has put out two pups, one of which tunneled under his driveway and emerged in the crack between the garage floor and the driveway.

This is a mammilaria growing in a neighbor's yard.  This plant is just perfect.

He's putting out adorable little flowers.

In other news:

There has been a peace negotiation at Mar-a-Lago.  Oddly enough, Putin was not there.  The US side is still insisting Ukraine should give up land, and Ukraine is refusing.  The US seems to be offering security guarantees.  I hope no one falls for that.  In 1994 Ukraine gave up their nukes in exchange for security guarantees from the UK, US and Russia.  We can see how well that worked out.  We are a terrible ally.  

This was on twitter recently.  Another fine decision has been made by this administration. "Further proving his incompetence, Kash Patel said the FBI is moving to the Reagan Building at Federal Triangle in D.C. Instead of a state of the art facility which would provide security they will retrofit a building not built for that purpose 3 blocks from current headquarters."  I think 47 wants to build a hotel on the site of the current FBI building.

AI continues to be the gift that keeps on giving.  NPR reported that the price of computer memory is going to be through the roof due to demand from AI data centers. If you're considering a new lap top, now might be a good time to buy it.  More from Mashable here.

And finally there is this.

The chlorinated chicken comes from the US.  The UK and the EU don't want it.
 

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!  

Here's to a happy seasonal holiday of your choosing.  It has been quite the year, has it not?  The good news is that Kyiv is still in Ukrainian hands. 

Christmas Eve Round-up

I feel so badly for all the people who traveled to Tucson to spend Christmas with friends and relatives to bask in the sunshine and the low 80 degree temperatures.  These photos were taken Monday.  We took the Trek road bikes out for a flatish easy ride.  As it turned out, that set my recovery from the crud back two days, but it was a nice ride at the time.

This is a house that was being built in 2021.  When we decamped to Spokane, the front yard was not yet installed.  Who ever did the landscaping did a bang up job of it. 

Look at the sky in the background.  It really is that color.

Then we rode over to look at the mountains behind the Sarasota trail head.  Again, look at that sky.

This is from this morning.  It rained all night.  It has rained off and on all day.  It's cold (relatively speaking.)  The kids that made the trip are stuck in the house, none of them are out driving golf carts around and scaring the old people, hopefully the grand parents have an X box.

As you no doubt recall, last February when we were painting soffits, the fruit trees had much fruit on them.  One is visible here.  This is the sum total of fruit from the grapefruit, orange and lemon trees.  Three grapefruits, that's it.

Other houses have boxes of citrus out front, which is an appeal for passers by to please take some because they're inundated.  I do not understand the trees.  We feed them, we water them, what the heck?

The horrible orange man's administration continues its path off the rails.  He has announced a new class of battleship to be named after him.  Battleships are targets in modern warfare, they bring nothing to the table.  However, Hegseth is very excited about this.  

The EU fined Elon for violating their laws under DSA.

DSA Europe refers to the European Union's Digital Services Act, a landmark regulation establishing rules for a safer, fairer online environment by tackling illegal content, enhancing user rights (like non-personalized feeds & ad transparency), increasing platform accountability (especially Very Large Platforms - VLOPs/VLOSEs), and improving content moderation transparency. It aims to protect users, foster innovation, and ensure a single market for digital services, imposing obligations on platforms to manage systemic risks and identify traders, with enforcement by national Digital Services Coordinators (DSCs) and the Commission. 

It was not an amount of money that will hurt Elon.  Anyway, JD Vance and little Marco are just spitting mad about extraterritorial censorship and blah-de-blah.  It's their territory, their laws.  Anyway, they're denying visas to prominent Europeans because they can.  EU should just shut down twitter.  And talk about censorship, no US platform is legally available in Russia, and they're our buddies, right?

47 has sent the governor of Louisiana to be a special envoy to Greenland so that we can take them over.  Number one, Greenland is a territory of Denmark.  You don't send envoys to territories, you send them to the diplomatic corps of the country, which would be Denmark.  They're already acting like Greenland is a free agent.  I am so sure they want to give up free college and free health care to part of the mess that the US has become.  Denmark has summoned the US ambassador to tell the US to knock this off.

Cuba is becoming collateral damage to the US bombing of boats in the Caribbean sea and hijacking tankers.  Oil is not flowing to Cuba, and it's not good. 

We're both better, but not over it yet.  After 5 covid tests between us and a Flu A & B test I'm reasonably certain this is a really bad cold.  

Merry Christmas Eve y'all! 

 

 

 

Forty

We're better, still sick, though.  Today we might go for a ride in the car just to see something new.  

Today is our 40th anniversary.  I used to collect china, back when we lived in West Seattle.  One day I upped and decided I needed more stuff.  So, china it was.  I got this on e-bay, we used to wonder if we would live that long.

So, happy anniversary to us and our germs.