Plants of happiness

I'm really enjoying the plants I have in my little house and yard. One of my newest is this orange tree we bought on sale because the nursery had left it out during a freeze, and all the leaves were frosted off. They're coming back to life and looking very nice now:


I'm really pleased with this one, because I thought I had lost it. I had planted this avocado seed, which had sprouted into a little tree about three inches tall, and an unexpected frost seemed to have killed it. But recently, when I went out to pull weeds in preparation for my spring garden, I found that it had survived, and sent up a new shoot:



Notice to the right is a new baby plant that I was trying to replace it with - another seed.

And finally, my little potted ocotillo. Sonya, my caving friend from from the Dallas area, shared a cutting from her ocotillo a few years ago, and I put it in cactus potting soil, and carefully misted it until it could grow some roots. It hadn't leafed out in a while, so I was afraid it was dead this time, but you never know with ocotillo, and it leafed out again to my delight:



I love plants.

Time machine malfunction

My time machine is messing up... again.

I've oiled and calibrated the flux capacitor three times now, and still it messes up. I wanted to go visit the dinosaurs and get some nice photos, maybe some video, but things keep going wrong.

I set it for the usual 65 million years ago, because that's when they were supposed to start disappearing, give or take a couple of million years - and you know they've got it pinned down to a couple of million years, being the obsessed sticklers for accuracy that they are.

But I showed up in 1956, which happens to be the year I first became fascinated with dinosaurs. Here is the first illustration I saw, in our home encyclopedia, which my parents probably bought from a slick salesman with a thin mustache:








These days, scientists are pretty sure the T Rex didn't stand like that. Here is what they really look like as far as posture. It allows the rex to balance nicely on those huge back legs without getting his tail dirty:



So they're getting closer. But as I said, my time machine keeps messing up. In the last month, I have arrived in Imperial Rome wearing a 1979 leisure suit, I have appeared in some Mayan village wearing something more appropriate to a Rocky Horror Picture Show debut, and I walked into Woodstock in 1969 wearing a business suit.

So when I arrived in 65 million BC, finally, my viking costume was probably close enough to fool the cavemen, as suspicious as they might be. I probably should have tried to look a bit more intimidating, as they might have been less likely to take my camera and use it as a hammer, and I might have come back with a more decent photograph of our friend the T Rex.

I can describe it, though. The second picture above is about right as far as posture and shape, but the color is wrong. The T Rex was jet black with red stripes, running his length and widening for his body, then narrowing again at the tail.

The movies have them all ferocious and scary and aggressive, but they're actually amazingly shy and easily intimidated. They don't fight at all - they're giant, effective scavengers, probably the ancestors to the modern day vulture.

When they feed, they pivot nicely on those huge hips, and the tiny forearms hold the corpse still while the huge jaws and teeth crush the bones and rip out chunks of flesh. The bones and flesh are chewed in mighty gulps, and the Rexes do this in teams of four or five. The locals leave them to their work, because they are doing an important job, environmentally speaking, and because they stink to high heaven, and you would not, repeat not, want to barbecue one of them.

And they don't roar - they have a loud, nasty hiss when they jostle each other for best dinner position, or if they feel threatened.

So no pictures, because I have no intention of having another of my cameras used for grinding corn.

I still love to watch Jurassic Park, accurate or not.

Insanity in political decisions

Warning: political rant.

When President Obama said he was going to raise taxes on only people who made over 250,000 a year, I figured OK, great, stick it to those rich morons in Hollywood that got this guy elected. But now we're finding out how he's going to do it. And it's brilliant in its insanity.

He's going to limit their charitable deductions! This means that the liberal rich folks won't be hurt at all, because they don't give to charity nearly as much as conservatives and libertarians. If you don't believe me, do the research.

And what does this mean to America? It means that charitable giving will go down, way down. Which in turn means that the government will have to do even more in the way of socialism. But consider this: when the economy collapses (which it will thanks to our president's stimulus package aka drunk sailor spending spree) where are all those homeless going to go? Remember, if you don't have an address, you can't apply for those government checks. And those soup kitchens and charities that kept them alive can no longer count on the large donors they need so badly.

This will in turn further increase dependence on government programs (emergency programs, of course, because this is a crisis), which will further strain the state's ability to take care of us. Socialism isn't perfect, but it's the worst system we can have.

As I predicted, disappointment is on a frantic increase with this administration. If he does even half of what he promised, he will plunge us into national ruin, which will disappoint even the working poor in the country. Taxes will have to be raised drastically on them, the poor, but even more on the middle class, because there lie the numbers you need to get any revenue. You don't understand? Try this...

You can get the same money by either of these two actions: take one million bucks from each of 100 millionaires, or take 100 bucks from each of one million middle class types. Which group are you going to run out of first? Hint: how many millionaires live in your city, and how many working class? Drive around and make an estimate.

Even if you took 100% of the income from all the truly rich, it wouldn't run this country on its current budget for more than a week. The money has to come from you, the working stiff. That's why you need to understand that when they say they're going to make the rich pay their fair share, they really mean you, bucky.

Feel stimulated yet? Between Bush's Bailouts and Obama's Stimulus, we're either going to kiss America as we knew it goodbye, or we'll throw out both parties as we should have done thirty years ago. It can't go on like this anymore. Math, like the moon, is a harsh mistress.