Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Wildlife and the Lunatic Fringe

Greetings Earthlings!  How are things in your neck of the woods?  Our neck is hot, but the winds have calmed down.  Yesterday we were out putting a hose on the saguaro and noticed a depression in the ground under a palm tree.  Closer inspection revealed a baby rabbit in the depression.  We backed off, not knowing if it was dead or alive, but not wanting to scare it.  Turns out rabbits build their "nests" out in the open, believing that predators will not venture out to eat their young.  That's what the internet says, anyway.  So, if you have grass that you mow, make sure you don't have any piles of grass or leaf litter, because there could be a baby rabbit in there. The baby was alive, and presumably left with mom later.

The hummingbirds are draining their tiny feeders daily.  It's so dry here nothing is blooming.  The switch to desert landscaping has also removed sources of food for them.  There are three feeders, holding a total of two ounces.  I don't put the big one out because it's too hot; it grows fungus and then kills the birds.  We seem to have a resident male and female.  The male chases her relentlessly, I'd like to smack him upside his tiny head and tell him to knock it off.  There is an infinite supply of food, and this behavior is not approved.

Here is a lizard hanging on the wall.  I love how their feet support them while they're upside down.

The county is paving on Kinney.  We haven't been able to ride the road bikes from the house for over a year because that's the road in and out.  There are other roads, but they're narrow and they don't go anywhere interesting.  The project plan says there will be six foot shoulders on each side of the road, so we're happy about that.  For awhile we really doubted that would be the case, so I called them.  An actual human answered the phone, looked up the project and transferred me to another human.  They were both quite pleasant, and the second human assured me there would be shoulders.  It has become unnerving when a person answers the phone, I'm always expecting voice mail.

We have clouds today.  No rain in the forecast, but clouds are nice.

Now I have a few things to say about republicans.

The Arizona legislature has been busy passing stupid voting laws

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona lawmakers are pushing to create criminal penalties for election workers and volunteers who deviate from procedures and to give prosecutors all mail ballots rejected for signature problems.

Those provisions are part of a sweeping elections measure debated in the House on Tuesday ahead of a possible vote in the coming days as lawmakers rush to end the legislative session.

Democrats and voting rights advocates said the threat of criminal penalties will create a chilling effect on election workers and voters.

Republicans say they will bolster confidence in elections.

Jim and I had discussed signing up to work elections as volunteers.  No more!  It's a $10,000 fine for a worker if they make a mistake or deviate from the procedure.  The supervisor gets a $25,000 fine for not keeping a better watch on the poll workers.  Who is going to want to volunteer with this hanging over their heads?  Why are they sending ballots with signature problems to prosecutors?  Peoples' signatures change over time.  Mine has changed, the way I write the "r" in my last name has two variants.  Jim's has changed.  Are we now criminals?

TPM also has a piece on what the lunatic fringe is doing.

An amendment added to another election bill, that creates a criminal referral process around ballot signature mismatch. If a signature doesn’t match on a mail ballot, and the voter doesn’t fix the issue in the 5-day curing period that the state provides, then a copy of the ballot, as well as other information about the voter, is sent to the county or state prosecutors for investigation, under the legislation.

They've also written a bill that precludes our Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs, from defending the next election against stupid bills written to do things like throw out electors they don't like.  It all defaults to the Attorney General, who is a republican lunatic.  The bill expires at the end of Ms Hobbs' term as Secretary of State.

The state legislature in Pennsylvania has been busy, as well.  This is from the Daily Kos

The third bill, the Unborn Child Dignity Act, requires healthcare facilities to provide the option of burial or cremation after the loss of a pregnancy. It also requires women to fill out a traumatic form acknowledging their miscarriage. The form is mandatory and comes with a fine for miscarrying the child and a death certificate to indicate the loss—as if the trauma itself was not enough.

If a woman miscarries, they want to fine her and make her get a death certificate.   The article has a copy of the death certificate application.  Would someone mind telling me in the name of all that is holy, why the republicans decided this was necessary?  What if you miscarry at home, in the toilet, which happens frequently.  Do you have to fish out the fetus and present it to the state?  They truly are the spawn of satan.

Meanwhile, in San Jose, nine people are dead from a mass shooting today.  In Texas, the governor, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that everybody can open carry.  There are no longer back ground checks, training, licensing or anything.  Just buy your damn gun and go swagger around with it.  I have yet to see a good guy with a gun stop a bad guy with a gun.

The fake audit continues in Arizona.  "The contract with Wake TSI ended May 14, the original completion date for the hand count, and the company chose not to renew its contract, according to Randy Pullen, an audit spokesperson and former state GOP chair." They have a new company on board now, but they're still not actually conducting an audit.  One of their processes is to have three people per table scanning ballots at a rate of three ballots every three seconds.  If there is a discrepancy in the tally, they just go with the two who matched, and move on.  AZ law requires that discrepancies be resolved on the spot, but not these people.  It's just a joke.

So, my hair is pretty much on fire due to all of the perfidy and malfeasance.  Don't even get me started on what Marjorie Taylor Greene said yesterday, comparing having to wear a mask to the Holocaust.  I truly believe she is mentally ill.

OK, I'll stop now.  

Later, there was this.  Pretty.

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Saguaros and Wind

Ho hum, nothing new here.  The Arizona "audit" continues to embarrass the rest of us.  Now that the voting machines and tabulators have been in the hands of the great unwashed masses, they can't be used for future elections.  It will cost millions to replace them.  Thanks!

This is a cute wild life picture.  I took it through a glass door, so it's not great.  Look how cute his ears are.

Things are not good in the desert.  The saguaros are blooming out of their sides, and too much at the top. "The plants have fewer new spine clusters — known as areoles — from which flowers typically sprout, so they are “reactivating” old, unused budding locations farther down the stem."  This is bad.  It's not likely that the flowers on the sides will set fruit, so the saguaro is expending energy for no payback.  There is an article about it here.  The rumor that they're blooming excessively because they think they're about to die, and want to reproduce first is not true.

Saguaros are in trouble.  The ones that have been dug up and moved to traffic islands are in particular danger because they don't have the root structures to find water.  Young cactus are unable to get enough water due to their smaller root structures.  "Unlike most plants, saguaros (and other cacti) open tiny pores on their skin at night when temperatures are cooler to take in carbon dioxide. But with these warmer nighttime temperatures we’re now seeing, the amount of carbon dioxide the plant can take in is reduced, so it has a harder time growing and thriving."  The other problem they have is the presence of buffel grass.  It's an African grass that was brought here for cattle feed (they won't eat it) and erosion control.  It's everywhere now, way too much to pull up.  Anyway, it burns so hot that saguaros growing in clumps of it boil and explode.  There is another article here.

Things are bad, and if we don't get monsoon this year, things will be worse.

It has been very windy for the last two days.  I don't know why because local television never talks about the why, just the what.  It's annoying, I want to know about fronts, low pressure, high pressure, what is causing this much wind?  The saguaro on the bank is rocking a little (that's him in the above pictures).  We're going to put a hose on him for 4 - 6 hours a month and dribble water on him.  I have a 10 year old up against the wall in the yard, I think he needs shade cloth.  A ten year old wild saguaro is about 1.5 inches tall.  This is the queen palm being bashed about below.

Other than this, I know nothing and have nothing of import to say.

Sunday, May 16, 2021

Weather and Water

Greetings and salutations.  How goes it in this time of lying and ring kissing of the orange ectoplasm?  His perfidy really knows no bounds.  Yesterday he put out a message that the entire voter database in Maricopa county had been deleted.  That did not happen, and the Maricopa county recorder, Stephen Richer, called him unhinged - because he is.

However, there are more important discussion topics, namely the weather.  Tucson hit 100 degrees May 13.  Last year it happened in April, along with 2020 hitting a record for consecutive days over 108F.  Additionally, the people who monitor the water are sounding the alarms as the aquifer is being depleted and the water from the Central Arizona Project is also under pressure.  Meanwhile, the farmers are drilling new wells and growing cows and alfalfa on land owned by Saudi Arabia.  We're sending water to the middle east in the form of agricultural products.  This troubles me some.  The WAPO had an article about the fading La Nina weather pattern and its depression of rain in California and here.  Knowing all of these things one wonders if one should get out of Dodge.  See the reddest area?  We live there.

The water issues are not just in Arizona.  "In what is shaping up to be the worst water crisis in generations, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said it will not release water this season into the main canal that feeds the bulk of the massive Klamath Reclamation Project, marking a first for the 114-year-old irrigation system. The agency announced last month that irrigators would get dramatically less water than usual, but a worsening drought picture means water will be completely shut off instead." Water has also been cut off to the Coho salmon runs this year.  There will be no fish spawning, they're pretty much all dead. An article is here, just click on "continue without supporting" and you can read it.

WAPO also had an article about a new old person development being built on Kent Island in Maryland. They have a most excellent web site touting the wonders of their new facilities.  It looked kind of good, we could live there.  Winters there are cold, but not like the northern tier.  It could work, we'd be near stuff to go see and do.  Then we read the comments on the WAPO article.  Due to rising sea levels, Kent Island is experiencing salt water intrusion.  There is one bridge on and off the island, which is a major tourist destination in the summer.  If there is an accident on the bridge, you're stuck.  We decided nah.  I did leave a comment thanking the other commenters for the information and saving us a trip back east. 

This morning was noisy.  First we had an Air Rescue helicopter circling the area for almost an hour.

 He left and was replaced by a Sheriff's helicopter, who was flying very low.

Then this guy drove down the street.  Oddly enough, there was only the one vehicle, usually there are multiples.  We never heard any sirens.

So, it's a mystery who they were looking for.  It would be nice if they would do a text blast to explain to the locals what they are doing, but apparently we do not have a need to know.

Yesterday we did home organization.  For several months, we've had a box mushrooms come in (a wide box) spanning the arms of a foldable chair.  It held stuff we bought at Costco, since we haven't been in a Target for a year.  Quantities are large at Costco, very large.  With limited storage, most of it lived on the chair in the garage and was a total eyesore.  Ta-da!  New shelving.  If you need stand alone storage shelves, Amazon is not the place to buy.  Go to a restaurant supply store, much better.  Easy to assemble, and very sturdy.

I have a turkey roaster and a La Creuset dutch oven on the bottom shelf, neither of which I use, but either can't be or would cost too much to replace.  Their departure allowed us to get the Instant Pot off that kitchen counter and out of sight.  Domestic life is better.

This article has stuck with me for its total weirdness and awfulness.  The short version is a person died in the apartment above a young woman's apartment.  He was not found for some time, decomposed and fluids came through her ceiling, landing on the blades of ceiling fan that was in use.  Everything she had in that room is ruined, but the apartment's management has taken the position that it's her problem and not theirs.  So no help with clean up or painting.  This really strikes me a petty and cruel.  The full story is here if you're interested.  If nothing else, it's an argument for renter's insurance.

That's what's shaking here in the hot, windy, Old Pueblo.

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Cactus, LIzards and Bad Faith Politicians

Ho hum.  The corruption of the republican party continues, growing by leaps and bounds.  Ted Cruz, in particular, continues to roll down the evolutionary path and is becoming a slime mold.

This is our neighbor's hedge hog cactus next door, blooming up a storm.   I'm not sure why the growth tips are that yellow, but I don't think it's good.

This is a short arm on the saguaro on the side of our wash.  He's blooming.  If you look behind the blossoms at that white area, that's the growth plate for the arm. 

The lizard has been to see us.  He's a pretty lizard.

This bird has the most amazing song.  It goes on forever with a lot of variation.  When we first heard it we thought it was a Hooded Oriole, who also have long complicated songs.  However, it was this bird, which I can't identify.

The perfidy and malfeasance of the republicans in Arizona continues.  The "audit" has to be winding down because they must be out of the coliseum on May 14.  At present, they don't know where they will be taking the ballots.  They also have no plan for tamper evident tape for the boxes of ballots, security, or anything else that is required by law.  Until recently they had been demanding that Maricopa turn over the county routers.  This would have taken down ALL of the systems in Maricopa county, including the police, and compromised security of everything.  (Today it was revealed that in their custody, the voting machines have been hooked to the internet.)  DOJ checked in with them and pointed out that their plan to go out and interview a selection of voters, who had been statistically selected by a method they couldn't articulate, could only be construed as voter intimidation.  They've backed down on that plan.  I still do not understand why they were able to get the ballots since federal election laws stipulate that the ballots remain with state election officials for 22 months.

Yesterday, our idiot governor signed a law changing the PEVL (permanent early voting list) to the AVEL (active early voting list).  They want to purge voters who have not voted in four years.  Seventy five percent of all AZ voters are on PEVL.  The state automatically sends PEVL people a ballot for each and every election, some of which might be missed if one wasn't paying attention in the off years.  The other law that's being passed is decreasing the number of days for curing mail in ballots on the Navajo nation.  This doesn't affect white people in the rest of the state, just the Navajo nation.  Sound discrimanatory  much to anyone?  This will end up in court asap. Consider the wrongness of this thinking.  Their problem is that the Navajos vote primarily democratic.

Jim just told me that Republicans in the AZ senate and house only have a one vote majority each.  Perhaps the Democrats could rise up and vote these suckers out.

So today the slime molds voted Liz Cheney out of her leadership position, because she will not sit still for the lie that the election was stolen.  After a meeting of republicans with President Biden, Kevin was heard to say, “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that is all over with. We’re sitting here with the president today.”  If that's the case, why did they just toss Cheney?

So that is what is happening in the land of the wingnuts.

Saturday, May 8, 2021

Hooray, Hooray, It's the Eighth of May

 In the PNW, the second line is "it's outdoor intercourse day".  However, here in our neck of the woods, we're saying "it's trichocereus blooming day."  They're mostly all out today.  They bloom for one day, and then they're done.  I have been told it's because they have to cross pollinate so everybody blooms at once, but I can neither confirm or deny this.  

Here are some we've seen today.  These are our neighbors', two doors down.

Rick, who lives on our riding route, called us over as we were on the way back to the house.  That man has a lot of cactus.  These are his trichocereus.

This is called a flying saucer.  The blossom is just huge.

A closer look at said blossom.

Aren't they the most beautiful things you've seen in awhile?  The sun was pretty harsh, so pictures are not that good.  However, they'll be gone tomorrow, so there is no going back for a better shot.

This is a blossom on a really short saquaro.  I think he's only four feet tall, but he's blooming.

This afternoon we went to Home Depot for LED bulbs for the yard lights.  I don't think we're getting the advertised life span on these bulbs.  Anyway, two of the four died this week.  I spent some time in the garden department.  These are aloe plants.  They look like agaves.  They are very pretty.  However, that would involve digging if I got one.

These cactus that shoot flowers out of their sides always amuse me.

This is a mandevilla.  I read about how to care for them in Arizona, which says they need shade.  Home Depot has them sitting out in full sun.  We've given up on plants with leaves, so we admire them and leave them at the store.

I had planned to do a scathing review of the dimwits in the Arizona legislature and their most recent stupidity with their stupid audit, but I wanted to post this while it was the eighth of May.  Ok, here's one of their dimwit things; they're checking the ballots for bamboo fiber content since they think that ballots were smuggled in from China.  Bamboo?  Really?  Maybe they need a bamboo sniffing panda on site.

Sunday, May 2, 2021

Ramble on!

How are you all?  We're having trouble believing that people in Arizona really believe the election was stolen, and that their stupid "audit" will uncover the malfeasance. Q-Anon has put forth the theory that the orange ectoplasm marked the ballots with watermarks to expose Democratic fraud. They've been exposing the ballots to UV light to make the watermarks and finger prints visible.  I think they've been watching too many police procedurals.  Rep. Anthony Kern, whose name is on the ballots being audited, is auditing the ballots.  This seems like a conflict of interest. Kern has also been seen giving Rep. Andy Biggs a tour of the coliseum.

April 27 we had this down the street. There were two marked sheriff's vehicles, the pickup truck was driven by a detective.  A sheriff's car came back four days running.  Jim finally walked down and asked the cop what they were doing.  They were doing surveillance on a house.  The only place they can see it is from up a wash.  We don't know whose house or why.  The last time a sheriff was there, he was out in the desert after dark.  That's when the rattlesnakes are active. 

Remember the wall that was knocked down due to a boundary issue?  Then a spite wall went up in its place.  Well, they've built up a little higher recently.

I'm really not clear on the purpose of the iron work.  I don't think it adds anything to the appearance of the wall.  Linda (Lady Margaret's Curlers) left a comment on a previous post that the wall looked republican.  It is, they're supporters of the orange ectoplasm.

Today I was blocked on twitter by the former French ambassador to the US.  Apparently he has a habit of blocking women who take umbrage at something he has said.  Here is what he tweeted yesterday.  He has since deleted the tweet, and blocked many women including me.  This hoary anecdote has been around forever, it's not original to M. Araud.

It pissed me off a lot.  So I said this.

He responded with a request for "a little humor."  Right, just joking little lady.  Anyway, I got a lot of positive feedback, and he got dragged pretty good.  The screen shot of his tweet is out there and still circulating.  I don't generally post anything on twitter, due to the high crazy count, but that one just set me off.

There are more cactus blooming.  This is a teddy bear cholla.

A prickly pear down the street.

A prickly pear on the other side of our wall.  It's always cool when they bloom different colors.

I think this is a staghorn cholla.

I've been calling these fat cholla because they're thicker than the staghorns.

Today is day two of being really windy.  We got up to ride, but the wind was just too strong.  We put watering buckets on a palm and the  bottle brush plant.  We buy the five gallon buckets from Home Depot, drill tiny holes close to the bottom and fill them with water.  It trickles in slowly and doesn't run off.  Zone two of the irrigation is turned off due to a leak in a valve.  Fortunately everything else is on zone one.  The irrigation people can't get out here until May 11.  Anyway, after bucket filling we went to HomeGoods up north, where we obtained an inexpensive three quart non-stick pot which I was not willing to spend $115 on at Williams Sonoma.  

Jim has been spraying the orange trees with this.  It smells unbelievably bad when it's wet, sort of like fermented hot dogs.  After it dries, it's not bad.  The deer have been in the yard since the spraying, but we don't think they're eating.  It would be good if it did work, putting up fencing is not something I want to do.

I've mentioned that there are very few rental cars available.  Something like 750,000 cars were dumped into the used car market by the rental agencies at the start of the pandemic.  As part of the perfect storm of shortages, people did not want to ride public transit at that time.  They wanted their own, hermetically sealed car.  So, all the cars were sold in short order.  It's estimated that this situation will continue well in to next year.

There was a sunset last night.  It was pretty good.

That's it - that's all of the rambling I can muster.