Tombstone Eyes

Covid has hit some people I know really hard recently, a friend lost his father in a very gruesome way which I will not retell. Lot of very careful people slipped and are now real sick. Some really close friends. The default on the right seems to be well everybody is going to get it sooner or later so why worry? Leave it in god's hands. Vaccine kills more people than the disease, crap like that. So much dis and misinformation out there. Truth is that an unvaccinated person is eleven times more likely to die from the disease than a vaccinated one. But people won't listen. Emergency rooms are full, doctors and nurses are stretched to their wit's end. I am so sick of hearing about comorbidities as if a person with health problems had the final dagger coming to him or her. Some stuff on the subject and a couple other things:

Eric Topol - Where do we stand with Omicron? Maureen Ferran - Corbevax vaccine might be a game changer. Debunking Covid lies at Fact check.com. Evangelical backlash? The Atlantic - Is old music killing new music?

Linger on

Monday muddle

I played hooky Monday afternoon and drove up to see the birds at SJWA. 

It was a very nice day, lots of water in the ponds, more ducks than I remember seeing for a while.

Like these buffleheads, always a treat. There were no eagles visible but plenty of other raptors present. I am not going to identify them for you because as long as you have been reading the blog, you should really know by now.

Even saw a great horned owl hiding in the brush. I made a stupid mistake and went hiking on my bad leg. Thought I was sufficiently healed and I was wrong. Pushed it too far and exacerbated whatever the hell is going on with my knee. Hurting and can hardly walk again. Damn.

Saw more yellow headed blackbirds than I can remember ever seeing in one place before, love them. 

And your standard red winged blackbirds too.

I saw a large flock of curlews near the Walker Ponds. About fifteen of them. Unusual. Perhaps it is a migration.

And all the normal cast of characters, stilts, white faced ibis, black phoebes egrets, mockingbirds, lot of birds showed up and said hi.

As the old raven once told me, "Until we meet again."

Floral deception

The Ventures - Slaughter On Tenth Avenue

Fin whales

common dolphin

Leslie and I went whale watching with friends yesterday on the afternoon boat at Oceanside Adventures. 

It didn't take long to run into a relatively small common dolphin pod, about four hundred animals.

We have been spoiled in the past by megapods of over 2000 individuals cavorting all around the boat.

They have been sighting a large number of Pacific white sided dolphins but none were to be seen yesterday.

The captain explained to us that due to our large local anchovy population there are more common dolphins in Southern California than any other place on earth, in fact more than all the other locations in the world combined. Which is great because they are amazing creatures!

Very soon after we found two fin whales surfacing. Fin whales are the second largest whale in the world, right after the blue whale. 

These whales are about eighty feet long. 

They are the fastest whale species in the world.

They take very deep dives so we saw them on ten minute intervals. 

These are not syncopated so they probably don't hang out a lot together underwater, more like trains passing in the deep.

We hung around checking them out for a very long time. 

They are fun to see but they don't exhibit the animated breeching that you see with the gray or humpbacks. 

You don't see a lot of tail or airborne displays with these creatures although we did see a fin whale out of the water on the last trip out, a rarity. 

And one that I was not lucky enough to capture with my camera.

The ocean was beautiful and calm, the air was warm. It was a great day to be out on the water. Never get tired of being out. Great crew, as always. We are still good luck charms on the boat, have only been skunked once in a couple dozen tries. Grays are moving, we will be back.

Hoop Dreams

 

I got a note from Kent this morning:

Check out the Union Tribune.

The cover picture in the print edition shows us both at the recent Aztec basketball win over Colorado State. I'm the large gent in the white jacket about six rows up. Kent is two seats away to my left.

Not wearing a mask at that moment in time but a triple vaccination required in order to even get in the door. So don't even start.

Kent has season tickets. I used to go with him a lot. Unfortunately for me his wife Heidi really has developed a liking for the game so I don't get a lot of invites anymore but am happy when I do. We are in front of the visitors section. Kent is very good at messing with their fans, in a nice way.

Go Aztecs. Thanks, Kent and Heidi! Have a great game tonight.

Devo - Beautiful World

Evil Woman Child

Ginned up justice

The Supreme Court, in an 8 to 1 decision, will let the January 6 committee have Trump's records relating to the untoward happenings of that day. The House committee had asked for a trove of documents related to the events surrounding the riot, including records of communication between the White House and the Justice Department leading up to Jan. 6. 

Trump objected, asserting executive privilege, but President Joe Biden declined to back up that assertion. Instead, he directed the National Archives to hand over the material.

Now the court has spoken and the veil will be lifted on the attempted coup and insurrection. Should be interesting. And also interesting is the fact that the only dissenter today was one Justice Clarence Thomas, whose MAGA stalwart wife Ginni once cheered on the rioters.

I don't blame you Clarence. 

Happy wife, happy life and you certainly don't want to piss off your Ginni. 

Hear tell she gets madder than a pubic hair in a pepsi can.

*

Shameless. Only 13 Republican house members voted for last year's infrastructure bill. Now many of the rest of them are clamoring to take credit for it.

*

Innocent much? Eric Trump and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg invoked their Fifth Amendment rights more than 500 times when questioned by the New York attorney general’s office for its investigation into the company’s finances, according to a Tuesday court filing.

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun - Pink Floyd

You just can't win

Man, I've been worried to death about global warming and now guess what I have to worry about? Yup. Global cooling. Damn. Wouldn't you know...

Earth's core is cooling at rates faster than previously thought, which could speed the planet's inevitable march toward uninhabitability millions or billions of years from now, researchers said this week.

Earth's interior has been gradually cooling for the entirety of its 4.5 billion-year existence — a generally helpful pattern as the planet evolved into its current green paradise, where humans have thrived for the past 200,000 or so years.

But don't worry. We still got plenty of time I think...

A 2013 projection by Andrew Rushby of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom pegged Earth's viability for life to be good for another 1.75 billion to 3.25 billion years, assuming there's no nuclear holocaust, rogue asteroid or other unforeseen disaster. 

Now if the cooling gets offset by the heating, we just may be able to equalize the temperature and sneak out of this mess and survive. Stay tuned.

Texas Bullcrap

The Lonestar State is one of the few states that requires its voters to use paper forms in order to register to vote. Strange, tangible media is so twentieth century. But it is true, you can no longer register online with their new restrictive voting laws. And guess what, the Texas Secretary of State now says, "Sorry, we are out of paper."

The Texas Secretary of State’s office is having more trouble than usual getting enough voter registration cards to groups who help Texans register to vote.

Sam Taylor, assistant secretary of state for communications, said supply chain issues have made it harder and more expensive to get paper, which means the Secretary of State's office will be giving out fewer voter registration forms to groups ahead of elections this year.

“We are limited in what we can supply this year, because of the paper shortage and the cost constraints due to the price of paper and the supply of paper,” he said.

Sure you are.

"My friends, this is what voter suppression looks like." — Dana DeBeauvoir

Officials say 50% of applications for mail-in ballots in Travis County, Texas have been rejected as of January 13.

Take the Money and Run

Dead Woman Walking

There's an interesting opinion at the WaPo today, Joe Manchin finally admits that he favors minority rule. Sounds a bit strident but probably accurate. And so the Voting Rights Act and election reform dies an unseemly death. 

Sinema and Manchin put on a public show of pining for the ideal of bi-partisanship but as we have seen, these days it tends to be a one way street where the dems do all the giving. All these holdouts are really doing is protecting the status quo.

Anyway I am not going to draw this out but will say that I think that Sinema's political career is officially kaput. Toast. Because she now finds herself without a base.

The one time Green Party progressive, who was elected by liberals, has turned her back on her constituents, sold out to the big money interests and she finds herself on an island without ideological friends of any kind. As I said a few months ago, some times you might even need an ally or two.

She is now reduced to a useful idiot for the opposition. Emily's List cut the cord with her this week. More to follow. 

In the long run she didn't stand for anything. And she knifed her fellow democrats in the back in the process. Took the money and ran (as did her aides apparently.)

I think Manchin is a different story in heavily red West Virginia. He has never had a liberal ideology, he's a known quantity good old boy. Arizona is pretty purple. And I don't see Republicans crossing the lines there to vote for her when there are more crazy people on the far right to take her place. I would say she is now toast and can take some fat cat lobbying job for some patrician coffers that she has enriched.

Should be a textbook example of what happens when you alienate your base and throw a wrench in to the machinery so that nothing can get done. It pisses people off and they remember. You had your chance Kristen and you will not be missed.

The Kinks

Clutter king goes down for the count

 

Everything was going along so swimmingly. And then I fell.

It was so stupid really. I was in the back room, grabbing two new paintings that Jennifer needed to remat and frame.

And with my hands full, I didn't see that I was stepping through the step ladder that I had moved in the day before.

Before I knew it I was flat on the ground. So fast. What hurts? Let's see, might be easier to identify what doesn't hurt.

Sprained wrist, ankle, hip and knee, small abrasions. Really lucky I didn't break something.

Totally my fault. I have been putting off cleaning up the store room for so long. It was only a matter of time. Have to do something  soon, next time I might not be so lucky.

Having a difficult time walking, downing the ibuprofen, this one is going to hurt for a week.

Barton Hills Choir

Black bat lilies and other treasures

Shawn in Thailand is a masterful botanist. I got this note from him this morning:

After 10 years experimenting, we finally cracked germinating these. Black Bat lilies from seed are now blooming! Approaching 500 transplanted!

Congratulations, Shawn!

My pink spiked bromeliad balensae has a bunch of mature fruit on the ripened spike, does anybody want to germinate and try growing it? Shawn?

Lena sent over some pretty sunset pics from Cardiff.

Ray sent a picture of him recuperating with his puppy pal.

Pat in England offers the Grateful Dead Time Machine. Hopefully nothing post 1979.

I got this great photo from Doug in New York today with this note: I don't always read. But when I do, I read the blast.

A few more pics from Shawn:

My friend Nigel saw this bird down in Puerto Vallarta and asked me if I knew what it was.

I didn't but my expert says that it is indeed a Chachalaca. New one on me.