December 23, 2012

POTUS Obama stated Obama'My Policies Are So Mainstream' I'd Be A 'Moderate Republican of the 1980s"

Obama On Charges Of Socialism: 'My Policies Are So Mainstream' I'd Be A 'Moderate Republican' In 1980s

President Barack Obama rejected the notion that his policies rang of socialism on Thursday, arguing that his platform was more similar to a "moderate Republican" of the 1980s and that most Americans realized that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/obama-socialism_n_2300998.html

Most of the Nation's problems are the result of "Moderate Republican policies of the 1980s" compounded for the last 30 years.

December 15, 2012

Beautifuland appropriate thoughts and words. Thank you.

The spiritual, moral, and reality of the acts of individuals, our nation, and the cruelties of existence have overwhelmed me as I turn 60.

We need kindness and wisdom, desperately so.

December 12, 2012

Coast Redwoods have been cloned for over 25 years and are used operationally. commercial planting

Coast redwoods most often reproduce by natural cloning as a species characteristic is reproduction after harvest or fire by coppice (sprouting). The cloning trial in the research below began in 1984.


Forest Genetic Resources No 23.

EARLY RESULTS OF A RANGEWIDE PROVENANCE TEST OF SEQUOIA SEMPERVIRENS
by
J. E. Kuser, A. Bailly, A. Franclet, W. J. Libby, J. Martin, J. Rydelius, R. Schoenike, and N. Vagle

ABSTRACT

180 clones of Sequoia sempervirens, representing 90 provenance locations throughout the natural range and elevations from 24 m to 945 m, are being tested for survival and height growth at 3 plantation sites in the U.S., 2 in France, and plots in Spain, Britain, and New Zealand. Early results indicate that provenances from the north end of the range survive best in South Carolina and suffer less frost damage in northern France. Provenances from Humboldt County have grown relatively tall at Brookings, Oregon; Lafayette, California; and Etançon, France. Although there are no full scale plantations of the test at warmer locations, hedge orchards at Davis, California and Malissard, France indicate that more southern provenances (Santa Cruz and Monterey counties) may grow as fast or faster on warm sites. Preliminary recommendations for seed collections in Del Norte and Napa counties are made for further testing of cold tolerance, but it is not yet possible to recommend sources for warmer areas.

INTRODUCTION

Figure 1. Range of coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens (Little, 1971)

Redwood is one of the world's botanical wonders. The tallest tree in the world is a 110 m redwood in Redwood National Park, near Orick, California (American Forests, 1990). Redwood is a fire-adapted species with thick, fire-resistant bark and the ability to stump-sprout from a ring of burl tissue which surrounds the root-collar zone. It is unlike most conifers in this sprouting ability, and can grow new branches along its entire trunk to replace any killed by fire (Burns and Honkala, 1990).Coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens (D.Don.) Endl. is one of the temperate zone's fastest growing trees. On the best sites, redwood can produce 30 m3 of wood per hectare per year (Fritz, 1945). Because redwood heartwood is decay-resistant, it is used for outdoor products such as siding, decking, garden furniture, stakes, shakes, and slatsfor air-conditioning cooling towers. Its decay resistance and beauty make redwood lumber worth more than pine or Douglas-fir. In California, for example, late 1992 retail lumber yard prices for "construction" grade redwood averaged 77 percent higher than those for comparable Douglas-fir; and for "clear" grades, redwood prices were 20 percent higher than Douglas-fir's.
California State Tax Board values for second-growth redwood logs averaged 148 percent of the value of Douglas-fir logs of the same dimensions, 230 percent of those for sugar and ponderosa pine (Pinus lambertiana and P. ponderosa) and 1148 percent of those for radiata (P. radiata) and shore pine (P. contorta var. contorta) (Libby, 1993).
Besides being valuable for timber, redwood is a spectacular tree which attracts many visitors to 100,000 hectares of state and national parks (Dewitt, 1985).

Before the Pleistocene, redwood or its close relatives were widespread, occurring in Europe, Asia, and North America (Chaney, 1934). Today, however, Sequoia sempervirens is confined to a narrow 720-km strip of the California and Oregon coast, extending 30 to 60 km inland. (Little, 1971) (see Figure 1). It was once thought that redwood grew in this belt because it needed the region's summer fog in order to survive; but more than 100 years ago, it was being successfully grown at Placerville, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and outside California at Seattle, Washington, Victoria, British Columbia, and Hawkinsville, Georgia (Kuser, 1981). It is now known that redwood can be grown in many parts of western Europe and in the Crimea, Turkey, Japan, New Zealand, Chile, South Africa, Tasmania, and in the tropics at high enough elevation to provide temperate climate. As efforts to grow redwood in many parts of the world get underway, information on provenance differences becomes urgent. Use of the right or wrong seed source can spell the difference between success and failure with exotics (Zobel et al., 1988). The earliest provenance test of redwood was started in 1961 by Muelder and Hansen with seed of 10 populations from the central and north coast of California (Millar et al., 1985). It was evident to us by 1983 that a rangewide collection was warranted, with testing at locations in the temperate zones wherever there was interest in growing this species.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In 1984, we made a 180-clone collection of redwood funded by the American Philosophical Society. Originally we intended to collect seeds for the test, but soon realized that this would be impossible in many parts of the range where the trees rely on stump-sprout regeneration and produce cone crops infrequently. We then decided to collect seedlings and use vegetative propagation to produce ramets for test plantations. This strategy had the advantage of removing one source of variation from analysis of results. As far as possible, we collected juvenile seedlings, no larger than 50 cm tall, in order to avoid cyclophysis.

more at: http://www.haabet.dk/users/sequoia/testsequ.html

November 16, 2012

My contribution to Thanksgiving this year will be Tanoak (Matusake) Mushroom soup.

Recipe (very rich)

Fresh Tanoak Mushrooms (don't wash)!! - scrape and brush to clean then slice

Butter

Shallots and garlic.

1/2 and 1/2 milk and sherry wine (I use Christian Brothers) in about a 2:1 ratio

I don't really measure but say quart milk, handfull of chopped shallots and garlic (3/4 shallots), and 4-8 mushrooms depending on size. One can make a smaller batch for 1-4 people.

Melt butter

Add tanoaks, shallots and garlic

Cook just several minutes until soft

Add milk and sherry and bring to a rapid boil. Take off heat, you are done.

Sometimes sprinkle a dash of cayanne pepper and or dried cilantro on the soup once in bowl for color.



Here is a link to a page with pictures and also links to many common forest mushrooms. This nice webpage is from New England and Eastern Canada but about 2/3s the mushrooms listed to the left are local for me. I live on a National Forest inholding about 20 miles inland from Redwood National Park in extreme northcoast California.

http://mushroom-collecting.com/mushroommatsutake.html


Here is a Matusake slideshow from the New Yorker (one needs to subscribe to read the article now)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/08/20/slideshow_070820_bilger#slide=1

I grew up in the 50s and 60s here where tanoak mushrooms were part of the round of life in my family. We would gather them each year and my Mom and grandmother would dry, can, and pickle tanoaks.

Back in the 70s while an undergrad at Cal I cracked up because I saw them for sale in Berkeley's Monterey Market for $30/lb.

Since the late 80s there have been commercial buyers and pickers that buy by grade. The unopened buttons (#1 grade) are sometimes purchased wholesale for $50-$100/lb. They mostly go to Japan.

98% plus of the nearby land is National Forest and one needs to get a personal use or commercial use permit. The last several years a one day personal use permit from the Forest Service costs $35 and one must deface the mushroom so it cannot be sold commercially. I can find them in my "yard" so the heck with that. A commercial permit is much more.

Personally, I would never pick for sale on principal but the tanoaks give the woods cops something to do.

November 12, 2012

Your question is trivial. The women are trivial.

War crimes and war profiteering are not trivial.

Our politics and media are putrid snot but I am glad to have voted straight Democratic since McGovern (when first legal).

I even voted again for DiFI (husband Richard Blum) after stating at DU I could not in good conscious vote for her again.

My votes all "won" except GMO food labeling in California.

Look how even DiFi was left out of the loop on this mess. Cantor!!??? Morelll!!??

Waking up at DU is not a solution.

Seriously I do not know a solution. My life is essentially over because of age, health, and finances. I am glad I do not have biologic children and have been better to step children than biologic parents.

I have spent the last 30+ (Reagan on) years in a society indoctrinated by post-Reagan policy and politics that have degraded everything perceived about life prior to 1980.

The election is over is over. We won. Let us do better please.

October 28, 2012

Bill Hicks- The Elite (Last Performance) - Enjoy.

At:

One could wonder how an older Hicks, that had not passed on young, would have lampooned Fall 2012?

TMM - Too much material for one smart cynic.

October 21, 2012

Surprised to not see mention Design With Nature by Ian McHarg (published 1969)

Design With Nature is the seminal and pragmatic text that is the basis for modern landuse planning and today's GIS systems.

Editorial Reviews (from http://www.amazon.com/Design-Nature-Wiley-Sustainable/dp/047111460X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350860448&sr=1-1&keywords=Design+with+Nature)

From Library Journal
LJ's reviewer boldly contended that this "may well be one of the most important books of the century." Blending philosophy and science, McHarg shows how humans can copy nature's examples to design and build better structures. This 25th anniversary edition includes a new introduction and epilog. This remains "a pleasure to read" (LJ 10/1/69).
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Back Cover
"In presenting us with a vision of organic exuberance and human delight, which ecology and ecological design promise to open up for us, McHarg revives the hope for a better world." —Lewis Mumford
". . . important to America and all the rest of the world in our struggle to design rational, wholesome, and productive landscapes." —Laurie Olin, Hanna Olin, Ltd.

"This century's most influential landscape architecture book." —Landscape Architecture

". . . an enduring contribution to the technical literature of landscape planning and to that unfortunately small collection of writings which speak with emotional eloquence of the importance of ecological principles in regional planning." —Landscape and Urban Planning

In the twenty-five years since it first took the academic world by storm, Design With Nature has done much to redefine the fields of landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, and ecological design. It has also left a permanent mark on the ongoing discussion of mankind's place in nature and nature's place in mankind within the physical sciences and humanities. Described by one enthusiastic reviewer as a "user's manual for our world," Design With Nature offers a practical blueprint for a new, healthier relationship between the built environment and nature. In so doing, it provides nothing less than the scientific, technical, and philosophical foundations for a mature civilization that will, as Lewis Mumford ecstatically put it in his Introduction to the 1969 edition, "replace the polluted, bulldozed, machine-dominated, dehumanized, explosion-threatened world that is even now disintegrating and disappearing before our eyes."

September 11, 2012

Charlie Rose Show on PBS the evening of 9/11/01.

with Steven Emerson, Tom Clancy, John Edwards, Judith Miller, Samuel Berger, Richard Holbrooke, Wesley Clark and Ephraim Sneh
in Current Affairs

on Tuesday, September 11, 2001

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/2955

August 23, 2012

Navy SEAL's book will describe raid that killed bin Laden

Source: NY Times

A detailed first-person account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, written under a pseudonym by a member of the Navy SEALs who participated in the mission and was present at bin Laden’s death, will be released next month, the publisher said on Wednesday.

The book, “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden,” which is scheduled to be released on Sept. 11, has been a tightly held secret at the publisher, Penguin. It promises to be one of the biggest books of the year, with the potential to affect the presidential campaign in the final weeks before the election.

The author’s name will be listed as Mark Owen by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin. For security reasons, he used a pseudonym and changed the names of other SEAL members.

cut

My Editorial:

seriously can anyone believe what we are told anymore?

Read more: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/48754703/ns/today-the_new_york_times/

August 15, 2012

The Strategy on the Fort Complex is already to back off to

secondary containment lines and burn out a good portion of Red Buttes Wilderness and nearby other National Forest lands on CA-OR border of the Klamath and Rogue River NFs.

The ICS Teams have led gutless, expensive, and ecologically incompetent landscape level fire suppression stratagies more often than not in the past 20 years in the Klamath Mountains. Shameful.

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3117/