MORG

Torsten, can you ban this guy from the forums?

You're right, best new thing on TV for a while. It has me in stitches every time. Anyone tried looking for a DVD?

Yeah, I'm gonna try to get there when next I have a free Saturday. I'll give you a shout when I do Benz.

It was great to meet you all. I had a fine afternoon, and it sounds like you all had a very fine evening Thanks for organising Apo. I'll see you all next time!

And in light of the recent controversy over whether I was 'Morg' or 'Morq' I've decided to capitalise.

Wow, an invitation for all to have a rant I think the biggest one right now is global warming. Key to this is rapid deforestation and energy. - Green or nearer to green energy needs to be implemented ASAP, the urgency is just not there. Governments are tied up with financial excuses and the public is overcome by apathetic inertia. What is especially scary now is the way some governments are attempting to control the disemination of information pertinent to the climate change cause. - Deforestation needs to be halted. Trees are needed for a healthy environment, full stop. - This leads on to conservation of species and their habitat. Biodiversity and sustaining the environment are pushed as the main reasons for conservation and these are very valid. What I would like to see though, and what I think we need, is a more widespread and accepted ethic that conservation of biodiversity is something worthwhile because of the intrinsic value of biodiversity. We don't need a scientific reason to sustain a species. Its existence on Earth is reason enough. - Another important one for Australia is farming. The rate of loss of species in Australia's rangelands is one of the highest in the world. Our environment can't handle grazing and it's suffering. We need a switch to more sustainable farming practise and we need to make use of our native species to do this. Buy kangaroo! (One more) - The Green movement needs to mature. Overzealous fanatics tend to get all the exposure in the media for representing the Green movement. Compromise is a very important and inescapable reality if anything is ever to be done. Ok, I'm done now.

Consider me chastised Apo... Actually, I found the recent thread on N. nucifera extraction from Tripitaka helpful. Didn't check EBA though...

He waits till now to tell me this

To continue on my lotus adventures... no point in starting a new thread. Last week I found out that my dried lotus was probably a little less dry than it should've been, it'd all started to go mouldy in the bag So to save what I had, I separated out about a handful of stamens with as little mould as possible and dried them further. I chopped the rest and put it in a jar with absolute ethanol. I don't know how much was there cos I don't have a decent set of scales yet, but it was approximately 40 flowers worth of material. It's now been soaking since last Friday (5 days) and the EtOH is looking nice and golden. I plan to evaporate the solution onto the handful of dried stamens I took earlier. How long do you think I should leave the material soaking for? I read a tek somewhere that said 1-2 weeks. I thought I'd go for 10 days. Is it possible to leave it for too long doing this?

Going waaay back to the start of this thread, the article mentions a "specialist fruit diet". Why then have we canine teeth? Nowadays with the gradual subsidance of simple explanations of our world based on faith, pseudoscience is becoming more prevalent. When non-rational people have their non-rational views dislodged by logic, it seems they often seek to employ those same tools of logic (i.e. science) in the old non-rational way to make them feel comfortable again. I've heard of alot of modern books written in defence of Christianity which attempt to employ "science". It seems that today "science" is one of the the regular fixtures used in attempting the defence of the Bible (eg. archaelogical evidence for Noah's flood and the current debacle that is intelligent design). Psuedoscience is much easier to write and disseminate than the real thing.

I checked out the Hamilton's website, looks fairly impressive. I'll definitely head out there when I get the chance. About an hour from my place so not too bad. Thanks for the tip.

Oh, and for the record (and back on topic) I find the administration of hallucinogenic drugs to pets irresponsible. What a way to jeopardise a loved one.

I watched a beautiful doco recently screened on SBS called "Juliette of the Herbs". The story was of this amazing woman's life, learning and practising traditional herbal lore learnt through Europe and the Middle East. One of the things she firmly believes is that her Afghan hounds (and animals in general) all have a herbal instinct. She speaks of seeing them medicate themselves on various wild plants at different times. I'd recommend anyone with an interest in the ethnobotanical (especially therapeutic) use of herbs (I think that might be close to all of you ) to check it out. And sorry, I didn't tape it. www.julietteoftheherbs.com or get Googling and you'll find more.

Did I read earlier on this thread that some are bringing music makers? Is it worth bringing my drum along? Looking forward to it!

Were you wearing tinted sunnies? The ones I collected were purple till I took my sunnies off

Size is a pretty reliable diagnostic feature for these two as well, right?

I was under the impression that N. caerulea (picture) WAS "blue lotus". As usual common names run amok wreaking havoc within heads and upon lips. Can anyone clear this business up?

They're some healthy looking children. Thanks for the pics. Very impressed. How long have you had the two monster Lophs?

Nice shots! But I have a suspicion it's hard to take a bad lotus photo. What species is the second one?

Here's a photo I liked from the weekend's lotus gathering. Feel free to take it/change it or anything you like They certainly are impressive flowers.

I, like most, have a vast array of pet peeves and button-pushers, many of which have been mentioned already (eg. fake people, small talk). I'll give you the two most commonly encountered. 1) Advertisements. Magazines and billboards I can avoid looking at, internet pop-ups are a menace at times, but TV and radio ads make me bristle. Especially turned up loud. 2) When someone wipes the kitchen bench with a cloth/sponge and puts said cloth/sponge back on sink full of water and bench detritus. How hard is it to rinse?

Awesome work. And those technique tips are handy. I'd dabbled in the past with them but found the same dusty melding of the colours turned me off. Sounds like I'll have to give it another go... Keep it up!

Bit late, but these are brilliant How big are the originals?

Blessing your cotton socks again Apoth. Seeds arrived today. Thanks muchly. :D

They were steeped for 7-8 hours with the odd agitation. I can imagine the lotus taste would be quite pronounced after 3-4 weeks. I've now got a stack of dried lotus. When steeping from dried material is it necessary to increase the dose?