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Hehe, well I actually always had a secret long-term plan to re-meet the Lophophora and Trichocereus genuses/genii in Matucana or something related. Bring selected genes into a middle-plant that could then, after stabilizing, begin back-crossing to both. Of course this would take decades to get off the ground, but could be either hilarious or great. Maybe even there's a minute chance of directly crossing the two, or is that heresy?

I can imagine them going to the cactus nursery and saying "We'll have one of everything that goes outdoors".

All plants should be freely available to all aye.... seems like that's the kind of loophole that will finally let me get my own nuclear power plant! Muhahaha Sorry to open with such a bad joke. But my point is still kind of in there, and it is: "be very careful with the wording." Don't just examine what the words roughly say, but what they allow at the extreme. Your association implicitly says that everyone should be able to grow Cannabis with such wording. Is this a horse you want to bring along? While I think that it's obviously a very important issue, and one still dear to my own heart - I get the suspicion that bringing it along for the ride (with that particular wording) might slow the reactionary value of the group, and lessen its reception at such a critical time (the passing of this legislation). For example, this might reduce the support of plant clubs (knowing the average age of my old plant club [above 55] - I think that the support of the club would not be there, while the support of half of the members might. Many though would be afraid to support anything more than an anonymous petition). In other words, some people might be more comfortable joining a group which only opposes proposed laws, rather than standing in defiance of old, well-established laws. This is related to the so-called chilling effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect_%28law%29 Anyway, if there's anything I can do - then I will try and help too.

Yeah man, for sure go for it. I'm sure you knew better than anyone, that there's no "final goal" when growing plants. Just because your plants might not have had as long to grow as they would, does not make it not worth growing them. Growing is about much more than having gigantic plants, but rather more about the actual growing of the plants itself. SO GROW!!!

I would love to rent a barge and bring all of you besieged people and your hit-listed plants to somewhere safe. Unfortunately, I probably couldn't afford a ride on a barge at the moment. But nevertheless, I hope you guys find the strength to survive this absolutely unfathomably evil new law. Warm fuzzies.

I've just been weeding and moving them into the sun (I will take a ginormous photo session soon). There's a lot of repotting to be done, but it's just too difficult with infected cuts on my hands. There has to be a better way to weed than getting stabbed once every few plants. I'm extremely seriously considering making some plate-mail gloves.

It looks to me like you're a first-class propagator man - some serious skill there from keeping the plants multiplying, growing and healthy. I don't know how many of those Lophocereus Schottis you personally propagated, but I would love to know. Anyway, keep on keeping on!

Never too late man. As long as you ease them into more natural lighting, and watch for their signs (leaf curl, leaf wilt, bug attacks, browning) - and keep the soil nutrition favourable (not too sure myself on that one), then they'll survive. In my experience they are easily able to sprout new growth from the nodes without prompting. With prompting (i.e. cutting the top node off), the plant will grow from the lower nodes. However, I would probably wait until your plants are bigger before doing that. So I don't think it's too late at all. Just be patient, and acclimatize them, and at a later date pinch off the top node to get it to bush more (once the plant has fallen over for example).

I'm sorry to hear that man. :/ It's a strangely moving event to let go of an animal friend. I hope you feel better soon, and perhaps find the strength to love again. I've recently had small pangs of how you feel too. Just 5 days ago, we took our dear little doggy to the vet as he was developing a concavity on his skull above and below his eye, feeling pain in the area, and sneezing a lot (these seemed like possible signs to a bone infection to me). I was pretty sure that this was the last few days or so to see him alive (he actually sensed my anxiety and became sad himself, this made a feedback loop). Thankfully, the vet felt his skull for a few seconds, and quickly determined that it was only muscle tissue that had died as a result of past nerve damage (horse kick). So he's okay. Yesterday I noticed the odd-one-out chicken was exaggeratedly waddling slowly and had a swollen abdomen, eating at 20% the rate of the other chickens and just generally seeming hunched over and glum. I thought it was maybe an egg blockage. The swollen abdomen turned out to be very hard to the feel. So we syringed a little cooking oil down its throat in the hopes it would poop out a giant oily mass. It didn't. Today it was just as bad, so after research, we put some vaseline up its ass, and bathed it in hot epsom salts water for 40 minutes, and gave it some calcium chloride in solution down its throat. It was a little happier after its bath, but it still seems extremely lethargic and laboured, and we couldn't feel an egg, so it might be something worse. I'm not sure if I want it to suffer, so maybe I'll have to sharpen the axe... Not sure if these stories will help or make it worse, but hang in there, as I'm sure your cat wouldn't want you to be sad.

Yay, welcome back! :D

I'm glad you're still alive mate, and it seems you are indeed doing good. Keep it up! :D

Wow, I think I am impressed. It seems as if this is more good news than bad news. This also offers a glimpse into the future, as it's simply extremely uneconomical to use renewables like solar without a correspending buffer grid. More later. Have to run atm.

$5 for 4 apples is not theft?

Hey Psylo - you might like to have a listen to some of David Bergaud's work - it's not very near, but it has some similarities. Reminded me of this track:

Hey jwerta - I don't have a video cam set up (it's a real nightmare to use my digi-cam), but I will write out the parts soon in tab. My favourite chord progression at the moment is called the 'Rhythm changes' - it's legit if you don't already play it.

Hey guys, didn't want to make a new thread. But I'm waiting for the seedpod to ripen of my last mutant cross (Merrick X Huang), and I'll spread it around. Can't wait to see how absolutely munted and messed up the offspring are. Here's the parents: J. Merrick Huang But in all seriousness, I don't understand the fascination with mutants.

Such a thing totally didn't occur to me SallyD, but that's an /extremely/ interesting prospect (That the average life expectancy is heavily skewed by the unnaturally high infant mortality rates). Considering the other studies that have adjusted for that, certain lifestyle choices more common in other cultures often give people an increase in age - I remember an advantage was statistically conferred to religious people (I can't remember if they had to be "practicing" - or just ticked a box and had a book somewhere in the house). My guess is that this would be a primary factor in the longevity of people in other cultures - especially those which haven't abandoned close ties between people. Regardless of whether the life expectancy is misleading, I contend that the tacked on years of life are largely wasted by Westerners anyway. If they weren't afraid of death, I'm sure at least some would choose it instead of a further 10 years decaying on a couch, watching stale, predictable TV, in a constant drug-haze that has all but eroded their sense of self, and eating tasteless paste and sipping bland liquids - especially once the stigma of ending your own life ends (if it ever does).

One year and one hour ago, I made this post. It's amazing how far I've come, and yet how far I still have to go. Earlier today I was playing what I'd composed "blind" (deaf to be accurate) last night, and I'm quite impressed that what I wrote actually sounds good, even though when I wrote it I couldn't test it out. Still lots of work, and still lots of finger stretching to go. Hahaha. =D

There is almost zero danger of the total extinction of life on Earth from uncontrolled nuclear reactions. The only danger is to an environment that us humans find comfortable, inviting and easily hospitable. And most - if not all of us will die. But Earth - and life, will live on - just without us. If you look into the oceans, you'll find the abundance of fish has been replaced with that of jellyfish and starfish - both things that we don't find particularly palatable. But the "net amount" of life is approximately the same. Similarly Chernobyl has had its wildlife recover to a level unseen since well before the town was erected. From memory the number of mutations is also anomalously low (now) - but this could be entirely incorrect. So my reason to shift towards sustainability is to ensure that we have a planet that is comfortable and inviting to us, as we enjoy the plants and animals that are living now. We won't enjoy it so much when the biodiversity is so low that the major mammals are rats, cats and dogs, and everything else is an insect.

It's a big mfing ask, to ask someone to read 200 pages, of a book, that starts out by stating sureties and with poor grammar (again, just circumstancial evidence of someone not qualified [through knowledge, not a piece of paper] to be making these claims). Nevertheless, I will read what I can of it. Edit: Began to read it. These claims of a golden age of men seem unsubstantiated. Referring to ancient people who also referred to "better times before" is as credible as asking gramps what "his day" was like. Secondly, I think the skeletons of men will attest to the distinct lack of good times and existence of war. Secondly, chimpanzees engage in tribal warfare for land acquisition and are still living the life the book seems to be espousing. It seems so far this book has many assumptions that are implicitly assumed. I'll keep reading however, as it's still interesting.

Hmmm.... The skin looks funny. From memory if you scrape your fingernail along the skin, a pach will be smooth, while you can feel tiny bumps in a scop. This may not be the case, but if it is, and the skin feels as bumpy as it looks - then I assert it has some scop genes.

Looks like it's got a bit of "scop pop" so I think it's a scop cross too.

Well, it seems that this discussion has good points on both sides. There's a few things I'd like to add: 1) The idea that chemicals from fruit being absent causing irreversible losses of certain chemicals and processes is possibly mostly incorrect. The brain is a lot like a "Control system" (Engineering concept), and when a disturbance is present, the brain will damp it to return to the ideal operating point. This mechanism is most evident during addiction, where the brain tries its best to anticipate, and reduce the effect of chemicals that appear quasi-periodically in the brain of the addict. The resulting "tolerance" is the disturbance rejection in action. Similarly when compounds that the brain has been anticipating go missing, it will do its best to adjust for it from other sources. For example, if you suddenly stop consuming protein - your body will catabolize itself for protein, using less and less protein each day. The entire time of course, you will be acutely aware of your desire for protein. So, the body can "find" much of what it needs, and force the operator (you) to go and find them. I suppose that if the body is unable to derive certain required compounds (as in the case of Vitamin C), AND it doesn't know it needs / would benefit from certain compounds, OR does not know where to derive certain nutrients from - then it's in big trouble. I get the feeling that many people deficient in Magnesium are completely unaware of it. 2) Fruit and vegetables have been artificially bred for at least hundreds of years, and today are scarcely the same as what was eaten in the past. Have you seen the size of an apple from the supermarket today? They are also mostly full of water, and very nutrient poor (studies confirm the relative lack of nutrients in produce today compared to yesteryear ). 3) Most of the studies espousing the benefits of various plant chemicals, just put cells into contact with these chemicals. In reality, many of these delicate chemicals are almost-wholly decomposed by the stomach pH and abundance of optimized enzymes. What's left often has very poor transference to the bloodstream. 4) The part of our brain that results in our supreme level of abstract thinking, is the neocortex. As far as I know, this part of the human brain has not shrunk by any means. The other areas of the brain may have just lost some redundancy, but might still retain 100% functionality, or become even more functional. It is a gigantic mistake to assume that any decrease in size, has decreased capacity for the brain function we determine to be meaningful. 5) "Insanity" (defined here as repeated aversion to the truth) is probably necessary for our survival, at least throughout the short-term. How much more complex would the world be if our eyes did not adjust for our blindspots, or didn't make the corrections to make the world appear how we think it should. We're not looking through eye-sized windows when we "see", we're taking the blips and beeps of chemical pulses and interpreting them deep within our brain. Your brain does all sorts of funny things it doesn't tell you about. If your brain didn't compensate for the differences in nerve density - this is how would you feel yourself to be: Right this very instant you're staring a Haidinger's brush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidinger%27s_brush) right in the face and I can all but guarantee you would never have heard of it, and didn't have a clue. In other words, our very brain is "wired" to snip the truth out sometimes, so it's really nothing to do with the brain shrinking. As long as our brains remain the same functionally - they will promote certain "lies" (e.g. that you don't have a blindspot, that Haidinger's brush isn't there). 6) Lastly, de-evolution is not happening, by definition. Just as if you started running, then quickly stopped and started running backwards - at no point are you "de-running", you're just running in another direction. I think the idea is interesting, and I think it definitely contains some truth. However, the logical conclusion I'm sure is WAY too wrought. I think that while the idea that there is an institution of insanity is largely true, it's almost nothing to do with the simple absence or presence of food chemicals. I think that it's much more to do with the function of our society. I'll elaborate once I've worked out some ideas to do with the idea of short-term thinking being necessary for our survival.

Well that's why I'm not so sure it is the same plant. The new plant originated from South Africa, and has a paper-trail too. The old one came from TradeMe, and seems suspect.

Okay, today I saw the healthiest Kanna plant I've ever seen. It was nuts, and he'd only been growing it for about a year. The guy said that he NEVERRRRR uses pumice (he said it like that). And he said that he thinks pumice promotes root mealies, and that he had never had root mealies in 40 years of growing, except when he used pumice. Well, the thing he said that formed the bulk of his mixture was something called 'Dalton's propagating sand', and that he gets it from Palmers, and that it's $11 for a big bag. I will have a look for it, as I could tell by looking that whatever he was doing was working really well. Especially for succulents, which traditionally give me grief. I just checked and this might be what he meant: http://www.daltons.c...ropagating-sand He gave me a cutting of his plant, which was almost certainly the legitimate plant shown in the photos. He said it came from the Brand river, but I guess it was actually the Brak or the Sand river (fortunately these are in the same area too) - as I can't find mention of the Brand river. My first Sceletium Tortuosum has really narrow leaves, spreading out quite wide, while this new one is tight with short fat leaves. It could just be growth habit, but I don't think so. Either way - I hope this cutting strikes and grows well. :] My first plant looks like this roughly: New cutting looked like: