Fifteen of ’em, by my count. These Cereus cactus flowers were waiting when we got up this morning. With so many more little flower pods coming out, we should be getting new blooms every day for the next couple of weeks. That’s a good thing, ’cause they only last the night and early morning hours before they wilt.
Click the image below to see high res version. You can see the bees gathering nectar in many of the blossoms.
We don’t get a lot of hits here on Cap’n Bob & the Damsel when compared to some of the hit powerhouses on the net these days. But, thanks to the 200+ hits per day we get most days, we’re finally into six digits on the SiteMeter counter.
Today, Damsel took this photo of our Devil’s Tongue barrel cactus, which just got its first flower of the summer. Do ya think there might be 100,000 of those little pollen doodads in the middle of this little buttercup? Well I don’t have the time, inclination or image resolution to count ’em, but it looks like there could be.
At any rate, thanks to you who are regular visitors and thanks to all the Google image and search referrals, we’re now past the 100K milestone. Also we made another milestone earlier this month when our Never Forget Tribute, seen on hundreds of websites worldwide, passed the 40 million hits threshold.
Thanks to Damsel for all the beautiful pictures she takes, including this one. Click on the image for maximal magnamification.
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling today, that the Washington DC gun ban is unconstitutional. Five justices got it right that the constitution and the Bill of Rights are precious. So to honor the good court’s precious decision, I present you with my precious . . .
I guess that SCOTUS is saving the best for last. The Court, once again, did not announce the DC vs. Heller opinion.
The following is from ScotusBlog:
Guns is not being decided today. Last opinion coming now.
UPDATE: HELLER AFFIRMED! (6/26/2008 10:12 AM EDT)
We can now predict that in addition to Justice Scalia likely writing Heller, Justice Alito is likely writing Davis v. FEC.
The Chief Justice has announced from the courtroom that the Court will issue all of its remaining opinions tomorrow at 10 a.m. Eastern.
To recap for those watching the Heller decision, it will definitely be decided tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow, the Court will issue its remaining three decisions: Heller (DC Guns), Davis v. FEC (campaign finance), and American Electric Power (energy contracts).
Clarification: while it appears that Justice Scalia has the principle [sic] opinion in the Guns case, it is not necessarily a majority opinion. It could be a plurality opinion.
What does that last one mean? (Gulp!)
UPDATE: HELLER AFFIRMED! (6/26/2008 10:12 EDT) Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion. Justice Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg. The vote is along idealogical lines, left and right.
I’m wasn’t actually sure that ‘spider lily’ is the common name of this flower, but when it opened up today, it reminded me of a spider – well with six legs instead of eight. So, I searched on ‘spider lily’ and found out that this flower is actually called that:
Hymenocallis caribeae is an evergreen bulb that is native to the West Indies. It does best in full sun or very light shade. The fragrant 3 to 4 inch intricately designed white flowers are borne on top of 18 to 25 inch tall stalks in midsummer.
With Gas prices so high, it appears that some Southern California moms resort to transporting their kids in a more gas conserving way. At least the kid is tied down to mom with a safety belt and wearing a helmet.
It was a pretty normal day at the range today, albeit a little bit warm inside. We took our usual suite of firearms – the .45s, 9mm, .357s and shotguns. We also did our usual thing by making videos and taking photos to view later and maybe post on the blog. All this was completely normal as Damsel took the video of me shooting the Glock 30 – until the eighth round, that is – the brass flew out of the breech and landed – well – in a delicate place as far as Damsel was concerned.
The red marks from the hot brass casing were visible hours later. Oh yes – I have her permission to include the ‘delicate place’ photo at the end of the video on the right.
Rated PG – this sort of brings a new definition to the ‘tap, rack, bang’ phrase . . .