Todays Flowers; Magic Carousel;

Rosa Magic Carousel offers rounded petals edged in red and frame snow-white centers. The vigorous plants grow about 50 cm high. Zones 5-11

Christmas cactus;

The common holiday cacti (Thanksgiving Cactus, Christmas Cactus, ) comprise several closely related species in the genus Schlumbergera and the species Hatiora gaertneri, often called Zygocactus in older works. They are originally forest cacti, growing as epiphytes at elevations between 1000 and 1700 meters (3300 to 5600 feet) above sea level in the Organ Mountains north ofRio de Janeiro in southeast Brazil, South America. They are called Flor de maio (May Flower) in Brazil.

Many modern holiday cactus cultivars are hybrids between Schlumbergera truncata and S. russelliana, first hybridized about 150 years ago in England.

Holiday cactus (Schlumbergera and Hatiora hybrids) include:

Christmas Cactus, (S. bridgesii, S. x buckleyi, Epiphyllum x buckleyi)

Thanksgiving Cactus, Yoke Cactus, Linkleaf Cactus, Crab Cactus, Claw Cactus, (S. truncata, formerly Zygocactus truncatus)

Propagation

Holiday cacti can be propagated quite easily by removing a single segment and planting it a quarter of its length deep in a pot filled with slightly sandy soil. It helps to put some kind of rooting hormone on the base of the cutting. Place the pot in a well lit area (but not in direct sunlight) and keep the soil moist. The cutting should begin showing signs of growth after two or three weeks.

Care

The joints of the plants are quite fragile and can break apart if the plant is in poor health. The flower buds' joints are especially easy to detach.

Watering

The soil should be evenly moist for best growth, but they are intolerant to constantly wet soil and poor aeration. If outdoors, an established plant may only need to be watered every two or three days in warm, sunny weather; or every week in cool, cloudy weather.

Lighting

Christmas cactus will do best in bright indirect light. Long term direct sunlight can burn the leaves and stunt growth. If taken care of properly, a single planting can last for hundreds of years.

Flowering

Christmas cactus will create flower buds when subjected to cooler temperatures.

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How much is one Trillion?

Paul Nash, (1889 – 1946) Ruined Country;

1 Trillion Dollars for Wars, does it make Sense?

What is $1 trillion really worth? - If you made a million dollars a year, it would take you a million years to earn $1 trillion.

"War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other" Paul Valery; French poet, essayist and critic, 1871-1945

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." : Samuel P. Huntington

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions": Robert Lynd (1879-1949), Anglo-Irish essayist, journalist

"The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.": Georges Bernanos

Conquered states that have been accustomed to liberty and the government of their own laws can be held by the conqueror in three different ways. The first is to ruin them; the second, for the conqueror to go and reside there in person; and the third is to allow them to continue to live under their own laws, subject to a regular tribute, and to create in them a government of a few, who will keep the country friendly to the conqueror: Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

If their criminality is able to manifest in a perfect form then they are capable of dominating countries and nations.' - Socrates in Plato's Republic

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear: Cicero Marcus Tullius - Born on January 3, 106 BC and was murdered on December 7, 43 BC.

Today'sFlowers; "Winterlings";

In winter Poinsettias light up the garden.

Bougainvilleas are tough and floriferous not shying away from the cooler season as long as there is no frost.

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