Disaster in Jamul

With permission, I am reprinting this email sent by a Jamul resident to the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Voice of San Diego:

Disaster in Jamul

I found it very interesting while I was doing some research on Southern California Intertribal Court Judge Anthony Brandenburg that on the web page for the Intertribal Court of San Diego it lists under Member Tribes only Pala, Pauma, Rincon, San Pasqual, La Jolla, Mesa Grande and Santa Ysabel. I do not see the Jamul Indian Village any where on the site so why would the Sheriff’s office support an eviction notice from this “Court” when it appears they do not even have jurisdiction? This is information Sheriff Deputies or Captain Chambers could check just like any other citizen. I certainly can understand why Walter Rosales and Karen Toggery, their attorney plus concerned friends would expect Sheriff Deputies to protect them from unlawful home invasion that led to violent, illegal evictions and their homes being unjustly demolished.

Shame on the Sheriff’s Department for supporting the “Mafia” like tactics of the Jamul Indian Village and Lakes Gaming.

Linda Ivy

Jamul, CA

This is yet another example of how the country-within-a-country nature of America’s relationship with the American Indians complicates seemingly ordinary events, and leads to results that look crazy. Who would have believed that the sheriffs and police would just look on as Americans were clubbed and pepper-sprayed by hired thugs?

I have no expertise on the great, entangled mess that is the body of law and regulation controlling this relationship. My own investigations into the actual status of the Jamul Indian Village are completely inconclusive — authoritative-sounding people on both sides of the issue make contradictory claims, and support them. I have trouble getting excited about who is right or wrong on this issue (and I suspect the answer is somewhat plastic anyhow). What I could get excited about is a movement to remove the distinction, so that it no longer mattered whether the tribe was “certified", whether Walter Rosales had the “right blood” to be a Jamul Indian tribe member, or any of the other crazy questions that arise because we’ve made this artificial distinction between classes of Americans.

But it may well be that the fate of the casino rests on the answers to questions like the one that Linda Ivy raises in her email. For that reason, it behooves us all both to raise the questions (as Linda has done) and to try our best to follow the maze of headache-inducing rules and laws that determine the answers.

I think I’ll order a big bottle of aspirin…

A Chaparral Morning

We’ve been going for a walk most mornings — Debbie, myself, and our three field spaniels. The weather has been just gorgeous; the mornings are cool and crisp. In the photo at right, if you click to look at the large version, you can make out the “cage” that my beautiful wife is wearing around her broken ring finger on her left hand. She’s smiling anyway! The dogs are of course their usual happy selves; there is nothing they like better than a walk. From left to right, it’s Miki (our puppy), Lea (the princess), and Mo’i (at the moment, the number one agility field spaniel). You might have noticed the strap across the muzzle of Miki and Lea — that’s a kind of harness called a “Halti”. They’re wearing that harness because they’re BBDs (bad brown dogs) when we’re walking — every time they spot a quail, hear a rabbit, or smell a coyote, they completely lose their minds (and being spaniel owners, we know very well that there’s not a lot of mind to lose!). The result is that we get towed all over the County, through the chaparral and whatever else was in the way. The Halti stops that, without causing any pain to the dog. It’s a clever device — if the dog tries to pull at the leash while wearing it, it pulls the dogs head back toward you. Mo’i is the only GBD (good brown dog) we have on a walk. He rarely strains at the leash; he just plods happily along with us…

One of our favorite local flowering plants — ceanothus — has just popped into bloom. It’s several weeks earlier than usual this year, most likely due to the combination of a drenching rain a couple of weeks ago, and a week of warm weather afterwards.

We have four species of ceanothus that are common locally; two with blue flowers and two with white. Both blue species and one of the white are in bloom right now. One of the blue species' flowers are highly variable in color, ranging from intense, saturated dark blues to much lighter shades; this species has particularly nice foliage as well, with dark green leaves and dark gray bark that both have an interesting texture to them. The other blue species (seen at right) has a much more consistent color, large, smooth lighter green leaves, and a very light, smooth bark. These are often so full of bloom that there is no foliage visible. The white species that’s in bloom now has flower clusters that lie close to larger branches, making an interesting spiky effect.

I’ll leave you with a selection of photos from our walk this morning…

Word of the Day

Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Casino Update

This morning, Lakes Entertainment (the company backing the Jamul Indian Village’s attempts to build a casino) released their financial results for fiscal 2006. The press release announcing the results contained this nugget:

Based on recent meetings between the Jamul Indian Village (“Jamul Tribe”) and the State of California, Lakes and the Jamul Tribe are currently re-evaluating the Jamul Tribe’s alternatives for its casino project. Depending on which direction Lakes and the Jamul Tribe decide to take, the proposed gaming facility will be reduced in size and scope. As a result, during the fourth quarter of 2006, Lakes recorded unrealized losses on notes receivable related to the Jamul project of approximately $6.3 million, which reduced the overall 2006 net unrealized gain on notes receivable related to this project to approximately $2.0 million.

I’m no expert on corporate finance, and certainly not on the financial ins-and-outs of gaming companies — but here’s my stab at translating that into plain English:

First, the Jamul Indian Village has borrowed some amount of money from Lakes Entertainment, in one or more loans, which at some point in the future they will have to repay. My presumption would be that this money is to be used to promote, get clearance for, build, and operate the casino. My further presumption would be that the use of this money is essentially controlled by Lakes; I can’t imagine they would simply hand it over to the Jamul Indian Village. But — key point — repayment of this money will depend on the existence and profitability of the casino. The more profitable the casino, the more likely (and the faster) this note would be repaid.

For the purposes of their financial statement (which is the public disclosure of their financial condition), Lakes can’t simply record the loans (the “notes receivable") as if they are certain to be repaid. Obviously there is considerable risk to these loans, and that must somehow be disclosed. The conventional way to do that is for the firm’s financial officer (and auditor) to make a judgment about the probability that the note will be repaid, and to record current profits or losses based on that judgment. In most companies there would be a bias toward overstating the positives in such judgments, so when you look at numbers like this — pure judgments on someone’s part — generally it’s smart not to think of them as having been objectively arrived at. These judgments are what we’re seeing here with the recording of a $6.3 million loss. Since I don’t know the size of the entire loan, I don’t what percentage of it has been written off now as a loss — but it would have to be a huge loan for this to be an insignificant portion of it. I can’t quantify it precisely, but it sure looks to me like this was a significant write-down.

In other words, it looks to me like Lakes Entertainment isn’t very optimistic about their investment in the Jamul Indian Village Casino. If you’re a typical Jamulian, that’s very good news indeed — for who would know better than Lakes what the actual situation is?

Also interesting in that press release is the statement about reduced size and scope of the casino. Part of that, surely, is the recent announcement by the Jamul Indian Village that they’ve dropped out of the negotiations with the state, and that they’re going to switch to games not covered by the compact. This statement in the press release implies that the size of the casino may also be reduced. I don’t want to see the casino at all — but if the casino does get built, the smaller, the better. So I’ll take that as good news, too.

We certainly don’t see in this year’s statement of Lakes Entertainment financial results the same buoyant, upbeat assessment of the Jamul Indian Village Casino that we saw last year. Another difference you can see is that Lakes is making good money in other areas now — especially the televised poker tournament — and I would bet that leads the management team to focus more on those profitable areas, and less on the risky or unprofitable areas. That would also be good news…

Patrick Webb (attorney for Walter Rosales and Karen Toggery) made a statement the other day about things coming down to the wire from the perspective of the Jamul Indian Village. This financial report from Lakes Entertainment looks like validation of his musings…

Stretching the Truth

My regular readers know that I rant occasionally (ok, frequently) about the anthropomorphic global warming hypothesis that the Goreacle and his fellow afflicted are trying to turn into this century’s new hit religion. One of the topics I have repeatedly written about is how climatology funding is selectively directed to those scientists and organizations who hew to the politically correct position (i.e., they agree with the Goreacle).

Cox & Forkum routinely produce some of the best “cartoon commentary” around. Here’s their take on the funding issue. As usual, they have more discussion on their site.

Sheesh

Just yesterday, I wrote this:

Leon Acebedo, the tribal chairman, is known to some locals as “Lying Leon”. I can’t help but wonder whether he actually did warn the opponents on Saturday about this possibility. I also can’t help but wonder to what degree the executive council is under his thumb, and their “override” was engineered…

Today, Rob Davis (writing for Voice of San Diego) reports:

Jamul tribal chairman Leon Acebedo told me yesterday that he’d warned opponents that he didn’t have the authority to make such an agreement, that his 51-member tribe’s executive council could overrule him. They unanimously did Monday morning.

Jacob said that no such warning was given Saturday, when the agreement helped diffuse a tense standoff between tribal security and casino opponents. The agreement, which Acebedo signed, said the tribal council would meet Monday to “affirm” the d´etente.

In an interview today, Acebedo said that he, in fact, had not told opponents that he could be overturned.

"I was very aware that I could be overridden,” he said. “I didn’t talk to them (the opponents) about it. I just wrote what was requested of me."

Looks like Leon is living up to his moniker.

Joe Gets It

Senator Joe Lieberman spoke at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) National Policy Conference on Monday. It was a good speech over all, and notable (sadly) simply because a Democrat was expressing these sentiments. One passage in particular resonated with me:

Our fate is now inextricably linked to Iraq’s. And our divisions cannot be allowed to become so deep that we cannot find unity in the face of Islamist extremism. Suicide bombers who kill civilians to make a political statement should not be allowed to triumph—in New York or Tel Aviv or Samarra. We must stand strong and united against barbarism—and, with your help, we will.

I understand the anger about Iraq, but I am deeply troubled by how this anger, and the feelings of animosity that many people have for President Bush, have begun to affect the way we talk and think about what is happening in the world beyond Iraq and America’s role in it.

There is something profoundly wrong when opposition to the war in Iraq seems to inspire greater passion than opposition to Islamist extremism.

There is something profoundly wrong when there is so much distrust of our intelligence community that some Americans doubt the plain and ominous facts about the threat to us posed by Iran.

And there is something profoundly wrong when, in the face of attacks by radical Islam, we think we can find safety and stability by pulling back, by talking to and accommodating our enemies, and abandoning our friends and allies.

He’s talking about what’s wrong in his own party.

As he wrapped up his speech, another passage jumped out at me:

The esteemed historian of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, was in Washington this past week. He said that, when he looks at the world today and the threats we face, it reminds him of the 1930s—and that he hears far more voices that sound like Chamberlain than like Churchill.

Indeed. In fact, the more one reads of Neville Chamberlain’s fantasy-filled appeasement pronouncements, the more one is reminded of today’s mindless, plan-less Democratic “response” to the war in Iraq.

So far as I can observe, Senator Lieberman is the only Democrat serving at the federal level who is able to look at the threat from radical Islam as a national issue rather than as a political issue — and he does it with great eloquence and clarity of thought.

How sad is that?

And what does it portend, should the Democrats win the White House in 2008 while keeping their House and Senate majorities?

Your terrifying Wednesday morning ponder…

Word of the Day

Intaxication, n.: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Quote of the Day

By James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, in today’s edition of “Best of the Web Today":

By the way, have you noticed that Cindy Sheehan has fallen off the face of the earth since she disrupted some Democratic events in early January?

As the puppy-blender would say: heh!

Word of the Day

Reintarnation, n.: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Brief Outage

A reader (thank you, BillS) wrote me this morning to let me know that the blog was down. I did a quick check of my systems (my blog is hosted on a server that I own), and discovered that the blog was attacked — this hasn’t happened for almost a year. The attacker used a means that I won’t disclose (but which I am now protected against) to knock me off the air for about a half hour.

From the details of the attack, I know that the attacker was (a) from Iran, and (b) offended by the cartoons that I published last February. The cartoons are still published on my site, and they will remain published on my site. These are the cartoons that the mullahs of Denmark went on a world tour of hate about, fomenting violent demonstrations that killed hundreds of people. They’re worth looking at, so you can see for yourself the utter hypocrisy of the mad mullah’s position. They are screaming with hate and rage over cartoons that are absolutely nothing compared with the vile anti-American, anti-Jewish, and anti-(anything not radical fundamentalist Muslim) stuff that comes out of their press every day.

Dètente Canceled

Just two days after promising to leave the homes of Walter Rosales and Karen Toggery untouched for at least a week, the Jamul Indian Village has destroyed them. Via Rob Davis, writing in the Voice of San Diego:

After years of delays, the Jamul tribe followed through on its plans to demolish the homes of Toggery and Walter Rosales, who lived on the reservation but are not members of the legally recognized tribe.

In doing so, the Jamul tribe reversed course on promises its chairman gave to casino protestors over the weekend. At a Saturday standoff where casino opponents were clubbed and pepper sprayed, tribal chairman Leon Acebedo helped resolve the confrontation by assuring opponents that no construction would happen until Friday.

But Monday morning, the Jamul tribe’s executive council unanimously rejected the temporary reprieve offered by Acebedo, who said he warned opponents Saturday that he didn’t have the authority to issue such a delay.

Leon Acebedo, the tribal chairman, is known to some locals as “Lying Leon”. I can’t help but wonder whether he actually did warn the opponents on Saturday about this possibility. I also can’t help but wonder to what degree the executive council is under his thumb, and their “override” was engineered…

An aside: isn’t Rob Davis' reporting and writing on this story a refreshing change from the pap that the Union-Buffoon has been serving up? I stole the headline for this post straight out of his article…

Later in the Rob’s article, there is this thought from Patrick Webb (the attorney for Walter and Karen) about why the Jamul Indian Village is suddenly breaking off negotiations with the state, and acting to clear the buildings off the land:

"I think it’s down to the wire for everybody,” Webb said. “We have yet to decide what’s putting the pressure on them to do this. We can only assume it’s coming from Lakes Gaming, which has the money up."

Webb’s notion that there is pressure on the Jamul Indian Village to get something done sounds right to me. I can’t think why else there would suddenly be this outbreak of dramatic and rash actions on their part. And his suspicion of Lakes as the source certainly makes sense — for what other entity has any sway on the Jamul Indian Village at all?

Finally, here’s the last paragraph of Rob’s article (but go read the whole thing), with a quote from Karen Toggery:

"You can’t sit here and cry, it’s not going to help,” she said. “I’m not going to give up, if that’s what they think. Land is the most precious thing you can have."

Karen’s not crying, and she will keep fighting. So will we all. I have a fantasy about a future ceremony, jointly held by a new Jamul Indian Village administration and the local residents of Jamul, wherein we burn every last shred of paper related to the monstrous casino.

After we get a burn permit, of course.

JAC

The webmaster for the JAC (Jamulians Against the Casino) web site contacted me today to let me know that their web site, while still under construction, is up and running. There’s useful information up there, especially (at the moment) with regard to the history of the Jamul Indian Village and their efforts to build a casino here.

Go take a look!

Word of the Day

Bozone, n.: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Word of the Day

Foreploy, n.: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

So Sad

Yesterday morning as I bought some repair items at the Jamul hardware store, I heard a discussion amongst several people there about the “commotion” down at the Jamul Indian Reservation. The folks there weren’t entirely sure what was going on, but they suspected that Walter Rosales and Karen Toggery were being evicted. After leaving the hardware store, I drove down to see for myself. The people I talked to there gave me a confused and contradictory version of events, so I wasn’t sure what was going on. The one thing I could be sure of is that there was a vocal confrontation and a significant police presence.

Walter and Karen are Jamul Indians and long-time residents of the reservation who oppose the casino. They refused to move off the reservation, and were “disenrolled” from the tribe late last year — allegedly because of inadequate documentation of their membership in the tribe, but really, I’m sure, because of their opposition to the casino.

Late yesterday, a reader left a comment on my blog, and this was the first verification I had that Walter and Karen were in fact evicted. Here’s the comment in its entirety — a first-hand account of what happened:

We received a phone call alerting us that the casino faction was forcibly taking Walter and Karen out of their houses this morning about 7:40 a.m. It was a very sad state of events, thugs hired by the casino proponents took them out of their houses and then started throwing all their belongings into U Haul vans. Walter called 911 but it took awhile for deputies to respond and actually sheriff deputies did nothing … did absolutely nothing … to protect Walter or Karen and their homes and property. And later when many residents and Walter and Karen’s attorney Patrick Webb accompanied Walter to his house the thugs beat and pushed and maced people with the sheriff deputies still doing nothing. Everyone felt so helpless because we could not help Walter and Karen protect their homes. Walter is such a kind, gentle man. When someone told him not to give up, he likened it to being in a difficult situation in Vietnam with the Marines and things worked out. I hope this does. I hope all of San Diego County sees the type of people the greed of casinos have turned these criminals into that call themselves casino proponents. Unfortunately it ended with their belongings being hauled off to a storage facility. Robby and I took Walter’s two roosters and two pet conures. Walter had his dog and Karen’s cat was brought out to her in a cardboard box. They were not allowed to go back to their homes. Jamul residents that were hurt filed complaints against the so called “Jamul Indian Police”. Grievances will be filed against the Sheriff’s Department. Diane Jacob arrived to try and intervene but with little success other that a written promise from the lying Leon Acevedo, so called tribal chief promising not to level the homes until after the close of business next Friday. It actually did not seem like something like this could happen in America.

Indeed. How could something like this happen in America?

Well, there are several answers to that. The one most immediately applicable here is that we are seeing (once again) the strangeness that can occur at the intersection of American law and Indian law — the tortured mess that is our law regarding the country-within-a-country status of American Indian reservations. But today — unlike a few years ago — we could see this happening even outside a reservation, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision, which opened the doors wide for any municipality (or other government unit) to “condemn” anyone’s property for any purpose they deem worthwhile — including simply replacing someone’s home with something that generates more taxes for the government. Like a casino…

I got to pondering this morning about all the events that had to be in place for Walter and Karen to be evicted yesterday:

The notion of Indian reservations, with their quasi-independent systems of government, had to be in place.

Casinos had to be illegal off-reservation, but legal on-reservation.

Walter and Karen had to be Indians living on a reservation in a desirable place to locate a casino.

A majority of the Indians on their reservation had to support the notion of building a casino.

The reservation had to secure funding for the casino (which the Jamul Indians have done by striking a bargain with Lakes Entertainment).

A majority of the Indians on the Jamul Indian reservation had to be willing to take some very radical steps. Their six-acre reservation is so small that they couldn’t possibly have a casino and still live on their reservation — so they had to be willing to relocate off-reservation to do this. To some members of the reservation (including Walter and Karen), some of the reservation is hallowed ground, with the ashes of their ancestors and their possessions. And a majority of the Indians had to be willing to force the objectors to comply with the majority’s wishes.

What’s motivating all this?

Money, of course. Period, end of story. It’s all about the money.

Do you find that as sad — and pathetic — as I do? Here’s a group of Americans (the Indians) who, were they assimilated into the rest of America, would have the same opportunities as the rest of us. We’d find them in all kinds of jobs, with the same range of success we see in the rest of our citizens. Instead, they’re part of the reservation system, isolated to some extent in their own culture — and feeling desperate enough about their collective situation to be willing to do the things I outlined above. There’s a message in this about the utter failure of the reservation system…

There are a couple of news stories about the incident. Here are a few excerpts from those stories:

Toggery said she was still in her pajamas when she was ordered to leave her home. “I said I am not going to open my door until I get ahold of my attorney,” Toggery said. “They finally kicked it open."

Walter Rosales was also evicted Saturday morning. He was forced to grab his animals and leave a home he says he inherited from his uncle in 1987. “I was evicted this morning be a bunch of goons, you know, the old goon squad,” Rosales said.

The situation got even more heated when County Supervisor Dianne Jacob — she also opposes the casino — showed up. Jacob said she may place an emergency call to the governor to stop the evictions.

"I strongly oppose the evictions that have take place here today,” Jacobs said. “I think it’s wrong. I think it’s shameful"

"I will promise you this — if there is one piece of dirt that’s moved that looks like they are starting construction that I will notify the governor’s office immediately and ask them to intervene and take action,” Jacobs said.

The evictions led to confrontations with neighbors opposed to the casino in which tribal police used pepper spray and metal batons. Sheriff’s deputies stepped in and paramedics treated some people.

Nobody was immediately hospitalized, although one man shot in the eyes with pepper spray went into a hospital later in the day.

The confrontation ended only after negotiations among Jacob, the Sheriff’s Department, the tribal chairman and Patrick Webb, a lawyer working with Rosales and Toggery who is also a Jamul resident.

Acebedo said he would pay for a nearby house in which Rosales and Toggery could stay and agreed that their homes would not be demolished for a week – giving state and federal courts a chance to consider the legality of the evictions.

What a sad, sad tale.

I, and many other local residents, hope that Walter and Karen prevail. My own support for them derives from two things: one, the just plain awful and unfair way they’ve been treated, and two, the fact their objective (stopping the casino) coincides with my own. I’d like to see the casino stopped in its tracks. I’d like to see the Indians succeed the way the rest of Americans do, instead of by desperate maneuvers like this casino that would evict them from their own property and hold them in thrall (by their debt) to the shady world of gambling companies. I’d also like to see the tribal system completely dismantled to remove the artificial differences it creates — to the tribes' detriment — between American Indians and the rest of Americans.

I can dream, can’t I?

The Union-Buffoon article also contained this nugget:

Tribal leaders also announced that they plan to sidestep a 1999 agreement with the state and fill the casino with less profitable games so they can get around local opposition.

Under federal law, the so-called “Class 2” games, based on bingo and poker, don’t require an agreement with state governments as do Las Vegas-style games.

“We’ve broken off negotiations with the state,” said tribal Chairman Leon Acebedo.

This is an interesting development, one that has always been present as a possibility. I infer from this that the Jamul Indian tribe (and their backers, Lake Entertainment) have been entirely unsuccessful in negotiating a profitable casino operation under the pact that governs tribal gambling for most games in California.

The spin from casino supporters in the rest of the article is that this is a good thing for them, and that there is still a profitable casino to be had. But clearly this is the less desirable course for them, or else they would have skipped the negotiations in the first place. However, it must be attractive enough, as a business proposition, for Lakes Entertainment to be willing to fund it anyway. From my personal perspective, it doesn’t matter what games are being played inside the casino — the monstrosity and the people it will attract are just as antithetical to our community either way…

Nuclear Email

This morning I received an email from a friend with a video clip about a tame Canadian goose who has made friends with a man and his dog. The video has some amazing sections showing the goose flying along side a speeding motorboat, so close that the man can reach out and touch it. My friend knew I would enjoy this video, and so he passed it along to me.

Another friend had done the same thing, with the same video, just a couple of days before. That sort of thing has happened to me many times; sometimes I’ve received the same joke, photos, sound clip, or video dozens of times. What’s going on here?

As I was trying to word a response to my friend, trying to find a way to say “Thanks! But I’ve already seen this…” I got to pondering this phenomenon. Why does this happen so often? And why are the contents of these emails quite often genuinely entertaining or interesting (or both!)?

So I started with my own behavior. When I get one of these emails, what do I do? Sometimes I post it on my blog, where it will be seen (and often passed along) by somewhere between a few dozen and a few hundred people (the number of people reading my blog varies tremendously from day-to-day). Sometimes I forward the email, and when I do, I usually forward it to 10 or 12 people I think might enjoy it. The majority of these emails I read, enjoy, and delete. I would guess that I delete 80% or so of them. But the 20% that I don’t delete get seen by something like 20 people (averaging between the blog and the forwarded emails). So…if 20% of the emails I receive are seen by 20 people each, that means that on average, every email I receive is then seen by 4 other people.

Am I typical? I don’t know. But just to be conservative, let’s say my behavior is double the average person’s forwarding behavior. If that were true, that means that every email sent out is see by 2 additional people, on average. This process is self-selective on the quality of the email’s contents, too — because of course the more entertaining or interesting contents will be forwarded more often…

Now lets see what this implies. Imagine that you created a short video of the earthworm you laboriously trained to do backflips on verbal command. This is something most people would consider both interesting and entertaining. Now you send this video to your two friends — and three people will have seen it. If, on average, they send it to two people, that means four more — a total of seven — will have seen it. If those four now each send it to two people, then eight more — fifteen in total will have seen it. And so on. We can reduce this to a simple formula: V = A^G - 1, where V is the number of people who have viewed the email, A is the average number of unique new viewers that each viewer sends it on to, and G is the number of “generations” including the original sender. So…if A = 2 and G = 10 (meaning that the email has been forwarded 10 times) then V = 2^10-1 = 1023 people will have seen it. But if G = 20, then A = 2^20-1 = 1,048,575 people will have seen it — and twice that many on the very next generation! How long does it take for an email to be forwarded 20 times? I would guess just five or six days, maybe ten at the most. And if this went on for 33 generations — then every single person on the planet will have seen the email!

The analysis above is not rigorous by any means. For starters, it’s almost certain that A varies from generation to generation, especially in the early generations. But it does illustrate just how quickly one of this email can propagate. It also shows just how likely it is that multiple people would send it to you at nearly the same time — if a million people have seen an email, what’s the chances that you know two of them? Or if 100 million people have seen an email? Pretty good, I think…

In fact, the process reminds me of another phenomenon of quick propagation: a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, as you’d find in a nuclear bomb. In these reactions, each decaying atom throws out two (or more) high-energy particles — each of which can then cause another atom to split and decay. The nuclear reaction proceeds much faster than email, as the energetic particles are moving at near the speed of light, and they only have to move an inch or two at most. But the underlying math is very similar…

Email and nuclear weapons are related!

Beautiful Jupiter

The New Horizons robotic spacecraft recently passed Jupiter on its way to Pluto and the outer Solar System. On its way around Jupiter, it took many photos of the planet and its moons, including this montage showing the Big Red Spot, the Little Red Spot, and their respective whirl-filled wakes.

I sure wish we’d invest more in these robotic explorers. The science done by any one of them exceeds the total science done in the current manned space program, at a tiny fraction of the cost…

Blooper of the Day

From a church circular:

This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

Chuckle brought to you courtesy of GeorgeK…

Word of the Day

Giraffiti, n: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.