Earthquake!

Ok, so it was an itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie earthquake: a whopping magnitude 1.2. I'm pretty sure you couldn't feel that even if you were standing on the epicenter. The seismograph charts at right show the story, and you can read the details yourself, or look at a map of its location (not far from the Jamul Indian reservation).

Hmm... Maybe Mother Nature is practicing, just in case the casino gets built?

The End Looks Like This...

The end of the dry season, that is! Our rain total for the month is now 2.5 inches (64mm), all of which has fallen in the past three days (most of it in the last day). And it's still raining as I write this – and more is in the forecast for the next few days.

To my readers in wetter places, 2.5 inches may not sound like a lot. However, that amount is about 12% of the total rain we've received for this entire year! For the past eight years, this area has been in the grips of a fairly severe drought, with annual rainfall totals well under the 100 year average. I don't want to jinx anything, but...so far, this rainy season looks a lot more like a normal year than a drought year. It's been a long time since we've seen this much rain so early in the wet season.

More, please!

Gardner: 8 Years...

About seven years ago, in a different life, I sat down with this man to negotiate the sale of a technology and product line that my company had developed. He is Stephen Gardner, and at that time he was the CEO of Peregrine Systems, here in San Diego. Today this news:

Former Peregrine Systems Chief Executive Stephen Gardner was sentenced Thursday to eight years and one month in prison for his role in the massive fraud that sent the once-high-flying software company spiraling into bankruptcy.

Prosecutors charged that Gardner and 17 other Peregrine executives systematically overstated revenue by millions of dollars from 1999 to 2001 ensuring that the company's stock would climb in value.

Shareholder losses following the collapse of the scam are estimated at $3 billion.

“I did hide problems in the hope that they would be fixed and we could move on,” Gardner told U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan in San Diego before being sentenced. “I was dedicated to making Peregrine a great company and I failed.”

The former head of one of San Diego's most prominent tech companies pleaded guilty in March 2007 to one count each of securities fraud, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.

He had originally been indicted on 46 counts.

Under the terms of his plea, Gardner had faced a sentence of up to 20 years. He also agreed to cooperate with investigators and testify against the remaining defendants.

In that testimony, the disgraced former CEO laid out how he had presided over an accounting scheme that lasted for years. He described how the sham business deals had mounted, quarter after quarter, until Peregrine became a runaway train of corporate corruption.

He and I never reached agreement on a deal, mainly because he insisted on paying us in Peregrine stock (instead of cash), and we were quite skeptical of the value of that stock. Not long afterward, Peregrine cratered – and we were very glad we didn't reach an agreement.

Still, it's an odd feeling to know that someone I once tried to do business with was actually committing fraud, knowingly, at the very time I was working with him...

More here, here, here, and here...

Auto Bailout DOA...

At least for now.

Good.

Sources of Heat...

Before NASA's Voyager robotic explorers flew by Jupiter in 1979, scientists believed that Jupiter's moons – so far from the sun's heat – were cold, frozen places. The Voyagers rather dramatically showed otherwise, spotting sulphur volcanoes on Io and the ice-encrusted oceans of Europa (at right).

Soon a new scientific consensus formed around the notion of tidal forces as the source of the heat needed to produce these observed phenomena. Now scientist Robert Tyler has published a paper that first shows that tidal forces aren't powerful enough to provide the heat needed, and proposes a different mechanism that would produce the necessary heat.

Tyler's paper is unusual for being a single-author paper – most papers in his field are team efforts.

The source of heat that Tyler proposes derives from the fact that these moons rotate on an axis that's oblique to their orbital plane. This produces Rossby waves (which I had never heard of until this morning) that are energetic enough to explain the observed heat on Europa (the subject of Tyler's study). It will be very interesting to see if this same source of energy can explain observations on other moons in our solar system.

For more, see here, here, here, and here.

The most obvious consequence of Tyler's discovery is this: there may well be many planets and moons (around our Sun and around other stars) that are too far from their sun for solar heat to provide the conditions for life, but which nonetheless have enough heat to provide liquid water and energy. We have forms of life right hear on earth that could survive and even thrive in several environments within our solar system...

Job Loss Data...

Over at CoyoteBlog, there's a fascinating post on the actual jobs loss data (as opposed to the overwrought hype that fills our news media).

Bottom line: the losses are real, but not even in the same class as the Great Depression, nor as bad as several other more recent recessions.

What CoyoteBlog did was simply to download and graph data that the government makes freely available to all, over the web. You'd think that somewhere, buried deep in some newsroom, there might be just one journalist who thought that getting actual information to people might be a good idea. But apparently not; that journalist I'm thinking of was probably the first one to be laid off...

This Pretty Much Says It All...

Tiajuana on the Brink...

Tiajuana, Mexico is a city of 2.7 million people, just across the border from San Diego. That puts it about 25 miles from my home.

Over the past year, here and in the rest of Mexico, there has been a very alarming escalation of the long-running war between the drug cartels and the Mexican government. And it doesn't look like the government is winning.

The map at right shows where people have been murdered in just the past three months. Other border cities are seeing much the same thing.

This conflict is driven by exactly one thing: the demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. The solution is simple: legalize all drugs, and dispense them through pharmacies. Overnight, the financial incentive for this madness would disappear...

A slightly different perspective from my fellow Jamulian Tom Smith...

Quote of the Day...

From U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald:

“The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering. They allege that Blagojevich put a for-sale sign on the naming of a United States senator.”

He's talking, of course, about the indictment of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges. The best news summary I've seen is at the Wall Street Journal.

Chicago is leading the charge to turn the U.S. into Mexico...

Spitzer Strikes Again...

A new image from the Spitzer Space Telescope, this one showing a star-forming region in M17 (the “Swan Nebula”).

This is yet another piece of spectacular science being quietly delivered, every day, by NASA's small fleet of robotic explorers. These marvelous machines exist on the scraps of a NASA budget left over after the nearly useless manned space missions, most recently occupied by fixing a toilet on the space station.

My readers already know that I agree with very few policy positions of the Obama administration-in-waiting – but one of those that I do agree with is taking a close look at the manned space program for opportunities to save money. However, I suspect that Obama intends to spend that money on one of his many spread-the-wealth programs, and not on unmanned space exploration...

Quote of the Day (Photo Edition)...

My Kind of Obituary...

Published on September 15, 2008 in the Casper, Wyoming Star-Tribune:

A celebration of life for James William "Jim" Adams, 53, will be held at a later date.

He died Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008 at Memorial Hospital of Converse County in Douglas.

Jim, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other's courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle. It was primarily as a result of being stubborn and not following doctor's orders or maybe for just living life a little too hard for better than five decades.

He was born June 8, 1955 in Garrison, N.D. the son of James William and Ruby Helen (Clark) Adams.

He was sadly deprived of his final wish, which was to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a date. True to his personal style, he spent his final hours joking with medical personnel, cussing and begging for narcotics and bargaining with God to look over his loving dog, Biscuit, and his family.

He would like to thank all "his ladies" for putting up with him the last 30 years.

During his life, he excelled at anything he put his mind to. He loved to hear and tell jokes and spin tales of grand adventures he may or may not have had.

He is survived by five sons, Jeremiah Adams and his wife, Nicole, Mica Olivas, Wade Olivas, Brice Simpson and Cole Adams; sister, Jerri Giegerich; two ex-wives, Vickie Harrison and Marilyn Williams; four grandchildren; two nieces; and two great-nieces.

He was preceded in death by his parents and a brother-in-law.

In lieu of flowers, he asks that you make a sizeable purchase at your favorite watering hole, get rip roaring drunk and tell the stories he no longer can.

Gorman Funeral Homes - Converse Chapel of Douglas is in charge of the arrangements.

Heh!

A Day That Shall Live In Infamy...

Sixty-seven years ago this day, the Empire of Japan launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was correct: this date has lived in infamy.

The day after Japan's attack, FDR delivered his famous speech to Congress, asking for a declaration of war. It is just as inspiring today as it was in those dark days:


This speech marks the moment that the U.S. plunged headlong into World War II, leading rather directly to the victory of the Allies over the Axis of Germany, Japan, and Italy just a few years later.

It is indeed a day worth remembering, for so many reasons.

I, for one, would be greatly comforted if a “new FDR” were to respond to the war on terror as robustly as FDR did to the Axis...

Oh, My...

I happened to come across this little gem while doing my morning reading:

I grew up in Jamul, CA. We used to hike in the hills above Tecate. We found a short series of footprints on the edge of a remote muddy pond. The prints were human-sized or smaller with strange pin holes in a tight pattern all the way around the foot. We figured it must be from bristly hair all over the foot. Definitely a young inexperienced desert sasquatch. There is a similar report in this area on BFRO for the Boundry Peak area.
I suspect they walk from pond to pond.

Oh, my. This made me search for “desert sasquatch”, and I was pretty much appalled to find that there were 147 hits on that improbable phrase. Then browsing a few of those sites really had me laughing. What strange beliefs some people seem to have!

And they walk among us...

The Champs...

Mo'i and Debbie (at right) are the top-ranked field spaniel agility competitors in the U.S. this year, for the third year in a row. Next Friday, they head to Long Beach for the National Invitational Agility competition, where the top dogs in each breed compete against each other. My camera and I will be there next Sunday, for the finals.

Mo'i is in the best condition of his life, despite it being only two months since he had surgery on his back. It's clear to us now that his back problem has been plaguing him for years – the poor guy just couldn't tell us about it!

Because Mo'i is a field spaniel (a breed “serious” agility competitors might compare to a Volkwagen bug competing against Ferraris), there's little chance of them placing – much less winning – the national competition. But they're going to have lots of fun, and they'll get some well-earned recognition from their peers...

UN Representative States the Obvious...

...as if it's a big surprise. Specifically, Nobel Peace Prize laureate El Baradei said today:

The chief of the world's nuclear weapons watchdog organization considers five years of U.S. and international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions a failure, as Tehran moves ever closer to obtaining the means to develop weapons of mass destruction.

The United Nations Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions to try to get Iran to halt uranium enrichment and other activities, while the United States and Europe have offered economic and security incentives. Yet Iran continues acquiring nuclear technology and stockpiling sensitive material.

"We haven't really moved one inch toward addressing the issues," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. "I think so far the policy has been a failure."

The 66-year-old Egyptian diplomat and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate also urged world leaders to address broader unease about security, poverty and perceived injustice rather than zero in on narrow security concerns, such as nuclear weapons.

What was his first clue, I wonder?

Funny how now that Obama has been elected, the truth is popping out all over the place...

“Suspected Gunmen”

Charles Lipson, at American Thinker:

In Britain's leading papers, we find pictures of gun-toting terrorists, in the midst of grisly killings, called "suspected" gunmen. No delicate sensibilities are offended, as they might be if the gunmen were plainly called terrorists en route to taking hostages and killing civilians.

Since the pictures are protected by Reuters' copyright, I will describe them and provide links. They are close- and medium-range photos of a one person, not crowd scenes. They clearly show a gunman with his finger on the trigger of an assault rifle, ready to fire at any moment.

Calling these terrorists "suspects" in the midst of the carnage they so obviously perpetrated is worse than the usual banality of mainstream journalism. It is craven. Faced with the visible image of terrorists at work, these newspapers responded with the insipid posture of professional neutrality.

Nor can these photo captions be excused as one person's mistake. They passed through too many hands for that. They ran in prominent locations in several British papers and must have survived multiple editors. They remained posted, captions unchanged, long after the mass slaughter became known.

Political correctness, moral cowardice, euphemism … whatever you want to call it – it's just one more example of how the lamestream media is working itself into obsolescence…

Recommendation: Stanley 95-112 Tripod LED Flashlight

We recently purchased this Stanley tripod LED flashlight (on sale at Amazon), and I've been using it every morning and evening when walking the dogs. I like it.

It's not the brightest flashlight I've had, but it's bright enough for most purposes. The fact that it uses LEDs means that it should be reliable (no bulbs to burn out) and the batteries should last a long time (because LEDs are much more efficient than incandescent bulbs).

The tripod design and swivel head are a clever innovation for situations when you need both hands free to work with. When the tripod is folded, the rubbery wafers make a solid and comfortable grip. Nicely done all around!

In The Cold Fog...

I just got back inside after walking the dogs. We're in a dense, cold fog right now – visibility is just a hundred feet or so, and the temperature is 42°F. If you swish your hand around in the fog, it gets wet. Everything outside is covered with a film of water from condensed fog. Shining a flashlight into the fog, in the perfectly still air, I can see countless tiny particles of water drifting slowly downwards...

So different than just a month ago!

I'll Wait...

Forwarded by Simi L. I have no idea if this is real or not, but I like it!

According to a Marine Pilot:

In addition to communicating with the local Air Traffic Control facility, all aircraft in the Persian Gulf AOR are required to give the Iranian Air Defense Radar (military) a ten minute 'heads up' if they will be transiting Iranian airspace.

This is a common procedure for commercial aircraft and involves giving them your call sign, transponder code, type aircraft, and points of origin and destination.

I just flew with a guy who overheard this conversation on the VHF Guard (emergency) frequency 121.5 MHz while flying from Europe to Dubai. It's too good not to pass along. The conversation went something like this...

Air Defense Radar: 'Unknown aircraft at (location unknown), you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.'

Aircraft: 'This is a United State s aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.'

Air Defense Radar: 'You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!'

Aircraft: 'This is a United States Marine Corps FA-18 fighter. Send 'em up, I'll wait!'

Air Defense Radar: (no response ... total silence)

Semper Fi!