Lathrop Rendezvous

After deciding to retire from his position as a meteorology professor at San Jose State University, regular blog reader and longtime friend Jerry Steffens is heading back to Mishawaka, Indiana next weekend. We thought it would be brilliant to meet one last time while he was still living in California. So, we decided to meet at a convenient place roughly halfway in-between San Jose and Sacramento on Friday evening. We chose the Denny's Restaurant along I-5, in Lathrop, south of Stockton.

Heading south along Interstate 5 through Elk Grove, a large grass fire was evident (at picture's right). I tried to capture this fire using my trademark crap technique of driving, pointing, and shooting, but, as usual, captured mostly crap.

Since this grass fire occurred Friday evening, it is not the same as Elk Grove's Waterman/Grant Line grass fire, which occurred Saturday afternoon.

The Lathrop Denny's. I arrived at 6:15 p.m., half an hour early. Jerry arrived at 7:30 p.m., 45 minutes late. Jerry's delay was explained by the traffic: he was able to experience and share one of Silicon Valley's most-harrowing experiences: driving east up the Sunol grade during a Friday evening rush hour.

So, I had plenty of time to take some pictures.
Building adjacent to the Lathrop Denny's.

Windy conditions are a challenge for cherry trees.
Times change, but one abiding comfort is that Curly Dock (the reddish plant) stays the same. Curly Dock produces a tasty grain, and was highly favored by the Aztecs, but modern America has little use for it, so it languishes on roadsides.

Left: Curious fence separates the Interstate-5 right-of-way from the Lathrop Denny's. Even more curious, plastic boxes labelled as containing rodenticide can be found at the base of the fence posts.

Below: "No Trucks Beyond This Point". Uh, OK....


Longtime friend Jerry Steffens prepares to head back to Indiana next weekend.

Librarians Do Gaga

(h/t Gabe)

World's Oldest Leather Shoe

Bet it doesn't have that much 'support':

The world's oldest leather shoe, 1000 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and 400 years older than Stonehenge in Britain, has been found perfectly preserved in a cave in Armenia.

The 5500-year-old shoe was discovered by a team of international archaeologists, who reported details of their finding on Wednesday. It is made of a single piece of cow-hide leather, had laces, and was shaped to fit the wearer's foot.

It is 24.5cm long, 7.6cm to 10cm wide, and dates back to around 3500BC, an era known as the Chalcolithic period.

...The cave where the discovery was made is in the Vayotz Dzor province of Armenia, on the Armenian-Iranian-Turkish borders.

Pinhasi said the stable, cool and dry conditions in the cave meant the various objects found there were very well preserved.

Other finds included large ceramic containers, many of which held wheat, barley, apricots and other edible plants.

The team said preservation was also helped by the fact that the floor of the cave was covered by a thick layer of sheep dung which acted as a solid seal over the objects, keeping them safe for several millennia.

...The oldest known footwear in the world are sandals thought to be around 2500 years older than the Armenian leather shoe. They were found in a cave in Missouri in the United States.

"Crazy For You" - DMTC - Thursday Night Rehearsal

Danielle Hansen as 'Polly'
Joseph Boyette as 'Bobby', plus Angela Yee, Linda Abrille, Christina Rae, and Brittany Bickel.

Grooveland - Tell Me (Superstar De Luxe extended RMX)

Maybe The Start Of Grass-Roots Protests?

Maybe this is where it begins:

WASHINGTON — A Senate hearing on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was disrupted Wednesday as a protester poured an oily-looking liquid on herself before being arrested.

"This is what it feels like to have oil dumped on you," the woman, identified as Diane Wilson, said in comments addressed to Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Wilson issued a statement issued later saying she is a fourth generation shrimper from the Gulf and that her protest was directed against Murkowski for supporting the oil industry and opposing measures such as lifting the liability cap on oil firms in offshore spills.

Or maybe it begins here:

(Southaven, MS) -- Windows at the BP Gas Station on Highway 51 at Custer Drive were shot out overnight. Folks who work at the store believe the suspects were expressing anger over BP and how it's handling the oil spill.

"I believe that would be the reason," said Alex Saleh. "We don't have any enemies." He said nothing was taken from the store after the windows were destroyed.

Goodness knows there is a Tower of Rage out there that hasn't found an outlet.

My own boycott of ARCO & AM/PM has been in effect since May 23rd. The boycott runs afoul of my previous (admittedly leaky) boycott of Chevron for its heavy reliance on terror-promoting Saudi imports. It's hard, in an impure, multinational-conglomerate-addled world, to keep one's boycotts in working order. If I'm not careful, I'll get stuck with Valero as the only place I can buy gas, and they're hardly pure - they've got California-related problems too.

Narrow Escape!

(Image from here)


Tuesday election results:

Proposition 16: Local Electricity Providers
1,837,303 47.6% yes
2,019,686 52.4% no

But how long before PG&E lashes back?

Like Ralph Waldo Emerson used to say:

“When you strike at a king, you must kill him”

It's time to put PG&E on the defensive again. It's time to make new efforts to carve up PG&E territory, limit their monopoly, and expand low-cost, accountable public power!

It's Almost Like Being There!

New, from Deborah McMillion-Nering.

Marvellous Expose In "Rolling Stone" Regarding BP's Oil Spill

It's been amazing to watch just how inept - corrupted, actually - the Obama Administration's handling of the BP oil spill has been. It's even more amazing to watch BP's epic, even-more-than-criminal mismanagement of the thing, and suffer through their torrent of incessant lies. Clearly the truth means something utterly different in oil circles than it does to anyone else (from The Onion):

As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico entered its eighth week Wednesday, fears continued to grow that the massive flow of bullshit still gushing from the headquarters of oil giant BP could prove catastrophic if nothing is done to contain it.

The Onion can only touch the surface: the Rolling Stone digs deeper:

Like the attacks by Al Qaeda, the disaster in the Gulf was preceded by ample warnings – yet the administration had ignored them. Instead of cracking down on MMS, as he had vowed to do even before taking office, Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency's culture of corruption. He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations by BP – a firm with the worst safety record of any oil company – with virtually no environmental safeguards, using industry-friendly regulations drafted during the Bush years. He calibrated his response to the Gulf spill based on flawed and misleading estimates from BP – and then deployed his top aides to lowball the flow rate at a laughable 5,000 barrels a day, long after the best science made clear this catastrophe would eclipse the Exxon Valdez.

...Even worse, the "moratorium" on drilling announced by the president does little to prevent future disasters. The ban halts exploratory drilling at only 33 deepwater operations, shutting down less than one percent of the total wells in the Gulf. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the Cabinet-level official appointed by Obama to rein in the oil industry, boasts that "the moratorium is not a moratorium that will affect production" – which continues at 5,106 wells in the Gulf, including 591 in deep water.

Most troubling of all, the government has allowed BP to continue deep-sea production at its Atlantis rig – one of the world's largest oil platforms. Capable of drawing 200,000 barrels a day from the seafloor, Atlantis is located only 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana, in waters nearly 2,000 feet deeper than BP drilled at Deepwater Horizon. According to congressional documents, the platform lacks required engineering certification for as much as 90 percent of its subsea components – a flaw that internal BP documents reveal could lead to "catastrophic" errors.

...Enter the Bush administration. Rather than heeding such warnings, MMS simply assumed that a big spill couldn't happen. "There was a complete failure to even contemplate the possibility of a disaster like the one in the Gulf," says Holly Doremus, an environmental-law expert at the University of California. "In their thinking, a big spill would be something like 5,000 barrels, and the oil wouldn't even reach the shoreline." In fact, Bush's five-year plan for offshore drilling described a "large oil spill" as no more than 1,500 barrels. In April 2007, an environmental assessment covering the area where BP would drill concluded that blowouts were "low probability and low risk," even though a test funded by MMS had found that blowout preventers failed 28 percent of the time.

...In reality, MMS had little way to assess the risk to wildlife, since a new policy instituted under Bush scrapped environmental analysis and fast-tracked permits. Declaring that oil companies themselves were "in the best position to determine the environmental effects" of drilling, the new rules pre-qualified deep-sea drillers to receive a "categorical exclusion" – an exemption from environmental review that was originally intended to prevent minor projects, like outhouses on hiking trails, from being tied up in red tape.

...Nowhere was the absurdity of the policy more evident than in the application that BP submitted for its Deepwater Horizon well only two months after Obama took office. ... Instead, it cites an Oil Spill Response Plan that it had prepared for the entire Gulf region. Among the sensitive species BP anticipates protecting in the semitropical Gulf? "Walruses" and other cold-water mammals, including sea otters and sea lions. The mistake appears to be the result of a sloppy cut-and-paste job from BP's drilling plans for the Arctic. Even worse: Among the "primary equipment providers" for "rapid deployment of spill response resources," BP inexplicably provides the Web address of a Japanese home-shopping network. Such glaring errors expose the 582-page response "plan" as nothing more than a paperwork exercise. "It was clear that nobody read it," says Ruch, who represents government scientists.

..."People are being really circumspect, not pointing the finger at Salazar and Obama," says Rep. Raul Grijalva, who oversees the Interior Department as chair of the House subcommittee on public lands. "But the troublesome point is, the administration knew that it had this rot in the middle of the process on offshore drilling – yet it empowered an already discredited, disgraced agency to essentially be in charge."

...BP is the last oil company on Earth that Salazar and MMS should have allowed to regulate itself. The firm is implicated in each of the worst oil disasters in American history, dating back to the Exxon Valdez in 1989. At the time, BP directed the industry consortium that bungled the cleanup response to Valdez during the fateful early hours of the spill, when the worst of the damage occurred. Vital equipment was buried under snow, no cleanup ship was standing by and no containment barge was available to collect skimmed oil. Exxon, quickly recognizing what still seems to elude the Obama administration, quickly shunted BP aside and took control of the spill.

In March 2006, BP was responsible for an Alaska pipeline rupture that spilled more than 250,000 gallons of crude into Prudhoe Bay – at the time, a spill second in size only to the Valdez disaster. Investigators found that BP had repeatedly ignored internal warnings about corrosion brought about by "draconian" cost cutting. The company got off cheap in the spill: While the EPA recommended slapping the firm with as much as $672 million in fines, the Bush administration allowed it to settle for just $20 million.

...The company applied the same deadly cost-cutting mentality to its oil rig in the Gulf. BP, it is important to note, is less an oil company than a bank that finances oil exploration; unlike ExxonMobil, which owns most of the equipment it uses to drill, BP contracts out almost everything. That includes the Deepwater Horizon rig that it leased from a firm called Transocean. BP shaved $500,000 off its overhead by deploying a blowout preventer without a remote-control trigger – a fail-safe measure required in many countries but not mandated by MMS, thanks to intense industry lobbying. It opted to use cheap, single-walled piping for the well, and installed only six of the 21 cement spacers recommended by its contractor, Halliburton – decisions that significantly increased the risk of a severe explosion. It also skimped on critical testing that could have shown whether explosive gas was getting into the system as it was being cemented, and began removing mud that protected the well before it was sealed with cement plugs.

...The effect of leaving BP in charge of capping the well, says a scientist involved in the government side of the effort, has been "like a drunk driver getting into a car wreck and then helping the police with the accident investigation." Indeed, the administration has seemed oddly untroubled about leaving the Gulf's fate in the hands of a repeat criminal offender, and uncurious about the crimes that may have been committed leading up to the initial sinking of the rig. The Obama Justice Department took more than 40 days after the initial blast killed 11 workers to announce it was opening a criminal probe.

From the start, the administration has seemed intent on allowing BP to operate in near-total secrecy. Much of what the public knows about the crisis it owes to Rep. Ed Markey, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. Under pressure from Markey, BP was forced to release footage of the gusher, admit that its early estimates put the leak as high as 14,000 barrels a day and post a live feed of its undersea operations on the Internet – video that administration officials had possessed from the earliest days of the disaster. "We cannot trust BP," Markey said. "It's clear they have been hiding the actual consequences of this spill."

But rather than applying such skepticism to BP's math, the Obama administration has instead attacked scientists who released independent estimates of the spill. When one scientist funded by NOAA released a figure much higher than the government's estimate, he found himself being pressured to retract it by officials at the agency. "Are you sure you want to keep saying this?" they badgered him. Lubchenco, the head of NOAA, even denounced as "misleading" and "premature" reports that scientists aboard the research vessel Pelican had discovered a massive subsea oil plume. Speaking to PBS, she offered a bizarre denial of the obvious. "It's clear that there is something at depth," she said, "but we don't even know that it's oil yet."

Scientists were stunned that NOAA, an agency widely respected for its scientific integrity, appeared to have been co-opted by the White House spin machine. "NOAA has actively pushed back on every fact that has ever come out," says one ocean scientist who works with the agency. "They're denying until the facts are so overwhelming, they finally come out and issue an admittance." Others are furious at the agency for criticizing the work of scientists studying the oil plumes rather than leading them. "Why they didn't have vessels there right then and start to gather the scientific data on oil and what the impacts are to different organisms is inexcusable," says a former government marine biologist. "They should have been right on top of that." Only six weeks into the disaster did the agency finally deploy its own research vessel to investigate the plumes.

...Both the government and BP have reasons to downplay the extent of the spill. For BP, the motive is financial: Under the Clean Water Act, the company could owe fines of as much as $4,300 for every barrel spilled, in addition to royalties for the oil it is squandering. For the Obama administration, the disaster threatens to derail the president's plan to expand offshore drilling. "It's crystal clear what the federal response to the tragedy ought to be," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who chairs the Senate subcommittee on environmental health. "Bring a dangerous offshore drilling pursuit to an end."

The administration, however, has made clear that it has no intention of reversing its plan to expand offshore drilling. Four weeks into the BP disaster, when Salazar was questioned in a Senate hearing about the future of the president's plan, he was happy to stand up for the industry's desire to drill at any cost. "Isn't it true," asked Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee, "that as terrible as the tragedy is, that unless we want $14, $16, $18, $20-a-gallon gasoline, that it's not realistic to think that we would actually stop drilling for oil in the Gulf?" Unbowed by the catastrophe that was still unfolding on his watch, Salazar heartily agreed, testifying that the president had directed him to "move forward" on offshore drilling.

That may help explain why the administration has gone to unusual lengths to contain the spill's political fallout. On May 14th, two days after the first video of the gusher was released, the government allowed BP to apply a toxic dispersant that is banned in England at the source of the leak – an unprecedented practice in the deep ocean. "The effort should be in recovering the oil, not making it more difficult to recover by dispersing it," says Sylvia Earle, a famed oceanographer and former NOAA chief scientist who helped the agency confront the world's worst-ever oil spill in the Persian Gulf after the first Iraq War. The chemical assault appeared geared, she says, "to improving the appearance of the problem rather than solving the problem."

Thinking About "Breaking Bad" Film Locations

For an Albuquerque native like myself, watching AMC's television series "Breaking Bad" is an amazing experience, because so many of the locales are recognizable, or nearly so. Even though I live in California now, I yearn to see these places again, and find out where the nearly-recognizable places are located.

Interestingly, this part-time Albuquerque resident has experienced the same yearning, and she devoted a lot of effort to tracking these places down, taking pictures of them, and posting Google placemarks. Like me, she had become obsessed with the precise shooting locales.

For example, the high school was driving me nuts, because it clearly was one of the newer high schools in town - but which one? She identifies the high school as Rio Rancho High School. The school didn't exist when I lived there, but when I was in high school I used to love to hike to Loma Colorado, the large, red hill that gives the school's street its name, and look at the ancient Rio Grande river mud frozen into rock on the hillside there. Ah, memories! When I visit in July, I want to take a little time and do something similar, analogous, or complementary to what she did.

There must be something about being expatriate Albuquerqueans that makes the yearning so keen for us. For much of my life, all I wanted to do was get away from seeing the Hi-Lo Market every day. Now, all I want to do is make sure the Hi-Lo Market is still there. And did I ever anticipate wanting to see the Octopus Car Wash again? I mean, who could ever have anticipated that?

Judging from a few comments on some Web Site I was looking at yesterday, I think there might be small-scale tours led by fans already underway in town. If the series continues, it could even become a small-scale business, reminiscent of the bus tours of SF's Haight-Ashbury District in the 60's; or, more recently, LA's 'Cholo' bus tour, or the bus tour of the Colorado Strip polygamous communities of southern Utah and northern Arizona. "Here we have a typical Albuquerque mobile home, and its atypical low-life owner. Wave at him, folks: for a fee, he'll let you take his picture! Despite his ferocious, whacked-out appearance, and his numerous tattoos, he's pretty clean, and excepting that one bad week in 2002, he's been off drugs since 1995!"

Recycling Those Tea Leaves

It looks like the economy is stronger this year than last year, but not as strong as in 2007 and 2008.

Election Night At Adam Sartain Headquarters

Left: Candidate Adam Sartain monitors the election results.

Tuesday night wasn't the kindest to Adam, but there were some grace notes nevertheless. In the Assembly District 9 race, Adam spent only about $16 per vote; roughly on a par with fellow candidate Lauren Hammond's campaign, and in stark contrast to more than $100/vote by fellow candidate Chris Garland. In addition, mapping software showed that Adam's percentage of the vote was higher in the neighborhoods he canvassed on foot.
Left: Campaign Manager Leighton Worthey provides inspiration.

When election returns provided fodder for humor, Adam and Leighton played suitable sound effects (e.g., wah-wah-wah) on a boom box.
Left: Campaign Mascot 'Midas' provides companionship. On Election Night, every candidate needs a canine!

As of Wednesday, June 9th, 1:34 a.m., the Assembly District 9 election results are as follows:

Kevin McCarty - 9,359 - 35.2%
Roger Dickinson - 9,294 - 35.0%
Lauren Hammond - 5,003 - 18.8%
Chris Garland - 2,278 - 8.5%
Adam Sartain - 691 - 2.5%

Where'd They Put That Reunion?

I was several keystrokes away from confirming my plane reservations to attend my 36th high school reunion in Albuquerque this coming weekend, when I thought I should double-check the reunion times and location. Turns out, they moved the reunion to the weekend of July 24th. So, I've got a month-and-a-half to figure out how to present myself as more successful than I really am....

Wading Through The Election Mailers

I wanted to do a more thorough analyses of these, but wouldn't you know, Election Day is already here! So, just an impressionistic sense....

It's very impressive how many gubernatorial candidates from the 2003 California Recall are on today's gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial ballot: Eric Korevaar, Chuck Pineda, Jr., Robert Newman, and Bill Chambers. Plus, Daniel Watts is running for Davis City Council. I'm sure there are others out there too. What was old is new again! [Update: I voted for Chuck Pineda, Jr. I met him in the 2003 race and I have a soft spot for the guy. He really wants to help East LA gang members to give up the gang life. For lieutenant governor, I voted for Eric Korevaar. A fellow scientist! I don't know his positions on the issues, but I did meet him once, also in 2003!]

In the District 5 City Council race, the candidates are mostly very capable, which makes decisions hard. Patrick Kennedy's campaign has been the scrappiest, most-innovative, and most interesting one. Terre Johnson seems to have faded from view somehow. Nevertheless, I will probably vote for Jay Schenirer. [Update: Indeed I voted for Schenirer, and I'm shocked to see how overwhelming his victory in District 5 was!]

In Assembly District 9, Chris Garland's amusingly sleazy attack on Kevin McCarty left no real damage. Roger Dickinson damaged himself with all his whining about Wall Street being the source of Sacramento's budget problems. Lauren Hammond has been lower-profile than I expected in this campaign: she retains a lot of respect in the area, though, and could provide an upset. Nevertheless, I'm a friend of Adam Sartain, so I'll vote for him today. (And head over to his house after DMTC rehearsal tonight - for the victory celebration?? Quien sabe??) [Update: See nearby blogpost.]

The mailer that really annoyed me was the 'Latino' mailer. What a joke that mailer is! Only half-wit Latinos will follow their advice. Every issue they identify as important to Latinos they suggest voting in such a way as to hurt Latinos. It's this practice of selling space to candidates and ballot measure campaigns that really destroys the integrity of these mailers. Even the 'Green' mailer sells out, but not as bad as the 'Latino' mailer.

I'm just disappointed in these mailers! I should send out my own mailer!

I will vote NO on the propositions (with a possible yes on 15). [Update: I voted yes on 13 and 15. In some kind of crazy spasm, California voters demonstrated a real urge to vote yes on all the propositions in this election.]

Vote NO! on Proposition 16! A Yes victory could seriously damage non-profit community theaters, and businesses of all kinds, since, without the effective competition provided by public power agencies like SMUD or LAW&P, PG&E would essentially have a monopoly over electrical power generation and could raise rates without challenge (with the last remaining, weak, feeble resistance coming at the CA CEC). Only half-wit Latinos will vote Yes on 16! Don't be a half-wit Latino!

[Update: Words can't express my shock in seeing how close the Proposition 16 race is! It's as if, after Godzilla devastates the Japanese countryside and approaches the city limits of Tokyo, the Tokyo voters held a referendum whether to permit Gozilla to enter the city limits, and the voters split 50-50 over the question. WTF? Are people crazy? It's Godzilla (aka, PG&E) for crying out loud!

This measure had better go down to defeat or we are all screwed!]

"Crazy For You" - DMTC - Monday Night Rehearsal

"I Got Rhythm"

Free At Last

Bernie Madoff:

But that evening an inmate badgered Madoff about the victims of his $65 billion scheme, and kept at it. According to K. C. White, a bank robber and prison artist who escorted a sick friend that evening, Madoff stopped smiling and got angry. “Fuck my victims,” he said, loud enough for other inmates to hear. “I carried them for twenty years, and now I’m doing 150 years.”

For Bernie Madoff, living a lie had once been a full-time job, which carried with it a constant, nagging anxiety. “It was a nightmare for me,” he told investigators, using the word over and over, as if he were the real victim. “I wish they caught me six years ago, eight years ago,” he said in a little-noticed interview with them.

And so prison offered Madoff a measure of relief. Even his first stop, the hellhole of Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), where he was locked down 23 hours a day, was a kind of asylum. He no longer had to fear the knock on the door that would signal “the jig was up,” as he put it. And he no longer had to express what he didn’t feel. Bernie could be himself. Pollard’s former cellmate John Bowler recalls a conversation between Pollard and Madoff: “Bernie was telling a story about an old lady. She was bugging him for her money, so he said to her, ‘Here’s your money,’ and gave her a check. When she saw the amount she says, ‘That’s unbelievable,’ and she says, ‘Take it back.’ And urged her friends [to invest].”

Pollard thought that taking advantage of old ladies was “kind of fucked up.”

“Well, that’s what I did,” Madoff said matter-of-factly.

“You are going to pay with God,” Pollard warned.

Madoff was unmoved. He was past apologizing. In prison, he crafted his own version of events. From MCC, Madoff explained the trap he was in. “People just kept throwing money at me,” Madoff related to a prison consultant who advised him on how to endure prison life. “Some guy wanted to invest, and if I said no, the guy said, ‘What, I’m not good enough?’ ” One day, Shannon Hay, a drug dealer who lived in the same unit in Butner as Madoff, asked about his crimes. “He told me his side. He took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more,” says Hay, who was released in December. People, in other words, who deserved it.

...Remarkably, that ego appears to have survived intact. H. David Kotz, the Security and Exchange Commission’s inspector general, investigated his agency’s failure to uncover Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and Madoff volunteered to speak to him—he is, no doubt, the world’s expert on the subject. He quickly reminded Kotz of his stature—“I wrote a good portion of the rules when it comes to trading,” Madoff said. He insisted that he’d been “a good trader” with a solid strategy, explaining that he’d stumbled into trouble because of his success. Hedge funds—“just marketers,” he said with evident disgust—pushed cash on him. He overcommitted, got behind, and generated a few imaginary trades, figuring he’d make it up—and never did. Whatever his own missteps, Madoff saved his scorn for the SEC. He did impressions of its agents, leaning back with his hands behind his head just as one self-serious agent did—“a guy who comes on like he’s Columbo,” but who was “an idiot,” Madoff said, as recorded in the extraordinary exhibit 104, a twelve-page account of the interview that is part of Kotz’s report. Madoff is no ironist. His disdain for the SEC is professional, even if the agency’s incompetence saved his skin for years—all Columbo had to do was make one phone call. “[It’s] accounting 101,” Madoff told Kotz, still amazed.

Madoff’s ego was on display in prison, too. ... One evening, Bowler, a drug trafficker (“I’m not a con man, I’m a businessman,” he wrote to me), sat next to Madoff watching a 60 Minutes segment about him. Prison authorities keep the volume off, and inmates wear headphones and tune in to the radio signal that broadcasts the sound. Bowler removed one earpiece. “ ‘Bernie, you got ’em for millions,’ I said to him. ‘No, billions,’ he told me.” Another evening, one former inmate was watching a TV news report on the auction of Madoff’s much-chronicled watch collection—he owned more than 40, from Rolexes to a Piaget. The watch featured that evening fetched just $900, and Madoff, whose only watch now is a Timex Ironman that he bought at the commissary for $41.65 and is likely engraved with his inmate number, called out, “They told me that watch was worth $200,000.” The inmates laughed along with him. They didn’t see any reason for Madoff to regret his past. “If I’d lived that well for 70 years, I wouldn’t care that I ended up in prison,” Evans says.

...Prisoners crowded Madoff seeking investment advice—missing the fact that Madoff, being a con man, hadn’t invested for years. Other convicts saw in him a fellow entrepreneur, ignoring the obvious fact that his scheme wasn’t a business at all, just smoke and mirrors. But Madoff had amassed the symbols of success, and for criminals, that counts.

Oily Crystal Ball

Today's NOGAPS weather forecasts suggests tropical storms will arrive in the Caribbean south of Haiti in about a week. That would mean maybe nearly two weeks before they start seeing storm activity near the Deepwater Horizon.

Then again, NOGAPS is a 'Chicken Little' kind of tropical forecasting tool: it nucleates hurricanes faster than Tiger Woods changes girl friends. Maybe the Gulf will have good weather for a couple of weeks. Still, at some point, NOGAPS will be right. A storm will approach, the ships will be forced to leave, and that incredibly-leaky Rube Goldberg machine they have down there will dump all the oil into the Gulf with no interruption.

Even though they are capturing some of the crude now, BP is still dumping unconscionable amounts of it. In news coverage, a kind of oil fatigue has set in. People keep trying to move on, but the crude won't let them.

If I had to guess, I'd say most tropical storms will track into the western Gulf of Mexico first. The persistent trough off the east coast of the U.S. has moved the storm track pretty far south, and west.

"Four Lions" Trailer

Comedian Jeff Denham seemed to be the first to explore the comic ramifications of the "War on Terror". Now, here is this movie....

Interesting Speculations About Life On Titan

Titan is an interesting place:

Two new papers based on data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft scrutinize the complex chemical activity on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan. While non-biological chemistry offers one possible explanation, some scientists believe these chemical signatures bolster the argument for a primitive, exotic form of life or precursor to life on Titan's surface. According to one theory put forth by astrobiologists, the signatures fulfill two important conditions necessary for a hypothesized "methane-based life."

...The hydrocarbon mapping research, led by Roger Clark, a Cassini team scientist based at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, examines data from Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer. Scientists had expected the sun's interactions with chemicals in the atmosphere to produce acetylene that falls down to coat the Titan surface. But Cassini detected no acetylene on the surface.

In addition Cassini's spectrometer detected an absence of water ice on the Titan surface, but loads of benzene and another material, which appears to be an organic compound that scientists have not yet been able to identify. The findings lead scientists to believe that the organic compounds are shellacking over the water ice that makes up Titan's bedrock with a film of hydrocarbons at least a few millimeters to centimeters thick, but possibly much deeper in some places. The ice remains covered up even as liquid methane and ethane flow all over Titan's surface and fill up lakes and seas much as liquid water does on Earth.

"Titan's atmospheric chemistry is cranking out organic compounds that rain down on the surface so fast that even as streams of liquid methane and ethane at the surface wash the organics off, the ice gets quickly covered again," Clark said. "All that implies Titan is a dynamic place where organic chemistry is happening now."

Somebody's Got To Do It

Trapped in hot, sluggish westbound traffic on Interstate 80 just east of the Yolo Causeway, this driver pulled over Sunday afternoon to give his dog some water.

Interesting vehicle there!



Unemployment is growing in Albuquerque, the Duke City, which just means it's time for folks there to get more creative in exploring employment opportunities.

Jim, the computer guy, said he just saw this fun movie: "Sunshine Cleaning". The movie was filmed, naturally enough, in Albuquerque, NM, and explores the more comedic side of that rapidly-growing, substantive body of work I like to call Southwestern Film Noir.

Nearly Useless Media In The Gulf

MC Hammer - Turn This Mutha Out

Kat Holder Graduation Party

Kat Holder graduates from high school! She also gave one of the valedictory speeches at Heritage Peak Charter School that mother Lisa proudly showed off on video.

As the get-together progressed, I found myself sitting with a group of, I think, mostly eight-year-old kids. We all agreed we liked the Black Eyed Peas, but the kids also suggested that the Jonas Brothers and Nickelback were worth listening to as well.

Several kids, H. in particular, took particular interest in my touch-screen i-Phone: a decided improvement on their Nintendos. They were disappointed at first that I had so few games on the i-Phone, but by taking free rein, they were soon doing what they really wanted to do: take pictures of their friends (see below), download music, and watch Miley Cyrus videos.

I did worry about the ability of eight-year-olds to tell jokes, however....

H.: What did one volcano tell the other volcano?
M.: I don't know; what did one volcano tell the other volcano?
H.: I wuv you!
M.: (?????)

H.: What happened to the peach rolling down the hill?
M.: I don't know; what happened to the peach rolling down the hill?
H.: He ran out of juice!
M.: (?????)

Maybe I was just missing something here.....

Solved The Wrong Problem, Apparently

Didn't see THAT coming!:

A Cheektowaga liver transplant recipient pleaded guilty Friday to driving drunk at seven times the legal limit when he struck a pedestrian, two parked cars and a moving vehicle on French Road in Cheektowaga in late March.

Gurninderjit Thandi had a blood alcohol reading of 0.56 percent after the hit-and-run incident about 3:15 p.m. March 20, said Kelly A. Omel, chief of the Erie County district attorney’s Vehicular Crimes Unit. Omel said that’s the highest reading she has seen in a local drunken driving case.

...Thandi, who came to court with his wife, told the judge during the plea proceedings that he is still under a doctor’s care for the liver transplant he had at a Rochester hospital in January, and that he is taking anti-depression medication and being treated by mental health experts.

Trying To Puzzle Out The News From The Gulf

It's hard to make clear sense of BP's efforts to fit a cap over the Gulf oil well, in part, because BP is spinning like mad to control the news, and mislead people, if necessary. (For example, in their trademark patronizing way, BP didn't inform many people watching what they thought was the topkill procedure on live feed that they had stopped the procedure). In part, problems in understanding occur because news reporters garble the news out of ignorance. Nevertheless, the news reports out of the LA Times seem fairly reliable.

Two days ago, CNN reported that BP was closing four valves in the cap only slowly. CNN has reported several times that the engineers are closely monitoring pressures, but that just sounds wrong to me: they don't have a hermetic seal on the riser pipe, so pressures would be a secondary concern. Instead, I think they are closely monitoring flows. They are trying to create as dry and dessicated an environment as possible - in a leaky vessel a mile below the surface of the sea, no less! - in order to minimize formation of methane clathrate hydrate ice. Talk about Sisyphean labor! There's a lot of water coming up with the oil and natural gas that must be accomodated as well. Nevertheless, since ice could gum everything up, slow-go is the game.

All of this effort is to buy time, of course, to finish the relief wells. There is no assurance they'll be able to capture enough oil to save anybody's ass, however. The cap might remain just a leaky vessel - in fact, to maintain the dessicated environment, they might have little choice but to keep it leaky. And all bets are off if hurricanes pass nearby - as they are almost bound to!

Drilling The Relief Wells

Likely to be an arduous, difficult, time-consuming activity.

Haley Barbour: The King Of Denial

Good science fiction and adventure thrillers often feature a stuffy, complacent VIP who is so invested in the current power structure that he can't see the blindingly obvious danger posed by a new, alien phenomenon. The town mayor in "Jaws" is a fine example of this sort of person.

The BP Gulf oil spill thriller has one of these folks too: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. He can't seem to comprehend that his state has been betrayed by his oil industry benefactors: it's simply inconceivable. He equates calls to halt offshore drilling with liberal treachery (rather than simple prudence) even as an oil spill as large as Mississippi cuddles up menacingly right next to Mississippi.

Amazing! What a work of art this Haley Barbour is! He's the kind of guy Hollywood only ever dreamed of!:

Barbour originally claimed several times that the spill "isn't anything like Exxon Valdez." (He was right, it's much worse.) He has appeared on television and gone out of his way to praise both BP and the government's efforts: "BP has never said no to any request," he told CNN, while "the federal government, whether it's the Coast Guard or whomever, has worked hard with us." And he has compared washed up oil to "caramel-colored mousse" and "toothpaste."

Barbour has repeatedly blasted the media for hurting his state's tourism with reports that make the spill sound "like this is Armageddon." He told a local newspaper that cancellations at hotels and other attractions were "are at a record pace, and the reason is they think we are inundated with oil or that it's imminent."

The Governor has also been critical of calls to halt offshore drilling in the Gulf. "A bunch of liberal elite were hoping this would be the Three Mile Island of offshore drilling," he told a business group.

On Tuesday, when oil actually washed ashore on an island off the coast of his state, Barbour initially sounded a different note. "This could turn out to be something catastrophic and terrible," Barbour said, before adding, "but that has just not been the case so far." He called the incident, which occurred 43 days after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, a "wake-up call." (And he did eventually ask the government for more boats to be stationed off the coast.) Still, the Governor who insisted his state was prepared for spill damage thanked "God's grace" that Petit Bois Island did not suffer more harm. "I don't think the island was hurt one iota," he said. "[Tar balls] are all on the beach, and they should be easy to clean up with rakes and shovels." So all's well.

Meanwhile, three of Barbour's fellow Gulf Coast governors have been front and center with criticisms and demands in response to the catastrophe. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) has slammed both the government and BP for failing to act fast enough in response to the spill. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I) has asked BP for millions of dollars to fund a tourism ad campaign. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) has admitted that the spill has forced him to reconsider his support for offshore drilling. And when those three fellow Gulf Coast governors traveled to Louisiana last Friday to be with President Barack Obama while he surveyed the effects of the spill, where was Barbour? He preferred staying home.

Bleak Roadway Vista

Last night, about 6:40 p.m., I sailed through the intersection of 19th & W Streets about one minute after a three-car collision there had tossed cars to three of the four corners of the intersection. Folks were just starting to clamber out of their broken cars, cell phones in hand.

I sailed back through the intersection from the other direction about 35 minutes later, at 7:15 p.m. This time, I had my camera in hand. One car still hadn't been towed away.

Looks pretty bleak out there....

Bobby Jindal, Slave

And I thought I was a petroleum addict!

This is just sad. I thought that, despite his annoying habit of blaming Obama for everything and accepting no blame for himself, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal might still come out the disaster in reasonably good shape, because he was supposedly hard at work down in the marshes.

Nevertheless, just like any other addict, it looks like Bobby Jindal didn't learn a damned thing. What does it take to make these politicos hit bottom? How many other calamities do their constituents have have to suffer before they even get the merest clue?

Prudent Southern conservatives are not so invested in their pro-business, anti-government ideology that they can't see the dangers of continuing on the same path, or are unable to think matters anew in the face of danger. For example:

Ben Brooks, a lawyer and Republican state senator from coastal Alabama, says he's no fan of big government but he expects an aggressive federal response to the oil spill. "There's nothing inherently contradictory in saying we believe in smaller government and demanding that the government protect public safety," Brooks said. He's not alone. All along the Gulf Coast, where the tea party thrives and "socialism" is a common description for any government program, conservatives who usually denounce federal activism suddenly are clamoring for it.

Nevertheless, national conservative leaders would rather sacrifice the coastal South - the real coastal South, where people live and work - rather than pause for thought. Listening to a representative of the Heritage Foundation on the "Jason Lewis Show" last night on Talk Radio 650 KSTE, I was flabbergasted to hear the representative emphatically rule out more regulations on the oil industry, or stronger regulations, as a response to this crisis. That must not be considered. So there you have it! We aren't even supposed to think about these things! AT ALL! These are FORBIDDEN thoughts! FORBIDDEN!

These effing addicts rule the world!:

A stunning new letter by the oil-addicted governor of Louisiana gives the lie to right-wing claims that environmentalists are to blame for the BP oil disaster.

On Wednesday, Bobby Jindal, who blames everybody but himself for the environmental disaster hitting his state, wrote to President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pleading with them to end the deep water drilling moratorium immediately.

He expresses "grave concerns" for the "economic impact of a six-month (or longer) suspension of activity" at 33 Gulf rigs -- "including and in particular the 22 deepwater drilling rigs currently in operation off the Louisiana coast." Jindal warns that the "announced moratorium of deepwater drilling activity creates a significant risk that many of these drilling platforms would be relocated to other countries -- along with the hundreds of high-paying jobs that they each create."

Jindal seems oblivious to the "significant risk" and potentially devastating economic impact posed by the drilling itself -- risk that will be present until we figure out all of the causes of the spill and how to make sure it never happens again.

Amazingly, Jindal writes:

I fully understand the need for strict oversight of deepwater drilling. However, I would ask that the federal government move quickly to ensure that all deepwater drilling is in proper compliance with federal regulation and is conducted safely....

Jindal omnisciently -- and mistakenly -- asserts here that current federal regulations are sufficient to avoid another blowout disaster. He has no way of knowing if this is true, whereas we have every reason to believe it is false.

Under the Cheney-Bush administration, efforts to strengthen regulation were blocked and the industry demanded and achieved essentially voluntary, "trust us" self-regulation and self-certification. For instance, when the Minerals Management Service considered requiring an acoustic backup system to shut off the blowout preventer in the event of a disaster, as Brazil and Norway require, lobbying by BP and other oil companies persuaded them not to.

The Wall Street Journal reported that "the safety record of U.S. offshore drilling compares unfavorably, in terms of deaths and serious accidents, to other major oil-producing countries. Over the past five years, an offshore oil worker in the U.S. was more than four times as likely to be killed than a worker in European waters, and 23% more likely to sustain an injury." A 2007 MMS study of 39 blowouts from 1992 to 2006 found, "Nearly all the blowouts examined occurred in the Gulf of Mexico." Big Oil clearly can't be trusted to regulate itself.

That's why some are calling this disaster "Cheney's Katrina." And that's why Obama set up a commission to figure out exactly why this disaster occurred. Until we know all the causes, we can't be sure we are taking every possible step to make sure it doesn't happen again. And that's why the president put in place the moratorium for six months, to wait until the findings from the commission are in. That's also why the president on Tuesday called the disaster a wakeup call that should lead us to once and for all end our addiction to oil.

Where The Oil Is Likely To Go

Basically, everywhere!

What Are The Odds This Year?

I read somewhere the odds are about 50%, but I can't remember a year when the northern Gulf of Mexico didn't have at least one tropical storm.

This image, courtesy of NOAA, maps all tropical storms and hurricanes of the past 100 years that passed near the site of the spill, signified by the red star in the center.

Lennox Head Tornado, Plus Waterspouts

A furious weather day at Lennox Head, near Byron Bay (Australia's easternmost extremity). Amazing videos!

I'm quite impressed how small, and how potent, the cyclones are that develop along the eastern shore of Australia. On some days (like maybe June 3rd), the vorticity helps contribute to phenomena like waterspouts. The area is just east of the Great Dividing Range and the New England Plateaus, and thus subject to lee cyclogenesis due to the conservation of potential vorticity:

Since f is approximately constant, the flow must assume negative vorticity or anticyclonic turning, i.e. counterclockwise turning in the southern hemisphere. By the same token, on the lee side, the expansion of the isentropic layer demands positive vorticity or clockwise turning. A ridge over mountains and a trough in its lee are often observed. Below the upstream side of the trough a low may form and intensify at the surface (Note 12.L). This process is called lee cyclogenesis and explains why midlatitude cyclones form in the lee of mountain ranges, e.g. to the east of New Zealand and southern South America (Fig 6). These lows or troughs are responsible for most of the rainfall along the coast.

"Abiquiu"

I much enjoyed the recent "Abiquiu" episode on "Breaking Bad", which seemingly drew a parallel between artist Georgia O'Keefe becoming obsessed with representing a door in her Abiquiu home after husband Alfred Stieglitz 'left' (presumably after passing away from a stroke in NYC in 1946) with drug dealer Jesse becoming obsessed with (what exactly? saving Tomas perhaps? to be revealed!) after Jane 'left'.

For a television show, that is an unusually-sophisticated kind of analogy to make! And it's all NEW MEXICO too, which just makes it all the sweeter! What a great TV series!

June 2nd would have been my father's 85th birthday had he not 'left' as well last year. And what have I become obsessed with as a result, exactly? Sudoku? Blogging? Musicals? Scrub Jays? Fairbanks, AK, weather? The Gulf oil spill?

Still not obsessed yet! Too scatterbrained!

Next Time, Don't Read Your Own Press

Bizarre lessons from the Gulf:

BP CEO Tony Hayward apologized Wednesday for saying recently that he wants his "life back."

Discussing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill over the weekend, the embattled oil executive said, "We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Hayward came under fire for making the comment at a time when BP is trying without success to contain the oil that's gushing from the company's blown-out well.

“I made a hurtful and thoughtless comment on Sunday when I said that 'I wanted my life back,'" he said in a statement. "When I read that recently, I was appalled. I apologize, especially to the families of the 11 men who lost their lives in this tragic accident."

Anxious Musical Theatre Dream

I awoke screaming this morning from one those dreams that seemed to combine several anxiety-producing elements in my life into one big, anxious bundle.

First, I caught a glimpse of [local musical theater producer], smiling, arms open wide in anticipation of giving me a great big bear hug. Just then, one of [said musical theater's] lead ingenue actresses ran past. I wasn't sure who she was, because she ran past too fast. Nevertheless, for reasons uncertain, I quickly gave chase, but she was faster. She clambered up the outside ladders on the side of a three-story building that looked like a La Quinta Inn. I clambered up too.

Nevertheless the rooftop was not flat - it had a log-function curve shape, something like the floor in my living room (where one wall is slowly sinking). There was a small girl and a man on a big tricycle on the rooftop (similar to the tricyclist in a recent show staged at a local community college). To my horror, both promptly rolled/fell off the building.

Suddenly, I slipped on the rooftop too. Flying off, I caught myself on a ladder, but couldn't quite get my grip, and....

Tar Baby

Sarah Palin has had an interesting run in politics so far, but she is committing a fatal misstep here. She doesn't have sufficient humility or grace to admit error and to survive this disaster to elite opinion. Her influence will decline when the Horrors Of The Gulf are finally understood:

Last night, former half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin believed she'd found a way to both absolve her oil-happy politics and blame environmentalists for the spill at the same time, and took to Twitter to rub it in.

"Extreme Greenies:see now why we push"drill,baby,drill"of known reserves&promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?"

Embarrassed To Admit I Largely Agree With Thomas Friedman Today

Thomas Friedman writes as if for children - confused, inattentive children. Nevertheless, today I applaud his mushy-centrist desire to help:

Turkey has a unique role to play linking the East and West. If Turkey lurches too far East, it may become more popular on some Arab streets, but it would lose a lot of its strategic relevance and, more importantly, its historic role as a country that can be Muslim, modern, democratic — and with good relations with both Israel and the Arabs. Once this crisis passes, it needs to get back in balance.

Ditto Israel. There is no question that this flotilla was a setup. Israel’s intelligence failed to fully appreciate who was on board, and Israel’s leaders certainly failed to think more creatively about how to avoid the very violent confrontation that the blockade-busters wanted.

After reading Matt Taibbi's many useful and hilarious analyses of Thomas Friedman's writings, I learned it's important to have a dictionary at hand when reading Friedman, and today is no different. Friedman seems to be using the word 'strategic' in this sense:

Important or essential in relation to a plan of action

Apparently Friedman's 'plan of action' for Turkey is that it be 'Muslim, modern, democratic'. Nevertheless, heavy thinkers have valued Turkey most for its geographic importance, astride the Bosporus, not for Friedman's 'plans', or anyone's 'plans' that don't involve large armies and navies. So, whether Turkey lurches East, West, North, or South, it will remain strategically important. History in the area has proven much too mercuric for any mortal's 'plans'.

Nevertheless, I agree this flotilla idea was guaranteed to provoke Israel. That's why it was done. Whether all the participants understood that violence was part of the plan all along is unclear. Whether even all the planners understood that violence was part of the plan all along is unclear. These matters have yet to be clarified. But some planners did understand what was going to happen, and their handiwork is now on display for everyone to appreciate.

Yelling At The Twerpy Guy On Folsom Blvd.

(After giving E. a jump start, she tried to head home, but unfamiliar with Folsom Blvd., she headed east: the wrong way. I pulled beside her and persuaded her to make a U-turn at the next light. I would lead the way, in the left hand lane. Unfortunately, she was slow pulling behind me, and another car interceded. The driver of that car wouldn't allow E. to pull in directly behind me. He drew up close to my back bumper and gestured for me to move faster. I stopped short of the next, red traffic light, got out of my car, and tried to communicate with him.)

Me: (pointing at E.'s car) Sir, would you allow this car to pull behind me? We are trying to form a caravan!

Twerp: (rolling down his window with controlled contempt) Is that the reason you cut me off? This is stupid!

Me: ("Cut me off?" Like, how? In some kind of Walter-Mitty, road-rage fantasy of yours?) No, sir, it is not!

(The light proceeded to turn green, and after much passive-aggressive maneuvering, said caravan was finally assembled. After installation of a new battery, further car drama was forestalled until, oh, like maybe next week.)

It Never Seems To End....

E.: MMMAAARRRCCC! My car won't start! Help! MMMMAAAAARRRRCCCC!

Elites Gummed Up By Oil Spill

Here is a handy-dandy interactive chart here showing the relationships between Congress and BP and its publicists....

Then there was this news today:

As if the water wasn't deep -- or oily -- enough around British Petroleum's public relations, the company has hired a former spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney to be its public face for the disaster.

Anne Womack Kolton, former head of public affairs at the Department of Energy and Cheney's onetime campaign press secretary, will take the baton from BP this week.

Hmmm. She's not even on this chart! I hope they update this chart and add her on soon. Get every single dad-gummed elite person and institution in the U.S. onto this chart!

Interesting Blogpost Regarding 1993 Saudi Oil Spill

I have no way to vouch for this, except to point it out:

"No one's listening," says Nick Pozzi, who was an engineer with Saudi Aramco in the Middle East when he says an accident there in 1993 generated a spill far larger than anything the United States has ever seen.

An engineer who witnessed a crude spill in the Persian Gulf in 1993 says BP should use a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water's surface.

According to Pozzi, that mishap, kept under wraps for close to two decades and first reported by Esquire, dumped nearly 800 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf, which would make it more than 70 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill.

But remarkably, by employing a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water's surface, Pozzi's team was not only able to clean up the spill, but also salvage 85 percent of the oil, he says.

Endless Litigation Project Of 2010, 2011, 2012, Etc., Just Getting Started

Last week was kind of slow here at work. What would this week bring?

The very first hint or suggestion that we might get involved in some aspects of the litigation surrounding the BP oil spill. It's just a hint, though: no promises.

Sometimes we are like the lion chasing a gazelle, and never quite catching it. The BP oil spill is like a very fat, slow-moving water buffalo on the Serengeti Plains of Litigation, however, and will keep many people fat, happy, and employed (sorry, not you shrimpers) for many, many years to come!

Like dogs that occasionally catch cars, ambulance chasers sometimes get lucky....

"Crazy For You" Monday Evening Rehearsal At DMTC

Everyone looking a little "bookish" at this point.....

Memorial Day With The Isaacsons

Sunday Afternoon, Watched "Let's Go!" Again

Methane Clathrate Hydrate Stability Curve

Just trying to puzzle out that out-of-control Gulf of Mexico oil well here. This diagram is helpful:

Methane Hydrate Stability Curve. In this example, the zone in which gas hydrate can exist is between 1200 and 1500 meters. (Actually, methane hydrates can exist anywhere from about 300 to 200 meters, depending on temperature conditions and sediment depth.) To explain the various lines: The "phase boundary" line (a pressure/temperature line) divides the methane as hydrate (that is methane ice) to the left of the line from methane that has dissociated from hydrate on the right. The "hydrothermal gradient" dotted line indicates the water temperature. The "Water/ Sediment" line marks the seafloor. The "geothermal gradient" dotted line indicates the temperature of the sediments, which increases with depth. At some depth (marked by the line "Base of gas hydrate"), the sediments become too warm for hydrate to exist. Below this depth, free ethane can exist, but not methane in ice. Methane hydrate, therefore, can only exist in the speckled area. (Kvenvolden, 1993)

Apparently there is a rapid temperature drop as the oil/methane mixture rises to the sea bottom. Accompanied with the abrupt decompression and extra adiabatic cooling that might occur as the mixture is released into the ocean, that helps explain why so much methane clathrate hydrate slush gets formed. It's like instant snow down there!

The diagram also helps explain why the oil companies don't see this slush in shallower water (the temperature is too high and pressure is too low).

BP's response to this blowout always seems ad-hoc: they always seem to be confronted with new phenomena that they should have expected all along, had they actually understood their textbooks (but likely didn't).

The first two containment domes they tried apparently can't function if they are filled with slush. The questions I have then are: Given the likelihood of slush, why did they try the containment domes and waste valuable time? Why didn't they expect slush? Are they really that dense?

BP is learning a series of horrifically expensive lessons here!

For the rest of us, we need to start protesting the most effective way we can. It's time to start boycotting AM/PM....

"Let's Go!" - Pepper Von Productions

Saturday afternoon, it was time to catch Pepper Von's "Lets Go!" at Calvary Christian Center in Del Paso.

This is the third year of the show, and a few friends have moved on (e.g. Corey Betts; Hannah Collins) from the show, but new, talented people have taken their places (e.g., Dannyelle Finch; Leo Valentine; Nicholas Gioiosa, and the talented Ali Llacer). And many die-hard folks remain with the show, eager to display their talents (Tyler Drewitz, Crystal Barrett, Carla Fleming, Helen Ventura, Elise Reese, Johnny Collins, and, of course, the amazing Keith Turk!)

I was most impressed how well the female dance ensemble performed together, as a cohesive unit, particularly during the Hip Hop Medley in Act I. The female ensemble includes veterans like Shanta Robinson, Summer Turk, and Ana Maria Shexnayder, but also relative newcomers like Emily Tsunekawa, Talissa James, and last year's novice standout, Michelle Makela. These newcomer girls are indeed fortunate for their tutelage under Robinson, Turk, and Shexnayder. I mean, these are AMAZING dancers!

"Let's Go!" has lasted long enough now as a franchise that new standout dancers and singers are being raised and fostered within its protective embrace. This year's novice standout, if I had to identify one, is 18-year-old Rashad Best.

Left: "Let's Go!" Director Pepper Von.

"Swing!" - Civic Theatre West

Friday night, I headed up to Roseville to see "Swing!"

Superficially similar to "Smokey Joe's Cafe" (except for a decade earlier) "Swing!" features the swing music of the 40's, with much energetic dancing.

In contrast to "Smokey Joe's Cafe", in "Swing!", the orchestra was in full view, in the manner of the Big Bands of the 1940's. As Kay Hight said, "the orchestra was amazing!" Of course, I particularly enjoyed watching Andy Sullivan on drums!

Lorraine d'Arco had several excellent solos, particularly "Blues In The Night" in the second act. Monica Wright also sang well, particularly "Skylark" in Act 1.

Good dancing males were on stage, particularly Jerald Bolden (who previously played 'Ritchie' in "A Chorus Line"), and especially Hakeem Thomas. Hakeem has a very fluid, emphatic way of dancing that is very nice to watch!

The women dancers were well-matched to their partners and were fine to watch as well (particularly Kate Howe).

There was an audience participation segment at the end of Act I. I danced with Jessica Benz. I was tempted to get extravagant. Nevertheless, as a warning, I remember a ballroom dancing friend once complained about dancing with a stranger who got excited and suddenly tossed her into the air without warning (landing wasn't pretty). Before I could toss Jessica into the air without warning, however, the audience participation segment ended.

Jabriel Shelton was the featured male singer in a number of songs (Steve Campbell was the other featured male singer).

It's been at least a year since I've seen Jabriel perform, and he seems more mature than I remember. My first thought was 'it's about time', but then my second thought was 'if Jabriel's more mature, what does that make me?' Perish the thought!

Virtual Maps

Legal silliness from Louisiana:

By an vote of 89-0, lawmakers approved Senate Bill 151 by Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, sending the measure back to the Senate for approval of clarifying amendments made by a House committee.

Adley's bill defines a "virtual street-level map" as one that is available on the Internet and can generate the location or picture of a home or building by entering the address of the structure or an individual's name on a website.

Rep. Henry Burns, R-Haughton, who handled Adley's bill on the House floor, said that if the map is used in an act of terrorism, the legislation requires a judge to impose an additional minimum sentence of at least 10 years onto the terrorist act.