I have to look into statements made in Greg Palast's article's in detail, but I am already concerned by the hyperbole-laced language and half--truths in it regarding the amounts and types of radiation released at Fukushima. The article also makes "logical" connections between unrelated events. Unfortunately, the science illiteracy of the average American makes it easy for reporters in the field to make all kinds of factual errors, while wild-eyed and clutching a microphone in front of the news camera outside the fence of a facility.
I recommend the article at http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/ and compare its statements to the Palast article, below. Unlike Palast, this article explains technical details of what happened in Japan in language that is accessible to the general public.
I don't believe in the generic American concept that "There are two sides to everything." Nuclear power is either doable safely--or it isn't, and Paslast's article shows a very emotional bias against nuclear energy without offering alternatives. What are we going to do as greenhouse gas emissions rise, along with the price of petroleum and coal??? I think we can do a lot more with wind and solar, a helluva a lot more (anti-renewable conservatives make a similar argument to the "fire department telling us they couldn't save a building because "it was on fire." argument by claiming that solar and wind are no good because hardly anybody uses it.) but nuclear is unavoidably part of our future. That said, absolutely, anybody who falsifies safety data in the nuclear industry should be strung up by his cojones, and the Japanese do have their infamous inability to step up to the microphone and admit when they've messed up.
I do take insult at Palast's claims that there will be thousands of cancer deaths over the years from what happened in Japan, this week--along with his claims that a radioactive cloud is floating over Seattle. That's just a bunch of baloney.
Keep the following in mind when you read the http://www.bravenewclimate.com/ article: they explain how overdesigned those nuclear plants in Japan are, and point out what I have been saying since Friday: Hello? It was a 9.0 freakin' earthquake! The planet actually shifted on its axis, and one earth day is now actually 1 second shorter. That's how bad that earthquake was.
I am not copy & pasting the http://www.bravenewclimate.com/ article here, because it has pictures and diagrams. Please read the original Greg Palast blog posting at his web site after you read it, below:
=============================================================
Subject: Tokyo Electric to Build US Nuclear Plants
From Greg Palast
TOKYO ELECTRIC TO BUILD US NUCLEAR PLANTS
The no-BS info on Japan's disastrous nuclear operators
by Greg Palast
New York - March 14, 2011
I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.
I don't know the law in Japan, so I can't tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.
But what will Obama plead? The Administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas — by Tokyo Electric Power and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn't suffered enough.
Here are the facts about Tokyo Electric and the industry you haven't heard on CNN:
The failure of emergency systems at Japan's nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.
Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called "SQ" or "Seismic Qualification." That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from Al Qaeda.
The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from 'failed' to 'passed.'
The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction which will work with Tokyo Electric to build the Texas plant, Lord help us.
There's more.
Last night I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.
These safety back-up systems are the 'EDGs' in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn't work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn't save a building because "it was on fire."
What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.
Now be afraid. Obama's $4 billion bail-out-in-the-making is called the South Texas Project. It's been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However, the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the US brand name, Westinghouse — Toshiba.
I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work. However, it's kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth's core.
TEPCO and Toshiba don't know what my son learned in 8th grade science class: tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So these companies are real stupid, eh? Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn't have worked on a fine, dry afternoon.
Back in the day, when we checked the emergency back-up diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuke, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They'd been tested. The tests were faked, the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, "Snap, Crackle and Pop."
(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels failed at the Tokai Station as well.)
In the US, we supposedly fixed our diesels after much complaining by the industry. But in Japan, no one tells Tokyo Electric to do anything the Emperor of Electricity doesn't want to do.
I get lots of confidential notes from nuclear industry insiders. One engineer, a big name in the field, is especially concerned that Obama waved the come-hither check to Toshiba and Tokyo Electric to lure them to America. The US has a long history of whistleblowers willing to put themselves on the line to save the public. In our racketeering case in New York, the government only found out about the seismic test fraud because two courageous engineers, Gordon Dick and John Daly, gave our team the documentary evidence.
In Japan, it's simply not done. The culture does not allow the salary-men, who work all their their lives for one company, to drop the dime.
Not that US law is a wondrous shield: both engineers in the New York case were fired and blacklisted by the industry. Nevertheless, the government (local, state, federal) brought civil racketeering charges against the builders. The jury didn't buy the corporation's excuses and, in the end, the plant was, thankfully, dismantled.
Am I on some kind of xenophobic anti-Nippon crusade? No. In fact, I'm far more frightened by the American operators in the South Texas nuclear project, especially Shaw. Stone & Webster, now the Shaw nuclear division, was also the firm that conspired to fake the EDG tests in New York. (The company's other exploits have been exposed by their former consultant, John Perkins, in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.)
If the planet wants to shiver, consider this: Toshiba and Shaw have recently signed a deal to become world-wide partners in the construction of nuclear stations.
The other characters involved at the South Texas Plant that Obama is backing should also give you the willies. But as I'm in the middle of investigating the American partners, I'll save that for another day.
So, if we turned to America's own nuclear contractors, would we be safe? Well, two of the melting Japanese reactors, including the one whose building blew sky high, were built by General Electric of the Good Old US of A.
After Texas, you're next. The Obama Administration is planning a total of $56 billion in loans for nuclear reactors all over America.
And now, the homicides:
CNN is only interested in body counts, how many workers burnt by radiation, swept away or lost in the explosion. These plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the "levels are not dangerous." These are the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.
In my New York investigation, I had the unhappy job of totaling up post-meltdown "morbidity" rates for the county government. It would be irresponsible for me to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the Tokyo Electric shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous. Indeed, the fact that residents near the Japanese nuclear plants were not issued iodine pills to keep at the ready shows TEPCO doesn't care who lives and who dies whether in Japan or the USA. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.
Heaven help us. Because Obama won't.
*** For Truthout/Buzzflash
Greg Palast is the co-author of Democracy and Regulation, the United Nations ILO guide for public service regulators, with Jerrold Oppenheim and Theo MacGregor. Palast has advised regulators in 26 states and in 12 nations on the regulation of the utility industry.
Palast, whose reports can be seen on BBC Television Newsnight, is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for investigative reporting.
http://www.gregpalast.com/
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tommy Get Your Gun
It's not a gun, it's a weapon!
Call if a gun, and they'd make us drop for twenty.
Twenty pushups.
Just got home from work in the ER. Same crazy shit. Kids with fevers, and young guys who wipe out while pursuing sports glory, and break something. I'm sitting in the living room at the computer, writing this in my underwear, while the wife, two kids, and the Basset Hound (who has taken up permanent residence on my Archie Bunker lazy boy TV-watching chair) are all snoring. The zebra finches are eyeing my hairy shoulders nervously from the empty I Can't Believe It's Not Butter plastic cup that is the nest inside their cage. Their "nest" is lined with lint from our drier.
So I ran into E, today, and he invited me to go shooting with him, tomorrow morning. I said "Fifty-fifty chance I'll show up."
Here's the conundrum:
(1) The wife wants to go up into the mountains, to play in the snow with the kids. I don't want her to go because (a) the Jeep has a blown ball bearing in the front right wheel, and the 4-wheel drive won't shift into gear. In plain English, it's undriveable. (b) After she slides off the 138 or the 2 she won't be able to call for help because she washed her jeans this morning, and didn't bother to remove that nice Motorola flip phone of hers. Yes, I spent 10 minutes pointing a blow drier at the phone. It's a gonner. Dead. Kaput. Koniec. Muerte.
(2) E's spot where he fires his M-16 is at low elevation in the very same mountains where the wife wants to go. I don't want to be a hypocrite--or even worse--a hypocrite who gets caught.
(3) The monthly Bonelli Bird Walk is also tomorrow morning at 08:00 and I would love to go birding with a crowd of birders who I never see. And I'd like to get my hands on that ^&%#! Bald Eagle who only shows up when I'm not there. Watch...if I don't go, he'll show up. Same goes for that rat bastard Black & White Warbler that has eluded me since November.
(4) The last time I fired an M-16 Ronald Reagan was president. I don't mind waiting a month or two longer, so that when I lay down in the prone firing position, I don't start shivering with the cold.
(5) Last but deinitely not least: I have serious concerns about one of us sliding off the road with the snow levels as low as they are, this weekend. The Caltrans highway conditions report makes it look like we couldn't go even if we wanted to. Bonelli might just be the safer i.e. smarter choice to make.
Decisions, decisions...
Call if a gun, and they'd make us drop for twenty.
Twenty pushups.
Just got home from work in the ER. Same crazy shit. Kids with fevers, and young guys who wipe out while pursuing sports glory, and break something. I'm sitting in the living room at the computer, writing this in my underwear, while the wife, two kids, and the Basset Hound (who has taken up permanent residence on my Archie Bunker lazy boy TV-watching chair) are all snoring. The zebra finches are eyeing my hairy shoulders nervously from the empty I Can't Believe It's Not Butter plastic cup that is the nest inside their cage. Their "nest" is lined with lint from our drier.
So I ran into E, today, and he invited me to go shooting with him, tomorrow morning. I said "Fifty-fifty chance I'll show up."
Here's the conundrum:
(1) The wife wants to go up into the mountains, to play in the snow with the kids. I don't want her to go because (a) the Jeep has a blown ball bearing in the front right wheel, and the 4-wheel drive won't shift into gear. In plain English, it's undriveable. (b) After she slides off the 138 or the 2 she won't be able to call for help because she washed her jeans this morning, and didn't bother to remove that nice Motorola flip phone of hers. Yes, I spent 10 minutes pointing a blow drier at the phone. It's a gonner. Dead. Kaput. Koniec. Muerte.
(2) E's spot where he fires his M-16 is at low elevation in the very same mountains where the wife wants to go. I don't want to be a hypocrite--or even worse--a hypocrite who gets caught.
(3) The monthly Bonelli Bird Walk is also tomorrow morning at 08:00 and I would love to go birding with a crowd of birders who I never see. And I'd like to get my hands on that ^&%#! Bald Eagle who only shows up when I'm not there. Watch...if I don't go, he'll show up. Same goes for that rat bastard Black & White Warbler that has eluded me since November.
(4) The last time I fired an M-16 Ronald Reagan was president. I don't mind waiting a month or two longer, so that when I lay down in the prone firing position, I don't start shivering with the cold.
(5) Last but deinitely not least: I have serious concerns about one of us sliding off the road with the snow levels as low as they are, this weekend. The Caltrans highway conditions report makes it look like we couldn't go even if we wanted to. Bonelli might just be the safer i.e. smarter choice to make.
Decisions, decisions...
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Cassin you say Western Kingbird?
MYSTERY KINGBIRD
I guess he's a Cassin's Kingbird. Click on the picture, and he'll pop up full-sized on your screen. He was lighter than this photo shows:
The angle makes him look smaller ie.e younger than he is i.e. like a fledgling. This is merely foreshortening caused by the perspective from which I took the photo.
His tail feathers had no buff tips like those of a Cassin's Kingbird, and no white edges, like those of a Western KIngbird. The black lores are real.
The reason that you do not see the white chin spot of a Cassin's is that he does not have it: his face is the same homogeneous gray all over. Like I said, he's lighter gray than the photo implies.
I suppose he's a Cassin's Kingbird who is moulting into spring plumage. The book I should consult is buried under a pyle of books. Get it? A pyle of books? Oh, I crack myself up, sometimes!
AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
JOSHUA TREE FOREST
February 2011
PALMDALE, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
Counting phalaropes on Lake Palmdale with 7X35 binoculars:
Katona Istvan (left and Varga Csaba (right)
Thursday, February 17, 2011
I AM NEVER TAKING MY DOG TO STARBUCKS, AGAIN.
Stupid Basset Hound. It's all her fault.
Collectively, both my and my wife's backs went out, from sleeping on an old, lumpy Queen-sized bed i.e. mattress that needed to go two years ago. So a week ago we went to Sears, and looked at beds. Why not just get a new mattress? Well, if you're gonna fork over that much money, you might as well get a bigger e.g. a King-sized bed; so we picked one with a nice, hard mattress that will support our backs.
So far, so good. During the week that we will have to wait for the delivery, I resort to sleeping on the floor, to avoid waking up with a backache. Sometimes I crash on the couch, but that only works if I meticulously arrange the pillows in a configuration that will support my lumbar spine. The process of placing and aligning the pillows correctly requires the patience and skill of an origami master.
The Sears sales lady told us that we would get a phone call on Tuesday night, after 6:00 p.m., which would inform us what time the delivery guys would swing by on Wednesday, so I had to tell my boss, "I don't know, maybe I'm coming to work, maybe I'm staying home, maybe I'll have to leave early. I don't know...it's a mystery...I'll let you know when I find out."
Isn't that nice?
So Monday night we get an automated phone call from Sears tellling us that we will receive a phone call Tuesday night, which will be the phone call. I spent the rest of Monday night disassembling the old Queen-sized bed, and hauling all of its components out to the recycling bin, where I leave it out in the open. Hey, if somebody would like a perfectly good wooden bed made out of Norwegian pine, hand-crafted by nordic elves at an Ikea factory, they're welcome to it. I finished at 2:00 a.m., both hands covered in cuts and scrapes, dried blood all over them.
So of course, they never called on Tuesday.
Now it's late Tuesday night, Sears is closed for the day, and we're rummaging through the paperwork to see what that phone number is. The only phone number on the receipt is for the local Sears at the mall, where we bought the mattress. Fine, I'll call them tomorrow morning, and see if I get lucky, and can go to work.
Next morning we all wake up, I drive the kids to school, and park at the train station. Sitting in the car, I call up Sears, hoping that they might be open, and someone will tell me to stay home. I get a computer that tells me that the store is closed, but one of the options is "push 4 for deliveries" and it turns out that I could have called last night, and gotten the same information: they are coming between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
Between 11:00 and 1:00 ??? Are you people out of your &^%$! minds?
That is the perfect time of the day to completely rob somebody of a productive day. There would have been no point in going in and leaving early, and dittto for going in late and leaving late. Sears wants me to sacrifice a whole day of my life, so that they can deliver one piece of furniture.
I don't think so.
So I called back, and talked to an operator, a very nice-sounding lady who was clearly in the Phillipines, despite her pseudo-WASPish name. I think she claimed to be Charlize Theron or Charlene Tilton. Needless to say, the phone line was horribly staticy, and I had to keep shouting at her to repeat everything, and of course her idea of repeating something wasn't to repeat that one word that I didn't hear: she would repeat everything, and when she got to that one word I had never heard the first time, of course the line would fade out again, and I would miss that same word again, and we repeated this torture over and over and over again until my head was spinning.
So she asks me when I would like to re-schedule.
I DON'T WANT TO RE-SCHEDULE. YOU NEED TO COME OUT TO MY HOUSE TODAY, AND NOT FROM 11:00 TO 1:00!!!
"Okay," she says, "I'll have the drivers call you up."
I tell her, "They need to call me up right now. Right away. I am on the train, going in to L.A., and I need to know when I need to leave work." You see, at this point I already suspected that Sears had a serious Charley Foxtrot going on, so I headed to work.
Two and a half %^&$! hours later my cell phone rings with a 909 area code phone number. The caller identifies himself as the delivery truck's driver. He indignantly huffs that he is in my driveway, and how come I'm not there to let him in?
Maybe because your momma didn't have any children that lived?
So, having spent two hours at USC (But damn, they were two productive hours. Probably the most productive meeting I've been to in 2 or 3 years. We hashed out what's wrong with one of our programs, and sketched out the changes we're going to make.), I ran up the hill, hopped on the bus to Union Station, and caught the 12:20 (noon) train home.
Got home to Claremont, and had enough time to haul the old mattress out into the driveway, re-arrange the furniture in the bedroom, vacuum the room, and re-rearrange the furniture. Awsome. My back is feeling pretty good today, so I am vacuuming with vigor, gusto, and panache.
Riiippp! I am squatting, one hand firmly gripping the vacuum cleaner, and my pants rip in half.
At the crotch.
In front.
The Sears guys show up. One of them rings my front door, one of them rings my back door, and one calls my cell phone.
All at the same time.
Me and the Basset Hound are running around in circles, chasing our tails.
They broguht everything in, assembled it, and within minutes I had a bed the size of the USS Enterprise's landing deck set up. Tonight I will sleep like a king.
The phone rings.
"Hi Tom, it's X, your neighbor."
"Hi, X!"
"Hey, listen, Tom. I know you and your wife...well um...there's a really nice wood bed out by the recycling bin. You guys should go out and grab it, before it's gone."
I'm pretty sure a jury would have acquitted me.
All right, everybody leave. I'm going birding. I drive to Prado to look for a Bald Eagle that's supposedly really easy to find. It's raining, so they have closed the park, and locked the gates. After half an hour of standing outside the locked gate, staring at the lake, and praying that the Bald eagle will fly by, I give up, and drive home.
Boy, I am really looking forward to sleeping in our new, firm bed.
The wife shrieks, "You're not sleeping on that bed until we buy a mattress protector. If we don't use one, it'll invalidate the warranty!"
So let me get this straight: I pay $2,000 for a new bed, and you want me to put a plastic or rubber sheet on it that will make me hot, sweaty, and itchy?
Really?
The wife hisses, "I'll find one that fits the requirement, but doesn't make us sweat. Better yet, you go out to the store.
I do not want to go to the ^&%$! store to look for some obscure item that nobody has, and will have me driving all over California on a dark, rainy night. I am tired. I worked my ass off this weekend in the ER, I was up until 02:00 removing the old bed, and dammit, I want to sleep in my new $2,000 bed, because I am tired of sleeping on the floor!
So I slept on the floor in the kids' room.
Oh, wait, let me back up: Remember when I lost my wallet last summer? Well, I can't find my wallet. So I check the car. Twice. I check my brown courduroy sport coat. Twice. I check my backpack. Thrice.
"All right, well the rain has stopped, I'll walk the dog to Starbucks, where I bought you a mocha last night, so you could stay up, doing school work. Hopefully, I left my wallet there."
She says, "No, just call them up." She gets their number off the internet. The phone rings and rings and rings. No answer.
I know why they don't answer the phone at that Claremont Starbucks on Indian Hill Blvd off the 10 Freeway:
Because that tall kid with enough hair to supply a village of bald men is always on the phone, and yes, it's a personal phone call, because I eavesdrop on his conversations while he's making my drinks.
Every time.
So I grab the Basset Hound, and walk her under the 10 Freeway to Starbucks.
Did I mention that that freeway underpass, with all of the cars honking, and making left turns scare the shit out of her? My dog Gina is neurotic. She doesn't bite mail men; mail men bite her. So I get to Starbucks, and instead of firmly securing her leash to the rail, like I always do, I just casually drape the loop of her leash to the door handle.
Bad idea.
I walk up to the Starbucks counter, and I can't get the tall kid's attention, because HE'S ON THE &^%$! PHONE, AS USUAL.
A cute girl with a smokin' hot body jumps up, and says, "Oh, look at that cute dog!!!"
Yeah, that happens now that I am married, and have kids. Where was she when I was single, and lonely???
So of course she opens the door, the loop of the dog's leash falls off the door knob, and the Basset Hound takes off like a bat out of hell. I am wearing red shorts, white sneakers, and a camouflage Bundeswehr German army jacket (they are warmer and lighter than American rain gear). It is commuting-home-from-work time, and there are zillions of cars, everywhere. The dog is now running up Indian Hill Blvd, crossing red lights all over the place, and I am running after her, full tilt. You have never seen a fat guy run that fast in your life. If anybody filmed it with their cell phone, please post it on Youtube, so that the NFL can offer me a job. I have speed and bulk.
A hundred yards into the chase the drawstring on my shorts gave way, and my pants fell off. Now I'm running while holding onto my pants.
I lost Gina.
Oh, shit. My wallet's missing, I can't sleep on my ^&%$! $2,000 bed, and now I lost my dog.
I call home, and when Lisa answers, I scream, "LISA, OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT NOW!!!"
I get home ten minutes later, and the Basset Hound is sitting on the living room carpet. She looks at me with an expression that says, "Where ya been?"
Stupid dog ran straight home, and ran through the open door, past Lisa, into the house.
I'm tellling you, she doesn't like the 10 Freeway.
Collectively, both my and my wife's backs went out, from sleeping on an old, lumpy Queen-sized bed i.e. mattress that needed to go two years ago. So a week ago we went to Sears, and looked at beds. Why not just get a new mattress? Well, if you're gonna fork over that much money, you might as well get a bigger e.g. a King-sized bed; so we picked one with a nice, hard mattress that will support our backs.
So far, so good. During the week that we will have to wait for the delivery, I resort to sleeping on the floor, to avoid waking up with a backache. Sometimes I crash on the couch, but that only works if I meticulously arrange the pillows in a configuration that will support my lumbar spine. The process of placing and aligning the pillows correctly requires the patience and skill of an origami master.
The Sears sales lady told us that we would get a phone call on Tuesday night, after 6:00 p.m., which would inform us what time the delivery guys would swing by on Wednesday, so I had to tell my boss, "I don't know, maybe I'm coming to work, maybe I'm staying home, maybe I'll have to leave early. I don't know...it's a mystery...I'll let you know when I find out."
Isn't that nice?
So Monday night we get an automated phone call from Sears tellling us that we will receive a phone call Tuesday night, which will be the phone call. I spent the rest of Monday night disassembling the old Queen-sized bed, and hauling all of its components out to the recycling bin, where I leave it out in the open. Hey, if somebody would like a perfectly good wooden bed made out of Norwegian pine, hand-crafted by nordic elves at an Ikea factory, they're welcome to it. I finished at 2:00 a.m., both hands covered in cuts and scrapes, dried blood all over them.
So of course, they never called on Tuesday.
Now it's late Tuesday night, Sears is closed for the day, and we're rummaging through the paperwork to see what that phone number is. The only phone number on the receipt is for the local Sears at the mall, where we bought the mattress. Fine, I'll call them tomorrow morning, and see if I get lucky, and can go to work.
Next morning we all wake up, I drive the kids to school, and park at the train station. Sitting in the car, I call up Sears, hoping that they might be open, and someone will tell me to stay home. I get a computer that tells me that the store is closed, but one of the options is "push 4 for deliveries" and it turns out that I could have called last night, and gotten the same information: they are coming between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.
Between 11:00 and 1:00 ??? Are you people out of your &^%$! minds?
That is the perfect time of the day to completely rob somebody of a productive day. There would have been no point in going in and leaving early, and dittto for going in late and leaving late. Sears wants me to sacrifice a whole day of my life, so that they can deliver one piece of furniture.
I don't think so.
So I called back, and talked to an operator, a very nice-sounding lady who was clearly in the Phillipines, despite her pseudo-WASPish name. I think she claimed to be Charlize Theron or Charlene Tilton. Needless to say, the phone line was horribly staticy, and I had to keep shouting at her to repeat everything, and of course her idea of repeating something wasn't to repeat that one word that I didn't hear: she would repeat everything, and when she got to that one word I had never heard the first time, of course the line would fade out again, and I would miss that same word again, and we repeated this torture over and over and over again until my head was spinning.
So she asks me when I would like to re-schedule.
I DON'T WANT TO RE-SCHEDULE. YOU NEED TO COME OUT TO MY HOUSE TODAY, AND NOT FROM 11:00 TO 1:00!!!
"Okay," she says, "I'll have the drivers call you up."
I tell her, "They need to call me up right now. Right away. I am on the train, going in to L.A., and I need to know when I need to leave work." You see, at this point I already suspected that Sears had a serious Charley Foxtrot going on, so I headed to work.
Two and a half %^&$! hours later my cell phone rings with a 909 area code phone number. The caller identifies himself as the delivery truck's driver. He indignantly huffs that he is in my driveway, and how come I'm not there to let him in?
Maybe because your momma didn't have any children that lived?
So, having spent two hours at USC (But damn, they were two productive hours. Probably the most productive meeting I've been to in 2 or 3 years. We hashed out what's wrong with one of our programs, and sketched out the changes we're going to make.), I ran up the hill, hopped on the bus to Union Station, and caught the 12:20 (noon) train home.
Got home to Claremont, and had enough time to haul the old mattress out into the driveway, re-arrange the furniture in the bedroom, vacuum the room, and re-rearrange the furniture. Awsome. My back is feeling pretty good today, so I am vacuuming with vigor, gusto, and panache.
Riiippp! I am squatting, one hand firmly gripping the vacuum cleaner, and my pants rip in half.
At the crotch.
In front.
The Sears guys show up. One of them rings my front door, one of them rings my back door, and one calls my cell phone.
All at the same time.
Me and the Basset Hound are running around in circles, chasing our tails.
They broguht everything in, assembled it, and within minutes I had a bed the size of the USS Enterprise's landing deck set up. Tonight I will sleep like a king.
The phone rings.
"Hi Tom, it's X, your neighbor."
"Hi, X!"
"Hey, listen, Tom. I know you and your wife...well um...there's a really nice wood bed out by the recycling bin. You guys should go out and grab it, before it's gone."
I'm pretty sure a jury would have acquitted me.
All right, everybody leave. I'm going birding. I drive to Prado to look for a Bald Eagle that's supposedly really easy to find. It's raining, so they have closed the park, and locked the gates. After half an hour of standing outside the locked gate, staring at the lake, and praying that the Bald eagle will fly by, I give up, and drive home.
Boy, I am really looking forward to sleeping in our new, firm bed.
The wife shrieks, "You're not sleeping on that bed until we buy a mattress protector. If we don't use one, it'll invalidate the warranty!"
So let me get this straight: I pay $2,000 for a new bed, and you want me to put a plastic or rubber sheet on it that will make me hot, sweaty, and itchy?
Really?
The wife hisses, "I'll find one that fits the requirement, but doesn't make us sweat. Better yet, you go out to the store.
I do not want to go to the ^&%$! store to look for some obscure item that nobody has, and will have me driving all over California on a dark, rainy night. I am tired. I worked my ass off this weekend in the ER, I was up until 02:00 removing the old bed, and dammit, I want to sleep in my new $2,000 bed, because I am tired of sleeping on the floor!
So I slept on the floor in the kids' room.
Oh, wait, let me back up: Remember when I lost my wallet last summer? Well, I can't find my wallet. So I check the car. Twice. I check my brown courduroy sport coat. Twice. I check my backpack. Thrice.
"All right, well the rain has stopped, I'll walk the dog to Starbucks, where I bought you a mocha last night, so you could stay up, doing school work. Hopefully, I left my wallet there."
She says, "No, just call them up." She gets their number off the internet. The phone rings and rings and rings. No answer.
I know why they don't answer the phone at that Claremont Starbucks on Indian Hill Blvd off the 10 Freeway:
Because that tall kid with enough hair to supply a village of bald men is always on the phone, and yes, it's a personal phone call, because I eavesdrop on his conversations while he's making my drinks.
Every time.
So I grab the Basset Hound, and walk her under the 10 Freeway to Starbucks.
Did I mention that that freeway underpass, with all of the cars honking, and making left turns scare the shit out of her? My dog Gina is neurotic. She doesn't bite mail men; mail men bite her. So I get to Starbucks, and instead of firmly securing her leash to the rail, like I always do, I just casually drape the loop of her leash to the door handle.
Bad idea.
I walk up to the Starbucks counter, and I can't get the tall kid's attention, because HE'S ON THE &^%$! PHONE, AS USUAL.
A cute girl with a smokin' hot body jumps up, and says, "Oh, look at that cute dog!!!"
Yeah, that happens now that I am married, and have kids. Where was she when I was single, and lonely???
So of course she opens the door, the loop of the dog's leash falls off the door knob, and the Basset Hound takes off like a bat out of hell. I am wearing red shorts, white sneakers, and a camouflage Bundeswehr German army jacket (they are warmer and lighter than American rain gear). It is commuting-home-from-work time, and there are zillions of cars, everywhere. The dog is now running up Indian Hill Blvd, crossing red lights all over the place, and I am running after her, full tilt. You have never seen a fat guy run that fast in your life. If anybody filmed it with their cell phone, please post it on Youtube, so that the NFL can offer me a job. I have speed and bulk.
A hundred yards into the chase the drawstring on my shorts gave way, and my pants fell off. Now I'm running while holding onto my pants.
I lost Gina.
Oh, shit. My wallet's missing, I can't sleep on my ^&%$! $2,000 bed, and now I lost my dog.
I call home, and when Lisa answers, I scream, "LISA, OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT NOW!!!"
I get home ten minutes later, and the Basset Hound is sitting on the living room carpet. She looks at me with an expression that says, "Where ya been?"
Stupid dog ran straight home, and ran through the open door, past Lisa, into the house.
I'm tellling you, she doesn't like the 10 Freeway.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Snap, Grackle, Pop
Okay, so this is a Common Grackle:
And this is a Great-tailed Grackle:
So...what's the bird on the right?
Look at how different their bill shapes are.
There was another Great-tailed Grackle with this weird bill shape on the lawn (that male had a larger tail).
Bonus bird. Take a good look, before they go extinct in California, or at least, in LA County:
And this is a Great-tailed Grackle:
So...what's the bird on the right?
There was another Great-tailed Grackle with this weird bill shape on the lawn (that male had a larger tail).
Bonus bird. Take a good look, before they go extinct in California, or at least, in LA County:
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
A Wild Goose Chase
Well, it's January, time to study ducks, geese, and gulls in the arctic California winter. So I slapped on shorts and a t-shirt, and headed out. Weird Goose Number One hangs out at Earvin Magic Johnson Park. Clearly, this bird is half Anser and half Branta.
I called it half Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)-half Greater White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons). Norm Vargas says that looking at the shape of the bird's size, and how at rest its tail points upwards, he thinks the bird is half Graylag Goose (Anser anser). This appears to match Kevin McGown's pictures of hybrid geese on the East Coast.
For comparison, here are a Cackling Goose, Branta hutchinsii leucopareia (formerly the tiny race of Canada Goose) and a Greater White-fronted Goose feeding among the Canada Geese in the same flock at Magic Johnson Park:
Notice on the Canada Goose in the bottom left of the photo, below, that its head and bill have different proportions, and the actual shape of its head is different. On Canadas, the bill slopes continuously with the face, while on Cackling, the bill sticks out from the face:
I just had a pair of Cackling Geese calling in flight at Legg Lake, and they sound really different from the familiar Canada Goose call. For a well-produced in-depth recording that compares their sounds, click here.
And now, for a Weird Gull:
Start counting gulls that are standing up along the edge of the concrete wall, ready to jump into the water. The 2nd one from the left puzzled me for the following reasons: Yes, he sorta kinda looked like a Western Gull, and he was in the middle of a flock of Western Gulls of various ages, but his body was noticeably smaller than the other Western Gulls, and his bill size and shape was proportionately smaller and thinner (even when compared to other immature Western Gulls). Any thoughts?
Weird Goose Number Two really threw us for a loop. We were on an organized field trip at Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, which is inside an active U.S. Navy base.
We were looking at a large flock of Canada Geese a couple hundred yards in the distance, partially obscured by a grassy knoll that was two or three feet high. Susan Gilliland and I simultaneously noticed a swan among the geese. The swan had a white head and neck, with a black bill. Looking at the size of the bird's body, and its bill's shape, we assumed it was a Tundra Swan, and not a larger Mute or Trumpeter Swan. It would stick its head up, look around, and duck back down. We drove closer, and stayed inside the van, to avoid spooking the birds away. These pictures were taken through the tinted glass side window of the van:
If you can't see the bird very well, click on the photo, and it will come up on a separate page, in a larger size. Here's another one of the same bird:
I have no idea if this Canada Goose is merely a leucistic genetic mutant, or merely a hybrid.
Hey, there was a Reddish Egret on base:
The bushes on the left side of the picture below held Belding's and Large-billed Savannah Sparrows, along with at least one Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow. The previous week, three Nelson's were seen.
View is looking northeast, towards 10,000 foot high Mount Baldy, 56 miles away. Well, okay, it's actually 10,068 feet high.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
WHY PEOPLE HATE COPS
So I took the 4:20 p.m. Metrolink Train out of Union Station, tonight, and three LAPD Bicycle cops got on with me. They parked all three bicycles against a rack designed for two. Sure enough, the third bike fell over sideways while the train was rolling down the tracks, and I instinctively tried to catch it, pulling my wrist backwards the wrong direction (the pain went away after ten minutes, and no, I’m not suing LAPD). Two hippies got on at El Monte, and things went downhill from there.
First, an explanation of how things work on the train: The Metrolink trains ride all over southern California, and they (Metrolink) have a big, fat juicy contract with the L.A. Sheriff’s Department to provide security on the trains. I discuss this at length in my novel Amateur Hour. I think the LA County Sheriffs even go into Orange and San Bernardino Counties as part of their train duties. Somebody let me know if I’m wrong. Tonight’s incident happened entirely in L.A. County. That said, there are a lot of cops who commute to work on Metrolink trains, and guess what? If you wear your police uniform, and carry your gun, you get to ride for free! That’s right: the numbnut with a gun who gets on in Claremont with me in the morning, and gets off in Claremont with me at night doesn’t pay the $246 a month that I pay, because he’s a cop. Among said lovely freeloaders are LAPD cops, County Sheriffs who have nothing to do with Metrolink (they work as bailiffs in the courts, or at the Twin Towers [très Tolkienesque] jail in downtown LA), and even campus police from USC, UCLA, and Cal State LA. If I wore scrubs and my i.d. that showed I work in a hospital (okay, two hospitals, so that would be 2 i.d. badges), would I get to ride for free? No? Why not? Isn’t working in an ER an important function that makes society safe and predictable?
But I digress.
So, what happened was the two idiot hippies got on the train at El Monte, and Idiot Hippie One had a vaguely pit bull mix dog on a tattered leash, while Idiot Hippie Two had a big fat adult tabby cat draped around his neck. The train was crowded with commuters going home from work in downtown LA, so Dumb and Dumber couldn't find a place to park their pot-smoking, unemployed, unwashed asses. The LAPD bicycle cops saw them, but didn’t bother, because (a) the train is not their jurisdiction, and (b) they were off-duty, on the way home, so dealing with people violating Metrolink’s pet policy would have been a complete waste of time. Enough said. Dumb and Dumber eventually disappeared upstairs, but a few stops later, in Covina, they came marching back down stairs, and stood at the door, ready to get off the train. I glanced at them, and marveled at the fact that they got on and off the train with an unmuzzled dog and an uncaged cat without inicident.
Well, they almost made it off the train. Dumb looked to his left, and said to someone unknown and unseen to those of us on the train car’s first floor, “Bro, we’re already getting off the train. You don’t need to talk to me like that.”
I realized that there was a sheriff’s deputy standing on a stair above Dumb and Dumber.
By the way, people call them ‘sheriffs’ but there is only one sheriff in any county. In the modern world sheriff is just a different title for the chief of a county-wide police department that calls itself a sheriff’s department, instead of calling itself the county police department.
So here’s the part where thanks to my fully functioning frontal lobe, I didn’t wind up in jail, tonight: Dumb and Dumber were already getting off the train, because Deputy Dog was kicking their asses off, for violating da rules. The sheriff’s deputy had “won”. There is no other verb to use because, unfortunately, confrontations between most police officers and civilians are always a “battle” that the cop “has” to win. That’s how they see the world. It’s that siege mentality that modern police chiefs (including LeRoy Baca, the LA County Sheriff). The problem with this “I have to win every battle” mentality is that it leaves no room for compromise, thinking, or long-term solutions. Oh, yeah, and it makes people hate the cops. So, like I said, the deputy had accomplished his goal: the two hippies were peacefully, quietly obeying his order to get off the train. I didn’t hear what he said to the kid, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. Let me emphasize: I don’t fucking care. I don’t care because whatever the deputy said to the kid clearly took someone who has already been humiliated in public, and took him one step further, where he felt the need to mouth off to a cop.
Still, Deputy Dog had things under control, but no…Little Miss LAPD Bicycle Cop had to stick her big fat nose into the situation—a situation (battle)—that was already resolved. She jumped up from her seat, ran up to the hippie, and ripped into him for mouthing off to the deputy. She was loud, aggressive, and in his face. The hippie was a dumb kid; he wasn’t some gang member with tattoos and big arm muscles. He was a docile idiot who was already compliant. Her behavior was totally uncalled for because (a) Deputy Dog didn’t need her help, he had it under control, and (b) she was being an asshole about it. Had she said something like, “Deputy, do you need our assistance?” or some other words that would have let the two hippies know that they were surrounded, I wouldn’t be writing this. Again: the deputy never needed her help in the first place. But, on top of that, her choice of words and behavior were unprofessional.
I got pissed. Seriously, the ACLU dues-paying part of my heart was enraged. I was sitting there, with one leg crossed over the other, wearing reading glasses, with The Fellowship of the Ring in my hands, and this angry female cop was being a complete asshole. It really took a lot of restraint on my part to not rip into her for being an unprofessional shithead. I knew while I was sitting there that if I opened my mouth, she would do that bullshit thing that cops do: threaten to arrest me. So now I was double pissed, because the reason I kept quiet was that my wife and two kids were expecting me to get home from work, and the last thing my wife expects is to get a phone call from me in jail.
The train doors opened, and the hippies got off without incident. I fumed in my seat for the next three stops, and stomped off the train in Claremont. As I’m writing this, I’m pissed at the cops. All cops. And this is coming from a guy who is a law & order liberal who is personal friends with cops in three different departments. These cops are guys who I really like, and I don’t see them as being overly macho idiots with badges. They’re smart, and thoughtful. Tonight, though, that doesn’t matter, because I am seriously pissed.
Let me make something very clear: I had no sympathy for those two unwashed hippies until Bicycle Barbie went postal on them.
My parents snuck out of Communist Hungary during the height of the Cold War so that they could live in a free country where people aren’t afraid of the government.
Or the cops.
First, an explanation of how things work on the train: The Metrolink trains ride all over southern California, and they (Metrolink) have a big, fat juicy contract with the L.A. Sheriff’s Department to provide security on the trains. I discuss this at length in my novel Amateur Hour. I think the LA County Sheriffs even go into Orange and San Bernardino Counties as part of their train duties. Somebody let me know if I’m wrong. Tonight’s incident happened entirely in L.A. County. That said, there are a lot of cops who commute to work on Metrolink trains, and guess what? If you wear your police uniform, and carry your gun, you get to ride for free! That’s right: the numbnut with a gun who gets on in Claremont with me in the morning, and gets off in Claremont with me at night doesn’t pay the $246 a month that I pay, because he’s a cop. Among said lovely freeloaders are LAPD cops, County Sheriffs who have nothing to do with Metrolink (they work as bailiffs in the courts, or at the Twin Towers [très Tolkienesque] jail in downtown LA), and even campus police from USC, UCLA, and Cal State LA. If I wore scrubs and my i.d. that showed I work in a hospital (okay, two hospitals, so that would be 2 i.d. badges), would I get to ride for free? No? Why not? Isn’t working in an ER an important function that makes society safe and predictable?
But I digress.
So, what happened was the two idiot hippies got on the train at El Monte, and Idiot Hippie One had a vaguely pit bull mix dog on a tattered leash, while Idiot Hippie Two had a big fat adult tabby cat draped around his neck. The train was crowded with commuters going home from work in downtown LA, so Dumb and Dumber couldn't find a place to park their pot-smoking, unemployed, unwashed asses. The LAPD bicycle cops saw them, but didn’t bother, because (a) the train is not their jurisdiction, and (b) they were off-duty, on the way home, so dealing with people violating Metrolink’s pet policy would have been a complete waste of time. Enough said. Dumb and Dumber eventually disappeared upstairs, but a few stops later, in Covina, they came marching back down stairs, and stood at the door, ready to get off the train. I glanced at them, and marveled at the fact that they got on and off the train with an unmuzzled dog and an uncaged cat without inicident.
Well, they almost made it off the train. Dumb looked to his left, and said to someone unknown and unseen to those of us on the train car’s first floor, “Bro, we’re already getting off the train. You don’t need to talk to me like that.”
I realized that there was a sheriff’s deputy standing on a stair above Dumb and Dumber.
By the way, people call them ‘sheriffs’ but there is only one sheriff in any county. In the modern world sheriff is just a different title for the chief of a county-wide police department that calls itself a sheriff’s department, instead of calling itself the county police department.
So here’s the part where thanks to my fully functioning frontal lobe, I didn’t wind up in jail, tonight: Dumb and Dumber were already getting off the train, because Deputy Dog was kicking their asses off, for violating da rules. The sheriff’s deputy had “won”. There is no other verb to use because, unfortunately, confrontations between most police officers and civilians are always a “battle” that the cop “has” to win. That’s how they see the world. It’s that siege mentality that modern police chiefs (including LeRoy Baca, the LA County Sheriff). The problem with this “I have to win every battle” mentality is that it leaves no room for compromise, thinking, or long-term solutions. Oh, yeah, and it makes people hate the cops. So, like I said, the deputy had accomplished his goal: the two hippies were peacefully, quietly obeying his order to get off the train. I didn’t hear what he said to the kid, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. Let me emphasize: I don’t fucking care. I don’t care because whatever the deputy said to the kid clearly took someone who has already been humiliated in public, and took him one step further, where he felt the need to mouth off to a cop.
Still, Deputy Dog had things under control, but no…Little Miss LAPD Bicycle Cop had to stick her big fat nose into the situation—a situation (battle)—that was already resolved. She jumped up from her seat, ran up to the hippie, and ripped into him for mouthing off to the deputy. She was loud, aggressive, and in his face. The hippie was a dumb kid; he wasn’t some gang member with tattoos and big arm muscles. He was a docile idiot who was already compliant. Her behavior was totally uncalled for because (a) Deputy Dog didn’t need her help, he had it under control, and (b) she was being an asshole about it. Had she said something like, “Deputy, do you need our assistance?” or some other words that would have let the two hippies know that they were surrounded, I wouldn’t be writing this. Again: the deputy never needed her help in the first place. But, on top of that, her choice of words and behavior were unprofessional.
I got pissed. Seriously, the ACLU dues-paying part of my heart was enraged. I was sitting there, with one leg crossed over the other, wearing reading glasses, with The Fellowship of the Ring in my hands, and this angry female cop was being a complete asshole. It really took a lot of restraint on my part to not rip into her for being an unprofessional shithead. I knew while I was sitting there that if I opened my mouth, she would do that bullshit thing that cops do: threaten to arrest me. So now I was double pissed, because the reason I kept quiet was that my wife and two kids were expecting me to get home from work, and the last thing my wife expects is to get a phone call from me in jail.
The train doors opened, and the hippies got off without incident. I fumed in my seat for the next three stops, and stomped off the train in Claremont. As I’m writing this, I’m pissed at the cops. All cops. And this is coming from a guy who is a law & order liberal who is personal friends with cops in three different departments. These cops are guys who I really like, and I don’t see them as being overly macho idiots with badges. They’re smart, and thoughtful. Tonight, though, that doesn’t matter, because I am seriously pissed.
Let me make something very clear: I had no sympathy for those two unwashed hippies until Bicycle Barbie went postal on them.
My parents snuck out of Communist Hungary during the height of the Cold War so that they could live in a free country where people aren’t afraid of the government.
Or the cops.
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