What it's Really Like in the Pacific Northwest Town of Eureka

Breaking the Law III, August 24, 2007:
Don't bother breaking the law in the Eureka area.  It's already broken.  At least law enforcement is. Yes, there's an echo in here.  ...there's an echo in here.  ...echo in here.  ..here.

As I mentioned two days ago, a man died after being arrested for displaying symptoms that could have indicated Oxygen Deprivation, Diabetes, Congestive Heart Failure, Head Trauma, or any number of other ailments - instead of having an ambulance called for him.  It turns out that "any number of other ailments", (my words), includes, massive LSD overdose.  We may never know whether someone spiked his food or drink, he suicided, or he overdosed unwittingly.  That's because neither bystanders nor police officers obtained medical help for him.

Following the example of Eureka's previous Chief of Police, (you know, the one who unwittingly ordered his officers to hang up on the besieged mental patient with whom they were beginning to negotiate), the current Chief has stepped into something deep and smelly just before putting his foot in his mouth.

He claims in that article that the overdose, '"reaffirms my view that the officers of (the) EPD acted appropriately when faced with a violent, incoherent, combative individual,”'  Speaking of incoherent, aren't "violent" and "combative" redundant?  "Violent" is the criminal law term, while "combative" is the medical term describing violence as a symptom.  At the end of the article, while they aren't redundant, the Chief once again mixes legal and medical terms, "violent" and "impaired", when he says, '"Mr. Cotton was so highly impaired and his actions so violent that it was impossible for law enforcement to subdue him peacefully.”'

While Chief Garr Nielsen claims that his officers "acted appropriately", he knows darn well that the man they arrested needed the medical attention that they didn't get for him.

As I mentioned on the 18th, almost a year ago, my wife was in a collision on a very lonely road, and the police report incorrectly stated that she caused the accident by passing unsafely.  Just how incorrect could a California Highway Patrol police report be, you may wonder?  This incorrect:

This report:

1. Was written about three weeks after the accident, rather than within 8 days, as the officer indicated it would be. Enough time passed meanwhile, that the officer could easily have forgotten details of the accident, or even confused them with other accidents he may have reported.
2. Falsely stated that she gave her speed at the time of the collision as 30 to 35 miles per hour, when she told the officer and others that her speed while driving on South Jetty Road was 20 to 25 miles per hour, and that she had slowed while approaching the other vehicle from behind.
   1. Considering that the marked speed limit on this road is 25 mils per hour, if she had indeed told the officer that sheI was going faster, why didn’t he cite her, or even admonish her, for speeding?
      1. Lacking any explanation for this on the report, we must conclude that the officer did not cite her then, because he changed his mind about how fast she was going at a later date, without explanation, and then put his conclusion into her mouth.
3. Falsely stated that she caused the accident by passing unsafely.
   1. If she had indeed passed unsafely, thereby causing an accident, why didn’t the officer cite her, or even admonish her, for passing unsafely?
      1. Lacking any explanation for this on the report, we must conclude that the officer did not cite her then, because he changed his mind about the cause of the accident at a later date, without explanation.
4. Falsely indicated on a diagram that the point of first impact on the other vehicle was the fender, when the first point of impact was clearly on the driver’s door.
5. Omitted measurements of skid marks and any other evidence concerning the speed and location of the vehicles.
   1. The road was so narrow that two cars cannot pass without at least one of them pulling at least partially off the road, which the other driver had done. Skid marks, showed that impact with his vehicle pulling back onto the road forced her vehicle off the road and into low sand dunes.
6. Omitted destruction of evidence by the other driver by dismantling damaged parts of his vehicle.
7. Omitted results of testing both vehicles’ turn signals to determine whether they were functional.
8. Omitted most of the officer’s interview with her, including:
   1. That the other vehicle had pulled to the right side of the road and stopped.
   2. Her use of turn signal while passing.
   3. That she slowed while passing the stopped vehicle.
   4. That the other vehicle did not signal for a turn while she was behind it, where she could have seen the signal.
   5. That the other driver refused to exchange driver's license info as required by state law.

Now, after I have found so much fault with this CHP report, you may wonder, do I have a bias concerning CHP officers?  Probably.  One of my favorite cousins is a local CHP officer, and I'm sure he knows the officer who wrote the report.

Ever since Eureka City Police shot a mental health outpatient to death in the process of doing a "welfare check" on her in lieu of Humboldt County Mental Health doing it themselves, some people in Eureka have become afraid of the police.  Since another man died in jail a few days ago, two hours after being arrested for displaying symptoms that could have indicated Oxygen Deprivation, Diabetes, Congestive Heart Failure, Head Trauma, or any number of other ailments - instead of calling an ambulance for him - a lot more people are scared of the police, and more of them are becoming vocal about it.

I'm scared of the Eureka City Police coming to my home too, and I don't even live in Eureka.  For one thing, since I could dropkick a football to Eureka City limits from my house, saying that I live outside Eureka seems like a technicality.  For another, it's fairly common to see various Eureka City employees show up in the 6500 block of my street in Fields Landing, under the impression that they are in the 3800 block of a street by the same name in Eureka.  So far, that has not included the police - that I know of - but it's a mistake just begging to happen.

And wouldn't you know - I'm a Humboldt County Mental Health outpatient, a Diabetic, and have Congestive Heart Failure.  That puts me at triple risk for dying at their hands.

You may wonder why Eureka city employees would confuse Fields Landing with Eureka.  Apparently this is another of those issues that I thought I had already explained, but hadn't:  Just about any digital map of my neighborhood is wrong.  I wikied that here.  To illustrate how it affects city employees, search for 3800 Spring St., Eureka on Yahoo Maps.  That's Fields Landing you're looking at.

My apologies for not getting back here the next day - or the next. A worse-than-usual migraine, along with other issues, interfered.  Hopefully, I'll be able to return tomorrow, to write about how these inept maps brought crime to my neighborhood, and how it apparently affected the County Sheriff responding to it.

Addendum:

Earlier news reports about the man who died in jail two hours after being arrested failed to mention that he'd only been realeased from the very same jail two hours earlier after being held there for a week.  That begs some questions:

1. Was he a habitual jailbird?
2. Was his poor health caused by his previous stay in jail?
3. Was the last week of an innocent man's life spent in jail?

Being dead, under the Constitution of the United States of America, he cannot be tried for the charges for which he was arrested on either occasion.  Therefore, he cannot be found guilty, and therefore, he must legally be presumed innocent.  Therefore, he was arrested on false grounds, and his arrest - as opposed to hospitalization - resulted in his death, and it was manslaughter.

If he did in fact commit the crimes for which he was charged, then the people of the State of California have been denied justice by those who caused his death.

So Cheesy a Caveman could do Better, August 18, 2007:
Yes, I'm a GEICO customer.  Yes, I'm ashamed.  The thing is, their malpractice put me and my wife over a barrel.

Once again, I thought I had already explained my view of something, but I now cannot any place where I had described my view of GEICO's"caveman" commercials. So here goes:

My Archeology professor explained that Neanderthalenses were genetically no more different from modern black, white, oriental, or Amerindian people than modern black, white, oriental and Amerindian people are from one another. This is a racial issue. Just ask The Angry Black Woman. 

Moreover, the ridicule is being directed at people who have no opportunity to refute it. I would like to think that GEICO's motive for doing the commercials was to rectify that matter. However, I am thoroughly convinced that their motive was to sell insurance.

However, that is not the entire sum of what I have to say about GEICO.  Even if I Quote from where I wrote about GEICO on my other blog last year,  I still have unpleasant things about them left unsaid:

• We've been paying through the nose to these guys for 11 years, and now that we have a claim, the settlements they're offering won't even finish paying off the wrecked car!
• We're disabled and on a fixed income, so we can't afford to accept a settlement that would take the car away from us, and leave us continuing to pay for a car we no longer have!
• All that does is blackmail us into refusing their settlements and continue driving around in - and making payments on - a totaled car for two months!
• Making GEICO commercials; so easy, a gecko could do it!  Thanks for nothing, you bloody green Gecko!

After we'd made payments - totaling around $1400 - on a totaled vehicle for four months, GEICO finally gave us a settlement that would allow us to pay off the totaled car.  We demanded that they add reimbursement for those payments to our settlement, because their procrastination forced us to make those payments, but GEICO refused.

It is clear to us that GEICO's commercials claiming that their claim settlements are the quickest are false advertising.  Every time we see one of those commercials, it comes across to us as harassment.

No, I'm not done yet.  I mentioned at the beginning of this post that GEICO's malpractice put me and my wife over a barrel, and I haven't explained that yet, have I?

What GEICO did after the settlement is go, along with the other driver's insurance company, before an arbitrator without our knowledge, our consent, or our evidence from the accident scene that would have proven that the officer's report was incorrect in placing blame for the accident upon my wife.  The result, as GEICO explained to us afterward, was that the arbitrator found that the accident was her fault, it would go on my wife's driving record, and the arbitrator's decision was final.

The result of that going on my wife's driving record makes the cost of changing insurance companies prohibitive.  Of course, the first fault for the officer's incorrect report lies with the officer.  I hope to write about law enforcement officers tomorrow.

I should have known there was a major earthquake somewhere around world, but when I feel that ill, I tend to forget such things.  Actually, I did think of it, and tried to check the USGS web site for quakes, but I could only get the California-Nevada page to come up.

When I finally got to look at USGS' World earthquake map, sure enough, there'd been a magnitude 8 quake near the shore of Peru, along with about two dozen aftershocks near it in the magnitude 5 and 6 range. There has also been a flurry of magnitude 5 and 6 quakes around the Pacific rim from about one day before the Peru quake, and continuing to the present.

That means that our local risk of earthquakes is a bit higher than usual, right now.

I thought I had explained that around the time that long-wave vibrations, (about 20 seconds, peak to peak), from earthquakes around the world arrive where I am, I get ill, but I can't find where I did so, so I must assume that I didn't explain that.  The one symptom I seem to suffer most often is feeling feverish - even though I don't have a fever. I some times suffer sneezing attacks, much like hay fever. I may feel anxiety or pressure in my head, or have a migraine, which may lead to nausea or worse.

Then again, I frequently suffer such symptoms on the full or new moon, especially if there is an eclipse.  And some times, I really do get hay fever or the flu.

In Eureka, high school students who are misfit enough that they don't learn well are sent to a remedial school named Zoe Barnum High School. The last I heard, the location of this school was up in the air, because it was to be moved to a new campus, and just about any neighborhood that's nominated for its new location is immediately up in arms.

Meanwhile, Zoe Barnum High School seems to still be in the old location. Viewing this location on Wikimapia, one finds that someone has suggested  renaming it, "Zoe Carter High School in honor of the character on EUReKA".  Someone else suggested not doing so, apparently because, "Zoe Barnum was a great ventriloquist." (That's more than I knew about Zoe Barnum.)

All this occurred before it was revealed in last night's episode that Zoe Carter's IQ is 46 points higher than her dad's.  (Don't tell him that - she didn't.)  Therefore, even though I would love to infer that either of these conflicting suggestions was meant to imply that the students at Eureka's remedial high school are closet geniuses, I have failed to do so.

However, I don't think that the failure of the people making these suggestions to imply such a thing should be held against them or their suggestions.  After all, most of the ideas acted upon in this world that turn out the best usually do so for reasons other than those for which the ideas were originally suggested.

One person wants the name of Zoe Barnum High School changed to Zoe Carter High School. The other wants to keep the present name. Are we ready for a high school with two names?  How about Zoe Barnum - Zoe Carter High School?

Since I've already asserted that most of the ideas acted upon in this world that turn out the best usually do so for reasons other than those for which the ideas were originally suggested, I decline to say why I think this is a good idea.

EUR^eKA is Back, July 25, 2007:
EUR^eKA is back with new episodes, and I'm back with new posts about what it's really like here.  Yes, I've been gone a lot lately, but not for that long!

The fact is, as interesting a place as Eureka is, I'd already written about so many of the interesting things around here that in order to maintain a daily blog about Eureka, I had resorted to writing about things that were more political than interesting.

A little over a year ago, I mentioned that my opinion of politics is such that I would never accuse anything as intelligent as a piece of wood of being involved in politics. That means that writing about politics not only bored me, but it left me so depressed that I simply left this blog out to dry for 10 months.

If you understand how damp the weather is in Eureka - not unlike certain parts of EUR^eKA during this week's episode - hanging something out to dry can take a while.  You remember that weird light that some times would come out during the day time and slowly creep across the sky from east to west?  I haven't seen it since I came back from Frisco this week.

I've come to the conclusion that if I am going to maintain this blog, my schedule for updating it will be dictated by the occurrence of interesting things to write about, rather than a clock or calendar.

Out in the Cold by Winter, September 29, 2006:
Out of the blue, Preston Properties, the owners of the building that houses Flea Mart by the Bay, has announced to the vendors that the Flea Mart will will close on November 30. That is such rotten timing, both for the vendors and for shoppers, that it's nothing short of a disservice.

Closing the Flea Mart only one week after the beginning of the gift shopping season deprives the vendors of their best opportunities to move the merchandise of which they must otherwise dispose when the Flea Mart closes, and to recoup the costs of doing business during the dead months of the summer, and of the thousands of dollars of gift season stock in which they've invested during the year to prepare for this season.

It also deprives the people of Eureka and surrounding communities of a low-cost gift shopping venue on which they have come to depend for the past 20 years, in the height of their shopping season, and of a venue for holding their yard sales indoors, out of the weather.

The news article in the Times-Standard quotes a local activist as expressing doubt that the closure is related lawsuits brought a contamination lawsuit that activists have brought to court. I can quote a former Flea Mart vendor as saying, "Yeah, right!"

What's more, that goofy round light has been drifting from east to west across our sky all day again! That's because the easterly winds that have dragged air from the hot end of Sacratormento Valley across the Coast Ranges and across the forest fires in the Trinity Alps on its way to the coast, also pushed all of our precious fog out to sea. The smoke from the fires is only the thinnest haze by the time it arrives here, but the smell of wet ashes was strong this morning.

Around the 15th, District Attorney Gallegos fired Dikeman.

Around the 20th, Dikeman was named Prosecutor of the Year by the California Narcotics Officer's Association.

I wonder who's more embarrassed, the DA who fired the Prosecutor of the Year, or the association that gave a racist their award?

Some woman he met there impressed him so thoroughly with her ability to change the subject several time during the same sentence, that he realized by the time he found his way out of there, that he was fortunate to do so in one piece.

Apparently, the homeless population there has swollen since they lost their camp sites at Sequoia Park. However, an overly optimistic, six-year-old Northcoast Journal article reveals that their presence there is nothing new.

Come to think of it, some of the folks around here would like to cut down some cellular towers themselves.

I don't know exactly what their constraints are, but if I were them, I'd try to place the transmitter and broadcast antenna on top of Humboldt Hill, with one of the cellular towers.

While I must agree that '"it's very dangerous to drive with only one hand on the wheel"', most drivers successfully use one hand to operate various other apparatus within the car, and in some cases, may be required by law to do so. The problem isn't about something of which most of us are equipped with two, such as hands, eyes, or feet, but with something of which most of us are only equipped with one, such as a mind.

Bearing in mind that some people's minds can't even cope with walking and chewing gum - let alone talking - at the same time, what makes anyone think that such people can cope with driving and talking at the same time? When trying to drive while talking, they have been a menace to other motorists since long before cellular phones were invented. The difference now is that with the availability of cell phones, such drivers are now doing much, much more talking while trying to drive!

The problem of moronotorists distracted by talking while driving has been with motorists ever since there have been motorists. It isn't going to be solved by regulating the technology by which drivers do their talking.

Likewise, in agricultural areas, Gout may be most consistently suffered among ranchers who subsist upon their own herds as well as deriving income from them, since many kinds of meat are high in purines, which encourage Gout, and also, among some of the poor, because many dried legumes also contain purines.

However, here in Eureka, Gout may be most consistently suffered by those of us who derive subsistence from Humboldt Bay, because seafood, especially shellfish and mollusks, but also many kinds of fish, are higher in purines than most other foods.

I'm currently suffering the worst attack of Gout I've ever suffered, after eating more crab than I can usually get. Ow, ow, Ouch!

The Times-Standard and the Eureka Reporter have quoted contradictory testimony from the inquisition as to whether Cheri Moore had her flare gun in her hand when she was shot. I am very pessimistic about the usefulness of this inquest, since no evidence presented within it may be used in court. However, Times-Standard columnist David Cobb expresses this pessimism as well as I ever could.

He also tells of an opinion piece that I never saw, and cannot find, in which a member of the Eureka Police Department, "went on to accuse anyone who might be critical of the police of wishing to further some political agenda". As much as I despise politics, if that's so, the EPD can take that propaganda and shove it.

Still, I would much rather have written about the local newspapers.

The crowning achievement of these efforts was the increasing numbers of endangered salmon that were able to return to Klamath River to spawn every year. According to a San Francisco Chronicle article, the 2002 salmon run was the eighth largest since the late 70s.

That was the same year that a federal judge allowed attorneys hired by various special-interest groups to use his courtroom as a forum for legalized malicious slander and libel against the salmon of the Klamath River, and decided on their behalf that the salmon of Klamath River didn't need their water, and therefore gave it to the drained former headwater lakes of the Klamath River and their pet farmers. The result was the most disastrous kill-off of an endangered species the nation has seen.

That was four years ago. That means that California has had four years to prepare for the disastrously small run off salmon up the Klamath River this year. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and California Department of Fish & Game have been telling California for four years that come this year, there would be almost no commercial salmon fishing season, without which commercial fishing on California's northern coast simply can't survive.

Those were four years that the legislature of California has had to prepare to help California's fishing industry to survive this disaster. However, the California legislature was much too busy designing financial and electric power crises and blaming the governor for the crises and having him recalled, to possibly find time to prepare for a crisis that they didn't even have to bother designing, thanks to the federal government.

In fact, I'm forced to admire such a monumental exercise of restraint that California's legislature must have exercised to go through the motion of legislating the state for four whole years without doing anything to prepare to help the north coast's fishing industry to survive this disaster. The feat of waiting until California's newest governor was practically begging them to do something about the disaster now that it's already happened, only to say no to him and then somehow contrive to blame him for their failure to act, is such an act of malicious slander and libel that it rivals that of the attorneys who argued in federal court that the fish didn't need their water.

Back in the days of Class D FM radio stations, when just about any non-profit organization could find a quiet FM broadcast channel, apply to the Federal Communications Commission for a broadcast license, obtain a 10 watt FM broadcast transmitter, and go on the air, two different high schools in Modesto had student-run radio stations. There were similar stations at other high schools and colleges up and down the San Joaquin Valley, Modesto was the only city in the nation with radio stations at two different high schools.

Broadcasting was such a fascination for me when I was young that I transferred from one high school to another, just so I could participate in the broadcasting program. It wasn't as if the schools with the radio station wouldn't share it with other schools. While I was with that program, our radio station repeatedly invited other schools to produce programming for us to broadcast. I was even aware of that before I transferred, and tried to get my first high school to participate. The staff of my first school would say it was a great idea, but they simply weren't interested enough to go to the trouble.

It's taken several extremely bureaucratic years to set up KKDS at Blue Ox Community School in Eureka, but the station went on the air this week. The entire community seems excited about it; all the local newspapers, and even some not so local have covered the story. It remains to be seen whether the excitement will sustain itself long enough for other schools and community groups to really get involved, or it will simply seem like nothing more than a great idea after a while.

One article in the Eureka Reporter claims that the station already has programming available from some other high schools, even though most of the school's mentioned aren't even within the radio station's broadcast range. Even the broadcast range claimed in the article is overly optimistic, as it quotes one of the station's co-owners claiming that it can be heard, "rom McKinleyville to College of the Redwoods". I live closer to the station than College of the Redwoods, and cannot hear it here, or anywhere along my route to and from the college. Considering that Humboldt Hill lies between KKDS and my location, I would have been surprised if I could hear it.

Two Newspapers, or One? August 30, 2006:
Some time back, Eureka's second daily newspaper, the Eureka Reporter began broadcasting its subscriptions to just about everyone for free. This isn't broadcasting in the sense that someone reads the news to us over the TV or radio, but broadcast in the sense that if anyone in the community is no longer reading the news, it's because they're too lazy to pick the paper up off the ground and open it. It wouldn't be the first time newspapers were offered for free, because the Northcoast Journal is free, (you simply have to pick it up from a rack), and the Tri-City Weekly is delivered free to everyone, (but all it contains is advertising).

However, Eureka Reporter is the first daily newspaper I've seen delivered to everyone without cost to the recipient. One recent issue contained a solicitation for donations, but the solicitation made it clear that if you do not donate, you will still receive the paper as a gift. Apparently, that includes everyone from Scotia to Trinidad, since the paper includes news from those towns and all the others, in between.

The free newspaper has been controversial ever since it began publishing a couple of years ago, because although it does sell advertising space, the only way that it can continue to publish for free is that it is subsidized by its owners.

As a result, many people view the Eureka Reporter as the voice of Mr. and Mrs. Arkley, and to this day, people write grumpy letters to the editor of the Eureka Reporter telling him that. Likewise, to this day, the Eureka Reporter prints every one of those letters, if for no other reason than to prove them wrong.

Depending entirely upon their own biases, local people view the unsolicited newspapers that arrive in their front yards every day either as unnecessary litter, and the content within it as redundant, or as a defeat against ignorance: If anyone in this area capable of reading doesn't know the local news, it's their own fault for not picking it up and reading it.

While allowing writers of letters to editors to vent their arguments, the editors of both papers have quite wisely kept their own thoughts to themselves on this topic. Any argument made by the editor of either paper is quite likely to seem incendiary. Besides, these editors can make their points without saying a word, as in the example of Eureka Reporter defeating the argument that it only prints what its owner wants printed by printing all the letters to the editor making that claim. Likewise, The Times-Standard could prove that a second newspaper is redundant by printing every viewpoint and covering all news.

I learned at CR, (College of the Redwoods), today that two of my professors collaborated on an article promoting an event in which the college is involved. If the Times-Standard had printed their article would have suggested that the Eureka Reporter is redundant, because the event was sponsored by the owner of the Eureka Reporter, but they didn't print it.

The result is that at the beginning of every semester, numerous serious students are turned away from classes that are full of people who will be back to couch potato mode within a month, and will have to park in outer Siberia most of the semester, because people who have no intention of finishing the semester are hogging the best of the parking spaces.

I hope that our football team comes up with something better than this strategy this season, because last year, the team's performance stunk, and the program was dominated by scandals:

Every six months the murals will change. He said he only meant the Schooner mural to be a temporary one and he thought that was OK.

Does the Design Review Committee really expect the owners of businesses to obtain design reviews of every temporary external design to be placed on a building? Must they apply for a permit for temporary designs they want on the front of their buildings during every holiday or season they want to feature?

Have a look at the picture that the Eureka Reporter is carrying on their site of a mural that was recently painted on the back of a local business. Now, I'm going to act like an art student trying to be positive about what I see there:

The background color is very pretty, and the other colors go with it well, but the design is so busy that if it's actually meant to resemble something, I'm hard put to guess what it might be; perhaps a steam locomotive that's trying to jump a canyon at 88 miles per hour?

To be fair to the artist, I'll point out what's really wrong with this picture: The accompanying news story doesn't tell his side of the matter, just other people trying to second-guess him. I couldn't find any mention of United Future on the Times-Standard web site. I'm totally in the dark about what the artist meant this to look like.

However, none of the second-guessers quoted in the article suggested that one thing the artist should point out, if he'd been asked, is that since the Design Review Committee sent the Approval or Removal notice to the owner of the property - not to the artist - it is clearly the property owner's responsibility to obtain approval for such a design change. Of course, the contract between the artist and the owner should have said so, but the story neither confirms nor denies whether it did.

Another document that should been provided, but apparently was not, is a design proposal. How on Earth can either the owner know whether he will like the design without any kind of preliminary sketch, or the Design Review Committee approve a design that they haven't seen?

That having been said, many, many artists simply cannot predict how a design will finally look, because they only learn that themselves, as they work. I'm one of them, so I understand that. At the same time, I understand that certain people need to choose a design before they approve it, particularly committees. (I've repeatedly stated my viewpoint of committees, including quite recently.) The result is that most artists cannot design for committees, and most committees aren't suitable for approving artistic design.

The way to work around that is by the artist building a portfolio, and the owner or the committee - if indeed there must be one - should review the artist's portfolio to see if that artist's type of work is suitable.

If the artist who painted this mural doesn't have a portfolio, he needs to start by taking pictures of this mural - before it gets painted over.

A worthless town if ever there was one, filled to the gills with meth-heads, junkies, losers, burnouts and human trash. All bids for civic legitimacy and political clout fail miserably and immediately. Home of idiotic local politics, terrible local bands, greasy dining, ugly prostitutes, underachieving children, and very little culture.

Drive through. Don't stop. Keep driving.

However, it seems that most anyone is allowed to edit that, so you can be just as sure that I'll leave a rebuttal there, as you can be sure that someone else will edit it afterward. To make sure my rebuttal doesn't spend all eternity in the bit-bucket, I'm preserving it here:

Rebuttal:

It was unfortunate that the Frisco Bay Area thought it would be funny to circulate a rumor among their homeless that the Humboldt Bay Area has the best homeless benefit services, and then offer free one-way bus tickets to their homeless, under a so-called "Homeward Bound" program. Since Humboldt County can't even afford a Homeward Bound program, much less the level of homeless benefits to which Frisco's homeless were accustomed, for the numbers of homeless people that the Bay Area sent here, the Frisco Bay Area's Homeless will simply have to make their way back to Frisco as best they can.

It's also unfortunate that the hapless homeless are forced to forage in the bins behind Mickey Dee and Chihuahua Bell, but their foraging might be less greasy if they take note that certain dumpsters are marked for biodiesel recycling efforts.

If you can't afford tickets to this weekend's Jefferson Starship concert, I don't suppose you could have afforded to see them in any other venue, either.

If it makes any difference, I don't vote either, but that's my personal choice. If you want to vote, you'll have to establish a home address before you can register. I'm terribly sorry that you can't afford one of our Victorian mansions, but I'm afraid you won't afford one in Frisco, either.

When you leave, please, please, please, be sure to take your wife and children with you. If you hide them behind some bushes, maybe one of those motorists driving through will be foolish enough to stop long enough for all of you to pile into the car.

In 1984, federal agencies had successfully "deregulated" the telephone industry in the United States. Despite having the advantage of observing how that "deregulation" gave numerous competing phone companies a fighting chance while preserving divisions of the previous monopoly in such condition that they could continue to compete, when California attacked its electric utility monopolies, the Legislature insisted that it be done in such a way as to cripple all of the major utility companies, taking their electrical generation capabilities away from them, and creating an even more malicious electrical generation monopoly from which all utilities must then purchase electricity; a monopoly that then held electrical power for ransom, pushing California's utility companies to the edge of bankruptcy while the state refused to allow them to recover increasing costs by increasing prices.

I wish I could say, as I said yesterday, that perhaps forsaking politicians, going to Hollywood, and electing a movie star as Governor of California is the voters' way of retaliating against the Legislature, but I may as well be honest today. The real reason that California's previous Governor was recalled, and a movie star voted in to replace him is that both the Legislature that botched up both California's electric utilities and the state's budget, and the voters who were foolish enough to vote that Legislature into place, needed a scapegoat.

In case you're wondering by now, I don't vote. I don't appreciate any of the political jokes, and I'm not about to vote for any of them.

It's been a while since I ranted about committees, so it bears repeating, along with special consideration for the size of this particular committee: A committee that's so large and is given so much authority that it becomes a legislature is a genetically programmed swarm that only forms when the collective stupidity of a group of people any smaller would not suffice. This is an effect of the most recently discovered, and heaviest chemical element known to man, Governmentium:

Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 11 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since governmentium has zero electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction in excess of 4 days to respond when it would normally take less than a second.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 3 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a restructuring in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each shuffle, so to speak, will cause some morons to mix with neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."

I assume that Governmentium was discovered at EUR^eKA.

The practical application of these forces in California is the habitual tardiness of ratification of the state budget. The purpose of this is to annoy California voters, who reach Critical Morass, get fed up, forsake politicians, go to Hollywood, and elect a movie star. In the 60s, it was Ronald Reagan. This time, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger. For quite some time, I assumed the point of this was the Legislature using the Governor as a scapegoat, but perhaps it's the voters' way of retaliating against the Legislature.

As this Friday's Eureka Reporter article points out, Trinity County Animal Control officer Christine Edwards receives around 1,800 calls in one year, she's the only Animal Control officer, and responding to an issue in Mad River from Weaverville would take half of her workday - for the driving time alone. When she's on a day off, Sheriff deputies have to fill in, and on some days, Trinity County Sheriff Lorrac Craig only has one deputy to cover all 3,200 square miles of Trinity County.

Could Humboldt County's Sheriff's office get by with only one office, one Animal Control officer and only one deputy on duty? Should we imagine that the people of Trinity County are happy that their county does? Trinity County is suffering even worse from California's budget cuts than Humboldt County is, because many funds are dispersed according to population, and Trinity County's population is roughly one tenth the population Humboldt County has.

I usually don't write about things here that aren't in Eureka or EUR^eKA, or at least in Humboldt County or Vancouver Island, so I at first thought that I wouldn't be writing here about the poor puppies from Trinity County.

However, since the dogs did wind up at Miranda's Rescue in Fortuna, and as of this writing Trinity County's newspaper has yet to even mention the controversy about the dogs that has been ongoing at least since last November, and numerous people in both Fortuna and Eureka are terribly upset about the situation, I'm going to treat it as a local issue.

If you cannot cope with reading about animals being traumatized by neglect and abuse, you are advised to not read the rest of this entry.

In November 2005, a letter was sent by a law firm in Eureka demanding that Christine Edwards, Trinity County's Animal Control officer report the abuse and neglect of dogs in the town of Mad River to the Trinity County Sheriff and and District Attorney. On June 20, 2006, at the request of the law firm, Miranda's Rescue made its first attempt to check on the dogs' welfare, and were threatened with arrest for trespassing - by the Trinity County Animal Control officer - if they entered the property to see the dogs.

On August 11, Steve Frick, a U.S. Forest Service employee investigating dozens of dog carcasses dumped in Six Rivers National Forest, traced them to the property in Mad River, just inside Trinity County, easterly from Fortuna and northerly from Ruth Lake. There, he found dozens more carcasses of dogs, mostly inside their kennels and cannibalized by the surviving dogs, so all that remained was fur and gnawed bones. The only way to enumerate them was by counting skulls. Only 13 dogs were still alive, and one of them eventually had to be put to sleep, and another maniacally bashed its head against the walls of its kennel, after recovering the strength to do so.

Last week, the Animal Control officer told news reporters that she'd never been notified of concerns about the dogs, (WARNING: this links to grisly pictures of dog carcasses), but by yesterday, the newspaper's staff learned that was a lie when they were shown both the law firm's November letter, and the reply from Trinity County's legal staff, denying the problem.

As a federal law enforcement officer, Frick was able to call Miranda's Rescue to come and rescue the surviving dogs. A veterinarian has documented that the surviving dogs suffered from starvation. A video taken at the property where the dogs were found shows that all the water they had was green with algae. Heavily edited portions of that video are incorporated in an interview of Shannon Miranda of Miranda's Rescue, sparing us the most grisly scenes. Mr. Miranda says that if he ever sees anything this bad again, he may very well quit trying to rescue animals.

I can't blame an animal lover for only being able to cope with so much. At the same time, I have to remember that as bad as it is to observe such things, every time we observe something so horrific, someone or something else had to experience it first hand, and in this case, most of those who experienced it died of the experience.

Animal abuse charges may be limited to 13 counts, because it may be difficult to prove how the dozens of other dogs died. There is some confusion as to whether it is the Trinity County Animal Control officer or the Forest Service law enforcement officer that is pursuing felony charges. However, what really baffles many people in Humboldt County is that which ever one of them it is, both say those charges will be filed with the Trinity County District Attorney. Among the many people here who are upset about the situation, some hold the opinion that Trinity County has already shown itself to be incompetent to handle the matter, and that Trinity County's Animal Control and Sheriff's offices should be charged with the crimes as well.

Then, while fishing along the coast further south of Eureka with some friends who were snorkeling for abalone, I learned what really caused the decimation of the abalone population. It was another group of snorkelers taking abalone, bringing limits of abalone to shore, where a woman in an early 60s model Dodge Dart would meet them in the bushes and drive away with their limits of abalone in the trunk, while they went back for another limit. By the time I was sure that was what they were doing, she had driven off with three limits each of abalone for the four men. After brining up the fourth limit, they all piled in with her and left. All this occurred while I was stranded on the shore, with no way to contact a game warden, and my friends were snorkeling.

Under their wet suits, each of the four men wore the Aw, Baloney Alliance's trademark orange T-shirts, and the woman wore another, giving them all the false appearance of being protectors of the abalone population. Of course, I wondered whether they were really members of the Aw, Baloney Alliance, but I also wondered where else they would get those trademark T-shirts. Someone with a legitimate connection to the organization had provided those shirts to them by some means, and therefore, either carelessly squandered their organization's reputation on these abalone poachers, or outright condoned what they were doing.

I already felt a load of contempt for nookyoolerists, but the Aw, Baloney Alliance was my soft spot toward their cause, and they had the potential to soften my attitude toward nookyoolerists. Instead, they added the cement that set up the concrete attitude that I now have toward them.

I still have an aging abalone shell in my possession, but I haven't seen a shell with an abalone in it since 1980, and although I took a few in the 60s, I forego taking them any more, because the thieving nookyoolerists already took my share, and quite a bit more.

According to the April 2006 National Geographic magazine, the most powerful Fission power plants under construction are in the one supposedly English-speaking nation whose dialect of English is most unintelligible to English speakers from any other country, India. Further, the only nation that currently generates almost 80% of their power from nuclear plants, and that actually has concrete plans for building the world's first functional Fusion power plant is the one European nation that Americans have most loved to ridicule during the Age of Terrorism, France.

If America doesn't lighten up on its most traditional and enduring ally across The Big Drink, before we know it, they're likely to find a way to equip the Statue of Liberty with nuclear-powered robotics in the middle of the night, and have her walk back home.

Meanwhile, controversy continues throughout the United States about what to do with spent nuclear fuel and associated materials. During my first incarnation as a college student in 1980, at Modesto Junior College, Bob Baxter, my then Geology professor suggested that such materials should be buried along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, so that the forces of plate tectonics would bury them deep for us, for millions of years.

Perhaps it's fortunate that his voice was drowned out by the raging masses, because we've learned a lot about the Cascadia Subduction Zone since then, such as magnitude 9 quakes. When I brought up the subject of burying spent nuclear fuel there during my Seismology class with Bob McPherson at College of the Redwoods, he didn't believe that we could build containers that could reliably withstand a magnitude 9 quake without leaking.

I had forgotten how red in the face and irrational some people got over Three Mile Island almost three decades ago, in 1979, particularly the kind of people who pronounce the word "nuclear" as if they really were illiterate, and as if they really did believe that a nuclear power plant could cause a nuclear explosion. I might have thought that literacy had improved in this nation since then, if only I could stop hearing people saying, "nookyooler". That includes the current President of the United States.

What's a guy to do, to stop hearing "nookyooler"; stop listening? As a matter of fact, I did tune out the Three Mile Island protesters almost three decades ago, after I'd heard the word, "nookyooler" too many times. I don't care how red in the face you get, or how unintelligible you become when you scream into a microphone. How much credibility can you expect to have, when you haven't even bothered to learn how to correctly pronounce the very subject of your rant?

I'm well aware that so many wannabe illiterates insist upon mangling the word nuclear that in the past couple decades some dictionaries have given in and started including variant pronunciations beside the correct pronunciation, (but never quite the way these people really say the word). That makes about as much sense as including the ebonic pronunciation of every word beside the correct pronunciation, something that no respectable dictionary would do, unless it was specifically meant to be an Ebonics or slang dictionary. Take it from someone who has authored almost 400 words at UrbanDictionary.com: That web site exists for a reason; The kind of words and pronunciations defined at UrbanDictionary.com simply don't belong in a standard English dictionary.

UrbanDictionary offers several variants of the spelling and pronunciation of nuclear, none of which really matches how most of the wannabe illiterate people pronounce it, which is, "nookyuller", but at least nookyooler comes close.

I also don't know what they were thinking, because every time I've placed a drive-through order at a Taco Bell, the high school kids behind the window got my order wrong, and they expect you to drive out to let the next customer drive up to the window before have a chance to inspect your order. I first noticed that when I was 8 years old in Graffiti City, and no matter which Taco Bell I was at, they haven't failed to live down to that expectation since.

It's also baffling that people will continue to pull into the line behind ten to fifteen other cars, in a so-called fast-food drive-through lane, or turn around and drive down the street to Carl's Jr., when there is absolutely no waiting in Taco Bell's lobby. I have no idea what to call this kind of mentality, but I've come to associate it with tourists from big cities. I'm sure you know the kind - unless you're one of them - who walk onto a beach and say things like, "this isn't really the ocean, is it?", or "I had no idea the ocean was so (expletive) big!"

If the reason that they would stay in their cars, rather than walk into the lobby where there was no waiting, was to avoid panhandlers, the tactic was a failure, because the "jerk", as my wife called him, approached every carload of people after they'd rolled down their windows, anticipating placing their orders. This of course, was after carefully hiding the expensive bicycle he'd rode on behind the walled enclosure where Taco Bell keeps its dumpsters. I couldn't tell you whether he was a homeless thief who'd ripped off someone's bike, or if he was one of our well-to-do local wannabe homeless, and the bike was really his.

The first words of wisdom I ever heard as a kid, about Chinese restaurants was, if Chinese people don't eat there, that's a baaaad sign. That was from my Dad, who admitted that because of tall tales he was told as a kid, he was biased against "Chinese", and that that included just about anyone with slanty eyes. When I was old enough to discern between information and propaganda, he even told me some of those tales. I don't anticipate repeating them here, unless I ever want to try to figure out the rationale of the bigots who ran the Chinese out of Eureka long before I was born. However, I still believe that if Chinese people never eat at a particular Chinese restaurant, that's a baaaad sign about that restaurant.

Despite there being fewer than usual Chinese people around Eureka because of the past bigotry, I usually see at least one oriental family eating at China Buffet. However, that did not prepare for what I saw there tonight. As my wife pointed out - and it's unusual for her to take such note - more than half the customers in China Buffet were oriental. My first reaction is that this is a gooood sign, and I continue to stand by that reaction.

I may be unusual for an American, because if I see Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Khmer, and Hmong people side by side, I can usually tell which are which. It helps that I tutored southeast asian refugees in the late 70s and early 80s. However, the clientele at China Buffet tonight threw me off for a bit, because most of them were doing their level best to blend with the Americans, even if their level best meant that the slogans on their childrens' sweatshirts consisted of Engrish, (English words that make absolutely no sense when arranged in those particular combinations), i.e., "ALL NEVER KID". I'm sure that made perfect sense in Japanese before it was given a literal translation into English.

I didn't hear a single word of English spoken by the oriental families sitting near enough to my own table for me to hear them. I also didn't see any of these people chatting up the restaurant staff. I gather from that, that even though this restaurant did not represent the cuisine of their culture, and the staff didn't speak their language, perhaps they felt more comfortable speaking their own language in a restaurant where the staff and many of the other clients are at least racially similar. Who knows, maybe they even liked the faux pagoda on the building's exterior.

One thing I'm sure of, by the time they reach Eureka, they've traveled some distance since the last place where they saw many other oriental people or decent oriental food, and China Buffet has the advantage of being right on Highway 101, as it enters Eureka from the north. I wonder if they've found Anna's Asian House, half a block off of 101 in Willits? It's worth finding.

Addendum: I forgot to mention my fortune cookie. It read: "You will be hungry again in one hour." Honestly, that's what it said!

One such in Eureka is the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses on Campton Road. However, the remodeling project started there this week is mainly to bring the building up to newer accessibility codes. Meanwhile, local members will attend meetings Kingdom Halls in Arcata,.and possibly Fortuna.

While Witnesses are known to build a new Kingdom Hall in as little as two weekends with only volunteer labor, their remodeling projects usually take longer, so this one is expected to be complete in a couple of months. Even so, the remodeling project will probably be finished long before the home is completely built next door, that was begun this spring. The back sides of both properties extend into one of the Redwood-filled canyons of eastern Eureka.

I would otherwise assume that "homemade commode" is Politically Correct language for "outhouse". However, this particular campsite was reportedly so sophisticated as to be lit by solar-powered lighting. When squatters become that sophisticated, I no longer know what I can assume about them. For all I know, they may have thought that this is EUR^eKA, and that they are therefore expected to be unusually technologically advanced. Then again, maybe they thought that they were in Arcata, and that someone would think they belonged there if they adopted Green technology.

The article also mentions that fire departments have responded to at least a half dozen human-caused fires in Samoa in only three days, and that in one case, an ingrate squatter threatened a fireman with a gun!

In other words, these jerks not only set their campsites on fire, but they're willing to resort to violence in order to avoid having the fires put out!

In case you're wondering where we come up with such kooks, I explained on May 24 that cities in the bay area had been busing them here, under a so-called "Homeward Bound" program that allowed homeless people a free bus ride to where ever they claimed they were from, (in reality, to where ever rumor had it that the best homeless services are).

It's becoming obvious that Humboldt County needs its own Homeward Bound program. In other words, we desperately need these criminally-inclined squatters sent back to where ever they came from. Humboldt County absolutely does not have finances to fund such a thing, but that doesn't stop Humboldt County from needing it.

Therefore, I'm not suggesting that Humboldt County offer a Homeward Bound program to any casual squatter - only to homeless people convicted of violence, petty theft, vandalism, arson, and the like - as a mandatory alternative to the expense of incarcerating these freeloaders.

As a matter of fact, if a diligent effort is made to find out who these criminals really are, and where the warrants for their arrest are, other jurisdictions will probably be happy to pay the cost of sending them back.

A foreigner convicted of crimes can be deported, so why shouldn't freeloading squatters convicted of crimes be sent back to where ever they came from?

Addendum: I saw one of the "toothless tweakers" today, standing in the edge of one of the southbound lanes of traffic on highway 101 in downtown Eureka, flipping off each motorist as we drove past. To be honest, I don't know whether he was a local or a squatter, and although I previously commented that "toothless tweaker" is a stereotype, this dork worked hard to earn that stereotype, daring everyone to run him over, just so he could sue someone for every penny they had.

Therefore, all I can do now is document that I am following through on my resolve. As usual, the beggar's story was the standard one about how he and his wife and baby are on their way through town and their car broke down. I think that's the same story that the squatters use 90% of the time, so it's getting a little old obvious that a story is just what it is, and it's more than a little tedious listening to it so many times.

Come to think of it, even the script writers of EUR^eKA used a variation on that story to wiggle their way into town; Jack Carter is driving his run-away daughter home from where ever she ran off to, and slams his car into a tree in order to avoid turning the sheriff's extremely persistent dog into road kill. Of course, he doesn't realize that the dog is part of a plot to intentionally lure him to stay in EUR^eKA. Jack Carter might also be homeless if it weren't for the ubergeeks in town assigning him the task of testing the beta version of their new housing project.

At right is a miniature of the USGS Aftershock Forecast Map, linked to the full-size version. As I write this, there are zones of higher aftershock probability southwest of Eureka and near Santa Rosa. This is because there was a magnitude 4 quake near Santa Rosa about a week ago, and a magnitude 5 quake southwest of Eureka about three weeks ago. This map is one of the more recent additions to the USGS web site, introduced some time last spring, so I gather that calculating the probability of an aftershock, after a local earthquake, is the state of the art in earthquake prediction. I also dare to say that it's the prettiest graphic on their web site.

Don't expect to see reliable predictions of new earthquakes, (not aftershocks), or local aftershocks of distant quakes any time soon.

However, seismologists do know that when a major earthquake occurs on one edge of a tectonic plate, the risk for more earthquakes around the edge of that tectonic plate increases, simply because you cannot move one edge of a rigid section of the earth's crust without disturbing the rest of that section of crust. For example, after the magnitude 9 December 26, 2004 earthquake on the eastern edge of the Indian Plate, having a magnitude 7.6 quake hit the west edge of the Indian Plate the following October was no real surprise. The problem is, no one could know that it would be in northern Pakistan.

Therefore, even a magnitude 6.8 quake yesterday at Vanuatu, since it's on the western edge of the Pacific Plate places a slightly higher risk of earthquakes around all the edges of the Pacific Plate. Whether that slight risk is even measurable is something that seismologists aren't ready to answer.

Nowadays, there is a new breed of savage, that views the way the farmers and ranchers use their land much the same way the farmers and ranchers viewed the way the earlier people had used it. The new savages, whom I will call city savages, for lack of a better description, not only don't understand how to use the land non-intrusively by only gathering and hunting what they need, they don't even understand how to intrude lightly upon the land by farming and ranching.

Good farmers understand that they need to let their land lie fallow, or at least rotate their crops from time to time so that the land can recover from supporting each crop that the farmer plants. If he doesn't, he has to fertilize the land instead. Likewise, a good rancher knows that he must move the livestock from one pasture to another from time to time, so that the land and the plants that live on it can recover from the grazing. This way, by intruding lightly upon the land, it at least continues to live.

City savages don't understand that, so when they see land lying fallow, it seems wasteful to them, and they resent that perceived wastefulness just as much as the savages of previous centuries resented the way the earlier people only took from the land what they needed. After a time, so many city savages have traveled across the land, observing how sparsely populated it is in the middle, that some of them start telling one another how wasteful the farmers are.

Of course, these days it isn't politically correct to call other people savages, so instead the city savage that's writing about the farmers for the other city savages to read, calls the farmers, "Welfare Queens", or "Welfare Kings", depending upon in which Op-Ed section you read it. Since he's complaining about how much room agriculture seems to him to be wasting, and ranching generally requires more room than farming, and he even mentions a, "buffalo farmer", in passing, I gather that he means both farmers and ranchers, when he identifies, "Welfare Kings", as farmers.

After complaining about the government decreasing the use of fertilizers by subsidizing fallow land, the city savage then claims that this somehow causes the fertilizer runoff that kills all wildlife in 6,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico.

Seemingly to his credit, the city savage complains about the forests and wetlands that were cleared to make room for farms, and asks how much cleaner the air and water would be if those forests and wetlands had been left intact. However, the true conclusion of his questioning is, 'who knows how many more dubious "wetlands" would be free for productive economic development?'

While he never comes out and actually says so, he insinuates from one end of his complaint to the other that farming is not economically feasible in the United States, so I gather that's not what he means by, "economic development". Rather, I believe that the city savages want to recreate rural America in the image of their cities, as so many of them have done already.

It's clear that just like the savages of yestercenturies, this century's savages have judged someone less savage than themselves to be more savage, and resent the fact that the people who currently have the land have it, rather than he having it himself. Yestercentury's tactic of simply massacring the people who already have what you want isn't politically correct any more, so it's interesting to see how today's savage will condemn yesterday's savage, and plunder his plunder.

I have little doubt that he will; "with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged", (Matt 7:2) Or if you prefer, "what goes around comes around".

Addendum: The risk for earthquakes near California's coast is slightly higher than usual right now. I hope to write more about that tomorrow.

The people already living here used the land in such non-invasive ways that it seemed to Europeans that the natives were wasting the land, so they claimed and occupied the native's hunting and gathering lands, building homes, planting crops, and raising livestock, and crowded the natives off their hunting and gathering lands. They continued to do so until all the animals the natives hunted and all the produce they gathered were replaced with fields and livestock.

With all the native produce and animals destroyed, there was nothing left to hunt but livestock, and nothing left to gather but crops, so those are what the natives hunted and gathered. After all, they were located on their hunting and gathering lands. Even the laws of the Europeans and their descendants recognize that when the branches of your tree encroach upon the land of your neighbor, the produce of those branches belong to the neighbor, and if the neighbor has the audacity to plant his tree on your property, he's trespassing, and if his animal damages your property, he's liable for the damage.

However, most of the white people of that time were a rather lawless lot, so when the natives hunted and gathered on their land, the lawless Europeans and descendents of Europeans called the hunting and gathering, "raiding", called the natives, "savages", and proved by their actions who were the real savages.

Crime costs society in general, and victims in particular, quite a lot, both monetarily and in lives. Therefore, incarcerated convicts are said to be repaying a debt to society. Unfortunately, incarcerating convicts also costs a lot. It cost so much that California is considering sending some of its convicts to other states to have them incarcerated.

As part of their rehabilitation, some convicts are allowed to participate in various programs in which they give a little bit back to society in one way or another, as well as to break the monotony of prison life. Generally this is a privilege reserved for convicts with a record of excellent behavior while in prison, and some of them who have a short time before release are sent to minimum-security prisons called Conservation Camps. Red and white buses, with "California Department of Corrections" written across the side take crews of about 14 of them to sites where they do project work of various kinds, fight wildfires, and assist with other emergencies. One such crew was working at a CalTrans facility near my home a couple weeks ago.

However, when a convict is sentence to life without parole, the issue of rehabilitation takes a back seat to punishment. He isn't intended to ever leave prison alive. Many of them become resentful, and even more hardened criminals. As a result, the leaders of the five largest prison gangs in california operate from California's most secure prison, Pelican Bay State Prison.

However, what if such an inmate has a change of heart and wants to give something back to society? According to a news article carried by numerous news agencies, one artist in Pelican Bay's most secure unit isn't allowed to have art supplies in his cell, so he makes his own paints from the colored shells of his "melt-in-your-mouth-not-in your-hand" candy, and his own paintbrush from his own hair. Then he mails his art to someone outside, who sells the paintings to start a program to benefit children of prison inmates.

I doubt that the money he raises equals the cost of incarcerating him, but at least he's doing something to benefit others. For a convicted felon, sentenced to life without parole, that's exemplary behavior. It should be encouraged, and held up as an example for the rest of the prison population.

Instead, the prison intends to punish him. If the reports are true, that the money is used to help needy people, someone needs to reconsider their priorities.

If only anyone had known that there was an active earthquake fault directly under that location, the nuclear power plant would hopefully have been built elsewhere in 1963, because after the fault was detected, the plant was shut down in 1976.

If only they'd known that the north fork of the Little Salmon Fault would have no serious quakes along it so far, they could have gone right on using that power plant to this day. Then again, if they had continued using it until this day, perhaps the crabs that I catch and the clams that I dig only a mile away from the plant would glow in the dark.

If only anyone had known about Little Salmon Fault, College of the Redwoods hopefully would have been built some place beside directly on top of it in 1964, as well. While the college hasn't been shut down yet, they did have to build a new building into which to move the college library, because the old library building, as nice as it was, straddles one of the two faults.

Even the college's Physical Sciences building - where I took Bob McPherson's Seismology class - straddles one of the faults, but for some reason the college hasn't been required to replace it.

If only... No, that's not right. I really did know that my new neighborhood straddles a fault before I rented my home. I didn't know that it was the south fork of the Little Salmon Fault, but the name of the fault would have made little difference to me. I moved here in 1999 any way.

That doesn't mean that the "can you hear me now" guy should venture very far into some Eureka neighborhoods, or out of town. A number of canyons cross the east side of Eureka, in which he'd be lucky to pick up a signal on Roam, and there are two curves that the 101 Freeway goes around before you even reach the College of the Redwoods turnoff, where no one can avoid losing their cellular signal, regardless which network they're using. It's a good thing Verizon offers plans with Free Roaming.

However, I'm told that most beaches along the north coast have no cellular service. There is a cell tower construction company that knows how to solve that problem and the Freeway 101 cellular issue, but they need funding to bring their expertise to our area. In exchange, they can offer a long-term residual income. If you're serious about that kind of investment, .

Instead, the word, "bigotry", has become a skunk word worldwide, by which any bigoted person can label any other person a bigot. As UrbanDiciionary.com states as an example of a skunk word:

If bigots only realized how bigoted they sound when they call other people bigots, probably no one would ever use the word.

I've mentioned that in historical Eureka, bigotry was strong enough to move the white majority to massacre an entire native american population and run the entire chinese population out of town. However, bigotry is quite alive and kicking much more recently in the area.

External decorations on the local synagogue were destroyed last September, and the same building was "tagged" with anti-semitic graffiti in January. Early last month, a sacred building belonging to local native americans was completely destroyed for the second time in ten years. Last time it was razed with heavy machinery, and this time it was burnt to the ground.

One doesn't even need to suffer vandalism to detect bigotry. While some racist bigots have enough decency to keep their crude remarks to themselves in the presence of people who are obviously the subject of those remarks - if for no other reason than to avoid being targeted by people who are bigoted against bigots - but some times the subjects of bigoted remarks aren't all that obvious, and overhear all manner of crude remarks about "their kind".

For example, members of most minorities here, as in most places in America, generally don't appear any different from the rest of the population unless they dress differently. As a result, a bigot isn't likely to recognize a person of Jewish or Arabic descent unless he observes the person in traditional dress, recognize a person with a psychological disorder unless he observes the disordered person having an episode of some kind or at a Mental Health or similar facility, or recognize a person of Muslim, Jewish, Mormon, or Jehovah's Witnesses' faith unless he observes the person at worship.

I can assure the bigots that minorities have very little difficulty recognizing "your kind" by the ignorant remarks that you make. In fact, I would find it quite easy to stereotype bigots as deaf, because every time I've heard a bigot ask whether any members of a minority about which he was about to make a crude remark was present, before making the crude remark in his presence, the bigot somehow failed to hear the present member of that minority say "yes", and later asked him, "why didn't you say so?".

However, I don't really think bigots are literally deaf. I think they're only psychologically deaf to people and opinions that differ from their own.

At the same time, I must also admit that I'm bigoted, for sure. I'm bigoted against bigots, so I think that only censorship should be censored, and since I'm such an unrepentant bigot, don't take my word for any of this. If all you've ever heard about a minority group is bad, try asking them, instead. Chances are, you'll learn that the reason why minority places of worship have few or no windows has more to do with the cost of repeatedly repairing the windows you used to vandalize than with those "secret rituals" you've heard about.

Maybe the parts of California that had the heat wave the past two weeks got jealous of our fog and sent this weapon up to steal it from us.

Then again, maybe I really have gotten a little too much of the shine from that light up there.

I've already written about Douglas Adams' comment about summer in New York being illegally hot if only New York had enough sense to legislate temperatures, only because he'd never been to California in the summer, and this summer's death toll from the heat in California fleshes out that point as if it were a cadaver. California's central valley, consisting of San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys is the deadly one, not the one in the national monument, up against the Nevada state line.

I'm sure that people die of heat in Death Valley National Monument from time to time, but never in these numbers - at least not in recent history. I said it last month, and I'll say it again, the rest of California should take a lesson from the northern coast, and stop wasting all their fog on the winter. Save some for the summer time, when you really need it!

As I hiked down the hill from the vicinity of Wildberries Market, I hardly noticed passing an unfinished mural along the side of some buildings. Perhaps the unfinished nature of the mural prevented me from getting its point. Then again, perhaps I was just oblivious.

At any rate, if there is nothing educational about the loud, noisy festival itself, perhaps people will be educated most loudly by this, quiet, soft-spoken mural, on their way to the festival. The mural is a volunteer effort by local teens organized by the Arcata Parks and Recreation Division and funded by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, but the person who is shouting most quietly from this mural is Haley Van Gemert, 15, because she is the mural's designer.

As environmentally green as Arcata is, both the HSU Biology Department and Arcata Environmental Service Department say that even Arcata has a problem with improperly disposing of toxic household wastes. This begs the question of how the rest of us are doing.

The Times-Standard article makes quite a point about how soft-spoken Van Gemert is. I can only imagine that this quality must have made quite an impression with people for it to become such a repeated theme within the article. I also doubt that this mural could whisper quite so loudly without such a designer.

I first realized that the bear was gone, when the foxes showed up. I don't think they like the bear, either. I never do see the skunk; I just know that he's around here, some where.

Anyway, the critters aren't the problem. They know exactly how to be which ever critter each one is, and having figured that out, they have very little brain to spare for much else. The problem is with people, some of whom are under the mistaken impression that how to be people includes interacting with wild critters.

For example, although I never did see the skunk, my step-son saw it, and the reason he saw it was that the neighbors next door, (the ones that came equipped with tiny tots with shrill, piping voices), had lured the critter up to their front door with tidbits, so that the tiny tots could see it close up. My stepson wisely proceeded to come inside the house, rather than stay outside and watch how it all turned out.

For another example, there is a family of deer that lives a couple hundred yards down the freeway from our off ramp. It's quite common to see two or three of them standing at the bottom of a steep draw, right beside the freeway, within a foot or two of the pavement, munching away at the profusely growing grasses and berries. They know very well that there is no grass or berries growing on the freeway. The only thing between the freeway and the bay is a railroad track, so the deer have no cause to cross the freeway. They mind their own business, which is to munch on the grasses and berries, and to produce a pleasantly surprising scene for anyone coming around the blind curve.

Fortunately, it's illegal to stop on the freeway, except for emergencies. What's more, unless one already knew that the deer were there, once you come around the blind curve at highway speed, you barely have time to say, "hey, there are some deer", before you've passed them. It just isn't practical or legal to stop and gawk, much less get out and try to interact with the critters.

Wouldn't you know, one day I'm coming around that corner, and someone has actually slammed on their brakes and left skid marks in order to stop before they got to the deer? Mama tourist, (at least she was acting like a tourist), had two tourist cubs outside the car with her and was leading them toward the deer, (dragging one of them kicking and screaming), with something presumably edible held out in her other hand toward the deer. The deer looked like they were quite alarmed by all of this, and ready to bolt. That's all of the scene I had time to assimilate before it went out of view behind me.

The next time I drove by, there were skid marks in the traffic lanes, and a deer carcass crumpled up in the center divider. I can only guess that the tourists all got an eyeful of carnage. Mama tourist had no one to blame but herself for spooking the critters, but if I know anything about two-legged critters, she undoubtedly blamed the screaming tourist cub, instead.

For yet another example, once again we can consider the skunk that I never see, but that I nevertheless know is present. The skunk has his own way of making me know, not only that he is present, but that someone or something is disturbing him again. What ever or who ever disturbs him does so frequently enough that I have to call it harassment.

To understand the next thing that I will say about someone or something harassing the skunk, you need to understand that, foul odors trigger migraines for me, the same way that bright lights trigger migraines for some other people:

Who ever or what ever has been harassing the skunk that lives between Fields Landing and Humboldt Hill, would you please, please, please, either but the blasted thing out of everyone's misery, or just leave it the hell alone?!?

Fore firefighters, one of the biggest challenges of fighting fire in an urban interface is that when homes are threatened, the firefighters can easily become so overwhelmed with protecting the homes that they don't have time to try to stop the fire from spreading. That's also extremely dangerous for the firefighters themselves, as they can easily become isolated from other firefighters, cut off from their escape routes, and surrounded by fire as the fire advances past their positions.

California has been suffering a heat wave the past several day - even Eureka has had clear skies and that unfamiliar round light passing across them from east to west - and that makes fire conditions explosive. We're fortunate not to have had any significant wildfires closer than the Weaverville area, but other parts of California haven't fared as well.

Now, for a change, the signs of a cooling trend have arrived at the northwest corner of California, in the form of our old friends, fog.and low clouds, so that light in the sky only peeked through blearily for a short time this afternoon. I missed these friends, and I'm glad to have them back. If the rest of California behaves, perhaps these friends will come to visit there, as well.

The moment in tonight's episode where this strikes one from Eureka most is when Susan, one of the two characters who were killed off by the end of last week's episode disturbs the daylights out of people who attended her funeral - and especially the one who killed her - by walking past them as they do lunch at an ultra-modern outdoor bistro. That outdoor bistro would fit just fine in Eureka's old town, if only all the structures around it had been built at least a hundred years earlier.

By the end of this week's episode, both of the characters who died in last week's episode are at least alive, if not well. However, both Walter, the other of the two, and their young son apparently don't know yet that Susan is not the same Susan that he married and with whom he raised their little boy. No, not at all! She's the real Susan. If that complicates Walter's life, he has no one to blame but himself.

Presumably having never watched Star Trek, EUR^eKA's protagonist spends most of the episode wondering if Susan and Walter are ghosts. Having watched as many episodes of various Star Trek series as I have, I spent most of the episode believing that the live Susan and Walter are from an alternate universe. It seemed so obvious. I have to give the script writer credit for pulling that on me. She's not from an alternate universe; she's just the real Susan, and he simply misplaced himself in time.

Likewise, if you watch EUR^eKA on TV, and then come to Eureka and expect to recognize the town, you'll find that it's the real Eureka.

If you want the person receiving your work to be able to print it out looking exactly like looked when you created it, (i.e. a document containing graphics in which graphics and text must align exactly right), then you have a valid cause for using the PDF file format, because different computers can easily render the exact same content differently.

If all your content is text, DOC and HTML file formats will be just fine, regardless of resolution, because the recipient's computer renders the font at his end, regardless how he received it. Just make sure you use a font that the recipient's computer has.

For that matter, HTML and DOC file formats will work just fine for most documents that include graphics; simply make the graphics at what ever resolution you want them printed, and don't optimize them for the web before you embed or link them in your document. Sure, you won't be able to see their high resolution on a computer screen, because the screen is limited to 72 to 93 dpi. The same thing happens when you view a high-resolution PDF file on the computer screen, except that in some cases, a PDF file takes longer to render, and looks worse on a computer screen.

Once the recipient's computer receives the high-resolution graphic file, it contains the full resolution of that graphic, whether it can show it on the screen, or not. What really matters is that the computer can send the full resolution of the graphic to the printer.

Meanwhile, I've observed over the years, current version for current version, that installing the Adummy Acrosplat Shread... er... um... Adobe Acrobat Reader software takes takes up twice as much room on a hard drive as installing a typical web browser, and the size of the files in the PDF format are generally 20 times as large as an HTML file containing the same content, while installing the MyCrudSoft Herd Screw... er... um... Microsoft Word Viewer application usually takes up less space on a hard drive than a typical web browser, (but it's still an extra application), and size of a DOC format file is typically only two to ten times the size of an HTML file containing the same content.

In both cases, recipients must separately obtain and install either the full version, or the reader version of the software, and then allow that software to be associated with the given file type, so that it can crash the web browser of their choice. (Acrobat Reader has crashed every browser I have ever run, (Infernal Exploder, Firesucks, Slopera, Netscrap, you name it), on every MyCrudSoft sWindles computer I've ever had.). Why? Because members of certain businesses, governments, and institutions, (including most agencies right here in Eureka, and a surprising number of businesses and school teachers too), are obsessed with publishing documents on the web in the DOC, or worse yet, the PDF format, regardless whether the recipients are likely to print them or not, and despite the fact that the recipients could print just as good a copy of text content, and even graphic content if it's formatted correctly, from an HTML file.

A few of us learned that we could create a "light" version of Acrobat Reader v. 5 that wouldn't take so long to start up, or to render PDF files, and wouldn't crash the browser as often, by deleting certain files from the program's folder - the software never missed them -, but that fix no longer works in subsequent versions. That's right! Most of the bloat in the Acrosplat bloatware is there to support features that practically no one ever uses.

Certainly, there are some people who have become accustomed to producing their content in applications that produce PDF files. Most of those applications are also capable of exporting the content as HTML, and even if some of them won't, all one has to do is publish the PDF file on the web just long enough for Google to list it, and then save Google's HTML version of it.

Why should anyone bother to produce an HTML version of a document? For the convenience of the end user. Why should tens, hundreds, thousands, or millions of people download and install problematical bloatware applications in order to display bloated file formats just so that the one person who produced it can be lazy and inconsiderate?

FYI to anyone who hasn't noticed, HTML is universal - the last time I had a computer that didn't recognize HTML, it was an Atari 800 - DOC files are almost universal now, but not quite - and PDF files are so '90s that they give me flashbacks of the era of the Sneakernet!

What ever the case, something worked right for them in the TV ratings; it looks like the series is a hit, because it broke some Sci Fi network ratings records, and made some other networks envious.

There have been sci fi sitcoms before. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Science Fiction lends itself well to humor; because both deal with situations that would be absurd if they were to occur in reality.

For those who missed the pilot showing, the Sci Fi network is continuing to show it at various times until the the next episode airs this Tuesday.

Apparently, that's not so. The city has waited until now, to let the ground dry, in order to avoid causing yet more damage during the heavier parts of the clean-up process. That is now in progress. A drawback of having the park closed to most public access is that without other people around to report them, vandals and squatters have felt free to move in and have a heyday in the forest, chopping down trees, busting up picnic tables, benches, and fences, setting various things on fire, defecating in public, filling the duck pond with debris, and marking up things with racist graffiti. (By "squatter", I mean a homeless person who takes up residence on public or private property where that is unwelcome.)

Thanks again to Mike Buettner for sending me a link to a slideshow that showcases some of the recent vandalism at Sequoia Park. Some of the debris shown is actually from the storm damage, but the debris is causing more problems than it would otherwise, because of what the vandals have done with it.

The solution that the city is working toward is getting the park open to the public - and law enforcement patrol - as quickly as practical, so that vandals and squatters won't feel so welcome there.

If any of those squatters read a particularly bigoted Letter to the Editor in today's Times-Standard, they may already be feeling a bit unwelcome. The writer, Edward Lee, repeatedly refers to them as, "toothless tweakers". It's rather clear that the writer stereotypes these people as the kind who've had just enough dental work done that they no longer have any teeth, and now that I think about it, I've seen quite a few homeless people in that condition.

I'm not so sure what's meant by, "tweaker", in this context, except that it's obviously derogatory. A search at UrbanDictionary.com reveals that the word "tweaker" can derogatorily mean:

• A compulsive liar, thief, or both.
• A speed or meth addict who has assumed the role of the drug; in other words, they lost their personality to the drug.
• A person that can't stay still and is constantly occupying themselves with meaningless activities which will never be be completed.
• An ex-deadhead or hippie who has fried their brain and is now living in the small, paranoid world of warped memories of a mundane adolescence. They communicate by spreading urban legends as "amazing" inspirational stories that align with their perception of reality.
• A number of variations and combinations of the above descriptions.

Come to think of it, I have seen squatters in all of the conditions described.

The letter writer goes on to describe these people as:

• "the very reason Eureka has such a bad reputation"
• "roaming around" in packs
• "offer absolutely nothing good to this community"
• increasing Eureka's crime rate
• robbing tourists
• ruining the community

To be honest, that's stereotyping and there are some homeless people who are truly harmless. However, most of them seem to fit at least part of the writer's description of them, and just by looking at them, you can't know which of them may be harmless, so I can't blame the writer for thinking that they all fit the descriptions he gave, or for wanting the city of Eureka to get rid of all of them.

Then again, there is a woeful segment of the "legitimate" local population that fits most of the writer's description, who may very well aggravate his opinion of homeless people by seeming to him to be part of the homeless crowd he's complaining about.

I'll try to address the specific problem of bigotry soon.

Addendum: I explained how some of the homeless people wound up in Eureka, on May 24.

The family is not from Eureka, but they own a summer cabin near Ruth Lake, east of Avenue of the Giants. Their letter to the Editor of a Eureka newspapers is a shot in the dark attempt to reach the thieves who robbed their family.

Part of the senselessness of theft is failing to consider the consequences that your actions will have upon the lives of your victims, as it had upon the few days that remain to a cancer victim.