Smoke to the left of me, smoke to the right

These photos were taken today from the same vantage point as the photo yesterday. The top photo was taken facing northwest and shows the Simi fire. The mountains are no longer visible because of smoke.

The next photo, taken from the same spot,  but facing northeast, shows smoke from the San Bernardino fires, which are over 50 miles away starting to clog the San Fernando Valley. The area I live in, Encino, has little smoke, but with smoke from two fires moving in, this may not last much longer …

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Attention spammers!

1) I am, in fact, already happy with the proportion and size of certain of my body parts and am unclear why lengthening would be of any appreciable benefit, if indeed this could be done - which of course it can not.

2) Concurrent with the above, I am not in the market for Viagra, and most especially, not in the market for “Viagra substitutes”, whatever that might be.

3) Absolutely, if I was going to re-fi my condo, a quite important financial decision, I would certainly do it with anonymous companies who tell me ten times a day, generally with misspelled words and grammar errors, why I should rely on them. 

4) Sending me the exact same email twenty times using a different phony name each time does not inspire my confidence in you nor does it fool me. This is especially true as I have six active email accounts, thus I get the same email with twenty different phony addresses at all six email accounts. Thanks so much…

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Baghdad bombs kill at least 43, injure 230

US President George W. Bush has vowed to stay the course in Iraq, after a series of bold attacks around the Iraqi capital killed 43 people and wounded more than 200 in the deadliest day for two months.

The five morning attacks which plunged the capital into terror and sparked worldwide condemnation were launched with two simultaneous blasts at the police stations in Al-Bayaa and Al-Dora, south of Baghdad.

Within barely an hour, explosions also rocked the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office, and three other police stations in the capital.

In response, Dubya, who must be drinking again, said the ferocity of the attacks were because we are winning. Uh huh…

At the White House, Bush said the escalating attacks were a reaction to US successes on the ground.

Should someone tell him the US is nowhere close to winning, that things get appreciably worse everyday? Will reality ever intrude into his little plastic PR bubble?

Six months ago much of the public either believed what Dubya said or gave him the benefit of the doubt. However his evasions, mistruths, and lies have become so blatant and obviously untrue that his credibility, judging from recent polls, is dropping precipitously and many who used to believe him no longer do.

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The fires

The Santa Ana winds

<Santa Ana> winds are born of weather systems out in the Great Basin, in high-pressure zones over Nevada and Utah. The cold, dense, moist air descends from the high deserts and mountains toward the Pacific Coast. It is funneled through canyons and passes, gaining speed and heat from the land.

As it drops to sea level, it can warm by 20 or 30 degrees and becomes very dry. On Monday, temperatures near the San Diego and San Bernardino fires reached the upper nineties, and the relative humidity was less than 10 percent.

The mountains

Mountains in Southern California are geologically young. They haven’t eroded much and thus have steep narrow canyons and gullies. Not only does this make getting fire trucks in a difficult task, the amount of brush and undergrowth in these areas can be stupendous.

Yesterday I hiked in about fifteen minutes on the outskirts of Topanga State Park to take photos of the Simi fire across the valley. The brush and vegetation is mostly dead and bone dry. But here’s what those who don’t live here may not know - in such areas you can’t wander off a fire road or trail because the brush is impenetrable. Such brush can easily be three feet high, and six feet high is not unusual.

Imagine thousands of acres of bone dry brush several feet high in areas so steep that walking off trail is difficult, if not dangerous. Then, imagine how fast and how furiously such areas would burn if ignited and how hard it would be to put it out.

NOAA interactive smoke plume map

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Newsweek: Bush’s Iraq mess driving voters to Dean

From Howard Dean’s blog

In this week’s Newsweek, Howard Fineman reports that President Bush’s failed Iraq policy–the centerpiece of an administration of deception and irresponsibility–may well be his undoing. “If presidencies are destined to crumble,” writes Fineman, “the cracks tend to appear first in the Granite State.” He profiles a New Hampshire Republican who has switched parties to vote for Howard Dean:

Hilary Cleveland of New London, N.H., goes way back with the Bush family. Her late husband, James Colgate (Jimmy) Cleveland, was a Republican in Congress, where his paddle-ball partner in the House gym was George H.W. Bush. Hilary served on the Andover board with Barbara Bush and was finance chair of Bush’s primary campaign in New Hampshire in 1980. She organized locally for George W. in 2000. But the other day, upset over the war in Iraq, she left the Republican Party, changing her registration to “undeclared” so she could vote for Dr. Howard Dean in the Democratic primary in January. “You don’t go to war without valid reason,” she said, “or international support.” Bush’s call for $87 billion in new spending on Iraq offended her Yankee sense of thrift: “I believe in fiscal integrity and balanced budgets, and spending so much doesn’t seem sound.”

The story also notes that Senator John McCain, who defeated Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire primary, has for the first time began to distance himself from the fiasco overseas:

“This is the first time that I have seen a parallel to Vietnam,” McCain declared, “in terms of information that the administration is putting out versus the actual situation on the ground.”

The same issue analyzes the cronyism and lack of vision that has turned Iraq into an $87 billion money pit:

Six months ago the administration decided to cut corners on normal bidding procedures and hand over large contracts to defense contractors like Bechtel and Halliburton on a limited-bid or no-bid basis. It bypassed the Iraqis and didn’t worry much about accountability to Congress. The plan was for “blitzkrieg” reconstruction. But by sacrificing accountability for speed, America is not achieving either very well right now. . .

Numerous allegations of overspending, favoritism and corruption have surfaced. Halliburton, a major defense contractor once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, has been accused of gouging prices on imported fuel.

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