One view on science, life, law, and being a skeptic

Louis, Me, and Dr. Richard Wiseman

2007-03-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

Louis, Me, and Dr. Richard Wiseman, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

In January, 2007, I had the chance to attend The Amazing Meeting 5, in Las Vegas. The Amazing Meeting was started by James "The Amazing" Randi a few years back, and is really the "skeptic-palooza" of the skeptical and magic worlds. Penn and Teller, the Mythbusters, radio hosts from NPR, writers from The Onion, Vanity Fair, etc., were in attendance, including a personal favorite of mine, Psychologist Richard Wiseman, from London, England. I asked if I could take a photo, and got my wish. Louis decided that was a good time for nose picking, apparently.

Snow White's Scary Adventures

2007-02-21T22:17:00.000-08:00

Snow White's Scary Adventures, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

Sometimes the "darker side of Disney" is surprising. These macabre figures and skulls are found under the eaves of the Snow White attraction at Disneyland, in Anaheim, California.

The Vatican - St. Pauls Basilica and Cathedral

2007-02-21T22:16:00.001-08:00

The Vatican - St. Pauls Basilica and Cathedral, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

Who needs a tripod? I set this on an old roman stone wall, set the self timer (to avoid shaking), and let the camera do its thing on the no flash setting. Click on the picture for a larger view.

King Arthur's Carrousel in motion

2007-02-21T22:16:00.000-08:00

King Arthur's Carrousel in motion, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

This shot I took when I brought my tripod into Disneyland. I experimented with different shutter speeds, none of them too long, but I did like this one best.

Latin spoken here

2007-02-21T22:15:00.001-08:00

Latin spoken here, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

This was the floor of the Monastery in Monserrat, Spain. Sometimes it pays to look at details.

Candles in Roman Cathedral

2007-02-21T22:15:00.000-08:00

Candles in Roman Cathedral, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

I saw this group of candles during our European vacation and didn't even think this photograph would come out, it was so dim and dark in there. This was one of my most favorite pictures of the entire vacation.

Monkey

2007-02-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

Monkey, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

This photograph was taken just days after I received my zoom lens. I just love the details (click on the photo for a larger version), and the beautiful blurred background. Thanks Canon, and thanks Costco!

Spiral Staircase

2007-02-21T22:12:00.000-08:00

Spiral Staircase, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

I found this staircase while exploring the beautiful Mission Inn in Riverside, California. For a time, this was my most interesting photograph on Flickr.

My obsessions for the past year

2007-01-17T18:42:00.000-08:00

Upward view, originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

Aside from my business, my funny son, travel, and my new DUI blog, I developed a renewed love for Disneyland last year. For my son's first birthday, we bought annual passes to Disneyland, and immediately started going every week. Eventually we upgraded to premium passes, which allow you to park for free, and go 365 days a year. From there, I met a group of people on Micechat, a fun Disney related message board, which led me to my newest obsession, photography. I bought a used Canon Digital Rebel XT on Ebay, and it takes amazing pictures. Take a second and look at my photos, won't you?

Diamonds ... A Diamond is...?

2007-01-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

First, and this is hard to believe, but its true, the largest diamond in the universe is actually floating out in space.

"Astronomers Find a Huge Diamond in Space
Fri, 13 Feb 2004 - Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have found a diamond in space, and it's big… really big. The object, technically known as BPM 37093, is a crystallized white dwarf star approximately 4,000 km across. It's believed that this is the final outcome for many stars, including our own Sun. In five billion years our Sun will become a white dwarf and two billion years after that the carbon should crystallize to form a gigantic diamond.

Image credit: CfA

When choosing a Valentine's Day gift for a wife or girlfriend, you can't go wrong with diamonds. If you really want to impress your favorite lady this Valentine's Day, get her the galaxy's largest diamond. But you'd better carry a deep wallet, because this 10 billion trillion trillion carat monster has a cost that's literally astronomical!

"You would need a jeweler's loupe the size of the Sun to grade this diamond!" says astronomer Travis Metcalfe (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), who leads a team of researchers that discovered the giant gem. "Bill Gates and Donald Trump together couldn't begin to afford it."

When asked to estimate the value of the cosmic jewel, Ronald Winston, CEO of Harry Winston Inc., indicated that such a large diamond probably would depress the value of the market, stating, "Who knows? It may be a self-deflating prophecy because there is so much of it." He added, "It is definitely too big to wear!"

The newly discovered cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallized carbon 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus. (A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, or about 6 trillion miles.) It is 2,500 miles across and weighs 5 million trillion trillion pounds, which translates to approximately 10 billion trillion trillion carats, or a one followed by 34 zeros.

"It's the mother of all diamonds!" says Metcalfe. "Some people refer to it as 'Lucy' in a tribute to the Beatles song 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.'"

The diamond star completely outclasses the largest diamond on Earth, the 530-carat Star of Africa which resides in the Crown Jewels of England. The Star of Africa was cut from the largest diamond ever found on Earth, a 3,100-carat gem.

The huge cosmic gem (technically known as BPM 37093) is actually a crystallized white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon and is coated by a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.

For more than four decades, astronomers have thought that the interiors of white dwarfs crystallized, but obtaining direct evidence became possible only recently.

"The hunt for the crystal core of this white dwarf has been like the search for the Lost Dutchman's Mine. It was thought to exist for decades, but only now has it been located," says co-author Michael Montgomery (University of Cambridge).

The white dwarf studied by Metcalfe, Montgomery, and Antonio Kanaan (UFSC Brazil), is not only radiant but also harmonious. It rings like a gigantic gong, undergoing constant pulsations.

"By measuring those pulsations, we were able to study the hidden interior of the white dwarf, just like seismograph measurements of earthquakes allow geologists to study the interior of the Earth. We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy's largest diamond," says Metcalfe.

Our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's ember core will crystallize as well, leaving a giant diamond in the center of our solar system.

"Our Sun will become a diamond that truly is forever," says Metcalfe.

A paper announcing this discovery has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters for publication. "

Secondly, the Skepchick reports in her blog about "LifeDiamonds", that is, Diamonds that are made from the recently deceased.

"A few weeks back, I wrote about how I am not a fan of diamond engagement rings and of diamond jewelry, in general. Mostly, this is because I have some moral apprehensions about the way the diamond industry is run. However, I am going to speak out in support of the artificial diamonds created by a company called LifeGem. This company makes artificial diamonds from the cremated remains of deceased humans and animals. The vice president of the company recently came here to MIT to give a talk as part of the geology department’s Diamond Seminar Series. The artificial diamonds the company makes are really beautiful and, clearly, they carry a large amount of meaning for the people who order these diamonds.

At first, the idea of turning your loved one into an expensive artificial diamond may sound a little crazy. I mean, I can just imagine an attractive, middle aged woman out on a date. Her date comments on her beautiful diamond earrings, and she replies, “oh, yes. I turn my deceased ex-husbands into diamonds.” There is a little bit of a creepiness factor to turning dead relatives into diamonds, I must admit. I mean, would Elizabeth Taylor end up with a diamond tennis bracelet made from all her dead husbands?

However, is it really so creepy to turn the ugly remains of dead person into something beautiful? As a geologist, I find the idea of being turned into a diamond when I die sort of appealing. Really, I want to donate my body to science. I mean, I’ll be dead, so I won’t care and it gives me some comfort now to know that my dead body could do something useful. Someone may as well get some use out of my decaying carbon and hydrogen atoms. However, ending up as a nice piece of jewelry worn by a family member would be okay, too.

Funeral rituals are for the living, anyway. Dead Uncle Ernie doesn’t care– or even realize– that he’s sitting in a flower-covered urn on the fireplace mantle. He’s dead. In my atheistic worldview, that’s it. No survival after death, no feelings or emotions after death. Just decomposition and return to the Earth. Or to a diamond, apparently. You can bet that Uncle Ernie’s wife Aunt Betty cares a great amount about that urn full of ashes. Maybe she feels better knowing that some part of her dead husband is still close to her, watching over her from the fireplace. In my opinion, turning cremated ashes into diamonds is just taking the cremated-relative-in-the-living-room one step further. If it gives the living some comfort to own diamonds made from their deceased relatives, then why shouldn’t diamonds be made from dead relatives? Dust to dust, ashes to diamonds.

Interestingly, the company recently announced that they can also make diamonds from locks of hair. So, you can make your living relatives into diamonds, too. Hmm… maybe an engagement ring made from the hair of your beloved is just a little too creepy, but at least it’s not a conflict diamond."

New Fossil Find confirms that humans evolved in Africa

2007-01-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

'Out Of Africa' Theory Boost: Skull Dating Suggests Modern Humans Evolved In Africa

Science Daily — Reliably dated fossils are critical to understanding the course of human evolution. A human skull discovered over fifty years ago near the town of Hofmeyr, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, is one such fossil. A study by an international team of scientists led by Frederick Grine of the Departments of Anthropology and Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York published in Science magazine has dated the skull to 36,000 years ago. This skull provides critical corroboration of genetic evidence indicating that modern humans originated in sub-Saharan Africa and migrated about this time to colonize the Old World. (Science January 12, 2007)

The Hofmeyr Skull. Scientists have now dated the skull as being 36,000 years old. The great similarity of this skull to skulls of the same age from Eurasian finds confirms the "Out of Africa"-hypothesis. Modern humans broke out of their place of origin around 40,000 years ago - from Africa south of the Sahara - and populated the world. (Image: Frederick E. Grine)

"The Hofmeyr skull gives us the first insights into the morphology of such a sub-Saharan African population, which means the most recent common ancestor of all of us - wherever we come from," said Grine.

Although the skull was found over half a century ago, its significance became apparent only recently. A new approach to dating developed by Grine team member Richard Bailey and his colleagues at Oxford University allowed them to determined its age at just over 36,000 years ago by measuring the amount of radiation that had been absorbed by sand grains that filled the inside of the skull’s braincase. At this age, the skull fills a significant void in the human fossil record of sub-Saharan Africa from the period between about 70,000 and 15,000 years ago. During this critical period, the archaeological tradition known as the Later Stone Age, with its sophisticated stone and bone tools and artwork appears in sub-Saharan Africa, and anatomically modern people appear for the first time in Europe and western Asia with the equally complex Upper Paleolithic archeological tradition.

In order to establish the affinities of the Hofmeyr fossil, team member Katerina Harvati of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, used 3-dimensional measurements of the skull known to differentiate recent human populations according to their geographic distributions and genetic relationships. She compared the Hofmeyr skull with contemporaneous Upper Paleolithic skulls from Europe and with the skulls of living humans from Eurasia and sub-Saharan Africa, including the Khoe-San (Bushmen). Because the Khoe-San are represented in the recent archeological record of South Africa, they were expected to have close resemblances to the South African fossil. Instead, the Hofmeyr skull is quite distinct from recent sub-Saharan Africans, including the Khoe-San, and has a very close affinity with the European Upper Paleolithic specimens.

The field of paleoanthropology is known for its hotly contested debates, and one that has raged for years concerns the evolutionary origin of modern people. A number of genetic studies (especially those on the mitochondrial DNA) of living people indicate that modern humans evolved in sub-Saharan Africa and then left between 65,000 and 25,000 years ago to colonize the Old World. However, other genetic studies (generally on nuclear DNA) argue against this African origin and exodus model. Instead, they suggest that archaic non-African groups, such as the Neandertals, made significant contributions to the genomes of modern humans in Eurasia. Until now, the lack of human fossils of appropriate antiquity from sub-Saharan Africa has meant that these competing genetic models of human evolution could not be tested by paleontological evidence.

The skull from Hofmeyr has changed that. The surprising similarity between a fossil skull from the southernmost tip of Africa and similarly ancient skulls from Europe is in agreement with the genetics-based "Out of Africa" theory, which predicts that humans like those that inhabited Eurasia in the Upper Paleolithic should be found in sub-Saharan Africa around 36,000 years ago. The skull from South Africa provides the first fossil evidence in support of this prediction.

Reference: F.E. Grine, R.M. Bailey, K. Harvati, R.P. Nathan, A.G. Morris, G.M. Henderson, I. Ribot, A.W.G. Pike. Late Pleistocene Human Skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa and Modern Human Origins. Science, 12. January 2007

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Max Planck Society.

Carl Sagan - An anniversary, a memorial

2006-12-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago today, a great of science, astronomy, and skepticism died - Carl Sagan. A science blogger in New York suggested a memorial blog a thon, and with the sanction of Carl's son, Nick, I'm participating on my blogs here and here.

Personally, hungry for anything "star" related after Star Wars came out in 1977, I eagerly awaited every episode of Cosmos, hosted by Dr. Sagan. But it wasn't until July 4, 1997, that he really changed me, after he had passed away. I didn't know he had even died until I saw the movie "Contact", and saw the end credit, "For Carl". The questions in the movie about God and Science, and the conflict (or not) between the two left me really anxious to read the book, but in an airport, I picked up another book of his, "The Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark", when Contact wasn't available.

Wow. I felt my eyes open and an epiphany began that didn't stop. I read everything he wrote. I re-read several religious texts that I hadn't read for a while, and even searched out some "new age" literature to read, as well as developing a voracious appetite for science books. I began to write again. I began to notice how persistent biology was on Earth, how the stars shine so brightly at night, why stars burn and why the sky is blue, almost for the first time. I saw the scientific method as it truly is - an unappreciated golden gift to mankind, that has left us with longer lifespans, magical technology, a way of thinking and approaching everything, and a great understanding of how huge and ancient our universe is, and leads us to questions of who we are, where we came from, and how humble we have to be in face of all we haven't known for centuries, and all we do not yet know.

Ironically, scientists were his biggest critics. Yes, there are people that hate him for popularizing science, and he was punished professionally for that (is science really supposed to be only for the ivory tower elite and not for the rest of us?), by denial of fellowships and rewards. Some scientists still feel like arguing with him. I have felt in the past that his alliance to liberal politics, like nuclear war protests, and his miscalculation of the effects of a nuclear winter, often interferered with his otherwise unflinching respect for the facts, no matter where those facts lead.

But, as Sagan said repeatedly, when you're in love with something, you want to tell the whole world. And he was in love with science.

So, Dr. Sagan, from the boy who saw you on television week after week, to the critical thinking adult I've become, I want to thank you. Your respect for humanity and people that didn't agree with you is especially admirable. I hear scientists left and right introduced as "the next Carl Sagan", but the sad truth is that none of them can hold a candle (in the dark or otherwise) to your gift of communication, your writing style and command of how best to express your love for the scientific method and all we can learn from it.

As Dr. Sagan said repeatedly, over and over, if you want to make your life meaningful, you have to be willing to do something meaningful. He made much of science not only meaningful, but beautiful, humbling, even poetic.

"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."

Ann Druyan

2006-12-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

Beginning 20 December 2006, there will be a new blog by Ann Druyan, likely at, or linked to, www.carlsagan.com, or www.planetary.org. Until then, a special posting as we approach the tenth anniversary of Carl Sagan's death on December 20th, 1996.

Where Would We Be With Carl?
by Ann Druyan

Weather permitting, Carl preferred to think and write outdoors amidst the natural beauty that surrounds our home in Ithaca, New York. As I write this, I look out on the clearing down by the waterfall where he would work, sitting at a table, all but motionless for hours at a time. He said the music of the rushing water provided the perfect background white noise for concentrating. When Carl and I were writing Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, I once looked up from the computer in my office to find him deep in thought, his attention so highly focused on our manuscript that he was completely unaware of the rather large deer peering over his shoulder, as if trying to read what he was writing. The waterfall, the gorge with a record of the aeons inscribed in its strata, and the still-wild animals remain for now. The chair is empty.

We have traveled ten times around the Sun since Carl's death, and our little world is much changed. With his dazzling mind and vast knowledge, what would he have thought of the direction we, as a civilization, have taken in the years since? How might he have campaigned against the forces of darkness and brutality? How many minds might he have opened? During the last ten years, I have longed for the personal Carl of our love, family, and work together, but I have also keenly missed the man who was a global voice for science, exploration, reason, and democracy. Carl's ecological niche has remained tragically untenanted for all this time-and in my opinion, the consequences have been profound. My respect for his greatness keeps me from speaking for him with any degree of certainty. I can only offer my conjectures based on our 20 years of intense communication. Some of my speculations are more confident than others, flowing logically from the deeds and words of his life.

For instance, I feel sure that he would have been gratified by the achievements of The Planetary Society and especially thrilled by our boldness in actually launching our own spacecraft, Cosmos 1, the first solar sail. (Only ten years ago, this would have been so prohibitively expensive that even Carl never dared to dream that we could attempt such a feat.) I can see him tipping an imaginary hat in Lou Friedman's direction for his leadership of the mission. I know Carl would now be knocking on every conceivable door to raise the money necessary to see the project through to its fulfillment as a major milestone in the history of exploration. Given his powers of persuasion, I think we would be well into the countdown to our next launch.

Carl would have been inspired by the discoveries of the Mars missions and very proud that they were led by his students. The revelations of Cassini and Huygens would have taken him to new heights. How I wish he could see the new data from Mars and the outer solar system. If it were possible to share one new image of the planets and moons with him, I would pick a shot of Titan, the object of a lifetime of his scientific imagining. It would be the one taken by the Huygens descent probe of the Titan coast, showing icy highlands with dry rivers and what appears to be the shoreline of a vanished sea. Here the Titan coast looks more like Biarritz than any other place that comes to mind. From his boyhood in Brooklyn in the 1930s, he envisioned a time when the planets and their moons would become real places to us. No matter how inhospitable to humans Titan's atmosphere may be, that vision of the Titan coast beckons.

Years before the launch of the first space shuttle, Carl criticized it as an unsafe "capability without a mission," a program that he prophesied would siphon off support from the grudgingly funded space science treasury. I have no doubt that he would have led the fight to protect and enhance federal support for space science. He would have continued to campaign for science and critical thinking against the many different cultural and political assaults of the last several years. It's not that I think he alone could have turned the tide, but he would have provided critically needed leadership for those of us who have felt unrepresented.

To know what Carl would have thought of the current state of our nation, you need only remember that his pride in being an American stemmed from the integrity of our elections, our system of checks and balances, our respect for the rule of law both domestically and internationally, our high standards of evidence and truthfulness, our long historical recognition of the critical importance of the separation of church and state, our ability to take care of each other in times of disaster, what we stand for on the planet, our commitment to science and public education, and, perhaps most of all, the Bill of Rights guaranteed to us in the Constitution.

Carl died five years before the attacks on September 11, 2001, but he saw growing religious fundamentalism-whether it was in Mecca or the Bible Belt-as a looming threat, from without and within, to everything we value. He knew but one antidote for the magical thinking that lies at its root: the ability to weigh contending hypotheses and evaluate them by using the scientific method. So, despite the fact that he was battling a fatal disease and undergoing the "medieval torture" we call bone marrow transplants, he found the strength to write The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. It would be one of two books that he would write during his last illness. His doctor told me that he had never had a patient who was able to read two books during the months it takes for a bone marrow transplant, let alone to write them.

I hope that, believing as he did in the profound relationship between science education and effective citizenship in a democratic society based on science and high technology, Carl would have shared my excitement in the current project we at the Carl Sagan Foundation have chosen to support: the Carl Sagan Academy, the nation's first humanist public charter school. CSA serves middle schoolers in the Tampa area of Hillsborough County, Florida who otherwise might never have any experience of the wonders of nature as revealed by science. It is the result of a remarkable collaboration of the American Humanist Association of Florida and the local Baptist churches, the kind of cooperation between people with radically different ideologies that exemplifies the world of which we dream. Now in its second year, the student body consists of 78 of some of the most under-served children in America. I hope all who share Carl's dream of a scientifically literate and critically thoughtful public will contact us at the Carl Sagan Foundation.

This past summer, as I watched former Vice President Al Gore's film on global warming An Inconvenient Truth, I thought how proud Carl would have been of his former student at Harvard and longtime friend. More than once in the film, Al Gore acknowledges Carl's influence on his thinking, and his evocation of Carl's "Pale Blue Dot" meditation provides the film with its final spiritual impact. I was reminded of how long it has been since we had a tireless, rigorously scientific, eloquent advocate for the planetary perspective to connect with people everywhere and to awaken us from our stupor; to move us to act in defense of our life support system.

The briefcase Carl carried with him on that last trip to the hospital remained locked, exactly as he left it in December of 1996. It's a kind of time capsule of what he was working on and thinking about during those last days of his life. I had carried it home on that last trip from Seattle, but something kept me from exploring its contents. When I sat down to write this article, it occurred to me that it was probably time to open it and look inside. I tried a couple of likely combinations. When I got to my own birthday, bingo, the golden hasps flew open. The case contained photos of our family; a Saturn-shaped birthday card from our then-14-year-old daughter, Sasha; a clutch of NASA security badges; an issue of Science with a false-color Galileo image of Europa on the cover; slides of various planetary surfaces; a note from astrophysicist Chris Chyba about a visit that was never to be; Carl's reply to astronomer Neil Tyson, whom he had known and admired since Neil first wrote to him as a Bronx high school student contemplating a career in science; editor Charlene Anderson's request that Carl respond to a Planetary Report reader's question ("How can simple gases turn to organic residues when exposed to UV rays?"), to which, of course, his answer was "yes"; a message to artist Don Davis regarding the astronomical imaging for the motion picture Contact: another from scientist/artist Bill Hartmann about cratering on Mars; and letters of thanks for his agreement to give the keynote addresses to NASA's 1997 Early Mars Workshop and to the December White House Conference on the Future of Space Exploration.

In the last week of his life, Carl wanted desperately to somehow get to that conference. He knew he was about to die and he wanted to leave us with a vision of how to build on the epochal achievements of the first 40 years of the space age. He was worried that we were losing our way and our resolve to continue on the long road to the stars. As he lay dying, he managed, with an effort I found heart-wrenching, to dictate the speech.

A few days later, Vice President Gore opened the meeting by reading Carl's words aloud. It was one of the last things I was able to tell him and be certain that he understood. He smiled at the news. What I saw in those hazel eyes was a mixture of affection for Al Gore, a sense of relief that he had been able to communicate with space science decision makers, and a flicker of concern about the future, one that proved to be, in the short term at least, all too well-placed.

Well, maybe two steps forward, one step backward, is how we as a species wend our way through history. Perhaps these little detours have some selective advantage as a means of processing change along our pathway to the stars. In the meantime, a global community of people coalesces around Carl's legacy. The chair may be empty, but the ideas, the values and even the dreams of the man are here now.

Ann Druyan's latest collaboration with Carl Sagan is her edit of his 1985 Gifford Lectures into the new book titled The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, published by The Penguin Press. She is working on three feature films. Anyone wishing to contact The Carl Sagan Foundation is urged to write to Cornell Business and Technology Park, 95 Brown Road, Suite #1027, Ithaca, NY 14850.

Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico

2006-12-08T13:01:00.000-08:00

2006-06-06_0078
Originally uploaded by FrogMiller.

Above is a picture of me at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, taken earlier this year. This is the world's largest radio astronomy telescope, as well as the site of the strongest message beamed into outer space, as well as the setting for scenes in both Carl Sagan's book and movie, Contact, starring Jody Foster. Today's news brings a report that this observatory is taking the steepest budget cuts and the first layoffs since they opened in 1963.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061206/ap_on_bi_ge/puerto_rico_observatory_cuts

I have mixed feelings about this - I hate to see how science always gets cuts first, but I'm encouraged by how well private enterprise has done things like SETI (using the Arecibo data) and Rutan's Spaceship one - in most cases faster, cheaper, and safer, than NASA or Congress did it. I hope that the Planetary Society, or SETI advocates, approach people to take up the slack.

Orange County DUI Attorneys and Lawyers Blog

2006-11-01T09:18:00.000-08:00

I've started a new blog just to keep my thoughts on the politics involved in DUI cases in Orange County separate, (as well as to help our site's rankings). You can find it at http://www.ocduiblog.com.

2006-10-31T14:52:00.000-08:00

How big you've grown in almost 20 months, my little one!

Your father loves you so much!

The origins of bees

2006-10-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

Scientists have long believed that the honeybees you see flitting about your gardens and back yards originated in Asia. That’s not true says “Thrice out of Africa,” a major genetics study that UC Irvine evolutionary biologist Neil Tsutsui has published in the journal Science.

Tsutsui and colleagues say the honeybees we see here originated in Africa and twice migrated to Asia and Europe over millions of years. Then in the 1600s, Europeans brought various subspecies of honeybees to North and South America, where they have thrived, producing honey and playing a pivotal role in agricultural pollination.

Then something unfortunate happened in the 1950s, says Tsutsui.

Twenty-six queen bees – African killer bees, to be precise – escaped from a research site in Brazil and began to breed with more benign European bees, literally changing the genetic makeup of those animals. The African killer bees also began to migrate, and some have made it to parts of North America, including the American southwest and Orange County.

The killer bees aren’t widespread in number, Tsutsui says. But these bees are more aggressive than the species of honeybees we usually find in our back yards.

neil.jpg
Tsutsui says the intrusion of the African killer bees coming in “creates difficulties for all kinds of commercial beekeeping, including both pollination and honey production.

“When beekeepers have to contend with the Africanized honeybees they have to don more protective gear and are more likely to have colonies pack up and fly away.

“Now that we know a lot about their genetics, we can apply this knowledge to more accurately map out the distribution of killer bees in California.”

Happy Birthday JPL!

2006-10-31T14:37:00.000-08:00

FROM PASADENA TO THE PLANETS -- AND BEYOND The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena will today celebrate the 70th anniversary of the rocket motor test that led to the creation of the lab, one of NASA’s most successful centers.

Although some of its unmanned probes have crashed, blown up or disappeared over the decades, JPL is controlling 16 satellites and explorers, including two rovers on Mars and three orbiting the planet.

The lab, which is managed by Caltech, rose from modest beginnings on the site of what today is JPL. Here’s a tiny snapshot of some of JPL’s finer moments.

Oct. 31, 1936: Seven “rocket boys” – including Frank Malina, Jack Parsons and Ed Forman – make four attempts to light a rocket motor and fail. Weeks later, they succeed on the grounds of the current JPL.

30th Birthday

2006-08-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

We went to the Napa Rose to celebrate my wife's 30th birthday!

First I had to look over the whole menu to see what to have... lots of great selections here.

Even the bread basket was fresh, well presented, and delicious!

The table is always well decorated, and while we're all deciding, I'll have a glass of Merlot and try a few appetizers:

(My wife's Mimosa makes a rare appearance in its "Full" state behind the red wine).

First appetizer - the chef's special. Not on the menu, these are various olives from Southern Spain and Northern Africa, that have been marinated and then fired in a wood burning oven. They were hot, but delicious, and garnished with fresh herbs.

Next appetizer was the roasted breast of duck. Wow - this was really, truly, the best duck I've ever had. Cooked to perfection (and duck can be dry or fatty), but this was tender, and delicious, served with dressed arugula:

The tadpole knows what he wants, from the kids menu, the fresh cheese pizza! Must have been delicious, as he devoured it.

He sure looks happy with his meal. All dressed up for mommy in his clean white shirt (needless to say, it didn't stay white forever):

Let me note here that the serving staff we had, the waitress, Wendy, in particular, were all so good with kids! Our kid is usually fussy at the 30 minute mark, but during a two hour dinner, they seemed to know exactly what to do to keep him occupied, and he was really happy throughout the meal.

Anyway, I had the roasted free range Somona chicken, and the birthday girl had the Angus beef tenderloin, both of which were so delicious, I didn't pause to take pictures of either. But on to dessert. I had the berry trio, which was good looking, and also delicious, and uniquely prepared:

Birthday girl had cake and ice cream, decorated in Napa Rose birthday wishes!

(The tadpole wanted to reach out and touch the "Happy Birthday" part of the plate). Of course, that went right onto his white shirt.

And here's the trio, wishing Mom a very, very, happy Birthday!

Where have you been?

2006-07-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

Other than the two ladies I know read this blog (hi), I am not sure that anyone else even knows it exists. So, where have I been for three months? Well, after we got back from our Italy/Switzerland/France/UK trip, we decided to visit Disneyland for the cute kid's (below) birthday. Did he like Disneyland? Yes, although he's a little young to go on all the rides.

But something else happened - I fell in love with, maybe more like became obsessed with, Disneyland. We got annual passes, and started going every week. The great fireworks show (the best I've ever seen), the Parade, a lot of the details, and the squeaky clean, well running park, is just a joy to have dinner in, walk around in, enjoy and explore. I joined a couple of internet chat boards (micechat and mouseplanet), and organized an outing to Club 33, but since I spend a substantial amount of my time talking about Disneyland, I've neglected this blog, sadly. That will change, however, I promise, aside from the three posts today.

I should also mention that if you need an Orange County Personal Injury Attorney, or an Orange County DUI attorney, check out my sites.

Cutest kid ever

2006-07-21T16:09:00.000-07:00

Jail visits - A Gripe

2006-07-21T16:07:00.000-07:00

I have a gripe. I just got out of jail a few hours ago. Well, let me be more specific than that. I was visiting a client of mine, who is being held on $100,000 bail, in jail. This particular client calls to find out when I'm going to visit, collect, daily. His sister also calls at least five times per day, on average, his friend, and his father, also call anywhere from 5-10 times a day.

This is not uncommon. People in jail are somewhat cut off from contact with the outside world, and bored, so they tend to obsess about small details about their life, their case, and use their collect calls to call their family members, who then suggest that the client call me, and then the family members have to call to relay the entire conversation. My response to the call is then spread among family members, and then I get return calls from each famliy member, to make sure that the information they got from [sister/brother/spouse/parent] was correct.

In this particular case, I barely had time to review the police report, and upon reviewing it, I noted an issue that I intend to raise in a motion. If granted, this case could be dismissed. However, there's no way I can get this motion researched, written, served on the DA's office, filed with the court, and be prepared to argue it before the court and opposing counsel within the client's 10 day speedy trial right, especially with the constant interruptions, and constant requests for jail visits.

The first time I visited this client in jail, he asked me to promise to visit him again when he had the police report. I mailed him a copy for his review, along with my comments. Today, he said that he forgot the report back in his cell. "Oh, and I had like 100 questions to ask you -- I wrote them down -- but, dude, I forgot that in my cell also. Can you visit me again tomorrow?"

Clients, and their families and loved ones, don't realize that, although attorneys can visit 24 hours a day, (and believe me, I have), jail visits are not an easy, or quick, procedure. In Orange County, jail visits require that you find, and pay for parking, walk several blocks, and then fill out an information card. Assuming that the client is not (a) being fed, a process which requires lockdown and release of one section at a time, taking two hours total for each feeding; (b) seeing a doctor or medical personnel, which can also take hours; (c) in protective custody, it usually takes almost an hour just to sit down in front of the client. In Riverside or San Bernardino counties, and in some jails in Los Angeles, attorneys are led through a metal detector and lockers area, searched, are required to submit photo ID and our bar card for a background check, and then issued official identification to wear, a process that can take some time. And, in state prison, because they do visiting days based upon race (yes, based upon race, and it's legal), if you visit on the wrong day, you could be waiting for a long time along with the thousand or so people also trying to see people with the same ethnic background as your client, whatever that may be.

It can be frustrating, and I am not proposing a solution. As mentioned in my first sentence, this is just a gripe, and I felt I had to get it off my chest.

And in today's news...

2006-04-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

I suppose Gweneth Paltrow won't be getting the "Mom of the year" award this year. She was spotted drinking Guinness and eating Sushi while pregnant. Both raw fish, and alcohol, are a "no no" while pregnant.

Wow. A teacher who kept a 40MM shell on his desk as a paperweight used it to squash a bug and got his hand blown off!

http://www.local6.com/news/8472037/detail.html

Cars that will park themselves, are coming up as a feature in US cars. Sit back, relax, and watch the car park itself! That's cool! http://www.local6.com/news/8458908/detail.html

One of my favorite persons was on terrestrial radio this morning. Even though she's married to Marilyn Manson, I was really impressed after seeing her show at the Galaxy Theater in Santa Ana. I'm talking about Dita Von Teese. http://www.dita.net/

Speaking of who was on the radio this morning, on Sirius, at the Howard Stern show, Carmen Electra gave a suprisingly candid, honest, revealing, and shocking interview this morning. Plus, as even my wife agrees, she just looks hot. http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/Page&c=FlexContent&cid=1130574541451

Santa's little helpers are sick -- they are molesting kids. This is the flashing light display that was all over the internet, and has a sad ending. http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=28348

A bank robber came back to rob the same bank again - but the employees recognized him and locked him out! http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=28381

Prosecutors, under California and Federal Law (and apparently in Florida as well), can seize assets in a drug case. Check the link for a story about prosecutors that tried to seize a defendant's gold teeth as drug contraband! http://www.tampabays10.com/printfullstory.aspx?storyid=28380

I have to give a shout out to the Skepchick blog. Rebecca Watson has some funny commentary from the world of science, and is a good writer. http://www.skepchick.mu.nu/blog/

The same can be said for Bad Astronomy, which is also well written, but has a cool inside perspective on all things related (no matter how remotely) to astronomy and pseudoscience. http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/

Finally, check out the Dana Point Pilot newspaper this weekend. They interviewed me for a story on DUIs, and it should appear in the next few days. If you need an Orange County DUI Lawyer or Orange County DUI Attorney, check out http://www.expertlawfirm.com

Still has her makeup on even after 2,000 years

2006-03-31T15:41:00.000-08:00

A roman statue was found with the paint still on, a rarity after all these years:

This painted eye was found on a painted marble bust was found near Herculaneum's Basilica, or law courts. It's a rare example of a decorated Roman bust; most marble busts that had been painted were cleaned upon excavation.

The marble head of an Amazon warrior woman has emerged from Vesuvius' volcanic rock with her make up still on, archaeologists announced this week.

Buried by the eruption that nearly 2,000 years ago covered Pompeii and the nearby towns of Herculaneum and Stabiae with nine to 20 feet of hot ash and pumice, the painted marble bust was found in a collapsed escarpment near Herculaneum's Basilica.

The newly found Amazon head belonged to a group of sculptures which adorned the Basilica, or the law courts.

Almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake 17 years before the eruption, the Basilica was rebuilt by proconsul Marcus Nonius Balbus. Statues of his family decorated the building.

Unearthed in the 18th century, when the entire town of Herculaneum was discovered by chance during the construction of a well, the statues were washed in the subsequent restoration and lost their coloring.

Police are looking for "snitches"

2006-03-22T13:58:00.000-08:00

I haven't spoken about issues that move me in law recently, but this is one, a scam coming from the last place you would expect it, your local police department. They send out fake red light camera tickets, which they call "Nominations." I call them Snitch Tickets.

Snitch Tickets are designed to closely resemble a real ticket. Both real tickets and Snitch Tickets ask the registered owner to turn-in (or snitch on) the person who was driving the car. One of the reliable differences between the two is the absence of the court information from the Snitch Tickets. If you're curious, the official format for a real ticket is on the website of the Judicial Council of California.

In some towns the police are going to great lengths to get registered owners to identify who was driving their car. In those towns, if the technicians reviewing the photos see that the pictured driver is obviously not the registered owner (gender mismatch, or great difference in age) or that the photo is too blurry to be sure of who it is, one tactic they use is to send the registered owner an official-looking notice telling him that he must identify the driver. (In the law enforcement business, they call these notices a "Nomination.")

If you have received an arm-twisting notice (a Snitch Ticket, not bearing the name and address of the Superior Court), you can either ignore it, or call their bluff.

Ignoring it: You may want to ignore it if the photo is of someone whose driver's license is at the same address at which the car is registered (see the "A Caveat" section, above), or if it is a blurry photo of you, the registered owner. The problem with ignoring the ticket is the police threat that they will place a "pending" flag on your car registration and/or driver's license files at the DMV. So, is the police threat valid, or is it a bluff? On Sept. 24, 2004, DMV Director Gutierrez replied to my May 28 letter and sent me a letter noting that DMV staff had contacted the El Cajon police department, and that "The representative [of the ECPD] stated that it is not the practice of the agency to place a law enforcement stop in the DMV database on pending red light violations." The box immediately below contains the full paragraph from the letter. In an earlier phone call, DMV staff told me that unpaid parking tickets are the only reason for which a city is permitted to flag your registration, and that only a court can flag your driver's license.

So the answer is: It's a bluff.

Still Not Convinced?

Here is a discussion that occurred in court, under oath (Hawthorne trials, Oct. 19, 2004).
Judge: "What if I loan someone my car?"
Officer: "If we know that's not you, we send a 'Nomination.' "
Judge: "Are they required to tell you who it is? If they don't?"
Officer: "There's no law saying they have to."

So far, I have had no report of any further pursuit, by the police, of people who have ignored a Snitch Ticket. I think the police have not designed a follow-up tactic because the Snitch Tickets are so successful - I estimate that 90% of recipients respond to them.

If you still are not convinced, and are worried that something might be going on at the court, you could look up the phone number of the court (it may be on the Internet), call them and ask if an action has been brought against you. Or, run it by a friend who is an attorney or knowledgable in legal matters.

My recommendation is to ignore the snitch tickets. But if you feel compelled to reply or don't want to ignore your Snitch Ticket, and the photo is of someone who the police will not be able to find by cross-indexing in their computer, you could try calling their bluff. See the box, below.

There are two different situations, depending upon whether the contract between the city and the vendor was signed before, or after, Jan. 1, 2004. A typical contact (Inglewood's) signed before then requires the city to pay RedFlex approx. $90 for each real ticket RedFlex prints and mails (whether or not the city collects any fine money).

When the police are first processing the photos and they see that the face photo is obviously not the registered owner, or that it is of such poor quality that it would probably not be accepted by a judge as proof of who the driver was, they send the registered owner a notice ("Snitch Ticket") - which the City doesn't have to pay RedFlex for. Sending you the Snitch Ticket is the police's attempt to get you to identify the driver, thus providing them that proof. Once you have filled-out the blanks on the Snitch Ticket form, the police can be pretty sure that a ticket will stick and that they will be able to recoup the $90 it will cost them to have a real one issued. So they go ahead and have RedFlex issue (print up and mail) one.

Contracts signed after Jan. 1, 2004 cannot, by law, provide for a per-ticket payment to the vendor. It has to be "flat-rate." A typical flat-rate contract (Union City's) requires the city to pay the vendor a rent of $6070 per month per camera. Even though the city is not paying for each ticket issued, their need to recoup the rent gives them a big incentive to issue more tickets that will stick.

If someone else turned you in (gave your name and address to the police who then sent you a real ticket), you may want to talk to that person, as the document they received might have been a Snitch Ticket that they could have ignored instead of turning over your data.
Of course, it might have been a real ticket that they received, in which case they had little choice - they would have to appear in court and tell the judge "It's not me," if they didn't turn someone in.
But if you were driving a "company car" or a rental, it is likely that what the fleet manager received was a Snitch Ticket, not a real one. You could try to teach the fleet manager how to tell the difference.

Fuzzy White Lobster

2006-03-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

It's rare to find a completely new species, but science has done the impossible again. A new, albino, "fuzzy" lobster has been found near the heated ocean vents at the bottom of the ocean. Check out the picture!

Torino, Italy, 2006

2006-02-23T11:41:00.000-08:00

Just got back from almost two weeks in Torino, Italy, Geneva Switzerland, Paris, France, and London, England. What fun!

What an Accomplishment!!!

2006-01-18T17:04:00.001-08:00

'We can do anything together'
Finishing the marathon was a Miller family goal.

By DAVID WHITING
The Orange County Register

Aurora Nunez-Miller, and her husband, Robert, tried their hardest to keep up a jog along Irvine Boulevard, a building-sized portrait of somber Marines in dress blues reflecting the couple's own determination at Mile20 during Sunday's OC Marathon.

Five hours, 4minutes of running and walking. More than six miles to go. Only a few lonely figures on the horizon.

The husband, 37, and wife, 28, figured they must be the very last runners out of the 1,394 who registered for the race. Volunteers were even starting to close the water stations.

Then the couple, who celebrated the birth of their first child, Louis, last year, did what they had done at every mile marker before. They agreed to press on.

"At Mile16 we decided we would finish this bad boy together," Nunez-Miller tells me, still feeling the miles of pavement in her calves and ankles a few days after the race.

It started as their first marathon. But in the end, like many things difficult and seemingly beyond our reach, it became much, much more.

A few months after Louis was born, the couple decided to get off the couch and attend a Cal Coast running club meeting. Right away, they decided to commit to the OC Marathon. As Halloween slipped into Thanksgiving, the new parents juggled the baby, Miller's law practice and running.

Some mornings saw the couple running with the stroller. Other mornings were tougher, just they are for everyone who gets up early to exercise.

"There were mornings when I just wanted to sit in bed," recalls Nunez-Miller, explaining that she was never very athletic. "Because we were together, we helped motivate each other. It was definitely a team effort."

Like other mortals, the couple missed some training runs because of demands at work or pressing family issues. But they managed to make most sessions, including the all-important "long run," an 18-miler that helped set them up for the big day.

A perfect race day - clear and cool - saw the Millers line up with more than 12,000 marathoners and half-marathoners. With the last note of "The Star Spangled Banner" and the blast of an air horn, the race was on.

Twenty-four thousand rubber soles hit the asphalt. Whoops broke the air from the middle of the pack. Cheers from family members and friends came from the sidelines.

The Millers let the energy flow over them, knowing they were there just to finish.

They started cautiously, saving their energy for the long road ahead. Around Mile5 they clocked a 17-minute pace. It paid off. By Mile20 they were averaging 2mph faster.

Scattered spectators and helpful volunteers cheered them on. But by Mile9 the full marathon route split apart from the half-marathon and the field was comparatively empty.

Then came the toughest part of the race for the Millers: Mile15. Hour four.

"We passed our house in Irvine," Nunez-Miller says. "It was tempting to turn around and go into our community. My baby was there."

Husband and wife talked, as they did at every mile marker. Both voted to go on, knowing Louis was in good hands with grandma.

"We said, 'How are you doing? I think I'm OK. Let's keep going,'" she said.

The hours passed, and with them the miles.

"The last two miles were the loneliest and the hardest," Nunez-Miller says.

But the Millers persevered and the finish line came. The couple even managed to break into a trot, crossing at exactly the same time: 7:05:20 - 30 minutes ahead of the final runner.

"I felt like crying out of a sense of accomplishment. It was overwhelming, surreal," she tells me. "People were congratulating me. It seemed like it was happening in slow motion.

"There was such a sense of satisfaction for myself and for this person that I'm married to and that I love," Nunez-Miller says. "I feel like we can do anything together."

Bad Day at the Airport

2006-01-18T17:03:00.001-08:00

Airplane Mechanic Sucked Into Jet Engine

POSTED: 4:35 pm EST January 16, 2006
UPDATED: 11:39 pm EST January 16, 2006

EL PASO, Texas -- A mechanic was sucked into a jet engine and killed Monday while passengers were boarding the plane, officials said.

Elvis Song Puts Wife over the Edge

2006-01-18T17:03:00.000-08:00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Elvis Song Puts Lover in Heartbreak Hotel
-
Tuesday, January 10, 2006

(01-10) 19:26 PST PERTH, Australia (AP) --

A woman stabbed her boyfriend with a pair of scissors because he repeatedly played the Elvis Presley hit "Burning Love" on the King's birthday, police said Tuesday.

The 35-year-old man was treated for six stab wounds to his head, back and legs at the hospital in the farming town of Northam in Western Australia state late Monday night but was allowed to go home, state police spokeswoman Ros Weatherall said.

His girlfriend was charged with unlawful wounding and was to appear in a Northam court Tuesday.

"Police will allege ... the 30-year-old woman stabbed the man with a pair of scissors during an argument over him playing the same Elvis Presley song again and again," a police media statement said.

Police said the man was stabbed late on the 71st anniversary of Elvis's birth.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/01/10/international/i192626S54.DTL

Elvis Song Puts Wife over the Edge

2006-01-18T17:02:00.000-08:00

Carl Sagan's Cosmos

2006-01-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

Just a few weeks ago, the Science Channel re-aired the full "Cosmos" series, by Carl Sagan. It was the 25th anniversary of the original airing on PBS, and Cosmos was the show that educated and changed the lives of many, including myself.

It was Cosmos that began a deep interest in the nature of the universe, of life, in science, in the search for truth, in astronomy, and in history. Watching it inspires almost religious feelings, and challenges you to think deeply about almost everything.

Carl Sagan died December 20, 1996, so this holiday season past was also the 9th anniversary of his death.

Here are one of many great quotes from Sagan:

"As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and sky. In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage -- propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence -- the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.

National boundaries are not evidenced when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

The discovery that there is order in the universe, that there are laws of nature, is the foundation on which science is built on today. Our conception of the cosmos -- all of modern science and technology --is traced back to questions raised by the stars. Yet, even 400 years ago we had still no idea of our place in the universe. The long journey to that understanding required both an unflinching respect for the facts and a delight in the natural world.

Johannes Kepler wrote: "We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh enrichment."

It is the birthright of every child to encounter the cosmos anew in every culture in every age. When this happens to us, we experience a deep sense of wonder. The most fortunate among us are guided by teachers who channel this exhilaration. We are born to delight in the world; we are taught to distinguish our preconceptions from the truth. Then, new worlds are discovered as we decipher the mysteries of the cosmos.

Science is a collective enterprise which embraces many cultures and spans the generations in every age and sometimes in the most unlikely places there are those who wish with a great deal of passion to understand the world. There is no way of knowing where the next discovery will come from, or what dream of the mind's eye will remake the world. These dreams begin as impossibilities. Once, even to see a planet through a telescope was an astonishment; but we studied these worlds, figured out how they moved in their orbits, and soon we were planning voyages of discovery beyond the earth and sending robot explorers to the planets and the stars.

We humans long to be connected with our origins so we create rituals. Science is another way to experience this longing. It also connects us with our origins, and it too has its rituals and its commandments. Its only sacred truth is that there are no sacred truths. All assumptions must be critically examined. Arguments from authority are worthless. Whatever is inconsistent with the facts -- no matter how fond of it we are -- must be discarded or revised. Science is not perfect. It is often misused. It is only a tool, but it is the best tool we have -- self-correcting, ever changing, applicable to absolutely everything.

With this tool we vanquish the impossible; with the methods of science we have begun to explore the cosmos. For the first time scientific discoveries are widely accessible. Our machines -- the products of our science -- are now beyond the orbit of Saturn. A preliminary spacecraft reconnaissance has been made of 20 new worlds. We have learned to value careful observation, to respect the facts even when they are disquieting, when they seem to contradict "conventional wisdom".

We depend upon free inquiry and free access to knowledge. We humans have seen the atoms which constitute all of nature and the forces that sculpted this~ work and others. We have found that the molecules of life are easily formed under conditions throughout the cosmos. We have mapped the molecular machines of the heart of life. We have discovered a microcosm in a drop of water; we have peered into the bloodstream and down on the stormy planet to see the earth as a single organism. We have found volcanoes on other worlds and explosions on the sun, studied comets from the depths of space and traced their origins and destinies; listened to pulsars and searched for other civilizations.

We humans have set foot on another world in a place called the Sea of Tranquility, an astonishing achievement for creatures such as we, whose earliest footsteps three and one-half million years old are preserved in the volcanic ash of east Africa. We have walked far.

These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution It has the sound of epic myth, but it is simply a description of the evolution of the cosmos as revealed by science in our time. And we, we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we have begun at least to wonder about our origins -- star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms, contemplating the evolution of nature, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet earth, and perhaps throughout the cosmos.

Our loyalties are to the species and to the planet. We speak for earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but
also to that cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring."

Amen.

Dangerous Ideas

2006-01-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

I have to mention, and link to, a wonderful site, www.edge.org.

John Brockman, the New York-based literary agent and publisher of The Edge website, every year poses one big question, and has the world's top scientists, thinkers, and even nobel prize winners.

The 2005 question was "What do you believe that you can't prove"? The responses were amazing.

The 2006 question is, What is your dangerous idea?

The Edge has already received 116 responses to his challenge, which he's posted on his website. Check it out.

On a totally separate note, try this quiz. Who said:

1. "Would that the Roman people had but one neck."

2. "England is a nation of shopkeepers."

3. "It is a fortunate thing for rulers that people do not think."

4. "How many battalions does the Pope have?"

5. "The guerrilla should swim like a fish in water."

6. "No sensible person would compromise his property, his security or his family just to please the liar in the White House."

Chances are the literate quizee will spot the first five (Caligula, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mao) and make an informed guess at the last - the current No 1 on civilisation's most-wanted list, Osama bin Laden.

Death is against the law

2005-12-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

In One Town, It May Soon Be Illegal To Die

POSTED: 7:17 am PST December 14, 2005

BIRITIBA MIRIM, Brazil -- In one Brazilian farm town, it could soon be against the law to die.

The town doesn't have any more room to bury the dead, and a federal law prevents the town from expanding its cemetery. And to protest that law, the mayor is suggesting that the town council outlaw death.

Residents would be told to "take good care of your health in order not to die." And they'd be warned that "infractors will be held responsible for their acts."

An aide to the mayor admits that the idea is "laughable" -- not to mention unconstitutional. But he says there's no better way to get the government to change the environmental-protection law and allow a new cemetery to be built.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press.

Intelligent Design and the Creation Controversy

2005-12-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

Something near and dear to my heart in the past few years is advancing the cause of science over the groups that insist on the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in schools.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from endorsing any particular religious belief. This prohibition ensures that our public schools remain places in which students of all faiths – or those who do not ascribe to religious beliefs – may learn in an atmosphere free from divisive theological debates and sectarianism.

In disapproving organized prayer in the public schools in 1962, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court said that "[w]hen the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain."

Our public schools must be true to the First Amendment's mandate against religious divisiveness and remain free from the influence of religious dogma in order for students of all faiths to attend school without fear of coercion.

But proponents of teaching religious explanations for creation in public schools share a distinctly religious view of the world's origin and believe that the public schools should present that view even to the exclusion of science. However, this approach would plainly violate the First Amendment's prohibition against state action designed to advance a religious belief.

In 1968, in Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, the Supreme Court held unambiguously that it is unconstitutional to restrict a public school teacher's right to teach evolution. More recently, in Aguillard v. Edwards, 482 U.S. 595 (1987), the Court decisively held that it is unconstitutional to require educators who teach evolution also to teach creationism. Courts have yet to address a similar requirement to teach intelligent design. But based on Aguillard and other Supreme Court rulings, courts should also find such a requirement unconstitutional.

Part of what makes creation "science" not a science, is that there's no actual research. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), science is limited to explanations “that can only be inferred from confirmable data — the results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. ”This process is called the scientific method .Explanations that cannot be based on empirical evidence resulting from observation and experiment are not a part of science.

The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

"They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

"From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.

While intelligent design has hit obstacles among scientists, it has also failed to find a warm embrace at many evangelical Christian colleges. Even at conservative schools, scholars and theologians who were initially excited about intelligent design say they have come to find its arguments unconvincing. They, too, have been greatly swayed by the scientists at their own institutions and elsewhere who have examined intelligent design and found it insufficiently substantiated in comparison to evolution.

"It can function as one of those ambiguous signs in the world that point to an intelligent creator and help support the faith of the faithful, but it just doesn't have the compelling or explanatory power to have much of an impact on the academy," said Frank D. Macchia, a professor of Christian theology at Vanguard University, in Costa Mesa, Calif., which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the nation's largest Pentecostal denomination.

At Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical university in Illinois, intelligent design surfaces in the curriculum only as part of an interdisciplinary elective on the origins of life, in which students study evolution and competing theories from theological, scientific and historical perspectives, according to a college spokesperson.

There is a place for intelligent design, and that's in religion classes. Our children should know the arguments for and against creationism, and for and against intelligent design, and know how to debate and argue each as a religious argument, as well as the claims for each in support of certain religious beliefs, and also know via science classes where the evidence points, regardless of our faith.

Evolution, also called “descent with modification,” is the only scientific explanation for the history of life on earth. It states that over time, human beings and other species have evolved through processes including natural selection. This scientific theory provides understanding of the immense “complexity, diversity and activity” of life on earth. The term “scientific theory” does not mean the same thing to scientists as it does to the layman. According to the NAS, it refers not to a “‘guess’ or ‘hunch’,” but rather to “explanations of natural phenomena” based on “testable observations and hypotheses.” And scientific fact can mean a theory that “has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples.” In this sense, evolution is a fact. It has overwhelming support from the scientific community and is based on compelling evidence from “the fossil record, genetic information, the distribution of plants and animals, and similarities across species of anatomy and development.” As a result,“[s]cientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong.”

In the 21st Century, high-quality education is the key to success for our children and our nation. The dependence of future success on accessibility to a quality education means that parents, educators and others must carefully consider controversies involving the academic scholarship that our children are taught. One of these recent controversies is the teaching of intelligent design in our nation’s public schools. Here are some answers to the central questions surrounding the issue of intelligent design.

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
-- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

For more, check out the following articles, or join the National Council on Science Education (I'm a member!) at www.ncse.org

What a cute kid!

2005-11-16T12:42:00.000-08:00

Spring Break Judge

2005-11-14T16:28:00.000-08:00

Judge recounts raucous spring break tales

LYNN BREZOSKY

Associated Press

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - Making out with palm trees. Mistaking police cars for taxicabs. Rolling a stolen restaurant barbecue down the road, flames shooting up from the chicken still cooking on the grill.

Such spring-break high jinks have made Municipal Judge David Colwell's courtroom one of the best shows in town. Now Colwell has collected some of the memorable anecdotes from the past nine years, in a new self-published book, "Spring Break: A Judge's View From the Bench," being sold at local bookstores.

Although Colwell recounts some serious episodes of violence and death, the majority of the anecdotes in the 98-page book are humorous.

Most have to do with public intoxication, and the often silly excuses defendants give.

"I am always glassy-eyed, talk with a slur and walk with an unsteady balance," said one.

Guilty, said the judge.

The 60-year-old judge sits in front of a colorful seascape mural and wears tennis shoes when holding court on the weekends. In general, he said, he tries to keep things a little lighter during spring break.

"My primary rule is if I have to sit up there all day, by God, they have an obligation to entertain me," he said. When he hears snickers, he tells those in the courtroom: "Go ahead and laugh. I'm going to laugh with you, because most of the time it's so darn stupid."

Like the defendant who threw a beer can out of a pickup truck and hit a police car.

"I informed him that this is Texas," Colwell wrote. "You are supposed to throw the beer cans from the cab into the back of the pickup, which has been well known for years as a traveling wastebasket."

A student from New York appeared before the judge and did not fight his indecent exposure charge, instead asking what his punishment would be.

Colwell wrote: "Instead of explaining again that in the United States you are innocent until proven guilty, I said, `This is Texas. We don't allow men to go around exposing themselves to young ladies. We have a tree out back, and we're going to hang you.' The defendant turned pale. Being from N.Y., with tales of the Old West in his head, he actually believed me."

The judge said he has sold about 500 copies of the book.

One man's view on life, love, law

2005-11-14T16:26:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a wonderful weekend in San Francisco! The California Association of Consumer Attorneys was supposed to have their annual convention at the Fairmont downtown, but they cancelled it one week before due to a potential strike at the hotel. The strike ended up settling, but the conference was moved to Hollywood, CA, which just... uh... isn't as excited as San Francisco.

Went to Muir Woods -- great memories there -- and took a city tour, which was really fun. My son seemed to enjoy it immensely!

Plant-vertising?

2005-10-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

Company Develops Plant That Sprouts Custom Messages

A company in Spokane, Wash., has developed a plant that releases text messages during the seven- to 10-day germination process that shows up on the plant's bud, according to a Local 6 News report.

The Amazing Message Plant was discovered by the president of Miracle Products and displays personalized words.

One man's trash is another's diamonds

2005-10-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

$26,000 Diamond Ring Found In Sewer Remains Unclaimed

DANA POINT, Calif. -- Milton Tobar found treasure in a place he usually finds trash.

The South Coast Water District (SCWD) maintenance worker discovered a diamond ring with an official appraisal of $26,700 in a sewage pipe. The 8-inch pipe runs along a Dana Point street past 29 houses.

No one has claimed the ring, which has a center stone of 2 1/4 karats and a total of 4 karats. It was flushed from the pipe during an annual cleaning more than one year ago.

"We're trying to find the owner, and no one can find the owner," Tobar said, shaking his head. "I can't believe that."

Tobar said he never considered slipping the band on his wife's finger. A spokeswoman for the water district said the ring became property of the SCWD when Tobar made the discovery.

"Right now, because no one has claimed this property, it is our property, and we are putting it up for public auction," said Linda Homscheid of the SCWD.

Based on the setting and the condition of the prongs, a local jeweler said the ring is probably about 10 years old. It is on display at Swiss Connection Jeweler.

The minimum bid is $12,000.

If it sells, Tobar -- a father of two -- will receive 15 percent of the proceeds. He said he would use the money to visit San Salvador and the man who taught him about honesty.

"I want to see my father," Tobar said. "I haven't seen him for about 10 years."

The auction will remain open until Nov. 19. The highest bid will win. Five bids had been received as of Wednesday.

Someone says hi!

2005-10-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

From our law firm wine tasting dinner -- look who joined us!

Vegas, Baby!

2005-10-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

Vegas, Baby! Just got back from a 5 day conference at Caesar's Palace, which was a great place to stay. The baby seemed to love Vegas, and we got a chance to do fun kids stuff like the shark tank, and the dolphins and tigers at the Mirage, as well as a lot of good food at good restaurants. My kid continues to be well travelled!

Well, that solves it -- war's over!

2005-07-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.local6.com/news/4765559/detail.html

My son goes to Harvard

2005-07-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well, actually his Dad went to Harvard Law School for a 5 day certification program, but son went along and even hung out the last day.

He seems to be getting less comfortable on planes (this was his eighth plane flight), although it might just be because it was such a long flight.

http://images.kodakgallery.com/photos1193/2/5/34/46/75/7/775463405203_0_ALB.jpg

What a motivating seminar, and I think I'm ready for my next trial with a fervor. It is always great to spend time listening and watching some of the great legal minds of the trial world.

A Texas 4th of July

2005-07-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

Just got back late last night from a weekend in San Antonio, Texas. What a beautiful city! We saw the Alamo, spent a lot of time along the beautiful Riverwalk, stayed in a GREAT hotel, saw museums and items from Texas history, fireworks at a local Air Force Base, and had a great time.

My favorite time this weekend? When my son, who turned 4 on the 4th, laughed every time he saw me try to eat a texas sized rib. Somehow he thought that was funny - it's great to see him develop a sense of humor!

I love that kid. Happy 4th of July to everyone!

Note: NOT an actual picture of my child.

Father's Day

2005-06-20T12:31:00.000-07:00

My first father's day was really great. I mean, how could it not be? I have a great family, which includes the CUTEST kid on the planet and a really caring, loving wonderful wife.

We had a BBQ at the pool with family over, and some great gifts, but even more, memories and laughs. Can't ask for anything more for this happy Dad!

Raise your right paw and say "woof"

2005-06-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Golden Retriever Summoned To Court

POSTED: 10:46 am EDT June 15, 2005

NEWTON, Mass. -- A golden retriever named Murphy has received a summons to appear in court in Newton, Massachusetts, to answer a complaint that he was being walked without a leash and was not up to date on his license.

Actually, it wasn't Murphy but his owner, Steven Dean, who was supposed to get the summons. But since Murphy is also a common human name, the animal control officer apparently got confused and sent the complaint to the dog.

Dean tells the Boston Herald that he doesn't see how Murphy will be able to come up with the $50 fine.

Magistrate Henry Schultz says as far as he can remember, Murphy will be his first canine defendant.

Sunset on Mars

2005-06-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

Check out this beautiful picture:

Sunset on Mars. Amazing.

News stories

2005-06-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

Just another day with some crazy stories in the news:

"Girls Gone Wild" founder (and gazillionaire) has private sex tape of him stolen from his house: http://radarmagazine.com/fresh-intelligence/index.php#report_000940

Picture of Jesus appears in a baby's ultrasound: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005250380,00.html

Woman trapped in bathtub for 6 days, and was drained by the experience: http://www.wjxx.com/news/strange/news-article.aspx?storyid=38325

Tons of asphalt stolen from City of Chicago, police say no "concrete evidence" yet:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-asphalt03.html

Urban legend came to life - man sues after toilet explodes from cigarette: http://www.local6.com/news/4563482/detail.html

Beverly Hillbillies Star says Ron Howard has it wrong about his father, "Cinderella Man": http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/315414p-269806c.html

Cabo San Lucas

2005-06-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

With a baby! I have to say, the baby was the hit of the weekend. He smiled at almost everyone he saw (especially if you're female), and was really well behaved. Considering we were risking his life at every turn, including loading him off and on undocked water taxis in the pounding, surging surf.

For those of you that haven't been to Cabo before, the water taxis are more this
than THIS:

My beautiful wife and I made it to Lover's Beach where we found a rock cave/crevice to lay the baby in, and hung out on the sand. Just like being washed up on shore, huh.

Overall a great trip. Don't ask Aurora about the pirate ship cruise we went on - I don't think she remembers much about the Buccaneer cruise, however.

The Science of Diapers

2005-06-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

I didn't know until I saw a magic trick being performed, just how amazing diapers are. Did you know that each diaper has an ingredient, called "super slurper" (note: I'm pretty sure this is NOT the scientific name), that can absorb up to 2000 times its weight in water and turn liquids into a gel?

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,60614,00.html

What happens in diapers in Cabo...

2005-05-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

Off to Cabo San Lucas!

This is my fourth annual Memorial Day weekend trip to Cabo San Lucas, this one with wife and child! Woo hoo - should be fun. Cabo is one place I found unexpectedly beautiful.

Back next week.

Bad Darth

2005-05-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

Dirty ‘Darth Vader’ stuns women

BY R.S.N. MURALI
SEREMBAN: While the widely-hyped movie Star Wars runs in cinemas all over the world, the dark force of Darth Vader struck in Bandar Baru Nilai, India.

Yesterday, women factory workers in two industrial areas were appalled and screamed when a man in full Darth Vader costume flashed them.

A 33-year-old factory supervisor who identified herself as “Priscilla” said the man got out of his tinted two-door car, strutted about menacingly in his Darth Vader suit before opening it and revealing himself to 15 women workers standing at a bus stop at about 7am.

“At first, I thought he was a die-hard Star Wars fan trying to impress us with his costume. But we were shocked when he showed us his private-parts,” she said.

The women were waiting for buses to take them home after their night shift.

“Next time it will not be “Revenge of the Sith” but revenge on a sick man if we catch him doing his act again,” she added.

Helicopter lands on Everest

2005-05-26T08:22:00.000-07:00

Here's the official press release:

"On May 14th, 2005 at 7h08 (local time), a serial Ecureuil/AStar AS 350 B3 piloted by the EUROCOPTER X-test pilot Didier Delsalle, landed at 8,850 meters (29,035ft) on the top of the Mount Everest (Kingdom of Nepal).

After taking off from its base camp Lukla on May 14th, 2005 at 2,866 meters (9,403ft) Didier Delsalle onboard his Ecureuil AS350B3 reached the top of Mount Everest. As required by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI - International Aeronautical Federation), the aircraft remained landed on ground more than 2 minutes on the top of the world before flying back to Lukla. This feat was renewed the day after.

Stepping out of his helicopter, Didier Delsalle commented: « To reach this mythical summit definitively seemed to be a dream; despite the obvious difficulties of the target to be reached, the aircraft demonstrated its capability to cope with the situation (…), sublimated by the magic of the place”.

One way to freeze gas prices... and get 120 miles per gallon!

2005-05-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

I saw this story, and thought ... if I could just get a freezer in my car...

"There is a man who fills up his tank once every two months. One tank of gas, literally, lasts him two months. He is freezing the price of gas by freezing something else.

David Hutchison is a Cryogenics expert. He built this Cryo-Process himself. He runs a business out of his garage where he cryogenically tempers all kinds of metals. He submerges them in a frozen tank of nitrogen vapor that is 300 degrees below zero.

David says, “During that time, at minus 300 degrees, the molecules slow down. Then they reorganize themselves. That's when the actual chemical change happens.”

Hutchison cryogenically tempers machine parts, tools, golf clubs and even razors. He says it makes them last three to five times longer.

A few years ago he began an experiment on his hybrid Honda, freezing the engine components. The results were a fuel-efficiency dream.

David Hutchison says, “You should expect a “Cryo'd” engine to last anywhere from 600,000 to 1 million miles without wearing out.”

A hybrid Honda typically gets really great gas mileage anyway, around 50 miles to the gallon, but David Hutchison's cryogenically tempered engine has been known to get close to 120 miles a gallon.

“It's just a very efficient vehicle.” Hutchison says,

Racers have picked up on David's trick of cryogenically freezing car parts. It is now widely accepted among NASCAR and Indy-car racers.

Hutchison tells us cryogenically tempering car parts has more benefits than just fuel efficiency. He freezes all of the brake rotors at a car dealership near his home in Missouri. It makes them last three to five times longer.

Copyright 2005 KFOR-TV-DT.

He's a Pepper

2005-05-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

The Ohio sexual offender database has an interesting subject, Brian Peppers. Check him out:

http://www.esorn.ag.state.oh.us/Secured/p23.aspx?oid=13753

Dying for a Cigarette

2005-05-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

Man Leaps From Car To Retrieve Cigarette

POSTED: 10:27 pm EDT May 23, 2005

FOREMAN, Ark. -- A man was injured when he jumped from a car traveling 55-60 mph in an effort to retrieve a cigarette blown out of a passenger-side window.

Jeff Foran, 38, suffered trauma to his nose, eyes and chin after leaping from the car Saturday night and landing on the eastbound lane Arkanas 234 near the Oklahoma border, state police Trooper Jamie Gravier said.

The driver of the car, Jerry Glenn Nelson, 44, of Haworth, Okla., said Foran had asked him earlier in the evening to be a designated driver after a night of drinking.

"Foran did the right thing and asked his buddy to drive him home. Foran showed up at Nelson's home about 45 minutes earlier saying he (Foran) was too intoxicated to drive home, Gravier said.

"Nelson said Foran was smoking a cigarette when it blew out the window and Foran jumped out the window to retrieve the cigarette. Nelson said he was driving between 55 and 60 mph when Foran jumped out," the trooper said.

"It was obvious he was extremely intoxicated and this man was hurt," Gravier said. "If anything could make him stop smoking, this should be it. The man is lucky to be alive."

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press.

2005-05-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

My two darlings...

2005-05-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

The wife and I in Paradise...

I thought my job was busy...

2005-05-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

I've recently had inquiries that go like this:

"Are you the R. Miller that is the criminal defense attorney that also works as a porn star?"

Answer: Uh, no.

So I did some research, and found this:

"For Porn Star Lawyer, the Briefs Come Off at Night
The Associated Press
04-22-2005

Criminal defense attorney Ronald S. Miller does more than file his briefs -- he also takes them off.

Miller has spent days in front of a judge and nights in front of a camera as Don Hollywood -- porn star.

He has performed in more than 90 films in the past seven years, including "Justice Your Ass" and "The Jerry Shag-Her Show."

Miller, 56, tells his clients about his night job and says he has had no trouble balancing the two careers. His wife, a former accountant, is also a porn star.

"My whole life, I've been one of those people who sees the wet paint sign and has to go up and touch it to see if it's wet," said Miller, who is currently working on 30 to 40 cases. "I want to experience everything, try everything."

Ethics expert and attorney Arthur Margolis said Miller isn't breaking any rules moonlighting as a porn actor.

"There isn't anything more unethical about that than being an actor or a novelist or somebody who sells frozen yogurt," Margolis said. "The only thing you have to be careful of, as you would in any other industry, is you don't do anything criminal or unethical in the sense of dishonesty."

Diane Curtis, a spokeswoman for the California Bar Association, declined to comment on Miller's second career but said Wednesday the bar doesn't have a policy prohibiting such activity."

Things are looking up!

2005-05-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

My little one

One thing about being a (newborn) baby is that you are always looking up to the sky or ceiling. As a result, the perspective of a baby is somewhat skewed. Lights and clouds are MUCH more important when you're a little one, I guess, as is your parents, who are, literally, always looking down at you.

Creepy alert - BROTHERS WATCH WOMEN SLEEP FOR "SPACE TRAVEL"

2005-05-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

May 18, 2005

Study to see if women up for long space trips
Ball State scientists aim to determine how missions would affect strength, other abilities.

Associated Press

MUNCIE, Ind. -- Two brothers, both Ball State University researchers, are working on an international study to determine how women would fare in long-term space missions.

Scott and Todd Trappe are watching 12 women go through 60 days of bed rest to find out how aerobic exercise and resistance training might help counter muscle loss during spaceflight.

"The study will mimic a zero-gravity environment, allowing us to understand how weightlessness affects human locomotion and posture," Scott Trappe, Ball State's Human Performance Lab director, told The Star Press for a Tuesday story.

He had worked on a similar international study in which researchers learned men can lose up to 40 percent of their muscle strength after spending six months in space.

The brothers frequently travel to a clinical research facility in Toulouse, France, for the Women's International Space Simulation for Exploration study.

The work is a collaboration of the European, French and Canadian space agencies as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

"I think my brother and I have traveled a combined 100,000 miles in the air in the last few months on this project," said Todd Trappe.

Scott Trappe, a director of the study, said research might be used to determine how well women can handle their time in space.

"Who knows? They may be able to better adapt to the environment than men," Scott said.

Three groups of eight women each have had to lie in bed, their heads slightly lower than their feet. The first group is exercising in bed, the second will receive a nutritional supplement and the third will be have neither treatment.

Such analysis mimics physiological changes that occur when astronauts are in space, Scott Trappe said.

You're not going to believe how this happened...

2005-04-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

Officer's Gun Falls From Pants, Shoots Man In Other Bathroom Stall

SAN ANTONIO -- This is a story they'll be telling around the San Antonio Police Department for a long time.

A police spokesman says an off-duty officer was at a San Antonio auto auction house Wednesday when nature called.

Officer Craig Clancy strolled to the appropriate facility and was lowering his trousers when his pistol fell from his waistband. When Clancy fumbled for the falling firearm, it went off -- twice.

One of the bullets nicked a bit of floor tile into the leg of a man who was washing his hands nearby. That man was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Police internal affairs is investigating.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Automotive Pioneer dies

2005-03-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

Back to the Future fans saddened

John Z. Delorean died this weekend. His story, from starting his legendary car company on his own, to his conviction after a federal sting operation, to his rocky marriage to model Christina Ferrer, and his legendary status in Ireland, make for a great life story.

Plus his cars are pop culture icons from the early 80s, to be certain, immortalized in all three "Back to the Future" movies.

Blah-g

2005-03-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

Hmm. My marketing gurus told me that a blog, with content and frequent links to my site(s), would be helpful. But the following article may mean that it's not as helpful as we all think. Read on:

Gallup Probes Blogs, Finds Most Americans Have Never Heard of Them

NEW YORK Media and political types are currently obsessed with the newfound influence of blogs, but is the trend being overhyped? According to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, relatively few Americans are generally familiar with the phenomenon of blogging.

Three-quarters of the U.S. public uses the Internet at work, school, or home, but only one in four Americans are either very familiar or somewhat familiar with blogs, Gallup reports.

More than half, 56%, have no knowledge of them. And even among Internet users, only 32% are very or somewhat familiar with blogs.

Theres no question that blog popularity is spreading by leaps and bounds. But as of late February, when this poll was conducted, only 3% of Americans said they read blogs every day. Fewer than one in six, 15%, read blogs at least a few times a month.

Not surprisingly, there is an age gap here. About 21% of those 18 to 29 read blogs at least monthly, but only 7% of those over 65 do so.

Gallup found no gender gap but some political angle, as 24% of liberals say they read blogs at least monthly while only 15% of conservatives do.

In a separate question focusing on those who read blogs that cover political issues, Gallup found that 2% of all adults read them every day, 4% once a week, 6% once a month, and 11% less than that, with 48% never reading them.

Among all those prone to visit blogs in general, 7% said they visited poltical blogs once a day, 13% once a week, and 20% once a month.

Mysteries to be Cracked

2005-03-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

Mysteries to be cracked

Artist James Sanborn likes to tease art lovers by putting coded messages in his sculptures.
In 1990, he placed a hidden message in the middle of the CIA. The first three have been solved, but now, everyone is pounding away at the last of four coded messages in Kryptos, a coded Sanborn sculpture at CIA Headquarters. Another sculpture, written in cyrillic, sat on the grounds of the University of North Carolina for years, and was finally cracked. The solution was a newly de-classified KGB document, completely in Russian.

You can find a transcript of the Kryptos puzzle at elonka.com/kryptos/index.html.

Another mystery, still uncracked, are the espionage numbers stations. If you have ever tuned a radio beyond the medium wave band, you will hear the “Spy Number Stations”. These do not officially exist and no one has ever explained what the purpose of these stations are. They consist of the most boring content imaginable. A strange automated non-human voice reading out series of numbers, sometimes accompanied by weird tones or odd melodies, with pitch changes that make them sound eerie.

It's speculated that they correspond to paper thin code books, the pages of which can be eaten or burned after transcription. After obtaining the code, an agent will obtain a frequency, or code message, that can be used to obtain further information. The one time nature of the code books make this code almost impossible to decode.

Some Americans even use them as background music (they even turned up in the film "Vanilla Sky"). You can read more, or hear recordings, at:

http://www.dxing.com/numbers.htm

Welcome!

2005-03-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

Louis Eduardo Miller entered the world at 11:31 p.m. on Friday, March 4th (03-04-05), at 6 pounds, 5 ounces, 20 inches long!

Oh, and he's damn cute, but that's just a proud papa speaking. More later -- we both need to recover after a long weekend learning what seems like everything in the world, not to mention a 22 hour labor that started in Ventura, of all places.

Lost in a sea of Reality TV

2005-02-17T12:38:00.000-08:00

One man's view on life, love, law

Talking about whether or not Reality TV is good or bad for society is sooo five years ago, but here's my take on it. It's here to stay. Not only that, it's the best thing to happen to television in a long time.

As more and more of these shows continue to pop up on the prime-time radar, it is evident reality television is more than a trend. After all, top-rated shows like Friends and Sex and the City have wrapping up, most new sitcoms seem to disappear after a handful of episodes, and night after night, viewers can choose between a handful of reality shows, or one of any rerun sitcoms starring Ted Danson or Everybody Loves Raymond.

I heard an actress state that she hated reality television because it was taking work away from real actors. As one can imagine, any writer (especially writers), director, costume or set designer would probably have the same complaint.

Indeed, people aren’t turning on their televisions to watch dramatic performances. A witty dialogue or knockout piece of acting just don’t seem to hold the same popularity as they did a mere five years ago. Now, people are watching other people kissing in hot tubs, putting worms down their pants and shedding tears after being voted off the show.

What's good about that? Above all else, reality television is offering viewers a break from the scripted and performed. Watching real people compete and hold grudges and stoop to new lows is certainly different, and we often forget the absolutely horrible sitcoms that have come and gone. For every "Friends", "Cheers", or "Seinfeld", there were hundreds of BAD tv shows, which were often predictable.

In fact, I had sworn off any scripted shows, until I watched Lost ... and guess what? I got hooked. The show is really well written, and it's the puzzle solver in me that tries, with each week's new clue, to figure out the links, mysteries, connections, involved in the show. The various message boards that carry word puzzles with tantalizing clues or spoilers, also adds to the mystery.

If you haven't "Got Lost" ... check it out each Wednesday!

Knock knock...

2005-02-16T16:58:00.000-08:00

One man's view on life, love, law

It's going to be any day now. We've done the childbirth classes, she's done the breast feeding classes (surprisingly, a lot to learn), and I've scheduled the baby boot camp for new dads. I know it's coming, and I still don't feel prepared. I must be missing something, right? What could it be?

How would I know?

I know that, as I've discussed with my lovely wife, women feel the baby move and are constantly pressured to deal with its reality and its growth on a daily basis. It's easier for men to be in some denial, I think, because it's not as immediate or concrete.

Believe it or not, this baby is somewhat theoretical, even still.

One website puts it as follows, regarding a father's feelings at childbirth:

"Fathers who are present at birth are, more often than mothers, captured by the baby immediately. Whereas women may need minutes, hours, or a few days to feel connected to the baby, fathers often feel the power of this connection at the moment of birth. Unless the mother or baby is in some danger just after birth, the father is likely to find these moments life-changing and exquisite. These feelings are often blended with a sudden awareness of exhaustion.

A father also experiences new feelings about his mate. He may speak of his amazement at her courage, strength, and endurance during labor. He now faces the task of integrating his memory of her in labor with his previous knowledge and feelings about her.

A father may have to work through feelings he experienced while supporting the mother in labor. One of the most common feelings fathers speak about after labor is that of helplessness. Unless he is told, a man may not know how much his presence and emotional support really meant to the laboring woman.

A man may also feel that the labor experience has altered his whole life view. He may have gained a sense of the miraculous and spiritual, of a deeper meaning to life.

Not all fathers, of course, are able to share the birth experience. A lot of fathers who missed their babies' births worry that not having been there will affect their relationships with their babies. Birth is a special moment in the parent-child relationship, but it is only one moment. The years of child rearing provide many other shared moments that are just as important in the development of a relationship between father and child."

True that.

Valentine's Day - Advice for Men

2005-02-15T16:28:00.000-08:00

Yes, Valentine's Day is the Love Holiday we all love to hate. Most people my age or younger profess to disdain Valentine's Day:

"It's a Hallmark holiday, about as deep as a sympathy card bought at the supermarket."
"It's a pseudo-holiday created to get consumers to buy stuff."
"How meaningful is a supposed token of affection that you are obliged to give?"

My friend Pam, always witty, called it "Singles Appreciation Day", (S.A.D.), in the realization that those who are single need attention also! (Pam, I think you're hilarious, by the way).

I think this mentality is a successor to the one which dictated that you had to do something original every year. From the pressure to impress with something, anything other than a heart-shaped box of chocolates and a dozen red roses, it was a short step to boycotting the day altogether.

Men breathed a collective sigh of relief when Disdain started to be adopted by women on a large scale, and they fed it with strategic charm ("Oh, honey, you know I love you 365 days a year. No overpriced dinner is going to prove that.")

So the following may come as a shock to some males: Secretly, deep down, your woman wants you to do something for VD. No matter how vociferously she scoffs on the surface. In fact, the more she scoffs, the more likely she is to be secretly harboring a hankering for a cheesy heart-shaped box of chocolates.

Some couples do have a genuine understanding to mutually ignore the holiday with which they are well content. But they are rarer than you think. Most of the time, when this appears to be the case, you have him relieved that she so readily and sincerely agreed with his earnest "We don't believe in that Valentine schmaltz do we, honey? All my other girlfriends have been too cool for it too…" and her secretly wishing to come home to find the bed covered in rose petals. She doesn't complain—that wouldn't be hip, modern and cool—but she feels a vague sense that she is missing out.

So, what's my advice? All you apathetic "too cool" guys out there—yes, you. Get in gear next year if you blew it this year. Show your appreciation. You don't have to feed the machine—a foot rub, or, better yet, a full-body massage, will go over much better than flowers. And a home-cooked meal, even if the only thing you can cook is a grilled-cheese sandwich, will go over much better than an overpriced restaurant excursion. (True to form, I used to make reservations months in advance for the hottest restaurants, only to find prices marked up, and "special menus" that are prepared en masse sitting in the backof the kitchen, getting stale. This year I lit all the candles in sight, played the right music, and created a special high quality Valentine's meal, that she really appreciated. Much better, if you can, to cook at home, and make it as special as you can. Never underestimate her appetite for seduction).

And don't be afraid to be a little cheesy. On this holiday only, cheesy can work well, in fact. I guarantee you she's never gotten a heart-shaped box of chocolates from anyone other than her dad. And not since she was 12. Pretend it's tongue-in-cheek, if that makes you feel better. VD celebrations can convey the message, "I'm only doing this because I have to."

It all depends on your attitude. Your only objective is to show her that you don't take her for granted. Even if you do, the other 364 days a year.

Another way to win a DUI case on appeal...

2005-01-19T14:57:00.000-08:00

... be a councilman and be illegally stopped!

From The Morning Call -- January 19, 2005
Nesquehoning ex-official's DUI conviction tossedFormer councilman's stop was unlawful, court says.By Bob LayloOf The Morning CallState Superior Court on Tuesday overturned the drunken driving conviction of a former Nesquehoning councilman, ruling a police officer did not have enough evidence to pull him over.But the three-judge panel's ruling on Eugene Rutch was split.Justices Michael T. Joyce and Susan P. Gantman found there wasn't enough evidence for Weatherly Patrolman Robert Christman to stop Rutch on Aug. 17, 2002.They cited a 2001 case in which the state Supreme Court ruled police must show a driver had ''careless disregard'' for people or property to be stopped. They also acknowledged they have struggled to apply that decision.At trial, Christman said he followed Rutch for about a quarter mile and watched him cross the yellow center lines and the white line on the right side of the road twice. He said Rutch completely crossed the white line once and drove on the shoulder.Christman said there were no parked cars or pedestrians along the road. He also said one car passed Rutch in the opposite lane and did not have to swerve.Christman said Rutch failed sobriety tests so he took him to a hospital to have blood drawn. Rutch's blood-alcohol ratio was 0.186 percent, according to the test. At the time he was arrested, state law considered a driver too drunk to drive with a ratio of 0.10 percent; the ratio has since been reduced to 0.08 percent.Carbon County Judge Roger N. Nanovic convicted Rutch.Rutch's lawyer, Robert T. Yurchak, argued the ''minute deviations of tire movement'' did not warrant a stop and anything less than perfect driving would create probable cause.Judge John T. Bender, who dissented with the other two justices, wrote that Rutch's driving had more than ''minute deviations.''''The bottom line in this case is that [Rutch's] vehicle was essentially weaving as he traveled over a quarter-mile stretch of a straight road, at least partially leaving his lane of travel on four separate occasions over that short distance,'' Bender wrote.But under the state Supreme Court ruling, Bender found the facts of the case do not show careless disregard for the safety of people or property.''The irony of the situation is that we would likely find probable cause … if an oncoming car had passed [Rutch's] car while [Rutch's] tires were on the center line,'' he wrote.He also wrote there would have been probable cause if a person or parked car had been along the road when Rutch's tires crossed the white line.He suggested the Supreme Court or state lawmakers revisit the issue of traffic stops to strike a balance between a person's constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure and the state's safety concerns.He also wrote it would help justices as they ''weigh the myriad of factual scenarios presented to us.''District Attorney Gary F. Dobias, who prosecuted the case, could not be reached Tuesday.As part of Rutch's appeal, Yurchak also argued that the state has a conflict of interest prosecuting DUI cases because it sells liquor. He had argued it should not be allowed to profit from both.Since Yurchak did not cite case law, that part of the appeal was dismissed.Had the conviction been upheld it would have been Rutch's second for DUI and he would have faced a mandatory minimum of 30 days in prison.But he has more legal trouble.He is scheduled for trial next month on disorderly conduct, persistent disorderly conduct and public drunkenness charges stemming from a traffic stop last year in which he was a passenger in a car. Nesquehoning police said Rutch swore at them and threatened their jobs after they stopped a car he was in on Sept. 23.

One way to win a DUI dismissal is..

2005-01-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

... to be an elected official!

How DUI case was dropped By Rob Olmstead Daily Herald Staff WriterPosted Wednesday, January 19, 2005
DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett is tough on drunken drivers. On that, prosecutors, defense attorneys and advocates against drunken driving all agree.
But when Cook County gang crimes prosecutor Joseph E. Keating, 43, was arrested in July and charged with DUI after knocking over a light pole on an I-55 ramp, he managed to get the charge dropped at his first court appearance.
The reason, prosecutors said, was not that Keating was a prosecutor himself, but that the case was weak. That's because Keating refused all sobriety tests, including a Breathalyzer, and police failed to activate the audio portion of the videotape of the arrest.
Keating won't talk about the arrest. Birkett says the case was not winnable without Breathalyzer results or conclusive evidence from the scene.
Keating notified his bosses in Cook County of the arrest and was put on desk duty while his case was pending, according to Marci Jensen, a spokeswoman for Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine. He was reinstated to the courtroom when the DUI charge was dropped Aug. 13, she said.
Asked if the fact that a prosecutor refused drunken driving tests bothered the office, Jensen replied that Keating was entitled to the same options as any other driver.
Court records indicate Keating pleaded guilty to failing to reduce speed to avoid an accident and paid about $360 in fees and fines. Keating also paid to replace the light pole. Court records said it the first accusation of DUI against Keating. He did not receive a summary suspension called for under Illinois law for refusing to take the Breathalyzer test.
Keating was placed on court supervision for the charge he pleaded guilty to, meaning that if he makes it to his final court date in February without other traffic problems, the case will not go on his record with the secretary of state.
Birkett acknowledged that dropped DUI charges, while rare in DuPage are not unheard of -- "probably between 6 and 10 percent," he said.
The DuPage County prosecutor's office handles thousands of DUI cases a year. A Daily Herald review of 20 of them brought in DuPage County at the same time as the Keating case found that Keating's DUI charge was the only one the office dropped.
Birkett has made a reputation for himself and earned the admiration of advocates against drunken driving for being tough with DUIs, sometimes even prosecuting cases with weak evidence, defense attorneys say.
At least one veteran defense attorney, whose office handles about 50 DUIs a year, says he's never seen the DuPage office drop a DUI case. Even if a case is weak, Des Plaines attorney Michael R. Epton said he's seen DuPage prosecutors leave it to a judge to throw it out.
By office policy, front-line prosecutors cannot, of their own volition, drop or reduce a DUI charge, Birkett said. They must seek approval from a supervisor first. The same policy operates in Cook County, Jensen said.
Birkett said the Keating case never reached his desk, but it did go up the chain of command through at least three supervisors. He said he supports their decision.
Keating's crash
In Keating's case, state police were called to the northbound I-55 ramp from northbound Lemont Road around 8:45 p.m. on July 16. Keating's green 1998 Oldsmobile had left the roadway, striking a light pole and knocking it over, blocking all ramp traffic.
A Darien police officer was already on the scene when rookie trooper Noel Tarr -- on his first DUI stop -- and his trainer, veteran trooper Darren Love, arrived at 9:04 p.m.
On their video, Keating is seen walking out of the ditch and then taking a call on his cell phone. At 9:05, Love talks to Keating and a minute later, Keating hands his cell phone to an unidentified woman. More people walk into the scene, sometimes blocking the view of Keating, and at 9:08, officers cuff Keating and lead him to the squad car at 9:10.
Nowhere on the tape does Keating stumble or stagger, a fact that Jeff Kendall, deputy chief of the felony division and one of the supervisors who OK'd the dropped charge, cited as a reason. As did Birkett.
"The officer's report was impeached by the video," he said.
The troopers' court filing said Keating had "glassy, bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and an odor of alcohol." But there was no audio portion to the video by which to gauge Keating's speech.
Illinois State Police and Kendall refused to release their police report but read portions of it to the Daily Herald. In it, police say they asked Keating to stand by the squad door. There, out of the camera's view, he stumbled one step to his left, the officers claimed.
The officers also noted that Keating's car left the roadway along a straight portion of the ramp, and when they asked him about alcohol, he admitted he had been drinking earlier in the day at a golf outing.
At the station, the report said, police again asked Keating to take a Breathalyzer, warning him his license could be automatically suspended for six months for refusing. He again refused.
Keating, reached by phone at his office at the Cook County Criminal Courts at 26th and California in Chicago, wasn't talking.
"I don't have a comment," he said.
The court case
Besides dropping the DUI charge, DuPage prosecutors did not pursue summary suspension of Keating's driver's license, either. Under Illinois law, drivers who refuse sobriety tests are supposed to lose their license for six months on a first offense, whereas a first-time DUI conviction nets just three months suspension.
However, dropping the summary suspension is not unusual. In many of the cases the Daily Herald examined, once a DUI plea was reached, the summary suspension was dropped.
In the 20 cases surveyed by the Daily Herald, seven were still pending, two were thrown out by judges, nine guilty pleas were obtained and two were bargained down from DUI.
Of those two, one was Keating's case. The other was a case prosecuted by a municipality, not DuPage County.
And in one of the two cases thrown out by a judge, prosecutors still had pressed the case even though police officers failed to respond to a defense subpoena, diminishing the evidence against the defendants.
Defense attorney Epton said those circumstances sound familiar.
"I haven't been successful with getting them to plea bargain at all," said Epton when asked how often he's seen DuPage prosecutors plea bargain a DUI charge or drop it outright. "I haven't seen the state amend a case yet."
Another defense attorney and former prosecutor, Chuck Rohde, of Addison, agreed that in his experience cases that would be dropped routinely in other jurisdictions are regularly prosecuted in DuPage County.
For example, he said, he recently defended a case in Cook County at the Rolling Meadows courthouse in which the complaining police officer showed up to testify but the defendant refused sobriety tests. The Cook prosecutor dropped the case before it went to trial.
"I think the odds of that happening in DuPage County are one in a million," Rohde said.
Instead, DuPage prosecutors normally make the defendant go to trial and at least rack up attorney's fees, he said.
"At the end of the day, you'd get the same result, but you would have to go through the trial," Rohde said.
Not all defense attorneys find it so odd for DuPage to drop such a case, though. George Kallas, of Wheaton, -- himself a former prosecutor -- said he's seen DuPage prosecutors drop cases under certain circumstances.
"Could be the guy passes all the field sobriety tests or he blows under the legal limit," Kallas said.
Charlene Chapman of Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists said her organization has been impressed with Birkett's doggedness at pursuing DUI cases. She praised him as a man of integrity and said AAIM had yet to discover a case dropped under suspicious circumstances in DuPage.
Tarr, one of the troopers involved in the arrest, declined to speculate on how the case was prosecuted. He is no longer a trooper and he declined to explain why. Love, the other trooper, could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts.
Kendall said it would have been irresponsible to proceed on the Keating case.
"We have a responsibility to justice, and we can't go forward on a case if we can't reasonably expect to succeed," he said.
When asked for examples of other dropped cases, Kendall recalled a DuPage police officer who prosecutors discovered was putting false statements in his reports.
"We probably had to dismiss tens if not 100 (DUI) cases," Kendall said.
The officer, whom Kendall declined to identify by name or department, was eventually fired, Kendall said.
Birkett is adamant that the Keating case was prosecuted like any other.
"My policy is you treat elected or appointed officials the same as anyone else," Birkett said.
As for Cook County's assertion that Keating's standing as a prosecutor required no more of him than would be expected of any other citizen, AAIM's Chapman disagreed.
"I think they should be held to a higher standard," she said, "because they're the ones prosecuting other drunk drivers."
• In short: The DuPage County prosecutor's office is as tough as they get on drunken drivers. But when an assistant Cook County state's attorney was arrested in DuPage on suspected DUI after he knocked over a light pole, he refused sobriety tests and got his case dropped at his first hearing.
DUI: Prosecutor says pursuit of case would be irresponsible

Happy Birthday!

2005-01-19T13:23:00.000-08:00

To my dear friend Carrie:

Happiest of birthdays! This is your 34th time around the sun, and look at how far you've come in the 10 years (can you believe it!) since we first met.

Hope you enjoy your new year, and it's been a pleasure to know you. I hope we'll always be friends, and I'm glad you're doing so well in your new roles.

Celebrate!

Robert

Links

2005-01-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I see some of my readers have linked to not only my blog, but a few of my websites (most notably http://www.expertlawfirm.com. Thank you, whoever you are! I collect legal links, which you can view at www.expertlawfirm.com/links, also.

Hope everyone had a happy new year, and have a great 2005!

New Year's Eve

2004-12-28T16:11:00.000-08:00

It may be crazy to take a pregnant woman to Vegas, but here we go, all two and a half of us ... New Year's Eve weekend in Vegas! We already have tickets for "We Will Rock You", the Queen Musical, and "Ka", the new Cirque de Soliel Show, and a party New Year's Eve at Tangerine, the show in Treasure Island, and "Midnight", the show at the Luxor. Plus catching up on all the stuff we missed our last trip, and maybe a tour of the Grand Canyon. Whew! Stay tuned for the updates when the hangover wears off!

Laguna Beach - The "Real" (crazy) OC?

2004-12-28T15:19:00.000-08:00

October 1 - 7, 2004 Laguna Beach: 911 Cop log confirms it takes a village of idiots

by R. Scott Moxley

For decades, people worldwide have known Laguna Beach as a tranquil seaside village. "Laguna’s the Riviera of Pacific Coast," announced an August headline in the Toronto Star. A local Chamber of Commerce flack proudly calls Laguna "the jewel of Orange County’s coastline," while some Lagunatics are wont to refer to it as "Mayberry by the Sea" because of its small-town charms.

MTV’s newest reality show Laguna Beach: The Real O.C.—a 90210 meets The Real World chronicling of the lives of privileged Laguna teens—no doubt intends to capitalize on the beach town’s enticing mixture of aw-shucks and megabucks. But despite such well-worn propaganda, there’s an undeniable seedy side to sunny Laguna that you won’t see on Laguna Beach—heck, it’d make the producers of Cops grimace. Check out this sampling of recent real-world Laguna Beach police reports:

Brooks Street Beach: Police caught four people having sex on the beach—and we don’t mean the mixed drink. Vista del Sol: Woman reported that she and her husband hid in their bedroom as a man began ringing their doorbell and violently jiggling the door handle. Upon arrival police found a stupefied San Bernardino man standing on the front porch and asking, "Where am I?" He was transported to jail for drug intoxication. Forest Avenue: Authorities arrested an Aliso Viejo man for drug intoxication. High Drive: A man wearing dark glasses and a straw hat spied into a resident’s window and yelled incoherently. Carmelita Street: A man was arrested for being on drugs. Forest Avenue: Three men yelled profanities at people walking past a store. South Coast Highway: Police found a traffic hazard when they found a man sitting in the middle of busy Coast Highway. Cleo Street: Cops arrested a Newport Beach man for allegedly possessing stolen credit cards and a cache of methamphetamine during a routine traffic stop. Park Avenue: A homeless man was reported sitting on a resident’s roof at 2:34 a.m. Saint Ann’s Beach: Residents saw a man wearing a black outfit and videotaping children playing at the beach. Bluebird Canyon Drive: Police cited a man for allegedly possessing marijuana. Broadway: An intoxicated woman with long blond hair and carrying two shopping bags struck a woman standing at the bus depot. Cleo Street: A heavily intoxicated man refused to leave Ralph’s after employees declined to sell him alcohol. Victory Walk: A man found a used syringe at a work site. Vista de la Luna: A resident called police to claim a huge snake was trying to enter his window. Cedar Way: A man was arrested for being drunk in public after he passed out in an alley. Glenneyre Street: An angry man was screaming at people. Main Beach: In two unrelated incidents, men were arrested for allegedly using concealed video cameras to tape children playing at the beach; according to cops, both men admitted they were filming the kids for sexual jollies. North Coast Highway: A Laguna Niguel man was arrested on suspicion of felony drunken driving after a crash in which someone was injured. South Coast Highway: Police arrested a man for battery, resisting arrest and vandalism after he allegedly slugged a woman. Flamingo Road: Cops arrested a Laguna Niguel man on suspicion of felony drug possession. Laguna Canyon Road: A driver yelled profanities out of a car window. South Coast Highway: A disturbed woman left several threatening letters with hotel managers. Table Rock Beach: Police found a missing 16-year-old Temecula girl while she drank alcohol with a group of people on the beach. South Coast Highway and Vista del Sol: A Mission Viejo man was arrested for DUI, holding pot and speeding after police responded to an early morning drag race. Ruby: A woman told cops that during an argument a neighbor sawed off her tree branches. Vista del Sol and South Coast Highway: A Mission Viejo resident was arrested for drunken driving after reportedly driving "all over the road." Acacia Drive and Cedar Way: Teenagers threw a water bottle from a moving car and struck a pedestrian. Alta Laguna Boulevard: Cops arrested a Los Angeles man for allegedly possessing drugs. El Bosque: A woman reported that her neighbor threatened to shoot her dog. South Coast Highway: A man stole an old Volkswagen, somehow got it going at speeds exceeding 100 mph (!), crashed into a minivan in Dana Point and was arrested at gunpoint after running from cops. Oak Street and South Coast Highway: A man was seen spitting on campaign posters. Cliff Drive and Jasmine Street: Passions start early: police broke up a fistfight at 9:44 a.m. Cleo Street: A Foothill Ranch man was arrested for DUI, marijuana possession, peeing in public and blocking oncoming traffic.

Remember, if you need an Orange County DUI lawyer or DUI attorney, contact me through our websites, http://www.orangecountydrunkdriving.com, or http://www.expertlawfirm.com

Holiday greetings

2004-12-24T01:04:00.000-08:00

Well, our office closed for the day, and then I got another case dismissed for a client (which is good in this case). That makes five wins in less than a week! Great way to begin the holiday, which we had off to a great start with our first tree as a married couple (which is beautiful by the way - both the tree and the couple, heh heh), and tonight I cooked a formal dinner for five people in the French Provencial Holiday Style (wild rice, vegetables, poultry and fruit sauce) - very fun! I have some great friends.

Merry Christmas!

Nostradamus now used to predict DUI?

2004-12-22T08:05:00.000-08:00

The 'Nostradamus' test
by Sergeant Foster Mayo
Michael de Nostradame was born on December 14, 1503 at St. Remy in Provence, France. Happy belated 501st birthday, Michael!
Nostradamus (the Latin version of his name) is best known for his work, The Centuries, which he began in 1554. The Centuries have remained constantly in print for over 400 years, though of late, mostly in the tabloids with wild interpretations of his predictions about the end of the world, UFOs, and the return of Elvis, etc..
People in law enforcement have “inquiring minds” too, but are more likely to read boring, but more relevant, reports from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Their predictions are more frightening than the possibility of Elvis returning:
Out of a random 100 drivers, 25 will drive DUI during any given year.
The typical DUI violator commits that offense about 80 times per year.
If alcohol is involved, an accident is 9X more likely to result in a fatality.
NHTSA sponsored University studies during the 70s and 80s that brought about standardization in the techniques of identification and apprehension of drunk drivers. From these studies, law enforcement has adopted a technique of identifying an impaired or drunk driver, which sounds similar to Nostradamus, but is very different, called the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus.
Nystagmus is the involuntary jerking in the eyes, which is common to all of us. Alcohol, and other depressants, inhalants, and PCP, impair the small muscles in the eyes and enhance the nystagmus until it is readily visible to the naked eye of the observer. While often thought of as a “test” it is a quick and highly effective method to determine if a driver is impaired or can safely negotiate their vehicle. This painless screening technique is often seen along the side of the roadway when a police officer is moving a pen or light in front of a driver and is asking the driver to follow it with their eyes. It can be accomplished in as little as two minutes and, along with other sobriety screening techniques used by trained police officers, has been shown to be as high as 91% reliable in determining impairment.
The descriptors “drunk” and impaired” are not synonymous. A “falling down drunk” may not be able to successfully start his/her car and may be so obviously “drunk” that friends take their keys away so they cannot drive. The impaired driver is usually convinced that they are NOT and will refuse the assistance of friends and designated drivers. Impaired drivers are more likely to take excessive risks such as speeding, passing or turning abruptly because of diminished judgment and slower reaction times.
When a police officer encounters a driver that he/she believes may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the officer is bound by laws and ethics to verify that the driver is safe to continue to their destination. Unless you are a CDL driver and driving a vehicle which requires a commercial driver’s license, or under 21 years of age, and NOT under the influence of other drugs, it is not a violation of the law to drive with a alcohol percentage of less than .08%. The trick is to know when the breath alcohol concentration is over .08%. Actual breath testing is time consuming and inconvenient. The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus and other standardized field sobriety screening techniques have proven to be a quicker and faster way to screen out the impaired drivers and allow the rest of us to proceed safely to our destinations.
While some tabloids report that Nostradamus was successful in predicting the arrival of UFOs and Elvis, the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus is more successful in predicting an impaired driver’s future, or at least 180 days of it.

Problem Child

2004-12-20T23:23:00.000-08:00

As a child, I had fame of some sorts for a while. The columnist for the Long Beach Press Telegram did a class visit and found out that I had returned from the country of Iran, and could read, count, and relate statistics and tales from that country. That resulted in one published column, and then another one after I took an IQ test and was found to have a 152 IQ. My parents were also given the opportunity to put me ahead a grade, but declined to do so. Looking back, I suppose more emphasis was given to sports, fitness, and learning about the outdoors I love so much as an adult, but I wouldn't give up any of the booksmarts I had back then, or the joy I had reading as a child. Although I hated the travel as a child, there's no way I'd give it up now for anything - it's a pleasure to meet people from Spain, Greece, Iran, Guatemala, and recite the phrases or discuss the country that I remember so well from childhood.

Go coach go

2004-11-30T01:00:00.000-08:00

I have to give "props" to my business coach, Kelly Fullerton. For a year and a half, she's been valuable in giving advice, but mainly listening and applying her skills in problem solving towards various problems, including managing our growth, employee issues, advertising and marketing, and even personal fitness goals of mine.

Thank you Kelly - you've been an invaluable part of our growth spurt this past year!

Amazing...

2004-11-24T01:05:00.000-08:00

Amazing Race. What a great show! I can't believe that up until the season premiere last week, I hadn't ever seen this show. Much faster paced than Survivor, with team dynamics that make you cheer or jeer at the personalities on this show, plus a truly international race. My new favorite for Tuesday nights.

Know what else is Amazing? Breaking news for the world here - I'm going to be a father in March! Wow. Not sure I've digested all the consequences here, but no time like the present to get used to the idea. Kind of exciting, huh?

So here I go, racing from the world of business and law, to the world of diapers and drool. Let's see how I do on this adventure!

Fear Factor...

2004-11-23T01:33:00.000-08:00

... is my new Monday addiction. I'm sure there are better shows, and Fear Factor relies on gross out and "wow" stunts rather than personalities, but somehow it's addicting, and I always find myself wondering if I can do the stunts.

The "theme" fear factors are getting a little ridiculous, like tonight's Thanksgiving Fear Factor, but I see that "couples", "newlyweds", "reality show", "celebrity", and "best friends" Fear Factors are coming up this season. Since "couples" was their best ratings since the show started in 2001, I expect you'll see even more theme shows. Maybe future hotties that win will have better mugshots taken when they get a drunk in public charge, grab a cop's crotch, and appear in the February, 2005 Playboy issue:
http://www.mugshots.com/Celebrity/Monica+Jackson.htm

The Wedding

2004-11-15T22:18:00.000-08:00

The wedding was great, and it's a cliche, but everything was beautiful and it was so great to see old family and friends that I haven't seen in forever. I have to especially thank my great friends, Krisztina and David, and our minister, Gerry Maggio -- maybe we were the first couple to have a divorce attorney who's also a minister do our marriage? Gersain and Josefina Bustos, who provided all the beautiful flowers, free of charge, were fantastic, and I can't thank everyone enough, especially my family and her family.

So that's it -- we did it! I have to say, I was REALLY apprehensive about getting married and settling down with one woman for the rest of my life (did I just admit that?), but I really, really enjoy being married. I feel more productive than I've been in years, and this feels like my natural state, which I enjoy more than I ever thought I could.

The live band was a big hit, and the chocolate fountain was REALLY a hit. Everyone kept talking about the flowers, which were truly impressive. I have to say that the 1,000 butterflies that were to be released, but just stayed in their boxes, were... well, less than impressive, and the DJ truly sucked.

I keep thinking about the weddings of good friends I've been to in the past few years, and how special I realize that now was, now that I've done it myself. I wish more of my distant friends, in California, Illinois, Nevada, and New York could have been there -- they were missed.

Overall, it was a great time. If I knew how to post pictures, believe me, I would, and they may be coming soon. And now, on to married life, and the next surprise that awaits us!

Knot experienced in weddings

2004-10-27T22:36:00.000-07:00

Wedding jitters? If I had time to think past the wedding stress, maybe I'd have those. Nothing like a wedding to make you snap even at your own Mom.

I'm not sure why both myself and my attractive law student fiancee thought we'd plan a simple wedding in just over a month. But just when you think you've got everything mentally prepared, something else comes up that you hadn't thought of. The table cards! The exit!

It doesn't help, and I need to be careful here, that members of the female species tend to get a little ... oh what's the word ... passive aggressive? The maxim that you're supposed to read her mind and get it right every time comes across double during the couple of weeks before a wedding.

Suddenly, I'm remembering every horror story I've heard about wedding planning ... limos not showing up, brides that take one too many of (fill in the blank... Xanex, Prozac, Alcohol) something, flowers/cakes/guests not showing up.

Of course in our wedding, since most of the audience is in the wedding party, we don't have to worry about that.

I'm excited, nervous, scared of what will go wrong, but looking forward to having this behind us, and having my beautiful fiancee -- no, wife! -- back to her normal self, and back to our normal relationship.

Next: Wedding photos! Drama! Mi Mama!

Happy Anniversary to Me

2004-10-15T23:51:00.000-07:00

... because this week I celebrated 5 years as my own business, law firm, and independent company! (Warning: Shameless plug ahead: www.expertlawfirm.com).

I can't believe I started October 14, 1999, with a little money in the bank, and NO clients, and now have almost 300 clients, and STILL no money in the bank! Woo hoo!

Looking back, it's been a great ride, and I couldn't have done it without my great employees (www.expertlawfirm.com/about), and the support of my friends, notably Rizio and Nelson and my family.

Here's to another 5 years --- cheers!

The Jury

2004-10-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

Here I am, in day three of another jury trial, still picking a jury. Although I strongly believe that the jury system is preferable to any alternative, picking a jury is tedious, and the jurors seem angry that it's taking so long, and that there's so much waiting.

We have a great judge where I'm in trial at the North Justice Center in Fullerton, and my client (and his family) couldn't be nicer. Even defense counsel had the jury laughing when he asked when you can tell a defense attorney is lying? His mouth is moving!

Monday we have to finish picking the jury, and then the fun starts -- opening statements and picking apart the DA's alleged evidence against my client. Stay tuned for all the exciting action.

After the trial broke for the weekend, I had to fight traffic and spend four hours driving to the jail in Rancho Cucamonga - West Valley Detention Center, where I waited for 1.5 hours, and then was told that their computers were down, and tough cookies for my visit tonight. Great - just great! I can't even get let into jail! As Groucho Marx said, "I don't want to join any club that would have me as a member", so maybe I'm not too disappointed.

Speaking of exciting action, tonight is both Survivor, and The Apprentice. I guess I know what I'll be doing!

Columbus Day

2004-10-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

Columbus Day. A strange holiday. Every courthouse, bank, post office, state and federal office is closed, but almost every private company I know works, including our firm. When did this become a "government worker only" holiday?

We used it to have an all staff meeting and catch up on some housekeeping, tasks that needed to be done, and meet with clients (who probably had the day off).

Considering that the current political view of Christopher Columbus is of a "slave trader... steeped in blood, violence, and death", http://www.transformcolumbusday.org/, is it better to take a day off in remembrance, or just work through another holiday?

We are also working on Veteran's day, and decided to take that day and hold an out of the office seminar. I suppose that government worker holidays have their uses.

Reality TV

2004-10-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

Reality TV gets a lot of criticism, but it's revitalizing television, in my opinion. Television of 5 to 10 years ago was composed of a lot of badly written, badly acted sitcoms, many of which didn't last more than a season. Although there were "Friends" and "Seinfield", there were also many, many sitcoms that weren't watercooler talk, let alone worth watching or "Must See TV".

I used to rarely watch TV, preferring the higher production values and experience of movies instead, but currently, I'm hooked on the following:

The Apprentice. With the cut-throat competitiveness of the "interviewees", the fun tasks assigned (and the ability to second guess each decision from your couch), and the egotistical dourness of "The Donald", this show is addictive.
Survivor. Some consider this the original reality show (you could argue that The Real World, on MTV, or PBS' American Family holds that title), but it certainly started the current trend. This is hit or miss, but the brutal nature of this show and the clever competitions that keep the starving, scheming competitors of this show on their toes often makes this clever television.
Fear Factor. Much lower in production values than the two above, but they know what they are doing -- spectacular stunts, beautiful contestants, and the eating of nauseating food products. The "Couples Fear Factor", which I understand gave NBC it's highest ratings for this show, was fun stuff.
The Bachelor. One of the worst produced shows on television, and each episode has enough pauses, "coming up next" segments, and uses of the word "connection" to be edited into a 10 minute show, but the general cattiness and beauty of the women contestants make this fun. Extra bonus fun is found in making fun of the doofus bachelors they get (Bass fishermen?), and the bad spelling found in the titles on the bottom of the screen ("The Guys's house"?). Coming up next: "The Most Shocking... rose ceremony EVER!"
The Real World. This show is WAY out of being close to targeted to my demographic, but it still is vicarious fun. Like Survivor, this show depends on the personalities of its cast members, but it can be youthful fun, like the Real World: Las Vegas season was, spawning a career from Trishelle and inspiring youth everywhere.

One of the best sites online for commentary on reality shows is http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com. Articles are free and very humorous.

Or even better, get out there and get some fresh air and sun - or read a book!

Lazy Sunday

2004-10-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog! I'm not sure what's wrong with me lately - more tired than anything. Lots of driving lately. Today I need to run errands, wedding invitations need to be addressed, and I need to fill up the tank. I'm hoping this will be a good week for the business, since we need it right now.

Check us out online at http://www.expertlawfirm.com, or at http://www.orangecountydrunkdriving.com, http://www.sandiegodrunkdriving.com, or http://www.losangelesdrunkdriving.com, as well as http://www.irvinecriminaldefense.com, or http://www.irvinedui.com.