Really Good Quotes

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“Written laws are like spider’s webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and the poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.” - Anacharsis

“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” - Plato (427-347 B.C.)

E-Mail the Imp

In 1848 when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California, the first prospectors were able to pan flakes of gold as easy as draining pasta when it’s al dente. Well maybe not that easy, but gold had been washing down from the mountains for millennia and collecting in the twists and bends of the American Fork River. There were even nuggets as big as or bigger than marbles that were found. Myth has it that one lucky soul collected about a pound of nuggets in the first week…but lost it all gambling in one night.

There were several gold “rushes” around the world, with easy picking’s the first few days for the first few prospectors, but few of them became rich. The big money was in the mines dug and smelters built by the wealthy miners who let machines find the small flakes and gold dust locked up in rock. The other road to a fortune was selling equipment to the prospectors or stealing their gold and mining claims.

A successful, or profitable mine may produce 50 grams (less than 2 ounces) of gold per ton of ore. If you tried to pan a ton of silt by hand to get that gold you’d probably die of hunger before you got enough for a Big Mac. If you had a mine that yielded 200 – 300 grams of gold per ton you’d have a Bonanza on your hands, sans Hoss and Little Joe.

So if you have a source of gold that yields nearly 2000 grams per ton you have really hit pay dirt. At a sewage treatment facility in Nagano prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, officials recently recorded finding 1,890 grams of gold per ton of ash from incinerated sludge. That ain’t crap, that’s over $500K (€387K). That’s a Bonanza!

If I lived there I’d identify everyone who craps into that sewer system and start stuffing them with food like a Christmas goose. Maybe, besides keeping the gold yield high, we could start collecting silver and platinum too. This lends a whole new meaning to, “He’s got money coming out of his wazoo!” And everyone thought that manure wasn’t worth shit.

The Bad Sied

Speak right up!

On this day in history, February 25, 1942: In the early morning hours the Battle of Los Angeles takes place. In December 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. On February 23, 1942, a Japanese submarine I-17 shelled the Ellwood Oil Field near Santa Barbara, California. The shelling did $500-$1,000 in damages and there were no casualties. The sub was last seen heading south, toward LA. Tensions were high with people fearing another mainland attack. During the night of February 24-25 something was seen. Air raid sirens were blaring and at 2:25 AM a total blackout was ordered.

Thousands of air raid wardens were called out. They patrolled the streets making sure Los Angeles remained blanketed by darkness. At 3:16 AM the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade commenced firing. During the course of the bombardment over 1,400 12.8-pound (5.8 kg) anti-aircraft shells were fired. Shelling ceased at 4:14 AM. It took 20 minutes for the unidentified objects to move from the airspace over Santa Monica to the airspace of Long Beach, a distance of ˜ 20 miles (30 km). The all clear signal was given at 7:21 AM. Three civilians were killed by friendly fire and another three died of heart attacks during the night, attributed to the stress of the sirens and shelling.

There has been speculation about what was flying over LA that night. Several spotlights from the ground converged on a section of the night sky. There were several bright points of light outlying the area of convergence and a large smudge was seen in the center. Some people saw a flying saucer in the convergence zone. Hours after the incident, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox held a press conference and called the encounter a false alarm and blamed it on "war nerves." The LA Times ran the headline the following day saying "Army Says Alarm Real."



At 0306 a balloon carrying a red flare was seen over Santa Monica and four batteries of anti-aircraft artillery opened fire, whereupon “the air over Los Angeles erupted like a volcano.” From this point on reports were hopelessly at variance.



The divergence of views between the War and Navy departments, and the unsatisfying conjectures advanced by the Army to explain the affair, touched off a vigorous public discussion.



At the end of the war, the Japanese stated that they did not send planes over the area at the time of this alert, although submarine-launched aircraft were subsequently used over Seattle. - all from The Army Air Forces in World War II, under the editorship of Wesley Frank Craven, James Lea Cate

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Re:  Green Trees and Crime Rates

When I first moved to a city, I moved twice before settling on an old, european-inspired neighborhood of subdivided 3-story houses and tiny yards, but frequent, small parks and mature trees lining the streets. We even had incandescent street lights! The streets, parks and playgrounds were very safe, partly because everyone used them. While the trees and parks improved the ambience, I think they were also a characteristic of a place with few truly desperate poor people, and a willingness to divert resources from commercial use.

When I owned an acreage, I was fatalistic about the huge conifers that sometimes fell near the buildings. I actually watched one topple on a windless, hot spring day. Some folks worried, but nobody proposed general cutting. The trees generally fetched up on each other, and trying to leave just the healthiest ones would leave them vulnerable to the wind.

Now I live in a modest old house, actually a collection of 3 tiny houses or one-room extensions. I’m carefully pruning, instead of removing one big tree that both threatens the house and shades the garden, and am delighted to have many mature trees on my street. I chose the area because it is naturally treed, in contrast to grasslands to the south.

I should also like to point out that as a material, wood is only surpassed by synthetics at ten times the price. It’s a fully biodegradable hydrocarbon fiber dispersion in a fine cellular matrix, with superb toughness with convenient fastening, and it grows on trees! You can also burn your mistakes at full heating value.

The Dominican Republic shares Hispaniola Is. with Haiti, and is in much better economic shape, in large part because it retains many trees. Their dictator once had outlaw loggers shot, and they have been cautious for decades.

The Japanese, like the Scandinavians, discovered clear-cutting 500 years ago, and now have recovered and treasure 62% forest cover, despite all the pressures from farming, etc. During WWII they clearcut Korea to fuel Kamikaze bombs, etc, but left their own trees alone. Greece, and Easter island, were too fragile to recover from clear-cutting. I have not seen many of the giant Cedars of Lebanon available lately, either. - Bob of the North



Savannah, GA is rife with trees and mini parks, but they have a very high crime rate. I can’t imagine statistics nation wide supporting such a theory. If there is any correlation between lower crime rates and the number of trees in the suburbs, it may be due to the larger size of lawns, allowing residents time to lock, load, and fire on the miscreants that sometimes flee the city on a crime spree. - sied



Re:  Isolation and Loneliness

Dora in Denver sent this link, further discussing this issue.

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