NASA scientists said Monday they have found evidence of intermittent water flow on the surface of California, a finding that challenges prevailing views about the desolate planet, sources report.
In a news conference today, NASA officials announced that imagery from the Bayside Reconnaissance Orbiter (“BRO”) revealed trace amounts of water flowing down the slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
“California is not the barren, arid hellscape we thought of in the past,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters. “Of course, the search continues for intelligent life.”
Researchers noted this is not the first sign of water in California. In 2012, satellite imagery showed celebrity actors carrying bottled water in Hollywood, a lifeless crater in the state’s southernmost desert. Later research found this water had been imported from Fiji.
The potential consequences of the discovery are far-reaching, but NASA officials cautioned Earth inhabitants of the dangers that await potential human occupants of California.
“As crazy as it sounds, California may be a habitable planet,” said Green. “But new colonies will still have to contend with earthquakes, oppressive heat, and the residents of Los Angeles.”
To James. He's always little brother Jimmy to me but he doesn't like that handle.
I was thinking about this the other day as it rained like mad for the third time in one day for the seventh day in a row. Weather unusual for Colorado, but then all weather is unusual for Colorado. That's axiomatic. And always has been.
The same line of thought is triggered again when scanning past a link on Drudge without bothering to click or read anything.
It's so stupid.
So incredibly stupid. And I mean stupid as stuck in a high-school discussion that never ends.
That really is your governor. Jerry Brown. Patently stuck in a high-school discussion and so is everybody who elected him.
I thought about it again today as it rained so heavily so oddly and still requiring I water my plants because half of them don't even get wet, and again while watching t.v. the boy in the family band said he finally made it to California for the first time and it was raining. "Hey, I was told it never rains in California."
And recalling how it rained like mad, continuously, when we returned from Maui. All week. And the whole train ride back. The entire ride. Rain is not California's problem. Water is not California's problem. Overpopulation is not California's problem.
You know by living there and by traveling around the state and the area that there is plenty of water and plenty of places to store water for times when its needed and plenty of money to do any engineering project your state wishes to undertake. Water is not the problem. You know as Christian God provides, you know by Christian history the stories of pharaohs learning from dreams and from Jews to parlay times of plenty to cover periods of need. You know by your third-grade science that water replenishes cyclically reliably. You know by driving your Cadillac into the twelve foot snowbank in the Sierras. Your common sense tells you drought in your state needn't be.
No, the problem is ideology. Pinched ideology. It is conservative principles, conservation, but torqued to pinched ideology. The problem is a type of conservation-liberal thinking and planning (To have discomforting shortages that forces change. They like that. It's their reason for being.), the problem is Democrats, the problem is Jerry Brown. Were it a Venn diagram the circles would be concentric.
Here's confirmation, here is how I aver all this confidently. A screenshot from Drudge.
That's so Malthusian it's not even funny. That is very 1970's right there. That is a very old and barren concern and argument. Jerry Brown never grew up. As governor he is saying and showing that he refuses to prepare for more population. [Colorado shared this same governing attitude in reverse from Republicans, it was Democrats who insisted on preparing for growth and by doing encourage it] And this should prove that if you see any motion in that direction of preparing for a water secure future it will be only faint and half-hearted efforts because his and Sacramento's real and true concern will be to limit population. But watch. Oddly, contrary to federal law keeping borders wide open as possible and allowing even encouraging migration that leapfrogs over the legal system in place. All that together says quite clearly the governing class together there would strongly prefer ruling people ruled more easily than you. Either stop breeding or get out, or stay away to begin with, or think of something else, or suffer with less water. There will be no or little preparation for future water needs because that would encourage internal U.S. migration to California its population to swell and causing Jerry Brown concern. They will do this with lawfare and with water and with whatever tools you allow them.
Apparently, Californians agree or else they would not elect this antique, but they did.
There is no reason to suffer drought. No reason at all. There is plenty of water replenishing constantly. You know that by the sierras alone.
Brother James said, "I don't know. We might not not even have a garden this year." That's unthinkable and there he is thinking it. I had instant pity, and deep pity too, for his wife, new to the country, straight to California, a rather big dream come true and unfold before her in series of amazements and BAM no garden. Oh no. The humanity.
"How about hydroponic tomatoes like your Aerogarden except 5 gallon buckets that are tiered."
"How does the water flow to the buckets?"
"Gravity."
I see on right-leaning blogs comments to articles addressing Jerry Brown and California and earlier chances they had back then in the 70's when population was less that go along the lines of, "All this for minnow," or, "Meanwhile hundreds of billions of gallons of water flushed into the Pacific to protect the Delta Smelt," and the comments rise to the top there in comments and separated out for admiration for their top commenting summation.
That's a lot of water when people are hurting for water.
But why? Why would the state do this to save the fish? What is it about these fish? What are they anyway? And why all the fuss about concentrations of people and farms and industry?
Turns out to be Silvery Minnows in one area of controversy and Delta Smelt in another. The minnows are not baby fish, that is just their name because they are small like bait fish, they are adult fish that are small but not so small as neon tetras. Both are plain. If you drew a simple cartoon fish with the basics, these would be it. One is a little more like a pencil than the other. They're both the size of a finger.
I thought, "This is a challenge for aquarium hobbyists. Save the fish!"
No challenge is too great for aquarium hobbyists, any river or lake situation can be replicated with technical precision and artistic éclat. The fish are not much to look at, but there is cache in being environmentally-minded, "oh those are endangered species," the sacrifices we make and all that, but if they would shoal together in river-like conditions, or collect among native river plants in or out out of a current, they might be fun to observe. I notice fish do that when frightened, clump together like that, so scare them a little. Reading along through various stories about these endangered species and water disputes, one of the articles mentioned that California is already doing all this aquarium breeding with some 50,000 or some fish in re-establishment programs statewide. It is not a matter of the number of fish being low.
Maybe it was 500,000. It was a lot of little fish.
It is a matter of their entire environment threatened. The fish are the canaries in the coal mine so to speak, indicating the entire environment is out of whack be the cause population stress, or farming or industry, things are seriously wrong and a million caged canaries or aquarium fish will not fix that imbalance.
And James you did move there to be part of all that is happening in California, so suck it, your wife knew worse hardships than relief from gardening, so let's look at some schemes for hydroponic tomatoes. This could be fun.
Two hundred eighty pounds of tomatoes! Shut up! I went back and forth from Tony's and home all summer long filling my backpack with tomatoes and peaches, passing them around, and I didn't come close to two hundred eighty pounds. That is a ringing success. He sounded so sad, and yet happy too for the success then back to sad for it ending this way with blight then back to happy to have done it, and pleased to try again and admitting the whole thing is fun. And that is the whole point because you buy heirloom tomatoes all season long for half the expense, depending on crop and setup, and none of the trouble.
I couldn't find the earlier video I saw of the guy with the 5 gallon buckets. Built as stadium bleachers the water is pumped to the top, maybe distributed up there, each bucket fills by charged water pumped directly over the roots of the top tier plants. It drains over them into the bucket. The bucket fills to a point then drains to the plant in the next bucket down directly over its roots, filling its bucket to a point. Water remains in the bottom of the buckets so the whole inside of the bucket stays fogged and the roots hanging in there always wet and always refreshed and recharged. All tiers are watered this way and and pump shuts off for awhile and starts up again in preprogramed sequence.
Now on YouTube all the videos are people showing off their gigantic hydroponic tomatoes. Each year new videos are added and now they only mention the type of their system. The rest is all tomato parade and that is not helpful. Except this guy. I almost made a cartoon of him in Rube Goldberg style.
He's bombed.
And then the camera turns back on the fish in their fiberglass storage containers to the fish that do not see the light of day and you realize the fish spend their whole lives in there like a prison. And my tank is a prison too but at least my tank has a chance of faking them out.
