SYD ARTHUR LICIT

REALITIES. LEGALITIES. STRATEGIES.

Tunguska and the Best Laid Plans

Posted on Sunday, August 15, 2010 by jsf

The Tunguska event is the largest impact event in recorded history. It occurred in 1908 near the Tunguska river, in mideast Russia, an isolated area. It is thought to have been caused when a large meteoroid or comet 197 to 623 feet (60 to 190 meters) in diameter exploded approximately 3 to 6 miles (5 to 10 kilometers) above the ground. The Tunguska event flattened an area of forest over 30 miles (50 km) wide, felling over 80 million trees. At the epicenter of the blast, trees were left standing, but stripped of their bark and limbs.

View from Kirensk, Russia -- two seconds before the explosion over Tunguska.

Because of the mysteriousness of the Tunguska blast — no meteroid was ever found — it has been the subject of various pseudoscientific theories about its origin, including the crash of an alien spaceship or an experiment carried out by Nikola Tesla. The scientific community is in consensus that the blast was likely caused by a meteorairburst. Various calculations involving the time of occurrence and angle of approach of the body suggest that the body came from the direction of the asteroid belt.

For decades, scientists have been debating whether the body was a comet — a body primarily made of ice and dust — or an asteroid, which would be metallic and rocky in composition. Papers published in the last decade or so help support the asteroid hypothesis; if the body were a comet, it would have likely disintegrated further up in the atmosphere, rather than making it all the way to a few miles over the ground. The explosion was probably caused by the immense heat generated through atmospheric entry. Proponents of the comet hypothesis suggest that the Tunguska impactor was a comet with a stony core. To this day, most Russian scientists believe the Tunguska impactor was a comet, while American scientists believe it was an asteroid.

View from Vanavara trading post at the moment of explosion.

The Tunguska blast has been important in causing awareness for the possibility of large asteroids impacting the Earth’s surface. If the Tunguska blast occurred over a populated area, it could have killed millions of people. The Guinness Book of World Records states if the collision had occurred just 4 hours 47 minutes later, it would have destroyed the city of St. Petersburg completely.

Tunguska--Minutes after the explosion.


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Abraham Lincoln & John Wooden

Posted on Saturday, June 5, 2010 by jelasafork

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

  1. All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever I thought a flower would grow.
  2. Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
  3. Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
  4. Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
  5. Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
  6. He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
  7. If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don’t make it a leg.
  8. I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
  9. It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
  10. My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
  11. The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
  12. Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
  13. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
  14. To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.
  15. When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.
  16. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
  17. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
  18. I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
  19. I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
  20. I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.
  21. I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
  22. I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

JOHN WOODEN

  1. Be quick, but don’t hurry.
  2. Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
  3. Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
  4. It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.
  5. Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.
  6. Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.
  7. You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
  8. It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.
  9. Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights.
  10. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
  11. Always try to be better today than you were yesterday.
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Medical Marijuana Law

Posted on Sunday, May 30, 2010 by jsf

California’s Medical Marijuana Laws

SUMMARY: Fifty-six percent of voters approved Proposition 215 on November 5, 1996. The law took effect the following day. It removes state-level criminal penalties on the use, possession and cultivation of marijuana by patients who possess a “written or oral recommendation” from their physician that he or she “would benefit from medical marijuana.” Patients diagnosed with any debilitating illness where the medical use of marijuana has been “deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician” are afforded legal protection under this act. Conditions typically covered by the law include but are not limited to: arthritis; cachexia; cancer; chronic pain; HIV or AIDS; epilepsy; migraine; and multiple sclerosis. No set limits regarding the amount of marijuana patients may possess and/or cultivate were provided by this act, though the California Legislature adopted guidelines in 2003.

AMENDMENTS: Yes. Senate Bill 420, which was signed into law in October 2003 and took effect on January 1, 2004, imposes statewide guidelines outlining how much medicinal marijuana patients may grow and possess. Under the guidelines, qualified patients and/or their primary caregivers may possess no more than eight ounces of dried marijuana and/or six mature (or 12 immature) marijuana plants. However, S.B. 420 allows patients to possess larger amounts of marijuana when such quantities are recommended by a physician. The legislation also allows counties and municipalities to approve and/or maintain local ordinances permitting patients to possess larger quantities of medicinal pot than allowed under the new state guidelines.

Senate Bill 420 also mandates the California Department of State Health Services to establish a voluntary medicinal marijuana patient registry, and issue identification cards to qualified patients. To date, however, no such registry has been established.

Senate Bill 420 also grants implied legal protection to the state’s medicinal marijuana dispensaries, stating, “Qualified patients, persons with valid identification cards, and the designated primary caregivers of qualified patients … who associate within the state of California in order collectively or cooperatively to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes, shall not solely on the basis of that fact be subject to state criminal sanctions.”

MEDICAL MARIJUANA STATUTES:

California Compassionate Use Act 1996

Cal. Health & Saf. Code, § 11362.5 (1996) (codifying voter initiative Prop. 215).

Cal. Health & Saf. Code, §§ 11362.7 – 11362.83 (2003) (codifying SB 420).

Proposition 215, the “Compassionate Use Act”

The Compassionate Use Act is a voter initative, passed in 1996, that made California the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use.

California Senate Bill 420

This bill was passed in 2004 with the following purpose:

“(1) Clarify the scope of the application of the [Compassionate Use] act and facilitate the prompt identification of qualified patients and their designated primary caregivers in order to avoid unnecessary arrest and prosecution of these individuals and provide needed guidance to law enforcement officers.

(2) Promote uniform and consistent application of the act among the counties within the state.

(3) Enhance the access of patients and caregivers to medical marijuana through collective, cooperative cultivation projects.”

California County and City Medical Marijuana Laws

Municipalities and counties in CA have chosen in some cases to create their own guidelines to further clarify the 1996 Compassionate Use Act and SB 420.

CA Attorney General Clarifies State/Federal Conflict on Medical Marijuana Law

On April 6, 2005, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer stated that, “both generally and in the specific context of interpreting the Compassionate Use Act — it is not the province of state courts to enforce federal laws.”

This was not issued in a formal opinion, but in a footnote of a legal brief. Nonetheless, it clarifies the legal position of the highest authority in California.


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