California 'mystery missile' ignites debate: Friend, foe, or faux? - Christian Science Monitor

A mysterious missile launch from California or an optical illusion?

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That's a question the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) is trying to resolve – and the blogosphere is hotly debating – after CBS News in Los Angeles aired what appeared to be a rocket launch from the Pacific Ocean just north of Santa Catalina Island, taken at sunset Nov. 8.

The "mystery missile" video, shot from a helicopter operated by local CBS affiliate KCBS, shows what appears to be an arcing plume of engine exhaust rising into the sky west of Los Angeles. Speculation about its source ranges from an airliner, whose contrail is giving the illusion of rocketry, or a missile itself.

About the only thing unambiguous about the event is that the go-to agencies either with jurisdiction over launches or with fingers poised over launch buttons – the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Defense Department – said, in effect, "It wasn't us."

Despite the official uncertainty behind the vapor trail, NORAD and the US Northern Command, which oversees the defense of the continental US, Alaska, and Hawaii, issued a statement aimed at reassuring the country that the event represents no threat.

"We can confirm that there is no threat to our nation, and from all indications this was not a launch by a foreign military," they said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

Coastal southern California is no stranger to rocket launches. The US Air Force launches military and commercial rockets from Vandenberg Air Force base north of Santa Barbara; NASA occasionally launches sounding rockets from San Nicholas Island, some 80 miles west of Los Angeles. Nor is it stranger to spectacular sunsets and odd aircraft contrails.

At contrailscience.com, a Santa Monica-based private pilot who operates the cite has posted several sunset contrails that look similar to the vapor trail the CBS news crew recorded.

David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass., notes that his initial speculation about what happened leaned toward the rocket-launch explanation, given NASA's launches from San Nicholas Island.

The CBS report suggested the plume was rising from some 35 miles offshore, but Dr. Wright adds that evening lighting and atmospheric moisture could have conspired to make a launch contrail look larger and closer than it actually is.

But after reviewing photos on contrailscience.com, he adds, he's reconsidering a jet contrail as an explanation – one he tended to dismiss early on.

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California 'mystery missile' ignites debate: Friend, foe, or faux? - Christian Science Monitor

A mysterious missile launch from California or an optical illusion?

Skip to next paragraph

That's a question the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) is trying to resolve – and the blogosphere is hotly debating – after CBS News in Los Angeles aired what appeared to be a rocket launch from the Pacific Ocean just north of Santa Catalina Island, taken at sunset Nov. 8.

The "mystery missile" video, shot from a helicopter operated by local CBS affiliate KCBS, shows what appears to be an arcing plume of engine exhaust rising into the sky west of Los Angeles. Speculation about its source ranges from an airliner, whose contrail is giving the illusion of rocketry, or a missile itself.

About the only thing unambiguous about the event is that the go-to agencies either with jurisdiction over launches or with fingers poised over launch buttons – the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Defense Department – said, in effect, "It wasn't us."

Despite the official uncertainty behind the vapor trail, NORAD and the US Northern Command, which oversees the defense of the continental US, Alaska, and Hawaii, issued a statement aimed at reassuring the country that the event represents no threat.

"We can confirm that there is no threat to our nation, and from all indications this was not a launch by a foreign military," they said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

Coastal southern California is no stranger to rocket launches. The US Air Force launches military and commercial rockets from Vandenberg Air Force base north of Santa Barbara; NASA occasionally launches sounding rockets from San Nicholas Island, some 80 miles west of Los Angeles. Nor is it stranger to spectacular sunsets and odd aircraft contrails.

At contrailscience.com, a Santa Monica-based private pilot who operates the cite has posted several sunset contrails that look similar to the vapor trail the CBS news crew recorded.

David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass., notes that his initial speculation about what happened leaned toward the rocket-launch explanation, given NASA's launches from San Nicholas Island.

The CBS report suggested the plume was rising from some 35 miles offshore, but Dr. Wright adds that evening lighting and atmospheric moisture could have conspired to make a launch contrail look larger and closer than it actually is.

But after reviewing photos on contrailscience.com, he adds, he's reconsidering a jet contrail as an explanation – one he tended to dismiss early on.

Page: 1 | 2

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Facebook co-founder gives $100000 to push to legalise cannabis in California - The Guardian

Polls suggest voters in California will back legalisation of cannabis on November 2. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Facebook co-founder Sean Parker is giving $100,000 (£62,640) to the push for the legalisation of cannabis in California. Campaigners had complained they were short of cash in the run-up to a vote on the measure on 2 November.

His contribution follows two donations by his fellow co-founder, Dustin Moskovitz, totalling $70,000. Polls suggest voters will approve legalising cannabis. A survey by Public Policy Polling last monthfound 47% for and 38% against.

The ballot coincides with mid-term elections for a new California governor as well as Congress. Legalisation could take effect the day after the ballot, making California the first state in the US to do so.

Parker, 30, founded the music-sharing site Napster when he was 19 and went on to raise funds for the social networking site Facebook, becoming its first president. He has since left the company, though he retains a stake and is worth millions. His donation was listed this week in filings issued by the campaign for Proposition 19, also known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. Parker has made no public statement about the donation.

Stephen Gutwillig, a spokesman for Drug Policy Alliance, which is spearheading the legalisation campaign and is the main beneficiary of the donation, told Associated Press: "What's interesting here is that [Parker] is a member of the generation that really gets it. We think he's pivotal to the future of drug policy reform in the country."

Others say cannabis is much stronger than it was in the 1960s and 1970s and is dangerous, impacting on the health services and the workplace

In an ironic twist, advocates of reform have complained of a ban by Facebook on adverts supporting Proposition 19. Facebook has responded that company policy only prohibits images of drugs, and not adverts either in favour or against legalisation.

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Housekeeper fracas mars California governor debate - Reuters

* Whitman says needs Latino vote to win California

* Debate gets personal over illegal ex-housekeeper

* Ex-CEO Whitman pro-business, AG Brown pro-government (Adds candidates' immigration policies, paragraph 11)

By Peter Henderson

FRESNO, Calif., Oct 2 (Reuters) - California's first Spanish-language debate in the race for governor turned into an angry exchange on Saturday when Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown traded charges of lies and deception over the case of an illegal immigrant who used to work for Whitman.

Both candidates spoke in English and their answers were simultaneously translated into Spanish for the audience in Fresno in the agricultural Central Valley, where unemployment is even higher than the state average of more than 12 percent.

Polls consistently show jobs and state finances to be the top issue for voters, but Whitman's former Latina housekeeper has become front page material in the last week.

Latinos make up roughly a third of California's population and a fifth of the electorate, and so could decide the race.

Whitman, 54, a billionaire and former chief executive of online auctioneer eBay Inc, said she fired housekeeper Nicky Diaz when Diaz said she was in the country illegally.

Diaz and her lawyer have said that Whitman and her husband knew the true state of affairs for years before the confession. Whitman denied that and the issue flared up during the debate when she called the affair dirty politics by Brown.

"You should be ashamed for sacrificing Nicky Diaz on the altar of your political ambitions," burst out Whitman, who usually is calm and reserved.

"You want to evade responsibility," shot back Brown, 72, the state attorney general and two-term former governor. He denied any involvement in the matter. "Don't run for governor if you can't stand up on your own two feet and say 'Hey, I made a mistake, I'm sorry, let's go on from here,'" he said.

"I did hold myself accountable. It's just a lie to say I didn't," Whitman later returned, turning to look at Brown.

Whitman has argued that one way to address illegal immigration is to hold employers accountable for hiring workers who are not in the country legally. Whitman says that Diaz originally showed her paperwork that later turned out to be false.

On the larger issue of what to do about illegal immigrants, Brown wants to offer the millions in the United States a path to citizenship, while Whitman supports a guest worker program but no citizenship for those in the country illegally.

IS IT THE ECONOMY?

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Details emerge on no-tax California budget pact - The Associated Press

Details emerge on no-tax California budget pactBy DON THOMPSON (AP) – 37 minutes ago

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After a record-long impasse, California legislators are set to vote this week on a no-new-taxes budget that relies on a combination of spending cuts and optimistic financial projections to close a $19 billion deficit.

Details of the agreement between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders began emerging Saturday ahead of a vote by rank-and-file lawmakers planned for Thursday. If approved, it would end a budget stalemate that has already stretched for 94 days.

The state would cut about $7.5 billion in spending as part of the deal, down from the $12 billion Schwarzenegger proposed earlier this year.

To make up the shortfall, the agreement counts on an improving economy and the federal government to provide more money than previously projected.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said last week that the leaders turned to some "creative" bookkeeping after Republicans refused to raise taxes and Democrats rejected deeper budget cuts.

The pact he and the others reached Friday night assumes about $5 billion will come from the federal government, up from the $3.4 billion the governor had projected, said multiple sources close to the negotiations. It uses the Legislative Analyst's Office optimistic forecast of an additional $1.4 billion flowing to the state from higher-than-projected revenues. And it counts on as much as $1.2 billion from selling 11 state properties, then leasing them back.

Legislative and administrative aides said they could not speak for attribution until details of the budget are formally released ahead of committee hearings scheduled for Wednesday, but they agreed on all the major points.

The leaders had been under increasing pressure to pass a budget this week. Controller John Chiang has said he might have to issue IOUs for just the third time since the Great Depression if the week passed with no budget. Treasurer Bill Lockyer warned an estimated $7 billion in planned public works projects could be in danger if a deal was not reached soon.

This is the longest the state has ever gone beyond the July 1 start of its fiscal year without a budget. Legislative leaders have been struggling for ways to bridge a $19 billion gap, which represents more than 22 percent of the state's $84.5 billion budget last year.

To help get there, Republicans agreed to a two-year delay of a corporate tax break that had been set to take effect Jan. 1, saving the state $1.4 billion this fiscal year. In return, they won permanent concessions to close what they described as loopholes in an earlier business incentive law.

The changes won by Republicans affect the way companies calculate taxes on things like cable television and computer software, which Democrats complained would benefit corporate giants like Comcast Corp. and Microsoft Corp.

But Democrats said they narrowed the tax breaks to cut the cost to the state from $500 million to about $140 million this year. Republicans said the cost will be much less, as low as $41 million.

Republican support is critical because Democrats are several votes short of the two-thirds majority they need to pass a budget and tax increases on their own. Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, said Friday that he expects enough support among Republicans to pass the budget.

Republicans also avoided proposed taxes on oil production and on property owners' insurance to pay for firefighting services, and rejected Steinberg's proposal to rebalance the way the state levies income, sales and vehicle taxes. They also blocked a proposal to divert more state prison inmates to local county jails to save the state money.

Democrats said they were able to minimize cuts to schools, child care, welfare and other social programs, without giving details even to rank-and-file lawmakers who were briefed during conference calls Friday and Saturday.

Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said the proposal protects California jobs, avoids new taxes and shields schools from massive cuts.

"This budget honors all three of those core commitments," Perez said in a statement Saturday. He called the outcome "a solid — but sober — deal for California."

However, there is no guarantee all Democrats will support the agreement, setting up the usual last-minute horse-trading for votes.

Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, wouldn't support Democratic leaders' budget proposal during an Aug. 30 test vote, and is unlikely to vote for an even harsher compromise, said spokesman Adam Keigwin.

"He's not going to support a budget that severely cuts education, social services and health care. His position is we've cut enough in those areas, people are struggling in those areas," Keigwin said.

Both sides claimed victory on one of the biggest sticking points: pension reform.

Democrats expect the Republican governor to complete negotiations within days to win pension concessions from Service Employees International Union Local 1000.

The 95,000-member local represents nine of the 15 state bargaining units that lack a contract. If it agrees to benefit rollbacks, Democrats expect the remaining bargaining units to go along.

Once they do, Democrats could meet Schwarzenegger's demand that they repeal an 11-year-old law that authorized increases in public employee benefits.

"We came to an agreement on pension reform with the Legislature," Schwarzenegger press secretary Aaron McLear said Saturday, without giving details. "He's said since January that he won't sign a budget that doesn't include comprehensive pension reform. That remains the case."

Schwarzenegger had also demanded the state create a "rainy day fund." The leaders agreed to ask voters to reconsider creating such a fund on the 2012 ballot. Last year, voters rejected a proposal to build a reserve equal to 12.5 percent of revenue. The new version would ultimately create a 10 percent reserve.

Friday's announcement came just over a week after lawmakers and the governor said they had reached a "framework" for an agreement.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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