Pasadena Sub Rosa

JPL NOW DEPENDENT ON CHEVRON, NOT JUST UNCLE SAM

Chevron Forms Alliance With NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to Develop Advanced Energy Solutions

Space exploration technology to improve energy production

SAN RAMON, Calif., July 25, 2011 – Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced today the formation of an alliance to develop a range of technologies to improve the production and recovery of oil and natural gas resources.

The alliance's initial focus is to develop a wide range of technologies—including power transmission, signal processing and electrical actuation—for application in deepwater.

"NASA and JPL are highly acclaimed national treasures, and Chevron is proud to collaborate with them to unlock new energy potential," said John McDonald, Chevron's corporate vice president and chief technology officer. "This alliance is an opportunity to bridge public- and private-sector technology and research to discover oil and natural gas volumes that are found in deep remote reservoirs. In many ways, the research is akin to deep space exploration, making the missions of our two organizations highly complementary."

"We are proud that the same pool of talent that sends rovers to Mars, explores our universe and studies Earth's environment will help contribute advanced technology towards our energy future here on Earth," said Dr. Charles Elachi, director of JPL.

The technology developed by JPL for interplanetary missions is also useful for gaining a better understanding of the geology of Earth. For example, JPL developed technology that enables electronic communication over millions of miles in outer space. That same technology may have application in deepwater energy operations, which extend thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean and encounter extreme pressures and temperatures.

"The world's energy needs continue to grow. Chevron continues to meet this demand through the development and application of highly innovative technologies that unlock resources in ways that are safer, more efficient and more environmentally sensitive," said Paul Siegele, president of Chevron Energy Technology Co.

About JPL

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. JPL's National Space Technology Applications Office (NSTA) was established to develop a sustaining business base through expanded relations with non-NASA sponsors. NSTA develops collaborations with elements of the four national space sectors: Military, Intelligence, Civil and Commercial. Each of these sectors is responsible for the specific development of partnerships that expand and enhance the JPL/NASA technology base. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist seek to transfer technology developed for space into the commercial marketplace, yielding economic benefits and quality-of-life improvements for people here on Earth.

About Chevron

Chevron is one of the world's leading integrated energy companies, with subsidiaries that conduct business worldwide. The company is involved in virtually every facet of the energy industry. Chevron explores for, produces and transports crude oil and natural gas; refines, markets and distributes transportation fuels and lubricants; manufactures and sells petrochemical products; generates power and produces geothermal energy; provides energy efficiency solutions; and develops the energy resources of the future, including biofuels. Chevron is based in San Ramon, Calif. More information about Chevron is available at www.chevron.com.

LOWEST RISE IN GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT EVER

DEBT CRISIS IS MORE VOODOO ECONOMICS

David Stockman on our quasi-bankrupt country

Editor's Note: David Stockman, a Republican, served as a U.S. representative from Michigan and as the director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1981 to 1985.

By David Stockman – Special to CNN

The crisis lies in the debt, not the ceiling. Kicking the can with a six months' ceiling increase is the worst possible alternative because it allows the politicians of both parties to continue making the Big Fiscal Lie. The Republican "no tax increase" position is preposterous; we are collecting less than 15% of GDP in taxes, the lowest since 1950, and spending 24% of GDP.

More than half of that is national security and Social Security, and the Republicans don't have a plan to cut a dime from either. Likewise, the Democrats are lying when they say Social Security is not part of the fiscal problem.

Benefits will exceed payroll taxes by $50 billion this year alone, and the red ink only gets deeper with time. Social Security should be subject to a stringent means test on the top 15 million affluent retirees, so that there is something left for the 40 million lower-income elderly who are already on the ragged edge.

Finally, the $800 billion defense and security budget is a relic of the Cold War, which ended 20 years ago, and should be cut by $200 billion. We no longer have any industrial state enemies and we have been fired as the world policeman - so it is time to mothball some carrier battle groups, ground some air wings, drastically reduce our troop strength, end the futility of Afghanistan and stop buying multibillion high-tech weapons that we can't afford and don't need.

In the meanwhile, both the Boehner plan and the Reid plan are just big numbers flimflam. Their 10-year discretionary caps can't be enforced and the debt crisis is right now. In the next two years, where it really counts, each would save only $60 billion, or 1%, of the baseline spending of $7.5 trillion. That's a pathetic joke.

We are borrowing $6 billion per day with no end in sight, and rolling the dice in the hope that apparently clueless bond fund managers will continue to buy the debt of a quasi-bankrupt country. One day soon, they won't. But then it will be too late.

 

ONE-SIDED ACCOUNT OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Needed opposition voices - Pasadena Star News

It was a disservice to your readers to publish a one-sided account of affirmative action, an issue where there are strongly felt opinions, both for and against. Your story of nearly 1,400 words quoted two politicians, one activist and two professors, all of whom favor affirmative action and oppose Prop. 209. A reader just starting to consider the issue would have no reason to believe, based on your article, that there were arguments and organizations with deeply felt and plausible arguments against affirmative action.

You might have interviewed Ward Connerly or someone from the Center for Individual Rights. Certainly an article that permitted William Tierney to say "we need more people participating in higher education" could have rearranged its material to make space for one affirmative action opponent to offer an idea or two for your readers to consider. 

William Voegeli 
Claremont

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/letters/ci_18553883

 

PCC PRESIDENT NEEDS 5 PRICEY EXECS IN TIME OF AUSTERITY

'Mark W. Rocha, PCC superintendent and president, said the new hires would help PCC "become a global community college for the 21st century."'

Pasadena City College hires five new executives

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_18529229?source=rss_viewed

ANDERS BREIVIK SHOOTS DOWN PORTANTINO'S OPEN CARRY BAN

By WAYNE LUSVARDI

California Assemblyman Anthony Portantino needs to create a media controversy to get his name out in the public to run for Congress next year in a newly gerrymandered district formerly held by Republican David Dreier. 

His vehicle for doing so has been Assembly Bill 144 that would purportedly ban the open carrying of handguns by private citizens. Portantino’s campaign follows an oft-used liberal strategy: self-righteously demonize some conservative individual or group as extremists, such as gun owners, and forget what consequences such legislation may have on society.

However, Portantino’s worst nightmare has appeared in Oslo, Norway, in the form of Anders Breivik, a 32-year old nationalist and Freemason – not a fundamentalist Christian -- who recently was able to gun down about 69 children and a policeman at a Labor Party Summer Youth Camp because the Norwegian police officer present at the camp was forbidden from carrying a gun. Even if the policeman had a gun he would first have needed permission to load it or shoot it from his superiors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p70Z60XEp0Q&feature=youtu.be

What started out as mainly an election campaign strategy may backfire on Portantino now that the public can see the consequences such a law might inflict harm on innocent bystanders, especially children.

AB 144 is Sociologically Naive

Especially in a remote youth camp setting where adult leaders are highly visible and known to the campers, the open carry of guns would have prevented such a massacre. Similar deterrence might result in churches or synagogues, schools, and other places in urban settings where the members would know the gun carriers.  Such an open carry ban as proposed by Portantino lacks awareness of the differences of the sociological setting of a church or youth camp for example and an anonymous public airport.

Which Hypotheticals are Most Likely in California?

As reported by reporter Yih-Chau Chang of the San Francisco Examiner, there is no record of an open carry gun advocate ever committing a violent crime in the 160-year history of California. Nonetheless, Portantino needs to create a bogeyman to get elected, consequences be damned.

Which of the two following hypothetical gun crimes do you believe is most probable?  The shooting of innocent victims by a licensed open gun toting citizen or the mass murder or mass kidnapping of innocent children or gunning down those in a Jewish synagogue or social service center?

Remember the kidnapping of 26 children and a school bus driver in Chowchilla, California in 1976?

Remember Buford O. Furrow, who in August 1999, walked into the L.A. Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, California and shot three children, a teenage counselor, and an office worker with a semi-automatic weapon?  Later, he murdered a letter carrier, but was eventually caught in another state?

Or do you remember the July 4^th, 2002, shooting rampage resulting in two deaths at the El Al Airline ticket counter at LAX airport that was contained by airport police quickly shooting the perpetrator? Like the Breivik case, the FBI concluded that this incident was a terrorist act unconnected to any organized terrorist group or organization.http://articles.cnn.com/2002-07-04/us/la.airport.shooting_1_el-al-gunman-yakov-aminov?_s=PM:US

Portantino is a Demogogue

Assemblyman Anthony Portantino practices demagoguery, a strategy to appeal to the prejudices, emotions, and fears of the public for political advantage.

H. L. Mencken, once defined a demagogue as "one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." 

Portantino certainly is not unconcerned about the potential victims of murderers. He just has ignored the unintended but foreseeable consequences of his legislation for his own political gain. Anthony Portantino apparently has no distinctive platform to run for Congress on other than demagoguery.

The only thing that stops mass murders is the arrival of a second gun.  Legislation such as AB 144 is intended to create a safe area for potential victims but the unintended consequence is to create a safe area for murderers.

Let's Kill AB 144 Not Innocent Children

Assembly Bill 144 has been approved by the State Assembly and is presently under review in the State Senate.

Let’s not commit the same negligence and naivete as the Norwegian government.  Let’s not vote for AB 144 and Anthony Portantino only to find out much later than our prejudices against gun owners was misplaced and resulted in mass murder.

Let’s kill AB 144 not innocent children and let’s not support Anthony Portantino for election to Congress based on his putting political opportunism over the welfare of the most vulnerable.  

 

INDOOR HOME FARMING GROWING IN NW PASADENA - SURE

FROM ANONYMOUS - PASADENA

Oh, this is hilarious - I just had to send it.  As we all know NW Pasadena residents have been clamoring for years for a neighborhood hydroponics store so they can start growing tomatoes and strawberries (NOT marijuana) in the back bedroom!  Well, who knows, maybe there is some huge sustainable indoor vegetable farming movement going on in northwest Pasadena that we didn't know about.  

"Supporters say the business will cater to a burgeoning customer base intent on growing flowers, tomatoes, strawberries and a host of vegetables for home use in indoor farms."      

'"The store's target market are horticulturists and avid gardeners," [District 1 Councilwoman Jacque] Robinson added.'      

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_18546892

PASADENA HOME VALUES DROPPED 23.5% SINCE PEAK

This blog posted an article earlier today from the Dr. Housing Bubble blog that reported a 50% decline in home values in Pasadena.  Upon further review it was found that the analysis was flawed and misleading.  Thus, the post has been removed.

A check with Zillow.com shows that Pasadena home prices declined from about $664,000 per median priced home in 2007 to $508,000 in May 2011, for a 23.5% decline.  Link:

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-Pasadena-home-value/r_47019/#{scid=mor-site-topnavlocalsub}