The Appellate Court Judge on Eric Volz

One of the appellate judges who ruled Eric Volz should be released from prison was interviewed as part of the package on the Today Show earlier this week. He looked at the evidence and clearly saw that there was no possible way that Eric could have possibly committed the crime he was convicted of, ruling that he should be immediately released.

Unforunately, if past record serves as an indicator, he'll probably lose his job or began to face threats from the public due to the anger and propaganda surrounding the trial, which is a shame. As my brother said yesterday: you do the right thing, and sometimes it hurts you.


Too bad the original judge caved to the massive local and media pressure in the original trial in which she discarded the evidence in favor of the "easier" road of conviction. If only she had half the gumption of this man.

Watch the entire 6-minute package from the Today Show. (Video not embedded)

And as always, http://www.friendsofericvolz.com

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

The Bride and I went out to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens for the first time over the weekend. Good stuff. I don't want to steal her thunder, so I'll just have a brief view, but check out the video of the water on the lily pad. If you do go, now is the best to see the flowers in bloom, and going after a rain can result in a sight like this:

Lake Mead goes down, grass comes out

One look at this startling picture from Lake Mead near the Hoover Dam, and you can see why Las Vegas has no future. This very interesting story from the NYT is about how Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada Water Authority are paying current residents to tear up their lawns and replace it with more sensible xeriscaping that uses little to no water, while also making new development grass-free, due to the massive water shortage that the region is facing (and won't end anytime soon).

According to the story, watering lawns and gardens represents 60% of the water usage in Las Vegas, which is actually more than what the casinos use on the Strip and in the grandiose founatins. Lake Mead is at 2/3 of its normal level, and with drought conditions persisting and not going away anytime soon, all of the new development out west that survives based on cheap land, cheap gasoline, abundant energy to air condition it 10 months of the year, and abundant water will soon come to a crashing halt.

On a related note, during the timeshare presentation last weekend we attended to pay for our weekend away, our very nice saleslady told us we should visit Vegas sometime on a vacation, because "the architecture was so wonderful. I mean, it's like you're really in Venice, or New York, or Paris".

-grimace-