Fraters Libertas

Danger's A-Comin'

Visitors to The Drudge Report late Thursday evening couldn’t have missed the banner headline stating: Scientists Predict Major SoCal Quake Within Five Months

My interest was piqued as my landlord currently resides in “SoCal” (I feel ridiculous even typing that abbreviation) and I was curious to know whether I should even bother sending him next month's rent check. No offense, Scott, but if L.A. is about to become gigantic sink hole that swallows you and half the state whole, I’d just as soon spend my money on more important things than the roof over my head …gin and cigarettes come to mind.

I gave the story a quick read and it begins thusly:

A state earthquake council has given a qualified endorsement to a prediction by a group of scientists who believe that a temblor of magnitude-6.4 or greater will occur in the Southern California desert sometime in the next five months.

Egads! That does sound ominous. Nothing screams certainty like a qualified endorsement. The endorsing council (formally known as the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council) further bolsters the scientific claim of impending plate tectonic doom by labeling their efforts as:

...a legitimate approach in earthquake prediction research...

but then goes on to note that:

...the physical basis for the prediction has not been substantiated.

How does a guy get to be part of a “group of scientists” that gets credit for having a legitimate approach to their research despite the fact that physics behind it is deemed unsubstantiated? Sign me up, baby! I could really use that government grant money (you know…for gin and cigarettes).

Then I read this:

… the council noted in its report that the chances of an earthquake of at least magnitude-6.4 occurring randomly in the area sometime before the Sept. 5 deadline is about 10 percent.

Ten freaking percent?! A ten percent chance of a major earthquake in the next five months in southern California warrants a September 11 size panic headline?! When the weatherbabe on the box tells me that there’s a ten percent chance of rain I ruthlessly mock my umbrella and dropkick it into the closet.

Talk to me when the chances are about 90 percent. Until then, spare me the doom and gloom nonsense and, if you wouldn't mind, send a wildfire my way. I'm all out of matches.