Is 'ultrasounded' a word?

I told my wife that I had my former cat 'ultrasounded'.  I said that the vet suspected cancer, so I took her to the specialty vet and had her ultrasounded.  That sounded kind of off, and so did she.

I looked it up on Google, and can't find a definitive answer.  Spell check here doesn't like it, as well.  She said I could say, 'I took her to the vet and had an ultrasound done', but that seems unnecessarily long.

If poor Uggs had had an X-ray, I could say, 'I had my cat X-rayed'.  So why not say ultrasounded.

Makes sense to me.

El Nino?

May 2015 in Sacramento California thus far has been pretty mild, except for two days early in the month when it was about 10 degrees above normal, into the low 90s.  Lately, it's been in the low to upper 70s, which isn't that unusual for May, it's just that we generally have more variability; 70s for a few days, into the 80s, then into the 90s, or even 100s (!)  Yes, May can be hot.  I remember 1987 (I think) when I painted my duplex in mid-May.  We had a string of days well over 100 degrees, maxing out in the mid-100s.  It was brutal, painting under the eaves, paint dripping down my arms, sweating like crazy.  It seemed like a harbinger of things to come...a hot summer!  But, it cooled down and we had a pretty normal summer after that.

Went to LA yesterday to see the eye doc.  The traffic was crazy busy, even at 10:30 in the morning.  It never got better, of course.  The weather was great, though, which is why LA is so crowded.  The weather's usually very nice, but you'd never get me down there.  Too many people, too little green space.  My doctor's office was on the UCLA campus, and even though I went to UC Santa Barbara, I've never been there.  Unlike UCSB and UC San Diego, the campus is in an urban environment, and not particularly attractive.

I had a delayed flight out of LA, supposedly due to inclement weather in New Orleans.  I didn't back home in Sacramento until midnight.

Rain or lack thereof

We're in a drought...sort of. 

I'm in Sacramento and I've been living here since 1960; a long time.  We've had years of low rainfall and high rainfall.  The last drought we had that was called a drought was in 76-77.  It was in all the papers.  You went to a state park, and they'd have displays about the drought.

That was a drought.  In 1976 we had just over 7 inches of rain.  It was sunny and in the mid-70s...in January.  Very weird, very nice winter weather (unless you were a skier, as I was), and very scary.  It was dry, dry, dry.

This past weather year, 2014-15 (the weather year, at least for rain, goes from July 1 to June 30), we've (so far) gotten over 13 inches of rain.  The average (which it is, not 'normal' as is so often used) is just over 20 inches.

(An aside...That average has inched up since I've been paying attention to the weather.  It used to be 19 and something inches.  Now it's over 20.  Interesting.  Been getting wetter? )

They say an El Nino is forming, or has formed, or will form.  That usually means wetter weather, which would be welcomed by all except those with leaky roofs.  It has been a somewhat wet spring, which follows an absolutely dry January.

So...it's dry, but it's been worse.  The drought of 76-77 was not followed by all of the hand-wringing and turgid verbiage as is the case nowadays.  Makes for more wailing and gnashing of teeth, and, of course, more money to the local bureaucracy.

Good News! Birthrates drop!

I heard a report on the radio this morning that stated in California at least, birthrates are dropping for hispanics, asians, and all other ethnic groups.  It will be a while, but the environmental pressures resulting from overpopulation will (hopefully) subside. 

Now all we have to do is to curb immigration into this country, both legal and illegal.

I see that the Republican party is embracing amnesty, even though immigrants vote overwhelmingly for liberal Democrats.  Not a smart move!

Happy Holidays for Endangered Species!

While many of us gather with family and friends for Christmas, let us give some thought to the many plants and animals wild and out-of-control population growth and immigration are putting at risk.  Loss of habitat is the main reason we are driving whole species out of existence, never to be seen again. 

We think we can rape the earth and do whatever we want to the land, but we take that opinion at our peril.  For the Lange's metalmark butterfly and the Kemp's ridley sea turtle, this holiday season is just another month to hang on to life.

It is up to us to make sure these creatures are given safe haven from our greed and our desire to run the planet the way we want, without regard for our fellow animals, plants and even insects which only ask to remain unmolested.

Sound thinking on the immigration issue

Some sound thinking on the immigration issue can be found at the American Thinker site (http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/the_gops_california_lesson.html).  As a resident of California and with a lot of Mexican American friends, I agree wholeheartedly with the ideas presented in the column.

The fact that I oppose amnesty, open borders, and internal population growth because it places animals and plants in peril through the loss of habitat does not mean that I object to opposition to immigration because of other reasons.  Any argument to lower (or better yet, eliminate) immigration is going to get my attention. 

As I've pointed out many times, support of immigration means that you cannot be an environmentalist, for population growth causes the greatest risk to endangered species because of loss of habitat. 

Think about it.

I see that the Republican party is ready to give up on the immigration front.  They apparently lost the Hispanic vote (traditionally Democrat for decades), so the two point loss that Romney suffered is a 'mandate' to go left of the Democrats on this issue.

A two-point win by Obama is not a mandate to do anything, let alone open the borders to anyone who wants to come to this country and start living on the largess of the United States government.

We must look at the bigger picture.  More immigration into the US means that more and more animals and plants will simply go extinct.  Some pundits are calling the times we live in the sixth era of extensive species extinction.

What causes an animal to go on the endangered list?  The biggest reason is loss of habitat.  This means for every person who comes as an immigrant to this country puts that much more pressure on the animals and plants that just 'are in the way'. 

What to do about it?  First, let's limit legal immigration to perhaps 100,000 per year.  Second, we need to work to send all illegals back to their country of origin, be it Mexico, El Salvador, China, South Korea or wherever. 

If we don't work to stop massive immigration, more and more animals will disappear from the planet.

And that is something I just can't abide without a fight!