The Rocky Mountain News, where he was a bloggist, has a nice obituary of Andrew Olmsted.

He will not be a forgotten soldier.

I don’t know how much I’ll be posting before Wednesday, but this will stay bumped at the top, so look below it for fresh stuff. Have a great Christmas, for those who celebrate it, and a great holiday in general, even if you don’t.

Dennis Kucinich has lost a brother:

The county coroner said that an autopsy is set to be performed to determine the exact cause of death.

There were no signs of foul play.

Seriously, condolences and best wishes to the Kucinich family.

It was one of the driest seasons on record in Southern California this year. The grass and weeds in the local mountains was certainly tinder dry. With the arrival of the hot Santa Ana winds, the area was ripe for a fire, and sure enough, Malibu is in flames. I remember years ago going down to the strand in Manhattan Beach, and looking across the dark South Bay at the orange glow across the water the last time this happened.

It’s a beautiful area to live, but the wealthy residents should have to carry their own insurance. But I suspect that, just is the case on barrier islands and other flood and fire zones, they’ll get help from the federal taxpayers, most of whom make much less than Malibu residents, and can’t afford to live in such places, to rebuild once again.

[Update in the afternoon]

Wow, this sounds like it might be the worst Malibu fire in history. I’m hearing that Malibu Canyon is aflame, including the Presbyterian Church (if it’s the one I’m thinking of, it has a beautiful view of the ocean below–I attended a college roommate’s wedding there years ago), the Malibu Castle is engulfed in flames, and I’m sure that Hughes Research Lab (or whatever it’s called these days after all the acquisitions) and Pepperdine are threatened.

I had a first on Friday night–a Lileks-like moment. I’m often recognized by my name badge at space conferences, but when I checked in at the American counter at LAX on Friday night, the agent recognized my name on my driver’s license, and asked if I was the space blogger. He told me that space was supposed to be about exploration, not a jobs program. I told him that it actually was a jobs program, but that it should be about space settlement.

Anyway, thanks for the service–usually I have to schlep my bag over to the X-ray myself, but he told me that for Fort Lauderdale, he could put it on the conveyor behind him.

Virginia Postrel has a bad reason to be glad to be back in LA. Wish her good health.

Looks like we’ll dodge Ingrid, which is falling apart under shear. But this little aside from a much longer tropical blog post by Jeff Masters is a little worrying:

The GFS, ECMWF, and UKMET models all suggest a tropical depression may form in the Western Caribbean on Wednesday and move northwards into the Gulf of Mexico or over Florida.

I’m going to LA tomorrow, and not coming back until early next Saturday morning. I’d like to know a little more. How long will it take to move north, and how much (if any) will it intensify? Do the models have an opinion about that?

We could use a tropical depression here, and even a tropical storm, to help refill up the lake, which is still four feet less than normal (due to draining it last year as a precaution against a hurricane season that didn’t happen), as we head toward the dry season. But I can do without a major hurricane, particularly if I’m not here to shutter the house.