This weekend marks the unofficial beginning of Summer, 2007, which coincides with the end of Spring, 2007. Because of that, I'm going to pose my weather question.

I think I've already said that I have questions about the "inches of mercury" used to measure barometric pressure, ones that my personal assistant could answer for me if I'm ever lucky enough to have one. Another thing my assistant could figure out is why we measure rainfall in inches.

Not that we've had very much at all this year where I live. The word dry comes to mind, unless we're talking about my yard, in which case the better word would be brown. Still, the little rain we've gotten, as well as the seasonal norm, is always given as a matter of inches.

It goes without saying that when we receive rain every container in the yard fills up with about three times the amount the officials say we got. I suppose I could get around that and get a result more in line with the proper number if I had a tube about a foot tall with a one inch opening, but I don't. As it is, the buckets and coffee cans out there all give me a wildly inflated figure and get me excited about just how much rain we've gotten.

But that doesn't have much to do, at all, with my question.

Water, and by extension, rain, is a liquid last time I looked. I guess counting up the inches that have fallen is a measure of volume, but doesn't water already have a built-in measure of that? Don't we, for every thing other than rain or snow, measure volume in cups or quarts or shots? If we want to be scientific or European, we could use liters or ccs, and I think any of them would be a better way to measure rainfall than the way we do now. Inches, to me, measure length.

Liters of rain per square meter, or cups per square yard, would be a sensible way to measure rainfall, and I guess that's why we don't do it. One of the first things my personal assistant would be charged with is starting the march to get everyone on board with adopting the Russell Standard for Precipitation Measurement.

Unless, of course, someone else has come up with this idea already.

I'm reminded today of one of the better pieces of advice I've received.

If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.

It's entirely possible that my dog, Minardi, just got in the first fight of his life. Against a cat.

!@(loserdog.jpg:L120 popimg: "2ndPlace")

He seems pretty happy about it, though.

I wasn't around, of course, but he was out in the backyard, no doubt minding his own business or patrolling his territory. The cat encroached and scratched him up pretty badly. His eye is all red (not that you can see any detail in pics from my phone), and he has some mean scratches on his snout.

!@(loser1.jpg:L120 popimg: "lost2cat")

I was worried at first. I washed his face, but was relieved to see that he was more eager to go back out there than he was to be treated. He may have gotten his ass whomped, but I guess it didn't hurt as much as I feared. He may have lost, but it seems unlikely he learned any important life lessons.

And in that regard he may be more like me than I like.

According to some experts I heard about once, we elect people based -- as much as anything -- on appearance. This doesn't explain Henry Waxman, but every theory has exceptions.

If this holds true, I expect the GOP will go with Mitt Romney, about whom I'm less than ignorant. I saw him at the "debate," however, and he's as pandering as the his fellows, so I guess he has a good shot. To be a successful Republican primary candidate you need to be unrealistically obsessed with immigration, talking tough, and the sanctity of life (criminals and terrorists notwithstanding).

You also have to talk a lot about evil, a very religious-sounding term that puts you in the right.

The better looking Democratic candidates, I think, are Obama and Edwards. I'd add Kucinich to the mix based on his hot wife, but everyone focuses more on how short he is. Hillary doesn't look bad but she peaked a few years ago for me, so she's out.

I'm guessing one of those three will be our next president.

Now that the GOP "debate" has been aired, I've most likely seen our next President in action, giving a one minute press conference.

Last week it was the Democratic hopefuls, and from somewhere in that mess of twenty people, the next US President will emerge. I can't say as I'm particularly thrilled with any of them and none of their names sound right yet with the President prefix.

What happens next, of course, is the primaries. Right now part of my dissatisfaction may have to do with every candidate running as hard to the extremes as possible. In the primary elections, you have to cater to the extreme elements in your party, and it's only when you have the party faithful do you move more toward the center and reason. So, while last week it was all about who hated Bush the most, this week it was all about who hated abortion.

They tell me that the successful candidate will need to raise about $100 million dollars by the end of the year, just to win the Primary. To do that, of course, is a full time job, so I'm thinking most of these Senators, Representatives, and Governors won't be doing hardly anything at all as far as their day job is considered. I guess most partisans are so fond of that "favorite son" thing that they won't mind that their elected officials are going to be too busy raising money to look after their interests.

I think this is a horrible way to select our next President.

The GOP candidates are all white men, as are most of the Democrats. I guess they're all still really good at raking in the money.

Although our planet's the biggest thing on earth, it still needs a holiday. The good news is the day we set aside to honor and remember all the great thing this blue-green sphere does for us is right next to 4-20 Day, another hippy holiday.

Odd how that worked out.

Home Depot, today, was giving away compact fluorescent bulbs (one to a customer), but I couldn't justify driving there to get one. Maybe if I had a Hummer, or some car with air conditioning, it would have made sense, especially if I also needed to buy some of that Roundup stuff.

As it is, what I'm doing for Earth Day is watching Discovery Channel's Planet Earth. I can't wait to see how it ends.

I live a couple miles away from LAX, so it's no surprise that I'm an expert on all things aeronautical. In fact, for many years growing up, I'd answer the "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question with "An aeronautical engineer." By the time I could have understood what that entailed, of course, I'd given it up, but it sounded good at the time and cut off further discussions.

I, also, live about half a mile from the nearest railroad track, so I can be considered an expert on rail as well. The track isn't used any more, I don't think, but when we were kids my sister and I found a rusted can near the tracks in a light industrial area and were convinced it was the markings of a hobo camp. We'd venture there only with the family dog for protection.

I'm much closer, of course, to paved roadways, cementing my expertise on that as well. And it goes without saying that what I'm closest to, chairs and beds, are things I also know quite a bit about.

Every day guarantees a few things. One, I'll hear and see planes approach the airport, and, two, I'll read about global climate change and environmentalism on the Internet. What I don't see written about very often is that humans all want to live in the biggest house possible in the nicest spot on earth.

Where we differ, thankfully, is on what constitutes the nicest spot on earth.

The Unabomber and a handful of others lived quite simply (the word austere comes to mind), but not very many others want to do that. I think that's a shame. This planet could support six billion people living in tiny dwellings about the size of our current bedrooms much better than it can answer all our desires to live in huge places that require lots of maintenance and eat up even more resources.

We all want nice things (or, nicer things, driven in part by advertisements), and I'm no exception. Just today, for example, I was eating some seedless green grapes, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. The grapes were larger than usual, about half the size of my thumb, and came from Chile. It's a testament to our smaller world that I can eat fruits grown thousands of miles away, and it also relieves me of the guilt I still associate with Cesar Chavez and the whole grapes boycott, but that relief didn't last long. I have no idea how many resources were spent in transporting those grapes to me, but I have a hunch it's a number I wouldn't like.

Should I be selfish and insist on having what I want, the way I want it, when huge freighters or airplanes are needed to bring it to me? Or, should I think of the planet and forego unseasonal foods, or ones grown the way I prefer, to get ones that can arrive in my mouth at a fraction of the expense?

I never got that degree in aeronautical engineering, so I have no idea how efficient air travel is. I do know more people are flying around than ever before, and the convenience of air travel makes business meetings a reality as never before. More people are flying on more pleasure trips than before, too, and I think that's because it's so easy. It's not as much fun any more, but it beats staying home or driving.

I heard, once, that rail travel is more efficient, but since it takes longer, no one chooses train rides any more. I consider that a shame. No, train travel isn't the adventure it was even twenty years ago, but it's easier on the planet (and, I'd say, on the passengers: nothing compares to the reassuring feeling of being trapped in a train car for what you know will be three days. No where to go, nothing to worry about, no say in anything until Tuesday afternoon).

Yet, because we treasure our own, personal needs so highly, we fly on unnecessary trips, demand huge homes, and eat grapes produced on farms we can't locate on maps. I have no idea what, exactly, the future will bring, but I predict more of the same.