In the news

1. The L.A. Times is reporting that a study in the journal Science is predicting that climate change could result in a permanent drought throughout the Southwest by 2050. Note that the model used increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere until 2050, at which point they would begin to decline. Let's hope we can get them to start declining sooner.

2. The freed British sailors are recanting the statements they made under duress while being held in Iran. It's great that they were able to get back home peacefully, but I'm pretty sure Ahmadinejad sees this whole venture as a victory on his part. Message to the world: go outside your territorial waters, capture British sailors, blatantly lie about where you captured them, make them and the British leadership look like fools for a couple of weeks, and then look magnanimous when you offer them back as a "gift" on a religious holiday. And oh yeah--- the whole thing points out how the U.S. and U.K. aren't in much of a position to complain about Geneva Convention violations. What a revoltin' development.

3. A condor flies in San Diego County for the first time in 97 years.

4. God bless Steve Lopez, an L.A. Times columnist who's managed to survive the recent downsizing of the paper's staff, and is now wasting no time going after the paper's new owner for how he and his neighbors in Malibu are blocking access to a public beach.