The Nevada Supreme Court published their opinion in Bacher v. State Engineer on Wednesday. The case speaks to several critical areas of Nevada water law and incorporates the "anti-speculation doctrine" in interpretation of Nevada water law.

The court also gave indications of a number of items around beneficial use like the following footnote:

Some projects, including the theme park, had contingencies attached to them. In other words, the projects may be speculative in nature. Although we do not reach whether contingent projects may be considered in evaluating a need for water under NRS 533.370(6) because we conclude that the State Engineer abused his discretion on other grounds, we note that speculative evidence of development projects is not sufficient to survive a substantial evidence inquiry on review.

This will be a brief comment on a couple of stories out there today. First off there is the linkbait article suggesting Apple's days are numbered. To anyone who knows the market it's hard to take even as a parody but there would be temptation on some of our parts to pump the article in hopes of getting a few more (as yet unpurchased) Apple shares at reasonable prices. But then that wouldn't be ethical.

Then there is this piece of investigative journalism. The main problem is there doesn't seem to have been much investigation. The errors and omissions as well as morphing of time lines are horrendous in this article. You'll notice nowhere in the article does it mention the other businesses in California that benefit from the mutual aid agreements between the states, not even the other businesses in Sandy Valley. The article ends with the line that "not counting the motocross" there have been 300 calls in California handled by Clark County Fire. Taking even the highest figures for the motocross at the heart of the story there have been fewer than a dozen.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the problems I've had with Firefox 2.0 being terribly unstable. The fifteen restarts a day it needed to keep it going were enough to drive one batty. In my case the problem has largely been solved by uninstalling the Google Toolbar seems to have solved the problem most of the time. I still hold my breath when the spinning wheel of colored death appears from time to time but it usually goes away quickly. With the Google Toolbar it went away never.