Lengua

So, I was in San Diego (which may or may not have been why I was flying over El Paso) and had the joy of eating at Tacos El Gordo. Now, if you ever eat anywhere that claims it's an authentic Mexican place, I want you to find the first waiter you see, punch him in the throat, and spit in his eye, because they are fucking liars.

Tacos El Gordo IS authentic. Basically, you order at a counter to guys who probably don't speak English. What do you order? Tacos, goddamnit! They are about half the size of Taco Bell tacos on a corn tortilla or two (but they're not crunchy). They cut of whatever meat you choose and add (usually 2) predetermined toppings, depending on what you ordered. Each one is more amazing than the last. I had a pork one, a chorizo one, and a steak one.

When I went back up to get more, I decided to go for broke and got the beef tongue taco. It. Was. Amazing. It tasted kind of like flank steak, but fell apart as you ate it because they had cooked it for probably upwards of 17 hours. I was the only white guy in the place to get it. I highly recommend it.

California City, CA

I was inspired by this blog about California City.

There's a city in the Mojave Desert called California City, CA, incorporated in 1965. Real estate developer Nat Mendelsohn purchased 320 square kilometers* in 1958, envisioning a city that would one day rival Los Angeles. He was wrong, of course.
*The city now has a total area of 527 square km.

The city is the third largest city in CA by land area, but only has 8,000 people in it. For comparison, Rockville, MD has 60,000 people in it.

The downtown area sits around a central park with an artificial lake and looks relatively normal:

Warning: many embedded Google Maps lie beyond!

Smog v. Haze

I've had the misfortune of being in Los Angeles 3 times now. It sucks. I don't understand how anyone can like it. Perhaps I'll get into the specifics another day. Anyway, the last time I was there, I came in to Long Beach on a ship. When we were still a few miles out, you could easily see a brown layer of air over the city (pictured below). It was pretty disgusting, but not as bad as when you can't see it anymore because that means you're in it.

I have a coworker that for some insane reason adores LA. He doesn't like it when I rip on it. Example: "If the big one hit LA tomorrow, nothing of value will be lost." Anyway, whenever I bring up LA, I bring up the smog. The horrible horrible smog. He always goes, "It's not smog. It's haze." I tend to say something like "Whatever. I don't want to breathe it."

Well this came up briefly again recently, so I decided to do some research (although I highly doubted I was wrong the whole time). What is the difference exactly?

Haze
Haze is an atmospheric condition where fine particles (solid or liquid) accumulate and obscure the clarity of the sky. That's it.

Smog
Smog is essentially haze caused by pollution. The fine particles are a result of vehicular and industrial emissions. The term was coined in the early 1900s by combining "smoke" and "fog." "Classic" smog was a result of smoke and sulfer dioxide produced from burning large amounts of coal.

In the 1950s, a new type of smog was observed, called photochemical smog. It is caused by a reaction of sunlight, nitrogen oxides (released by burning fossil fuels and industry), volatile organic compounds (creating particles and ground-level ozone; they are released by gasoline, paints, solvents, pesticides, pine and citrus trees). Photochemical smog can also include peroxyacyl nitrates and aldehydes. And yes, all of these are as bad as they sound, especially when they are mixed together in the air.

Source: http://www.inspiredliving.com/airpurification/images/smoggrph.gif
(Click to embiggen)

All this horrible crap can get trapped by a temperature inversion in the atmosphere. As the name implies, this occurs when colder air gets trapped under a layer of warmer air*. The convection cycle of the air gets shut down and all the crap that is in the air just sits where it is. (This happens in Oslo, Norway, too, only you can still breathe there.) Where does this happen frequently? Why, the southwestern US, of course!
*This happens in extreme cases of temperature inversion. Typically, the temperature gradient with respect to altitude is much less than normal, creating a "stable layer" of air which acts like a lid.

In summary,

temperature inversion
+
4 million people
+
the worst traffic in the country
+
the largest amount of manufacturing in the US
+
five airports
=
SMOG, YOU IDIOT!

Uncited Sources:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/glossary/index.php?letter=s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/glossary/index.php?letter=h
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology)