What Eric Caine, the Pussyfooting Modesto-based Merced College prof, either forgets or never knew was that Mike Wade, the prostitute, back when he had a real job as executive director of the Merced County Farm Bureau, through letters and testimony before the UC Regents, falsely claimed that there was adequate water for the UC Merced campus on site beneath the seasonal pastures.

So, in this convoluted water debate in which Wade, clearly furious that the institution about whose natural resources he "misspoke" as the politicians say, wishes to denounce the spawn he helped so ignobly to generate cockamamie "academic study" flak to broadcast and magnify the existence of what John Burton, boss of the California Democratic Party called, while he was serving as state Senate Pro Tem, the greatest "boondoggle" he'd ever seen in a long state and federal legislative career.

Caine, the pussyfooter, has been chased into this story by the UC Merced Office of Golden Bobcat Flak to defend the indefensible. The Boondoggle-at-the-Bottom will continue to taint the research for years to come. And who could trust Mike Wade after his claims for bubbling aquifers under the site of the future UC Merced, which presently gets its water from the City of Merced through pipes UC has never paid for and, as a result, has weakened the water pressure in Central Merced.

Badlands Journal editorial board

9-30-12