John,

Chances are that the funding necessary to keep SAFOD running for another ten years will not be there. If they had just a little more time before the 6.0 rolled through they would have benefitted greatly. Now they have 17.5 million to use in I believe 2.5 years and they need ten more years. This is a serious problem. But I don't believe they will gain any kind of understanding of fault behavior in the project anyway. I would really love to support this project more than any other, but realistically it isn't in the cards.

Understanding earthquake prediction is not a matter of the process of doing it, but the process of bringing all of the people together who can take this last great leap. While the funding can be used to bring them together and work on a plan to initiate it, I can already see that isn't going to happen under the current regime. You can only see things from those who surround you, but I on the other hand have been fortunate to have contacts with persons from many sectors and they are quite sure it can be done, though they have been very clear on pointing out where the difficulties lie. I am greatly disappointed. I think having seen what there is to see and hearing everyone's point of view all that remains is more death if nothing changes. It's unacceptable, but it is out of my hands. I like everyone else will have to live with it, or die from it.

In the greatest sense my predictions insofar as use in the US are of no consequence. I have given up for the most part because the establishment doesn't want it here. I'll do my reports and what have you and the results I feel will be fairly good. But I can't do it alone and I have to be realistic about that. So I have to make my turn in the road and go elsewhere. I'm sure the establishment will be greatly relieved when I'm not bucking their back door anymore and wherever the road goes for me I'll follow it and do what is needed. My supporters in foreign countries can't help me here, though they have tried. There are some very good scientists outside of America, but they have their limits. I am greatly honored that they have so much confidence in me and disappointed what I set out to do cannot be done here. Most likely I'll just do a news letter for those who are interested in predictions for their area's and go forward where the dummers beat out a song that calls my name.

So we have nothing left to debate, nothing worthy of a decent argument anymore. It's all dust to dust.

Petra