Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis is eagerly awaiting Tesla Roadster #16, which he's having painted Tang Orange. Expect lots of updates about how much better a steward of Mother Earth he is than you are. He's also teasing readers with the offer of a Tesla Roadster giveaway, but he needs 30-60 million pageviews to do it. If you could get that much traffic to go Mahalo's way, shouldn't he be offering you the position of CEO? [Calacanis.com] (Photo by wmmarc)

The Google Party Plane isn't the only aircraft using Nasa's Moffett Field to shuttle tech execs in and out of the Valley. An eagle-eyed plane spotter caught Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk's Dassault Falcon taking a round trip between Moffett and Orange County's Van Nuys airport this week. "It must be nice," says the tipster, implying a breathy sigh. My question is, as one of the few people with a Tesla Roadster in his garage, why didn't Musk drive that to the Southland instead of burning gallons of jet fuel? Oh, right, that's well outside the roadster's range.

A tipster writes in:

We reported — and CEO Jason Calacanis didn't really deny — that Mahalo grosses about $9,000 a month. But don't worry about Mahalo employees. Here, for example, is Mahalo employee Sean Percival's Audi A6. It costs between $43,725 and $57,075 . Obviously, Percival is not a Mahalo guide. Surprisingly, Percival is a Mahalo guide. They only make $30,000 to $35,000, we hear. By the way, if this handy binary to text conversion tool is correct, Percival writes 011000100110000101100100 code. (Photo by Eric Rice)

A California state ballot item planned for November would secure $10 billion in bonds to begin building a high-speed rail system by 2009, with a 20-year estimated building schedule and a total price tag of $40 billion, all of it in publicly traded bonds more stable than, say, subprime mortgages. Millions have already been spent on planning — and influencing lawmakers with trips to visit Japan's shinkansen. But Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has helped derail two previous efforts to let California voters make the decision, even though 58 percent of voters statewide support the idea. A new public-private partnership amenable to the Governator's self-interest might finally break the ice. Why should the Valley care? Here are four reasons.

Those Mozilla foundation folks sure do love their silver, European sports sedans.