I swear I got a good look at it. But it’s really not supposed to be here. Is I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a terribly experienced birdwatcher. But lately I’ve spent a lot of time at it, making lists using eBird, keeping close track of my yard birds, and dragging the books and binoculars with …
I took a crack this morning at explaining, by example, three things that are currently going on in our U.S. energy economy. The first is the way gasoline consumption has remained depressed, even as prices dropped. The second is the way the drop in consumption has been disproportionately carried out by people near the bottom …
One bright spot in the global economic picture: worldwide financial collapse has led to lower food prices! From the Economist, the global food price index is down 16 percent from a month ago, and is essentially unchanged from prices a year ago.
Lab May Be Nuke Center Federal officials will unveil a proposal today to make Los Alamos National Laboratory the nation’s center for nuclear weapons plutonium research, consolidating work now done at other sites around the country. The proposal, to be unveiled at a news conference in Oak Ridge, Tenn., lays out a road map for …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere, Plutonium Edition’ »
Seen on a University of New Mexico blackboard last night in an empty classroom. Kinda tough to read, so I’ll transcribe: Matthew – We thought maybe the zombies wouldn’t be able to chase us up the stairs. They’re smarter than we thought. If you find this, we’re headed for Atlanta. Send the kids our love. …
From my favorite Rocky Mountain rock-banger: I suppose I could have called a cab. But I’m a geologist. Cabs are for econ majors.
South African firm Sasol and Exxon Mobil were among a group of firms fined last week by the European Union for running a wax cartel, trying to control the global price of wax. Really. I am not making this up: “There is probably not a household or company in Europe that has not bought products …
I don’t think this is exactly what David Zetland has in mind when he argues for establishing water markets, but hey, whatever works! From the International Herald Tribune: In the world’s driest inhabited continent, there is simply not enough water to go around, and households, cities, industries and agriculture all demand their share from stressed …
Fascinating paper out this week in GRL on the “leap year bias” in temperature records: The addition of one extra day in February normally every fourth year produces a significant seasonal drift in the monthly values of that year in four major temperature datasets used in climate change analysis. The addition of a ‘leap year …
roadrunner Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Roadrunners are common in Albuquerque, but we don’t see them too often in our yard. This afternoon I was sitting out in the back eating lunch when I noticed this guy. He’d been there for a while before I spotted him, sitting absolutely still. They don’t seem to mind people …