Emily at New West on what drought looks like up close.
The Tamarisk Assumption
It’s a given here in the desert southwest that tamarisk, a tough little red-barked tree that grows along our river banks, is evil. A European immigrant that arrived more than a century ago, it now dominates the banks of our desert streams and rivers, choking out native cottonwoods and sucking up precious water. At least that’s the conventional wisdom.
(tamarisk along the Colorado River in Grand Junction, image courtesy Colorado State University)
Here in Albuquerque, we’re spending big bucks to clear it out of our bosque, the woods along the river, based on that conventional wisdom. I’ve been pretty enthusiastic about the results – beautiful open woods, with the cottonwood returned to its regal riverside dominance. But I keep hearing inklings from the science community that we know less about the tamarisk and its role here than we think.
The latest inkling comes from the March-April issue of Southwest Hydrology, a publication out of the University of Arizona.
Ipod “ands” and “ors”
One thing that frustrated me in the creation of smart playlists on my new podGoober was the apparent inability to use both “ands” and “ors” for logical grouping of music: like “music by the Supremes or Frank Zappa” and “hasn’t been played in a week”.
The iTunes software lets you “and” various criteria or “or” it, but not a mixture.
Hugo Schotman explains the clever hack.
Survey Says
When you hear Harry Shearer’s real voice, which Simpsons character does he most remind you of?
The Phosphorescent Deep
In which the ABQJournal’s Bruce Daniels muses wisely (Bruce is one of the wiser guys I know) about yesterday’s Jessica Simpson dustup:
But then you take one step off the Web’s continental shelf and you’re suddenly plunged to the depths … you know, those “there be monsters” deeps that the National Geographic used to show as frightening blackness filled with wriggling, twisting phosphorescent creatures and otherworldly shapes.
An Ethical Dilemma
I have a bit of a quandary.
Regular Inkstain readers will know of my podGoober Project, wherein I load all music I own into my new Portable Music Device, in the process listening to everything. I’m pretty close to completing it – down to the last few CDs, and a pretty marginal group it is. There are a couple of CDs that will not cross the podGoober’s electronic threshold, including a monstrously bad recording of Rhapsody in Blue that I picked up cheap in the used bin at Page One Too. It clearly was there for a reason. I must find a good recording of RiB (suggestions welcome – the opening clarinet run is one of life’s great pleasures, and belongs on my podGoober) but the two times I listened to the bad one it just pissed me off.
The real dilemma involves Alvin and the Chipmunks. What are my ethical obligations to them?
How Orange County Got Its Name
There’s this story I made up once a long time ago. It’s about how Orange County, in Southern California, got its name.
I was on a date at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater, which is up on the side of a hill, before a Jackson Browne concert. Jackson Browne, as you know, is pretty cute, which makes a Jackson Browne concert a great date. Doctor my eyes and stuff.
Anyway, we were waiting for the show to start, and as the sun set you could look out across Irvine and see the street lights coming on, that orange glow you get from sodium vapor street lamps.
I explained to my date the way Orange County got its name: from the orange street lamps, which were invented by Marlin Irvine (I think I called him Marlin), who became fabulously well-to-do because of his invention of orange street lamps. He later used the money to develop Irvine.
My date was skeptical. “No,” I said. “This is a true story.”
Of course this story is not true. Orange County was really named for the fruit, which they grew there in vast, fragrant citrus orchards. I know they were fragrant because I grew up amid citrus orchards in Southern California, before the widespread use of sodium vapor lamps.
Jackson Browne was terrific, and we had a good time, but I don’t think we went on any more dates. I think maybe she didn’t like my story, and could tell I was full of crap. I’ve never been very good at making stuff up.
The Irvine Meadows Amphitheater is now the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, which is a dumb name.
Years later, I saw Jackson Browne again. I was covering a protest at the federal building in downtown L.A. against U.S. involvement in El Salvador. If I remember correctly, Jackson Browne was arrested that day. To be honest, I haven’t seen him since. I hope he’s OK.
NASA News
Is it just me, or does there seem to be a post-Deutsch flood of climate change news releases coming out of NASA recently:
NASA Finds Stronger Storms Change Heat and Rainfall Worldwide
NASA scientists confirm climate warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth’s largest storehouses of ice and snow.
Bering Sea Ecosystem Responding to Changes in Arctic Climate
Study previews ice sheet melting, rapid climate change
Scientists Confirm Historic Massive Flood in Climate Change
New Test of Snow’s Thickness May ‘Bear’ Results Key to Polar Climate Studies, Wildlife Habitat
No doubt this stuff had just piled up in Deutsch’s inbox, and whoever replaced him has just been clearing things out?
Fun With Google Ads
From Robbert Heederik’s web page on Michael Kenyon, The Illinois Enema Bandit, we find an advertisement for Johnny Cochran’s law firm, specializing in theft/armed robbery. No mention of whether Cochran defends enema cases, though the legend suggests Kenyon’s odd predilection was not, in and of itself, a crime.
Hurricanes Part XXVII
Last week I mentioned the new Virmani and Weisberg hurricane paper. Now Kevin Vranes has gone the extra mile (where would we be without the blogosphere?) and actually read it:
What controlled the anomalous 2004 and 2005 seasons was a slackening in the easterly winds in the tropical Atlantic (for you non- atmospheric nerds, the “ly” at the end of a direction means “coming from” that direction). The winds usually cool the upper few dozen meters of the ocean surface, so when the winds aren’t there the ocean gets anomalously warm, which leads to stronger hurricanes.
When this slackening of the easterlies occurs concurrently with a couple of other climatological factors that favor hurricane development, you get a big hurricane season. This has happened a few times in the past, with no apparent connection to any known climatological cycle or to anthropogenic global warming (AGW):
The bottom line, as usual from those pesky policy types, is that it’s the building of the big hotels and the houses on the beaches and such that dominates the hurricane damage equation. (I like that Kevin requotes Ross Gelbspan, everyone’s new favorite leftist scientization whipping boy.)