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Category Archives: Environment

Interesting Times

“May you live in interesting times” —Ancient chinese curse, likely apocryphal Over a year ago I posted this photograph from a vacant lot along the Oakland waterfront. One commenter suggested that it looked like a relic of the dying American economy. Another thought, more colorfully, that it was “maybe the last known hideout of a […]

Nature Takes its Course

In case you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you, say, filled part of San Francisco Bay with landfill and built some airstrips on it, then abandoned them for a decade or more, here is a photo I took yesterday at the Alameda Naval Air Station, which has been unused by planes for over a […]

Mixed Blessing

The bad news: The Large Hadron Collider won’t yield results anytime soon. The good news: If the paranoid crazies end up being right that it will destroy the universe, then we have gained a short reprieve.

Spendthrift BART directors vote to raise fares

As I feared and warned about just two weeks ago, BART’s profligate board of directors just voted to raise fares six months earlier than planned, citing budget deficits. See, it’s okay to waste money, because you can always get transit-dependent citizens (along with BART employees) to pay for it. Never mind that those citizens are […]

State of Emergency

California’s official motto is “Eureka.” Our official nickname is “The Golden State.” Has any thought has been given to changing one of these to “State of Emergency”? The most recent state of emergency was proclaimed by Governor Schwarzenegger on Friday, regarding the ongoing drought. (Our current heavy rains, although helpful, have only been a drop […]

Statistic of the Day

Rainfall at Oakland International Airport from January 1st to February 14th: 2.61 inches Rainfall at Oakland International Airport on February 15th: 1.87 inches Those two numbers are way below average and way above average, respectively. (In fact, the record rainfall for Feb 15 had previously been 1.41 inches.)