US Chamber of Commerce makes clear where it stands

The headline yesterday said "Chamber's Donohue Says Obama's Rules Suffocating U.S.".

It's an interesting word choice, since one of the highlighted regulations is a tightening of the ground level ozone standard. High in the stratosphere, ozone is our main natural UV protection. At ground level it causes asthma and other respiratory problems. From the EPA's summary: "The proposal to strengthen the primary standard places more weight on key scientific and technical information, including epidemiological studies, human clinical studies showing effects in healthy adults at 0.060 ppm, and results of EPA’s exposure and risk assessment."

Another highlighted Chamber complaint is about tighter regulation of cement plants. Here's the EPA's news release on the regulation: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing final rules that will protect Americans’ health by cutting emissions of mercury, particle pollution and other harmful pollutants from Portland cement manufacturing, the third-largest source of mercury air emissions in the United States. The rules are expected to yield $7 to $19 in public health benefits for every dollar in costs. Mercury can damage children’s developing brains, and particle pollution is linked to a wide variety of serious health effects, including aggravated asthma, irregular heartbeat, heart attacks, and premature death in people with heart and lung disease."

So there's your US Chamber of Commerce: fighting the good fight for more asthma, heart attacks and brain damage.

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone

[T]he fact that we're even sitting here two years after Bush talking about a GOP comeback is a profound testament to two things: One, the American voter's unmatched ability to forget what happened to him 10 seconds ago, and two, the Republican Party's incredible recuperative skill... This is a party that in 2008 was not just beaten but obliterated, with nearly every one of its recognizable leaders reduced to historical-footnote status and pinned with blame for some ghastly political catastrophe. There were literally no healthy bodies left on the bench, but the Republicans managed to get back in the game anyway by plucking an assortment of nativist freaks, village idiots and internet Hitlers out of thin air and training them into a giant ball of incoherent resentment just in time for the 2010 midterms.

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Weekend in Inverness

Pt. Reyes, not Scotland. We rented a friend's house high up on the ridge overlooking Tomales Bay. I woke up on Saturday morning at 5:30 - it usually takes a day to adjust to a more normal schedule. So I sat in the hot tub on the deck and watched the dawn across the bay. I felt Californian.

Fog over Alcatraz

The view from my window. The slight rise of Alcatraz in the breeze is enough to make the fog quite a bit denser.

Visit from Tycho

Tycho is visiting from NY for a meeting and hanging out with us for the weekend. He's as entertaining as ever. He's decided that everything we do must be documented, so we've now got lots of photos from the last two days.

1. A mouse somehow has moved into our kitchen. It looks more like a pet mouse than a pest. We can't catch it, but Tycho did snap some photos of the critter.
2. Another mouse, being eaten by a snake, seen on trail between Muir and Tennessee Valley beaches.
3. A lizard.
4. Tycho
5. Us


UPDATE: House mouse caught & released into the wild around 9 pm last night. We caught it fairly easily in the end, then put it in a box. It was more curious than fearful, making me think again that it was a lost pet. But it seemed unlikely that we'd find the owner if there is one, and no one in our house was particularly interested in taking care of it. Anna's rat cage was long gone, so we had to let it go.

Nature red in tooth & claw.



On the bluffs between Muir beach and Tennessee Valley.

The trip to Angel's Landing

We climbed up to Angel's Landing in Zion NP today. It's 2 1/2 miles with 1500' of ascent. Quite a hike - a switchback up the cliff base followed by a walk through a slot canyon and a steep climb up Walter's Wiggles to the staging area. (OK, I was having Everest fantasies). The day was gorgeous - cool hiking weather, sunny and not too much wind.
The last half mile is along a rock fin jutting out over the Zion Canyon valley. In several places the trail is no more than a few feet wide and sometimes runs along the side of the cliff, with chains set into the rock for handholds. Two of the five of us decided to skip the last stage. Catherine, Anna and I headed out to the tip.

"White knuckles" doesn't do it full justice. And on the way back, Anna slipped and fell headfirst on one of the cliffside segments. She managed to arrest her slide with inches to go before the edge. I was right behind her and grabbed her leg, as did a guy coming up the other way (who may have been partly responsible for her slip, by refusing to give way on the chain), but she had already stopped by then. So the good news is that I still have a daughter. The bad news is that I'll have that image stuck in my head forever.

Ping, pong, ping

Back & forth & back & forth I go, twixt Berkeley and Southern Cal. Earning a few simoleons working for a money manager behind the Orange Curtain. Not a bad gig - the commute is just over three hours, door-to-door, Monday morning and Thursday evening. Fridays off! Three day weekends every week! Woohoo!

I found* a nice little (very little) cottage 6 blocks from the beach which I have yet to see (beach, not cottage). My colleagues there are the usual quant finance crew of Russians, Chinese and Indians, plus the occasional European and American. The view from the quant dungeon is fabulous - from the 6th floor looking out across the channel to Catalina.

Nice, as long as it lasts... I'm not loving spending so much time away from home, and everyone here pretends to miss me, but they also want me to be working. It makes everyone feel a bit more secure.

* Thanks, Craig Newmark!