(no subject)
The birthday dinner with friends was nice, though in retrospect I should have started it at 7:30 rather than 7 'cause a number of people had to leave by 9ish.
Thanks to those who attended - I appreciated your company and warm wishes.
For those who are curious about such things, I had two cocktails. One contained amaretto, Bailey's, hazelnut, and butterscotch shots in milk. The other was theoretically a sex-on-the-beach, but since it was green I'm not sure what exactly they used to make it (and actually plan on calling them later today, partly from curiousity and partly 'cause it's one of the few alcohol drinks of which I genuinely
liked, rather than tolerated, the taste).
So in lab we use reference acids, but only about half that are tried tend to work. Currently, I'm dealing with a set of eleven of them, but have only gotten one day of data for one of those (despite trying on three different days). Today, the third day I tried it, I wound up writing in the log book, "May drop acid," before realizing that it probably sounds far worse than I intended.
And now for some articles (many yoinked from other people):
Before it was adopted, slightly more than a fifth of the Senate refused to support a measure
apologizing for not passing anti-lynching legislation
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses
The Bush administration, which cut funding for veterans at the beginning of its first term (yet still enjoys the support of the majority of military personel), acknowledged a one-billion dollar deficit for health care of veterans
The Pentagon is violating the Privacy Act (read: they have records on 30 million 16-25-year-olds)
Scientific evidence doesn't affect people's opinions
Co-op bank bars Christian group
73-year-old Kenyan grandfather kills a leopard bare-handed
Women get off on mental/emotional stimulation more so than genital
House spares PBS
House Passes Constitutional Amendment to Ban Flag Burning
The Post did an article on complaints that foreign instructors are incomprehensible, but it contradicts a study written about by the Chronicle of Higher Education
Senate Rejects Greenhouse Gas Limits
BETTER THAN KYOTO
Jun 23rd 2005
America should use the G8 summit to embrace carbon trading
IN LESS than two weeks the leaders of the world's largest economies will meet at Gleneagles, a posh golf resort in the Scottish highlands, for the G8 summit. Astonishingly, these get-togethers have not always achieved a great deal. Since their creation 30 years ago, G8 summits have often been blown off course by random events, or been marred by empty grandstanding before the accompanying media circus.
In one way, things look more promising this year. Britain, which is currently chairing the G8, is determined that the leaders should focus on two big issues--African poverty and climate change--which are both huge problems and need to be addressed at a global level. In another way, things don't look so promising: therich world's leaders will probably pass up on the chance to discuss the most important thing they could do to slow climate change--set up a global system for trading
carbon-emissions permits. That's because George Bush is adamantly opposed to the limits on pollution that any such scheme requires.
Thanks to the implementation in February of the UN's Kyoto treaty on climate change, most of the rich world (though, notably, not America) now regulates emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief gas contributing to global warming. Carbon trading, which used to be regarded as a fantasy marriage of environmentalism and economics, is now seen as the least costly, least distorting and most effective way to curb carbon emissions.
Ironically, it was America, under Mr Bush's father, that pioneered emissions trading with an inventive scheme that solved the country's acid-rain problem at a fractionof the cost originally forecast. And it was America that argued for including market based mechanisms in the deeply-flawed Kyoto treaty. But America has been left way behind by the second generation of emissions-trading schemes, which have been sprouting around the world.
The EU has a carbon-trading market that is already up and running. Norway, whose carbon policies predate Kyoto, is about to join the EU's trading system. Switzerland wants to join next. Canada and California, which in environmental matters regards itself as part of Europe rather than America, may eventually join too. A group of multinational firms (with cumulative emissions the size of Britain's) trade carbonat the private Chicago Climate Exchange; this exchange is now involved with one in Amsterdam. These various initiatives are working, but it could take years for themto come together into a global market for emissions without co-operation and support from America, the world's biggest energy consumer and its biggest polluter.
Mr Bush's main objection to a global carbon-trading system is that it would involve capping America's emissions, and he believes that would undermine economic growth. There would indeed be costs, though probably not very large ones. The best estimate suggests that, if America implemented a system similar toCanada's, it would cut half a percentage point off GDP by 2025.
Anyway, Mr Bush's position is now being undermined not only by examples from abroad but also by arguments at home. Many business leaders, and some big cheeses in the Republican Party, want to embrace the idea.
Until now, most Republican senators have supported Mr Bush's opposition to any caps on emissions. But this week two different bills containing proposals for a nationalcarbon-trading scheme were being considered by America's Senate. They attracted support from some leading Republicans. At the same time, some Republican state governors are throwing their support behind emissions curbs. American businessmen are also coming round to the idea. Earlier this month, the chief executives of some two dozen multinationals--including American firms such as Ford and Hewlett-Packard--met Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, to ask that the G8 summit adopt a global carbon-trading system.
Mr Bush was right to declare the Kyoto treaty too heavy-handed. Its targets were unrealistic, and Congress under any president was going to turn it down; but his do-nothing reliance on "voluntary" action never looked feasible either. Climate change is happening, and global curbs on emissions will come, in Mr Bush's presidency or after it. If he were to embrace the idea of a global carbon-trading system, he would
wrong-foot his critics and give America a sorely needed policy on climate change at a single stroke. What better way to give a jolt to this year's G8 summit?
See the first bit of this article for free (and get the option of a paid subscription) at http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4107033
An opinion piece dealing with the disparity between white and black people's perceptions of discrimination rates
Opinion piece on the relationship between gay groups and black communities
Thanks to those who attended - I appreciated your company and warm wishes.
For those who are curious about such things, I had two cocktails. One contained amaretto, Bailey's, hazelnut, and butterscotch shots in milk. The other was theoretically a sex-on-the-beach, but since it was green I'm not sure what exactly they used to make it (and actually plan on calling them later today, partly from curiousity and partly 'cause it's one of the few alcohol drinks of which I genuinely
liked, rather than tolerated, the taste).
So in lab we use reference acids, but only about half that are tried tend to work. Currently, I'm dealing with a set of eleven of them, but have only gotten one day of data for one of those (despite trying on three different days). Today, the third day I tried it, I wound up writing in the log book, "May drop acid," before realizing that it probably sounds far worse than I intended.
And now for some articles (many yoinked from other people):
Before it was adopted, slightly more than a fifth of the Senate refused to support a measure
apologizing for not passing anti-lynching legislation
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses
The Bush administration, which cut funding for veterans at the beginning of its first term (yet still enjoys the support of the majority of military personel), acknowledged a one-billion dollar deficit for health care of veterans
The Pentagon is violating the Privacy Act (read: they have records on 30 million 16-25-year-olds)
Scientific evidence doesn't affect people's opinions
Co-op bank bars Christian group
73-year-old Kenyan grandfather kills a leopard bare-handed
Women get off on mental/emotional stimulation more so than genital
House spares PBS
House Passes Constitutional Amendment to Ban Flag Burning
The Post did an article on complaints that foreign instructors are incomprehensible, but it contradicts a study written about by the Chronicle of Higher Education
Senate Rejects Greenhouse Gas Limits
BETTER THAN KYOTO
Jun 23rd 2005
America should use the G8 summit to embrace carbon trading
IN LESS than two weeks the leaders of the world's largest economies will meet at Gleneagles, a posh golf resort in the Scottish highlands, for the G8 summit. Astonishingly, these get-togethers have not always achieved a great deal. Since their creation 30 years ago, G8 summits have often been blown off course by random events, or been marred by empty grandstanding before the accompanying media circus.
In one way, things look more promising this year. Britain, which is currently chairing the G8, is determined that the leaders should focus on two big issues--African poverty and climate change--which are both huge problems and need to be addressed at a global level. In another way, things don't look so promising: therich world's leaders will probably pass up on the chance to discuss the most important thing they could do to slow climate change--set up a global system for trading
carbon-emissions permits. That's because George Bush is adamantly opposed to the limits on pollution that any such scheme requires.
Thanks to the implementation in February of the UN's Kyoto treaty on climate change, most of the rich world (though, notably, not America) now regulates emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief gas contributing to global warming. Carbon trading, which used to be regarded as a fantasy marriage of environmentalism and economics, is now seen as the least costly, least distorting and most effective way to curb carbon emissions.
Ironically, it was America, under Mr Bush's father, that pioneered emissions trading with an inventive scheme that solved the country's acid-rain problem at a fractionof the cost originally forecast. And it was America that argued for including market based mechanisms in the deeply-flawed Kyoto treaty. But America has been left way behind by the second generation of emissions-trading schemes, which have been sprouting around the world.
The EU has a carbon-trading market that is already up and running. Norway, whose carbon policies predate Kyoto, is about to join the EU's trading system. Switzerland wants to join next. Canada and California, which in environmental matters regards itself as part of Europe rather than America, may eventually join too. A group of multinational firms (with cumulative emissions the size of Britain's) trade carbonat the private Chicago Climate Exchange; this exchange is now involved with one in Amsterdam. These various initiatives are working, but it could take years for themto come together into a global market for emissions without co-operation and support from America, the world's biggest energy consumer and its biggest polluter.
Mr Bush's main objection to a global carbon-trading system is that it would involve capping America's emissions, and he believes that would undermine economic growth. There would indeed be costs, though probably not very large ones. The best estimate suggests that, if America implemented a system similar toCanada's, it would cut half a percentage point off GDP by 2025.
Anyway, Mr Bush's position is now being undermined not only by examples from abroad but also by arguments at home. Many business leaders, and some big cheeses in the Republican Party, want to embrace the idea.
Until now, most Republican senators have supported Mr Bush's opposition to any caps on emissions. But this week two different bills containing proposals for a nationalcarbon-trading scheme were being considered by America's Senate. They attracted support from some leading Republicans. At the same time, some Republican state governors are throwing their support behind emissions curbs. American businessmen are also coming round to the idea. Earlier this month, the chief executives of some two dozen multinationals--including American firms such as Ford and Hewlett-Packard--met Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, to ask that the G8 summit adopt a global carbon-trading system.
Mr Bush was right to declare the Kyoto treaty too heavy-handed. Its targets were unrealistic, and Congress under any president was going to turn it down; but his do-nothing reliance on "voluntary" action never looked feasible either. Climate change is happening, and global curbs on emissions will come, in Mr Bush's presidency or after it. If he were to embrace the idea of a global carbon-trading system, he would
wrong-foot his critics and give America a sorely needed policy on climate change at a single stroke. What better way to give a jolt to this year's G8 summit?
See the first bit of this article for free (and get the option of a paid subscription) at http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4107033
An opinion piece dealing with the disparity between white and black people's perceptions of discrimination rates
Opinion piece on the relationship between gay groups and black communities