Pinnacles, again

No condors this time, but a spectacular wildflower display, the emphasis on shades of blue and purple: abundant larkspur, shooting stars, and fiesta flowers. The unseasonably warm weather brought out a couple of snakes: a lazy king snake on the road coming in (photo courtesy AF), and a beautiful gopher snake near the Balconies Cave entrance.

Oh, did I forget to mention lichens?

The real cost of coal

I use James Stock and Mark Watson's excellent textbook in my undergrad econometrics class. Like all textbooks, it seems outrageously priced. But I'm happy to send a little business Jim Stock's way when he is so sensible and right on a pet topic of mine. All I would add to his "adder" (an extra royalty charge on coal to account for carbon) would be a further surcharge for mountaintop removal...

The greenhouse gas burden from coal taken from government lands can no longer be ignored. Using a carbon adder to increase the royalties that taxpayers receive is a sensible step in the right direction.

Landscape design...

... by pure dumb Darwinian luck, in the front yard... let me know if you want the plant list...

Back to the Future, indeed...

As a 57-year-old suburban white dude, I can't be too hard on myself for being late to the party. D'Angelo and the Vanguard's Black Messiah is a bass-driven, overproduced, Prince-inspired feast for the ears from soup to nuts. I'm not sold on the well-meaning lyrics, but you don't need to pay much attention to the words if you just let that syncopated funky wall of sound wash all over you.

More leafing out in Foothills Park

Black oak, big-leaf maple, maidenhair fern...

Springtime in New York

Reading the NY Times has become more than a little depressing, what with religious nut-jobs killing people right and left, and Mitch McConnell and Laurence Tribe just working their asses off for Peabody Energy and the rest of Big Carbon to totally fuck up our beautiful planet. But the Times also employs Joshua Bright, a photographer who can take the most cliched theme in the book and make some springtime magic from it...

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Las Vegas, Nevada. A worker's wife watering a newly planted lawn around one of the thousand demountable houses built adjacent to the Basic Magnesium Incorporated plant in the southern Nevada desert. Fritz Henle, 1942.

Today's little epiphany

The worst possible case of omitted variable bias in estimating the causal effect of Z on Y would be if Z had no direct causal effect on Y whatsoever, but was highly correlated with Y entirely because of Z's correlation with some other confounding variable X that causes Y. Then the regression coefficient on Z would be nothing but omitted variable bias! But what if you changed your mind and decided you were actually more interested in the causal effect of X on Y? Then Z, of course, would be a perfect instrumental variable!

Only in America

History lesson.

Daevid Allen, RIP

I know for sure that I owned a Gong album in vinyl at some point-- this one, I believe-- but it seems to have disappeared from my collection. Like, wow, where did it go, man?

Listening again for the first time in many years, I gotta say... not bad! Unlike, say, Yes, Gong's bombast was well-tempered by their goofy humor and downright trippy-jazzy strangeness... not to mention some welcome if lightweight funkiness in places.

Tibetan Chutzpah

To think, the DL might refuse to reincarnate! Drat, drat, and double drat!

Officials have amplified their argument that the Communist government is the proper guardian of the Dalai Lama’s succession through an intricate process of reincarnation that has involved lamas, or senior monks, visiting a sacred lake and divining dreams. 

Party functionaries were incensed by the exiled Dalai Lama’s recent speculation that he might end his spiritual lineage and not reincarnate.

Wikipedia anomalies

I was listening to M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" tonight. Damn good song. The Wikipedia entry is comprehensive to say the least. How does it compare with the Wiki entry for my favorite economist, Kenneth Arrow? Hmm. Wikipedia is great, but I have to think that in some more just and reasonable universe, Arrow might get at least a few more words than "Paper Planes."

Arrow wrote so many seminal works in economics and political philosophy, one is hard-pressed to come up with his "Paper Planes." But why not Social Choice and Individual Values? In it he takes on a small issue: democracy vs. dictatorship. While you try to follow the twists and turns of Arrow's relentless logic... here's something to listen to...

That major 7th chord...

... starts the familiar and gorgeous melody. Heard it a million times... what the heck is that song? Oh yeah...

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Nurse training. The necessity for student observation of operations in schools of nursing and medicine has brought about the development of various styles of amphitheaters. This dome arrangement is unique in the United States. While eye operations are in progress in the room below, each student can observe through powerful binoculars. Fritz Henle, 1942

Spring!

On the Los Trancos Trail in Foothills Park...
Blue oaks (the leaves really are that color!)...

Larkspur...

Ferns...

Hounds tongue...

Checker lily...

Clematis...

Meadow rue...