There are six citrus trees in the backyard of my childhood home. I remember one hot summer day as a young kid going out to repaint the white trunks of the trees. The white paint increases the albido (the ratio of light reflected off an object) and thus keeps the trees cooler. The fruit was not yet ripe, so the tree leaves and unripened fruit were all a uniform green at the time. [Read more…]
The Diffidence of “Buy American”
Japanese-made cars are all I’ve ever known. From the time I first started driving at the age of 15 until now, all the cars I’ve had were made by either Honda, Toyota, or Acura (the luxury vehicle division of Honda). Until my 20s, all of them were made in the 1980s. Born in 1986, those were rather old cars for someone to be driving. [Read more…]
California, the Drought, and the Damage Done
Droughts in the land occupying the space between the 1850-drawn borders that today we call California are nothing new. Anyone who says otherwise is either uninformed or under the influence of an agenda. Armed with a measly 163-year old rainfall record, some are quick to reason that California’s most recent and widely published drought is the result of our own post-industrial revolution vices. They are dangerously wrong. [Read more…]
America’s Prisoner Dilemma
If you’ve picked up a newspaper anytime in the past decade, odds are you’ve heard about the United States’ world #1 ranking in rate of incarceration.
As in most, not least. [Read more…]
The Third Way On Net Neutrality
Net Neutrality has quickly become a household term in the United States, and for good reason. Should the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) follow through on its threat to pass new rules for regulating internet service providers, the internet as we know it will certainly change, perhaps dramatically. The way in which it will change is unclear for now, but history suggests that the arguably good intentions of the new rules are unlikely to live up to their lofty expectations. [Read more…]
