This past week, I have been impressed with the sense that my life is snowballing down the road to mediocrity. I could try to deceive myself by listening to others who recite some of my acheivements to me, or even trying to recite them to myself, but the fact of the matter is that I…
brita water
As I am a civil/environmental engineer studying drinking water policy, I get all kinds of questions about whether or not tap water is safe or whether it should be filtered… This is an entertaining short blog to that effect.
#49 blackness:: abused
I’ve been trying to restrict my writing on the blog until I could clarify the research topics and religious discussions I want to address on my blog. I cannot resist, however, the need to say at least a few sentences about Donovan McNabb’s comments recently remarking that “African-American quarterbacks are under greater scrutiny” than other…
MLS on par with EPL?
So, when I opened my MacBook this morning, opened up Firefox, and perused soccernet.com for my daily soccer news, I was shocked to see Alexi Lalas comparing Major League Soccer (MLS) to the English Premier League (EPL). I mean shocked. Then, I remembered from whom this was coming: Alexi Lalas. I remember earlier this year…
#47
As I’m reading a Washington post opinion article about Vice-President Gore, my interest in his new book, The Assault on Reason, becomes increasingly piqued. There is one thing Milbank’s opinion that annoys me intensely: the notion that the American public cannot vote for someone smarter than they are… Now, Milbank doesn’t quite say it like…
#46: the all A-Rod team…
ok, so the concept of the all A-Rod team is not my own. i heard it first from J-dub and C-note on ESPN Pittsburgh Sports Radio 1250. what is the all A-Rod team? well, A-Rod is best known for his performances being consonant with his talent level ONLY WHEN IT DOESN’T MATTER MOST. or, a…
#45
ok now, has it really come to this? the washington post has reported that senator tom coborn is threatening to block a bill in Congress that would honor Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, on her centennial. the reason: her book has raised public alarm that has stigmatized the use of pesticides which could…
nyc congestion pricing
michael bloomberg’s idea, to charge $8 to travel into downtown manhattan during peak travel hours, is one of the greatest american transit advances i’ve heard of… my impression of my fellow citizens is that we feel like we shouldn’t pay a premium for wasting precious fossil-fuel resources, consuming massive amounts of food, and otherwise titillating…
how much is a tree worth?
the answer to this question is both good and bad… we can ‘demonstrate’ just how beneficial trees are to our ‘well-being’, at least economically, but who’s to say this quantification won’t come back to bite us in the pants?…
#42
so, as i’m sitting on my couch trying to figure out what i’ll do for the next 3 or so hours, i decide to pass time eating popcorn and watching pbs. there must have been some military theme governing what would be shown, because the first show was about the marines and different qualities of…