Welcome to the Aurosphere

CEOs have always argued that companies need to pay them gigantic salaries, because you need to pay top dollar to get the folks who will lead the company to greater profits. Well, it turns out that the CEO's share of a company's compensation to its top five executives* is indeed related to profitability. Inversely related. Why am I not surprised?

* I'd be willing to bet that the kind of company that awards the lion's share of compensation, from among the top-5, to the top-1, is also the kind of company that awards more compensation to the top-5, relative to the top-100, and so on. Certainly that's how the overall income distribution across the country works. To a first approximation, the US income distribution is an 80-20 power law; within any slice starting from the top, the top 20% within that group earns as much as the other 80%. The top 0.2% earns as much as the remainder of the top percentile, the top percentile earns as much as the 95th-99th, the top 5% earn as much as the 75th to 94th percentile, and so on. (This may not hold precisely true, but it's reasonably close. And I believe the wealth histogram is even more concentrated -- something like a 90-10 power law.)

It's hard to believe it's been fifteen years since the boy and his tiger wandered off into the sunset.

Check out the interview, the article about the strip, and the sampling of Watterson's pre-Calvin work. (Does anyone else find it kind of hilarious that Watterson apparently lived in Chagrin Falls, OH, when he was first working for the Sun Newspapers? It sounds like the sort of town Calvin would live in...)

Fesenjan is a Persian pomegranate-walnut stew base. It is delicious, and was actually rather easier to make than I expected -- it came out very well on the first attempt. I think the below recipe should make enough for 4-6 servings, depending on how large the servings are.

The traditional accompaniment would be a long grain rice.

plymouth doesn't like rice. I thought about using some saffron in the couscous -- it's what would be in the rice -- but I decided that really, the saffron would just be wasted; fesenjan is strongly flavored. I'd rather use saffron in my starchy side dish when the main course I'm serving it with is a bit more subtle. So I just went ahead and hit the couscous with similar flavors to what was in the stew.

If you wanted to make this vegetarian, you could use seitan (as long as it's not overly salted or soaked with soy sauce) or a very firm tofu, or maybe some sort of firm mushrooms or chunks of eggplant.

Lamb and duck are also traditional proteins for this; with the duck, you want to basically render the fat out of the skin at the beginning, and use that in place of most of the walnut oil that's used here.

At least a few hours ahead of time: After chopping the chicken, put it in a bowl or tupperware that is just large enough to contain it; in a separate container, mix up a splash of lemon juice and a drizzle of the pom concentrate (about a quarter cup juice, maybe a little less than that of pom) and the sumac, cardamom, and cinnamon. Stir around to coat the chicken, cover, allow to marinate.

If you happen to be able to acquire Persian ice cream (saffron-rosewater -- quite similar to a traditional flavor of Indian kulfi, which you can get at Bombay Ice Creamery in the mission) and/or faloodeh (very fine noodly things commonly served over shaved ice with a rosewater syrup) for dessert, that would round out the meal nicely.

Keith Olbermann, the other night, compared the Citizens United decision (CU, by the way, is the Orwellian name of the corporate creation that was trying to pay to put the defamatory Hillary: The Movie on network TV in primetime) to what would happen if all pay rules were repealed in pro sports -- the rich, big-city teams (such as the Yankees) would instantly get a monopoly on talent. Popular teams from places like Green Bay, WI would wither and die.

The other interesting thing I saw recently is this (posted on a mailing list; I have not been able to determine the original source):

I was attempting to acquire commercial-size basket filters, to use as liners in my big steamer pan, for esoteric purposes, and the item I thought was those, on Amazon, turns out to be the standard home-machine size, so I have a pack of filters of a variety I have no use for...

I can't seem to find the larger, restaurant-size filter anywhere. I found some listings for "commercial size" filters, but those also appear designed to go in machines that produce twelve cups at a time. Maybe CostCo might have them? (I also found a company called Restaurant Depot, in San Jose, but, like CostCo, they appear to require a membership to shop there.)

Question for John Roberts: How much money should Saudi BinLadin Group (www.sbgpbad.ae), or GazProm (www.gazprom.com), or Sinopec (english.sinopec.com) be allowed to contribute, through a US subsidiary, to candidates in US elections?

We need an immediate patch to corporate law, making abstention from electoral spending a condition of maintaining a corporate charter. And we need a Constitutional Amendment declaring that for purposes of US law, you can only be a person if you're actually capable of, you know, eating, breathing, etc. Unfortunately, I'm not all that optimistic about either of these things happening. We basically need the Tea Partiers to wake up to the fact that their rage about stuff like the banking industry bailouts, is helping those very same corporations, by making it impossible for the party that wants to rein in corporations to do so.

According to the best poll released thus far (there sample size within the universe of Obama voters who voted for Brown is 500 people, which is pretty darn good for a definition that specific), these defectors said 3:2 that they wanted a stronger healthcare bill, and for Dems to be more aggressive in general.

How did voting for Brown help with that? WTF? Do they not understand that, as Barbara Boxer put it, elections have consequences? They have just torpedoed the healthcare legislation, and probably the financial industry regulations that were just starting to get discussed as well. And if they want to complain that, oh, Obama is too hung up on healthcare when he ought to worry about jobs -- well, they've just made it nearly impossible for the Senate to take any actions towards job creation, too.

Yes, Coakley was a lousy candidate and a lousy campaigner. But the fact that Scott Brown seems like a nice man is not a reason to vote for him, given that he has publicly made clear that he wants to help a nihilistic minority paralyze the government.

And of course, the dozen or so moderate Senate Dems will likely take this as an excuse to say that this is a message to Dems to be more moderate (which is to say, conservative, since the media-defined "center" in this country is ludicrously far to the right, compared to where it was even in the '80s -- IIRC, Saint Ronald only scores 40% on the 10-question purity test recently proposed by a couple GOP house members). The truth is, they need to grow some f*ckin' stones and start actually passing the kind of policies Obama campaigned on. A healthcare bill with a real public option, accessible to any American (including those who want to opt out of their employer's lousy plan) would be a good start. The bank liability tax would be an even better follow-up, considering the current popular rage at the banks. That would be good policy and good politics, a great opportunity -- but the Dem leadership, as they used to say about Yasser Arafat, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

My friend Phil Gelb has started posting his vegan recipes, daily, at philipgelb.blogspot.com. I syndicated his blog onto LJ, as

philipgelb_blog.

I am not generally nuts for veganism -- I'm not even vegetarian -- but I love Phil's cooking style. He brought in lunches for us at Presidio, during residency, during the time I was there, and I think out of the roughly 70 meals I had from him, only a handful were anything short of delicious.

Or, at least one...

Back in '06, I joined a service that was, at the time, called GreenDimes. It's now called "Precycle," and is one service of a web-portal company called Tonic. It's basically a service that triest to reduce junkmail coming to your home. (I sort of wish they would get back to just focusing on, and expanding, their original service, since I frankly don't care about the rest of what they're doing. But I guess they were having trouble making money on that; the direct marketers have been lobbying state legislatures to try to make it difficult for companies like Tonic to act on behalf of consumers -- they want laws that say a third party can't opt out for you, you have to do it yourself. Anyways, it seems like they've stopped investing effort in adding more catalog-mailers to their database of "companies whose catalogs we know how to stop".)

In any case, when they originally started, they offered, as one of the options, a long-term membership, and all memberships were based on periods of time. They've recently changed the policy to basing membership on location -- you buy once for your house, but you have to re-register when you move.

I wrote in to complain about the fact that this basically meant they wouldn't be honoring my long-term membership. Within minutes, they emailed back, and after a few quick exchanges, we agreed that they'd refund most of my original membership fee. They actually offered to refund the whole thing, but I would've felt guilty about that, so I said they could keep the equivalent of what it would've cost under the new policy to register at the places I've lived while using their service.

Previously mentioned... Here is the actual CraigsList posting. Feel free to share with friends who might be looking for a place, post to boards at your workplace, etc.

I have noticed, with increasing frequency, the use of the word "anymore" in a positive sense. Somebody did it on Talk of the Nation today, though I've now forgotten the exact context... The kind of thing I'm talking about is, "I used to prefer chocolate, but I prefer vanilla anymore." The word gets used to describe an activity that started at some point in the recent past, and is ongoing.

From my point of view as a descriptive linguist, this is kind of fascinating; it's an interesting generalization of the word, which used to only be usable to talk about an activity that ceased in the recent past, and is expected not to start again. "I used to like chocolate, but now I like vanilla -- I don't like chocolate anymore." English actually does usually play fast and loose with negative versus positive inflections. (Anyone who speaks Spanish is familiar with the stricter version of this, the way that the negative/positive on the verb affects the use of words like "ningun" or "nadie".)

But from the prescriptivist, former-writing-tutor point of view, it makes my skin crawl. Quit doing that, people! It's not like the etymology of the word is unclear. "I won't do X any more." It does not continue. There is not any more of it. In the positive, you have to use "some" rather than "any". "Please sir, may I have some more." "I think I will jog some more tomorrow."

This may be the first widespread linguistic error/evolution that I have found even more annoying than the degeneration of the difference between the adjectives "nauseated" (suffering from nausea), and "nauseous" (which used to mean "so disgusting as to cause nausea in nearby persons" -- a synonym for "nauseating"). People have used it incorrectly for so long, and so widely, that M-W now has a usage note declaring that current usage is dominated by the "nauseated" meaning, and therefore people who think the word ought to mean what it meant for hundreds of years ("nausea" and its various inflections date back to the 16th century, and originally referred specifically to seasickness -- note the similarity to "nautical") before ignorant valley girls misappropriated it are "mistaken". I find that kind of rootless ahistoricism... nauseous.

I've had two very positive customer service experiences in the last few months, and just wanted to record them for posterity -- so often folks tend to blog their complaints, but not give positive feedback when companies behave well.

Ideal Pet Products makes pet doors. I had one of their sliding glass door inserts years ago, and then used the cut-in doors at my last couple places, and Xta and I recently bought another door insert for the Sky Den. The cats promptly managed to break part of the door; I'm not sure if it was a manufacturing flaw in that particular unit, or if they were being particularly rambunctious, but they'd never managed to do that before. In any case, I was able to email Ideal, and they promptly offered to send a replacement part. Fixing it was as easy as undoing a few screws, putting in the new part, and screwing it back together.

Zyliss makes a variety of kitchen products, including rotary cheese graters. I bought this product because it has a wider barrel, which is good for coarsely grating medium-firm cheeses like cheddar and gruyere, which don't do so well in the narrow-barrel grater I use for hard cheeses. A couple days ago the handle on the coarse drum shattered. Although Amazon said their returns policy only covers things for 30 days, when I contacted Zyliss USA, they offered to send a replacement coarse drum, free of charge. So, yay.

I have to admit, I wouldn't actually buy this particular product again if I had it to do over; I like the larger drum, but the handle design is a little awkward, and you can tell it's a bit flimsy when you handle it. The problem is that it attaches at the rim, rather than having the drum closed on one side, or having struts across it, to allow the handle to attach at the center. Their smaller grater has the handle screw into a thread at the center, which works really well (and makes the disassembled pieces easier to clean). Still, given that I sank some money into it, I appreciate that Zyliss is willing to make some effort to maintain/service their product. If it breaks again, though, I'll probably just buy something else.

I agree with Bob Reich. While I sort-of understand the Nobel committee's reasoning (Obama's re-opened diplomatic discussions, and already advanced the ball on both North Korea and Iran more in nine months than Bush did in eight years); and while I definitely understand how, to the average American, this may represent a realization of the campaign promise of improving our standing in the world; I think this award was kind of a weird pick.

And I think the best thing Obama could do is turn it down. Give a short speech about how he's incredibly honored, and that he hopes that the vision he's laid out for America inspires not just our people, but the people of the world, etc etc... But that there is still too much work to do, he can't rest on laurels. Keep it to ten minutes or less, and skip flying to Sweden.

The loons on the right (who are just itching to have another round of the kind of craziness they had when Al Gore won) would be completely dumbfounded. He'd totally defang the claim that he has a messiah complex. And the downside is, what, the Nobel committee feels a little miffed? It's sort of like a "Sister Souljah moment," except it dissociates him from "out of touch elitists," rather than from a minority/disadvantaged group.

At a bare minimum, he should pledge to donate the prize money to some organization that has a more legitimate claim on the notion that they're doing the most to promote peace. Say, past Nobelist Médecins Sans Frontières.

ETA: Wait a minute, Mickey Kaus had the same idea before I did. Maybe it's just contrarian, not good.

ETA: So, apparently he's going to accept and donate the money.

( Statement from the President: 'To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize...' )

I have two pairs of opera tix for sale -- Abduction from the Seraglio on this coming Sunday 10/11 (a quite good Mozart comedy, with ahead-of-its-time portrayals of strong women, and a rather sophisticated, humane Turkish pasha) and Otello on Sunday 11/8 (Verdi adaptation of Shakespeare, one of the all-time greats of Italian grand opera). Feel free to pass the craigslist links to any friends who might be interested. I'm willing to consider a discount for friends who are into opera but don't get to go very often.

Also, if you can afford full price just for yourself for the Seraglio ticket, I've been going back and forth on whether I want to sell that one. I've seen it once before, but I really liked it and wouldn't mind seeing it again. Otello I've seen half-a-dozen times, and while I'd happily go again if I had income, I can't really afford it at the moment. I've been maintaining my subscriber status for the last couple years so that once I have money again I won't have to start out from lousy seats again and gradually trade into the nice ones; but I've been selling off half or more of my tickets...

Also, I have tix for Salome on 10/18. I've never seen that one, but it's Richard Strauss (the student of Wagner who wrote Also Sprach Zarathustra, a.k.a. the music from the film "2001") working from a play by Oscar Wilde, based on one of the Biblical stories that is most packed with sex, intrigue, and violence. Am really looking forward to it; I think Xta is waffling on whether she wants to see it. If interested in joining, send email; I'll let you know if Xta decides she doesn't want to go.

Xta and I and our friend

dragondawn420 went to see the Tut exhibit, and went to dinner at the restaurant in the Cal Academy. It's very good. We'll have to go back some time...

Hemingway Daiquiri: white rum, grapefruit, maraschino
Margarita Ahumada: mezcal, lime, black sea salt
Viognier, Cold Heaven "Sanford & Benedict Vineyard", Santa Barbara County, California, 2007

Country style pork terrine, house made pickles, mostarda di frutta, frisée. The pickles included cucumber, onion, and an amazing pickled carrot; I don't know exactly what they'd pickled it in. I think maybe they had some fennel seed in there, or something. Mostarda di frutta is kind of an Italian version of chutney -- a savory preserve, heavy on the mustard seed. They'd done it with some very good apricots. The whole appetizer was great with the fresh crusty bread. (We shared this as an appetizer.)

Roasted eggplant ravioli with cherry tomatoes, black olives, garlic, basil. Christa had them hold the tomatoes. There was a lot of garlic, roasted til it was basically spreadable. Topped with some sauteed spinach. (I think it was the same spinach as appears listed in the "Sides" part of the menu: local spinach, harissa, golden raisins, pine nuts.)

Bullfeathers Farms quail, caramelized peaches, purslane, pancetta, balsamic reduction. I think this was the best use of purslane I've ever run into. I could've wished the quail was a little bigger, but overall, superb. The peaches appeared to have been coated in a light syrup and then torched -- browned on the outside, but basically still raw on the inside.

Grilled American "Kobe" bavette steak, watercress, charmoula vinaigrette. DD had this; I got a taste of it, and was really impressed with their chermoula. You could definitely taste the pickled lemon in it.

Combier Crème Brûlée, vanilla marmalade sandwich cookies. Sort of a "dreamsicle custard". The cookies were shortbready, and had an intense vanilla aroma. The marmalade between them was more like bits of candied orange peel than marmalade -- no excess liquid. But not overly sweet, very orange-y.

Roast Peach and Summer Berry Parfait, with crème fraîche custard, buttermilk biscuit, praline streusel. Xta had this with a glass of Quady Red Electra. We've been fans of the Quady for a long time. I think

jencallisto introduced us to their Elysium. Red Electra is what grape soda aspires to be -- very distinctly grape-y (purple flavor!), with a light, pleasant sparkle, and hints of other summer fruit flavors (especially peach and blackberry). It was a perfect complement to the parfait.

Devil's Chocolate Cake, with fleur de lait ice cream, malted powder, crispy wafer. I'm not sure I ever tried (or even saw) the wafer, so I don't know what was in that. Fleur de lait is an extremely simple ice cream, basically just milk, cream, sugar, a pinch of salt, and a bit of starch for thickening (usually cornstarch). There were actually two kinds of malt powder (chocolate and vanilla) sprinkled in arcs around the edge of the plate. The cake was incredibly dense and fudgey, and around 20-25% of the entire thickness was ganache frosting (thick layer on top, and a thinner layer halfway down). The cake was so rich that DD couldn't finish it, even with assistance. (I was pretty full after my own dessert, so I only had a couple bites.)

Today we're doing more unpacking. Earlier I sorted and arranged a bunch of random cables (power, networking, A/V, etc). And supposedly people who contacted me through Craigslist are going to take away my old bureau, and the empty boxes, later today...

The Republicans have been showing big scary confusing flowcharts to suggest that health reform will create a gigantic new bureaucracy.

Here's the truth, courtesy of Nicholas Beaudrot.

You can learn more about each opera behind the links. All operas are preceded, one hour earlier, by a free educational lecture. My seats are Dress Circle E126 and E128, the latter of which is an aisle seat, on the first aisle out from the center. You can see the view from Dress Circle on the seating chart page.

If you're interested in an opera, but the date doesn't work, I can exchange for equivalent seats on a date of your choice (check the website for the dates of various shows) and send you the new tickets; however, I can't promise specific seats in that case.

I paid $96.50 per ticket (including processing and shipping fees), so each pair is $193 (and I strongly prefer to sell the pairs together). Non-subscriber price for the equivalent tickets would $120 per seat, $240 per pair -- so I'm selling at roughly a 20% discount relative to buying from the SFO box office. I'll be happy to cover the stamp to mail the tickets to you, or make other arrangements.

ETA: It occurs to me to mention that we're selling a sofabed, because not all of our furniture fits in our new place.

...please direct them to this data from the Federation of Tax Administrators. California's total tax collections at the state and local levels, as a percent of income earned in the state, are 12.1%, ranking it fourteenth out of the fifty states. Compare to Wyoming (16.6%) and Alaska (15.1%). If you include all revenue sources (taxes, plus various service fees, plus revenue from fines and tickets, etc), California is at 18th out of 50, collecting 17.6% of gross state income. Again, compare to Wyoming (26.4%) and Alaska (35.5%).

CA has a relatively high income tax, and a fairly high sales tax, but has extremely low property taxes, and has a fairly business-friendly tax environment in general. Conservatives telling you that our taxes will drive business out of state are basically just making stuff up -- there's no data to back their claims.

The New York Times had an article last month, that I missed until now, about the Alta Rock deep geothermal project up in the area of The Geysers, a current geothermal field. They discuss the numerous small quakes that are already created by the expansion and contraction of rock in the area as water is injected (causing cooling and contraction of the rocks, opening fissures), as steam is created (creating pressure that further expands the fissures and creates new cracks), and as the steam is extracted (relieving pressure).

They also have a story about a similar deep well in the vicinity of Basel, Switzerland, that seems to have caused some significant shaking. The article feels to me a bit overwrought in its descriptions of the problems in Basel. They play up how terrifying the quake was, and barely mention the fact that nobody got hurt. Not even people standing directly over the borehole. This sounds to me like an argument for building your geothermal projects out in a rural area, rather than right by a major city. Alta Rock's project is, in fact, far from any major city, suburb, or exurb.

A lot of people seem to be scared that the Alta Rock project might set off a truly major quake. Color me skeptical. Major quakes happen when pressure builds up along a fault line for a very long time, and then the energy is all released at once. Having numerous small quakes sounds, to me, like a good thing. If it really turns out that we can induce quakes, it might actually be a good idea to start doing so at significant stress points along the major fault lines, on an ongoing basis. The fact that this happens to be a method for producing extremely high-temperature / high-pressure steam, which can generate a lot of energy, is an added bonus.

Geothermal is, IMHO, one of the more promising sources of base load energy generation; if we have to provide some relocation funding, or funding for people to build houses that can withstand small quakes on a regular basis, fine. But I don't think we ought to have the "paper of record" suggesting that it's going to cause a huge quake that will knock down San Francisco when it seems equally-or-more likely that it will actually help relieve pressure through small quakes, reducing the chance of a "Big One".

Dear Senator Feinstein,

I have just returned from attempting to visit your San Francisco office to drop off a petition, on behalf of Democracy for America and roughly 56,000 of your constituents, in support of health care reform that includes offering a federally administered public insurance option. Such reform is, according to multiple polls, supported by two-thirds to three-quarters of all Americans, including roughly half of rank-and-file Republicans. It is also heavily favored by essentially all moderate and liberal economists, and was an element of the health plans offered by all three major Democratic presidential campaigns in 2008.

I say "attempting to visit," rather than "visiting," because a staffer there rather brusquely refused to ask the One Post Plaza office tower's lobby security guards to admit me, saying that visitors are admitted by appointment only, thus making a waste of the hours I spent travelling to and from your office. I am unclear what, exactly, is more important to your staffers than your constituents' Constitutional right to petition. This is no way to treat a grassroots activist.

If they are overwhelmed with phone calls today, I am sympathetic, but I would think that it ought to count for something when somebody cares enough to come visit in person -- that you would be more interested in hearing from the in-person visitor. I fully intended to be respectful of your staff's time; my visit to Rep. Anna Eshoo's Palo Alto office, earlier in the day, took perhaps three minutes. I identified myself, to your staffer who answered my call from the security lobby, as a California State Party Delegate, acting for the day as a representative of DFA, and I told him that I just wanted to drop off the petition and ask a couple of quick questions. I would've taken no more time than a caller.

Based on my experiences with other legislators who have served as my representatives over the years, and with their offices, I do not believe that any of them would tolerate a staffer treating a constituent so rudely, either at a campaign office or a (taxpayer funded!) legislative office. Neither should you.

Disappointedly,
R.M. 'Auros' Harman, M.B.A.
Delegate, A.D. 21, California Democratic Party State Central Committee
Treasurer, CDP Business & Professional Caucus

ETA: I just realized I had the number of constituents wrong; I was multiplying 90 lines by 156 pages, but I also should've multiplied by the four columns of names... Fixed now.

Invented for Christa.

A number of the steps in here can proceed in parallel.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Noodles: Cook a standard 8 oz lasagna noodle box, according to its directions.

Cheese Filling: Mix 16 oz of ricotta, about two-thirds of a 7oz package of pesto, and a few tablespoons of alfredo sauce. Add chopped fresh herbs. (We had parseley around, but extra basil, or whatever else you like, or even some dry herbs, would be fine. The thing is that you can't get all your herbage from the pesto sauce, because if you do, it'll be too much oil.)

Meaty filling: Dice 8 oz fairly fatty sausage (we were using Moroccan merguez), or bacon, or other meat that will render a decent bit of fat. Dice one medium yellow or white onion. Mince about 4 cloves of garlic (adjust to taste). Finely chop about 4-6 oz of greens (we used about eight medium leaves of dinosaur kale, b/c that's what we had handy). Cook the sausage in a pan over medium-high heat until it's lightly browned, and oil has rendered. Scoop it out with a slotted spoon, allow to rest in a bowl. Add onion to pan, cook for a few minutes until it starts to turn transluscent. Add garlic and greens to pan. Cook until the greens are cooked (time depends on the type of greens). Dump the veggies in with the meat, mix. (If the amount of oil is such that there is still actual liquid in the bottom of the pan, you may want to pull the veggies out with the slotted spoon, so you don't end up with oil dripping out of your lasagna.)

Zucchini filling: Chop two medium-to-large zucchinis (the ones we use probably weighed almost a pound, taken together) into ~1/4 inch thick rounds. Lightly brush a half-sheet pan with olive oil, put down a layer of zuke rounds, brush with oil, put down another layer, brush with oil. (If you lack for a brush, you can use a paper towel, or just your fingers dipped in a dish of oil. It washes off!) Bake uncovered for about fifteen minutes. You want to see sizzling on the surface, as it gives up some moisture. Don't cook it to mush, but you want it a bit softened, since it won't get much softer during the final bake. The layers of zuchini in the lasagna shouldn't need to have the discs overlapping; if you end up with extra, just save it to reheat as a side dish with some other meal.

Final topping: 8 oz of mozzarella, coarsely shredded.

Put a layer of noodles in the bottom of your baking dish (use a 9x13 if you have it; we didn't so we ended up using a 2qt, about 8x12, and then making a second smaller dish), then about 40% of the cheese mixture, then half the meat mix, then 40% of the zukes, then more noodles, another 40% of the cheese, half the meat, 40% of the zukes, more noodles, remaining 20% of cheese, arrange last 20% of zukes in a grid to define serving pieces, top with mozzarella. Bake for 30-35 min, until mozzarella gets bubbly and starts to brown. Allow to cool for 15-20 minutes.

Makes about six to ten servings, depending on how hungry you are.

Xta and I have finally picked out a date, or at least a pair of possible dates -- Halloween or the day before, next year. It will probably be a sunset ceremony. Location and the rest of the details to be decided later. We will also likely, for the benefit of folks with kids, encourage trick-or-treating at the reception. (Guests can bring little bags of cool candy to give to the trick-or-treaters.) Oh, and costumes. We definitely encourage costumes. (Not required, obviously, and invitees should probably think about whether something will be comfortable through a ceremony, eating at the reception, and potentially dancing.)

...which are in the district of CA Sen. Abel Maldonado, the one Republican who might conceivably be persuaded to vote for a sane budget fix.

See the California Tax Reform Association for some suggestions on what might be included in an immediate package to help resolve the budget crisis, rather than gutting the entire social safety net, if the GOP was not absolutely refusing to allow consideration of new revenues.

The Governor has proposed the elimination of CalWorks, which would immediately lead to 39,510 very low income children and parents losing their housing in Santa Clara County, and take $171 million out of the local economy. The elimination of Healthy Families (CA's implementation of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program) would result in 32,220 children losing health coverage in Santa Clara County. Schwarzenegger has also proposed elimination of all Medi-Cal funding for treatment of women with breast and cervical cancer, and for kidney dialysis treatments. In addition to being cruel, defunding these programs will cause losses of federal revenues of $3 for every $1 of state money. The Governor is also proposing to take millions of dollars that are normally collected by the state on behalf of cities and counties, and returned to fund local gov't functions (your standard "police, fire, libraries, etc" list).

Something is going to give here. Either the entire system of government as we have understood it for the last five decades is going to shut down within the next year or two, or we are going to have to break the logjam we've had for the last 15-20 years where a crazy anti-government fringe has been allowed to prevent us from pursuing any kind of sane, coherent policy agenda.

My Capstone team was voted (by our fellow students) as one of the three teams to present tomorrow night at the Venture Showcase.

Two more days, and two more presentations. Tomorrow morning is Capital Markets, and tomorrow evening gets a repeat of today's presentation, and then there's the human-factors class on Sunday where the chances of anyone paying attention are close to nil.* And then I'm done.

* If any of the professors or TAs are reading this -- I'll try, really, but you know it's true! Also, hi!

We have had a system in place over the last three decades where the lending class -- the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution -- made sure that everybody else was underpaid (by crushing any factor that would force them to provide raises in keeping with productivity growth, or even inflation most of the time), but then given credit to allow them to consume at the same standard they'd grown accustomed to during the rise of the middle class in the '50s and '60s. This structure ensured that over time, more and more people -- initially in the lower classes, but eventually in the shrinking middle class as well -- sank into what is effectively debt peonage: their future productivity became explicitly forfeit to the lenders, foreclosing any further efforts to extract concessions via unionization or other such tactics.

The system finally collapsed because the lenders got a little too greedy. I am not eager to bail them out by promising them even more of the future productivity of workers, in the form of today's government dollars to cover immediate losses, and tomorrow's government dollars to pay off the debt that financed today's government dollars.

Note that I'm perfectly happy to pay rich folks back on government debt if they're financing actual Keynesian spending today, which would help get the economy growing again. In that scenario, growth causes the debt to shrink over time relative to the economy as a whole -- the rising tide actually lifts all boats.

But I find it absolutely ridiculous that we are allowing the ultrarich to lend money -- at interest -- in order to finance paying off themselves, to make up for stupid risks they should have known better than to take. This basically has them taking money out of one pocket, handing it to the government, then grabbing it back and stuffing it in a different pocket, and charging our posterity for the privilege of having momentarily held the money.

Anyone who complains about efforts to use progressive taxation to redistribute wealth has missed the fact that the current distribution only exists because of a fundamentally unsustainable system of policies that was intentionally designed to concentrate wealth, and which has collapsed because such concentration leads to an insufficiency of demand relative to potential output. The poor can't afford to consume, and there aren't enough rich to pick up the slack.

But doesn't Geithner know that some Americans can read a balance sheet? (Some of us are even capable of understanding the order of claims in bankruptcy, and all that other Accounting 101 stuff.) As far as I can tell, his plan depends on none of these people being sufficiently public-spirited to point out that he's trying to protect bondholders at the expense of taxpayers. Perhaps he thinks the only people capable of understanding his plan are, themselves, the kinds of people benefitting from it?

Monday was sort of a bonus convention day, as I attended a meeting with former Assembly Budget Committee Chairman John Laird, discussing the propositions. Asm. Laird started off the meeting by giving some background on the budget and the General Fund, which is almost entirely devoted to just two things – education and prisons. (This past year was, apparently, the first year that the prisons consumed more funds than K-12 education; and with courts requiring more space and better treatment of prisoners, that’s not likely to reverse any time soon, unless there’s a significant policy change, such as ensuring that all minor drug offenders are routed to treatment instead of prison.) The General Fund receives most of its revenues from sales and income taxes; in the past it was primarily funded by property taxes, which are far more stable and predictable, but since Prop 13, the real value of property tax revenues has fallen by about two thirds. (This could be remedied if we were to pass a “split roll” reform, retaining Prop 13 rules for residential properties while restoring the old assessment system for commercial and industrial properties.) The general fund faces a problem in that its revenues vary greatly with economic conditions, while its expenses have been written into the constitution – Prop 98 for schools, Prop 49 for after-school programs, and the Three Strikes law which effectively puts a floor under prison expenses. Whereas some expenses have a dedicated funding source (such as the gas tax for transportation), few of the propositions that mandate expenses create corresponding revenue streams. (Asm. Laird noted at this point that he strongly favors a reform that would force Propositions to follow PAYGO rules.) Similarly, the reduction of the Vehicle License Fee left in place mandates for local and county expenses that the VLF had previously funded. County health programs and the UC/CSU system tend to face huge cuts in times of deficits, because they’re the only large programs that lack constitutional protection.

Another piece of the background is Republican extremism. In 2001, Gray Davis managed to get a decent budget passed, but the GOP immediately cracked down on its “turncoats” – none of them got re-elected.

With all of that said, Laird turned to the actual propositions, which he described as “the best bad deal we could get.” Prop 1A extends a tax increase that is part of this year’s budget from two years to four. It creates a “rainy day fund” and defines the “rainy day” conditions under which it can be used; any time revenues exceed expectations, a portion is swept into the rainy day fund. It gives the governor the power to cut certain budget items mid-year and to cancel cost-of-living increases for state services (e.g. assistance to the blind, working poor families, etc.), if revenues fall short of expectations.

1B is contingent on 1A, and was created basically to prevent teachers from campaigning against 1A; it provides stronger constitutional protection for Prop 98’s education funding rules.

Prop 1C borrows $5 billion against future lottery revenue to help close the hole in the current budget, and transfers schools’ current claims against that lottery revenue to the general fund.

Prop 1D takes money that has been held in reserve for the First 5 program (health and education for pre-schoolers) as a hedge against volatility in revenues, and uses it to close the budget hole. Prop 1E similarly grabs reserves from the mental health program that was created under Prop 63 (which, unlike most other spending-mandate props, funded itself with a 1% tax on income over $1 million).

Prop 1F denies raises to legislators when the budget is in deficit. Asm. Laird remarked that although the proposition is mostly about grandstanding, and will have no impact on the budget, he does agree with the principle that when teachers and policemen are facing cuts, it is unseemly for legislators to get raises; this was the same reason that 1F was supported at the convention.

Laird said that he is “grudgingly” planning to vote for the propositions. He is concerned that if they fail, the Republicans will be able to create a narrative about Californians rejecting tax increases (which were part of the current budget, and part of Prop 1A). He feels that it is important to end the two-thirds budget rule; to require future propositions that mandate spending to include corresponding revenue sources; to reform or end term limits so that legislators are able to learn more about the budget process before getting termed out; and to get clean money rules in place to ensure that legislators are not beholden to wealthy donors who oppose progressive taxation.

After speaking to these issues, Asm. Laird opened the floor for questions – I didn’t capture all of the Q&A session, and some of the questions were not directly pertinent to the propositions.

My own question was about whether Arnold might sign off on “fees” if 1A fails. Laird said that even if Arnold did so, the anti-tax Republicans would immediately challenge the issue in court, and get a proposition campaign under way – the fees would not help with the budget for the next year or two. So if 1A fails, the only real option is to go all-out for a reform of the two-thirds rule, and this is a politically difficult fight; just a few years ago, 65% of voters rejected a reform. Polls say that a reform that retains the two-thirds rule just for tax hikes (not the budget as a whole) could pass; switching from majority to 55% or 60% makes little difference. Laird noted at this point that the two-thirds rule as originally written only applied when the economy was growing rapidly – when the economy was up at least 5% from the previous year. Legislators and the public felt that when revenues were growing fast, it was important to have strong consensus about new investments and programs. Ironically, the conditional clause was removed to “streamline” the budget process – California’s economy grew for much of the twentieth century, and seldom suffered a serious contraction, and it was considered a nuisance to certify the growth rate every year.

Another questioner asked, simply, what the downside of 1A is, in Laird’s view – he said that basically, it trades two years of revenue enhancement for a permanent ratcheting-down of public investment, due to the way the rainy day fund rules prevent us from devoting windfalls in good years on infrastructure or other investments.

The final question was about why people support the two-thirds rule. Asm. Laird said he thinks that people tend to recognize their direct tax bill, but fail to see how failure to invest taxes them, by taking risks with the road and water infrastructure that supports day-to-day life and business, or by making education and healthcare more expensive and less accessible.

Catching up on Paul Krugman's blog, I learn that the nation's top expert on economic inequality received a major award, the torture memo judge basically confessed (though he doesn't seem to understand that what he did is actually a problem), and Iceland elected a lesbian prime minister.

Back on convention news, I forgot to mention that I had met Eric Bauman, the new party Vice-Chair, at the Red to Blue Dinner. I saw him as the dinner was getting over, and went by to congratulate him, and mention that the PYD Endorsements Committee had been very impressed when we interviewed him, but our endorsement had become moot because his opponent dropped out. He apparently actually runs his own Facebook account, because he recognized me from my photo there. In any case, he seems to be pretty dedicated to getting his people down in SoCal active in red counties, along the same lines as the assistance that folks around here gave to Jerry McNerney. Very encouraging.

On the negative side, or maybe just the weird side, California Republicans declared over the weekend that we are not having a drought. In fact, in the print version of the story, there's a banner headline: "McClintock Doubts Drought". Never mind that the pumps that normally pull water into our plumbing are literally high and dry, with the water having withdrawn to several feet below them -- there is no drought! Rejoice! That headline was being passed around the convention floor, for laughs. McClintock is the carpetbagging SoCal career politician who just barely edged out Lt. Col. Charlie Brown -- a decorated Air Force veteran who has served with both the police dep't and the public schools in Roseville -- because apparently the GOP'ers in that district are that scared of "socialism". Perhaps McClintock and his fellow wingnuts will next solve our oil problems by declaring that cars run on fairy dust, and that homes can be heated by thinking warm thoughts.

Came up late on Thu night after getting out of a Kinko's at 11pm. Crashed at

dragondawn420's place at 1am. Got to the Convention Center a bit after 9am Friday. Helped set up Hilary Crosby for CDP Controller booth. Hilary is a CPA whose practice for three decades has been working with nonprofits. She helped get the books in order, and streamline fiscal processes, for the California Democratic Council (which is basically a statewide alliance of grassroots clubs). Spent a bunch of time at the booth, handing out stickers and such. We were running a little contest, guessing the number of chocolate-covered espresso beans in a jar, next to a sign that said, "Wanna know how many beans there are? Hire a bean counter!" (Hilary's incumbent opponent, although a nice guy and a good fundraiser, is not an accountant, and many of us felt that he had been lax about identifying and calling out some shady practices in terms of how funds were transferred to Nuñez when he was Assembly Speaker.)

Went to Business and Professional Caucus. Got elected Treasurer. There was a bit of drama, because our Secretary and Chair did not arrive until minutes before the caucus was scheduled to get underway. This, combined with the fact that the party doesn't schedule any time between caucuses, led to chaos in the sign-in process, and the Chair was trying to drive the agenda forward as fast as possible as soon as people got in. The autocratic approach backfired, and folks nominated a new secretary, who won the vote 19-12. He seems like an OK guy to me (and since I'm going to have to work with him to keep our records in order -- McCain-Feingold violations are a VERY BAD THING -- I'm trying to smooth things over and get along) but our chair and ex-secretary are, understandably, fairly ticked off...

Went from caucus to B&P dinner event. Dinner was problematic as well. We'd had something like 50 people originally signed up to fill the room we'd reserved, plus a waitlist; we actually got moved to a room with space for ~70, to accomodate some of the waitlist. But then, in fact, about half of the original 50 failed to show up -- maybe waylaid in the Progressive Caucus (which is always a madhouse), or maybe just folks who aren't so good at keeping commitments -- GRR). We ended up with 37 diners, but we were on the hook for a minimum of 50, so we'll have to send out a letter to the folks who signed up but didn't show, and explain that it's between them and their conscience whether they help make up the dent that put in our treasury.

(On the bright side, the dinner itself was delicious -- a light green salad, ravioli in a champagne-cream pesto sauce, chicken with lemon beurre-blanc, mustard-buttermilk mashed potatoes, and some steamed carrots and brocolli and yellow squash.)

Christa arrived towards the end of the dinner; she'd had to work, but then came up on the train, which dropped off right near the restaurant where the B&P dinner was. We went over to a cocktail party, where Jim Dean was appearing in place of Howard (who was arriving late, I guess due to travel issues?), along with Kamala Harris. The venue had no speakers/mic -- technology FAIL! -- so the poor speakers had to try to hollar over the crowd, with folks at the back refusing to shut up when shushed -- respect FAIL!

Saturday I did some more work with Hilary's campaign (putting together signs, marching around for visibility; standing with a gang of sign-wavers in front of the podium with a sign when she was speaking to the General Session). Her speech, about her history, and the need for grassroots involvement in the party structure, and the importance of turning numbers into a narrative about how the party is doing, who our base is, etc, was really good. When I'd heard her speak when she was doing house parties and my County Committee, she'd been persuasive -- but this was inspiring. She did an amazing job framing the debate -- for all of the CDP officers, actually. The Vice-Chair and Chair races were also basically fought around transparency, responsiveness to the grassroots, using our donations effectively, funding a 58-county strategy where we help train a "farm team" of local officials to rise out of "red" areas, etc. Also got to run around completing the B&P's certification process, to ensure the caucus would continue to exist. Ran into Anna Eshoo while working on all that; I really need to talk with her at some point to see whether she'd be a reference for the resumés I'm sending out. :-)

Saturday night we went to the Take Back Red California dinner, where we actually did get to hear Howard Dean (though he gave a very short speech, so he could also go speak at another event as well, and to save material for his floor speech) as well as a bunch of our recent congressional candidates (including Jerry McNerney, who won, and Charlie Brown, who missed by a tiny margin). Xta had lost her VPN token, and was stressed throughout dinner. Fortunately, after dinner, I was able to find it for her -- it had been turned in at the CDP staff room. So that was good. Then went home and typed up the summary sheet to be turned in with B&P dues.

Christa didn't come back this morning, b/c she had to fly off on work travel; I think DD drove her to the airport. Will not be seeing her again til the end of the week.

I got here early, at 8am, and discovered that the Kinko's by the Convention Center is the only one I've ever seen that is not 24/7 -- it doesn't open til 10am on Sunday. You'd think that with the Conventions Center right by it, they'd get steady business any time there's a weekend event. I ended up going over to help pack up Hilary's booth, then went back out later. I ended up missing about two-third's of Howard's floor speech -- very annoyed. Turned in dues. Now am on the floor in general session; heard from Debra Bowen, and the head of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Now we're hearing debate on the propositions. I'm kinda torn about them. Fundamentally, the question is whether we should accept the unpleasant compromise that was worked out with the SINGLE sorta-moderate Republican (which ties our budgeting process into even more knots, with a spending cap that very likely means that funding would wither as it lagged inflation), or whether we should kick things back to the legislature to try to come up with another budget. If we do that, my guess is that there will be no budget, and the government will shut down. That may be what we need to get through to the people of California that the two-thirds rule needs to go. But it's also hugely risky, both politically and economically. So tempers are pretty heated, and I have no idea what the outcome is going to be -- there seems to be a fair amount of noise in response to both sides, though it sounds like the Con side is more riled up, probably in part because the legislators and "establishment" types (who worked out the deal in the first place) are for it, so the grassroots types who are against. I've been waffling, was considering voting no endorsement. But it's really tough to vote, in the middle of a recession, for a collapse of gov't spending. Ended up voting for the Yes resolution, but it failed, 58-42. So, no party endorsement. Which I'm OK with.

May be tied up here for a while; we have to go through the rest of the propositions, and some bills before the legislature... Eventually I hope to get out of here and take DD out to dinner, since she put us up and saved me hotel costs.

Edited To Add: A friend who is in opposition to the props points out that, if they fail, one possibility is that the Dems will re-pass some revenue sources that Arnold previously vetoed. This was an argument over the definition of "fees" (which can be passed on a majority vote) versus "taxes" (which require a two-thirds vote under Prop 13). Arnold took the position that the stuff the Dems had passed was not really fees. The Republican legislators are actually apparently telling constituents to vote for the props because if they fail, Arnold will pass the Dems' revenue increases. Interesting stuff...

This special election is really important, and complicated, and is flying under most people's radar.

ETA: I think we're taking no position on 1A or 1D, endorsing Yes on 1B and 1C. 1E is currently being counted -- and the votes are just in, and we have no endorsement...

ETA: Back at DD's now. My guess won the jar of chocolate-covered espresso beans. Yay. Also, 1F was supported.

What is your favorite old-school video game?

Submitted By 2hated2care

View 505 Answers

Xta and I are looking for another subletter. Our current roommate (who was already temporary anyway) got let go from his contract position in Menlo Park early, and is moving in with a friend where he can have cheaper rent at the end of April. So we're looking for yet ANOTHER subletter. We did the math on the foreclosure process for our house and at the earliest we could potentially be kicked out of here is August 15th. It is likely it will be significantly later than that. We're also in the process of investigating whether we want to just buy the place ourselves, so it's possible we will be here longer than that.

So we're looking for a subletter from May 1 to July 31 or possibly later. Which seems about perfect for someone with a summer internship. Do any of you know someone with an internship in the bay area who might be looking for a place? Here is our Craigslist ad.

ETA: Taken...

Triptych is very good. And has very friendly staff.

hot cider with soju and cinammon

local biodynamic savignon blanc (from Mendocino County, not sure what label, and the wine list on the website appears to be out of date)

arugala, red beets, pink grapefruit, goat cheese baked wrapped in leek leaves, and meyer lemon vinaigrette

butternut squash ravioli (done with the filling slightly sweet -- kind of like Afghan kadu) with wilted spinach, sage, browned butter, and (I think?) a touch of aged balsamic vinegar

osso buco -- braised pork over polenta, with a strip of crispy bacon and gremolata (finely minced garlic, parsley, lemon zest, and a bit of anchovy paste)

pear tart, Vouvray demisec (very strong pear and honey notes; forgot the label)

capuccino cake, ruby port (Robert Hall)

We also went to Clockwork afterwards. Good music. And their video loop included bits of an interesting looking film called The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello.

This is a very important article. It's worth reading in its entirety, but I think this is the key message:

So, we redid the macaroni and cheese recipe, to use up the other half of the bag of macaroni. We used nearly a pound of cheese total -- about eight ounces of mild cheddar, four of asiago fresco, and two of a really strong aged asiago. We reduced the liquid from 3c to just a smidge over 2c -- about 1.75 skim milk and a little over 0.25 half-and-half -- which resulted in macaroni held together as a near-solid caserrole, with noticably stringy cheese, rather than basically being macaroni in a thick cheese sauce. I also tried

mitrian's suggestion of adding a tiny amount of baking soda to the roux; I used a quarter teaspoon. It did not affect the flavor, and while I don't know for certain whether the low-moisture sauce would've caused the egg and cheese proteins to seize out into curds, upon reheating, I do know that this batch does not do that. So, yay for that. (We also used four strips of bacon, instead of a sausage; the bacon provided enough rendered fat that I was able to cut the 3 Tbs of butter roughly in half. And I added some sage, along with the other spices.) Personally, I thought this was basically perfect -- best mac'n'cheese I've ever had.

However, Christa still thinks the cheese should be even more stringy. I am uncertain as to how this could be achieved without making the resulting casserole "good for one night only". With most cheeses (and especially cheddar and any of the aged cheeses we usually use for their strong flavors -- cono beemster, piave vechhio, asiago, etc) melting them without emulsifying agents (like the roux and egg in the recipe) results in protein curds, sitting in a puddle of oil. That is not tasty, IMHO. I suppose I could just go to cheeses that reheat better, like mozzarella, provolone, and maybe a young-ish fontina, emmenthal, or gruyere. That's the choice you often see made for baked ziti or lasagna. But is there some way to get a really stringy, cheesy result, without sacrificing the aged hard-cheese flavor?

This is why more people need to be involved with the party, helping to stage primary challenges. And why a LOT more people need to actually learn a little about economics and politics, and pay some damn attention.

I am not even 100% convinced I agree that it's a good idea to claw back the AIG bonuses (probably so, but possibly we should be doing it a different way, e.g. by asserting out ownership rights and saying that the contract is invalid because it was entered into with AIG Financial Products in London misrepresenting its situation to its corporate parent in America). I am definitely a bit concerned about how they're going about it. See Nate Silver, here and here, for details.

But more importantly, I think the AIG story is a distraction from stuff that really matters: saving the financial system (also, ARGH! -- are we really going to let this torpedo the entire progressive agenda in the first six months of the new administration?!), fundamentally changing our tax structures to stop favoring wealth over work, reinvesting in human and natural capital, and reinventing/rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and manufacturing sector.

This is why I'm a liberal/progressive, not a "bipartisan moderate". I'm totally open to hearing ideas from other perspectives. Sometimes I even change my mind, or think that a compromise solution is a good idea. Like, on healthcare -- I'm totally open to the market-based type of solution that all three major Dems were proposing during the campaign, which I think would reduce the number of people uninsured, cut costs, and save lives. I still think universal care is the best solution and the ultimate goal, but let's experiment a bit and see what happens.

However, sometimes the conservatives with whom we're being asked to compromise, are just wrong, and dangerously so. This is one of those times. Even if half a loaf is better than none, it is not enough better. If you pass a crippled version of a good solution, the politics are going to be such that it's harder to pass the effective version later. And passing the crippled version and then waiting six months means that the effective version will cost no less (and possibly more) than if you passed the good version now. This sort of thing is how Japan got itself a "lost decade" -- by repeatedly taking half-assed measures that were never actually up to fixing the problem. Ten years of half measures is WAY worse than doing something twice as big, once, and then being back on track.

If Dems refuse to pass key elements of Obama's tax reform plan, I'm inclined to think he should veto the budget and make them do it over, and start threatening to back primary challengers. People voted for him on the basis of a promise to get a change in exactly these sorts of priorities.

As for the banking plan, I'm terribly disappointed in Geithner, and really worried that Obama is, himself, one of the fool moderates on this issue, and is going to self-destruct over it and turn into Jimmy Carter.

Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball and Liar's Poker) has a piece on Iceland in Vanity Fair, and Amartya Sen (the Bengali expert on development economics and Nobelist) has a piece in the NY Review of Books on the future of capitalism.

The Iceland one is kind of mind-boggling. What's most shocking to me is the degree of stupidity among the international banks that made the loans that enabled the Icelandic banks (and bankers) to spiral out of control. It's like the NINJA loans into the subprime sector, but on the scale of corporate leveraged buyouts and the GDP of small countries (including Iceland).

One of the ideas floating around for how to displace our need for oil with a renewable replacement is oil-rich algaes. You take some unused land -- maybe vacant lots that are already messed up from past industrial use -- and set up ponds, and set your little biological friends loose turning CO2 and sunlight into useful hydrocarbons. When you burn the fuel, you're just returning the same CO2 to the atmosphere -- there's no net increase. (And in fact, if you take the non-oil mass and find uses that keep carbon out of the atmosphere on a long-term basis, you may be producing a net reduction in GHGs.)

One of the big problems with this technology is that there's a tradeoff between how densely you let the algae grow before you harvest it, and how deep you can make your pond. If it gets too dense, it blocks out sunlight, preventing layers below from growing. So there's a pretty firm cap on how much can be grown per unit area.

Enter Bionavitas Inc. The founders of Bionavitas asked what is, in retrospect, a kind of obvious question. Does light really have to filter down through the water from the surface? They basically set up tubes* that pipe sunlight in, kind of like these popular tubular skylights. As a result, they can now grow algae in meter-deep ponds, while achieving the kind of density you normally only get in the top few inches.

This is seriously one of those, "Well, duh!" ideas. And I hope they get very, very rich off of it, since that would mean a lot of nice algae-based biodiesel coming onto the market. (Incidentally, a Presidio team that graduated last semester has been working on an algae plan involving using algaculture to remediate land damaged by mining. They say they'll be able to restore land to a state where once they drain their ponds, you can let regular ecosystem succession take place -- meadow, to scrub, to forest -- and during the process, they produce a salable product. Not bad, if they can really pull it off.)

* Their algae farming technology is a series of tubes. It's not a dump truck.

A friend of mine has a cat in need of a new home. Here's the description:

Stormy is an 11 year old, short-haired grey cat with white chest and paws. She is a sweetheart, very affectionate, very vocal - many different tones and pitches that you can actually have a conversation with! She knows her name and comes when she's called, mostly. She has her claws and does like to 'stretch them out' on something fuzzy. She was born back east and moved to Steamboat Springs by her loving mother when she was 2-1/2. She lived there for 8-1/2 where she spent time both inside and out. She would never go too far from the house, but she loooves being outside. She is active, loves to play (new favorite toy is chasing a laser light). Loves to snuggle, sleeps on the bed, curls up with you on the couch. Would be best suited for a household with lots of activity, kids, other pets, etc. She may have been taken as a kitten a little too early because she does like to suck on fingers!

( Cut for photo of cute kitty. )

Copy-pasted from a notice I received... May be relevant beyond San Mateo County.

The San Mateo County Assessor's Office asked the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office to send out the following cautionary note regarding unsolicited property tax reduction offers.

In the past week, San Mateo County property owners have been blanketed with solicitations from private companies that are luring people to spend money to reduce their property taxes. These companies cannot guarantee a reduction in property taxes to anyone. The law establishes which properties are eligible for this property tax relief program known as a "Decline in Value."

A "Decline in Value" request is FREE to any homeowner. We need your help to get the word out -- tell your constituents, employees, friends, neighbors and family NOT to get ripped off -- do NOT pay for these services. If anyone should ask, this is how the Decline in Value program works:

First, a property owner requests a Decline in Value review by filling out a simple form and sending to the Assessor's office (online, by fax, mail or in person). It only takes a couple of minutes to complete.

Second, our offices review the request. If a property's assessed value is more than its market value as of Jan. 1, the property owner will be eligible for a temporary reduction in assessed value. We will start the process that will lower their property tax bill or earn them a property tax credit.

Third, if the property is ineligible for relief, we will advise the owner as to why their property did not qualify for a reduction.

Where can someone get a form? Decline in Value request forms are available online and in downloadable paper formats from our web site at www.smcare.org. We will also mail them to a property owner and forms are available in our office if a person stops by.

And lastly, properties that are reduced are reviewed by the office on an annual basis. If the property continues to qualify, it will remain on the program in future years until the property's value is regained.

Please help us spread the word. I've attached the press release that we sent to the media and samples of the solicitations. You will note that is very professional looking and that is why it may snare unsuspecting property owners into this scam.

Thank you,
Warren Slocum

Most of you know that I'm in my final semester as a student in the Presidio School of Management's Master's program in Sustainable Business. I'm therefore working on what is, for our program, the equivalent of a thesis: designing a business plan from the ground up. My team is currently working on customer research. Having conducted about a dozen in-depth interviews, we've designed a survey to attempt to get a picture of how prevalent the views of our various subjects are in a broader population.

If you:

a) have any money invested beyond just a retirement or pension account;

and

b) have ever had concerns about investment in terms of the social or environmental effects of what your money is funding;

then you are potentially our customer! And we'd love it if you could take a few minutes to fill out our survey. Based on our own run-throughs in developing it, we believe it should take less than 10 minutes to complete.

Here's the link; feel free to forward it around.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=jnQycuBeivcqPVkhXxqx4g_3d_3d

This is a roughly 6-8 serving casserole; you'll need a round casserole dish, preferably 2.5 quart (you can kinda get away with a 2 qt, but the sauce will be right up the brim), made of some slow-heating material (pyrex, ceramic, stoneware, corningware -- not metal).

This is more of a narrative than a "recipe". Read through the whole thing and figure out exactly what your process is going to be, before starting; there are a bunch of finicky parts of the process (making roux, tempering an egg) that are time-sensitive, so you don't want to get caught pondering ratios when you're in the middle of doing those steps. (Note that where you have a prepped ingredient -- diced onion, shredded cheese, etc -- you can get somebody else to do that for you while you're cooking, or you can do it before you turn on the heat.)

( Read more... )

I had this for lunch earlier today. It's almost as good zapped in the microwave (2.5 minutes uncovered on 60%, so the steam doesn't waterlog the breadcrumbs, but the heat doesn't cause the edges to splatter before the inside is warm) as it was fresh. The sauce seems to be better about not separating than the typical cheese sauce. (The last time I attempted to reheat a fettucini alfredo, it didn't work very well -- I ended up with fettucini with little sticky cheese curds adhering to it, in a puddle of oil. Still edible, but not all that appetizing.)

Our current roommate has gradually developed an allergy to our cats (or at least, that's his theory about his current respiratory problem), so he's moving out. We may be moving out ourselves this summer (after graduation, and at the point that staying in the house starts getting dicey due to the landlady's financial circumstances), so we're just looking for a subletter until then. Here's our CraigsList ad.

So, Roland Burris, past Comptroller and Attorney General of Illinois, having been appointed by the (still) Governor of Illinois, has finally gotten his Senate seat.

About damn time.

I have never understood what the argument was for not seating him. So the governor is a corrupt bastard. So what? He's still legally the governor, and absent any indication that this appointment was corrupt -- and you can go to the tapes to see exactly who he was asking for bids in his Senate seat auction -- it is clearly legal, and under Powell v. McCormick I think it's pretty clear that the Senate does not have any right to reject it (though they certainly could have delayed it more and wasted a lot of taxpayer dollars in litigation). (The decision basically says that the House and Senate can adjudicate the specific constitutional qualifications -- age, residence, etc. -- and if they can't block somebody on those grounds, they already have another measure at their disposal, namely expulsion by two-thirds vote. They can't use a simple majority vote to exclude somebody just because they feel like it.)

In the meantime, Illinois is down one Senator. They have a right to full representation, and as a practical political matter we ought to be getting Franken and Burris seated so that we're only one vote short of a filibuster-proof majority instead of two. Seat both of them provisionally (retaining the right to have a simple majority revoke the seating if some reason comes to light why we'd want to do that) the same way as was done in the House for Vern Buchanan when his election over Christine Jennings was in doubt. Once Blagojevich is out the new governor can make a new appointment, and the Senate can vote that the new guy is in and Burris is out.

Ideally, I would want whoever is appointed to a position to lose the right to run for (or at the very least promise not to run for) the seat they're occupying, so the people get a chance to vote on the replacement in an open election, without having an appointed incumbent with name-recognition and fundraising advantages. (In this regard, I think Kaufman, the Biden aide who was appointed to serve the next two years of his old boss' term and has said he won't run after that, was a good choice.)

The choice, here, is between:

a) having the people of Illinois get their second Senate vote back, through a totally legal procedure, giving that vote to a man that said people clearly were happy to elect to statewide office in the past, and who has a squeaky-clean record compared to most IL politicians; halving the cloture gap in the process; and, on the downside, possibly having to mount a primary challenge against Burris in 2010, on the remote possibility he ends up serving that long and wants to run again.

versus

b) wasting a lot of taxpayer money and legislative time, when we have HUGE crises to deal with and need to move the Obama agenda through Congress at a pace that is difficult to manage even without arguments going on about who's entitled to be there.

How is (b) a sane answer, for anyone who voted for Obama?

As for the question I keep hearing about how it could be "moral" for Burris to take the seat -- please explain to me in detail what is NOT moral about it. The man did nothing wrong. He offered no bribe, took no favors, etc. He was offered the appointment. He's an ambitious guy who had seen his aspirations to serve as Governor thwarted, and now the stars aligned to give him one last shot at serving at a high level. Why shouldn't he? Ambition is not immoral. If you have an ambition to make your mark on the world, to make it a better place so that people will remember you with gratitude -- what is wrong or immoral about that?

Sure, such accomplishment is transient -- Ozymandias' great works crumbled to dust, leaving only his vanity for others to mock. But maybe those that ridicule him should ask whether Ozymandias' vanity led to the construction of a city where millions of people had a better life than they would've had in the absence of his all-consuming pride. Recognition and power (in the sense of being able to get your own vision of what should be made into reality) are strong motivators -- as long as they motivate people to do stuff that benefits the masses, I don't see how those who are lazy, but "pure," have the right to scold them. The notion that power is inherently corrupt is an excuse not to challenge the status quo.

In the end, we have to judge people by the effect they have on others, not on whether they do what they do "for the right reasons". Pragmatic effects on others are way more important than whether you were "appropriately" modest about your accomplishments.

And besides, where would late-night comedy be without a little Ozymandian hubris to poke fun at now and then?

I've temporarily put my flyer online. Will take it down after the caucuses.

Remember, if you live in AD21, and you're a registered Dem, I need your support tomorrow! The caucus is at the Hillview Community Center (97 Hillview Ave, Los Altos, CA 94022); doors open at 9am and close at 11am. If you're not in AD21 but you know somebody who is, and who might be interested in helping set the course for the CA Democratic Party, please consider letting them know about the caucus. (And even if you're not in AD21, but you are registered as a Dem, go find your caucus!)