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Joel Maybury learns from a local in Harar, Ethiopia, how to feed raw meat to wild hyenas without getting your arm chewed off. You may wonder why anyone would do this. I know I did, but then I have come to appreciate my younger brother's adventurous spirit. Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time. We await further explanation from Joel. Note: No humans were harmed in the taking of these photographs.
Check out HYBRID CENTER from the Union of Concerned Scientists to really learn about what today's hybrids could do for you, and also what you can do to make sure tomorrow's hybrids are best for our planet and pocketbooks. For current information, sign up for the Driving Change Network monthly newsletter and learn all the latest news about advanced vehicle technology, connect with hybrid car owners and other clean-vehicle enthusiasts, and learn how you can help drive the advanced vehicle market in the cleanest, most efficient direction. To sign up, click this link:
SIGN UP FOR DRIVING CHANGE NETWORK. To take action today in support of hybrid vehicles, visit HYBRID CENTER ACTION. And in related news—read "Dirty Secret: Green Cars Automakers Won't Sell You," by MSN car columnist Lawrence Ulrich, who explains how it's not justice for all when it comes to hybrid cars: DIRTY SECRET.
SUMMER RHODES
"Housing Crisis or Opportunity, Only history will show" screams one headline in a newspaper ad that features a reassuring chart of the median price in San Mateo County rising dramatically. "Sensational newspaper articles are running headlines talking about the 319% increase in the foreclosures in San Mateo County. ...This is absolutely the time to be buying" shouts another ad in our local paper.
Is it really? I would have thought the larger crisis of credit tightening and financial giants teetering on the edge of bankruptcy would give pause. Well, let's look at the Bay Area in general :
"Home prices tumbled further during the month of October in Solano and Sonoma Counties. Alameda and Contra Costa also saw declines. Although median home prices were up in other areas, asking prices fell in every county within the nine-county region."
"Bay Area home sales fell once again during the month of October. The number of homes sold slipped 35.7 percent in a year-over-year comparison—the lowest level seen in decades. Including October, sales have decreased on a year-over-year basis for 33 months in a row."
"With the exception of San Francisco, every county within the nine-county Bay Area region saw a year-over-year sales decline of at least 28 percent. The largest declines occurred in Napa, Solano, and Contra Costa Counties."
"Fair market rents have changed very little in the last year. Average rents have increased slightly; however, it is still less costly to rent in the Bay Area than it is to buy. The average mortgage payment was $3,000 in October—much higher than average rents for homes and apartments in the same area."
(Source: DataQuick)
Our local real estate agent in her full-page ad in the Pacifica (Calif.) Tribune assures us: "According to a panel of sucessful REALTORS(r) speaking to other REALTORS(r) the advice is to buy now."
Talk about self-reinforcing logic! Truth to tell, though, if I saw my living evaporating in front of my eyes, I might panic as well. But listen to what a slightly less biased source says:
"Most experts believe that 2008 will be a tough year for the Bay Area housing market. Mortgage resets are expected to flood the market with more foreclosed properties. Sales and prices are likely to decrease as a result. At a recent real estate symposium hosted by the UC Berkeley Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, economist Ken Rosen predicted price drops of 20 percent in some parts of the Bay Area. A rebound isn't expected until 2011." (Source: HomeGuide123)
Now what person would look at that and not want to wait for the possible fire sale prices in the next couple of years? And what about those darned "mortgage resets" that are going to cause loans to blow up in the faces of many parties who never should have been loaned the money in the first place?
Well, here's a chart put together by those nutty, madcap gnomes at Credit Suisse, which shows the timing and quantity of ARM resets for the next eight years. Kinda gives us a good idea why the turnaround in real estate prices isn't expected until 2011, or later:
(Courtesy of Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis)
Number of foreclosures in the Pacifica Tribune this week: 29.
monkframe
CONVERT GAS GUZZLERS INTO HYBRIDS
CNN story features Neil Young getting his trusty old Lincoln Continental converted into a hybrid he dubbed Link-Volt.
Click here to see examples of what the New Urbanism foists off on unsuspecting up-and-comers: SO-CALLED TRADITIONAL. To see more Hideous Houses, check out our photo album in the lower left sidebar.
SOLAR WIND DRIES VENUS: The European Space Agency's Venus Express spacecraft has made an important discovery: the solar wind dries out Venus. Unlike Earth, Venus has no global magnetic field to deflect particles from the sun; when solar wind hits Venus it actually strips away some of Venus' upper atmosphere. Hydrogen and oxygen atoms fly into space, removing from Venus the chemical building blocks of water. This process makes an already hellish planet even worse. Links to more information may be found at SPACE WEATHER
Plaintiffs were awarded more than $36 million in damages today in the case of Joyce Yamagiwa v. The City of Half Moon Bay and the Coastside County Water District, according to city attorney Adam Lindgren.
There will be a special closed session of the city council tonight at 5pm for the city council to consider its options and next steps. The city has one month to decide what to do next.
The closed session will be preceded by a brief open session, and followed by an open session to report to the public. Lindgren anticipated that the closed session would finish by 7 or 8pm, but there's really no way to know how long it will take.
We'll post more details as they become available.
For more info on the case, click COASTSIDER.
Possibly the modern world's most perfect plant -- BAMBOO. Buy everything from plates and bowls to hardwood flooring and furniture made from bamboo, and feel good about supporting a plant that supports your health and the environment.
http://www.bamboohardwoods.com/
[idealbite.com]
Sunday, November 11, 2007
> LONDON (Reuters) - A food-linked word game put on the
> Internet a month ago has proved a runaway success and
> has already generated enough rice to feed 50,000
> people, the United Nations World Food Programme said
> on Friday.
>
> FreeRice offers participants multiple choice
> definitions to the meaning of a word, with each
> correct click generating 10 grains of rice for the
> WFP.
>
> The brainchild of American online fundraising pioneer
> John Breen, the Web site Freerice.com relies on
> advertising revenue to underwrite its rice campaign.
>
> "FreeRice really hits home how the Web can be
> harnessed to raise awareness and funds for the world's
> number one emergency," said Josette Sheeran, executive
> director of the Rome-based WFP.
>
> "The site is a viral marketing success story with more
> than one billion grains of rice donated in just one
> month to help tackle hunger worldwide," she added.
>
> The day it was launched on October 7 just 830 grains
> of rice were donated.
>
> But the Internet community quickly caught on, and on
> November 8 alone 77 million grains were donated --
> equivalent to more than seven million correct clicks.
>
> (Reporting by Jeremy Lovell; editing by Richard
> Williams)
>
> Copyright 2007 Reuters.
There are 56 foreclosures IN PACIFICA. Click link below for maps and satellite photos:
Looks like it's cumulative, dating back to about October.
FRANK SICILIANO
Our architect friend Leal Charonnat enjoyed our posting today of a media tour of the Devil's Slide tunnel dig site, with photos. He sent this note:
"Very impressive - looks like the tunnel is a about 6-10 feet deep. As a reference, I prefer tunnels for lots of things that move (trains, cars, etc) through our cities, etc., so I enjoy knowing such companies as Robbins exist: ROBBINS TUNNEL COMPANY. Now they have REAL Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs)." [see schematic drawing below]
A BIG thank you to all of the Oil Spotters over the Thanksgiving weekend from me, Captain Realyvasquez, and the City of Pacifica. Thanks to you, each of the Pacifica beaches was monitored daily from Thanksgiving through Sunday. For a while longer, they will continue to be monitored by the Public Works Dept. There were small instances of oil or tar balls reported two or three of the four days on Linda Mar beach and Sharp Park beach. Rockaway had one instance on one day and no other reports. Esplanade had no reports of oil. Two to three dead birds were reported on each day from the beaches combined. They were scattered on each of the beaches. Few of the birds had outward evidence of oil. Sharp Park, Rockaway, and Linda Mar each had oil sightings, although they were very minor, unlike the week before when the Haz Mat Teams cleaned all of Pacifica's beaches both Sunday and Monday (November 20-21). See photos below.
LYNN ADAMS
Pacifica Beach Coalition
Courtesy of Caltrans and Kiewit Construction, we were invited along on a media tour of the tunnel dig site today. After grinding and blasting through a soft granite layer, the excavators and their carbide-steel road header will encounter a much harder layer of sandstone in the middle of the mountain, and then an unpredictable layer of mudstone, before breaking through on the north side, where the Disney Company is busy building a gigantic bridge across Shamrock Ranch to bring Highway 1 up to the mouth of the north portal. Vast quantities of rock and dirt are being dislodged and moved to a giant pit on the southern end of the project. Nothing will be trucked away, to the relief of Pacifica motorists who were dreading highway gridlock. Julia Scott of Media News Group will file a full report on today's visit, which she will kindly share with us for posting on this site. Meanwhile, take a gander at our pictures in the Devil's Slide Tunnel Dig photo album (left sidebar).
JOHN MAYBURY
By Julia Scott, STAFF WRITER
SHELTER COVE BEACH MAY GO PUBLIC
The last west-facing road in Pacifica ends with a chain-link fence and a "No Trespassing" sign. This is the entrance to Shelter Cove, for many years a favorite weekend beach spot for crowds from San Francisco and Pacifica. These days, people are more likely to invite themselves onto the privately owned property...
View FULL STORY HERE
Check out my photo album in our left sidebar. I took the Linda Mar beach shots up on the headlands bike path.
JOHN MAYBURY
How much is:
15 + 6
3 + 56
89 + 2
12 + 53
75 + 26
25 + 52
63 + 32
I know! Calculations are hard work, but it's nearly over.
Come on, one more!
123 + 5
QUICK! THINK ABOUT A COLOR AND A TOOL!
Scroll further to the bottom.....
A bit more...
You thought about a red hammer, didn't you? If not, you are among 2% of people who have a different, if not abnormal, mind. 98% answer red hammer while doing this exercise. If you do not believe this, pass it around and you'll see.
GGNRA has published a proposed rule to protect snowy plovers from off-leash dogs at two locations during certain times of the year. Though much of the background information is helpful, once again the park comes up short in protecting people, our pets, wildlife, and the park from roaming off-leash dogs. These shortcomings are particularly evident in light of the bunker fuel spill. Many of you have worked on rescuing birds and doing shoreline surveys, and many of those individuals have reported that off-leash dogs have been chasing oiled birds from resting spots on shore back into the water, where they are much more difficult to capture and save. The park's failure to enforce leash laws exacerbates the difficult task of saving oiled birds, yet this proposal remains weak. View the proposal here: PROPOSED NEW RULES. Submit comments here by January 22, 2008: COMMENT ON NEW RULES.
Here are some problems with the proposed rule:
1. On p. 65279, GGNRA claims that it permitted dogs to roam off leash in the park historically. This is not accurate. The park never went through formal or informal rulemaking to permit off-leash dogs; it just brazenly ignored the rule on a local level through "compendium" amendments not subject to public scrutiny. It was wink-and-nod policy, inconsistent with basic principles of good and honest government.
2. On p. 65278, GGNRA claims that increased enforcement of the restrictions would be a good idea. We agree, but the rule contains no specific measures to enforce and prosecute leash law violations, from line officers and their duties to getting NPS and US Attorney lawyers to prosecute violations. As evidenced by Josiah Clark's recent situation, Park Police have been directed not to enforce wildlife protection laws and this rule doesn't change that institutional problem. A rulemaking must do something along those lines to be effective by including an enforcement plan.
4. On p. 65280, the limits of this rule are made clear. These "protections" give away more than half of the last remaining protected beach habitat at Ocean Beach and a third of it at Crissy Field to off-leash dogs all year. This is absurd in a National Park that contains a directive to preserve imperiled species such as the plover. Where will they go instead: private lands to the north or south of the park?
5. On p. 65280, the rule explains it is also temporary until the reg-neg rulemaking process is over. This is again a cop-out, because these areas were never on the table in the rulemaking process for off-leash dogs at any time of the year. There is simply no reason for GGNRA to make this rule a temporary rule. Furthermore, reg-neg was an abject failure and reached no consensus on protecting wildlife or park visitors from harm. It is also unrealistic for NPS to think it will get closure from reg-neg in 2009; it will be 2010 at least. This rule should be permanent.
6. On p. 65280, the rule is inadequate and will lead to additional confusion because it is only a seasonal closure and will not apply year-round. Plovers are present in the GGNRA almost year-round, perhaps 1 or 2 months of the year they are absent. By creating limited exceptions, GGNRA creates problems for compliance and enforcement; it creates confusion for both anti-leash groups and park police and therefore leads to enforcement problems.
(Jake Sigg, Nature News)
The Aspen Institute Nature and Society Seminar is designed to combine both intellectual content and nature immersion. With moderated discussions of classical and contemporary texts, paired with expertly guided hikes, this program fosters a reflective examination of our relationship to nature, the meaning of wilderness in history and philosophy, and values at the intersection of the environment and society.
Over five days, participants will consider nature as a source of identity, purification and change; as a place to reflect on our lives in society; and as a place to explore values that transcend social convention. Moderators Paul Andersen and Elliot Gerson will lead discussions of relevant readings from Hobbes, Rousseau, Emerson, Thoreau, Darwin, Muir, Leopold, E.O. Wilson, Rachel Carson and others. Discussions will probe issues relating to the fragile balance between our needs for society and wilderness, and the degree to which nature can be understood outside of social context.
The Aspen-based seminar will include daily wilderness excursions culminating with two nights in the Margy’s Hut at 11,300 feet in the Hunter-Frying Pan Wilderness. Participants should be reasonably fit for altitudes over 8,000 feet where mountain trail hiking will require moderate exertion.
Wilderness Seminar dates:
August 9-13 in Aspen, CO
*There will be no auditors for this seminar.
For more information about this seminar, contact Paul Andersen at (970) 927-4018.
These big, smart birds scavenge alongside seagulls at the Sharp Park levee, but their loud cawing and hopping antics put them in a class all by themselves. Ravens (crows), jays, and magpies all belong to the corvid family.
John Maybury photos
Yep, I really do think so. Not your ordinary pussycat was sighted not once but twice this Thanksgiving weekend. Nice to be thankful for wild creatures in our midst! While on my way up to the access road out to Mori Point on Friday morn, I spotted what I thought was a yellow Lab missing its master until it dove headlong into a scrub brush, revealing its long slender tail.
Hold your horses, I said to myself as instinct froze me in my tracks. I immediately put my pooch, Petunia, on leash (her nose was to the ground hunting gophers so didn't have a clue of what lay ahead). Some time went by before the cat came out of the bush just above the road/trail. I started up the foot trail leading to the access road, hoping to get a closer look. What appeared as a juvenile mountain lion spotted me and started to come my way. Then panic set in and I did what the experts say is the worst response. I ran like an Olympic track star lickety-split back to the neighborhood. Just a note of caution—per a GGNRA wildlife ranger, never run or turn your back, don't crouch down, do clap your hands, yell and reach your arms up high to appear larger. Respect their territory.
Today Sunday around 12:30 I felt brave enough to hit the trail again with Petunia and my friend Ellen. We went by way of the Rockaway Quarry up and around the headland. As soon as we came around the bend and were gazing out toward the golf course, a yellow animal caught my eye on a small trail below us. Sure enough, there it was again in the same area, stealthily meandering along, wandering and wondering where its next meal may be hiding.
Happy trails!
Joyce Robison
Pacifica
Original:
Human translation of what those two are yakking about, good for a rerun even if you've seen it:
John Maybury photo
BUY THE FARM, IN THE GOOD SENSE
[idealbite.com]
And don't forget to shop locally for these cookbooks and others. If you can't find them at Florey's bookstore on Palmetto, come back to Riptide and buy them from Amazon right here on our site to help your community. See the Amazon search box in our right sidebar.
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