Literary Warrant [33]

Grey Sky, Sea and Speedboat, Dominic's pics, Brighton, England

• Keith Collins, Kraft Foods Global, Inc., The Role of Biofuels and Other Factors in Increasing Farm and Food Prices: A Review of Recent Developments with a Focus on Feed Grain Markets and Market Prospects (June 2008)
  
  "This paper reviews various studies that have examined the relationship between corn used in ethanol production and corn prices. They suggest increased corn demand for ethanol could account for 25 to 50 percent of the corn price increase expected from 2006/07 to 2008/09. Another analysis presented in the paper suggests that ethanol could account for 60 percent of the expected increase in corn prices between 2006/07 and 2008/09 when market demand and supply are inelastic with respect to price—i.e., a period when stocks are very low, feed use is slow to respond, export demand is strong due to foreign agricultural policies, and acreage is very constrained."—Executive Summary.


• Claudia Copeland, Specialist in Resource and Environmental Policy, Resources, Science, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Clean Water Act: Legislation Concerning Discharges from Recreational Boats (CRS Report for Congress, Order Code RS22878) (Updated June 19, 2008)
  
  "The Environmental Protection Agency is attempting to develop a regulatory response to a 2006 federal court ruling that vacated a long-standing rule that exempts discharges associated with the normal operation of vessels from permit requirements of the Clean Water Act. Concern that this ruling could require millions of recreational boaters to obtain permits has led to the introduction of legislation to exempt such vessels from water quality regulation. This report discusses background to the issue, six bills (S. 2067/H.R. 2550, S. 2766/H.R. 5949, and S. 2645/H.R. 5594), and draft permits proposed by EPA on June 17."—Summary.

Read the rest of this post . . .

• Manasi Deshpande & Douglas W. Elmendorf, The Hamilton Project, Brookings Institution, An Economic Strategy for Investing in America's Infrastructure (Strategy Paper) (July 2008)
  
  "Infrastructure investment has received more attention in recent years because of increased delays from road and air congestion, high-profile infrastructure failures, and rising concerns about energy security and climate change. The United States now has the opportunity to channel public concern and frustration into a national infrastructure strategy that promotes infrastructure as a central component of long-term, broadly shared growth. While increased spending on infrastructure is likely to be needed, this paper emphasizes the large gains that could be reaped by using existing infrastructure more efficiently and by making better decisions about how to invest in infrastructure.

  "For physical infrastructure, we recommend establishing pricing mechanisms such as road congestion fees and air traffic control fees to make users bear the costs of their infrastructure use more fully. At least part of the revenues from these fees should be used to offset their potential adverse distributional effects. The federal government can also promote better decisionmaking about new investments by removing distortions in its own policies and providing more flexibility to states and localities in exchange for more accountability. For telecommunications infrastructure, we propose that the government make better use of the wireless spectrum by facilitating sales and leases of unused spectrum and by introducing more flexibility in its policy of interference prevention. Further, the government should consider targeted, cost-effective subsidies to encourage private firms to expand high-speed Internet access to unserved rural areas."—Abstract.
  

• Janet L. Gamble, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), et al., Analyses of the Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems (Final Report, Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.6) (2008)
  

  "Climate change, interacting with changes in land use and demographics, will affect important human dimensions in the United States, especially those related to human health, settlements and welfare. The challenges presented by population growth, an aging population, migration patterns, and urban and coastal development will be affected by changes in temperature, precipitation, and extreme climate-related events. In the future, with continued global warming, heat waves and heavy downpours are very likely to further increase in frequency and intensity. Cold days and cold nights are very likely to become much less frequent over North America. Substantial areas of North America are likely to have more frequent droughts of greater severity. Hurricane wind speeds, rainfall intensity, and storm surge levels are likely to increase. Other changes include measurable sea-level rise and increases in the occurrence of coastal and riverine flooding. The United States is certainly capable of adapting to the collective impacts of climate change. However, there will still be certain individuals and locations where the adaptive capacity is less and these individuals and their communities will be disproportionally impacted by climate change.

  "This report—the Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.6 (SAP 4.6)—focuses on impacts of global climate change, especially impacts on three broad dimensions of the human condition: human health, human settlements, and human welfare. The SAP 4.6 has been prepared by a team of experts from academia, government, and the private sector in response to the mandate of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program’s Strategic Plan (2003). The assessment examines potential impacts of climate change on human society, opportunities for adaptation, and associated recommendations for addressing data gaps and near- and long-term research goals."—Abstract.
  

• Ross W. Gorte, Specialist in Natural Resources Policy, Resources, Science, and Industry Division & Jonathan L. Ramseur, Analyst in Environmental Policy, Resources, Science, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Forest Carbon Markets: Potential and Drawbacks (CRS Report for Congress, Order Code RL34560) (July 3, 2008)
  
  "Various forestry activities may be feasible for carbon offsets. Afforestation (planting trees on open sites) and reforestation (planting trees on recently cleared sites) are the activities most commonly included for offsets. Some propose that the carbon stored in long-term wood products, such as lumber and plywood, could be credited as carbon offsets, and mill wastes often substitute for fossil fuels to produce energy; however, short-term products (e.g., paper) and the biomass left in the woods after timber harvesting release carbon, making the net carbon effects uncertain. Some forest management practices also might qualify for carbon offsets; certified sustainable forest practices provide a system of assured, long-term forests, while activities to increase tree growth face many of the same concerns as long-term wood products. Finally, deforestation is a major source of GHG emissions, accounting for as much as 20% of anthropogenic emissions. Thus, avoided deforestation, especially in the tropics, potentially provides an enormous opportunity to reduce GHG emissions. However, avoided deforestation is particularly prone to leakage...as well as many of the concerns about forest carbon offsets generally."—Summary.


• Lewis A. Grossman, American University, Washington College of Law, Food, Drugs, and Droods: A Historical Consideration of Definitions and Categories in American Food and Drug Law, 93 Cornell L. Rev., no.5 (2008) (American University, WCL Research Paper No. 08-37)
  
  "This article explores the development and interaction of the legal and cultural categories food and drug from the late nineteenth century to the present. It is based not only on legal and historical research, but also on theories of category formation from the fields of linguistics and psychology."—Abstract.


• Harvard School of Public Health, Project on the Public and Biological Security, Hurricane Readiness in High-Risk Areas (2008)
  
  "Three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of the Gulf Coast, a new survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security shows that one-third (34%) of those affected by the storm report they are very prepared if a major hurricane were to strike their communities in the next six months. The top worries of respondents threatened or hit by Hurricane Katrina are that they would not have enough fresh water to drink (42% very worried) and that they would not be able to get needed medical care (41% very worried). The survey of 5,055 people was conducted in eight states—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas—and only included residents of high-risk counties, those within 20 miles of the coast. The poll also included a special sample of the New Orleans metropolitan area."—Press release (July 23, 2008)


• Mark Jickling, Specialist in Financial Economics, Government and Finance Division & Lynn J. Cunningham, Information Research Specialist, Knowledge Services Group, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Speculation and Energy Prices: Legislative Responses (CRS Report for Congress, Order Code RL34555) (Updated July 8, 2008)
  
  "While most observers recognize that the fundamentals of supply and demand have contributed to record energy prices in 2008, many also believe that the price of oil and other commodities includes a 'speculative premium.' In other words, speculators who seek to profit by forecasting price trends are blamed for driving prices higher than is justified by fundamentals.

  "In theory, this should not happen. Speculation is not a new phenomenon in futures markets—the futures exchanges are essentially associations of professional speculators. There are two benefits that arise from speculation and distinguish it from mere gambling: first, speculators create a market where hedgers—producers or commercial users of commodities—can offset price risk. Hedgers can use the markets to lock in today’s price for transactions that will occur in the future, shielding their businesses from unfavorable price changes. Second, a competitive market where hedgers and speculators pool their information and trade on their expectations of future prices is the best available mechanism to determine prices that will clear markets and ensure efficient allocation of resources."—Summary.
  

• Alisa Klein, Preventing and Responding to Sexual Violence in Disasters: A Planning Guide for Prevention and Response (2008)
  
  "This guide offers a range of recommendations from suggesting small changes to developing comprehensive plans, making preparations, and coordinating far-reaching policy change. Based on a public health framework, the guide is arranged according to phases of a disaster, and offers practical ways to begin making changes first within your organization, and then by working toward broader policy change in concert with allied fields and organizations. It is crucial to remember that it is only through the development of successful working relationships with partners that policies can be designed and implemented for optimal success. Achieving many of these recommendations requires partners to advocate and fight for policy change in all areas of disaster planning and response."—This Guide.


• Librarians' Index to the Internet (LII), Home and Housing: Architecture: Green Building (search results)
  
  LII's selection of high-quality websites relating to small, sustainable, and healthy houses.


• Jay Lund et al., Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (July 2008)
  
  "For over 50 years, California has been pumping water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for extensive urban and agricultural uses around the state. Today, the Delta is ailing and in urgent need of a new management strategy. This report concludes that building a peripheral canal to carry water around the Delta is the most promising way to balance two critical policy goals: reviving a threatened ecosystem and ensuring a reliable, high-quality water supply for California."


• William J. Mallett, Specialist in Transportation Policy, Resources, Science, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Public-Private Partnerships in Highway and Transit Infrastructure Provision (CRS Report for Congress, Order Code RL34567) (July 9, 2008)
  
  "Growing demands on the transportation system and constraints on public resources have led to calls for more private sector involvement in the provision of highway and transit infrastructure through what are known as 'public-private partnerships' (PPPs). A PPP, broadly defined, is any arrangement whereby the private sector assumes more responsibility than is traditional for infrastructure planning, financing, design, construction, operation, and maintenance. This report describes the wide variety of public-private partnerships in highways and transit, but focuses on the two types of highway PPPs that are generating the most debate: the leasing by the public sector to the private sector of existing infrastructure; and the building, leasing, and owning of new infrastructure by private entities."—Summary.


• Michael Mihalka & David Anderson, Center for Contemporary Conflict, Is the Sky Falling? Energy Security and Transnational Terrorism (July 2008)
  
  "This paper will assess the extent to which transnational terrorists, in particular global Jihadists associated with Osama bin Laden, have been interested in attacks against the global energy infrastructure. We then assess the extent to which terrorists have in fact targeted that infrastructure and with what effect. We then place these attacks in the context of other supply disruption events. Finally, we make suggestions about a viable way ahead."—Introduction.


• Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security, Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL), FEMA Draft Disaster Housing Strategy Available (Press release) (July 23, 2008)
  
  "The National Disaster Housing Strategy (the Strategy) serves two purposes. First, it describes how we as a Nation currently provide housing to those affected by disasters. It summarizes, for the first time in a single document, the many sheltering and housing efforts we have in the United States and the broad array of organizations that are involved in managing these programs. The Strategy also outlines the key principles and policies that guide the disaster housing process. Second, and more importantly, the Strategy charts the new direction that our disaster housing efforts must take if we are to better meet the emergent needs of disaster victims and communities."—Federal Emergency Management Agency(FEMA), Overview, National Housing Disaster Strategy (Working Draft) (July 17, 2008)


• Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Marine Conservation Zones, Postnote, n.310 (June 2008)
  
  "The proposed Draft UK Marine Bill1 aims to combine legislation on activities and conservation in the marine environment into a single framework. This includes the designation of a network of Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs) in UK waters, a form of marine protected area (MPA). MPAs are described as any area of intertidal or subtidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora or fauna, historical or cultural features, which are protected by legal or other effective means. This POSTnote examines the possibility of using a MCZ network to manage the impacts of human activities on the marine environment."


• Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), EPA Staff Ordered to Stonewall Investigators and Media (July 28, 2008)
  
  "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is ordering its staff to 'not respond to questions or make any statements' if contacted by congressional investigators, reporters or even by its own Office of Inspector General, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The order reinforces a growing bunker mentality within an EPA that is the subject of a growing number of probes into political interference with agency operations."—Press release.


• Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA), The Gallagher Review of the Indirect Effects of Biofuels Production (July 2008)
  
  "Biofuels have been proposed as a solution to several pressing global concerns: energy security, climate change and rural development. This has led to generous subsidies in order to stimulate supply. In 2003, against a backdrop of grain mountains and payments to farmers for set-aside land, the European Union agreed the Biofuels Directive. Under this directive, member states agreed to set indicative targets for biofuels use and promote their uptake. Many environmental groups hailed a new revolution in green motoring.

  "Five years later, there is growing concern about the role of biofuels in rising food prices, accelerating deforestation and doubts about the climate benefits. This has led to serious questions about their sustainability and extensive campaigns against higher targets.

  "Concern was further raised among policy makers when the paper by Searchinger (2008) asserted that US biofuels production on agricultural land displaced existing agricultural production, causing land-use change leading to increased net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions."—Executive Summary.
  

• Restore the Delta
  
  "Restore the Delta is a grassroots campaign committed to making the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable to benefit all of California. Restore the Delta—a coalition of Delta residents, business leaders, civic organizations, community groups, faith-based communities, union locals, farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists—seeks to strengthen the health of the estuary and the well-being of Delta communities. Restore the Delta works to improve water quality so that fisheries and farming can thrive together again in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta."—Welcome.


• Eric Roston, The Carbon Age: How Life's Core Element Has Become Civilization's Greatest Threat (2008)
  

  "The story of carbon—the building block of life that is, ironically, humanity’s great threat. It could be said that all of us are a little alien—our bodies’ carbon atoms first shot forth from supernovas billions of years ago and far, far away. Carbon has always been the ubiquitous architect and chemical scaffolding of life and civilization; indeed, all living things draw carbon from their environments to stay alive, and the great cycle by which carbon moves through organisms, ground, water, and atmosphere has long been a kind of global respiration system that helps keep Earth in balance. And yet, when we hear the word today, it is more often than not in a crisis context: carbon dioxide emissions have sped up the carbon cycle; chlorofluorocarbons are destroying the ozone layer and warming the planet; the volatile Middle East explodes atop its stores of volatile hydrocarbons; carbohydrates threaten obesity and diabetes.

  "In The Carbon Age, Eric Roston evokes this essential element, its journey illuminating history from the Big Bang to modern civilization. Charting the science of carbon—how it was formed, how it came to Earth and built up—he chronicles the often surprising ways mankind has used it over centuries, and the growing catastrophe of the industrial era, leading us to now attempt to wrestle the Earth’s geochemical cycle back from the brink. Blending the latest science with original reporting, Roston makes us aware, as never before, of the seminal impact carbon has, and has had, on our lives."—Description.
  

• Slashdot (blog), GENI To Replace Internet, Gets $12M Funding (July 31, 2008)
  
  "A massive project to redesign and rebuild the Internet from scratch is inching along with $12 million in government funding and donations of network capacity by two major research organizations. Many researchers want to rethink the Internet's underlying architecture, saying a 'clean-slate' approach is the only way to truly address security and other challenges that have cropped up since the Internet's birth in 1969."—Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer, Project to Rebuild Internet Gets $12M, Bandwidth (July 30, 2008)


• State of California, Green California
  
  "Green California is a gateway for the latest information about how the state of California is working to reduce energy and resource consumption, while lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and creating healthier environments in which to work, live and learn."—Welcome to Green California!


• Ed Struzik, Canwest News Service, Scientists Solve Riddle of Toxic Algae Blooms, Times Colonist (July 22, 2008)
  
  "After a remarkable 37-year experiment, University of Alberta scientist David Schindler and his colleagues have finally nailed down the chemical triggers for a problem that plagues thousands of freshwater and coastal ecosystems around the world."


• Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Committee on the Role of Public Transportation in Emergency Evacuation, The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation (2008)
  
  "The purpose of this study, which was requested by Congress2 and funded by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and the Transit Cooperative Research Program, is to evaluate the potential role of transit systems in accommodating the evacuation, egress, and ingress of people from or to critical locations in times of emergency. Its focus is on transit systems serving the 38 largest urbanized areas in the United States—a proxy for those systems serving populations larger than 1 million. Transit is defined broadly to include bus and rail systems, paratransit and demand responsive transit, commuter and intercity rail, and ferries, whether publicly operated or privately contracted. Highways and their capacity are also considered because many transit systems provide only bus service and must share the highways with private vehicles in an emergency evacuation. The study is also focused on major incidents that could necessitate a partial to full evacuation of the central business district or other large portion of an urban area. Meeting the surge requirements and coordination demands of such incidents is likely to strain the capacity of any single jurisdiction or transit agency and exceed local resources."—Study Charge and Scope.


• United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative (SEFI), Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008: Analysis of Trends and Issues in the Financing of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (2008)
  
  "Once again, global investment in sustainable energy broke all previous records, with
  $148.4 billion of new money raised in 2007, an increase of 60% over 2006. Total financial transactions in sustainable energy, including acquisition activity, was $204.9 billion1. Asset finance—investment in new renewable energy capacity—was the main driver for this surge in investment, rising 68% to reach $84.5 billion in 2007, fuelled mainly by the wind sector. Public market investment also raced ahead in 2007, with investment of $23.4 billion in 2007, more than double the $10.5 billion raised in 2006."—Executive Summary.


• United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Ensuring a Sustainable Future: An Energy Management Guidebook for Wastewater and Water Utilities (January 2008)
  
  "The purpose of this Energy Management Guidebook is to demonstrate to utility managers that it makes sound business and environmental sense to utilize a management system approach to optimize energy conservation efforts. Specifically, this Guidebook will present a management system approach for energy conservation, based on the successful Plan-Do-Check-Act process, that enables utilities to establish and prioritize energy conservation targets (Plan), implement specific practices to meet these targets (Do), monitor and measure energy performance improvements and cost savings (Check), and periodically review progress and make adjustments to energy programs (Act). The Guidebook will also provide real life examples of water and wastewater utilities who have already realized significant benefits through use of an energy management program and provide a step-by-step process to show how to achieve the same benefits for your utility."


• United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Inspector General (OIG), EPA’s Key Management Challenges for Fiscal Year 2008 (Memorandum) (July 2, 2008)
  
  Management challenges addressed include Threat and Risk Assessments, EPA’s Organization and Infrastructure, Performance Measurement, Water and Wastewater Infrastructure, Meeting Homeland Security Requirements, Oversight of Delegations to States, Chesapeake Bay Program, and Voluntary Programs.


• United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Inspector General (OIG), Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reduction Programs Have Limited Potential (Evaluation Report, No. 08-P-0206) (July 23, 2008)
  
  "The set of voluntary GHG programs we reviewed use outreach efforts to recruit program partners and reduce GHG emissions. We found the greatest barriers to participation were the perceived emission reduction costs and reporting requirements. We also found that it is unlikely these voluntary programs can reduce more than 19 percent of the projected 2010 GHG emissions for their industry sectors. From this, we determined that if EPA wishes to reduce GHG emissions beyond this point, it needs to consider additional policy options."—What We Found.

Engineered beauty

Each year Microsoft invites students and staff at the University of Cambridge's engineering department to submit photos that are "beautiful, fascinating, intriguing, amusing, or possibly all of these things." Here are nine images, including the three winners, from the 2008 Microsoft Photography Competition.

Moth (third prize)

A thin, elastic metal film made of PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) and gold, used to make stretchable electronics.

Laser-Drilled Micro-Sized Hole Array

Holes drilled in stainless steel using a pulsed fibre laser firing 500,000 pulses per second. It took 0.1 milliseconds (50 pulses) to drill each hole.

First Bar of an Aria

Computer-generated analysis of the tempo of the first two bars of the aria from the Goldberg Variations by J. S. Bach. The x axis corresponds to time and the y axis to tempo. Computer analysis of musical tempo is a first step in developing "machine listening."

First Light (second prize)

Taken at sunset [on March 15, 2007], this unenhanced photograph captures the first night of power for the secluded Masai village of Essilanke. The village school provided the site for the first trial of a project that [photographer Sam Cocks] spent three months working on in Kenya: developing a small-scale wind turbine capable of providing a practical solution for electrifying remote regions.

Crystal Tinsel

Scanning electron micrograph of zinc oxide nanowires growing on carbon fibers.

Air Pucks

High-pressure air is blown through the brass connector and comes out through a hole in the base to create a low-friction air bearing. These pucks were used in "air sleds" for research into how the brain controls arm movements. The sled supports the weight of a subject's arm on a cushion of air during the experiment and constrains its movements within a plane.

Sagrada Familia

A seashell-like stairwell at Gaudi's unfinished cathedral in Barcelona. Photographer Brendan Baker writes: "The stairs are a glimpse at how natural forms can be used as design inspiration, a strong underlying theme of recent biomimetic approaches to materials and product design." (Biomimetics is the application of biological systems to engineering design.)

The Surface of a Hyper-Complex Escape-Time Fractal

Engineers often exploit a mathematical trick for combining two or more regular numbers into one complex number, allowing them to carry twice the information inside their equations. These simple equations can generate astonishingly detailed fractals. This is a three-dimensional "slice" through the four-dimensional surface of one such fractal.

Blue Spikes (first prize)

Liquid crystals, described by photographer Sonja Findeisen-Tandel as "neither crystalline nor liquid but something in between."

Access to knowledge: further building blocks

As promised in my first post on access to knowledge (A2K), I am pleased to provide links to Lea Shaver's forthcoming paper, Defining and Measuring A2K: A Blueprint for an Index of Access to Knowledge, and to the PowerPoint presentation that Lea made at this year's American Association of Law Libraries meeting in Portland.

Literary Warrant [32]

Marino Pliakas, Michael Wertmüller & Peter Brötzmann

• Robert Bamberger, Specialist in Energy Policy, Resources, Sciences, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: History, Perspectives, and Issues (Order Code RL33341) (Updated May 15, 2008)
  
  "Congress authorized the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA, P.L. 94-163) to help prevent a repetition of the economic dislocation caused by the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo. The program is managed by the Department of Energy (DOE). The capacity of the SPR is 727 million barrels, and it currently holds slightly more than 700 million barrels of crude oil. In addition, a Northeast Heating Oil Reserve (NHOR) holds 2 million barrels of heating oil in above-ground storage. At issue in recent years has been whether SPR capacity should be expanded and whether the reserve should continue to be filled."—Summary.


• Lauretta Burke, World Resources Institute (WRI), Coastal Capital: Putting a Value on The Caribbean's Coral Reefs (June 13, 2008)
  
  "Coral reefs are a vital part of the Caribbean’s marine environment, and are integral to the economies of many of the region’s small island states. WRI’s economic valuation methodology can help decision-makers in the region better understand the enormous economic value the reef provides and use this data to make better-informed coastal policy."

Read the rest of this post . . .

• Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) & IBM, Making Advances in Carbon Management: Best Practice from the Carbon Information Leaders (A Joint CDP and IBM Study) (2008)
  
  "This study covers one of the biggest long term campaigns facing business leaders today. A campaign recognised as vital in government, in industry, and among the general public. Across the corporate world, managers are drawing up strategies to measure and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to use that intelligence to cut their carbon footprint. During March and April 2008, eleven carbon leaders co-operated in sharing information about how they gather their GHG emissions data, what they measure, how far they have gone in the process, and what the experience has been like. Their insights and discoveries will help other companies to follow where they have led."—Objectives of the study.


• Council on Foreign Relations, Confronting Climate Change: A Strategy for U.S. Foreign Policy (Independent Task Force Report no. 61) (2008)
  
  "A cap-and-trade system will create economic incentives to reduce emissions, but those incentives will not be sufficient to deliver deep cuts in emissions at an acceptable cost.The Task Force thus recommends that the United States take complementary steps to help market forces functionmore effectively and to seize the many opportunities to align the goal of slowing climate change with other important policy objectives. Those other steps include adopting policies that would improve energy security by reducing oil use in ways that also lower emissions; using traditional regulation in places where markets fail to function efficiently, most notably by targeting opportunities to improve energy efficiency; expanding federal support for research, development, and commercial scale demonstration of low-carbon technologies; and supporting the construction of new infrastructure, such as a more robust electric grid, that will support low-carbon energy. The Task Force also recommends that the United States seek to reduce biofuels tariffs, since many imported biofuels are currently more climate-friendly than many domestically produced ones; however, the United States should do so only in a context where changes to tariffs do not ultimately encourage increased emissions. It also recommends phasing out subsidies for mature biofuels such as conventional corn-based ethanol."—Executive Summary.


• Carol L. Cwiak, North Dakota State University, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Emergency Management, Emergency Management Education: A Status Report (2008 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Program Report)
  
  "The number of emergency management higher education programs continue to grow in both number and strength. The data collection herein was undertaken to provide a status report of where emergency management higher education currently stands. The goal of this report is to assist the FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Program, policymakers, educators, students, practitioners and other interested parties in understanding where higher education is today and where it is heading in the future. This report will examine current program status, program and student demographics, growth expectations, trends and challenges."—Introduction.


• Forbes.com, Special Report: Water (June 19, 2008)
  
  "The news is grim. In China, India, the U.S. and elsewhere, people are depleting aquifers faster than they are being replenished. At current rates of consumption and growth, two-thirds of the world's population will face water scarcity in 20 years. Drought has come to sear not just famously dry places like Arizona and Australia but also cities like Atlanta and Barcelona. Water-borne diseases kill 5 million people each year—more than AIDS and war combined.

  "In short, the prognosis is poor—if, that is, we continue our wayward ways. Fortunately, we don't have to. Unlike such global problems as war and poverty, the water crisis stands a good chance of being solved in our lifetimes, through human ingenuity."

  Foreign Policy, The World's Lost Environmental Causes (June 2008)
  
  "A few of what were once considered imminent environmental catastrophes now seem like memories from a bygone era. Whether the problem is solved, the public loses interest, or there was never really much to fear, environmental causes can sometimes simply fade away."


• G-8 Summit, Hokkaido Toyako, Japan, Declaration of Leaders Meeting of Major Economies on Energy Security and Climate Change (July 9, 2008)
  
  "Climate change is one of the great global challenges of our time. Conscious of our leadership role in meeting such challenges, we, the leaders of the world's major economies, both developed and developing, commit to combat climate change in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and confront the interlinked challenges of sustainable development, including energy and food security, and human health. We have come together to contribute to efforts under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the global forum for climate negotiations. Our contribution and cooperation are rooted in the objective, provisions, and principles of the Convention."


• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change and Water (IPCC Technical Paper VI) (June 2008)
  
  "Observational records and climate projections provide abundant evidence that freshwater resources are vulnerable and have the potential to be strongly impacted by climate change, with wide-ranging consequences for human societies and ecosystems."—Executive Summary.


• International Trade Administration (ITA), United States Department of Commerce, Clean Energy Exporter Guides Released (July 17, 2008)
  
  "The U.S. Department of Commerce today released two clean energy technology export guides to help American businesses navigate Chinese and Indian energy markets. The reports—Clean Energy: An Exporters Guide to China, and Clean Energy: An Exporters Guide to India—provide information to U.S. clean energy companies on current political and market conditions and future opportunities in these two growing economies. The guides also provide detailed information on Chinese and Indian national and local clean energy promoters and regulators."—Press release.


• Law Librarian Blog, Primers on the Energy Crisis of 2008 (June 8, 2008)
  
  "The price of crude oil has doubled over the past year, from $65 for a barrel in June 2007 to $130 a barrel now. With no end in sight, CNN and Fortune have recently published special reports on this energy 'crisis.'"


• Ann Bessie Mathew, MPH & Kimiko Kelly, MPP, Disaster Preparedness in Urban Immigrant Communities: Lessons Learned from Recent Catastrophic Events and Their Relevance to Latino and Asian Communities in Southern California (A Tomás Rivera Policy Institute and Asian Pacific American Legal Center Report) (June 2008)
  
  "Southern California is at high risk for a major natural disaster. Yet, few assessments have been made to discover how communities with large populations of Limited English Proficient (LEP) immigrants would fare in such an event. It has also not been established whether LEP immigrants who may be poor and have low levels of education have the information necessary to prepare for and survive a disaster, or whether the social networks, formats, and language in which they can successfully receive and respond to emergency information are in place."—Executive Summary.


• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2008 (NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS NCCOS 73) (April 2008)
  
  "The report issued today . . . says that the nation’s coral reef ecosystems, particularly those adjacent to populated areas, continue to face intense human-derived threats from coastal development, fishing, sedimentation and recreational use. Even the most remote reefs are subject to threats such as marine debris, illegal fishing and climate-related effects of coral bleaching, disease and ocean acidification."—Press release (July 7, 2008)


• National Research Council (NRC) & the National Academies Press (NAP), Transitions to Alternative Transportation Technologies—A Focus on Hydrogen (2008)
  
  "A transition to hydrogen vehicles could greatly reduce U.S. oil dependence and carbon dioxide emissions, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council, but making hydrogen vehicles competitive in the automotive market will not be easy. While the development of fuel cell and hydrogen production technology over the past several years has been impressive, challenges remain. Vehicle costs are high, and the U.S. currently lacks the infrastructure to produce and widely distribute hydrogen to consumers. These obstacles could be overcome, however, with continued support for research and development and firm commitments from the automotive industry and the federal government, concluded the committee that wrote the report."—Press release (July 17, 2008)


• Cath O'Driscoll, A Dash of Lime—A New Twist That May Cut CO2 Levels Back to Pre-Industrial Levels, Chemistry & Industry (c/o PhysOrg.com, h.t. Slashdot) (July 21, 2008)
  
  "Scientists say they have found a workable way of reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere by adding lime to seawater. And they think it has the potential to dramatically reverse CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere..."


• On Water (blog)
  
  "Featuring news, research, and current events on all aspects of water resources. Brought to you by the Water Resources Center Archives and the Center for Water Resources, University of California."


• Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), Directorate for Trade and Agriculture, Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies (2008)
  
  "Government support of biofuel production in OECD countries is costly, has a limited impact on reducing greenhouse gases and improving energy security, and has a significant impact on world crop prices, according to a new study of policies to promote greater production and use of biofuel in OECD countries.

  OECD’s Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies says biofuels are currently highly dependent on public funding to be viable. In the US, Canada and the European Union government support for the supply and use of biofuels is expected to rise to around USD 25 billion per year by 2015 from about USD 11 billion in 2006. The report estimates that biofuel support costs between USD 960 to USD 1700 per tonne of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide equivalent) saved."—Press release (July 16, 2008)



• Fred Stolle, World Resources Institute (WRI), Groundbreaking Study Finds the "Hotspots" Most Responsible For Deforestation (July 16, 2008)
  
  "A new collaborative study by World Resources Institute and other researchers finds that much of the world’s deforestation is isolated in a handful of 'hotspots,' not spread out over many nations and many locations. In fact, this study showed that over half the world’s deforestation (in this study only clear-cut are monitored) is happening in just two locations: 48% is occurring in Brazil, with another 13% concentrated in Indonesia. Meanwhile, deforestation in Africa is negligible in comparison."


• United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Prioritizing Invasive Species Management by Optimizing Production of Ecosystem Service Benefits: Final Report (Contractor and Cooperator Report No. 44) (July 2008)
  
  "This report examined how decisions to invest in invasive species management on public lands could incorporate economic concepts to better gauge the level of social benefits generated and how optimization models could be applied to produce the maximum potential gains in ecosystem services. Findings suggested that management decisions were effectively modeled using GIS-based decision support tools, providing a means to reveal assumptions and allow greater input by the public and scientific community into the decision-making process. The optimization model results suggested that benefits achieved through invasive species treatment might be improved if multiple ecosystem service benefits were considered simultaneously when choosing sites and treatment options rather than choosing options that maximized a particular ecosystem service."—Abstract.


• United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), A Business Guide to U.S. EPA Climate Partnership Programs (EPA-100-B-08-001) (June 2008)
  
  "Many signs suggest the business community is beginning to confront the climate issue on a wide scale. There are now more than 13,000 firms and other organizations participating in climate-related EPA Partnership Programs. Through participation, these organizations have invested in energy efficiency, clean energy supply, and other climate-friendly technologies, reaping value such as:
  
  • Substantial energy cost savings.
  • Improved operating efficiencies.
  • Improved risk management.
  • Expanded market opportunities.
  • Improved job satisfaction, employee recruiting, and worker productivity.
  • Enhanced brand and corporate reputation."


• United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act (Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking [ANPR], EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318) (July 11, 2008)
  
  "The ANPR is one of the steps EPA has taken in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. The Court found that the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions if EPA determines they cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. The ANPR reflects the complexity and magnitude of the question of whether and how greenhouse gases could be effectively controlled under the Clean Air Act."


• United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Climate Change: Expert Opinion on the Economics of Policy Options to Address Climate Change (Report to Congressional Requesters, GAO-08-605) (May 2008)
  
  "All of the panelists agreed that the Congress should consider using a market-based mechanism to establish a price on greenhouse gas emissions, and 14 of the 18 panelists recommended additional actions as part of a portfolio to address climate change, such as investment in research and development of low-emissions technologies. Experts differed on the initial stringency of the market-based mechanism, with 14 of the 18 panelists recommending an initial price between less than $1 and $20 per ton of emissions. In addition, 14 of 18 panelists were at least moderately certain that the benefits of their recommended portfolio of actions would outweigh the costs. To establish a price on emissions, most of the panelists preferred either a tax on emissions or a hybrid policy that incorporates features of both a tax and a cap-and-trade program. A tax would set a fixed price on every ton of emissions, whereas a cap-and-trade program would limit or cap total emissions and establish a market for trading (buying and selling) permits to emit a specific amount of greenhouse gases. Under the cap-and-trade system, the market would determine the price of emissions. A hybrid system differs from a traditional cap-and-trade system in that the government would cap emissions, but could sell additional emissions permits if the permit price rose above a predetermined level. Panelists also identified general categories of benefits, such as avoided climate change damages, and costs, such as increases in energy prices, associated with their recommended actions. Overall the panel rated estimates of costs as more useful than estimates of benefits for informing congressional decision making, with some panelists citing uncertainties associated with the future impacts of climate change as limitations to estimating benefits. Further, the majority of panelists agreed that the United States should establish a price on greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible regardless of the extent to which other countries adopt similar policies. At the same time, the majority of panelists said it was at least somewhat important to participate in international negotiations on climate change."—What the Experts Said.


• United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), Hurricane Katrina: Trends in the Operating Results of Five Hospitals in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina (July 17, 2008)
  
  "Operating results of all five hospitals significantly declined in 2005, the year of Hurricane Katrina, based on the three measures of profitability we used to illustrate differences in the hospitals’ operating results before and after the hurricane—operating income or loss, net income or loss, and earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization. However, four out of the five hospitals showed some improvement in their operating results for 2006, 2007, and projected for 2008. For the fifth hospital, the amounts for the three profitability measures for 2007 and projected for 2008 declined from 2005 amounts. In viewing these trends, it is important to consider the amount and timing of special payments that the hospitals received to cover Hurricane Katrina-related losses for 2005 through 2008. These special payments included insurance payments from private insurers for business interruption and property and casualty claims, wage index grants from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to cover some of the increases in labor costs experienced by the hospitals and funds from the state of Louisiana for uncompensated care to cover the increased costs for providing health care to the uninsured. They also included Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) reimbursements to cover losses due to flooding and federally declared disasters. Despite the improvements in operating results for four of the five hospitals we examined, the financial position for these four hospitals has weakened, as evidenced by declines in net asset balances since 2004. Such declines indicate that the hospitals have been either using their assets, incurring additional debt to support operations or both."—Results in Brief.


• United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), National Flood Insurance Program: Financial Challenges Underscore Need for Improved Oversight of Mitigation Programs and Key Contracts (Report to the Ranking Member, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate, GAO-08-437) (June 2008)
  
  "The number of federal flood insurance policies in force nationwide increased 36 percent from 1997 through 2006, but most homeowners at risk of flooding still lacked such insurance. While average insurance amounts (per policy) increased 78 percent from 1997 through 2006—consistent with rising home values—the average premium decreased 3 percent from 1997 through 2006, likely driven in part by the increase in policies sold in moderate- to low-risk areas. Conversely, loss amounts fluctuated by year, peaking at more than $17.7 billion in 2005. Seventy-nine percent of the funds paid out through NFIP from 1997 through 2006 were for hurricane-related claims, but the percentages in individual years varied widely (correlating with hurricane activity). Finally, the extent of claim payments attributed to repetitive loss properties (those with two or more claims in a rolling 10-year period) increased from 1997 through 2006, from $3.7 billion to nearly $8 billion, with the most significant increases resulting from the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes."—What GAO Found.


• United States International Trade Commission (ITC), Industrial Biotechnology: Development and Adoption by the U.S. Chemical and Biofuel Industries (Investigation No. 332-481) (USITC Publication 4020) (July 2008)
  
  "The ITC found that the liquid biofuel industry, composed of ethanol and biodiesel producers, saw remarkable growth in its business activities from 2004 to 2007, with the number of producers, production establishments, and the value of corn ethanol shipments more than doubling and the value of biodiesel shipments increasing by well over 2,000 percent during that time."—Press release.

Annabelle

Within the expressive idiom of American folk music, is there a more compelling example of literary naturalism than Gillian Welch's 1996 ballad, Annabelle  (on Revival)?

In previous blog posts, in this forum and on MoneyLaw, I've come close to answering the question. Now I wish to say, emphatically, in this forum and on Danzig U.S.A., that Annabelle might well be the perfectly composed song in the Southern folk tradition:

Gillian Welch, Annabelle , Revival (1996) (live on YouTube)

Gillian Welch, Annabelle , Revival (1996)

We lease twenty acres and one ginny mule
From the Alabama trust
For half of the cotton and a third of the corn
We get a handful of dust

We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why

I had a daughter, called her Annabelle
She's the apple of my eye
Tried to give her something like I never had
Didn't ever want to ever hear her cry

We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why

When I'm dead and buried
I'll take a hard life of tears
From every day I've ever known
Anna's in the churchyard, she got no life at all
She only got these words on a stone

We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why

Quantifying access to knowledge

	A
	2
	K

Herewith Access to Knowledge: Defining and Measuring Economic, Legal, and Human Capital , my contribution to a July 13, 2008, program called International Law and the Evolving Knowledge Society at the 2008 meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries.

My presentation responded to (and should be read in conjunction with) Lea Bishop Shaver, Defining and Measuring A2K: A Blueprint for an Index of Access to Knowledge, 4:2 I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society (forthcoming 2008):

Comparative indices are widely used in international development circles to benchmark and monitor public policy objectives. To date, however, no one has examined how an index of Access to Knowledge might be constructed. This article examines the methodological issues involved in such a project and provides a blueprint for the development of a robust and reliable A2K Index. For those new to the Access to Knowledge framework, this article also serves as a concrete and concise orientation to the ideological perspective rapidly reshaping the fields of international development, communications, technology, education, and intellectual property policy.

I intend to address this issue in future posts. In the meanwhile, I note that many of the observations in my A2K presentation were derived from my work on inflation indexes and the methodological problems that confound the measurement of price change — The Price of Macroeconomic Imprecision: How Should the Law Measure Inflation?, 54 Hastings L.J. 1375 (2003) — and my work on the use of right-skewed statistical distributions in bibliometrics — Modeling Law Review Impact Factors as an Exponential Distribution, http://ssrn.com/abstract=905316.

I thank Lea Shaver and the program's organizer, Marylin Raisch, for a most entertaining and engaging program at the AALL conference.

Classroom 2.0

By way of Red Lion Reports and TaxProf, I've learned about, and am now pleased to rebroadcast, the following lecture:

Professor Michael Wesch
A Portal to Media Literacy
University of Manitoba, June 17, 2008

Dubbed “the explainer” by popular geek publication Wired because of his viral YouTube video that summarizes Web 2.0 in under five minutes, cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch brought his Web 2.0 wisdom to the University of Manitoba on June 17.

During his presentation, the Kansas State University professor breaks down his attempts to integrate Facebook, Netvibes, Diigo, Google Apps, Jott, Twitter, and other emerging technologies to create an education portal of the future.

“It’s basically an ongoing experiment to create a portal for me and my students to work online,” he explains. “We tried every social media application you can think of. Some worked, some didn’t.”

If you are pressed for time, you really should join the millions of viewers who have watched Wesch's famous video, Web 2.0 . . . The Machine is Us/ing Us.

I am delighted to see Jeff Kahn and Paul Caron embrace Michael Wesch's work. I've been a fan for a long time, as I explained in Law 2.0 and The cathedral and the bazaar. Appreciation for Web 2.0 and its educational potential inspired my most recent participatory project, The Cardinal Lawyer II: Birds of a Feather (as explained on my official blog, The Cardinal Lawyer.

Here's the upshot: If you work in education, it's high time that you learn as much as you can about blogs, wikis, social networking sites, folksonomies, and widgets. Terms such as CSS, JSON, XML, XHTML, HTML, RSS, Atom, and Flash shouldn't be alien to you. Our students, after all, already know about rich user experience, user participation, dynamic content, metadata, web standards, scalability, openness, freedom, and collective intelligence. If we want to keep up, we'll have to learn. The payoff for learning? Better teaching.

Truth and beauty: A legal translation

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultán’s Turret in a Noose of Light. — Edward FitzGerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)

Truth and Beauty: A Legal Translation
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157093
Translations, according to conventional wisdom, are like lovers. Though the most faithful translations may be plain, the most beautiful translations tend to be unfaithful.

The opening words of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám leave little doubt: the Rubaiyat’s 75 quatrains would take their place among the most beautiful lines of English verse. How faithful FitzGerald was to the original Farsi is, to put it mildly, a different matter: “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, / Moves on . . . .”

What concerns me here is the question of fidelity in translation in a realm far removed from poetry. Law, which is after all a truth-seeking enterprise, is so thoroughly dedicated to the disciplinary and organizational functions of government that it must banish “falsity, irrationality, and seductiveness” — the very traits that make all literature, lyric, epic, or prosaic, irresistibly beautiful.

This essay addresses questions of truth and beauty, of poetry and fidelity, as applied to legal education and ultimately to law. After discussing how law schools can most faithfully translate their teachings to lawyers’ real concerns, I shall ponder how the law itself reconciles its duty to truth with its practitioners’ longing for beauty.

Editor’s note: This essay extends themes first developed in Fidelity in Translation and Law’s Double Helix.

Lowering the costs of switching between Windows and Mac

For years I've resisted switching from the world of Microsoft-powered computers to that of Apple, the Mac, and Leopard OS. Not out of any belief in Microsoft's technological superiority, mind you — I am firmly convinced of Microsoft's inferiority — but rather out of fear that the switching costs would be prohibitive. And being locked into a PC-based machine at work would compound the misery, so I thought, because my fingers would never manage to master two different sets of routines.

I took the plunge anyway — thank you, Nancy Rapoport, for giving me the courage to do this — and have discovered, mirabile dictu, that it is actually quite easy to manage both worlds. Surely it advances jurisdynamic principles to enable consumers to choose between operating systems on the basis of technological superiority rather than lock-in effects.

With those considerations in mind, I beamed with joy when I discovered this list of tips for those who, like me, have switched to Mac from Windows (all text quoted from Walt Mossberg's column, unless otherwise bracketed):

• In general: While the Windows and Mac user interfaces are broadly similar, they do have subtle variations in day-to-day use that require some re-education for switchers. And because there are so many fewer Mac users than Windows users, help from friends and co-workers can be harder to obtain than it is for people switching the other way, to Windows from Mac. . . .


• Menu bars: In Windows, each program typically has its own menu bar. On the Mac, there’s a single menu bar at the top of the screen that changes, depending on which program you are actively using.


• Task bar: The equivalent of the Windows XP Task Bar on the Mac is the Dock. Unlike the Task Bar, which primarily holds icons representing open windows, the Mac Dock primarily holds icons of programs you use most often. To place a program onto the Dock, you just drag its icon there. To remove it, you just drag its icon off the Dock and it disappears in a puff of animated smoke.


• Start menu: There is no Start Menu on a Mac. Its functions are divided between the Dock and the Apple menu at the upper left of the Mac screen.


• Control panel: The Mac equivalent of the Windows Control Panel is called System Preferences, and it can be launched from either the Dock or the Apple menu.


• Keyboard shortcuts: Common Windows keyboard commands, such as Ctrl-S for Save, Ctrl-P for Print, and many others, are also available on the Mac. However, instead of using the Control key, they use the Mac’s Command key, which bears either a cloverlike symbol or an Apple logo. So, on the Mac, for instance, Command-S is for Save.


• Quitting programs: In Windows, you can quit a program by clicking on the red “X” in a square at the upper right corner of the window you’re using. But on the Mac, if you click on the equivalent button — a red “X” in a circle in the upper left corner — you are merely closing the window, not quitting the program. To quit the program, you must either select Quit from the leftmost menu or press the Command and “Q” keys together.


• Maximizing windows: When you click on the blue maximize button in Windows XP, the window you are viewing occupies the whole screen. In Leopard, the equivalent button — a green circle at the upper left — increases a small window’s size to a footprint deemed optimal for its contents, which isn’t always the whole screen.


• Switching programs: One common way to switch among running programs in Windows XP is to press Alt and Tab together. This displays icons of each running program and allows you to switch among them. On a Mac, the same trick can be performed by pressing the Command and Tab keys together. The Mac also has a terrific feature called Expose, which shows every open window at once, in miniature form, so you can navigate among them. [On my iMac, I trigger Expose either by mashing the F3 key or by pressing the side buttons on my mouse.]


• Right-clicking: Contrary to common belief, the Mac has a right-click menu function, just like Windows. Most desktop Macs now come with a mouse that allows right-clicking, and you can use almost any two-button USB mouse with any modern Mac. [You do need to readjust mouse settings in System Preferences.] If you are using a Mac laptop, which has only one button under the track pad, you can simulate a right-click by either holding down the Control key when you click, or by placing two fingers on the track pad while clicking. . . .

Failing all else, refugees from Planet Microsoft can seek succor from Apple directly, either at Mac 101 or at Switch 101.

New Mexico bans cockfighting

New Mexico bans cockfighting. When a ban takes effect in Louisiana in August, cockfighting will be illegal in all 50 states.



Fuller details available on Agricultural Law.

I reaffirm my allegiance

Editor's note: The following letter, I Reaffirm My Allegiance, was originally published in the Washington Post on July 4, 1976:

What am I?

I am a free man — a good and decent man — a man of compassion, generosity, and understanding — a true friend, a steadfast ally, and a bitter foe.

I owe my allegiance to a government founded in the belief that among the rights of man are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed, I would acknowledge no other. I can redress my government for injury; not satisfied with redress, I can elect a new one. I have watched my government function smoothly during periods of transfer of power caused by re-election, assassination, and resignation.

While other nations have a distinct race, religion, and/or geographic denominator, I live among people of my home without fear of intrusion by anyone — citizen or government designee — unless they have my personal invitation or a duly authorized search warrant.

I have a press to keep me informed — a press free to write, without inhibition, the truth as they see it. A press that needs fear no repression, no retaliation, no censorship so long as it prints the truth.

I live under a system of justice, merciful and fairly administered, where I am assumed innocent until proven guilty — a system which provides me appellate privilege while denying it to the power of the state.

I am free to go anywhere I want, earn my living in any way that suits me and, based on that freedom, I have created a standard of living unequalled in the history of man and envied the world over.

I have suffered in humility at the consequences of my mistakes — economic deprivation, social injustice, unequal opportunity and racial prejudice to name a few — but, once aware of these mistakes, I have set out to right the wrongs they created.

I have faced challenges to my way of life. I have fought and died countless times from Lexington and Concord to Vietnam. I was humbled at Valley Forge, Pearl Harbor, Corregidor and Malmedy. But these experiences gave me the character I needed to go to Yorktown, Gettysburg, Midway and Normandy. I cherish my freedom above all else — I bow to no tyrant.

I am two hundred years old today. I have never been so proud of my ancient heritage, so grateful for my present situation, and so confident of the future. Today, I reaffirm my allegiance to, faith in, and love of my country. To the proposition that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth, I do humbly pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.

I am an American.

I wish it would rain

Nanci Griffith, I Wish It Would Rain, on Little Love Affairs (1988)

Chorus:
Oh, I wish it would rain
And wash my face clean
I want to find some dark cloud to hide in here
Love in a memory
Sparkled like diamonds
When the diamonds fall . . . they burn like tears
When the diamonds fall . . . they burn like tears

Once I had a love from the Georgia pines
Who only cared for me
I wanna find that love of twenty-two
Here at thirty-three
I've got a heart on my right
One on my left . . . neither suits my needs
No, the one I love lives away out West
And he never will need me

Repeat chorus.

I'm gonna pack up my two steppin' shoes
And head for the Gulf Coast plains
I wanna walk the streets of my own hometown
Where everybody knows my name
I wanna ride the waves down in Galveston
When the hurricanes blow in
'Cuz that Gulf Coast water tastes sweet as wine
When your heart's rollin' home in the wind

Repeat chorus

When the diamonds fall darlin' . . . they burn like tears

Lyrics and melody, © 1987 Wing and Wheel Music