Author Archives: kirkmike157

Yeitse

Posted on January 22, 2015 by kirkmike157

This post was inspired by Michael Eisen (@mbeisen), who innocently asked about the DNA content of various foods on Twitter a few days ago. As expected, the responses were mostly the rantings of idiots, all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Michael … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Genetics, Science | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

When is a Survey not a Survey?

Posted on January 6, 2015 by kirkmike157

One of the great things about Twitter is that it alerts you to new papers and discussions of those papers that you’d otherwise not be privy to. Sadly, the 140 character limit badly stunts those discussions just when they are … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Re: Will a return of rising temperatures validate the climate models?

Posted on December 17, 2014 by kirkmike157

Instability is the first thing that one will notice if presented with climate data, on almost any scale. That is why the flat-line in global surface air temperature that began in 1998 is so unexpected. The debate over climate change … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment | Tagged | Leave a comment

Run

Posted on December 5, 2014 by kirkmike157

Pleistocene horse race. The three coat colors depicted in this video all predate the domestication of the horse around 10,000 years ago.    

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Saving Mallet’s Creek

Posted on November 7, 2014 by kirkmike157

[This story describes the decade-long struggle to obtain permission to clean up a small urban watershed. Cayman Chemical purchased the property including a small stretch of Mallet’s Creek in 1997. Applications to clean up the degraded stream were first submitted in 2001. … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment | Leave a comment

Rant: The Black Curtain of Death – Theatre in lieu of Substance

Posted on November 7, 2014 by kirkmike157

In December of 1999, the US Environmental Protection Agency promulgated a series of regulations addressing storm water discharges (CFR 64 FR 68721 (PDF)). These regulations require that “suitable barriers” be erected around all construction sites and places of disturbed soils with … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment | 1 Comment

Elk Reduction

Posted on October 31, 2014 by kirkmike157

In the winter of 1964, some time after Christmas, an old bull elk stumbled down through the steaming terraces of Mammoth Hot Spring. It was a bitter cold and windless night in the far northwest corner of Wyoming. Snow was … Continue reading →

Posted in Short Stories | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Why Obama Should Not be King

Posted on August 14, 2014 by kirkmike157

Shortly before his policies in the Middle East imploded on themselves, dragging Obama into his latest, twitchy, defensive, mouse-in-a-corner foreign policy debacle, he was trying to focus our attention on climate policy. In keeping with his other recent regal edicts, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Exterminating the Parasitic CEO

Posted on June 10, 2014 by kirkmike157

It is June and time for that twisted corporate introspective agony called the Annual Employee Performance Review. There is something slightly Maoist in the idea that, once every year, each employee-supervisor pair should turn on each other and start rank … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 8 Comments