Thanks for coming by

I'm backdating this post to make it the first one on the blog.

This blog is about politics and science policy primarily, and occasionally about whatever science issues interest me (mostly biology and space), some economics and history, and then anything else I feel like writing. And occasional movie and book reviews.

My editing policy: I will make non-substantive changes (fixing typos, etc.) at any time to posts without making note of the changes. Any substantive changes more than 15 minutes after I put up a post will be expressly noted as a change. I give myself 15 minutes because I sometimes spot mistakes only right after I put up a post, and I assume no one is likely to see the post in that short interval before it has been corrected.

My politics are generally left-libertarian, with some exceptions. I pretend to myself that I'm open-minded so I do try and learn from new information.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, work for an environmental organization, and have a background in environmental law (also as a failed-but-unrepetant inventor). Rather than write about my field, this blog seems to be about areas where I'm an amateur.

Visitors and comments are very welcome. If you post comments on old posts I might never see them, so go ahead and make fun of me in them - I'll never see it. I do try to check and respond to comments on recent posts.

If you want to email me, please go ahead: schmidtb98 (at) yahoo.com

Cheers,
Brian