A-Rod Dealt to North Korea

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From Borowitz:

STEINBRENNER ACQUIRES NUCLEAR WEAPON
Trades Alex Rodriguez to Kim Jong-Il

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner acquired a nuclear weapon today in a transaction that sent slugger Alex Rodriguez and an undisclosed sum of cash to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il.

While national security experts were divided over what possible use Kim might have for the All-Star infielder, there was unanimity of opinion about Mr. Steinbrenner?s plans for his newly-minted nuclear arsenal.

?The warhead that George Steinbrenner has acquired, if deployed on a ballistic missile he already owns, could reach Fenway Park in a matter of minutes,? said Donaldson Tobin of the University of Minnesota.

Hat-tip to my Sis, who is unaccountably rooting for the Sox.

Global Warming Media Hype Destroys Home

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From the AP:

CORDELE, Ga. — A Georgia man facing arson charges for burning his own home is blaming nine or 10 beers, and a disaster movie.

Charles Adams told Crisp County authorities he had been drinking while watching the movie “Day After Tomorrow.”

Adams allegedly told deputies that after watching the special-effects extravaganza depicting deadly natural disasters caused by global warming, he decided to set fire to pillows on his bed.

The flames destroyed his doublewide mobile home.

Picking a Team

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With the Yankees gone, I must now choose a team for the coming world series of baseball.

Watching the Red Sox against the Yankees, I grew a certain grudging respect, so that was a definite possibility. However, Lissa’s late mother, Mary, was from St. Louis – a Cardinals fan. In addition, Lissa suggested she’d smack me if I didn’t root for the Cards.

Fair enough. Cards it is. I love post-season baseball. As Luis said, bring it on.

Back from the Road

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Been travelling. Now I’m back. Saw some rain, some art, learned some fun stuff about snowpack and runoff, and spent far too much time in airports. Remember when airplane travel was an exciting novelty?

Fortune Cookie Peace

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Saturday I blogged about a fortune cookie suggesting that it was up to me to “created the peacefulness” I longed for. An emailer notes the astounding coincidence that he received the exact same fortune at a restaurant in Kalamazoo, Mich. Coincidence? Or has some subversive group taken over the fortune cookie industry, pushing its agenda of fractured grammar and world peace?

Climate and the Dying Trees

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One of the difficulties of understanding climate change is that it’s hard to see it for yourself. The data tells an interesting story, made more interesting by the output of the climate models. But at a visceral level, numbers have a different status in our minds than personal experience.

In September 2002 I drove with Mom and Dad to the Grand Canyon, driving through places I’ve been visiting since I was a kid. I saw the dead trees. They registered.

Now, we know drought kills trees. And we know drought’s been happening on its own here for the entire chunk of the Holocene that we can see through the tree ring record. So I was, in my own mind, having a visceral experience of drought, not any deeper sort of climate change. But peeling the onion back a layer, I’ve come to the realization that more than a simple drought cycle may be at work here, that the warming that has clearly been measured here is playing a role.

It is only in hindsight that we will know whether what I’m seeing now, here on the landscape of the desert southwest, is Climate Change or simply a manifestation of natural decadal-scale variability. That’s the hard thing about the experience of Climate Change – it involves processes over time scales sufficiently long that our own experience may not be the best guide.

But I’ve sure seen a lot of dead trees, and they’ve made me mighty curious. Stuff I wrote elsewhere about this, on climate and New Mexico’s dying trees:

FRIJOLITO MESA? Craig Allen’s trees are dying.

The ponderosa pines are gone completely from this patch of wilderness, and pi?on are not far behind.

Insects have been the executioners, but warming temperatures and drought appear to have pronounced the death sentence, pushing trees to the brink for the bugs to finish off.

Allen, a 46-year-old federal biologist, has been studying the Jemez Mountains for more than two decades. He counts and measures the trees, tracks the growing grass and measures the dirt washing down the gullies, all in an effort to understand the complex interplay between climate and landscape.

Over the past two years, the one-two punch of warm weather and drought has brought extraordinary change.

Riding the Big Ring

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Forgive me, Dano, for I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last confession.

Bicycle with chain on the big ring

For the holy book of Cycling doth say, “When the grapes hath been made wine and the leaves doth fall, thy big chain ring shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of the temptation of the hammer, but ye shall have thy big chain ring in abomination. Neither shalt thou ride with fast paceline in thy big ring as with thy small ring: it is abomination.”

Church sign entreaty

See, the thing is, there’s this sweet little chicane down south of the Bueno chile plant, a pair of curves that dip right and then left. And my flesh is weak, as I slip through the shadows of the cottonwoods, feel the stirring in my legs, and it takes just a twitch of my finger and I am there, riding my big chain ring. Forgive me, for I am weak.

And then there was this paceline, see, that passed me on the bike trail. And they weren’t going that fast, so I tacked on the back. It was mere flirtation, not real speed. What could be so wrong with that? And then the pace started picking up, and there was that stirring in my legs and the twitch of my finger. Forgive me, for I am weak.

And then this morning. This morning the flesh was weakest of all. Out with the guys – you know how that is! – I had every intention of a couple of easy hours, but it was the most glorious fall day, still and cool and fast. And I am so rested! All inhibition gone, the big chain ring was my savior. I know it is a false god, a pleasure of the moment that will be my damnation. What can I say? It turned into an epic ride.

Forgive me, for I am weak.