I'll take Potpurri for 800 Alex

While the ADDers, preteens, other gamers, and people who simply don't know any better are drowning in the saliva of their own nervous breakdowns over Halo 3, I'm starting to get pretty excited about Unreal Tournament 3. Its the Cadillac of FPS and the latest instalment is raising my blood pressure because the editor is being ported to MAC finally so I can make a U of S map or perhaps virtually kill people from all over the globe in a rendered version of Saskatoon's Broadway Ave.

Sunday Suz and I will be making perhaps our last hike of the year as snow has been our third wheel last two outings. I've posted most of this years trips on another blog which is mostly finished, I'll drop the URL when its more done. We're hoping to tackle the Wasootch Ridge as long as the snow doesn't impede us. We're not ones to cower from snow but its actually pretty dangerous unless you have crampons. I'm excited about taking an avalanche course in November so I can prowl the backcountry in safety.

Big news out in Calgary is the Royalty Review Board's conclusion that oil & gas royalties should be hiked by 20%. Its looking like the province will adopt their findings which is proving to be a thorny issue for Encana which is threatening to pull a couple billion in investment next year. There is of course no correct percentage. Instead it seems that the government wants to get as much as it can without disrupting too much economic activity. With such loose parameters you can imagine that all players are struggling to construct logical arguments supporting some percentage or another. In fact there are no logical arguments on either side. Considering that the oil isn't going anywhere if Encana doesn't want to suck it out, I wouldn't be too worried about their threats. Incidentally, the province experienced the same gloom from the industry back in the 1950s and again in the 70s when the royalty was introduced and later hiked.
Their childish threats though are unfortunately easy for me to forgive what with Encana building this cool half "u" shaped skyscraper downtown. Its going to be 800 feet tall and will be the tallest outside Toronto. Its no Burj Dubai but its pretty cool.

Driving through Calgary tonight on our way to see Superbad I found myself praying to Turnicus Lefticon, Roman God of Opportunity.

My endeavours in the world of haute finance (Suz is brilliant!) have been much muted of late. Summers' volatility has made me rather gun shy but perhaps when the sun vacates in the long winter months, I will feel a greater urge to sit in front of my computer screen for an extra hour a day.

From my last post, you might be able to guess that I spent an entire Friday night on Youtube watching all the bizarre clips from the 1970s Sesame Street I grew up on. Strange animated odes to numbers like some sort of Pythagorean Renaissance, involved vignettes about the letter W. The whole show struck my adult brain as an effective OCD factory. I was also left wondering if I was part of some sort of experimental generation? And was the experiment a success?

no expiry date on foolishness

Brrr... it is chilly

The Times, February 24, 1895
"Geologists Think the World May Be Frozen Up Again" Fears of a "second glacial period" brought on by increases in northern glaciers and the severity of Scandinavia's climate.

New York Times, October 7, 1912
"Prof. Schmidt Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age"

Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1923
"The possibility of another Ice Age already having started ... is admitted by men of first rank in the scientific world, men specially qualified to speak."

Chicago Tribune, August 9, 1923
"Scientist says Arctic ice will wipe out Canada."

Time Magazine, September 10, 1923
"The discoveries of changes in the sun's heat and the southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age."

New York Times, September 18, 1924
"MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age"

Mmmm - nice and sunny...

New York Times, March 27, 1933
"America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise"

Time Magazine, January 2, 1939
"Gaffers who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right.... weather men have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer."

Time Magazine, 1951
Noted that permafrost in Russia was receding northward at 100 yards per year.

New York Times, 1952
Reported global warming studies citing the "trump card" as melting glaciers. All the great ice sheets stated to be in retreat.

U.S. News and World Report, January 18, 1954
"[W]inters are getting milder, summers drier. Glaciers are receding, deserts growing."

Oops, getting nippy again...

Time Magazine, June 24, 1974
"Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age."

Christian Science Monitor, August 27, 1974
"Warning: Earth's Climate is Changing Faster than Even Experts Expect"
Reported that "glaciers have begun to advance"; "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter"; and "the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool".

Science News, March 1, 1975
"The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed, and we are unlikely to quickly regain the 'very extraordinary period of warmth' that preceded it."

Newsweek, April 28, 1975
"The Cooling World"
"There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now."

International Wildlife, July-August, 1975
"But the sense of the discoveries is that there is no reason why the ice age should not start in earnest in our lifetime."

New York Times, May 21, 1975
"Scientists Ponder Why World's Climate is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable"

Oh my god, we are, like, so totally fucked...

Earth in the Balance, Al Gore, 1992
"About 10 million residents of Bangladesh will lose their homes and means of sustenance because of the rising sea level due to global warming, in the next few decades."

Time Magazine, April 19, 2001
"[S]cientists no longer doubt that global warming is happening, and almost nobody questions the fact that humans are at least partly responsible."

New York Times, December 27, 2005
"Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons to Relax About New Warming"

The Daily Telegraph, February 2, 2006
"Billions will die, says Lovelock, who tells us that he is not usually a gloomy type. Human civilization will be reduced to a 'broken rabble ruled by brutal warlords,' and the plague-ridden remainder of the species will flee the cracked and broken earth to the Arctic, the last temperate spot where a few breeding couples will survive."

from http://daveslife.instantspot .com/blog/index.cfm/2007/2/14 /The-Earth-is-Flat-Humans-Are -Heating-Up-the-Earth-and -other-science

--
with thanks to Vin

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