High Masculine Tones

... but a more accurate headline might read:

US Credibility Around the World Shot to Shit Long Ago

On a vaguely related personal note, we've finally cancelled our weekly subscription to the Sunday New York Times and I never thought that cutting off an information feed could feel so good. The Times has to be the single most overrated publication in all of journalism, and the Sunday issue is a monument to irrelevance. Bloated by ads, choking on smug self-importance, enthralled by iconic status, it barely bothers with reporting -- preferring to reprint press releases, lightly embroidered with weenie hand-wringing, awash in grown-up conventional wisdom. The Sunday New York Times is prime beachfront property on the east coast of Catatonia.

Lizzy Winstead got it right in a recent New York Observer profile, noting that The Times acts "like a celebrity who gets pregnant -- expounding on things everyone already knows as if they were the first to discover them."

There's about twenty minutes of reading in a typical Sunday edition: the Magazine is OK, and Frank Rich is usually worth a look. I never miss Tom Friedman, whose bombastic drivel drives me to such a rage that the aftereffect is somehow galvanic. But the worthy bits are easily accessed for free online. How many tall, noble trees must sacrifice their existence to this epic of inanity? It lands on our porch in early morning hours, and wakens us with its sickening leaden thud, a corpse dumped by careless assassins... and man oh man, the stench is unbearable.

9 drawings done by an artist under the influence of LSD, part of a test conducted in the late 1950's by the US government in the course of its extensive experimentation with psychedelics. "The artist was given a dose of LSD 25 and free access to an activity box full of crayons and pencils. His subject is the medico that jabbed him."

4 hours 25 minutes after first dose.

Patient retreated to the bunk, spending approximately 2 hours lying, waving his hands in the air. His return to the activity box is sudden and deliberate, changing media to pen and water colour.

'This will be the best drawing, Like the first one, only better. If I'm not careful I'll lose control of my movements, but I won't, because I know. I know' - (this saying is then repeated many times).

Patient makes the last half-a-dozen strokes of the drawing while running back and forth across the room.

Via elearnspace

Tripped-out family-friendly photos make up a special holiday posting on Harry's page.

...like all the others. But I can't. This one is from Environment Canada:

Fires and avalanches in British Columbia, drought and locusts on the Prairies, blackouts in Ontario, flash floods in Quebec, hurricanes in the Maritimes and ice floods in Newfoundland - the stuff of biblical scriptures or Hollywood catastrophes? No, it's our nation's annual weather report.

While Canada has had years with more destructive and deadlier weather, rarely have we seen a year with such a variety of weather disasters month-after-month and from coast-to-coast.

The year 2003 will be remembered for the relentless, unstoppable weather events not only in Canada, but around the world. Thousands died from winter cold in Asia and tens of thousands from summer heat in Europe...

Given what happened in 2003, more people than ever became convinced that global warming is real. Climatologists believe that although extreme weather is very much a part of normal climate, during changing climate extreme weather events become more frequent and intense. And while we can't say that the increased weather frequency and severity can be directly linked to a warmer world, we can say it is certainly consistent with our expectations of climate change.

The prose is a prime example of sober GovernmentScientistSpeak, which translates roughly into "you ain't seen nothing yet, folks." And what sort of stuff can we expect more of in the future? Drum roll please...

Top Ten Weather Stories For 2003

1. BC's Year of Disastrous Weather - fires, floods and freezes

2. Hurricane Juan and Hurricane "Juannabes"

3. A Long, Cold Winter Grips Eastern Canada

4. Canada Ablaze from Ontario to the Okanagan

5. Endless Drought in the Prairies

6. Atlantic Canada's Most Expensive Rainstorm

7. New Brunswick's Ice Storm of A Century

8. A Record Year of Deadly Avalanches

9. Alberta Spring Whitewashers

10. Ice Age in Badger

Too bad we can't afford the economic costs of trying to address climate change. The grown-ups are in charge.