aaand coming down the home stretch ...

"It was a battered yellow Citroen 2CV which had had one careful owner but also three suicidally reckless ones."
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams



A Panda Leads the Mongol Rally! As of the date of this post, Team Mongol Mary (a fiat) is in the lead, almost to the border of Mongolia.

Go pandas go!

Summer Swelter
Aside from the awesome Rally, which really should be televised next year (hellOO, travel channel???) summer break is in full swing at pandodssey (tm)hq. (And by "break" I mean I'm still coming to work, just trying not to do any). I blame global warming.

In the Post today:

22 Cities Join Clinton Anti-Warming Effort
"Twenty-two of the world's largest cities announced yesterday that they will work together to limit their contributions to global warming in an effort led by former president Bill Clinton.

The Clinton Climate Initiative -- which will create an international consortium to bargain for cheaper energy-efficient products and share ideas on cutting greenhouse gas pollution -- includes Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York as well as Cairo, Delhi, London and Mexico City.

Yay, buuuuut...

"Climate experts said the effort could help but by itself it will not achieve the major reductions needed to curb global warming. Drew Shindell, an atmospheric physicist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said emissions must be cut in half by mid-century to keep Earth's temperature from reaching dangerous levels. "They can make progress, but it will be quite limited, I would think," Shindell said."

Which leads me to a question a coworker and I discussed recently:

IS global warming just an unusual but normal weather trend (like the Ice Age)?
Or is man really to blame for altering the Earth's climate? (It's hotter today in NYC than in most of TX! Why?)

If the former, this is a good time to start thinking about the possibilty that the latter could happen. If it really is the latter though, put your tray tables in the upright position, put your head between your knees and kiss your Earth goodbye! Doom & gloom is a heck of a lot more frightening when it comes from a scientist, as opposed to a politician.

There's just no way to know for certain which it is, until it's too late ... eeeek!