h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'Duane P. Snyder will announce the discovery of the first and only known ICE METEORITE containing EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE-FORMS on November 30, 2010 at 10:00am at the Ramada Inn Conference Center, 1555 Phoenix Road, South Haven, MI 49090.'

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ice-meteorite-found-with-extraterrestrial-life-forms-109640729.html


Something tells me the actual announcement will be a disappointment.

Are the lifeforms microscopic? If they really are extraterrestrial, this will be an amazing discovery. Are the lifeforms alive or dead?

I will be so disappointed if First Contact has been made by somebody called ... Duane.

I don't believe a word of it.
This 'fell' ten years ago and they are just now
publicizing it?
and how does ice survive the heat of entering our atmosphere?
My guess is this fell off a plane somewhere.

I can just imagine what *part* of the plane it fell from.

According to Wiilam Shatner's new show, Weird or What, the increasing
incidence of huge watermellon-sixed ice falls is not from aircraft
(the toilets are now self contained) or from space. The changes in
climate, with increasing updrafts of heated air, are keeping frost
particles airborne on the fringes of the upper atmosphere and
colliding with others until they become 'super heavy' and crash down
from 50,000 feet into people's houses and cars. The footage of such
destruction is quite alarming.

~jwf~

India's richest man lives in a pile of books.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11854177

Canadian Football League championship game here today. Temperatures expected to be around -12 Celsius. But the fans won't have to sit in snow: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/football/story/2010/11/27/sp-shovelling-commonwealth.html

Those are called IcyBMs and they're very dangerous.

Anhaga - when snow hits games here, the fans volunteer to clear the pitch and around the stadium.

For free.

Do they volunteer for that when it's -25 Celsius?

In any case, "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past"

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

"Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries."

heh!

They did last year when it was -15. Our club simply couldn't afford to pay 60+ people the equivalent of $15 an hour to clear snow

'fewer white Christmases'

It's not unheard of for my neighbourhood to have a dry, brown Christmas rather than a white one. Of course, it may be a -30 Christmas with no snow.

, swl.

Of course, this one *is* the national championship of the top professional league and the stadium seats over 60, 000 and we had quite a lot of snow over the last week or so.

Willie Nelson, 77, arrested for possession:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8166118/Willie-Nelson-charged-with-cannabis-possession.html


Which puts me in mind of this little ditty by a favourite band...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j0OXcObml0

Well I don't know if I'm coming or going
If it's them or me
Oh, but one things for certain
Willie Nelson only smokes killer weed

I doubt that snow will disappear from Massachusetts winters in my lifetime.

"Journalist writes crap about global warming shock!"

RF

...as reported in the Daily Mash:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/201011253286/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cable-leak-diplomacy-crisis

interesting, anyone fancy being wikileaks' chances of survival?

"The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year."