January 05, 2004
Snow, snow, snow.
It's snowing almost everywhere in Oregon tonight, and has been for the last week or so. Which is very unusual for Eugene and the southern Willamette valley. Causing quite a few problems I guess, but most folks seem to be just hunkering down and enjoying it. Had a genuine white Christmas even.
As a southern California boy, it's a bit of a switch for me, but I must say it's awfully beautiful, especially up in the mountains outside Eugene which is where I am. And not that cold either, just down into the 20s so far. There was supposed to be a really cold Arctic front moving down here, but I guess it didn't get much farther than Portland.
Hope it doesn't last too long, if for no other reason than that I need to get off the mountain and get down into the city and do some stuff, and that mountain road could be a bit tricky when it's icy. But in the meantime, the view is great, so "let it snow, let it snow..."
Eugene Register-Guard article, Valley feels chill of rare snow.
Instead of the gloppy, wet "graupel-type" flakes that usually tumble out of Western Oregon skies, these were delicately filigreed crystals of the kind you probably imagined as a kid, then crafted with scissors and typing paper in hand.
In official snow taxonomy, they're called "stellar crystals," one of 10 types of snowflakes that scientists have so far identified. And it may be years before they reach the Willamette Valley floor again.
"When you see them fall, it's really quite beautiful," Libbrecht said. "You look up at your windshield and see a bunch of little stars."
 permalink, posted by mike on Monday, January 5, 2004 at 08:52 PM
August 14, 2003
3,000 die in French heat wave.
Via the LA Times and AP is this report on the effects in France of the devastating heat wave hitting Europe and other places this summer.
About 3,000 people have died in France of heat-related causes since abnormally high temperatures swept across the country about two weeks ago, the health ministry estimated Thursday.
It was the government's first official death toll estimate. One of the few organizations to issue an estimate, France's emergency hospital physicians' association, had earlier this week said the death toll was at least 100.
"We can now state what's happening to us is a veritable epidemic," Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei said on France-Inter radio.
Over the past few days, various city and regional governments had issued death estimates in their areas. The national government said it was working to compile full, nationwide figures.
Morgues and funeral directors have reported skyrocketing demand for their services since the heat wave took hold. General Funeral Services, France's largest undertaker, said it handled some 3,230 deaths from Aug. 6-12, compared to 2,300 on an average week in the year -- a 37 percent jump.
Over 3,000 people? Wow. That's amazing. More people killed by global warming than on 9/11. And this is just France. The same thing seems to be happenng throughout Europe. Pretty frightening.
permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, August 14, 2003 at 09:17 AM
End of entries.
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CATEGORIES
LINKS / BLOGROLL
THE BLOGOSPHERE
Group blogs and centers
Wood s Lot. Maybe the most consistently interesting weblog out there. Superb selections on all sorts of topics, especially art and literature. Tons of links too.
Blog Sisters, a group blog, with a-z links to individuals. More by the ladies at Blogs by Women.
Good community blogs at Boing Boing, Metafilter and Kuro5hin.
The Wibsite, wiblog.com. British bloggers.
Fairvue Central hosts the Bloggies, awards for best weblogs in different categories from all over the world. See the nominees for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 (in progress).
Iraqi blogs
Today in Iraq.
A Family in Baghdad.
Baghdad Burning.
Healing Iraq.
Salam Pax.
G in Baghdad.
Ishtar talking.
The Mesopotamian.
Iraq at a glance.
Hammorabi.
Nabil's blog.
Baghdadee.
Fayrouz.
Iraq the model.
Iraq and Iraqis.
Road of a nation.
Ihath - Losing myself.
Sun of Iraq.
Back to Iraq.
Individual blogs
Robert Hunter's journal.
Follow Me Here.
Caterina.net.
Avram's journal.
Rebecca's Pocket.
Alas, a Blog.
Weblog Wannabe.
The Rittenhouse Review.
Margaret Cho Blog.
The Oregon Blog.
Angry Bear.
Brad DeLong.
Dohiyi Mir.
Eschaton.
Hullabaloo.
Nathan Newman.
Orcinus.
Steve Gilliard's News Blog.
Tapped.
Tbogg.
Blogging communities
Lists of bloggers in these areas.
Austin, Texas.
Beltway Bloggers, Washington, DC.
Boston, Massachusetts.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Chicago, Illinois.
Dallas Ft. Worth, Texas.
London, United Kingdom.
New York, New York.
San Diego, California.
Seattle, Washington.
St. Louis, Missouri.
Washington, DC.
GENERAL LINKS, NOT BLOGS
News, magazines, reference
The sites where I do my usual news browsing, and get most of my articles and links.
Common Dreams.
Refdesk, info on absolutely everything. A comprehensive newspaper page, listed by US states and countries, and an encyclopedia.
BBC News, BBCi Home, BBC Radio, categories, history topics.
The World News Network, wn.com, gathers news sites from all over the world, country by country.
Wikipedia, online encyclopedia.
The Asian Times.
The Scotsman.
The Moscow Times. Russian perspectives and news. The Russia Post is a World News site with links to other Russian sites.
The Black Commentator.
Aljazeera Net in English.
Outlook India.
GENERAL INTEREST
History, literature, philosophy and other subjects, mostly related to the works in the Galileo Library.
Online Clarity. An I Ching community. Newsletter, readings, etc.
Sacred Books of the East. A 19th century project of eastern literature.
Bartleby.com. Great books online.
Bibliomania. Free online literature and study guides. Lots of classics and reading resources.
THE ARTS
Vincent van Gogh Gallery. Complete paintings and writings, and a nice arts links page. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Bob Dylan, live performances.
Grateful Dead, GD Radio.
David Byrne, radio station.
New Pages. Book and reading related center, lots of alternative publishing links and weblog.
Reading Rat. Reading center with lots of links.
Avid reader web ring.
The Louvre. Other Parisian museums.
The Web Museum, index of artists. Extremely high quality images.
August Rodin web org.
Mark Harden's Artchive.
Emile Kren's Web Gallery of Art.
Artcyclopedia. A fine art search engine. Historical and current, with a nice museum list.
Plagiarist.com poetry archive. Classic and modern plus news, articles, forums, etc. View a random poem.
Rotten Tomatoes. Film center, with collected reviews, ratings and forums.
Aint It Cool News. Movie reviews and previews from a fan's perspective.
Roger Ebert's film reviews.
Scott McCloud. The latest in the world of cartoonists.
YouTube. Video center.
MILD EROTICA
Domai.com. Eolake Stobblehouse's extraordinary, and extremely tasteful, paean to pretty girls, updated daily. Nudity yes, sex definitely not. Nice general purpose links too.
Simple nudes. Lots of links.
Vintage nudes. Pin-ups and other classics.
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