Condolences to the HaintOps and family

Yesterday Tigger, beloved cat-familar and friend of Cara the HaintOps passed into eternity. Tigger had developed liver failure. She will be greatly missed by her co-cat Boo, her dog-brothers Darwin and Zeus, and of course her humans, Cara and Ryan and their children Dane and Lily (also known as the HaintGirl for those of you who've come to local booksignings).

My deepest sympathy for your loss and my highest praise for how you and your family are handling this very necessary part of life, death.

Global warming -- its too late

From Common Dreams comes this definitely uncheery report that there is no way to reverse the climactic changes we're seeing now due to global warming. Seems that about 120 scientists from 11 countries have been working on a study for 20 years investigating the changes and the findings are not pretty. According to their findings, we can't stop our bad behaviours fast enough.

Here's a short quote from the article first printed in the Canadian Press:


One of the most surprising for David Barber, a sea ice specialist at the University of Manitoba, was the fact polar ice is melting at a rate of about 74,000 square kilometres each year - an area about the size of Lake Superior - and has been for the last 30 years.

"This is a very significant result, and it's not some sort of trend that's going to shift back the other way," Barber said Tuesday.

Barber added there is increasing concern in the scientific community that there are factors actually speeding up the melt, but he cautions it's too late to reverse the trend.
"The time to act actually was a few decades ago," he said.

"We're not going to be able to shift the economies of the planet to get off this fossil fuel addiction in a week, a year or a decade. But we have to start the process now to have some stability for future generations."

So much for the Bush administration's assertions that global warming can be dealt with by new technologies. File this one under the, "we should have noticed when the armadillos started moving north" category. Too bad. It was such a nice planet...

Dealing Dogs on HBO

If you haven't heard about it, HBO's new documentary Dealing Dogs throws much needed light on the very ugly side of the dog business, puppy mills. If you've ever wondered if the puppy mills are really THAT bad, check out this film. I haven't seen it but living in Missouri I've seen and heard of the evil incarnate that are those who cruelly breed dogs just to make money.

As I look at my "furkids," I cannot even imagine how completely rotted away at the core those breeders featured in this film must be to treat dogs with such hatred and cruelty.

I hate to think what sort of lives await these "people."

NOT on the lighter side --British scientists say we have 2 decades to make changes or else before global warming causes tragic repercussions

The world must halt greenhouse gas emissions and reverse them within two decades or watch the planet spiralling towards destruction, scientists said on Monday.

We're down to it according to leading scientists. No more wishy-washy "maybes" according to the guys who know. For more information check out this article from Reuters on Truthout.

Synchronicity is all around us, isn't it? Just this week I got an email from a reader on the East Coast who said that while she was reading Haint, the weather was much warmer than normal and the wind blew incessantly. She said it really set the tone for her reading of Haint. For those of you who've read it, you'll recognize why.