Words fail me: http://co2isgreen.org/

I first read about it here (Guardian) and here (Mother Jones) and here (Washington Post).

“Higher CO₂ levels than we have today would help the earth’s ecosystems and would support more plant and animal life.”

“More CO₂ results in a greener Earth.”

OMFG. We’re doomed.

It’s a good thing I don’t hold an electrician ticket. After today, I think it would be revoked, even though I was a mere accessory before the fact.

I began my morning by tripping a power strip’s breaker after plugging in our little space heater. Not really thinking through the implications, I moved the heater and plugged it into the Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) behind the stereo. A UPS for a stereo is overkill, but at least I haven’t had to reset its clock following one of our multiple power outages. After a short burst of warmth from the heater, the UPS replied with its own burst of unpleasant popping noises, and then the unmistakeable smell of blue smoke.

Abandoning the space heater for something with real destructive potential, I began the day-long ignition-of-the-propane-furnace ceremony. Five minutes after it was lit, the furnace screeched to a halt and showered sparks down on the floor from behind one of its panels. “Now is the time to shut off the propane supply to the house,” I said to myself.

The culprit was a frayed thirty-year-old wire leading into the furnace blower motor. Of all the things that could go wrong with a propane furnace, that’s probably the easiest to repair.

I would also like to add that not a single one of today’s electrical mishaps tripped a main breaker. At least the power strip and UPS sacrificed themselves to prevent further damage. But the sparks flying from the metal box containing explosive gas didn’t seem the least bit noteworthy to the breaker panel. Crikey.

Actual state of thirty-year-old wiring. Makes me wonder how the stuff in the walls is holding up. Short damage is visible at upper-right of motor housing.

For my first programming contract as as a private businessman, I was paid with a moose dinner and a hand-knit Icelandic sweater. I had written a small desktop database program to permit the quick ‘n easy entry of Yukon civil and criminal court case decisions. It would then spit out these decisions in many eye-pleasing formats that would then be bound into thick legal volumes, of the sort most commonly seen lining the studies of late-night TV lawyer commercials.

“Software never rusts” is a saying in my profession, and this program — called caseBase and featuring my little dude in a barrister’s wig and robe as its icon — bears out the saying, generating law library lining to this day.

Since it’s still running, I still support it, but the payment currency has changed somewhat, and for the better:

Six exotic friends in a row.

Now, twelve or twenty-four bottles to a box is a fine thing, but a single bottle in its own box is something rare indeed.

Thanks, Margaret!

I’ve moved the RSS subscription feed to Feedburner, and this is it’s new address:

• http://feeds.feedburner.com/WhatHeSaid

Alternatively, you can receive What He Said postings by e-mail (images don’t seem to be included).

They’re finally making a movie about Jonah, and, yes, that’s the synopsis of the plot. A plot concerning neither his postbellum nor his post-apocalyptic exploits. Instead, the source material is a little known 1990s mini-series in which our holey-cheeked gunslinger scuffles with zombies. My brother got into a scuffle of his own with an Ottawa Comic Book Guy over this very issue.

Of course, with John Malkovich aboard, this thing might just stand a chance.

I call Photoshop!