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Dear Editorbeing,

This article is submitted by Doc Logger (163/110) who was busy dodging speed traps on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. Fortunately, the drogue chutes on the mid-life Crisis car opened long enough to haul him to a stop near a telephone booth. With only minor adjustments with C4 plastique, an acetylene torch, and Lee-Anne Rimes music, he was able to extract a working pair of phone wires to connect to the modem.

Roll da flic, Zorch.....

Dear Reverend Visage,

I have heard disturbing reports that you have traveled to the headwaters of the Orinoco where you have been engaged in a yage bender which has lasted for weeks. I am sure that I don't need to remind you that when you reach one of your tryptamine moments of delirium, you tend to scream about hordes of attacking ducks. I can only hope that your secretary is still an excellent shot with the curare dart gun.

Speaking of paralyzed beasts, Visage, you'd be impressed that Bob "noted" Satti has remained in stasis...waiting patiently for a thought to wander through the lonely desert of his cerebrum. He has informed the Fidoserfs in Z1C that dealing with Kohl's excesses requires devoting all night, every night, trying to muster a coherent thought. Our prayers and our edible underwear (cheesecake flavoured) should go out to him in his hour of need.

The messages from the tribal drums were garbled, but it appears that an election for RC has been called in Region10. The indications are that the nominating period will have closed 48 hours after the announcement which is pretty amusing since it takes at least that long for echomail to escape the event horizon of the screwed up mail distribution system in the region. There are already vague rumblings that the fix is in, and that this is another shotgun mandate of the type particularly favoured by Satti & his Merry Fartcatchers. What is amazing is that the other RCs (with a few notable exceptions) appear to have no shame or decency and have sat idly on their thumbs while Satti & Kohl proceed in the trashing of a whole region.

If there is an election in Region10 which is sanctioned by Satti, then this bodes well for applying the same principle to have the ZC finally stand for election. Satti doesn't have a prayer of obtaining a sysop level mandate which probably explains his desire to keep scampering beneath the skirts of policy whenever he is reminded that his presumptive powers are all in the infertile reaches of his imagination.

I see that His Zorchness is getting excitable about the Evil Empire aspirations of John Souvestre and has made his usual incorrect statements about the ELIST in his latest editorial. This discussion has reinvigorated the usual cretinous jackals who question whether His Zorchness should be the Snoozlord. One of the combatants went so far as to suggest that the previous editor appointed His Zorchness to the position which I'd bet half my stuffed armadillo collection that the claim has little basis in fact. Hell, the only one who has a prayer of being more fun as the Snoozlord would be Bob Moravsik who would have to learn to write in English before taking the job.

I don't think I'll include a pithy quote for this week's Chautauqua but rather draw from several passing references to books that have mulched their way to the top of my reading pile. When I was a teenmonster I used to read science fiction that often referred to terraforming whole planets. This generally involved a presumed betterment of the habitation factor for the humanoid race, and often neglected to deal with the consequences to other lessor lifeforms. Rarer still was a philosophical discussion about whether the humanoids had the moral right to terraform anything.

The first tidbit that caught my eye was that some of the hydro megaprojects have subtly altered the orbital period of the earth. In other words, the masses of water backed up behind some of the larger dams have been sufficient to change the centre of gravity of the whole planet. The second tidbit was the vast scale of underwater grading of the seabed caused by trawler ships. In some places, such as the Grand Banks area off the east coast of North America, what had once been an underwater topography of rolling hills, valleys and cliffs, have been flattened to uniformity. The scale is equivalent to bulldozering an area the size of Montana into a level plain. The third scrap of information that I've chosen for inclusion in my puzzle is the fact that some of the lushest rainforests also occupy land which is almost infertile by botanical standards. The Amazon basin, for example, which covers an enormous area, has a very thin soil covering. A typical slash & burn agricultural intrusion generally lasts only a few years before the soil is exhausted. The fragile soil chemistry means that recovery from clearing, or reforestation are unlikely or implausible.

There is compelling evidence to suggest that the desiccation of the Sudan in Africa, and the expansion of the Kalahari to the southeast, are directly caused by the agricultural pressures of humanoids. If this process becomes the pattern in the Amazon the effects on global weather will be enormous. Similarly, the destruction of the Grand Banks ecology will have effects on global sea currents.

I think I would have preferred to remain blissfully ignorant of the consequences of human alterations of the planet. My focus has been obtained from the strange weather we've been having in this part of the world. Our winter brought us an ice storm which ripped down trees and hydro lines. The broken tangles of trees in the local forests will almost surely make for forest fire conflagrations in the fall. We are also currently suffering from an extended drought. I find it intellectually unsatisfying to blame El Nino for these atmospheric events. With that in mind, and taking a whole chapter from His Zorchness' book, I'd like to call about John Souvestre right now to stop screwing around with the earth. If His Zorchness is to be believed, Souvestre's reach is so enormous that he *must* be responsible.

I must go Visage, I'm scheduled to go fly fishing for Blue Whales off the coast of Newfoundland with Bridgit Bardot. She's a bit squeamish about baiting the hooks with chunks of tofu and needs my assistance.

Regards,
Doc Logger,
In transit:
South Armpit, New Brunswick