Back in the realm of the living. Notes from my multi-faceted absence:

William Connolley has a good rundown on the Moberg et al. paper with the latest version of the hockey stick. Is it me, though, or is anyone else out there frustrated by the fact that most of the mental energy associated with the discussion of this fascinating paper involves its place in the climate wars rather than its abilty to shed light on climate? All of the most interesting science must be framed in terms of its place in the debate, rather than its place in our understanding of climate.

Sick, and lacking any good computer games to occupy my mind (my old Sim City 2000 just couldn't hack it), I turned to PyGTK and DV's libxml python bindings, and whacked together a little app to better keep track of a whole bunch of my writing.

When I don't exercise, I start to feel sickly. When I'm as sick as I was over the last week, I can't exercise. You see the problem. This morning I hauled the bike out of the garage, set it up on the trainer, and rode for half an hour, staring at the heart monitor the entire time. My lungs did not appreciate it, but the rest of my body seemed to be rejoicing under the load. I imagine these complex metabolic pathways that have been built over the years of training getting all stopped up like debris clogging a rain gutter. This morning I broke through the debris.