Winter is a comin' soon

An early cold spell in LipsYard made for some spectacular pictures. Here the steam rises off the Burning bush (Euonymus alata) and the Sand Cherry (Prunus x cistena.)

















Our feathered friends had a heck of a time getting a drink or taking a dip in the ice covered bird bath nestled among the Evergreen Bittersweet (Euonymus Vegetus) and Flowering tobacco (Nicotiana.) You can even see the frost on the lawn (Festuca glauca.) A precursor to the Winter ahead, just as the bomb test in North Korea could be a precursor to Nuclear (not noo' cue ler!) Winter that could be facing our little planet. Keep sabre rattling and posturing instead of sitting down and talking and a sore beak and a slippery slide on the butt will be the least of our (and the bird's) worries.

Here's the beginning of a disturbing article to be published in the October 15, 2006 New York Times by David Sanger and William J. Broad.

The declaration last Monday by North Korea that it had conducted a successful atomic test brought to nine the number of nations believed to have nuclear arms. But atomic officials estimate that as many as 40 more countries have the technical skill, and in some cases the required material, to build a bomb.

That ability, coupled with new nuclear threats in Asia and the Middle East, risks a second nuclear age, officials and arms control specialists say, in which nations are more likely to abandon the old restraints against atomic weapons.

The spread of nuclear technology is expected to accelerate as nations redouble their reliance on atomic power. That will give more countries the ability to make reactor fuel, or, with the same equipment and a little more effort, bomb fuel — the hardest part of the arms equation.

Signs of activity abound. Hundreds of companies are now prospecting for uranium where dozens did a few years ago. Argentina, Australia and South Africa are drawing up plans to begin enriching uranium, and other countries are considering doing the same. Egypt is reviving its program to develop nuclear power.

Concern about the situation led the International Atomic Energy Agency to summon hundreds of government officials and experts from around the world to Vienna in September to discuss tightening restrictions on who can produce nuclear fuel.

“These dangers are urgent,” Sam Nunn, an expert on nuclear proliferation and a former Democratic senator, told the group. “We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe and, at this moment, the outcome is unclear.”

link to article