Nice Weather Wedged Inbetween Wetness

It was interesting to see showers and thunderstorms in greater concentrations yesterday move north through Kentucky, and south closer to the Gulf coast past us. A few showers popped up inbetween across the area.
Today here comes a fairly solid mass of rain and some embedded thunder right down the middle across the Tennessee Valley. Looks like this will last into early afternoon and then move out. Average rainfall amounts will probably end up between 1/4" to 1/2" today, with some locally heavier amounts across NE Alabama, and North Georgia. Looks like I won't get the lawn cut today. (Evil laugher as lawn changes to yawn = naptime. Ha ha. Nothing like a nap when there's a gentle rain outside.)
Thursday and Friday look great with mostly sunny skies and very comfortable weather. (Perfect weather for the hammock. Lawn can wait.)
That nice weather is wedged inbetween today's rain and what's to come this weekend. Looks like rain and thunderstorms will start moving in Saturday morning and could last until Sunday morning. But Sunday afternoon does not appear to be a bargain. Mostly cloudy skies and some spotty showers may still spin overhead with this system throughout the afternoon hours.
(So if I don't get to it Friday, lawn won't get done until Monday. Which fits in with my procrastination schedule perfectly.)
Did anyone read the Perspective section from this past Sunday's Chattanooga Times Free Press?
Interesting commentary from Nicholas Kristof on global warming and methane hydrates which lie on and below the world's sea floor. I saw a great special on methane hydrates on the Discovery Science Channel awhile back. They were showing how oil companies are trying to safely extract this fuel source. Deep remotely operated vehicles are being used in this exploration. Fascinating stuff.
Kristof's article was zeroing in on the thawing of frozen methane hydrates causing a sudden release of methane that would cause a climate bang, and you guessed it, cable re-runs of "American Idol" would be pre-empted by the total destruction of everything we know. Of course the culprits are in Kristof's mind, President Bush and all of us driving around willy-nilly putting out greenhouse gases.
As evidence Kristof offers this: "One reason for concern about a methane hydrate apocalypse is that something like it may have happened several times in the past. For example, 251 million years ago, there was a catastrophe known as the Permian extinction that came close to wiping out life on earth."
"Nobody is sure what caused the Permian extiction, but one theory is that it was methane burps."
"And as long as I'm fear mongering, there was also a better understood warming 55 million years ago, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. That was a period when temperatures shot up by 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the tropics and by about 15 degrees in polar areas, and many scientists think it was caused by the melting of methane hydrates."
Kristof goes on to say the following:"But our political system doesn't seem able to grapple with scientific issues like climate. Our only hope for firm action would be a major U.S.-led global initiative to curb carbon, and the Bush administration has already dropped the ball on that."
Got that. Ahem, excuse me. According to you Mr. Kristof, the planet got catastrophically hotter 251 million years ago, and at least one other time 55 million years ago. I wonder how many "W" stickers were on the back of carbon belching Ford Expeditions back then?
Look, I love clean air and water. I choose to drive smaller fuel economical vehicles than bigger models that were less fuel efficient and actually cost less. I spent earth day helping pick up trash on the banks of the Tennessee River. The bottom line is this, let's do what we can to conserve resources and keep our air and water clean. But please don't fall off a cliff following the other lemmings when someone says we're all going to fry under the summer sun in January because we don't car pool or don't vote the right or wrong way. This earth has been hot before and cold before. Very hot and very cold. And it all happened without a bunch of crazy legistlation.
End of rant. Thanks for reading, I feel cooler already.