Would you like ice in your drink?

Dan writes: Either date (Oct. 10 or 11) works for me, would prefer the 10th. I'm a little overdone on evolution at this point so would prefer Pielow with the Siberian book reserved for this winter. Doug says any date and any book.

I have just started reading After the Ice Age, The Return of Life to the Glaciated North America by E.C. Pielou, and can report that it's fascinating, but also a little heavy. Lots of graphs of temperature variants over time and a nifty explanation of the Milankovich cycle -- you know, the 105,000 year cycle in the shape of the earth's elliptical orbit mediated by the 41,000 year cycle in the tilt of earth's axis known as the obliquity of the ecliptic and both mediated by the 21,000 year precession of the equinoxes, which charts the movement of the exquinox as it moves forward through the months. All that and that's not even what causes the glacial pre-condition. That she blames on continential drift and the relative position of the continents. So, until something big drifts back south, we'll keep having glaciers. And soon, according to Pielou. If the current glacial cycle were a year from glacial peak to glacial peak, we are already in late September and the next glacial winter is coming as sure as Christmas!