Thankfully, Rita didn't get a chance to stall over Texarkana as originally forecast. A front from the west scattered it into a north-south line to be pushed off the east coast. So, it appears we dodged the Mississippi and Ohio valley flooding for now.

I'm still watching the climate and geologic factors. I wouldn't be surprised to see another major hurricane develop before the season ends officially in November.

Some potentiality is still brewing for around October 8th. I'm still not sure what, but part of me feels like I am 'bracing' for it (though not for me personally). The rest of me is simply sure that there will be (Earth) work to do at that time, and frankly, it's exciting to help with it.

Three independent sources have brought a new report to my attention concerning statistics on melting polar ice. In reference to the amount of ice: "In 2005, it's the lowest on record. We've watched it retreat year after year." "New satellite photos show that the ice pack has shrunk by 30% since 1978 ((when we started satellite monitoring)) and the melting is speeding up causing the warmest summer in 400 years." "With studies showing increasing hurricane intensity over the past 30 years linked to rising sea temperatures, and recent record heat waves in North America, a growing number of scientists say it's all interconnected." phht Yes, of course it's all connected.

"[The melting] has the potential for raising sea level very significantly. We're not talking about sea level rise just in the Arctic. We're talking about sea level rise around the globe, so everybody is going to experience it, particularly regions that have low lying areas."

Their predictions on when we might see significant rise vary from 25 to 100 yrs, but I'm thinking it will become consistently problematic much sooner. I hate to jump on the 2012 bandwagon, but the marker is somewhere between here and there, imo. I would expect big changes in the shape of North America to occur -by- 2012. The Earth is rebalancing and that means a lot of moving and shaking to get there.