Bin Laden says~

According to Al Jazeera’s English-language Web site, bin Laden says,

“Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality.”
“All of the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis.”

What a surprise! I don't know what is his real intention beneath, but it must be an interesting twist in climate change talk.

More information can be found at an article in New York Times Web site.

[Webinar series] The Challenge of Getting to 350

I watched new webinar serise about global climate change, which United States Society of Ecological Economics (USSEE) sponsors. Today's speaker was Jonathan Isham Jr., who is an Associate Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. His presentation title was "On Accelerating Large Scale Clean-Energy and Carbon-Sequestration Solutions from 2010 to 2020." He emphasized fundamental change in power and sense of community as a solution.

Next speaker is Michael Woolcock, who is a senior social scientist with the World Bank's Development Research Group, and the title is "Solutions when the Solution is the Problem: Reflections on the Analytics, Politics and Practice of Getting to 350." It will be broadcated at http://thesolutionsjournal.com/seminarserieslive at 11:30-12:45 (EST) February 2, 2010.

I could not find the list of speakers for this year. I guess the webinar serise is weekly event.

Ice fishing for big bass?

I went ice fishing with Capt. M and his co-worker, T. Local lakes were totally frozen, and ice was 8" thick. We fished for yellow perch using wax worm on jig head. We arrived at a lake at 6:30am. It was still dark, and the surface of frozen lake was very slippery because of warm temperature.

Fishing was slow before sun rise, then it picked up. Capt. M used his new gadget, Vexilar (depth and fish finder). It was fun to watch up-and-down movement of fish chasing the bait.


M and T caught more than dozen decent size perches.



Strangely enough, largemouth bass were quite active. We by-catched couple of bass. Weird.


I was kinda bored and wanted to try new things. I hooked shad imitation minnow bait on jighead and jigged. To my surprise, I landed over three pound bass at my first cast. When I was fighting, I worried if the bass is too big to the ice hole. No problem.


Here is another bass with bait on its mouth.


Bass is not the species for ice fishing. But to be honest, bass are more fun to catch than yellow perch and sunnies.

I kept three yellow perches for meal. I made French style steamed perch. It was good.

My favorite BASS Pro angler: Mike Iaconelli

BASSmaster classic is coming soon (Lay Lake — Birmingham, Ala., February 19-21, 2010). It must be a good time to talk about BASS pros. My favorite pro is Mike Iaconelli. Fishing fans' responses are polarized: like him or hate him. People usually do not like his bad-boy attitude. My first impression was just like that when I saw his book cover, "Fishing on the edge".

However, my thought has rapidly changed when I watched his fishing shows. His "hip-hop" image is dramatized in most parts for entertainment. He is very serious about fishing, and he must be one of pro anglers who are open to new development of technology and science. I appreciate that point most. You may want to check his fishing tips at his website.

His fishing show, "City limits" on Versus TV hit bull's eye. In the show, Mike introduced "urban fishing" (I should say that he "re-introduced" because fishing used to be everywhere before). The show firmly caught my eyes because I often fish at Troy section of the Hudson. He fished in Manhattan, Chicago, DC, LA and so on. I hope that he will visit Troy someday soon. Striped bass season will be perfect.

Mike won 2003 bassmaster classic. After that, there was a brief slump in 2007. I guess because of a trouble in his personal life. But except that year he has steadily maintained top records so far. He won 2nd place of 2009 bassmaster classic by couple of oz difference. I will see what he can achieve at 2010 bassmaster classic this year.