Skating Away

Silly doubters, we all should have known that Our Noble Lame Duck really understood the big picture and was looking out for us all. Global warming? Don't you see, we had to bring that about. Not to open lots of new uphill real estate markets, but to plug a natural loophole that allows unstopped border crossings, i.e. smuggling. The G.G.W. told us yesterday:

For the first time that anyone in Put-in-Bay could remember, the Great Lakes were ice-free in the middle of winter. Even Lake Erie, the shallowest of the five lakes and usually the first to freeze over, was clear.

"There's essentially no ice at all," said George Leshkevich, a scientist who has studied Great Lakes ice for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, since 1973. "I've never seen that."

The unusually warm weather has upset the routine for hundreds of people who live year-round on islands in Lake Erie. ...

Once the lake freezes, islanders organize impromptu ice rallies. Families gather to drink hot wine and race all-terrain vehicles across the lake. ...

"We'll drive across the lake to Canada, have a cocktail, then turn around and come home," says Kendra Koehler, editor of the monthly Put-in-Bay Gazette.