First the "bad news". Al Qaida is attempting to thwart the financial market with viruses. Yeah, right! Do they even know that much assembly? They're just enjoying pulling our chain, and watching the more gullible part of America shudder at their every cue. Everything I've seen out of them is so very low tech that this claim gets preposterous fast.
But on the up-side, the El Niño effect stands to deliver more snow than usual where I live out in the Southwest, and much less up North where people generally already get enough and hate to shovel it. Here's Accuweather's predictions for the 2006/2007 season:
Hallelujah for those of us who ski Mammoth, Squaw Valley, Heavenly, Brian Head, Sunrise, and Telluride. Extra good news for Purgatory, Taos and basically everything in New Mexico since predictions are for 150% of the normal snowfall! I just went out to the annual Warren Miller movie last night and scored some lift tickets to Telluride, so I'm definitely in the mood for powder.