Over My Head: I've got work up to here today, and it's all due tomorrow. But I couldn't let the NPR story on melting ice caps slip by. The reporter was discussing the phenomenon of melting Arctic ice cover, which various experts went on to describe with words like "dire" and "alarming." (They never mentioned any actually alarming things, implying either that melting ice is, per se, alarming, or that the listener already knows why this is a bad thing.) Finally, at the end of the story, the reporter cleared up a standard green myth, that melting ice caps would flood coastal cities. No, the reporter said, this won't happen, just as an iced drink doesn't overflow when the ice melts. But, the reporter continued, other bad things could happen.* He then ended his report without mentioning what any of those bad things might be. Again, are we supposed to know? As NPR listeners, are we already convinced of the enormity of (eek!) allowing the planet to change in any way? It's as though someone, somewhere in the bowels of the eco-movement, picked a date -- Earth Day of 1992, for instance -- and decided that the planet was, at that moment, perfect. Any changes from that day forth would be eeeeeevil, and no doubt the fault of corporations, Skull and Bones, and Rupert Murdoch. This is what happens when ludditism goes to college.

* (This is paraphrased for the simple reason that the transcript isn't up, plus NPR makes you pony up for them. Listen for yourself: Go here, click "Archives," find the ice cap story in "Monday's stories.")