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TRY TELLING THAT TO THE CLERK OF THE WEATHER, boys and girls: The forecast for northern parts of Minnesota into eastern North Dakota (as in the Red River Valley) calls for Snow Advisories or Winter Storm Watches, depending on the region.

With between 8-12" of snow (you read that right--snow!) likely in such areas as have already been saturated from previous snow melts, meaning that any snow melt ensuing from this fresh batch could translate into flooding later on along the Red River of the North and tributaries such as the Red Lake and Wild Rice rivers. And also the headwaters of the Mississippi as it issues forth from Lake Itasca.

As if that weren't enough, flood advisories or warnings have been issued for much of Iowa, northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin thanks to flooding aggravated by recent rainfall already making saturated ground all the more so, in its turn delaying (and seriously) spring field work among farmers and planters alike.

All this, and April about to segue into May!

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IT'S HARD TO DISCERN A SERIOUS INTERRELATIONSHIP HERE, but when you get right down to it, Iraqi Shi'a firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr is urging his groupies to continue supporting an ongoing ceasefire in the continuing misadventures in ur-RAHOWA officially packaged as a War on Terrorism.

Meanwhile, Baghdad's Sadr City district, a major base of support for al-Sadr-affiliated groups, is being reduced to nothing less than Third World slum status, thanks to lack of decent power, water and sewerage service, want of proper trash collection and deteriorating infrastructure--and Sadr City's residents, in the main poor, undereducated and easily-influenced, will no doubt be quick to blame the United States Occupation Forces for making the situation in Sadr City worse.

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STAYING WITH THE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" AMERICANS AND ITS MISADVENTURES IN THE MIDDLE EAST FOR A MOMENT, Your Correspondent understands where the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expressing reservations @ claims from His Fraudulency's Great Within about the North Koreans providing assistance, technical and otherwise, to the Syrians in developing a super-secretive facility for compounding and developing atomic weapons.

Until the Zahal (as in the Israeli Defence Forces, using their Hebrew acronym) came along and destroyed the compound in a super-secret air raid last summer.

In particular the excesses of paranoia being used by we "morally superior" Americans to whip up hatred for the North Koreans.

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EXPECT THIS KIND OF STUFF TO PREDOMINATE AMONG "RETIREMENT SAVINGS FUNDS" SUPPLANTING STATE SOCIAL SECURITY as target the working poor and other unable to find work without assistance from targeted programmes:

Several share issues on the Shanghai bourse have attracted the attention of what the official media dismisses as "gamblers" seeking a quick profit in the manner of pre-Great Depression "bucket shops" as were no better than thinly-disguised gaming houses taking wagers on share prices.

Case in point, per the BBC: Xijin Mining, a Chinese gold-mining company which released a new issue of shares in Shanghai as were snapped up so quickly by "gamblers" that the price rose 200% on the offering such, prompting market supervisors to briefly suspend trading.

And once trading was allowed to resume, the net gain in Xijin Mining's Shanghai issue would be 90% on the initial offer. (BTW, Xijin Mining is also traded in Hong Kong.)

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AS IF HIGH FUEL PRICES, INFLATION AND HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GRAND DELUSION OF "ECONOMIC STIMULATION" PAYMENTS perhaps encouraging wasteful and non-essential consumer spending weren't good enough reasons to consider online shopping ... then what will?

Especially among the cybermallrat crowd.

Which is prompting Your Correspondent to offer the following suggestions for your online shopping when it comes to office supplies (and yes, he would appreciate your patronage):

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AND SPEAKING OF THE ONLINE SHOPPING @ THIS WEBLOG, Your Correspondent has started thinking about making the situation a little easier by launching a separate and dedicated "online mall" through another free webpage host, the better to accomodate more online e-tailers and offer a wider selection without needlessly delaying the weblog download.

Which would still have designs on donating a part of the proceeds Your Correspondent can collect to Some Good Causes, in case you needed a reason to shop online in the first place (especially the kind of social consciousness). And the motivation therefor, no doubt, being as I have mentioned before: Viz., to supplement what I get in disability benefit from Social Security, inasmuch as I have Serious Psychoemotional Conditions precluding more traditional employment (in case any of you get any ideas).

After all, I am not the kind to take too easily for disreputable "make-money-fast" scams as serve to exploit the vulnerable like myself through formula-written "turnkey" webpages heavy on glowing generalities via suspiciously-glowing-sounding testimonials.

In any case, your thoughts on the idea would be appreciated, and can be left in the comments section or otherwise by e-mailing moi.