Here's a recipe for a hard-to-fall-asleep night. Watched "Mega-Disasters" on the History International channel, the episode on Ice Ages past and future. The so-called Little Ice Age lasted from the late 1300's till 1900. This is little? It was instrumental in the devastation caused by the plague, favoring the creatures who could breed quickly -- and I say "Rats!" to that. Fast forward to New York at the end of the 19th century, when people could walk from Long Island to Staten Island. Well, maybe they skated.

An earlier Ice Age may have played a role in the demise of the Mayan civilization. Which doesn't make any sense to me -- they had hot chocolate to drink. Actually their part of the world had a long lasting drought, the flip side of glacier advancement in the northern hemisphere. Next came scenes of projected calamity, global warming leading to global cooling. In my corner of the globe, that plus multiple bowls of ice cream lead to body cooling. And blanket huddling. And a propensity toward penguin graphics.