Tuesday, June 14, 2011

You're All Doomed

It would appear that w/in just a few yrs. we will be laughing from the medical school or organ bank where we plan to spend our final connected hrs., & those who are still living then will all wish they were under a med student's blade as well.
But for real extremes in 2011, look to Australia, China and the southern US these past few months. In Queeensland, Australia, an area the size of Germany and France was flooded in December and January in what was called the country's "worst natural disaster". It cost the economy up to A$30bn (£19.5bn) in devastated livelihoods and is still being cleaned up.

In China, a "once-in-a-100-years" drought in southern and central regions has this year dried up hundreds of reservoirs, rivers and water courses, evaporating drinking supplies and stirring up political tensions. The government responded with a massive rain-making operation, firing thousands of rockets to "seed" clouds with silver iodide and other chemicals. It may have worked: for whatever reason, the heavens opened last week, a record 30cm of rain fell in some places in 24 hours, floods and mudslides killed 94 people, and tens of thousands of people have lost their homes.

Meanwhile, north America's most deadly and destructive tornado season ever saw 600 "twisters" in April alone, and 138 people killed in Joplin, Missouri, by a mile-wide whirlwind. Arizonans were this week fighting some of the largest wildfires they have known, and the greatest flood in recorded US history is occurring along sections of the Missouri river. This is all taking place during a deepening drought in Texas and other southern states – the eighth year of "exceptional" drought there in the past 12 years.
We just laugh.

4 comments:

mikey said...

It's like everybody watched Godzilla, and nobody learned a goddam thing...

M. Bouffant said...

It Can't Happen Here Editor:

History shows again & again ...

Tom said...

For the record, the youths of America blame the olds of America for this mess, and when the shit hits the fan, well... LET'S JUST SAY IT WON'T BE PRETTY!

M. Bouffant said...

Too Old To Be Threatened Editor:

Not just in these United Snakes & Canada, we think.

The ancients blame our parents; they didn't have to have that huge distorting cohort of cretins after that war.

Rundgren's close to 40 yr.-old tune was presented as much for the irony as anything else.

And a further reference to the ancient cultural hegemony imposed on the long-suffering youth:

"They got the guns but/We got the numbers" is no longer true. We have the guns and the numbers now!