May 3, 2009 - May 9, 2009 | miguelitoh2o's Blog

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Week of May 3, 2009 - May 9, 2009

A Plague of Locusts.

May 6, 2009, 6:31PM

A meditation by the revenue stream

A vision of the black cloud approaches. Opportunists. Bearing no allegiance to the ecosystem they inhabit. Sink or swim. Live or die. Alliances matter only if they advance the banner of cupidity at days end. Tomorrow we re-evaluate. R-selected mothers. It's a numbers game. Some survive. Some die. Others fill the vacant space. The fallen are food for the strong. Always there will be more behind the first wave. Scorched earth? Scorched humanity... They cross international borders with the ease of water seeking its level. Its' lowest level. Invading ecosystems, as yet, relatively untouched. Sometimes they're even invited. With incentives. They take while leaving nothing but their dung. Don't have to look far to find the parallels. Market Wisdom. Invisible, bloody hand. Bloody, invisible. The electorate watches passively as pols surrender power in exchange for campaign war chests. We can't fight if we don't win elections, they cry. Can't win elections without the media budget. The Media... that solipsistic caricature of the fourth estate's vanity. Advertising revenues trump reader subscriptions. Who's schoolin' who?... Advertiser? Publisher? Any questions???

Sunday Fun Facts : Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'

May 3, 2009, 4:19PM

I recently read Bill Bryson's, 'A Short History of Nearly Everything'. He's got a great perspective on humanity and our scientific understanding of the universe we inhabit. Even things you all ready know, he presents in a fresh way or embellishes with interesting anecdotes or trivia to illustrate his points, and that makes the book a very enjoyable read. There aren't many science books that I can think of that made me laugh out loud, let alone more times than I can recall. About halfway through the book, I started keeping notes of some of my favorite facts, quotations, and anecdotes. Here are some of those that I found particularly interesting or amusing.

1. 80% of US casualties in WWI were due to the Spanish or swine flu epidemic of 1918.

2. The biomass of microbes in the world exceeds that of all other flora and fauna, and would coat the surface of the planet to a depth of 5-6 feet if it were piled up.

3. Many viruses have 10 or fewer genes. The simplest bacteria have several thousand.

4. In 1918, out of 300 volunteers for flu research selected from the inmates at Deer Isle Military Prison, 62 volunteers:
          a. Were injected with infected lung tissue from the recently dead.
          b. sprayed with infectious aerosols in their eyes, noses, and throats.
          c. Had their throats swabbed with discharges from the sick and dying.
          d. Had to sit open-mouthed while a gravely ill flu victim was encouraged to cough in their faces.

          The only fatality in the study was the ward doctor who oversaw the experiments.

5. Less than one in 10,000 species has made it into the fossil record.

6. Trilobites, (Ordovician Era), were a successful species for 300 million years. Dinosaurs, (Permian Era), were extant for about 150 million years. Homo sapiens has been a biologically successful species for around 50,000 years.

7. If your pillow is 6 years old, it is estimated that 1/10 of its' weight is made up of sloughed skin, living mites, dead mites, and mite dung.

8. If you go out to the woods, (any woods), and scoop up a handful of soil. You will be holding up to 10 billion bacteria, most of them unknown to science. You'll also be holding up to 1 million yeasts, 200,000 molds, perhaps 10,000 protozoans, and assorted rotifers, roundworms, and other small creatures collectively known as cryptozoa.

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miguelitoh2o

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Website: miguelitoh2o.blogspot.com/
Location Rocky Mountain states
Party WORLD
Politics A Simple Prayer

Favorites

Favorite Blogs Talking Points Memo
Favorite Books Authors: Robertson Davies, Isaac Asimov, Bill Bryson, Margaret Atwood, Michael Connelly, Salmon Rushdie.
Favorite Quotes

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. - Lao Tzu

If ever I become entirely respectable I shall be quite sure that I have outlived myself. Eugene V. Debs

Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether. - Hunter S. Thompson

But if you wind up in Hell and all you care is to try and help others suffering there and forget your own burning sensation, then you'll be okay. Even There. And what fears can a measly Great Depression stir in someone who's ready to social work Hell itself?

"To paraphrase an old line, it is better for a big country to keep its superb army idle and let the world think it's not much of a superpower than to use it and remove all doubt". - Bernard Chazelle

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other. - Jack Handey

“Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. - Unclassified study published by the Pentagon-appointed U.S. Defense Science Board on Sept. 23, 2004.

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead." Thomas Paine

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough" - Mario Andretti

'Somebody at one of these places ... asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it. - Charles Bukowski

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." - Mark Twain

"I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." - Alan Greenspan

To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. - Chuang Tzu

"They say that hard work never killed anybody ... but why take a chance?" - President Ronald W. Reagan

"We're going out Marge. If we don't come back, avenge our deaths." - Homer Simpson

Bio

Since I was a kid, I've always favored dogs and more especially, underdogs. Career in the arts by way of biology/pharmaceuticals. Currently trying to make my way in the world by tying balloon animals, although the competition is fierce now that the official unemployment rate has topped 10%.

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