OK, I've beaten War, The Economy, and Ecology to death in this thread. I'm going to start a more positive trend towards really uplifting current events. Hopefully, stuff that will make everybody feel good and leave you wanting to hear more.
This has been inspired, believe it or not, by the "Making a Difference" segments of the NBC nightly news. It's hard to find the good, positive stuff because the news, blogs, etc. all slant to the bad stuff. I think it is really important to give light to the better half. Hopefully, to make it on topic, I can find some things that are directly Grateful Dead/Deadhead related.
Sorry if if the events I've been writing about has got you down.
Its frightening the rate at which we are destroying our beautiful home. Our lifestyle is totally unsustainable but as a group we don't want to accept it. We're already convincing ourselves that the Gulf oil catastrophe was not that bad! Time to take the blinders off people!
Historical and projected carbon dioxide emissions (in millionsof metric tons) for China, the United States, and the world, 1990–2025.
Carbon dioxide emissions (percentage of world total)
Location 1990 2003 2015 2025
United States 4978 (23.4) 5796 (23.1) 6718 (19.9) 7587 (18.9)
China 2241 (10.5) 3541 (14.1) 7000 (20.7) 9349 (23.3)
World 21,223 (100) 25,028 (100) 33,663 (100) 40,045 (100)
Remarkable trends:
With all efficiency and conservation included, the US is still upping the amount of CO2 emissions.
At present, the US and China are roughly equal in emissions.
While the US share of world emissions is dropping, China's share is growing at an alarming rate.
This amount of emissions is unsustainable.
Did you ever wonder how much CO2 is expended to produce all that plastic packaging we throw away each day??
In the "Get a grip" category there were two stories in the news this morning:
A Jet Blue stew. was arrested at his home in NYC by the SWAT team after quitting his job in a rather dramatic fashion after a passenger hit him in the head with as carry-on the passenger was trying to get out of the overhead bin before the plane was at a complete stop. The passenger swore at him and the stew. proceeded to go on the PA and swore back at the passenger, concluding at the end "That's it, I'm done". He then took two beers off the beverage cart, inflated the emergency exit slide, opened the door and slid to the tarmac. Now he is a national hero on the internet.
No copycats, please!
Next, earlier this year a woman was pissed-off she couldn't get her McNuggets at the drive-thru and went bonkers fighting with the employees. She ended that altercation by taking a hammer and smashing the drive-thru Plexiglas window. A bit of overreaction there. Fast-food rage?
Again,no copycats -- pretty please?
You can almost here the Snap! as the gray matter short circuits...