And Just Like That -- Nothing

Just scant days ago the world was on the verge of total global war.  World War III was just a button push away, a mad man was at the helm, young men were trying to figure out how to avoid the coming draft and Hollywood celebrities were trying their damndest to explain the Iranians how they weren't the blame.
Of course, the media -- always fair and balanced where explaining how the entire nations of Iran and Iraq (all 122,000,000) were now unified in their hatred of the U.S. for the death of what they referred to as a "revered military leader," and the death of all the U.S. military in the region was undoubtedly only days away when Iran would launch its terrible reprisal.
Those who hate Trump made it a point to highlight that his treats were, in fact, war crimes and he should be immediately taken before the Hague and stripped of his presidency,
Then Iran launched a couple of dozen (or less) missiles into Iraq and as far as the public knows killed only a few camels.
Today the President noted the Iranians appeared to be standing down and the Stock Market hit a high of 28,866 before slipping down to the 28,745.
It appears the mainstream media, flush from their expert analysis of the middle east where they reported on how unified Iraq and Iran had become and how many American casualties we had experienced in the rocket attacks seem to be having a hard time explaining why we aren't at war today.
The bottom line:  Our Embassy was attacked, we responded to protect it, a bad dude was somewhere he shouldn't have been and is no more.  The outrage will continue, but only by the same people who saw no problem with the Obama administration's response to Benghazi, and Hillary Clinton's famous statement, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Tunes

     I have satellite radio and enjoy the uninterrupted music.  They make up for it by having routinely interrupted everything else, but it is a commercial enterprise so who am I to complain?


     If I was one who looked for hidden messages and signs in everything I did sometimes I think I would get a little paranoid after turning on the radio four or five times and hearing the same song.  Fortunately I am not schizophrenic, just a touch neurotic so it doesn't bother me too much.


     But it is kind of strange to know an anti-war song of the 60's fits so well today.  Guess my generation didn't really accomplish what all the radicals said we would.

Life, a Question?

As we watch the news each night we are assaulted with the calamities of the day.  It may be civil unrest in Africa, shootings in Arizona, earthquakes in California, nuclear power plants exploding, forest fires in Yellowstone, volcano’s in Washington, or Tsunami’s in the Indian Ocean, or as we see right now earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear power plant meltdowns in Japan.

In the wake of all this doom and gloom it is easy, in fact it is expected, to believe we are in some terrible end time where life is going to be extinguished and we will all perish.  Hollywood makes millions of dollars selling us fiction about how we will destroy our earth, be invaded by aliens, or suffer some cataclysmic event such as believed to have caused the end of the Mesozoic era and the domination of humans on this planet will end.

Somewhere in all this there is probably someone will guess right in whatever dire prediction they make, but until then they are all wild guesses that serve little purpose.  This is akin to the popular "Infinite Monkey Theorem" that postulates if “an infinite number of monkeys were typing on keyboards for an infinite amount of time almost surely would a given text such as the complete works of William Shakespeare be created.”

I would like to put into some context what we see and what has happened in history.  Let start with the simple first, man destroying other men.  My reference is 1900-2000 A Century of Genocide website © 2009 by Piero Scaruffi and is used in accordance with provisions outlined for non-commercial use.

Mao Ze-Dong (China and Tibet 1949-69) – 49 to 78,000,000 (that is million in case you are wondering if I typed it correctly)

Joseph Stalin (USSR 1932-39) – 23,000,000

Adolf Hitler (Germany 1939-45) – 12,000,000

Leopold II of Belgium (Congo 1886-1908) – 8,000,000

Those are just the big hitters in the last hundred or so years.  The list is way longer and I would recommend, if you were curious, a visit the site.  More importantly it does not include the wars we have fought and the lives lost in those sanctioned conflicts.

How about earthquakes?  From the US Geological Survey we find.

As point of reference:  Worldwide in 2010 there were 226, 729 deaths from earthquake.  This would compare to 0856 when 200,000 died in Damghan Iran, or 1556 when 850,000 perished in Shensi China, or 1920 when 200,000 lost their life in the earthquake in Haiyuan, Nigxia China.  Obviously there are many other examples, and probably an equal number that have not been documented.

How about nuclear plant meltdowns?  I know of only Chernobyl, although I would bet there are a couple of subs on the bottom of the ocean that may have had incidents.  On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl plant exploded from a power output surge sending a radioactive fire plume that spread contamination over a wide area.  This led to the resettling of 336,000 people, see CHERNOBYL. The immediate deaths from radiation poisoning seemed to center on the first responder fire fighters who were not told about the potential for radiation.  I would think this an example of a complacent bureaucracy seeking to protect itself first?

Finally, earthquakes and their tsunami by products; in 2004 there was a 9.1 scale earthquake off the island of Sumatra.  Final count 227, 898.  Hopefully the Japanese totals will be significantly less than this.

I think the take away I would close this with is while nature and our human mistakes can inflict a pretty significant toll on humanity the numbers will actually pale when compared to the damage mankind does to itself.