Don’t believe me? Well…
For those of us with cats, it’s pretty damned hilarious… Makes me wanna get a video camera and find a turtle for Sam to play with…
Ridiculous…
Yeah, so I woke up from my nap to this article in Newsweek that polled Americans about a variety of things, one of which was evolution. 91% of Americans believe in God, which isn’t terribly surprising, however 34% of college graduates believe in the Biblical account of creation. When asked “‘Is evolution well-supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community?”, 48% of Americans said no.
As I’m sure my views on this are pretty clear, I won’t go into an extended rant. Let me just say, however, that this is very disturbing. It’s disturbing primarily because 48% of people believe in a lie (yes, the vast majority of credible scientists believe in natural selection) and also that 34% of college graduates believe that women were created when a rib was taken from Adam, and that it’s more likely that we came from mud rather than monkeys. I’ll quote a comment off Slashdot, because I think he said it pretty well:
“America continues to worry about losing its edge in the high-tech industry. But that couldn’t possibly be related to poor science education, could it?
“Note: I’m referring specifically to the 48% who believe that evolution is not well-supported by scientific evidence and that it is not widely accepted within the scientific community. Well, and the people who think the universe is less than 10,000 years old, despite all the evidence to the contrary. You can believe in God and have an understanding of science, just like you can have morals without being religious. But thinking that evolution isn’t supported by evidence, or isn’t widely accepted by scientists, is just plain ignorance.”
Who exactly is "rich?"
So, a study was released today from the U.N. and mentioned on plenty of different news sites, but the Bloomberg article brought something a little more interesting to my attention. Essentially, the study says that the richest 1% of the world’s adult population comprise 40% of all global wealth. I mean, that alone is pretty nuts, but further on in the article, they get a bit more specific…
Apparently, if you have $61,000 in assets, you’re in the top 10%. That’s not $61,000/yr…that’s assets…so if you own a house, chances are that you’re in the top 10% of all global wealth. These figures come from the fact that the average adult wealth in the U.S. is $144,000, while in places like India, it’s $1000.
Now, my man, Ben, made a similar point on his blog a few days ago, and I’ll reiterate: what exactly does this mean? I mean, isn’t it rather depressing that owning a house means you’re richer than 90% of the world’s population? Billions of people? Can anything be done, or will the rich keep getting richer and the poor continue to get poorer?
I guess we should all just keep stuff like this in mind as we head through the Christmas season… As you think about financial gifts you give to the needy, realize just how good you have it compared with 5.4 billion other people…
Who exactly is “rich?”
So, a study was released today from the U.N. and mentioned on plenty of different news sites, but the Bloomberg article brought something a little more interesting to my attention. Essentially, the study says that the richest 1% of the world’s adult population comprise 40% of all global wealth. I mean, that alone is pretty nuts, but further on in the article, they get a bit more specific…
Apparently, if you have $61,000 in assets, you’re in the top 10%. That’s not $61,000/yr…that’s assets…so if you own a house, chances are that you’re in the top 10% of all global wealth. These figures come from the fact that the average adult wealth in the U.S. is $144,000, while in places like India, it’s $1000.
Now, my man, Ben, made a similar point on his blog a few days ago, and I’ll reiterate: what exactly does this mean? I mean, isn’t it rather depressing that owning a house means you’re richer than 90% of the world’s population? Billions of people? Can anything be done, or will the rich keep getting richer and the poor continue to get poorer?
I guess we should all just keep stuff like this in mind as we head through the Christmas season… As you think about financial gifts you give to the needy, realize just how good you have it compared with 5.4 billion other people…
Heckuvajob, Rummy…
In honor of our fallen comrade:
“There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don?t know that we don’t know.”
— Donald Rumsfeld, trying to clarify the war on terrorism
Yep…
…you’ll all see the exciting and kinda scary news on Andy’s blog, I’m sure, but aside from that, I got a sunburn today. Yes, it’s late September and I was wearing suncreen, but I still somehow managed to get a sunburn. Grrr to being pale and poor.
iBreath, anyone?
Apparently, it’s accurate to 0.01 BAC and it doubles as an FM transmitter. It’s $50 and comes in black or white.
Now…no more excuses for drunk driving… 😛
Suck it, BP…
So, I watched “The Daily Show” tonight…Jon Stewart was kind enough to point out some information that came out today based on the quarterly earnings of BP (British Petroleum):
Last quarter, BP made $55,000 in profit.
Every.
Minute.
Seriously. wtf?!?!
For those that don’t know, a “quarter” lasts 3 months, and there are 1440 min in a day, 43200 in a month, and 129600 in three months. Multiply that times $55,000 and you get approximately $7.1 billion in profits.
Can someone please explain to me why I’m paying $3.05 a gallon right now?
Hell Freezes Over
So, I was looking at Engadget this morning and saw this lovely link… Apparently, Parker Brothers is “phasing out” the “old school” versions of Monopoly that used paper money, since many (if not most) people are now using plastic to pay for things. It’s apparently going to be a “while supplies last” sort of deal, but I guess it’s a sign of the times…depressing as it may be…
I like A/C…
So, last Wednesday night, our power went out due to a storm that hit St. Louis. According to weatherpeople (who know more about such things than I do), the most destructive storms to directly hit St. Louis have come from the northeast. Usually, when a storm or rain is heading toward St. Louis from the west, the heat from all the concrete (among other things…) dissipates the storm before it really hits with much force. When a storm comes from the northeast however, it’s open season on the city…and that’s exactly how this one worked. Before it hit, there were warnings in effect for, like, two counties in Illinois. All the sudden, it’s storming and we’re getting 80 mph winds. wtf…
Anyway, the storm knocked out power, presumably due to fallen trees more than lightening strikes… Luckily for us, the power was back on ~18 hrs later, on Thursday around 1:00 pm. According to STLtoday.com (run by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch), there are still almost 300,000 people who are without power. AmerenUE is expecting that full restoration will happen sometime on Wednesday, nearly a full week later.
So yeah, I was out of town for the weekend visiting the Lewis family in Chattanooga, TN, so I didn’t see much around here. Brooke hung out here, so she gave me updates whenever possible…thankfully, she wasn’t stuck without A/C for long… If you know anyone living in the St. Louis area, check in with them and see how they’re doing. Otherwise, be happy that you had air conditioning for the past week, ’cause there were a good half million people around St. Louis that didn’t…
Sure makes me appreciate the situation in New Orleans last year…can’t even imagine…