Links - not credit related
Friday, July 30, 2004
Illusions
I just had another reality check and these illusions are a cool diversion:
Friday, July 16, 2004
Drop in contributions from Norway and the U.S.
Aids reduces African life expectancy to 33
“16 July 2004
The Aids pandemic is ravaging countries in sub-Saharan Africa, drastically reducing life expectancy in some parts to less than 33 years, a new UN report said yesterday.”
Over 2 million people die every year, over 25 million died since 1990.
“Mohga Kamal-Smith, a health policy adviser for Oxfam, pointed to the failure of the international community as one of the main reasons for the devastation. “As the epidemic spread, the donor contributions from richer countries went down,” she said. “Hardly any of the governments have achieved the 0.7 per cent GDP contribution that they committed to.”
The UNDP’s annual report shows the drop in contributions from the highest-ranked countries in the list, particularly from Norway and the US.”
I’m glad I don’t have to fly
A fascinating read, despite knowing the ending: the author lived to tell the story and you know nothing happend because you would have heard it on the news.
I’ll just take my truck.
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Chernobyl - Elana’s documentary from the “dead zone”
In 27 chapters (pages) Elana documents her bike rides to Chernobyl. Did you know that it takes more roentgens to kill a chicken than to kill a human?
“I travel a lot and one of my favorite destinations leads North from Kiev, towards so called Chernobyl “dead zone”, which is 130kms from my home. Why my favorite? Because one can take long rides there on empty roads.”
“In Ukrainian language Chernobyl is the name of a grass, wormwood (absinth). This word scares the holy bejesus out of people here. Maybe part of the reason for that among religious people is because the Bible mentions Wormwood in the book of the revelatons - which fortells the end of the world....
REV 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
REV 8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”
“These are Prejevalsky Horses. Someone brought a couple of them from Asia a few years ago, they liked it here and now there are 3 herds running in Chernobyl area. They are a sturdy breed and are always on the move. They have a prehistoric look about them. When they sweep by at full gallop, it feels like you might see a herd of ancient Eohippus next.”
“The readings on the asphalt paving is 500 -3000 microroentgens, depending upon where you stand. That is 50 to 300 times the radiation of a normal environment. If I step 10 meters forward, geiger counter will run off the scale. If I walk a few hundred meters towards the reactor, the radiation is 3 roentgens per hour - which is 300,000 times normal. If I was to keep walking all the way to the reactor, I would glow in the dark tonight. Maybe this is why they call it magic wood.
It is sort of magical when one walks in with biker’s leather and walks out like a knight in a shining armor.”
“They must build a new sarcophagus soon, because the original one was hastily constructed and is disintegrating.”
Elana got her own domain now and hopefully bandwidth restrictions are no longer a problem - “Server is averaging 12mbps and 4000+ concurrent users.” Looks like she got free web hosting in exchange for the promo, very cool. Elena’s “garage” page is interesting too.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Are we turning into Mars?
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040615/D837O6TO0.htmlnull
“As for the American Southwest, it is too early to tell whether its six-year drought could turn to something more permanent. But scientists note that reservoir levels are dropping as cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas expand.”
Yup. You better be ready for a long walk to get to the “beach” at Lake Mead.
Earth is facing tremendously complex problems, my credit issues are so irrelevant.
