Category: In the News

why dinosaurs may kill us all

Global warming is a big concern to many these days.  It does appear that there has been some warming in recent years, although there’s much debate on whether it’s mostly man’s fault or not.  But I found an article recently that says there may be a bigger contributor to global warming than anything man has done.  Mankind emits about 7 billion tons of carbon per year.  But this new source may contribute 500 billion tons of carbon.  And it may cause global warming to accelerate at a rate that we cannot stop.  Are you curious yet?

The “new” source of carbon is actually very old.  It’s dead animals from a long time ago, like prehistoric times.  According to some scientists, their organic matter was stored in the frozen Arctic tundra.  But now that the permafrost is melting, this is being exposed.

So if this “new” contribution to global warming is the downfall of all mankind, we can blame the woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers and dinosaurs, because it will be their dead carcasses that doomed us all.  Go figure…

You can read more on that here.

So, what can we do about this potential end of the world?  Let’s get the discussion started, since there are numerous important geniui here (both good and evil).  (And yes, even an evil genius should try to help, because if all life on earth ends because of this, there will be no world to conquer, and his life’s work would be in vain.  But I digress…)  What can we do to save the world?

2008 hot dog eating championship

On July 4th every year, there’s a hot dog eating competition which brings out the world’s best at such things.  This year, former world record-holder Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi tied with defending champion Joey “Jaws” Chestnut.  Get this — they each ate 59 hot dogs (with bun) in 10 minutes.

At this news site, you can watch a video of the competition, but I would advise against it.  It might sound neat to discuss this, but it’s not so fun to watch it.  Really…

The winner gets a one-year supply of hot dogs from Nathan’s.

Joey Chestnut, wolfing down the hot dogs
Joey Chestnut, wolfing down the hot dogs

Anyway, back to the 2008 competition.  I had the misfortune of watching it this year because the people whose house I was at decided to watch it for some reason.  The two former champions tied, so we were wondering what should happen.  One of us had the idea that they should have a race across a football field, lengthwise, to see who wins.  That would be funny to watch them try to run after consuming 59 hot dogs in just 10 minutes.  (They’d probably need to censor out the ensuing vomiting.)  But instead of this, they had a “dog off” where the one who had 5 more first won.

Also, there were quite a few contestants that weren’t even close.  As far as I saw, none of them stopped eating early.  I’d think they’d stop the torture if they saw the scoreboard and noticed that they were 10 hot dogs behind already.  Why would they keep going?  But maybe they wanted to say they did their best.

President Bush doesn’t care about white people

I’m sure you remember when Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and thousands of homes were destroyed, and activists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were all over the TV news saying it’s President Bush’s fault, that he didn’t do enough about the insufficient levees and that he didn’t visit there quick enough and he didn’t get all the people out of the flooded areas.  Bush took a lot of blame for that situation, and some of the activists were saying he didn’t care about black people.

flood in the Midwest
flood in the Midwest

Well, now the Midwest has flooded, including almost all of Iowa.  Thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed because of torrential rains plus broken levees, and it continues to get worse.  Also, thousands of acres of food crops were destroyed.  Was George W. Bush there the next day to visit?  No.  (He was in Europe, but maybe he should’ve got over here right away.)  Did he fix the levees before the storms to protect all those white people and their crops?  Nope.  Has he sent money to the people who didn’t buy insurance to protect their property?  No.  So what’s the deal?  Obviously, President Bush doesn’t care about white people.  It’s so clear now.  He is prejudiced against Caucasian-Americans and European-Americans.

But where is the outrage?  Millions of people have been affected by this flood in the U.S. Midwest, and where are the white activists?  Who will stand up for these people?  Doesn’t anyone care?  Who will hold Bush and the government accountable?

So by now you might have guessed that this is satire.  Although, the facts are based on actual news, and there is a parallel between Hurricane Katrina and the flooding in the Midwest.  But there was advance warning and predictions about what happened in New Orleans, Louisiana.  So why is one a greater outrage than the other among the political and racial activists?

You can draw your own conclusions…

paper made from elephant poop

Did you know that some paper is made from elephant poop?  ‘Tis true!  It’s called “elephant dung paper”.  Who would’ve thought of doing this?  Here’s the story:

The man behind the paper is Mr. Wanchai. On his way home from work he used to pass a natural paper factory and was impressed at the simplicity of the process that used natural tree fibers to make high quality hand made paper. He then took a trip to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang Northern Thailand and saw piles and piles of dung. He looked at the dung and noticed that the dung was very fibrous. This was the birth of the idea.

The next step was to take home a carload of dung to his house. His wife was amused and at this stage very patient. Try as he could he could not get the paper just right. He used the family food processor to cut the long fibers to a shorter length — his wife finally lost her patience.

I can see someone getting upset with putting poop in the food processor.  I’d be leery of using it for food ever again, no matter how much cleaning.  Anyway, as you might imagine, he eventually figured out the process, and now sells it.  You can read more at the official website: the history of Elephant Dung Paper.

This is good for the environment, I reckon — they’re taking waste and making a useful product with it.  And each elephant produces enough poop for about 115 sheets of paper a day.

That isn’t the only company that does this, either.  There’s another one that makes “Poo Poo Paper“.  They use “naturally dried elephant dung”, then they rinse it off, then put it in boiling water, then add some fruit fibers, then separate it into “cakes” or “wafers”, and then let it dry.  They can make about 25 large sheets of paper from one turd.

Would you buy Poo Poo Paper or Elephant Dung Paper to help save the environment?