Friday, September 30, 2005

And I Feel Fiiiiine ...

(photo courtesy Damon Winter/LA Times, used without permission. More photos here)

You know that smell, when you've driven five miles with your parking brake on? Los Angeles smells like that right now. (Doesn't LA always smell like that, John? No, it's usually more urine-based ...) Particulate in the air, weird orange fog at night. Creepsville.

In the spirit of apocalyptic imagery:

Grumpy Gamer points us to Exit Mundi: A Collection of End-of-the-World Scenarios. That's a couple hours gone.

The Arctic Ice cap is at its smallest size in a century, and the change may well be self-sustaining.

The new WHO Guy at the United Nations is very pleased that the work they're doing might keep the fatalities from an emergent avian flu virus down in the 50 million dead range.

In other flu news, both Harry Reid and Bill Frist talk pretty about preparing the US from the coming pandemic. However, nothing's actually been done, and much the stuff they're talking about is in the "no more curbside check-in" variety of solutions, if you know what I mean.



My favorite part of the independent Flu Wiki set up by desperate epidemiologists trying to compensate for a total lack of preparation on the government's part? It has a lovely little picture of ducks in the water as its homepage decoration. Tranquil. Sooooothing. DEADLY!!

Is it indeed a Clusterf*ck Nation? You betcha, if Kunstler and the Peak Oil guys are right. Try the excellent Oil Drum. Or for beginners, it's hard to beat (coincidentally named) Kevin Drum's remarkably well-written training-wheels-on guide to Peak Oil. (link is to the summary, main link within that article)

Sleep tight.

3 comments:

Thomas said...

And I abase myself in a semi-related way: 12 Conversations About the End of the World.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast.

Stan J said...

That Exit Mundi site is great. Thanks to my poor reading speed and the ease of which I'm distracted by pretty colours I'll probably still be getting enjoyment from it through to next week.

Sweet!

Though I may be on Prozac by then...

gcallah said...

"The Arctic Ice cap is at its smallest size in a century, and the change may well be self-sustaining."

So, things were this warm a century ago, hey? Sounds like no problem!