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Monday, January 24, 2011

News Factoids for January 2011

The White House Oil Spill Commission's final report is released, and includes the statement "Drilling offshore is a privilege to be earned, not a right to be exercised by private corporations."

A new N.O.A.A. report of October 2010 concludes that the existing damage to the Arctic caused by the climate crisis is likely permanent.

"Interest on the official national debt is $571 billion for fiscal 2012, making debt service roughly equal to the base budget for the military."
~~ per Admiral Mike Mullen, in July 2010

"Twenty percent of the world's vertebrate [species] are threatened with extinction, according to a study in the journal Science."
~~ per Time Magazine, October 2010

"According to the N.O.A.A., the first half of 2010 was the warmest January to July on record. And this is just the beginning. Owing to the inertia of the climate system, the warming that we're experiencing now is only a fraction of the temperature increase that's already guaranteed."
~~ reporter Elizabeth Kolbert

Sunday morning after Thanksgiving, big truck unloading Xmas trees to a vacant lot in my tiny town. (It's not even December yet!)

There are 1,011 billionaires in the world and forty percent live in the USA
~~ per Forbes Magazine

Global phytoplankton has dropped 40 percent since 1950.
~~ per Nature Magazine, in July 2010

MESSIN' WITH PEOPLE DEPT.
Put up a sign in your office or cubicle that says "Cliché free zone" and then live up to it. When someone asks 'How was your weekend?' -- Then. Tell. Them.
When someone asks 'What's new?' -- Then. Tell. Them.

Amazon sales in 2009 topped $24.5B (over all products) while 2008 sales at all U.S. bookstores was less than $17B. According to publishing industry statistician Bowker, 2005 saw 172K books published in the U.S.A.; by 2009, that had increased to 288K 'traditional' titles, plus the addition of 'self-published and niche books' for a total of one million new books published in 12 months.

[Carbon diozide] is responsible for roughly three-fourths of the global warming effect [of greenhouse gases] ... Globally, agriculture is responsible for 90 percent of nitrous oxide emissions (296 times more heat-trapping potential than CO²) and two-thirds of methane emissions (with 23 times more heat-trapping potential than CO²)
~~ per Anna Lappé

The amount of arable land in developing countries was one-third of a hectare per capita in 1961, reduced to one-fifth of a hectare in 1992 (35% reduction), and is expected to decline to 1/10th of a hectare by 2050 as population increases (a further 50% reduction)
~~ per a United Nations report in 2010

An annual income of $250,000 puts you in the top THREE percent of U.S. households, and is almost five times the national median wage.

In 2007, the top one percent captured 23 percent of the U.S.'s total income.

The top 0.1 percent of earners saw their share of national income triple between 2002 and 2007, earning as much as the bottom 120 million taxpayers.

Coding movies & books for Amazon most of the day on my various bookstore websites, I have noticed lately that VHS is making a comeback. New & old movies that had the VHS versions go out of production are being remade and sold newly on Amazon. The probable cause is the dire post-Bush economy: shoppers did not trash their video players, and the common VHS prices of $5 to $12 are a great savings over $20-25 for DVD or Blu-ray.

State governments lost 30% of their revenue in 2009.
~~ per The Washington Post

The classic Chinese list of Seven Emotions includes: anger, desire, fear, happiness, hatred, love, and sadness.

Copyright 2011 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

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