News Factoids for Fourth Quarter 2024

The International Energy Agency estimates that to meet climate targets, the world will need to add or replace around 80 million kilometres of the electric power grid by 2040, an amount equivalent to all that exists today.

Emerging science suggests that rapid intensification of storms is getting more common as climate change worsens.
~~ Boston Globe newsletter Starting Point

Bananas are the most popular fruit in the U.S.

The world is pumping out 57 million tons of plastic pollution each year.

A person is considered as having high blood pressure or hypertension if they have consistent readings of 130/80 or higher.

Between 2018 and 2022, the number of ghost guns - untraceable firearms from 3-D printers or at-home kits - that were recovered at crime scenes jumped from 3,960 to 25,785.

Listeriosis is the third leading cause of death from foodborne illness in the U.S.

The US economy is doing better than that of any other member of the rich countries club (aka the Group of Seven), the International Monetary Fund said. The global economy watcher upgraded its prediction for U.S. GDP growth to 2.8% this year, compared to the 0.9% average for all G7 countries.

A study completed by the US Geological Survey (USGS) using predictive modeling and AI found between 5 million and 19 million tons of lithium in the limestone Smackover Formation in southern Arkansas - enough to supply nine times the amount of lithium needed to meet the 2030 expected world demand for EV batteries.

In the Pakistani city of Lahore, roughly 15 miles from the Indian border, air quality in October surpassed a 'hazardous' 500 (p.p.m.) - almost 65 times the World Health Organization’s guidelines for healthy air — making it the most polluted city in the world.

In 1977, the USDA recommended that Americans eat less red meat and more poultry to reduce the risk of heart disease; by the 1980s, beef consumption was down 20%.

The Defense Department employs 1.4 million active-duty service personnel, more than 778,000 National Guard and reservists, and more than 747,000 civilians - that's about 2.91 million employees.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans are overweight or obese; the obesity rate for adults doubled between 1990 and 2021, to 40 percent; it has tripled for girls and women aged 15 to 24, to 29 percent.

Humanity will need 70% more food by 2050, when the world population hits 10 billion, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation trade group.

Circana BookScan found that sales of the Judeo-Xian Bible are up by 22% for the year through the end of October compared to the same period in 2023. Total US book sales were up by just 1% in the same period.

Coffee futures hit their highest level since 1977. The most popular kind of bean, arabica, has jumped ~70% this year to reach $3.18 per pound, while prices for cheaper robusta beans rose 7.7% to nearly double the price from the start of the year. Your (actual) morning brew will likely cost more as a result: Nestle, the world’s largest coffee company, said last month it will raise prices and shrink its packs. What’s going on? Poor growing weather in Brazil and Vietnam, the leading suppliers of arabica and robusta beans, respectively, has caused supply jitters.

More people are using Amtrak than ever before — 32.8 million riders this fiscal year, to be exact. The company says passengers can look forward to upgraded trains and better service in 2025 thanks to billions of dollars in investments.

This year is the hottest on record in Phoenix, Arizona, which saw temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 113 days in a row between May and September.

Japan is going on its 16th straight year of population decline.

Falls are the top cause of injury-related death among people over 64.

Washington State's Department of Agriculture announced that invasive 'murder hornets' have been eradicated in the U.S. Known for their dangerous sting, northern giant hornets gained attention in 2013, when they killed dozens of people in China and seriously injured more than 1,600 others.

December 2024 Quotations (55)

"Democracy is for adults."
~~ philosopher G.E. Nordell

"There's No Such Thing As Artificial 'Intelligence'" lecture [1:09:54]
~~ visionary Jaron Lanier:

"When you expect things to happen - strangely enough - they do happen."
~~ banker John Pierpont 'J.P.' Morgan [1837-1913]

"As we watch several of Caligula’s horses get nominated . . . I go in and out of madness."
~~ Anonymous, in November 2024

"Conquer yourself rather than the world."
~~ French/Dutch philosopher René Descartes [1596-1650]

"Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance."
~~ astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

"The only barrier to human development is ignorance, and this is not insurmountable."
~~ rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard [1882-1945]

"What most expirimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead."
~~ mathematician & philosopher Norbert Wiener [1894-1964]

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."
~~ Harriet Beecher Stowe [1811-96]

"Courage is grace under pressure."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
~~ Woody Allen

"Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly written, has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate: that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea."
~~ author Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88]

"In science fiction, you can also test out your own realities."
~~ author Theodore Sturgeon [1918-85]

"A dream deferred is a dream denied."
~~ writer & activist (James Mercer) Langston Hughes [1901-67]

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
~~ Chinese philosopher Confucius / Kong Qiu [551-479 BCE]

"Beware of being too rational. In the country of the insane, the integrated man doesn't become king. He gets lynched."
~~ Aldous Huxley [1894-1963]

"Four more years, it'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not going to have to vote."
~~ Donald Trump in speech to Christian voters at Turning Point Action's 'The Believers' summit in West Palm Beach, Florida on Friday 26 July 2024

"Hate is a place where a man who can't stand sadness goes."
~~ Japanese manga artist Kentaro Miura [1966-2021]

"Conceived as the foundation for liberty, modern democracy paves the way for tyranny. Born for the purpose of standing as a bulwark against power, it ends by providing power with the finest soil it has ever had in which to spread itself over the social field."
~~ French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel [1903-87]

"The creed of the street is, Old Age is not disgraceful, but immensely disadvantageous."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82], in 1862

"Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power."
~~ American philosopher & psychologist William James [1842-1910]

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."
~~ John Milton [1608-74]

"Natural law is superior to, and precedes, political and governmental institutions."
~~ Mark R. Levin
"This is a very sick man, this Obama."
~~ Mark R. Levin

"Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth."
~~ Pema Chödrön

"The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love."
~~ writer Henry Miller [1891-1980]

"In Wildness [often misquoted as ‘wilderness’] is the preservation of the World." {his most famous quote}
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]

"Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States."
~~ W.E.B. DuBois [1868-1963]

"If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die."
~~ American capitalist Warren Buffett

"Coffee is the beverage that makes life tolerable."
~~ comedian Gary Gulman

"Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, 'It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver'."
~~ Jack Handey

"Remember, if you don't sin, then Jesus died for nothing."
~~ Richard Dawkins

"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."
~~ stand-up comic Henny Youngman [1906-98]

"Politics is the art of identifying and neutralizing the enemy."
~~ Ivan Ilyin [1883-1954], in 1948

"The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them."
~~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

"He who has no haters has no fans."
~~ Chinese philosopher Confucius / Kong Qiu [551-479 BCE]

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."
~~ W.C. Fields [1880-1946]

"Nothing is accomplished without imagination and bravery."
~~ Sue Monk Kidd, author of "The Secret Life of Bees" [2001 novel]

"I need the kind of generals that Hitler had."
~~ Donald J. Trump, while inside the White House
"Hitler did some good things."
~~ Donald J. Trump, while inside the White House

"[Donald Trump] is a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country . . . A fascist to the core."
~~ former Army General Mark Milley (appointed by Trump as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, served 2019-2023)

"It [is] so important for me to stand with a candidate who understands that we, as America - we are a quilt. And I could never stand with a candidate who wants America to be a sheet."
~~ movie studio mogul Tyler Perry

"I always arrive late at the office. But I make up for it by leaving early."
~~ Charles Lamb [1775-1834]

"Giving up is unforgivable." - on 7 Nov 2024
~~ President Joe Biden

"At my age, the only thing [that] I do that is athletic is jogging my memory and wrestling with my conscience!"
~~ Ziggy cartoon panel drawn by Tom Wilson & Tom II, 11/2024

"Authoritarian rule always entails corruption. With Donald Trump in office, watch your wallet."
~~ TV news anchor Rachel Maddow

"Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God."
~~ Lenny Bruce [1925-66]

"Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost."
~~ German choreographer Pina Bausch [1940-2009]

"If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong."
~~ the last words of Russian activist Alexei Navalny [1976-2024]

"Two of the hallmarks of the psychotic are egotism and the need to destroy." { oblivious to the irony of describing himself }
~~ Michael Savage

"When the whole world is globalized, you’re going to be able to set fire to the whole thing with a single match."
~~ French theorist René Girard [1923-2015]

"Societal privilege is not a right, except under aristocracy - which ended in the U.S.A. in 1776. However, our democratic republic was declared to be a fascist state in January 2010 and may become a full fascist dictatorship in January 2025." ~~~ philosopher G.E. Nordell

"The main cause of poverty or financial struggle is fear and ignorance, not the economy or the government or the rich. It’s self-inflicted fear and ignorance that keeps people trapped."
~~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

"No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking."
~~ banker John Pierpont 'J.P.' Morgan [1837-1913]

"The quieter we become, the more [that] we can hear."
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}