Thursday, November 17, 2016

Dry Mouth....

Originally published in 2010. The cartoonist's previous

The End..

 apocalypse

There is a one in 500 chance there is a global catastrophe on the horizon which will spell the end of humanity, according to a leading statistician.

University of Barcelona mathematician Fergus Simpson says that as the population continues to increase, the chance of humanity being wiped out increases. The theory of the Doomsday Argument states that as humans are born in the random order, one person is born roughly in the middle.

We pay attention to bad news, because on the whole, we think the world is rosier than it actually is. When it comes to our own lives, most of us believe we're better than average, and that, like the clichés, we expect things to be all right in the end. This pleasant view of the world makes bad news all the more surprising and salient. It is only against a light background that the dark spots are highlighted.

The News Media all focused on the transition team for Trump. I'm not delighted with it and I don't believe it. Accordingly, the end of the world will be January 20th.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Bomb first??

 Related image

Rights groups and U.N. officials say the U.S.-backed coalition has often either deliberately or recklessly depended on faulty intelligence, failed to distinguish between civilian and military targets and disregarded the likelihood of civilian casualties.

Nearly 4,000 civilians have been killed in the war, and an estimated 60 percent of them died in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, the U.N. says.

The war has devastated the country of 26 million, causing widespread hunger and driving 3 million from their homes.  Warplanes have hit medical centers, schools, factories, infrastructure and roads, markets, weddings and residential compounds.

The coalition says it does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and notes rebels often operate among civilians. Rights groups and U.N. officials have reported probable war crimes by the Houthis, including shelling civilian areas and basing their fighters in schools and other civilian locations.

The coalition has made nine investigations public. In two it acknowledged mistakes and said it would pay compensation to victims. In most of the other cases, it said the strikes were against a justified military target.

Is there a positive outcome to this conflict in Yemen?