Just another day: A cosmic roar

Someone recently noted that turning to the news feels more and more like a Left Behind novel. True that. Then an article took me back to the late sixties, the 1960's to be more precise.

• Vietnam became a cauldron of nasty
  
• Israel smote its neighbors in a six-day fury the likes of which had not been seen.
  
• Breshnev and LBJ each had toy nukes
• Mao's Little Red Book polluted the land of one billion as he played with his own toys
  
• Free love, Kent State and Woodstock heralded the brazenness of the era
• The Motion Picture Association of America had to start rating movies

So I sit here and drop another "Just another day" intending to alert you to the "wars and rumors of wars" that portend the beginning of such things. And I do believe these to be such things. But if I'd been blogging in the sixties, I might have started JAD back then.

So what's been going on.

• Say "Excuse me!" Did you hear about what the astronomers heard? I always thought they looked, but I guess they listen, too. Normally, they say, the cosmos hisses. I wonder if it thinks it's watching a bad movie. Anyway, these eaves-dropping astronomers became bug-eyed when the heretofore timid cosmos coughed up a roar six times louder than 24-7 hiss (here). What gives? I don't know. Neither do they.


• Yellowstone's own gastro-intestinal difficulties. Seems Yellowstone's been quaking and shaking to beat the band these past few weeks. Did you know that one of the largest volcanoes in the world lies beneath the typically serene landscape? Yep. Is it going to blow. Scientists don't think so (here). Like meteorologists predicting hurricane season.


• Spanning the globe. Fourteen people are dead from a 6.1 earthquake down in Costa Rica and 1200 remain trapped under rubble. Considering their buildings have not been built to withstand such shocks, expect the toll to rise. Across the Pacific, Indonesia's dealt with 7.4, 7.1, and 6.1 to ring in the New Year. Here is a map of the hiccups this past week. Southern Cal's was a meager 4.5.
  


• WWF travels to Israel. As if the southeastern Mediterannean wasn't already like nitroglycerin in Barnie Fife's pocket, Lebanon's own terrorist team, Hezbollah, has come off the turn-buckles and fired their own "We're the Oppressed Victims" rockets into northern Israel (here and here). A UN "truce" means "ceasefire" to Israel but "time to reload" to the Muslims. What will escalate this mess across borders? Syria, Egypt, and Jordan al seem pretty quite. A bit further to the east, Iran stands there trash-talking like a child taunting the lion at the zoo. I think Iran will be surprised how far those paws can reach.


• Turn up the heat! Lots of cold around this winter. Lots of snow. Is this the cooling before the warming? Seems Europe's come to a standstill (here).
  

I do know this. We're four decades past the sixties. And one day closer. Until next time...