December 12, 2007

No Good News

If you click on the link above, you'll see the Amazing Real time World Clock, which tracks all manner of bad and worse news happening throughout the world, especially in the United States. The thing is, once you actually think about the content displayed in the Amazing Real Time World Clock, you start to wonder...

67 species went extinct today? Gee... where's the counter for how many new species evolved or were discovered. The clock tracks how many viruses are being caught, but not how many people recover... how many hectares of forest are lost, but not how many are planted... how many poisonings and drownings, but not how many are cured or saved or revived.

The Amazing Real Time World Clock is able to display the exact, rising temperature of the Earth to 10 decimal places (that way, it appears to be zipping towards the temperature of Hades at light speed!) -- Right now, it's 14.6194748675 degrees Celsius -- oops, now it's 14.6194747770 degrees Celsius. When you read this, it will be yet hotter. Starting to sweat yet? The temperature has gone up one 10 millionth of a degree Celsius since you started reading -- turn out the lights!

Oh, sure, it tracks births and marriages (good news!) but only to show that the population and divorces are rising! (Did you know that every person on Earth can fit into a one city the size of Texas with less population density than Paris, France? Does that sound like over population? The Earth's a big place... there are room for more yet.

It is a clock for our time, tracking all manner of bad news and leaving the good news in the gutter.

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