"Double-A" wrote in message...
ups.com...

G=EMC^2 Glazier wrote:

Watched History channel last night,and it was great. I always felt super
big volcano eruptions was the best theory on wiping out the land
dinosaurs. Now I theorize that the large asteroid hitting the Earth
going so very fast created a force(shock wave) that caused volcanoes all
over the world to blow their top off. What makes this good thinking is
it was a time of great active volcanoes. I'll call this my "one Two
punch" theory. Anyway best to keep in mind the Florida Gators that were
even inside the blast zone (heat) of the impact lived on. Reality is
they had fried dinosaur meat for the next 5 years. Its a good thing
that the animal that would in the future be humankind also lived in
water. Here you see water that created life,also saving it. If
humankind and dinosaurs competed man would win. Fact is we would have
bigger eggs for breakfast. Bert


"He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile
divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of
Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is
the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for
their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is
asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are
great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way
related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there with
great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in such
matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor
any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of
old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he
began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the
world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man," and about Niobe;
and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he
traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates,
tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking
happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age,
said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and
there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he
meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there
is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any
science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have
been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of
many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of
fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.
There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time
Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's
chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his
father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed
by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies
a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and
a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long
intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry
and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by
rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our
never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other
hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in
your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but
those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the
sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the
water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to
come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are
the most ancient.

The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer
does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in
lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in
ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any
actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all
been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples.
Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided
with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the
usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes
pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters
and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children,
and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or
among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you just now
recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children.
In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were
many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there
formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which
ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small
seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown to you,
because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died,
leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the great
deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and
in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed
the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of
which tradition tells, under the face of heaven."
- "Timaeus" by Plato


Plato quotes the Egyptians with their records of ancient history
telling of many destructions of mankind both by bodies in the heavens
scorching the Earth, and by the waters of many great deluges, not just
one as Greek legend and the Bible speak of.

This suggests that there may have been many asteroids that hit the
Earth in man's prehistory, causing those disastrous fires and floods.
Now that we know that asteroids are the probable cause of such things,
it makes us feel much less secure on this planet. Science can no
longer ignore catastrophism as only the stuff of myths.

Double-A

Nor *does* science neglect the possibility of species-
shattering catastrophe! Our NEO detection devices
are almost constantly improving.

As adjudged by the quantity of people alive today, such
catastrophe, whether from above or below, has been on
a decreasing trend.

So we are fast coming to a new and different kind of
catastrophe... of a sort the world has not yet known...

too many people

It wasn't that long ago that we awaited the reaching of
6 billion people populating the Earth. Now already it's
topped 6½ billion (happened in March, '06) and will
reach 7 billion sometime in 2012 or 2013!

USA...
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html
World...
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html

Consumers are increasing and resources are dwindling.

There are no easy answers, very few people who care
enough to work on this, and only our ingenuity to help
us prepare for the worst. It'll be like the aftermath of
hurricane Katrina--only on a global scale.

On the other hand, as long as the world makes more
"each others", there are more "each others" to have
when we say, "At least we have each other."

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Indelibly yours,
Painius