According to the rocket scientists at NASA (and I mean that in the good way), we are at a point in climate change due to global warming that they were predicting in the '80s we wouldn't reach until the end of the 21st century. Not only that, but a phenomenon has developed that they didn't foresee.
Unusual weather events like extreme drought (think Dust Bowl in the '30s, 500 year floods) things that used to be rare, events only occurring 1 in a 1000 times, these extreme weather events are now happening 1 out of 10 times. The odds are that as more heat becomes available to drive these weather patterns, this will only get worse.
People who like to think of the US as number one in all things might take note of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac). They are poised to begin direct competition with Boeing and Airbus in 2016 with their version of the 737, and larger planes are already being developed.
China is now the world's largest aircraft market, passing the US, so they could easily become the dominate manufacturer. To lure worldwide carriers, the state owned aircraft company has unlimited funds to develop and market deeply discounted aircraft of all sizes. From 1790 until 1980, the US spent money to develop its industries, what are the odds that will ever happen again?
The standard response from slow thinking conservatives is, "Who would fly on a Chinese airplane?" Well, you do. Where do you think all the new parts come from? When all the major US airlines send their planes for overhaul in Costa Rica they come back with lots of Chinese parts. If you are lucky they all came through normal suppliers and not black market, un-inspected channels. Helicopter crashes have been traced to black market parts, what are the odds this will happen to a jumbo jet?
Hospital Corporaton of America's (HCA) own panel of inquiry has found overwhelming evidence that several of their hospitals in Florida were regularly preforming dangerous and unnecessary cardiac procedures, oh and they were also highly profitable operations to perform. If you think the name HCA sounds familiar, it's because it was founded by the current Governor of Florida, and it paid a record fine of $2 billion for Medicare fraud. The rightwing talking point is that Rick Scott "wasn't involved." He did, however, take the 5th during testimony something like a hundred times to avoid incriminating himself. Yeah, you can guess the odds that he wasn't involved.
Hey some good news, we now have the most job openings in the private sector since before the Bush banking crash in 2008. Small problem: it's all over the corporate news that businesses are holding back or even cutting back because of the "uncertainty" of politics, worries about Congress, the deficits, the economy, etc, quack, quack, quack. These are the same corporations that continue to show record profits and hold $5 trillion in cash. The odds are that they are deliberately holding off on hiring to affect the election.
A new Romney ad presents a stirring narrative on how the Salt Lake City Olympics found itself mired in scandal and red ink so they called on Mitt. He turned a $400m deficit to a $100m surplus. What are the odds that they will ever mention this was done by getting a $1.2 billion grant from Congress for the "private sector" Olympics. Sounds like what he really did was fool away an extra $700 million of taxpayer money more than he needed to cover the deficit. That actually makes him worse than the guy he replaced.
On a happy note, the odds of Mitt Romney ever being President are becoming increasingly small. Now if we could just do something about the weather.... what are the odds?
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