Where did the $700 billion go? Cheney is stuffing his pockets as fast as he can.

But don't sweat the small stuff.

Well, now. . . .

I saw an episode of NOVA some weeks back entitled "How the Earth Was Made." I knew most of this from when I took a batch of astronomy classes, but NOVA always has good graphics. Anyway, it illustrated and explained the evolution of the earth, which, of course involved a number of planetary catastrophes it went through during the past 4.5 billion years, many of which are not that long apart. Several times life evolved to a point and then it was almost wiped out by some global cataclysm. Life pretty much started again from scratch and began evolving once again. Who knows when the next cataclysm will come? But it will come.

Add to that the fact that the earth consists of a core of boiling iron covered with the slag that floats to the top. We're living on that crust of slag. There's quite a bit of pretty scary stuff that goes on as a matter of course not all that far under our feet.

Sure makes ya feel secure, now don't it?

Add to this the recent discovery that most galaxies, including our own Milky Way, have gigantic black holes at their centers, into which stars, planets, and all kinds of stuff are being sucked. If you take a look at astronomical photos of spiral galaxies (our own Milky Way is a spiral galaxy), it doesn't take much imagination to realize that we are circling the drain!

Sweet dreams. . . .

Don Firth