3 meters, huh? Last I checked, cats don’t use the metric system. Sorry, but that’s what’s known as a “tell”. Anyway I didn’t eat the Cream of Wheat, better to be safe. Instead I have an aquarium so I fed it to the fish, and they seemed to like it. That answers my question, since fish food is made of dried up flies and stuff.
I had NPR on the radio in my car (by mistake!) today, and I caught the following Obiter Dictum (in Latin that means words someone said without meaning for you to take them seriously, a slip-up by any other name in my book):
“The world is made possible by a grant from the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation.”
They’re pretty much telling you bluntly that We run things, we have all the money, our reach is infinite, don’t question it and don’t get in our way or there’ll be Trouble with a capital T.
Research reveals that John D. and Catherine T. have long since passed on, thus the Foundation exists today to dole out Genius grants with a spoon, and this might be a good time to reveal that I am applying for one! How better to get the word out about our project; basically use the loot as Seed Money, hire a bunch of PR professionals, throw up a Gish Gallop on social media of conflicting buzzwords and fuzzwords, basically give people the jitters (#2 is scary!), and turn the firehose back on the hosers who would wield it against us. Wouldn’t that be just desserts! Tell the MacArthurs to go back and tend their Park, that soggy cake is ours now.
I’ll let you know when the money comes in. Of course, we’ll need more - lots of it, so get ready to spend, spend, spend. Actual plan to follow; I’m giving up on any drilling activity, it occurred to me that removing the Iron Core might be risky (think of a deflated Zeppelin) but it just might be possible to freeze it in situ - more Latin, but look it up yourself this time; that’s the problem with people these days, nobody thinks they have to do the minimum, too bad really but I can’t deal, there’s something weird in the house now, a funny noise, there might be squirrels in the attic.
They’re going to turn down your grant application if you don’t spell their names correctly.
I got it mostly right, just mixed up the initials! Really, could you be more picky? Especially since the MacArthurs have been dead for decades; do you actually think anyone at the Foundation is going to shave points on that one? We’ll find out since my application is already in, but Genius standas still for no man (or woman). I win, you owe me $50.
PS I am writing this in a Noisy bar, it’s impossible to spell here.
Sorry, but these little details are important in your business. Say you misplace a decimal point, and end up freezing the whole planet instead of just the core. All the surface water is frozen solid, which means the America’s Cup race would be canceled. People are going to be pissed about that. And what are they going to do with the Ironman Triathalon? Make it a “biathalon”? Really, you need to think of the possible repercussions of making little slips like this.
I’m back, and I want to warn you to skip over this next part. Not only is it a huge slog, but the telltale signs are all staring you in the face: DANGER WEASELS AHEAD! I am only including it here because I know sooner or later one of you is going to want to know why I don’t just consult the experts? I think the answer to that will be self-evident once you’ve read this, only I beg of you not to.
(PS I attached the discussion as one big Jif file, this sort of thing continues to flummox me, and if it doesn’t display on your screen in readable size no great loss, really. If you just see a purplish ribbon, try clicking on it, or better yet don’t.)
Where do I start? If there’s one word I hate, absolutely hate, and I hear it all the time, it’s “challenges”!
Stop and think: Who is challenging us? Oh, the Laws of Physics? Like, Physics is a big, bad apparition standing before us, hands on hips: "Oh ho ho, go no further, I CHALLENGE you! Am I not the Law? Yet you dare to confront me? Were you not told, again and again, that all attempts to thwart me are “speculative, and currently beyond our technological capability?” Sorry, this sort of nonsense only triggers the hair-pulling reflex.
There are no limits, unless we allow it to be so. How many times through history have we been led to believe that the Past can never be brought back? Yet only last week, I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, and could only marvel at the fact that all those people on the screen are dead! Gone, joined the Great Majority, yet here they are, plain as day! This was only possible because we made a movie of it! So much for “received knowledge”, the impossible is now the commonplace.
I don’t want to dwell on this, and if you’re smart you skipped over that “expert” response to my perfectly reasonable request for practical advice - and if you did read it, you will notice there are sly admissions of definite upsides to core solidification, which I’ve been telling you all along, but the one they didn’t mention is we get to live on a planet we can be proud of, safe that our children and grand-progeny for future generations will not be sinking into a “mantle” of known viscosity!
Please carry on, and I apologize for this annoying speed bump. The question now is, who will replace Vanna on Wheel? Maybe now’s the time to mothball the whole concept.
Look, the solution to any kind of inadequacy is always to cast shade on others. Never mind trying to make Earth better - that’s hard work; just make the other planets sound worse than they are. ‘Gas giants’? pfffft. ‘Fart Monsters’. ‘Flatulence balls’.
Venus? Planet of ‘love’? What’s it hiding under those clouds? That one like 'em young, I’ve always suspected.
Factoid: Fart Monster and Flatulence Ball were the names originally designated for Jupiter and Saturn (Neptune’s was Big Barking Spider) by the The International Astronomical Union, but clearer heads prevailed.
Something that would go a long way in making earth numero uno is to get the right wingers on board with the idea. They seem to like mottos to rally around so how about, “Make Earth Great Again!”. Has a ring to it. 
Sure. So you read the thread title and thought, why I could make a funny joke about Earth being #1, I should jump into this discussion, now verging on three years, which I never bothered reading in the past, and say “Laugh at the funny joke!”
This is fine. We welcome all participation. Now that you have made your presence known, I am sure you will agree it is incumbent upon you to scroll up to the top and Read The Whole Thing. Then, when this remarkable feat is accomplished, perhaps we can move forward. We’re waiting.
You probably thought I was dead since I posted nothing on Aug. 20 to commemorate! Well, bad luck, I’m still here, and I won’t apologize.
Since we’re all so hung up on seasonality, I want to know why people assume different monsters would get along - like as if Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, Dracula, the Mummy and all those type of people all recognize their common status as Monsters; social outcasts every one, and thus share a kinship and supposedly get together and swap stories about who bit who, who threw the little girl in the river and all that. That’s insane! Every Monster is a Monster to all the other Monsters, why wouldn’t they be? If you were Dracula and by sheer chance happened to cross paths with the Wolf Man, you’d be just as horrified as anyone else; probably run away or more likely turn into a bat and fly away, that is if you still had your wits about you. One thing you would not do is exchange pleasantries, “Hey Wolfie, how’s it going? How’s the kids?” But let’s say you were on a neutral basis, which would never happen, at best it would be a stalemate, “oh great, that guy! Steer clear of him, last thing we need around here is that kind of competition”. I guess the one Monster the other Monsters don’t care much about is the Mummy, and I don’t have to tell you why (PS none of this applies to Giant monsters like Kong etc. there’s nothing they’re good for except fighting each other but I don’t really count that).
Getting back to Astronomy - did you know that Mars has a vagina? Or rather it used to - Dr. Stanley (I keep watching her series, over and over, which I heartily recommend, once is not enough to absorb the amazing array of facts I never knew) doesn’t exactly say as much, but she showed a close-up of the Martian surface, as it appears today, and it’s pretty hard to avoid. But Mars once had oceans, which dried up billions of years ago, and at that point everything else dried up too. I’m willing to concede that Mars might well have been the #1 Planet back then - there’s no reason it couldn’t have had a turn; in fact all of the Planets might well have had their Day in the Sun save for Saturn, which frankly has always been an underachiever. Of course I’m biased, but I don’t see why Terra (Earth) should ever have to cede ground to anyone else going forward - we just need to fix a couple of things; what would that be worth to you? Is any amount of money too much?
And speaking of fixing things, you might have noticed this Forum used to have a category called Mundane and Pointless, which is where we started, but lately it was changed to Miscellaneous and Personal; this is 100% my doing and if you’ve spent any serious amount of time on this Board you know that nothing ever changes around here. But change it did, and I really had to use all the Juice I could muster to get it to happen - I think it was the undeniable fact that this thread, Lets Make Earth #1, is pretty much propping up this whole enterprise - lucky for us, somebody in charge here appreciates galloping success as Life Sustaining, and it’s good to know they understand which side of their bread is buttered! In case you missed it, this thread (Earth #1) has been here longer than any other in the category of “Threads that Go Dormant for Months at a Time” - it just refuses to Peter out, how about that? The only serious competition for that title is the one about the alternate ending for Big, and we all know what a joke that is, being kept alive by goofballs (now there’s Mundane and Pointless for you) who have little else to contribute, more’s the pity. Incidentally I’m not doing this for “bragging rights”, that is not my minus operandi at all, I sincerely believe as a community we have the potential to change everything, there’s nothing we can’t do and if you think that’s overreaching, don’t worry, I’m just getting started! But like the movement of the stars, everything is incremental, but we do what we have to in order that some day a new Constellation might be born, wouldn’t you be proud to know you were a part of it?
(Excuse my incipient giddiness here, I just got my Final implants today and you don’t want to know what it cost, but go ahead and ask - I’m thinking Class Action lawsuit might not be unthinkable!)
So, what side of their bread is buttered then ?
Congratulations on the implants! So what are you now, a C cup?
The Sunshine Boys are back I see.
Thank you for your contribution; every bump to the top of the list no matter how insincere helps the cause.
We are moving, moving, moving forward. No going back! Our submersible is made of Chromium Steel, utterly crush-proof. Energy is disperse! The source is bollstered by participation, each joke, even the lame ones and god knows there are multitudes is a rivet in the hull. I appreciate that; go on do your worst; I may be laughing At you, not With you but I am laughing ha ha.
C-cup it is. Your Bosom Buddy, H.
Well looka here! Did I not tell you this? And yet, it’s both better and worse than I thought.
(Acknowledgement to Saint_Cad for discovering this. You must have some excellent sensors to have detected this! I wonder, are you related tom the Swift family, maybe Taylor, Tom Jr.'s granddaughter? It makes sense, because if there’s one thing I know, money is no object.)
You know, I often wondered what got me started down this path; intuition maybe. I have always considered myself a sensitive individual, like the Princess and the Pea, I would have trouble sleeping and now it seems like I might have sensed something is “off” but couldn’t put my finger on it - well my finger is now pointing directly at the likely culprit! If a big chunk of Theia is sloshing around inside the Earth (like they are claiming in the center of Saturn, which I don’t buy, what are the chances a single Planet could hit two other planets and leave enough matter behind to be noticeable; yes accidents may happen but even I have never crashed my car twice in the same neighborhood) it would certainly result in fluctuations that a person with strong nerves like myself would sense in a vague, unsettling sort of way. No wonder I’m worried! Now you can be worried too if you weren’t already.
First of all - you are telling me a proto-Planet smashed into Terra some billions of years ago, knocked off a chunk which we call Luna or the Moon in English, and also was gurgitated into our planet in its early, unformed state, yet never completely melted? That’s crazy! If true, there’s a lot of reasons we should be Very concerned! How the heck do we know it won’t break through our thin outer layer called the Crust (itself a flimsy outer covering; imagine the hull of a peanut and you’re almost there)? Volcanoes are bad enough, but here’s a massive chunk of an Alien body that’s trying to get out! Remind you of anything?
Please think hard about this and let’s get the Money Train out of the station for Godsake! (My nephew with his fake English pounds - you’ve had your fun here; are you ready to stop chousing me like my no-good brother used to do and do something useful for a change? The Money Train could use an Engineer, you are welcome to climb aboard if you’re Man enough. Saint_Cad (Taylor) is obvously welcome too.)
I will leave you for now with this question, what do other Planets use for money? (Hint: the question answers itself.)
Do not trifle with that which is buried in Earth’s mantle, it would not go well for humanity.
Look at this.
It’s the cement floor in the subbasement in my place of employment. Photographed by me, unenhanced in any way and I can prove it. This is a normal basement in a normal building, it’s been ages since it was last flooded. So what is this terrible gunk rising up out of nowhere, like banana pudding with black mold on it? I did not manipulate this at all; it just showed up and I’m as startled as you are!
“Black gold - Texas tea” - nope it’s more sinister than that, yes it is in a building with an oil burner, and the pipe supplying the oil is beneath the floor; that proves it’s not a natural oil deposit because the pipe would be in the way of any subterranean oil that might be inclined to leak upward. Whatever it is, it creeps me out. Remember “The Blob”, that was in a movie theater too. Of course that was fiction. But this could be a Blob of some kind. I sure as heck am not going to touch it!
Speaking of Fiction, there is no Galactus.