Here Are 30 Cool Charts For Your Perusal

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2020: A Quick Review [UPDATED on 4.6]

Whew. It’s been one hell of a year.

The year started with an uneasy feeling that perhaps WW3 would break out due to tensions escalating between the U.S.A. and Iran. On January 3rd a U.S. airstrike killed a top Iranian general. Iran retaliated on 7th with a ballistic missile strike targeting American troops in Iraq and asked Interpol to arrest the President of the United States. But could it get worse? Oh, hell yes it could.

A worldwide pandemic, an economic meltdown, soaring unemployment, racial violence, political turmoil and much, much more has happened in 2020 after that dubious beginning.

And hey, it’s only early August. Good times indeed! Let’s take a look at what’s happened this year (so far) and then we’ll compare it to a couple other bad years, just to make you feel better. Let’s do this . . .

Megafires basically burned Australia to the ground.

Yeah, especially the southern coast. Here’s a rundown:

• One billion animals perished in the fires. One billion.
• Tens of millions of acres of woodlands and grasslands gone.
• Hundreds of species of animals needed emergency intervention.
• At least 34-people were killed and almost 3,000 homes were lost. 445-people died from the secondary effects of smoke from the bushfires, and thousands were hospitalized.
• All summer, Australians in Melbourne and Sydney watched in distress as ash rained down from the sky. Apocalyptic scenes were commonplace.

Over 500,000 people have contracted COVID-19.

• As of 3:40pm on August 4th, there have been 18,200,000 cases worldwide and 692,000 deaths.
• In the USA there have been 4,800,000 cases and 158,000 deaths.
• According to Business Insider, the ratio of Americans employed versus the total work-eligible population is the lowest it has been since 1948.
• Businesses, schools and sports shut down in the U.S as the world as we once knew it changed dramatically.

Starving monkey gangs practically took over Thailand as the coronavirus kept tourists away.

• Not even kidding. I swear it seemed as if society was descending into mass chaos and madness.

A plane crash in Tehran killed 126-people.

The 2020 Summer Olympics to be held in Tokyo was postponed until 2021 (hopefully).

A plane crash in Pakistan killed 97-people.

The United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union.

Deadly floods in Indonesia.

• The floods in Jakarta and nearby towns on the early hours of January 1st, killed 66 people and forced almost 400,000 to flee their homes. At least 182 neighborhoods had been submerged in the city’s greater area, inundating thousands of homes and buildings, including the presidential palace, and paralyzing transport networks. Rains caused more rivers to burst their banks in greater Jakarta, sending muddy water up to five feet deep into residential and commercial areas. According to the country’s disaster management agency (BNPB), many of the victims drowned or were buried by landslides. Several died of hypothermia and electric shocks.

Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash along with seven other people.

• That was a tough one. I think most of us remember where we were when we heard the news.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle renounced their royalty and bounced from England.

• Sure, not that big of a deal when compared to the other events but a very big deal in England.

Communal riots in Delhi.

• Sure, most folks don’t care about stuff that happens in India but the Delhi riots included multiple waves of bloodshed, property destruction, and rioting that killed 53 people, most of whom were Muslims who were shot, slashed with repeated blows, or set on fire by Hindu mobs in North East Delhi beginning on the night of February 23rd. Just awful.

Earthquakes in Turkey and the Caribbean.

• A total of 41 people were killed and more than 1,600 were injured in eastern Turkey after an earthquake rattled the region on January 24th. The 6.7 magnitude quake struck near the town of Sivrice, in eastern Elazig province, causing at least 10 buildings to collapse. The earthquake was felt in the neighboring provinces of Diyarbakır, Malatya, and Adıyaman, and the neighboring countries of Armenia, Syria, and Iran. About 1,607 people were hospitalized. Another powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck in the Caribbean on January 28th, prompting brief tsunami warnings and office evacuations as far away as Florida. The quake hit between Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Cuba. It was the largest earthquake in the Caribbean since 1946.

A white cop kneeled on the neck of a black man for 9-minutes and killed him. On camera.

• That black man was George Floyd and his death was the catalyst for protests and marches against police brutality all over the United States. It also restoked the Black Lives Matter Movement all over the world and in professional and amatuer sports.

Aunt Jemima taken off pancake syrup bottle.

• The Land o’ Lakes Native American too, as well as several other brand logos and mascots that were deemed inappropriate. Statues and confederate flags have come down as well. Has cancel culture overcorrected on some things? I believe it has, but that’s just my opinion.

Murder Hornets

• Yeah, these guys turned out to be frauds when we found out that random insects like Honey Bees and Praying Mantises were taking them out.

Puerto Rico hit with massive earthquakes.

Hundreds of billions of locust swarms the size of cities stormed through parts of East Africa and South Asia.

• It was the worst infestation in a quarter of a century, threatening the food supply of tens of millions. The Food and Agricultural Organization said that the locusts could affect the food security of 25 million people.

A Saharan dust storm is covering the southern US.

• It says a lot about the state of the nation when nobody is even talking about this one anymore.

Russia put bounties on US troops.

• Yet Trump and Putin are still besties!

And yes folks, Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have clean water.

And we’re only 7-months in, kids, with an election on the horizon! Can it get worse? Maybe.

UPDATE: As I typed, THIS just scrolled across my news feed:

As of 8/6, 135 dead and counting. Over 5,000 wounded. Sweet Mother of God.

But just to keep things in perspective, in 536 A.D. a volcanic eruption in Iceland created a cloud so large that it darkened the skies above Europe and Asia for months. As a result, temperatures dropped, snow fell during the summer, crops failed, famine spread and millions of people starved. To add insult to injury, historians believe that this massive change somehow caused bubonic plague, which would go on to eliminate almost half of the Eastern Roman Empire’s population and hasten its collapse.

And 1968? Holy shit man, the war in Vietnam was at its disastrous peak as 50 American soldiers a day were being sent home in coffins. In March of 1968, American troops committed what became the most notorious mass slaughter of civilians of that war, the massacre at My Lai. In April Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis, and then in June Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in Las Angeles. In ’68 many American cities were literally in flames, and on a much broader scale than what we have seen in this past few months. In early February of that year, three black Americans were killed and two dozen more were wounded by highway patrolmen and police in the “Orangeburg massacre” in South Carolina, after a desegregation protest. After the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., protests and then violent uprisings broke out coast to coast, in more than 100 U.S. cities.

See? We got through 536 and we got through 1968 and we didn’t even have Netflix, man! We got this! ‘Murica!

Seriously, folks, good will win out. It always does.

Map of the Day: Best and Worst US States For Retirement

Nebraska. Who knew? Complete rankings are below the map.

Here the 2019 rankings:

1. Nebraska
2. Iowa
3. Missouri
4. South Dakota
5. Florida
6. Kentucky
7. Kansas
8. North Carolina
9. Montana
10. Hawaii
11. Arkansas
12. Wisconsin
13. North Dakota
14. Vermont
15. New Hampshire
16. Alabama
17. Texas
18. Idaho
19. Mississippi
20. Wyoming
21. Oklahoma
22. Tennessee
23. Massachusetts
24. Michigan
25. West Virginia
26. Ohio
27. Rhode Island
28. Georgia
29. Indiana
30. Connecticut
31. Maine
32. Delaware
33. Colorado
34. Pennsylvania
35. Utah
36. Louisiana
37. New Mexico
38. Arizona
39. Virginia
40. Minnesota
41. South Carolina
42. New Jersey
43. California
44. Oregon
45. Nevada
46. Washington
47. Illinois
48. Alaska
49. New York
50. Maryland

Map of the Day: Economic Status of Appalachia

Interesting as always.