Talking Dirty

There must be 18 million people right now, blogging about "Pat said Haiti is cursed" or "Senator Reid called Obama a light skinned negro."

So why would I want to make it 18 million and one?

I'll just say...
Rev. Robertson, if you feel right now like pins are sticking in you? You started it dude.
Senator Reid, I'm with you on this one. Mr. Obama is a light skinned negro.

I'd rather type about more interesting stupid things in the news. Like super dirt for example.

Chopping at the Amazon rain forest, that's bad. But the deforestation revealed large tracts of black, amazingly fertile top soil, and that's good. Science couldn't explain what in the world it was doing there; that's bad. But they've figured out what super dirt does, and that's real good.

Its main indgredients are burnt wood particles, broken pottery bits, and human excrement. It attracts all manner of beneficial fungi and micro-organisms. Super dirt traps the nutrients produced by these tiny critters. This process breaks down the super dirt particles into even smaller bits, providing more surface area for more micro-organisms to cling to... so super dirt gets stronger with age, just like whiskey.

Oh, I forgot! That "thump thump" noise you hear? It's Meso-American archaeology texts being thrown into the garbage. Experts have long believed the Amazon basin couldn't have supported settlement like Inca or Mayan cultures. Super dirt says otherwise. Population was once around 100,000 probably. It's quite likely there are ruins of temples, palaces and tombs beneath the jungle canopy somewhere. And they did it all with super dirt.

That's real good, I mean real real good. Modern use of super dirt would not only bring back exhausted soils in the hungriest parts of earth. It'd also reduce dependance on nitrogen based fertilizer in developed countries. So that's good.

Only problem is we moderns can't figure out how to make super dirt, and that's bad.
But some smart folks are working on it, and that's good.