Ding-Dong the wicked terrorist is dead!

We have all certainly heard the great news "Osama Bin-Laden has been killed"! As soon as people heard this, I kid you not, there were parties outside the white house, and New York City.

The nation erupted in joy, singing "Ding-Dong the wicked terrorist, the wicked terrorist, ding-dong the wicked terrorist is dead!" Okay, so maybe they didn't sing exactly that, but everyone was still very happy! Personally when I heard the news (from my brother) I thought it was some type of cruel joke, but once I hopped on the news, and there it was "Osama Bin-Laden is dead."

I couldn't believe it, after this long hide N' seek game, we'd found this guy. The one who was the master mind of 9/11, the boat that rammed into that navy ship and exploded . . . he was dead. I almost had manly sniffles of joy (but I stopped myself)!

I was so happy, and still am! Now lets just hope this tells the terrorist "We're still here." Thanks for reading and have a great day! =)

Fun Facts about Caves

Though the title is cheesy, and really sounds like a teacher trying to get pre-schoolers to become interested in a subject; it's better then it sounds!

Fun Facts about Caves

The facts:

We all know caves and generally we think of them as cold, dark, wet places where nothing but vampires and bats live. And they just have weird formations such as “Cave Popcorn”:

(These are often found near the entrances of caves, because they tend to need a lot of air flow to form; and if you’re lost in a cave, and you see these little things, then you known there is an entrance nearby.)

Or “Stalagmites” and “Stalactites”:

But what most people don’t know is, caves are much more then that . . . there are hundreds, upon thousands of fascinating facts about caves, but I will only mention a few.

1: How exactly do caves form?

This is an interesting question; there are many ways they could be formed, but the most common is when water seeps through the ground, and mixes with carbon, and the water become “Acidic”, and slowly melts, or erodes the rock away.

Another way is over thousands of years, water erodes the rock away and it becomes a cave, without the need for it to be Acidic.

(Water eroding rock away).

Number two: Can things live, and thrive in caves?

The short answer to this question is yes, and no. Yes because obviously insects live in caves, and they can live in there comfortably, and no because most animals (or mammals) that live in caves, tend to get most of their nutrience from out of the cave (E.G Bats eating insects, that aren’t in the cave). But mostly yes, they can.

Number three: Can caves support plant life?

Near the entrance, yes, but deep in the cave, unless there is a continuous source of light, and water, then, no. Now, some mosses have “evolved” to be able to live in a cave, but that is a completely different story.

Number four: Do caves stay in the same shape, and size?

No, not at all in fact. Scientists have proven that caves are constantly changing, do to water eroding the rock away, and plates shifting, which does affect the caves. Though sometimes, if too much erosion is to occur; then it can ruin the cave, and it’s natural beauty.

Number five: Are the formations in caves alive?

Technically, yes. Do to the bacteria live on the formations, and the formations do change, they are kind of alive, in a sense, anyway. If you are referring to the actual rock, then. . . That is a debated subject, but the most common answer you will hear is “no”.

Number six: Do caves help the ecosystem?

Well, the things living in the caves help it, but the cave itself really has no effect on the ecosystem. Though, caves can perhaps, open up spaces to full of water to feed plants, and trees, which could be considered helping the ecosystem.

Number seven: What is the largest cave on earth; and where is it?

That would be the Hang Son Doong cave, Vietnam. They discovered it a few years ago, and they still haven’t found all of the “rooms”! It is thought to of started forming over 100,000 years ago, which in case you didn’t know, is a really long time.

Number eight: Does electricity affect caves?

Yes, they can completely destroy caves. In fact, some caves have even been shut down because of wiring through them! It has to do with where they place the wires, if they attempt to place it in the cave walls, then that can ruin the cave by preventing formations, such as stalagmites, and stalactites, from “growing”.

Number nine: Does pollution ruin caves?

Yes, like wiring, it can completely destroy caves by poisoning the animals that live there, and upsetting the natural ecosystem caves have. The way it “destroys” the cave is by poisoning the animals that live there, and if there are no animals to keep the cave clean, then with the mosses, and insects, it will destroy the caves natural beauty, and disturb the natural events that take place in caves.

Number ten: Did people live in caves?

Yes, they have even found fossils, and paintings in caves, but they were more likely used for worship places. It is debated among historians, and archeologists whether or not those people actually lived in the caves all of their lives.

The Summarization:

So how does all of this work together exactly? I’ll explain it like this, the thousands of years of erosion (water, and wind) form caves, the left over water soaks into the soil, and then it becomes acidic, the acidic water slowly starts to spread; molding rocks in to formations, forming stalactites, and stalagmites, after many years of this process, the cave can become very, very large, making room for animals, plants, and bacteria. Then, man will find this cave, make a home out of it, or open it to the public. Which then, they run wires through the cave. And people will obviously bring drinks and such into the cave, completely ruining it, and shutting the entire cave that seemed to be going forever, down.

BUT! It doesn’t have to be that way, there are some options available to us to help stop caves from being ruined! Such as not allowing drinks, and snacks into the cave. Also running little, to no wiring through a cave, or caves. Caves CAN be a good place, natural place if we all work together to prevent caves from being ruined, even picking up that one little piece of trash that blows into to a cave, could help the cave.

Thank you for reading, and remember; caves are important too!

So, the world is supposedly suppose to end on May 11, 2011.

I was looking up "end of the world" for fun, and I ran across several sites that said exactly this:

"Since some guy added up dates in the Bible, and all of them put together equals 11/5/11 that is the obvious end of the world. Even thought this guy was wrong several years ago, and years before that, we still believe him today! Prepare yourselves people, THE END IS NEAR!"

Now, I have one problem with this, this guy really has tried to predict "the end" yet he was wrong about three times before, yet people think he'll be right *this time*. I have to say something as a Christian, the dates in the Bible, NO MATTER HOW YOU ADD, OR SUBTRACT, OR MULTIPLY, OR EVEN DIVIDE THEM, YOU WILL NOT EVEN COME CLOSE TO PREDICTING THE END!

People need to realize that YOU cannot predict the end, nor the angles, or Jesus, just God himself . . .

Though I have to say something that is pretty creepy, I was once having this dream of the end of the world, people were screaming outside, and me, and all of the other Christians were all going up in a bus to heaven (somehow we all fit in there), and I saw a big stone block that had these words on it, "The end, xgxghxhxhxxhgxhxg (it really said that), May 11, 2011." Now, here comes the creepy part, I dreamed about that before I heard about this guy tying to predict the end . . . creepy isn't it?

I'm back!

Sorry I haven't been blogging in while, there just hasn't been much to blog about . . . but now that things have started happening again, there is stuff to blog about about! :D

Ostrich Wrestling!

*This morning I was given an assignment, the assignment was to create my own sport. Here's what I came up with."

Ostrich Wrestling

Ostrich wrestling was invented in 1930, in Africa. It was the first animal wrestling sport invented; really it was made out of a mixture of stress from the war, and boredom.

The origin of ostrich wrestling comes from two men who were angry at each other, but were unfortunately pacifists. They needed a way to get each other, without hitting each other. So they went out on a search to find animals, strong animals, willing to fight.

They considered lions, but they realized that the lions may go after the people, instead of each other. So they continued searching, and they finally found the answer, ostriches. They were big, they were strong, and just what the two men needed. So one man went his way, and the other his way.

They problem was, they were both pacifists, so they didn’t really know how teach the ostriches to fight. During the first round of this “sport” or “competition” if you want to call it that, the ostriches just stood there, looking around.

They tried whipping the, but that just made the ostriches chase after the one who whipped them. Finally, the two men got other men to train the ostriches to fight each other, then the second round came, and well . . . the ostriches did go after each other, for a little while, but then they started going after the men, because they remembered they were the ones who whipped them.

Ostrich wrestling really never took off the ground, and was outlawed after a month of the men trying to get the ostriches to fight. So it was short lived, but one of the men had this to say, “Ouch.”

So ostrich wrestling never became a sport, the two men are still angry at each other to this day, no one knows why they are angry, they just are. Thank you for reading.

*NOTE: NONE OF THE PREVOUS DOCUMENTED CASES YOU JUST READ WERE TRUE. THEY DIDN’T REALLY USE OSTRICHS. THEY USED GIRAFFS. THAT DIDN’T GO TO WELL EITHER AT ALL . . .*

What a great way to start out the new year!

I was truly disturbed when I heard this, 5000 birds just dropping out of the sky, dead. I've done some research on this, and heres what I wrote down:

Bird deaths, Natural, Biblical, or Human?

I’ve been doing some reading on this odd event, and the experts say the whole thing is “natural and it happens all the time, just not in these numbers . . .”

Their explanations are this, fireworks, they crashed into something very large, or some disease. Now I’m going to state all of my opinions on these theories or “explanations”.

First off, let’s start with the fireworks theory. Here’s how it goes; people were setting off fireworks, and having fun. But the fireworks blinded the birds and all of them just flew into buildings, trees, or even planes! All of the birds becoming blinded and flying into buildings, all at once . . . now the problem is, those birds don’t fly at night, and people set off fireworks all of the time on new year’s eve, but 5000 birds didn’t drop dead just because of fireworks, that go off every year! Once again, those birds don’t fly at night, so something would have had to disturb them enough to set them off.

Secondly, flying into to something very large. Their proof for this is, they found signs of head trauma in the birds, so they must of flown into something large. Now, what I think about this is, of course there is going to be trauma, they hit the ground! Another question is, what would of they hit? An alien space ship? A plane? Telephone wires? Or just some large invisible object just floating up there, waiting for the birds to come!

Now thirdly is a disease. I personally believe this is the most possible one, but what disease? It could be anything really! Some type of flu, some type of virus only spread through these types of birds, or just some severe cold. But the thing is, they said they didn’t find any sign of disease! So it’s probably not that either!

My entire point is, nobody knows what really killed these poor little birds. Maybe one day, they decided that they didn’t want to live anymore, so they just stopped living.

Or this truly is a sign that judgment day is coming. Most likely not, but who knows, maybe god is giving us a heads up . . .

Thank you for reading,

Samuel Andrew Paddock, a 12 year old boy who expresses his thoughts a lot.