Universal Love TRTT Part 9: Eat my ass you absolute man child

[Contested Marx]

Think I'll get onto it as soon as I finish the Witcher, which is also fun even though I'm having a hard time following it.

I started watching the Witcher, ended up putting subtitles on because half of the dialogue was nonsensical

Did enjoy the "She's All That" turnaround with the hunchback though

 

[sobrave]

I started watching the Witcher, ended up putting subtitles on because half of the dialogue was nonsensical

Did enjoy the "She's All That" turnaround with the hunchback though

Great set of norks for a hunchback am I right

 

[Magus]

Great set of norks for a hunchback am I right

There's a word you don't hear a lot anymore - norks.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

RussellEbertHandball have you ever heard of Australian Rain Technology and the Atlant system? Apparently they did a trial in South Australia of their system back in 2010 and it improved rainfall by 10%. This was after they did a trial in Queensland in 2008. They’ve done a five year trial in Oman and they’ve managed to get it up to 18-20%.

View attachment 800454

Old mate Turnbull gave these guys $11m in 2013. Here’s the thing though - if you’re inducing more rain to fall where it otherwise wouldn’t, you’re basically manipulating the weather system to steal rain from other areas.

They’ve apparently got a proposal to set up this system in the Murray-Darling basin.

Yes that rings a bells. I remember Turnbull giving them some funding but never heard of their follow up results. If they have been doing trials in Oman for 5 years then that makes sense.

You are right that if they make it rain in region X then they are stealing from region Y and not fair unless region Y is the ocean.

Its why planting trees is a big part of the solution. About 10 years ago I asked my meteorologist mate about chopping down trees and changing rainfall patterns. He said that the WA Wheatbelt region which was basically cleared between 1945-75, starting with post WWII solider-farms, that their post 1990 rainfall readings have been at least 25% lower than readings from that first 20 years after WWII. He said that is clear evidence of clearing trees causing a drop in local area rainfall.

 

[Sleezy]

Yes that rings a bells. I remember Turnbull giving them some funding but never heard of their follow up results. If they have been doing trials in Oman for 5 years then that makes sense.

You are right that if they make it rain in region X then they are stealing from region Y and not fair unless region Y is the ocean.

Its why planting trees is a big part of the solution. About 10 years ago I asked my meteorologist mate about chopping down trees and changing rainfall patterns. He said that the WA Wheatbelt region which was basically cleared between 1945-75, starting with post WWII solider-farms, that their post 1990 rainfall readings have been at least 25% lower than readings from that first 20 years after WWII. He said that is clear evidence of clearing trees causing a drop in local area rainfall.

I'm reading collapse by Jared Diamond at the moment. It analyses the contributing factors in the collapse of various past societies - Easter Island, Norse Greenland, Maya and then analyses current societies against the same crietria.

I just finished the chapter on Australia, which makes a pretty compelling case for the abandonment of almost all farming in Aus. It was written about 15 years ago - but he stated that something like 80% of the agricultural profit in australia is derived from about 1% of the land currently used for agricultural purposes.

Due to a combination of existing environmental conditions (low volcanic and tectonic activity) we have mostly infertile soils that are quickly depleted of nutrients. Add in government policy that until recently (70s/80s) forced landowners to clear local vegetation and overstock livestock or risk losing their lease - agriculture has been a loss making enterprise for the majority of participants, that has ended up creating significant environmental damage in the form of erosion and salinization as a bonus.

The Western wheat belt was described as a giant flower pot filled with sand. All the nutrients have to be added, and the only thing that made it viable was the predictability of the rains, which has decreased over the past 25 years.

It's a hard conversation to have given how ingrained rural culture is in our national psyche.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I'm reading collapse by Jared Diamond at the moment. It analyses the contributing factors in the collapse of various past societies - Easter Island, Norse Greenland, Maya and then analyses current societies against the same crietria.

I just finished the chapter on Australia, which makes a pretty compelling case for the abandonment of almost all farming in Aus. It was written about 15 years ago - but he stated that something like 80% of the agricultural profit in australia is derived from about 1% of the land currently used for agricultural purposes.

Due to a combination of existing environmental conditions (low volcanic and tectonic activity) we have mostly infertile soils that are quickly depleted of nutrients. Add in government policy that until recently (70s/80s) forced landowners to clear local vegetation and overstock livestock or risk losing their lease - agriculture has been a loss making enterprise for the majority of participants, that has ended up creating significant environmental damage in the form of erosion and salinization as a bonus.

The Western wheat belt was described as a giant flower pot filled with sand. All the nutrients have to be added, and the only thing that made it viable was the predictability of the rains, which has decreased over the past 25 years.

It's a hard conversation to have given how ingrained rural culture is in our national psyche.

I've read/own Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel but only skim read my mates copy of Collapse. Never got around to buying it.

Yep Australia's soils are poor and we overwork them and one day the chemical fertilizers impact will run out. This is proman_x's area of speciality, he has been working on soil biology for over 30 years, I've had some chats about this topic with him the last decade or so, and the last 18 months on and off I have been working with one of his colleagues who is seen as a world expert on improving soils, using compost made from from green bin waste and food waste as well as animal waste products to produce compost that improves soils. He regularly goes and talks to guys in the middle east, asia and latin america.

There are potential solutions but its all big scale stuff that needs decent co-ordination, however individual land owners can all play their part in the big picture.

 

[Janus]

Yes that rings a bells. I remember Turnbull giving them some funding but never heard of their follow up results. If they have been doing trials in Oman for 5 years then that makes sense.

You are right that if they make it rain in region X then they are stealing from region Y and not fair unless region Y is the ocean.

Its why planting trees is a big part of the solution. About 10 years ago I asked my meteorologist mate about chopping down trees and changing rainfall patterns. He said that the WA Wheatbelt region which was basically cleared between 1945-75, starting with post WWII solider-farms, that their post 1990 rainfall readings have been at least 25% lower than readings from that first 20 years after WWII. He said that is clear evidence of clearing trees causing a drop in local area rainfall.

So what you're saying is that it's actually the farmers that are to blame for the drought?

I'm reading collapse by Jared Diamond at the moment. It analyses the contributing factors in the collapse of various past societies - Easter Island, Norse Greenland, Maya and then analyses current societies against the same crietria.

I just finished the chapter on Australia, which makes a pretty compelling case for the abandonment of almost all farming in Aus. It was written about 15 years ago - but he stated that something like 80% of the agricultural profit in australia is derived from about 1% of the land currently used for agricultural purposes.

Due to a combination of existing environmental conditions (low volcanic and tectonic activity) we have mostly infertile soils that are quickly depleted of nutrients. Add in government policy that until recently (70s/80s) forced landowners to clear local vegetation and overstock livestock or risk losing their lease - agriculture has been a loss making enterprise for the majority of participants, that has ended up creating significant environmental damage in the form of erosion and salinization as a bonus.

The Western wheat belt was described as a giant flower pot filled with sand. All the nutrients have to be added, and the only thing that made it viable was the predictability of the rains, which has decreased over the past 25 years.

It's a hard conversation to have given how ingrained rural culture is in our national psyche.

This is the case everywhere, not just in Australia. Arable land decreases every single year worldwide, because no one gives the soil enough time to replace the nutrients that the crops suck up in order to grow. A third of the world's arable land has disappeared in the past 40 years.

The question you have to ask is - if arable land can disappear so easily, surely it can be regenerated easily if you introduce the right conditions?

I have a tropical fish tank, and one of the things they will tell you in setting up any aquarium is that you have to get the bacteria levels right to create an ecosystem where the fish can thrive first. It's the same with soil - the bacteria needs to be able to thrive in order to create the ecosystem necessary for plant growth.

The future of farming is organic farmland - working with nature instead of trying to dictate the yield. The conversation needs to shift from the traditional methods towards something that uses natural composting and soil regeneration methods. Organic also uses less water and helps to stop contamination of run off.

"Agricultural land under certified organic management in 2016 was over 27 million hectares, of the world's 50.9 million hectares. Australia owns 53% of the world's organic farmland."

Of course, this would mean a change in shopping habits, because supermarkets tend to favour the produce that is large and enticing (i.e. not nutritious, but it sure looks good).

Honestly, with the advent of online shopping, I can foresee a future where the supermarket goes the way of the department store as one of those antiquated ideas that was only good because it was convenient...and everyone just gets their food direct from suppliers who set up automated drone delivery systems to your door. Amazon is setting up systems like this in the US as we speak.

We are in a transition period right now. It's almost a case of back to the future in terms of what people are looking for.

 

[Sleezy]

I've read/own Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel but only skim read my mates copy of Collapse. Never got around to buying it.

Yep Australia's soils are poor and we overwork them and one day the chemical fertilizers impact will run out. This is proman_x's area of speciality, he has been working on soil biology for over 30 years, I've had some chats about this topic with him the last decade or so, and the last 18 months on and off I have been working with one of his colleagues who is seen as a world expert on improving soils, using compost made from from green bin waste and food waste as well as animal waste products to produce compost that improves soils. He regularly goes and talks to guys in the middle east, asia and latin america.

There are potential solutions but its all big scale stuff that needs decent co-ordination, however individual land owners can all play their part in the big picture.

It's worth a read in detail. It's better written and laid out than GG&S. It's made me re-assess the way I think about climate change.

Momentum is slowly building for positive action on climate change. There also needs to be consideration of what we can do to prepare ourselves for the changes that are inevitably coming.

Australia is marginal at best for agriculture, with slow recovery rates in comparison to most of the world due to our geography, and we are more vulnerable to climate change than most as a result.

Reforestation, sustainable fresh water and land usage, reinstatement of native vegetation to protect against soil erosion. They will be just as important to securing the future viability of our farmland as actually reversing the effects of climate change.

 

[Sleezy]

So what you're saying is that it's actually the farmers that are to blame for the drought?



This is the case everywhere, not just in Australia. Arable land decreases every single year worldwide, because no one gives the soil enough time to replace the nutrients that the crops suck up in order to grow. A third of the world's arable land has disappeared in the past 40 years.

The question you have to ask is - if arable land can disappear so easily, surely it can be regenerated easily if you introduce the right conditions?

I have a tropical fish tank, and one of the things they will tell you in setting up any aquarium is that you have to get the bacteria levels right to create an ecosystem where the fish can thrive first. It's the same with soil - the bacteria needs to be able to thrive in order to create the ecosystem necessary for plant growth.

The future of farming is organic farmland - working with nature instead of trying to dictate the yield. The conversation needs to shift from the traditional methods towards something that uses natural composting and soil regeneration methods. Organic also uses less water and helps to stop contamination of run off.

"Agricultural land under certified organic management in 2016 was over 27 million hectares, of the world's 50.9 million hectares. Australia owns 53% of the world's organic farmland."

Of course, this would mean a change in shopping habits, because supermarkets tend to favour the produce that is large and enticing (i.e. not nutritious, but it sure looks good).

Honestly, with the advent of online shopping, I can foresee a future where the supermarket goes the way of the department store as one of those antiquated ideas that was only good because it was convenient...and everyone just gets their food direct from suppliers who set up automated drone delivery systems to your door. Amazon is setting up systems like this in the US as we speak.

We are in a transition period right now. It's almost a case of back to the future in terms of what people are looking for.

As far as I am aware, naturally productive farmland is a result of three factors (excluding fresh water): volcanic activity, tectonic activity or glacial activity.

It all stems from nutrient regeneration the introduction of minerals to the environment via break up of old rocks. Australia is relatively unique in it's scarcity of all three of the above. It is also no coincidence that the most productive farmland are in the areas of the country with the most recent tectonic, volcanic or glacial activity.

There is a line in the Pacific (can't remember what it's called) that basically delineates the extent of volcanic fallout from Asia. On one side of the line, Pacific islands receive windblown nutrients in the form of volcanic ash. On the other side, they don't. The soil fertility of the islands on the right side of the line has lead to a higher incidence of successful, sustainable societal development than the islands on the wrong side.

Land regeneration is a very slow process, because it is linked to geological processes. Once the mineral nutrients are gone, they are hard to reintroduce artificially. Partial depletion is easier to resolve, but it needs early and decisive intervention.

Although as REH said, proman_x is the expert, I've just read about 3/4 of one book

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

So what you're saying is that it's actually the farmers that are to blame for the drought?

Farmers aren't solely to blame for drought but they have to accept their share of the blame of clearing so much land and making things worse.

When you have a farm of marginal cropping land and you can see kms into the horizon, in any direction and there are no trees, you know those who have farmed that land, haven't helped themselves by clearing everything.

Then there is the soil erosion issue on top of reduced rainfall, by clearing so much land.

An individual farmer or group of farmers can't change El Nino / La Nina or Indian Ocean Dipole, or the warming of the ocean's or increase in carbon dioxide from electricity production and transport etc, but as we have seen with the WA Wheatbelt Region, a collective of regional farmers can make any drought worse if they have stripped away too many trees.

 

[sobrave]

There's a word you don't hear a lot anymore - norks.

And with good reason

RIP picture magazine

 

[Sleezy]

Farmers aren't solely to blame for drought but they have to accept their share of the blame of clearing so much land and making things worse.

When you have a farm of marginal cropping land and you can see kms into the horizon, in any direction and there are no trees, you know those who have farmed that land, haven't helped themselves by clearing everything.

Then there is the soil erosion issue on top of reduced rainfall, by clearing so much land.

An individual farmer or group of farmers can't change El Nino / La Nina or Indian Ocean Dipole, or the warming of the ocean's or increase in carbon dioxide from electricity production and transport etc, but as we have seen with the WA Wheatbelt Region, a collective of regional farmers can make any drought worse if they have stripped away too many trees.

Apparently land clearance was a condition of ownership imposed by the government for a lot of farms, and was incentivised with a significant tax break.

As a result large tracts of unsuitable farming land were cleared, worked for 5-10 years until the soil was depleted then abandoned at a profit.

The unofficial government slogan in WA for the program was 'a million acres a year'.

https://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/6479/A-Million-Acres-A-Year

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Apparently land clearance was a condition of ownership imposed by the government for a lot of farms, and was incentivised with a significant tax break.

As a result large tracts of unsuitable farming land were cleared, worked for 5-10 years until the soil was depleted then abandoned at a profit.

The unofficial government slogan in WA for the program was 'a million acres a year'.

https://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/6479/A-Million-Acres-A-Year

Those solider settler farms were all incentivised to clear land. At least some, like in the Riverland and Sunraysia, the soldiers were encouraged to grow trees like oranges and then vines, rather than annual crops like wheat and barley which meant no trees caused rainfall and erosion issues.

I've seen a 15 minute doco on the WA Wheatbelt stuff many years ago and was why some years later I asked my meteorologist mate about what that did to the annual rainfall.

Like everything it seems, governments weren't good at seeing the bigger picture and you get fads of having to encourage more agriculture but they went for short term measures and not understand the long term consequences.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

The unofficial government slogan in WA for the program was 'a million acres a year'.

https://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/6479/A-Million-Acres-A-Year

That is the doco I saw that I mentioned in my last post. Says it was produced in 2002, so it was 6 or 7 years later I asked my meteorologist mate about what had happened to annual rainfall in the Wheatbelt Region.

 

[Eddie Dingle]

I wonder if REH has a mate who is a meteorologist?

 

[Relativity]

Those solider settler farms were all incentivised to clear land. At least some, like in the Riverland and Sunraysia, the soldiers were encouraged to grow trees like oranges and then vines, rather than annual crops like wheat and barley which meant no trees caused rainfall and erosion issues.

I've seen a 15 minute doco on the WA Wheatbelt stuff many years ago and was why some years later I asked my meteorologist mate about what that did to the annual rainfall.

Like everything it seems, governments weren't good at seeing the bigger picture and you get fads of having to encourage more agriculture but they went for short term measures and not understand the long term consequences.

Governments are too easily influenced by vested interests.

20 years ago the Olson government proclaimed the underground water table in the southeast under the guise of protecting and managing it through licencing. It then put the management of the licencing process in the hands of irrigators which resulted in the more area you could irrigate the larger the licence you were given. This resulted in a rush on irrigation equipment and a massive increase in irrigation resulting in an alarming drop in the water table - the thing the government was trying to protect.

Another bewildering outcome was the irrigators lobbied the government to bring in water licencing for timber plantations. Because trees use water - I-kid-you-not. So they effectively put an impost/limit on the very things known to increase rainfall.

There wasn't much that Olson didn't fcuk up.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

There wasn't much that Olson didn't fcuk up.

And continues to do so.

 

[Byrons Firen]

And continues to do so.

He's a cancer

 

[Portology]

It's been a grim start to the new year so let me leave aside all the horrible things for a moment and take joy in a few small good things.

Thanks for putting on the fine weather and clean air today, Adelaide. It was a bloody luxury to be able to get off the plane, go for a long run down by the glorious beaches without checking air quality sites and smelling smoke. Even the traditional instant reminders of the stupidity of Adelaide-standard drivers couldn't upset that. Far from my dark Surry Hills shoebox at my folks bright and airy house I've suddenly realised what that dust on my laptop keyboard was: ash, FFS. My laptop was not on fire, and finally I noticed that it smelled like smoke.

I'm visiting the folks for Christmas, stuffing my face with my uncle's home made prosciutto and his home brewed grape brandy, and finally learning some of the secrets of my mum's "famous all over Royal Park" cabbage rolls (four different kinds of smoked meats, for one thing!). Chasing it all down with the PA Lager I bought back in early November. Strangely enough my Norwood-Crows brother hasn't nicked a single can of it in my absence. The old man's new hip seems to have settled down too which is good news. Family, hey?

So I'll be at Bacchus down at Henley saturday afternoon from 4pm with a random tribe of friends - anyone needs a hand with their "SACK HIM" banner for this season bring it on down

Ok, that's enough happy clapping from me for one festive season. Let normal transmission be resumed:

He's a cancer

No, not really. Each year we hear of more and more categories of cancers that can be cut out or fully cured. Olsen is more your persistent parasite that seems to only go into remission at best, before recurring to further weaken - but never quite kill - his host.

 

[Sleezy]

On Star Wars: I have decided to think of VII, VIII & IX as $900m fan fiction excercises. It makes me feel a lot better about the whole thing, and from that perspective they were relatively entertaining.

I hope someone has a real crack at them one day.

 

[Butters Made Me Do It]

On Star Wars: I have decided to think of VII, VIII & IX as $900m fan fiction excercises.

As fan fiction they’re even worse! Would not rate on AO3

 

[JimmyBeerCans]

On Star Wars: I have decided to think of VII, VIII & IX as $900m fan fiction excercises. It makes me feel a lot better about the whole thing, and from that perspective they were relatively entertaining.

I hope someone has a real crack at them one day.

Some things run their course & should be left to die.. Star Wars is one of those things.

Astounding how attached people are to antiquated boomer ideas it goes against the usual rhetoric here.

 

[edgie]

Nope.

Star Wars punched well below its weight with the sequels.

There's fuel in the tank but the drivers suck.

Except for Adam. He's a good driver.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Been reading the Wall Street Journal's sport pages today after a tweet alert at lunchtime took me to their story of the death of NBA Commissioner 1984 to 2014, David Stern.

They had this list as the best sports moments that defined the decade. Some are US centric but many international sports. A couple that the background is needed to understand, so I have cut and pasted them. Its a list that makes you think and recall some magic moments, but you can read the background behind them all at;

The Sports Moments That Defined the Decade

WSJ Sports reporters pick the most important games, athletes, performances and decisions of the 2010s.

www.wsj.com

2010 Olympic Hockey Gold-Medal Game
Feb. 28, 2010 Canada 3, U.S. 2 Canada Hockey Place, Vancouver, British Columbia

2012 Australian Open Men’s Final
Jan. 29, 2012 Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, Australia

2012 English Premier League
May 13, 2012 Queen’s Park Rangers 2, Manchester City 3 Etihad Stadium, Manchester, England

Men’s 100-meter Olympic Final
Aug. 5, 2012 (London) and Aug. 15, 2016 (Rio)

2013 Iron Bowl
Nov. 30, 2013 Auburn 34, Alabama 28 Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn, Ala.

2014 World Cup semifinals
July 8, 2014 Germany 7, Brazil 1 Estádio Mineirão, Belo Horizonte, Brazil sorry GremioPower

2015 Belmont Stakes
June 6, 2015 Elmont, N.Y.
American Pharoah (Pharaoh misspelt at registration) wins first triple crown in 37 years.

2016 NBA Finals: Game 7
June 19, 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers 93, Golden State Warriors 89 Oracle Arena, Oakland, Calif.

2016 Women’s Olympic Road Race
Aug. 7, 2016 Rio

2016 World Series: Game 7
Nov. 2, 2016 Chicago Cubs 8, Cleveland Indians 7 Progressive Field, Cleveland - first WS win after 108 years

2018 NCAA Tournament: Round of 64
March 16, 2018 UMBC 74, Virginia 54 Spectrum Center, Charlotte, N.C.

The same, boring thing had happened 135 straight times: No. 1 seeds beat No. 16s. It happened so many times that it was actually improbable that it never happened before. Which made it fitting when that streak ended in the most improbable of ways when The University of Maryland, Baltimore County knocked off Virginia in 2018.

UMBC didn’t just win. The Retrievers blew out the Cavaliers 74-54—an utter romp against a team that was the No. 1 seed of the entire tournament and the most common pick to win the national championship. It was an upset for the ages in the most epic circumstances possible.

2018 U.S. Open Women’s Final
Sept. 8, 2018 Naomi Osaka vs. Serena Williams Arthur Ashe Stadium, New York

2019 NFC Championship
Jan. 20, 2019 Los Angeles Rams 26, New Orleans Saints 23 The Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans

2019 Masters
April 14, 2019 Augusta National, Augusta, Ga. Tiger Woods finally wins another Major

2019 Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr.
June 1, 2019 Madison Square Garden, New York - Mexico's first heavyweight boxing champion

2019 Women’s World Cup quarterfinals
June 26, 2019 U.S. 2, France 1 Parc des Princes, Paris
The twitter battle between US captain and Trump.

The 2019 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships
Oct. 4 to Oct. 13, 2019 Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, Stuttgart, Germany

Gymnast Simone Biles established herself as the Greatest of All Time at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games—and then something even crazier and more important happened.

She took two years off, identified herself as a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of the U.S. national gymnastics team physician, criticized her own federation for its handling of the scandal, got new coaches and came back at the advanced-in-gymnastics age of 21. And she was even better.

Biles’s 16 performances at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany were, together, the performance of the decade. Anchoring the U.S. team, defending her all-around title and entered into every event final, she swept up five out of six available gold medals and became the most decorated gymnast in history. With no real competition, she also notched two barrier-breakingly difficult new skills into the code of points: a triple-twisting double somersault on the floor exercise, the only J-rated skill in the rulebook, and a double-twisting double somersault dismount from the balance beam, which the international gymnastics federation declined to rate as highly for fear other gymnasts might try it.

2019 UFC 244
Nov. 2, 2019 Madison Square Garden, New York

President Trump attended a UFC cage fight in New York City in November 2019, almost three years to the day he won the White House.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a cage fight before, but it’s not the French Open. When Trump walked out, the loudspeaker blasted AC/DC, then Black Sabbath. Some of the crowd cheered like they’d never cheered before. Others booed extremely loudly. Then a sitting President of the United States watched a full night of cage fighting.

When I think about what happened this decade, I’ll think of that night a lot.

 

[Duck Farmer]

Been reading the Wall Street Journal's sport pages today after a tweet alert at lunchtime took me to their story of the death of NBA Commissioner 1984 to 2014, David Stern.

They had this list as the best sports moments that defined the decade. Some are US centric but many international sports. A couple that the background is needed to understand, so I have cut and pasted them. Its a list that makes you think and recall some magic moments, but you can read the background behind them all at;

The Sports Moments That Defined the Decade

WSJ Sports reporters pick the most important games, athletes, performances and decisions of the 2010s.

www.wsj.com

2010 Olympic Hockey Gold-Medal Game
Feb. 28, 2010 Canada 3, U.S. 2 Canada Hockey Place, Vancouver, British Columbia

2012 Australian Open Men’s Final
Jan. 29, 2012 Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne, Australia

2012 English Premier League
May 13, 2012 Queen’s Park Rangers 2, Manchester City 3 Etihad Stadium, Manchester, England

Men’s 100-meter Olympic Final
Aug. 5, 2012 (London) and Aug. 15, 2016 (Rio)

2013 Iron Bowl
Nov. 30, 2013 Auburn 34, Alabama 28 Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn, Ala.

2014 World Cup semifinals
July 8, 2014 Germany 7, Brazil 1 Estádio Mineirão, Belo Horizonte, Brazil sorry GremioPower

2015 Belmont Stakes
June 6, 2015 Elmont, N.Y.
American Pharoah (Pharaoh misspelt at registration) wins first triple crown in 37 years.

2016 NBA Finals: Game 7
June 19, 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers 93, Golden State Warriors 89 Oracle Arena, Oakland, Calif.

2016 Women’s Olympic Road Race
Aug. 7, 2016 Rio

2016 World Series: Game 7
Nov. 2, 2016 Chicago Cubs 8, Cleveland Indians 7 Progressive Field, Cleveland - first WS win after 108 years

2018 NCAA Tournament: Round of 64
March 16, 2018 UMBC 74, Virginia 54 Spectrum Center, Charlotte, N.C.

The same, boring thing had happened 135 straight times: No. 1 seeds beat No. 16s. It happened so many times that it was actually improbable that it never happened before. Which made it fitting when that streak ended in the most improbable of ways when The University of Maryland, Baltimore County knocked off Virginia in 2018.

UMBC didn’t just win. The Retrievers blew out the Cavaliers 74-54—an utter romp against a team that was the No. 1 seed of the entire tournament and the most common pick to win the national championship. It was an upset for the ages in the most epic circumstances possible.

2018 U.S. Open Women’s Final
Sept. 8, 2018 Naomi Osaka vs. Serena Williams Arthur Ashe Stadium, New York

2019 NFC Championship
Jan. 20, 2019 Los Angeles Rams 26, New Orleans Saints 23 The Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans

2019 Masters
April 14, 2019 Augusta National, Augusta, Ga. Tiger Woods finally wins another Major

2019 Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz Jr.
June 1, 2019 Madison Square Garden, New York - Mexico's first heavyweight boxing champion

2019 Women’s World Cup quarterfinals
June 26, 2019 U.S. 2, France 1 Parc des Princes, Paris
The twitter battle between US captain and Trump.

The 2019 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships
Oct. 4 to Oct. 13, 2019 Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, Stuttgart, Germany

Gymnast Simone Biles established herself as the Greatest of All Time at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games—and then something even crazier and more important happened.

She took two years off, identified herself as a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of the U.S. national gymnastics team physician, criticized her own federation for its handling of the scandal, got new coaches and came back at the advanced-in-gymnastics age of 21. And she was even better.

Biles’s 16 performances at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany were, together, the performance of the decade. Anchoring the U.S. team, defending her all-around title and entered into every event final, she swept up five out of six available gold medals and became the most decorated gymnast in history. With no real competition, she also notched two barrier-breakingly difficult new skills into the code of points: a triple-twisting double somersault on the floor exercise, the only J-rated skill in the rulebook, and a double-twisting double somersault dismount from the balance beam, which the international gymnastics federation declined to rate as highly for fear other gymnasts might try it.

2019 UFC 244
Nov. 2, 2019 Madison Square Garden, New York

President Trump attended a UFC cage fight in New York City in November 2019, almost three years to the day he won the White House.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a cage fight before, but it’s not the French Open. When Trump walked out, the loudspeaker blasted AC/DC, then Black Sabbath. Some of the crowd cheered like they’d never cheered before. Others booed extremely loudly. Then a sitting President of the United States watched a full night of cage fighting.

When I think about what happened this decade, I’ll think of that night a lot.

Where's our win over Melbourne in Rd 1?