When In China - You May Want to Stay Out of Your Car

Today the Xinhua News Agency in China confirmed once again that Chinese roads are the deadliest in the world. Chinese government statistics reported nearly 82,000 road deaths last year and, with 5.1 traffic deaths for every 10,000 motor vehicles, China has topped the list for the 11th consecutive year.

Private car ownership in China has soared along with the country's economic boom and inexperienced drivers, overloaded vehicles, reckless driving, and poor road conditions are common and frequently contribute to fatal crashes. Apparently, another contributing fator in the high number of fatalities is the ability of Chinese cars to sef-destruct during a crash as demonstrated by the crash test video of a new Chinese-built Cherry automobile.

Trivia of Note:

• The world average is two deaths per 10,000 vehicles.
• The most current U.S. government statistics report about 1.7 fatalities per 10,000 registered vehicles in 2006.
• In 1899 the first US automobile fatality occurred when Henry H. Bliss, age 68, was struck and killed by an electric-powered taxicab as he stepped from a streetcar at Central Park West and 74th Street in New York City.
• In 1952 the US recorded its one millionth traffic fatality and in 1995 recorded its three millionth traffic fatality.

Japanese Warship Will Not be Named in Barack Obama's Honor

Actually, Barack, or anyone else for that matter, should not be too terribly upset to learn that the chances of having a Japaneses warship named after them is even less than winning the lottery. In fact the chance is exactly ZERO as Japanese warships have never been named after individual people.

Japan's Maritime Defense Force (Japan no longer has a "Navy" as it was abolished in 1947 following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes.) newest vessel is the helicopter-carrying destroyer Hyuga shown above. Hyuga is named for a province near the southwest tip of Japan.

Trivia of Note:

• The original Hyuga was completed in 1918 as a battleship but was later converted to an aircraft carrier after the Japan's devastating losses at Midway. Because the flight deck was so short, the 22 aircraft on Hyuga had to be launched by catapult and could not return to the ship to land. The aircraft were forced to land on either a normal carrier or at land-based runways.
• During World War II, there were fifty-six submarines larger than 3,000 tons in the entire world. Fifty-two of these were Japanese.
• Japan does not assign names to its submarines.
• Japanese ship names are often followed by the word maru (丸, meaning "circle"). Warships were first named with this convention in the 16th century. A common interpretation is that ships were thought of as floating castles, and that the word maru refers to the defensive "circles" that protect castles. For the past few centuries, however, only commercial and private vessels bore the maru suffix and the naming convention has come to symbolize a blessing of good hope that will allow the ship to leave port, travel the world, and then to complete the circle by returning safely home.
• Obama may in fact be more perplexed to learn that there are two US warships named USS John S. McCain. USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) is an Arleigh Burke class destroyer that was commissioned in 1994 and is homeported at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. The ship is named after John S. McCain, Jr. and John S. McCain Sr., both Admirals in the United States Navy and the father and grandfather of Senator John S. McCain III. The first USS John S. McCain was commissioned as a destroyer-leader in 1953 and later converted to a destroyer. She was named solely for the elder McCain.

Hollywood Strikes Back Against Christian Content Before Turning Other Cheek

The Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) film-ratings were instituted on November 1, 1968, after complaints by conservative religious groups regarding the sexual, violent, and profanity content of films in American theaters.

In an apparent counter attack, the MPAA struck back by instituting a policy of using statements of faith or religious content as a consideration to increase a film's rating to PG or even higher. A recent controversy was triggered when the MPAA established a PG rating for Sony Provident Film's Facing the Giants in which a coach assures a player that "following Jesus Christ is a decision that everyone makes for himself, but, if he accepts Christ, it will change his life."

After some soul searching, Joan Graves, the chairman of the MPAA's ratings board advised that religious content would no longer be considered in establishing a film's rating. She also clarified that the PG rating had nothing to do with its religious content in the first place and was actually based on a conversation in the film referring to infertility.

Trivia of Note:

• The "X" or "XXX ratings were never officially sanctioned or trademarked by the MPAA. The X rating is often self-applied by pornographers for business reasons and has become the de facto designation for pornography.
• The first, widely-distributed PG-13 movie was Red Dawn (1984), followed by Dreamscape(1984), and The Flamingo Kid (1984), although The Flamingo Kid was the first film rated PG-13 by the MPAA.

USS Buttercup Sinks in Virginia - Navy Confirms Terrorists Are Not to Blame

The USS Buttercup sank today after taking on water due to a simulated missile strike. Yes, you did read that right - a simulated missile strike.

The USS Buttercup holds the distinguished title of the ship credited with the most sinkings. Unfortunately, the sinkings are her own. Located at the Norfolk Naval Station Center for Naval Engineering, the USS Buttercup serves as the Navy's training simulator that recreates a sinking ship. Realistic down to the smoke and emergency lighting the simulator can even be made to list as water pours in.

Roused from your bunk, the only thing that may alert you to the fact that this is not a real disaster is the sudden rush of cold chlorinated water. This simulator is low-sodium in order to minimize the maintenance required to keep the Buttercup in ship shape.

The Navy is tight-lipped as to whether duct tape is aboard during the training exercises. As we all know, "loose lips sink ships".

Recipe for Failure - Do Not Use Duct Tape on Ducts

Duct tape was created by Permacel in 1942 as a waterproof sealing tape for ammunition boxes. Permacel, then a division of Johnson & Johnson developed a tape with a fabric backing for strength and a tacky rubber-based adhesive to seal out water. Apparently, soldiers began referring to the tape as "duck tape" due to its waterproof properties. Another explanation for its early name is the fact that cotton duck fabric was used for the tape's backing layer.

As housing construction boomed following the war, additional civilian uses for duct tape were quickly discovered. One of its most popular uses was connecting heating and air conditioning duct work and soon the color was changed from army green to a more appropriate silver-gray. The term duct tape quickly followed.

Later, research was conducted at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Energy Technologies Division to determine which sealants and tapes provide an effective and durable duct-sealing solution. Ironically, common duct tape fared extremely poorly becoming brittle and failing to maintain an airtight seal when subjected to realistic test conditions. In fact, most state building codes now prohibit the use of any fabric-based tape with rubber adhesive to be used on ducts.

Nevertheless, duct tape has became one of the most versatile household tools as demonstrated in Eskimo Tailor's 2003 The Duck Tape Song and The Hickory Nuts' 2007 smash hit Duct Tape (Folks can buy their very own copy of The Hickory Nuts' CD entitled Boxin' Possum which includes the entire Duct Tape song by contacting Steve Gale at Gale's Chimney Rock Shop in Chimney Rock Village, NC. Call 828-625-4126 and order yours today!!)

Pioneering the Latest Trend - Sending WMD's to Our Cosmic Neighbors

On March 2, 1972, NASA launched Pioneer 10, the first man made object to leave the solar system. The spacecraft's purpose was to investigate Jupiter, which it passed on December 3, 1973.

Following the Jupiter flyby, Pioneer 10 continued a trajectory that exited our solar system in June of 1983 by crossing the orbit of Neptune. Ordinarily Pluto is the outermost planet, but because of its lopsided path around the sun, Pluto was inside the orbit of Neptune at that time.

Power for the spacecraft was obtained by four SNAP-19 radioisotope thermonuclear generators containing Plutonium-238 with a half-life of 87.7 years. Hopefully, this "alien" probe will bypass any of our yet undiscovered neighbors. A radioactive Pioneer 10 crashing into some other intelligent life form's preschool somewhere far from our home planet could very well precipitate an unwelcome visit.

Blue Tigers Spotted in South Carolina

The South Carolina Senate has approved a proposal to name indigo as the official South Carolina state color. Indigo was one of South Carolina's first cash crops and was an important export during the entire colonial period but its commercial cultivation in the state ceased following the Civil War.

The leaves and flowers of the indigo plant were once the primary source of indigo, a deep blue dye used to color cloth. A member of the pulse family, indigo was grown chiefly in India, hence its name. In modern times, indigo production has disappeared as chemical dyes have replaced plant-based colorants.

It is difficult to understand why a state that is as politically red as they come has adopted blue as their official color. Republicans control the Legislature and all but one of the state's top political offices. In fact, South Carolina voters haven't backed a Democratic Party nominee for president since Jimmy Carter.

Instead of selecting a color based on a product that no longer offers economic benefits to the state, why not choose Clemson orange. Clemson University continues to add value and prestige and would be a much more logical choice. Besides, it would certainly add some cheer to those Clemson Tigers that are feeling somewhat blue over this unintended snub.

What if the Third Little Pig Had Built His House Out of Cement Blocks?

The term cement block is a misnomer. Cement is an ingredient of concrete. The ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) Standard Specification C 90-95 states that a concrete masonry unit is to be manufactured by forming a mixture containing portland cement, water, and mineral aggregates with or without the inclusion of other constituents such as air-entraining agents, coloring pigments, and water repellents.

While most engineers and building construction professionals refer to them as concrete masonry units, or more commonly by the TLA CMU, the correct layman's term is concrete block.

More importantly, a house made from blocks of cement instead of concrete would not be structurally sound and would not withstand normal loading and environmental stresses much less the destructive power of a malevolent wolf. If the third Little Pig had in fact constructed his house of cement, he very well might not be with us today and would therefore be unable to share the story of his incredible ordeal.

Oh, if you are wondering what a "TLA" is - It is the acronym for Three Letter Acronym.

Maybe Chicken Little Does Have Something to Fear

Pilgrim's Pride, the largest chicken processor in the US and the second largest in Mexico, employs 55,000 US workers that kill, pluck, and process 44 million chickens per week at their 37 US factories. The result is almost 9 billion pounds of "product" per year.

Some of this product may very well find its way onto your dinner plate via a very indirect route as Pilgrim's Pride also provides ranchers with cattle feed. According to a Wikipedia entry, this supply of cattle feed has been criticized because of the alleged use of "inedible" chicken parts being used for protein content. In order to profit from all parts of the bird, this is a common practice in the poultry industry and is known as "protein conversion".

Protein conversion uses industrial processes to convert inedible parts of the animal, such as keratin in feathers and skin into digestible protein to be used for livestock and pet food (and perhaps, I surmise, chicken nuggets).

Why 1998 May Add Value to Your VIN

Beginning today, no car can be legally exported from the United States into Mexico unless its born-on date is 1998. Until today, Mexico allowed the import of cars 10 to 15 years old. According to a MSN posting, "cars newer than that were banned from imports as unwelcome competition for Mexican car dealers, and anything more than 15 years old was seen as a potential environmental and safety hazard".

Personally, I take offense to the last part of that rational as I am currently driving a 1986 Toyota pickup known as the Bessemer Falcon (but referred to as the Dump Truck or the Free Truck by other family members). No word on if Mexico allows the import of classic or antique vehicles.

On the Golden Gate - Please Stay in Your Car

According to the Washington Post over 1,300 people have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge in suicide attempts since it was completed 71 years ago. With a 98% "success" rate, the bridge holds the unofficial title of "the most lethal suicide site in America if not the world".

Last year an average of one person every ten days died leaping from the structure. An interesting side note is that over the last 10 years only one person has died due to a head-on collision on the bridge.

pHirst Post

Congratulations - You have stumbled on the first post of a brand new USELESS but (possibly) interesting and enlightening forum of TRIVIAL INFORMATION.

I plan to post trivial tidbits of information and interesting quotes that I encounter such as:

David Boudanis explains on page 262 of his book Electric Universe, How Electricity Switched on the Modern World (Three Rivers Press, 2005) what is meant by "pH":

When we talk about the "pH" of a solution that's simply short-hand for counting the electrically powerful ions inside it. In a glass of water there's one bare hydrogen ion on the loose for about every 10,000,000 ordinary molecules, which is why water's pH is said to be seven - the number of zeros in 10,000,000. The hydrochloric acid in our stomach has one hydrogen ion for about every hundred water molecules, and so has a pH of about 2.