Fred's Note: I finished my trek across the Florida panhandle last week. Jackson, FL was my last stop before turning north and I just managed to make it into Georgia before the end of the month. I'll log about 110 miles in the Peach State then work my way into the Palmetto State (aka South Carolina).
Total miles to date: 3,005.0
Number of marathons (26.2mi): 114.7
States visited: 9 (CA, AZ, NM, TX, LA, MS, AL, FL, GA)
States to go: 24
Miles to go: 5451.0
Venezuela - Venezuela is running out of newsprint. For those of you who have been paying attention, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. These guys have a difficult time managing to get their hands on lots of stuff (click here). The government has been consistently denying import permits to importers who what to sell newsprint to opposition papers. Five newspapers have already shut down, and many more have only a few weeks' worth of paper left. State-run newspapers which parrot a pro-government line, are flush with paper. So to be fair, Venezuela isn't technically running out of newsprint. Rather the government is restricting access to newsprint. And you have to applaud the creativity of the regime. The government isn't stopping the press from reporting the news. The press just doesn't have anything to print the news on. Here in the U.S., that probably isn't as big of a deal, what with most folks getting their news online.
Ecuador - Ecuador has given up on its first attempt at keeping a surveillance satellite in orbit. Seriously, these guys managed to launch a satellite? Who knew. The 3-pound nanosatellite was launched in April from a Chinese space center and had a great run for a couple of weeks, sending back live video of Ecuador and the surrounding region as it passed overhead. But in May, it bumped into some space debris for an old Russian rocket and went offline. Don't you just hate when that happens? Ecuador's space agency said it admitted defeat in trying to revive the satellite and has presented the appropriate claim to its insurance company. How much would you give to look over the shoulder of the insurance processor who has to handle that claim?
Iowa - Iowa grants gun permits to blind people. I don't make this stuff up, I merely mock it. State officials concede that being unable to see what you're shooting is not ideal, but say that failing to grant the permits would violate the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. "...Being unable to see what you're shooting is not ideal." There's an understatement if ever there was one. Other states impose a vision requirement or require applicants to take a field test to prove they can hit a target. Does anyone else wonder why Iowan lawmakers seem incapability of applying common sense like other states to avoid a situation like this? I guess this sort of "out of the box thinking" is a foreign concept to them.
Yachting - What do you do when you have $44 billion? Pretty much anything you want. In the case of Larry Ellison, you stage a historic boat race and win the America's Cup for a second time. Oracle Team USA have won the America's Cup with one of the greatest comebacks in sports history. Oracle's space-age, 72-foot catamaran sped to its eighth straight victory over Emirates Team New Zealand by 44 seconds in the winner-take-all Race 19 on San Francisco Bay to keep the oldest trophy in international sports in the United States. The team won 11 races to score the 9 points required for victory due to a penalty imposed by the International Jury. On September 18, Oracle Team USA trailed the series 8-1. With the challenger on match point, the defender closed out the series with eight consecutive victories. This is the second America’s Cup win for Oracle Team USA which won the 162-year-old trophy in Valencia, Spain, in February 2010. What do you do if you don't have $44 billion? Take an extended lunch hour and watch a historic boat race, and then...take the rest of the day off to celebrate. Don't get me wrong. I know less than nothing about boat racing, but I am a world class genius when it comes to avoiding work.
Asteroids - Yes, friends, time for another update on the possibility of Armageddon. I know we've had some near misses recently. Dec 21, 2012...what a letdown. But let's not lose faith just yet. It appears there is a rock speeding towards Earth. Sounds promising. (35396) 1997 XF11 is a near-Earth and Mars-crosser asteroid which has been predicted to make an exceptionally close approach to Earth on October 26, 2028, at a distance of 580,000 miles, about 2.4 times the Earth-Moon distance. Doesn't the name just send shivers up your spine? Researchers have concluded XF11 has no reasonable possibility of an Earth impact, and vastly less than the probability of impact from the as-yet-undiscovered asteroids. Hold on a second. No reasonable possibility is not the same as no possibility. So there's still a chance it could hit us. And even if it does miss us, it sounds like there's a better chance of us getting blind sided by something we haven't even detected yet. Rock on!
How many Chinese cities have more than 1 million people?
According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, which conducted Sixth National Population Census of the People's Republic of China in 2010, there are 146 cities with populations exceeding 1 million. Since 2000, China's cities have expanded at an average rate of 10% annually. By 2025, the country will be home to 221 cities with over a million inhabitants and it is estimated that China's urban population exceed one billion.
China's 5 Largest Cities:
Shanghai - 22,265,426
Beijing - 19,295,000
Tianjin - 11,090,314
Guangzhou - 11,070,654
Shenzhen - 10,357,938
Kenya - Kenyan lawmakers backed a motion to pull out of the International Criminal Court, an angry snub to The Hague-based tribunal ahead of the upcoming trial of Vice President William Ruto on three counts of crimes against humanity for allegedly organizing 2007-2008 post-election unrest that killed at least 1,100 people and displaced more than 600,000. I'm confused. If I understand this correctly, boyfriend is Vice President, right? So what exactly was his motivation for allegedly (sure, let's give him the benefit of the doubt) inciting all this unrest? Ruto's trial comes about two months ahead of that of President Uhuru Kenyatta, who faces five charges of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, persecution and deportation. No offense, Kenya, but maybe you should conduct some better background checks on your elected officials. Sort of a due diligence thing to ensure they don't try to massacre you after they've attained office. Both Kenyatta and Ruto have said they will cooperate fully with the court and deny the charges against them. The symbolic vote offers a defiant message to the ICC, but does not impact upcoming trials of the east African nation's leadership, and parliament must now vote on a bill to formalize steps for an actual withdrawal. Lawmakers have branded the ICC a "neo-colonialist" institution that only targets Africans and said leaving the ICC would defend the country's constitution and "redeem the image of Kenya". I wonder what gotten the Kenyan government's knickers in a bunch with the ICC? The ICC was set up in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes, and countries voluntarily sign up to join. The ICC has only indicted Africans, a fact that has opened the court to severe criticism on the continent. I did not know that. I suppose one could be bothered by such a bias if, in fact there is bias. Then again, maybe African leaders are exceedingly good at doing heinous things. Kenya is the first country to hold such a vote to leave the world court. Any actual withdrawal requires the submission of a formal request to the United Nations, and could preclude the ICC from investigating and prosecuting any future crimes. I'm curious how the U.N. will handle this and if it has the ability to prevent Kenya from withdrawing. Alas, the United States, probably won't have much say in how this gets resolved. The United States is not one of the 153 member states that recognizes the jurisdiction of the ICC.
China - China's Ministry of Education said that only 70% of the country could speak the national language Mandarin, many of them poorly, and the remaining 30% or 400 million people could not speak it at all. It's worth bearing in mind that China has 1,353,821,000 people, so you could see how getting everyone to read from the same page (so to speak) could be a bit challenging. That said, we're talking about a number that exceeds the entire United States that cannot speak the official language. China's ruling Communist Party has promoted Mandarin for decades to unite a nation with thousands of often mutually unintelligible dialects and numerous minority languages, but has been hampered by the country's size and lack of investment in education, especially in poor rural areas. Officials have admitted they will probably never get the whole country to be able to speak Mandarin, formally called Putonghua in China, meaning "common tongue." Still, the government can be proud of the fact that it has successfully imposed a single timezone on the entire country, which geographically spans at least four. The promotion of Mandarin has long been a contentious issue in China, despite the practical benefits of having the entire population fluent in one tongue. I don't know. Canada seems to do okay being bi-lingual (English and French), as does Belgium with its 3 languages (Dutch, French and German; they might not be able to agree on a government, but they seem to be able to talk to each other), and how about a shout out to Switzerland and it four languages (French, German, Italian and Romansh). Then again, the populations of these 3 nations is about the same as the populations of China's 3 largest cities.
Volcanoes - Researchers have announced the world's largest volcano lurks beneath the Pacific Ocean. Called the Tamu Massif, the enormous mound dwarfs the previous record holder, Hawaii's Mauna Loa, and is only 25% smaller than Olympus Mons on Mars, the biggest volcano in Earth's solar system. One wonders with all the technology at our disposal, how we could have missed something this big for so long. And yes, that is totally a leading question. Read on, my friends. Tamu is 400 miles wide but only about 2.5 miles tall. It erupted for a few million years during the early Cretaceous period, about 144 million years ago, and has been extinct since then. Until now, geologists thought Tamu Massif was simply part of an oceanic plateau called Shatsky Rise in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Oceanic plateaus are the biggest piles of lava on Earth. The outpourings have been linked to mass extinctions and climate change. Still awake? Hang in there, we're almost done. The volume of Tamu Massif alone is about 600,000 cubic miles. The entire volcano is bigger than the British Isles or New Mexico. Despite Tamu's huge size, there is little evidence the volcano's top ever poked above the sea. The world's biggest volcano has been hidden because it sits on thin oceanic crust, which can't support its weight. Its top is about 6,500 feet below the ocean surface today. There, don't you feel like you learned something?
Which U.S. city had the most homicides in 2012?
According to new crime statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Chicago had more homicides in 2012, 500, than any other city in the country. Guns were used in the vast majority of slayings in the United States last year. According to the FBI data, 69.3% involved a firearm.
Cities with the most homicides in 2012:
1. Chicago - 500
2. New York - 419
3. Detroit - 386
4. Philadelphia - 331
5. Los Angeles - 299
6. Baltimore - 219
7. Houston - 217
8. New Orleans - 193
9. Dallas - 154
10. Memphis - 133
11. Oakland - 126
12. Phoenix - 124
13. St. Louis - 113
14. Kansas City - 105
15. Indianapolis - 101
Fred's Note: Admittedly, I've posted some rather peculiar stories, but today's collection, may well set a new benchmark.
Switzerland - Switzerland has opened its first strip of drive-in "sex boxes." Sounds rather crude don't it? Maybe something is lost in the translation. Seeing as Switzerland has 3 official languages -- French, German and Italian -- let's see if one of those sounds better. In French, we have "boite de sexe." In German, "sex-box". And in Italian, there is "scatola di sessoo". I don't know about you, but I kind of like the Italian version. Try saying "sesso" without giggling. You can't do it can you? In The city of Zurich set up the facility to get prostitutes off the streets. Each little room has a bed and a panic button the sex worker can use if she feels unsafe. One wonders if there is a button for the "client"? The strip also offers laundry and shower facilities as well as an on-site nurse. I'm thinking an ATM might also be convenient. Prostitution has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, but the number of prostitutes has shot up since the nation joined a European pace on open borders. There's a joke there, but I think we'll leave this alone.
London - The glare off the skin of a half-built 37 floor London skyscraper known as the Walkie-Talkie is so intense it is said to have reportedly caused part a car to melt. Mind you, the car in question was not your run of the mill jalopy. Nope. We're talking a high end Jaguar. Sort of makes that pigeon poop on the windshield not seem so bad by comparison. Similar problems have plagued other modern buildings, including in Los Angeles, when neighbors of the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall reported heat buildups that required corrective measures. Seriously, this sort of thing has happened before? The land developers said they are taking the complaints seriously and looking into how the building reflects sunlight. Sounds like quite the head scratcher. You have the sun, which is basically reflecting off a 37 story mirror onto a car parked a few feet away. Yup. I'm stumped. The problem lasts about two hours a day and is expected to continue for another two to three weeks. The builders said they will erect a temporary scaffold screen at street level to minimize the problem and have also asked city authorities to suspend parking in three spaces. Option 1: Spend what will probably amount to thousands of dollars to build a temporary awning. Option 2: Use some pylons and maybe some rope to cordon off the 3 offending parking spots. Now this is a no-brainer. Option 1, totally.
Fred's Note: These next two items, are pretty disturbing. Consider yourselves warned.
China - A suspected Chinese organ trafficker gouged out the eyes of a 6-year-old boy to steal the corneas for the black market. The boy was playing outside his house when a woman kidnapped and drugged him. His parents found him hours later with bloody eye sockets, and the eyeballs were found nearby missing the corneas. Dude, this is so far beyond the realm of wrong, I don't even know where to begin. Organ donation at death is rare in China, so patients must wait years for transplants. Prison officials routinely harvest organs from executed inmates. You don't think that some executions are fast tracked due to black market demand for human organs? Yeah, I know. That's way too far-fetched.
Paraguay - Eight Paraguayan bus drivers have had themselves nailed to crosses to protest being fired by a transportation company after it rejected their plea for higher pay. The drivers are on their backs, nailed to wooden crosses laid out on the ground. Large nails pierce their hands at the base of the fingers. I get that the job market is not great, but this seems a bit extreme. Nails through your hands? Damn. They said they took the action in a desperate bid to be heard. You'd sort of hope they would be desperate before resorting to having themselves nailed to crosses. They have been nailed down for 15 days. Say what? 15 days? Some of the drivers' wives are taking turns being nailed to crosses alongside their husbands. Wrong again. Attaching yourself to a cross? That's impressive. Doing so with nails? That certainly adds some dramatic flare. Getting your wife to swap spots with you on the cross. That's extreme.
Twerking - You would think that in world where you have drive through brothels, metal melting buildings, black market organ robbers, and protesters on crosses, that the headlines would be dominated by something other than Miley Cyrus getting freaky on the MTV Video Music Awards. And sadly, you would be wrong. But here's the thing. Apparently, twerking has been a thing for quite a long time. Twerking is a dance move that involves a person, usually a woman, shaking her hips in an up-and-down bouncing motion, causing the dancer to shake, "wobble" and "jiggle." According to the Oxford Dictionary Online to twerk is "to dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance. Comparisons have been made with traditional African dances. In the United States, twerking was introduced into hip-hop culture by way of the New Orleans bounce music scene. The dictionary said the word had been around for 20 years, but the evidence for it to be included in the dictionary had tipped the scale when U.S. pop star Miley Cyrus gave a controversial and headline-producing twerking dance at the MTV Video Music Awards on August 25, 2013. You know all those whack jobs who say there are signs everywhere pointing to the demise of civilization as we know it? I sort of see what they are getting at.
How much oil is left on Earth?
It is estimated that there are at least 1.7 trillion barrels of oil, and possibly as many as 6.5 trillion barrels, accessible with current technology. Humankind has burned through about 1 trillion barrels to date, and at the current rate of consumption, there would be enough oil to support demand for another 160 years. Estimate of total petroleum resources in the ground range from 14 to 24 trillion barrels, the majority of which is believed to be in North America.
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