Did You Know? #45

What do the following jobs have in common: Chair of the Federal Reserve, CEO of a top US Bank, Chief Justice, Vice President and President.

They are top jobs no woman has ever held. 

President Barack Obama nominated Janet Yellen for chief of the Federal Reserve on October 9, a move that could make her the first female leader of the central bank, or of any major central bank in the world.

The 10 largest U.S. banks by total assets are all run by men.

President Obama has placed two women in the High Court with his nominations of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is also the court's first Hispanic justice, and Justice Elena Kagan. Sotomayor and Kagan are the Supreme Court's third and fourth female justices, respectively, but there has yet to be a woman in the position of Chief Justice.

Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin are the only two women to run for vice president on major party tickets. Ferraro ran as a Democrat alongside presidential nominee Walter Mondale in 1984 and Palin shook up the race when she ran with John McCain on the Republican Presidential ticket in 2008. Both candidates lost.

Women have been running for president since 1872 when Victoria Woodhull, a leader in the women's suffrage movement, ran as part of the Equal Rights Party. Still, no woman has been able to run as the presidential candidate on a major party ticket --though many have tried. Hillary Clinton came closest to winning the nomination of a major political party when she ran in 2008.

What Caught My Eye Today - China, Azerbaijan, Morocco, Economic Growth, North Dakota

China - Choking smog all but shut down Harbin, the capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province and home to some 11 million people, in the country's first major air pollution crisis of the winter. An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers, reached a reading of 1,000 in some parts of the city. A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 20. To put it another way, the current particulate matter in Harbin  is 50 times the recommended limit. Kind of makes Los Angeles seem like a bastion of pristine air, doesn't it? The smog not only forced all primary and middle schools to suspend classes, but shut the airport and some public bus routes, the official Xinhua news agency reported, blaming the emergency on the first day of the heating being turned on in the city for winter. All this on the first day of winter? Oy vey! Visibility was reportedly reduced to 10 meters. I'm thinking not being able to breath trumps the lack of visibility. Air quality in Chinese cities is of increasing concern to China's stability-obsessed leadership because it plays into popular resentment over political privilege and rising inequality in the world's second-largest economy. Pish posh. How much of a fuss can a measly 11 million people --who cannot breathe, mind you -- cause?

Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan government officials accidentally announced the re-election of incumbent President Ilham Aliyev a day before the polls opened. I've heard of calling a race a bit prematurely on election night, but a whole day before the election was held. Wow, those exit polls must be really, really good. The Central Election Commission's smartphone application show Aliyev winning a third term with 73% of the vote, with just 7.4% going to the opposition candidate. The Commission quickly retracted the results saying that it had mistakenly republished the last election's results. Surely, an honest mistake, right? However, since the opposition candidate did not run in the last election, the excuse seems implausible. Or perhaps not. The country has never held an election that Western observers deemed free and fair. Obviously Azerbaijan doesn't care a great deal about what us pesky Western's think.

Morocco - Protesters staged a "kiss in" in support of a teenage couple who were arrested after posting photos of their kiss on Facebook. Oh the horror! The boy and girl were charged with violating public decency. I say public floggings for all those involved in this heinous act. Public displays of affection? It is amazing the depths to which our civilization has fallen. An online campaign to kiss publicly in front of Parliament drew more than 2,000 supporters, but only about a dozen couples actually kissed at the protest. Way to make a statement, people. Morocco has been growing more conservative since Islamists swept the 2011 elections in the wake of Arab Spring democratic reforms. Don't these people get it? Democratic reforms are supposed to reflect what the Western world sees as acceptable, not what the people actually want. Seriously, how dense can you be?

Economic Growth - Recent studies have concluded that if not for the multiple "fiscal crises" created by Congress over the past two years, another 2 million Americans would have jobs, the unemployment rate would have dropped below 6.7%, and The growth of the GDP would be close to 4%, instead of 2.5%. And champagne would rain down from the heavens...but I digress. The study found that Congress's fiscal cliff and debt ceiling emergencies have unsettled markets and employers, kept consumers in a cautious crouch, and paralyzed the entire system with uncertainty. Apparently, the Great Recession wasn't challenging enough. The 5% annual cut in federal spending forced by the sequester has been found to be too drastic and has retarded growth. One can only assume that someone in Washington discovered that some of us still had some retirement savings that survived and decided something had to be done to remedy that anomaly.

North Dakota - Nine out of 10 workers lured by North Dakota's oil boom are men, but there is a peripheral industry that is attracting women: exotic dancing. Fascinating how opportunities arises under the most unexpected circumstances. Then again, we are talking about a lot of testosterone filled men with loads of cash and not much to spend it on. Strippers can bank over $2000 a night in oil boomtowns. Prostitution is also on the rise. I totally get this. Sit in a strip club for a few hours and you are bound to get a little hot and bothered. A clear cut case of cause and effect if ever there was one.  Hospitals note that rates of chlamydia doubled between 2010 and 2011. Yup, more cause and effect. Speaking of which, you can sort of see this last item coming from a mile away. Local women have also complained that the roving bands of unattached, restless young men have created a culture of constant sexual harassment.

Did You Know? #44

What company is the United States largest private employer?

At the end of the 2013 fiscal year, Wal-Mart employed more than 1.3 million worked in the United States. Wal-Mart has a global workforce of nearly 2.2 million. Rounding out the top five are:

2. Yum Brands (owner of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) - 523,000
3. McDonald's - 440,000
4. IBM - 434,246
5. United Parcel Service - 399,000

What Caught My Eye Today - U.S. Government, Climate Change, Silence, Potpourri

U.S. Government - Yes, Virginia, not only does Santa Claus exist, but the United States Congress does occasionally pass legislation. The U.S. Congress approved an 11th-hour deal to end a partial government shutdown and pull the world's biggest economy back from the brink of a historic debt default that could have threatened financial calamity. Almost sounds too good to be true. The down-to-the-wire deal, however, offers only a temporary fix and does not resolve the fundamental issues of spending and deficits that divide Republicans and Democrats. And there it is. It funds the government until January 15 and raises the debt ceiling until February 7, so Americans face the possibility of another bitter budget fight and another government shutdown early next year. Seeing as this is an off election year, political pundits and late night comedians must be thrilled at the prospect of having something to talk about for the next few months. In the end, the Democratic-led Senate overwhelmingly passed the measure on a 81-18 vote, and the Republican-controlled House followed suit 285 to 144. In addition to lifting the federal debt limit, the deal calls for creating a House-Senate bipartisan commission to try to come up with long-term deficit-reduction ideas that would have to be approved by the full Congress. Correct me if I am mistaken, but hasn't Congress been down this road before and failed? That's how we ended up with debt sequestration earlier this year. Their work would have to be completed by December 13, but some lawmakers say the panel faces an extremely difficult task. For the optimists (there must be a few of you left out there) I offer this...If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. For everyone else (myself included)... Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Seeing as the government shutdown is now over (temporarily), we have retired "Let Me Count the Days...Since the U.S. Government Shut Down" portlet, but fear not. This glorious moment in U.S. History will live on in the "Let Me Count the Days Hall of Fame" portlet.

Climate Change - If you thought the United States was in shambles, bear in mind, things could always be worse. Case in point... A Pacific islander is seeking recognition as the world's first climate change refugee in New Zealand as rising seas threaten his low-lying homeland. The man launched an appeal against a decision by New Zealand immigration authorities to refuse him refugee status and deport him to Kiribati in the central Pacific after his visa expired. The case has the potential to set an international precedent, not only for Kiribati's 100,000 residents but for all populations threatened by man-made climate change. Show of hands, please. Who would like to sit in the jury box for this case? If the appeal is successful, the man would become the world's first climate refugee. I wonder if you get to be in the Guiness Book of World Records for something like this. That would totally take the sting out of losing  your homeland to rising ocean levels.  Kiribati is among a number of island states, including Tuvalu, Tokelau and the Maldives, that the UN Human Rights Commission is concerned could become "stateless" due to climate change. Kiribati government's has raised the prospect of relocating the entire population or building man-made islands to rehouse them if predictions the sea will rise by more than 3 feet by the end of the century prove accurate. It has also moved to buy 5,000 acres of land in Fiji to act as a farm for Kiribati if salt-water pollution means the islands in the former British colony can no longer produce crops. How often have you read something containing the phrase, "wiped off the face of the Earth" and chalked it up to hyperbole? Here's a very real situation where we are talking about entire nations being swallowed up by the ocean in a matter of decades. This is serious stuff.

Silence - Struggling to come up with meaningful dinner time conversation with that special someone or maybe a business contact with whom you share no common interests? Have I got the perfect dining establishment for you. At the table, silence is golden, especially in noisy New York. That's the gamble a young restaurant owner is taking with patrons, who are prohibited from talking during four-course meals. The project, launched a month ago at Eat in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood, has created a buzz in a city where restaurants are often so noisy that they trigger routine complaints. Customers have to reserve days in advance for the privilege of eating without speaking or hearing a word on Friday or Saturday night in the small room that seats 25. For an entire hour, diners savor a menu based on local organic ingredients, watch one another and don't say a word. Cell phones must also be turned off.Customers who dare break the golden rule during the $40 prix fixe meal are forced to finish their plate on a bench outside.  Truth be told, I wouldn't mind seeing that policy implemented for cell phone usage at many of my favorite restaurants. As the dinner ends, after dessert, the silence ends. Some struggle to keep serious in the face of an experience that is the polar opposite of the constant frenzy prevalent in New York.

Potpourri - For those of you who cannot swing a reservation at Eat and, therefore, have to rely on the art of conversation, I offer up these dinnertime topics...

• Oil - The United States may overtake Russia as the world's largest producer of oil and gas in 2013. The U.S.'s monthly production rate has soared to the equivalent of 22 million barrels a day, while Russia's is estimated to be 21.8 million barrels a day. Most of this domestic production comes in the form of natural gas extracted through hydraulic fracturing (fracking), so order up another round of drinks, because a tank of gas will still cost a fortune.
• Chicken - The University of Mississippi conducted analyses of chicken nuggets purchased at two national chains. The first nugget contained 50% muscle meat and the rest composed of fat, blood vessels and nerves. The second nugget contained just 40% meat and the remainder being a combination of fat, cartilage and pieces of bone. Okay, maybe you want to skip this one.
• Dogs - Two dozen cities have banned retail dog sales, meaning canine pets will only be available via shelters and animal rescue organizations. The bans are based on evidence of widespread cruelty, overcrowding and starvation at high-volume commercial breeding businesses, or "puppy mills" that supply most dogs to pet stores. Isn't there enough pain and suffering in this world without some tool mass producing dogs with no regard for their welfare? Yeah, yeah, I know the same can be said for the animals who end up on my dinner plate, but there is something about a dog that just seems to pull at your heart strings.

Did You Know? #43

How long can humans live?

Most scientists agree that the maximum human life span is currently about 125 years. Most people fall far short of that because of poor diet, self destructive habits, disease or organ failure. Advances in medicine have already extended the average human life span in most modern nations from 46 in 1900 to 78 today.

What Caught My Eye Today - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Arctic, Potpourri

Turkey - Kurds in Turkey are now allowed to use the letters Q, W and X - not found in Turkish - to spell their names. Interestingly, there are more than a handful of both boy and girl Kurdish names that start with one of these letter, to say nothing about the number of names that contain one of these letters (click here to see what I mean). The change is part of a package of reforms announced by the Turkish government that gives more rights to Kurds, including the right to use Kurdish spellings of their names and towns on official documents. The Islamist-leaning government also lifted a decades-long ban on women's headscarves in public offices, in what is seen as a step away from Turkey's rigorous separation of mosque and state. I find it curious that a movement by the government to provide more personal freedoms is seen by some as blurring the lines between church and state, or in this case mosque and state. On a completely different note, what do you think are the chances that the Turkish government's decision to allow these letters to be used will inspire the Hawaiian language to to expand beyond its current use of 5 vowels and 8 consonants?

Saudi Arabia - I've read this story multiple times and still cannot get my head around these guys were thinking. Saudi religious authorities are resorting to scare tactics to deter women for participating in a driving protest. Feminists are calling on Saudi women to defy the country's ban on women driving cars by getting behind the wheel on October 26. In addition to shutting down the campaign's website and Facebook page, religious officials are warning that driving hurts women's child bearing prospects. Prominent clerics say that driving "affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upward resulting in children with clinical problems of varying degrees."  Saudi women must shroud their faces and bodies entirely in public and many not travel without a male companion. When I think of scare tactics, the first thing that comes to mind is violence. In fact, none of the things that I can think of come remotely close to the absurdity of what these officials are saying. One questions the logic of such a ploy. Think about it. The women who are likely to participate in this protest are probably somewhat progressive thinking. I doubt such nonsense, even if it comes from "prominent clerics," will have any significant influence on these women.

Arctic - The Northwest Passage is open for trade.  Carrying a heavy load of coal the Nordic Orion became the first large cargo vessel to transport goods through the Arctic from Vancouver to Finland. The ship can carry 25% more coal on the Arctic route than it could if it had to pass through the shallow Panama Canal, and the route - more than 1,000 nautical miles shorter - saves 4 days. Global warming has made the passage possible. Cause for celebration? I find it ironic that the example cited, involves one of the materials most responsible for global warming in the first place.

Potpourri

• Life Expectancy - According to the Department of Health and Human Services, over the last 30 years, the difference in life expectancy between the poorest and richest 10% of Americans has grown. The richest 10% live more than 4.5 years longer than the poorest 10%. Lovely. Not only is the wealth gap getting wider, but now those greedy bastards have even more time to rub our noses in it.
• Fast Food - McDonald's posted its slowest ever drive-through times, an average of 189.5 seconds, more than 9 seconds longer than the industry average. The slowdown is attributed to increasingly complex recipes for fast food. Mind you, that complex doesn't necessarily mean the food tastes better, and it certainly doesn't mean that the food will be any healthier. On the contrary. My guess is that it takes longer to pack all those extra calories into the food.
• Profit - Computer maker Apple's 2012 profits outpaced the combined net profits of Coca-Cola, Google and IBM.  The company's cash reserves of $147 billion accounts for 10% of all non-financial corporate cash in the United States. I wonder what the life expectancy for Apple executives is?

Did You Know? #42 / Milestone Reached

Fred's Note: Before we get to the actual question of the day, did you know that this is posting #800? In honor of this momentous occasion, I've added a new entry to Let Me Count the Days. Be sure to check it out. And, if you were curious to see how it all began, click here.

What is the most number of people to be on the International Space Station at one time?

The largest number of people occupying the International Space Station at the same time was 13 when the space shuttle Endeavour docked in 2009. Normal capacity is 6.

What Caught My Eye Today - Spain, China, Second Amendment

Spain - The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família (English: Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family), is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Spain, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926).  It is known as one of the most intricate and ornate works of architecture on Earth and, for the first time, it is possible to see what it will look like when it's completed – a full 144 years after construction began in 1882. But that's still 13 years away.  My wife and I were recently talking about how long it was taking our contractor to finish our bathroom remodel, 7 months and counting. And then you read something like this. Just goes to show that everything is a matter of perspective. Still 144 years? What the hell? Although incomplete, the church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in November 2010 Pope Benedict XVI consecrated and proclaimed it a minor basilica, as distinct from a cathedral which must be the seat of a bishop. La Sagrada Familia, the iconic emblem of Barcelona, Spain, and one of Europe's most popular tourist attractions, won't be finished until 2026. The president of the committee in charge of finishing the massive building has declared it will be ready in time for the centenary of Gaudi's death in 1926, when the work was only a quarter finished. Gaudi – known as “God’s architect” – once famously said of the basilica, “my client is in no hurry.” I'm curious if wonder boy was given this moniker by an admiring public or if this was more of a self-proclaimed honor. Though one of the world’s most well-known architectural masterpieces, La Sagrada Familia has not been universally loved through its long construction. George Orwell wrote in his memoir of the Spanish Civil War that the basilica was “one of the most hideous buildings in the world.” Maybe, and I'm just speculating here, but is it possible that Gaudi overcharge Orwell for some work on his summer villa. You have to keep an eye on those architects and contractor. They're a shady lot. 

China - The Beijing Weather Modification Office is tasked with weather control in Beijing and its surrounding areas. Weather control, huh? Is that sort of like brain modification? I wonder how Mother Nature feels about that. The work of the Office is largely aimed at hailstorm prevention or making rain to end droughts. Cloud seeding increased precipitation in Beijing by about one-eighth in 2004. Nationwide, similar efforts added 7.4 trillion cubic feet of rain between 1995 and 2003. The Beijing Weather Modification Office has also induced precipitation for purposes of firefighting or counteracting the effect of severe dust storms.  Laudable results at first glance, still I cannot help but think there is a downside to tinkering with the weather. It was in action to clear the air for China's National Day this week by early afternoon it appeared to have done a great job. The sky was blue and the air was rid of the thick smog that had engulfed the city for several days. I sense a "but" coming on.  Unfortunately, the timing was a bit off. The consensus was that the Weather Modification Office misfired this time forcing Communist Party leaders to brave torrential rain and slosh through puddles at the National Day celebrations in Tiananmen Square. That's probably not a good sign. Apart from the ceremony, presided over by Communist Party leader and President Xi Jinping, the square was almost completely deserted. The manipulators themselves have said nothing, neither confirming or denying they were working. No kidding. Personally, I'd be looking for a way to quietly leave the country to avoid being quietly executed by some pretty pissed off government officials. Other proposed future uses for induced precipitation include lowering temperatures in summer, in hopes of reducing electricity consumption. The Beijing Weather Modification Office boasts of more than 500,000 weather modifications since 2002.

Second Amendment - Here's a rather fascinating perspective on the right to bear arms, courtesy of the British press. Counting suicides, homicides, and accidental shootings, guns kill 32,000 people a year in the United States. If another country were killing its own people at such rates, the U.S. would demand intervention. It's as if gun advocates cannot do simple math. They tolerate no deaths from terrorism, spending $649 billion on homeland security and accepting all kinds of restrictions on personal freedoms. But they reject any curb on guns, which have killed 364,000 Americans since September 11, 2001. Here's an interesting fact. The number of Americans killed in all wars since 1775 is 1.17 million, while the number of Americans killed by firearms ins 1968 is 1.38 million. Only international pressure can jolt the American public into action. The slaughter has reached the point where it has ceased to be a domestic issue. The world cannot stand idly by. On one hand, you kind of get the feeling these guys are poking fun at Americans. Then again, everything they say is pretty darned spot on.

What Caught My Eye Today - Peru, Mexico, Space Tourism, Potpourri

Peru - If you look long enough, you are sure to find a list where you rank number one. That said, I'm not sure my Peruvian friends will be breaking out the bubbly for this particular distinction. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime announced that 60,400 hectares of coca were planted last year in Peru. Although this is a 3.4% drop in the area cultivated from the previous year, a 25% drop in Colombia means Peru has taken on the dubious distinction of top producer. Now then, if I'm Colombian, I'm totally celebrating with as much Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne as my drug money can buy. Though fumigation and forced eradication policies are sharply criticized for their repressive nature, today Colombia's coca crop is just 48,000 hectares, according to UN estimates for 2012, 20% less than Peru's. Bolivia is the number three producer with 25,300 hectares under cultivation. The growth of Peru's importance as a coca grower can also be explained by shifting markets for cocaine. The United States remains the largest market worldwide for the drug and U.S. officials estimate 80% of the cocaine that hits U.S. streets is Colombian. But Brazil, with a booming middle class, has become the world's second largest market, and together with Argentina it is an important transshipment point for Europe. Fascinating, don't you find, that increases in cocaine consumption seems to have a direct correlation to increases in the middle class? It may be true that money cannot buy you happiness, but it certain seems capable if getting you a pretty good buzz.

Mexico - For many, the first experience of Mexico City is a sprawling airport and an appalling stink. I was going to go with a mariachi band, but sure, we can go with "appalling stick" I guess. The odor problems are a result of poorly managed wastewater and trash in a sprawling metropolis whose population — 20 million by official count — outgrew its infrastructure decades ago. The city's sewage pipes and an underground drainage tunnel, which has to accommodate sewage and storm water, were built more than 50 years ago, and the population in the metropolitan area has doubled since then. To make matters worse, the city pumps so much water from underground aquifers that some neighborhoods sink by up to a foot a year, which further disrupts the draining of sewage. Sewage pumps have been built throughout the city and work constantly to suck sewage-laced water out of the rapidly sinking, mountain-ringed lakebed on which the city was built more than 600 years ago. The pumps have venting stacks that spew foul-smelling gas into the sky, including from a large yellow horse figure that doubles as a piece of public art. I'm reminded of an old Eddie Murphy comedy routine where the family dog's waste had accumulated so much that piles of the stuff were starting to resemble furniture. A visitor says to the father, "What a lovely end table," to which the father responds, "That's not an end table, that's a piece of s--t!" Of course this situation is a bit different. It seems government officially actually intended this thing to be art. Sure, why not. The sewage system in the metropolitan area currently processes more than 13,000 gallons of sewage water every second. Seems pretty impressive, that is until you get to that 13,001 gallon.

Space Tourism - It’s T minus one year and counting before the outer reaches of the atmosphere become a holiday destination. Virgin Galactic claims that commercial space travel is about to become a reality and is on track to start offering out-of-this world mini breaks in 2014. Earlier this month, the company’s spacecraft (the SpaceShip Two VSS Enterprise) and its carrier craft completed a second successful test flight, hitting supersonic speeds in the process. Virgin Galactic plans to build a fleet of spacecraft, each capable of carrying six passengers on suborbital space flights. I don't want to split hairs, but it doesn't actually seem like these flights will be taking me to an actual destination. I get the adrenaline thing, but to say that a brief encounter in in suborbital space is a destination; that just smacks of false advertising if you ask me. It means that holidaymakers won’t be encountering any passing satellites but that they will get to experience true out-of-the-seat zero gravity as well as quite frankly astounding views of their home planet that until now, only the 500 or so people in history who have traveled beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and into space have been able to see. Even though the spacecraft won’t be voyaging into deep space, star gazing will still be possible as a number of Hollywood’s A-list have already signed up for seats, including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher and Leonardo DiCaprio. It's nice to see that technology is making space travel accessible to the general public, you know, regular joes like my boys Brad, Ashton and the Beibmeister.

Potpourri - Today's edition celebrates the wonders of science.

• Fossils - The oldest dinosaur fossil on record is 230 million years old while the oldest cockroach fossil dates back 315 million years. I hear that researchers found the cockroach fossil in the remains of a Twinkie wrapper. 
• Water (Part I) - In the 100 years (between 1900 and 2008) the United States has lost some 240 cubic miles of groundwater, enough to fill Lake Erie twice. The rate of groundwater depletion has roughly doubled in the past two decades. One gets the vibe that this is a harbinger of bad things to come.
• Water (Part II) - Deep inside a Canadian mine, pockets of extra salty water have been discovered, some of which are estimated to be 2.6 billion years old, the oldest on the planet. Let's summarize what we've learned there--a cockroach fossil that is 315 million years old and a water sample over 2 billion years old. Kind of calls in to question that whole creationism thing, don't it?

Did You Know? #41

Fred's Note: I just got my first copy of Popular Science magazine. At the risk of stating the obvious, I will occasionally pass along an item or two in future blog posts starting with this "special" Did You Know.


What would happen if you got zapped by the Large Hadron Collider?

Interestingly, the answer starts out with a detailed explanation of how this could never happen due to the fail safe mechanisms built into the Large Hadron Collider. 

Each of the collider's two proton beams comprises 320 trillion particles, so the total energy delivered is a blazing 362 megajoules, enough to melt about half a ton of copper. Science lesson #1: A joule can also be defined as the work required to produce one watt of power for one second. A megajoule is equal to one million joules. 1 kilowatt-hour is 1000 watts times 3600 seconds, or 3.6 megajoules. Assuming you could manage to squeeze your face inside the collider, what would happen next is unclear. I think we can all agree that whatever happens next is likely to be rather unpleasant. Then again, why would you put your noodle in front of a particle collider if you weren't looking for an unpleasant outcome? Physical damage would depend upon how many protons collided with nuclei in your flesh and how many zipped through undisturbed, like plankton through a net. The beam would almost certainly burn a hole through your face, but the shape of the hole would be hard to determine. Yeah, the shape of the hole is what I would be focusing on, rather than the fact that part of my face has just been vaporized. When protons smack into a target, they fling off secondary particles in different directions, which can themselves set off another round of collisions. as a result, proton beams create a hole that spreads out laterally the deeper it goes, like a large cone. Science lesson #2: Science is not only educational, but fun too (and maybe just a little bit creepy).

Run, Fred, Run Update - Sep 2013

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

What Caught My Eye Today - Venezuela, Ecuador, Iowa, Yachting, Asteriods

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!

Did You Know? #40

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

What Caught My Eye Today - Kenya, China, Volcanoes

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?

Did You Know? #39

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

What Caught My Eye Today - Switzerland, China, London, Paraguay, Twerking

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.

Did You Know? #38

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. 

What Caught My Eye Today - Citizenship, Debt, Water, Electoral College

Citizenship - Born in Canada to an American mother, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz became an instant U.S. citizen. But under Canadian law, he also became a citizen of that country the moment he was born. Unless the Texas Republican senator formally renounces that citizenship, he will remain a citizen of both countries. Now why would he want to do that? It seems pretty rare, that one has the good fortune of being born into dual citizenship. That means he could assert the right to vote in Canada or even run for Parliament. Even better. If dude loses or hits term limits in the U.S., he can continue to feed his political ambitions north of the border. And yet, I sense a disturbance in the Force on this one. The circumstances of Cruz’s birth have fueled a simmering debate over his eligibility to run for president. Knowingly or not, dual citizenship is an apparent if inconvenient truth for the Tea Party firebrand, who shows every sign he’s angling for the White House. Uh-oh. The U.S. Constitution allows only a “natural born” American citizen to serve as president. Most legal scholars who have studied the question agree that includes an American born overseas to an American parent, such as Cruz. The Constitution says nothing about would-be presidents born with dual citizenship. Yeah, those Tea Partiers are real sticklers for that sort of thing. Just ask the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Detractors have derided Cruz as “Canadian Ted,” saying he can’t run for president because he wasn’t born on U.S. soil. How much do you want to bet that behind closed doors, President Obama is having a pretty good chuckle over this? Cruz said he would be the $100 fee to renounce his Canadian citizenship, saying, "Nothing against Canada, but I'm an American by birth, and as a U.S. senator, I believe I should be only an American." The way I heard it, Canadian officials were so elated that they offered to pay the $100 on Cruz's behalf.

Debt - Stop me if you've heard this one before. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told Congress that the government will run out of money to pay its bills in mid-October unless lawmakers raise the country's borrowing limit, which is capped at $16.7 trillion. Oh good grief, not this again. Earlier this year, Congress temporarily suspended the borrowing limit so lawmakers could focus on other budget debates. Treasury has kept the government operating for several months through its bookkeeping maneuvers. The government is spending more than it takes in, running up annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion in each of the past four budget years. It has been borrowing the difference to meet its obligations. Republicans want to reduce future deficits by cutting back sharply on spending. Interesting concept--don't spend what you don't have. Sounds so simple doesn't it? Democrats have proposed a mix of spending cuts and tax increases, which Republicans strongly oppose. Congress last passed legislation to increase the borrowing limit in the summer of 2011 after a months-long negotiation between President Barack Obama and top lawmakers. Republicans forced Obama to accept about $2 trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade in exchange for a like-sized increase in the borrowing limit. Many Republicans want to use upcoming budget deadlines to mount an assault on Obama's signature health care law. In general, I'm a fiscal conservative, so why am I not jumping up and down in support of what the Republican Party is proposing? For one thing, there are basic economic principles that are being completely ignored (which I won't bore you with). In addition, the Republican party really needs to stop pouting about Obamacare. The law passed. Get over it! They aren't doing themselves or the people that they represent any favors by holding the budge hostage over a legislative battle that was wages years ago.

Water - Looking for investment opportunities to give a boost to your retirement portfolio? I have two words for you...Water Futures. Of course, the future of water in the United States doesn't look too bright, but as everyone knows, where there is misery for the many, there is opportunity for the few. Nearly 70% of the groundwater stored in parts of the United States' High Plains Aquifer, a vast underground reservoir that stretches through eight states, from South Dakota to Texas, and supplies 30% of the nation's irrigated groundwater, could be used up within 50 years, unless current water use is reduced. For those of you not well-versed in such things, groundwater is pretty much what we consume and use to irrigate our crops.  In a nutshell, no more water, means no more food. No more food would seriously curtail humanity's long-term existence. Then again, we'd die from lack of water, way before starvation kicked in.  Bottom line, this is a problem worthy of some attention. If current irrigation trends continue unabated, 69% of the available groundwater will be drained in the next five decades. 3% of the aquifer's water was used up by 1960; 30% of the aquifer's water was drained by 2010; and a whopping 69 percent of the reservoir will likely be tapped by 2060. It would take an average of 500 to 1,300 years to completely refill the High Plains Aquifer. I suppose there is some upside here.  Sure we'll dry up in next 30 or 40 years, but if we can figure out how to exist without water for the next few centuries, our aquifers will be fully replenished.  See? Glass half full.

Electoral College - Here's an interesting take on reforming the U.S. Electoral College from a dude who clearly has a bit of time on his hands. Don't mistake what I'm saying as criticism. Quite the opposite. I have nothing but admiration and, I daresay, a fair bit of envy, that this guy can take on such an undertaking, assuming that he has an actual day job that pays him actual money for done actual work. The electoral college is a time-honored, logical system for picking the chief executive of the United States. However, the American body politic has also grown accustomed to paying close attention to the popular vote. This is only rarely a problem, since the electoral college and the popular vote have only disagreed three times in 200 years. However, it's obvious that reforms are needed. The fundamental problem of the electoral college is that the states of the United States are too disparate in size and influence. The largest state is 66 times as populous as the smallest and has 18 times as many electoral votes. This increases the chance for Electoral College results that don't match the popular vote. To remedy this issue, the Electoral Reform Map redivides the fifty United States into 50 states of equal population. The 2010 Census records a population of 308,745,538 for the United States, which this map divides into 50 states, each with a population of about 6,175,000. It's a pretty cool map (click here). Among the advantages of such a proposal:

• Preserves the historic structure and function of the Electoral College.
  What with the Electoral College being established in the Constitution, I guess that's a good thing.
• Ends the over-representation of small states and under-representation of large states in presidential voting and in the US Senate by eliminating small and large states.
  As long as Iowa is no longer the center of the political universe for months on end, I am totally on board with this.
• Ends varying representation in the House. Currently, the population of House districts ranges from 528,000 to 924,000.
  Being a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I live in a district on the high end of that range, which basically means my vote is counts for much less than the vote of a resident of Wyoming.

Here's my only gripe. Let's say we re-draw the U.S. as proposed. I would no longer live in California, but rather Yerba Buena. Dude, I don't want to live in Yerba Buena.

Did You Know? #37

What and where is the largest volcano on Earth?

The largest volcano on earth is Mauna Loa on Hawaii's Big Island. It is a massive shield volcano constructed by countless lava flows. When measured from the base to the top, the pile of lavas measures more than 56,000 ft! When measured from the sea floor, Mauna Loa's height is 29,527 ft., thus it is also the highest mountain on earth. . Mauna Loa is one of the Earth's most active volcanoes, with 33 well-documented eruptions in historic times since 1843. Its last eruption was in 1984 and since 2004, Mauna Loa is showing increasing signs of a possible awakening in a not-too-distant future.

Fred's Note:  The inspiration for this particular question came from an article I read about little know facts about Hawaii.  So in addition to being home to the world's largest volcano, did you know...

• The Hawaiian language has only a 13-letter alphabet and every word (and syllable) ends with one of five vowels.
• Hawaii is the only U.S. state that grows coffee, cacao, and vanilla beans.
• Hawaii has the highest life expectancy in the United States at 81.3 years.
• The state gem isn't a gem at all. Black coral is technically an animal.
• Hawaii is one of four states that outlaws billboards. (The others are Alaska, Maine, and Vermont.)
• Snakes are outlawed in Hawaii. The only legal serpents are housed in zoos.

Did You Know #36

Which U.S. city has the worst traffic congestion?

After being replaced by Honolulu for a year, Los Angeles once again earned the title of the most congested metro area in the country. Four of the 10 most congested corridors last year were in the Los Angeles area.  The rest of the top ten are:

2. Honolulu, HI (I can personally attest to the fact that this ranking is well deserved)
3. San Franciso, CA
4. Austin, TX
5. New York, NY
6. Bridgeport, CT
7. San Jose, CA (Always nice to see my hometown make the headlines)
8. Seattle, WA
9. Washington DC
10. Boston, MA