Fun Facts: Mortality by Category

According to the most recent statistics, Mexico leads the world in deaths due to acne (3). It's also tied for first in the category of people who died after being bitten by a rat (1).

Georgia, meanwhile, has the most deaths due to contact with plant thorns and spines and sharp leaves (2).

The United States, with somewhat higher numbers, leads the world in death by explosion (197), and is tied with Japan for the most deaths caused by falling off a cliff (82). (The US and Japan are also ranked highly in the related categories of falling down the stairs, falling out of bed, and falling from a tree.) Japan is the runaway leader in death by falling on same level from slipping, tripping and stumbling (3,269). In case anyone is getting the wrong idea, this could simply be the result of bad luck, since both countries are also leaders in death due to being struck by thrown, projected, or falling objects.

I could look at this stuff all day...

Fun Facts: Bottled Water

Confirming what reasonable people have suspected all along, a study by Statistics Canada has shown that people with high incomes but low levels of education are more likely to choose bottled water over perfectly safe and healthy tap water. According to the study,

Though there is often a link between households with high income and households with higher education, this does not extend to drinking bottled water in the home [...] The higher bottled water consumption among high-income households was driven by households where no one had completed a university degree.

Although I'm smugly pleased by this, I'm also troubled by some of the implications...

Fun Facts: Canadian Oil

Being something of a geezer, I can remember a time when you could watch the news or look at the front page of a newspaper and there would be no mention of oil. Not a single utterance of the word, unless you were at the gas station having your oil checked while filling up your car. Come to think of it, it wasn't that long ago when I could watch TV without being bombarded with ads for banks, investment services, retirement funds, and the like. (I recall when these first started showing up thinking to myself, "what the fuck are they selling, and to whom?" What did I know, eh?). But I digress!

I was thinking about oil this evening and found myself at the CIA's World Factbook site (an excellent resource site, in case you're not familiar with it). I was curious about world rankings for oil production, reserves, imports/exports, etc., and was mildly surprised about some of the numbers for Canada.

With over 178 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, Canada is second in the world only to Saudi Arabia (264 billion). Canada is seventh in the world when it comes to oil production (over 3 million barrels a day). Canada is also seventh in oil exports (over 2 million barrels a day). (The lower rankings in production and exports are, I believe, largely explained by this.)

Now things get a little weird (well, it seems weird to me). Canada also imports over a million barrels of oil each day. Now I suppose that someone a bit more up on their economics and what not could offer up a number of reasons for this (transportation costs, effects of a global economy, the Tooth Fairy, whatever). Personally, I don't care what the reasons are. This is plain stupid.

Speaking of stupid, wouldn't it make more sense for the American government to be kissing some good old English-speaking Canadian ass in return for oil? We're a humble folk. A little peck would do, and we'd probably give them a fair price. Of course the Americans are a proud people and they might feel a sense of shame at kissing ass so close to home. If that's the case, though, one wonders why Bush and company didn't just invade Canada. It's a lot closer, it would have been a lot cheaper, and certainly it wouldn't have been nearly so messy. Hell, Canadians like Americans, and we're always only too happy to humor our friends (and share a joke with them...). Me casa su casa, eh?

Fun Facts: Bananas

According to the most recent statistics I could find (from 2000), India is the world's leading producer of bananas (11 million metric tonnes in 2000).

While statistics relating to banana production in Canada are shrouded in mystery, in 1998 Canada was the 9th ranked banana importer in the world, buying 149 million dollars (US) of foreign-produced bananas. That works out to about 5 bucks (US) worth of bananas per capita.

Big deal, you might be thinking, but ponder this: I personally used to spend about $100 a year on bananas, which can only mean that there were about 19 people every year who ate no bananas. Nineteen Canadians denied the proof of God's existence, "the atheist's nightmare," the simple banana:



I had no idea I was so close to God... Or was I really...?

Fun Facts

The national bird of Peru is the Andean Cock-of-the-rock. The national bird of Canada is the Common Loon. There ain't no justice...