The World's 10 Largest Armies

In a dangerous world it is seen by many to be a necessity to have a large army if you are to protect your nation from foreign foes. Some countries take this much farther than others and have expanded their military forces way beyond what any rational observer would consider necessary. The largest army in the world today is the Chinese Army at over 2.3 million active troops. The U.S. is a distant second at 1.6 million. India is third at 1.3 million. Then you have North Korea at 1.1 million, Russia at 1 million, South Korea at 700,000, Pakistan at 620,000, Iran with 520,000, Turkey at 510,000 And last on the list of the top ten is Egypt with just under 470,000. Please note that this list only considered active army troops and did not count any Naval or Air Forces of the countries listed. Even if you were to count those additional forces including their reserves China would still have a big lead at just about 3.5 million total. The U.S. would be at about 2.5 million. Relative to population size however the U.S. army is much larger considering that the U.S. total population is at about 309 million while the Chinese population is north of 1.5 billion.

Gun Violence In The USA

With the recent shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Griffiths, resulting in the deaths of 6 of her constituents, including a 9 year old girl named Christina Green, and the wounding of 13 more, the issue of gun control has come up again. I thought it might be interesting to share a few statistical facts about the number of gun violence victims in the United States in a given year. The following facts and figures come from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The Brady Campaign is An organization which is named in honor Of James Brady who was the Press Secretary for President Ronald Reagan on the day of the assassination attempt on Reagan on March 30th, 1981. Mr. Brady was shot in the head on that day and suffered serious brain injuries. The following figures are compiled from statistics gathered over the last few years. The figures are only to do with gun violence and do not include various other types of violence leading to deaths such as knife attacks, beatings, bombings, poisonings or what have you:

More than 100,000 People are shot each year in America by various types of gun violence including murder, assaults, suicides, accidents, or some kind of a police action.

More than 66,000 survive gun violence every year.

More than 32,000 do not survive their gun attacks.

More than 17,000 people commit suicide every year using guns.

More than 12,000 people are murdered every year with guns.

More than 3000 children and teens die each year. Over 2000 of these the result of murder using guns.

More than 600 children and teens kill themselves every year with guns.

More than 600 total individuals are killed accidentally each year by guns.

More than 250 people are shot every day in the United States.

Almost 100 of these shooting victims die every day.

Almost 10 children and teens die every day from gun violence.

Dead Celebrities And Their Last Words

Almost everybody is going to have a headstone one day and what you decide to have put on yours is going to say a lot about who and what you were. Some people have very serious sayings on theirs and some go a little bit more comical and shoot for a final laugh. Below listed are some famous dead celebrities and what they finally had put on their headstones in no particular order of importance or time frame:

Mel Blanc - (Voice Of many cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny) - "That's all Folks."

Frank Sinatra - (Singer, Actor) - "The Best is Yet To Come."

Will Bonney - (A.K.A. "Billy The Kid") - "The Boy Bandit King, He died as he lived."

Al Capone - (Gangster) - "My Jesus Mercy."

Bette Davis - (Actress) - "She did it the hard way."

Dean Martin - (Singer, Actor) - "Everybody loves somebody sometime."

Jayne Mansfield - (Actress) - "We live to love you more each day."

Jim Morrison - (Rock star, The Doors) - "True to his own spirit."

Will Rogers - (Humorist) - "I never met a man I didn't like."

Merv Griffin - (Talk Show Host) - "I will NOT be right back after these commercial messages."

John Ritter - (Actor "Three's Company") - " And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make."

Sir. Isaac Newton - (Scientist, Inventor) - "Nature and nature's laws lay hid at night: God said let Newton be and all was light."

Leaf Cutter Ants Display Intelligent Labor Skills

It has been known for a long time that ants have a seriously evolved societal structure within their anthill colonies. Scientists have recently observed that they are also capable of dividing labor skills based on which members of the colony are most suitable for certain tasks. Scientists in Oregon have noticed that the younger leaf cutting ants are always the ones that use their sharp mandibles to cut leaves into smaller sections in order that they can be more easily carried away. They have observed that over time as the ants grow older and their mandibles grow more dull and less effective at cutting leaves they shift away from doing it and give that task over to younger ants while they take over the task of exclusively carrying away the cut leaves, which scientists call leaf disks. In case you are wondering A Leaf Cutter Ant Queen can live for about 14 years and deliver in excess of 150 million offspring in her lifetime.

Constitution Misread Aloud On The Floor Of The House

January 6th was opening day for the 112th Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new Republican leadership led by the permanently orange faced new Speaker of the House John Boehner of Ohio who again cried openly during the proceedings. Boehner cries so often that his new nickname is "The Weeper of the House." They began the Congress this time by reading the entire U.S. Constitution out loud on the floor of the House. Well that sounds good enough being the the Constitution is only about 5 or 6 pages if you include all 26 amendments. Right away there was some dispute about whether they should read some parts of it out loud like the amendment which prohibited alcohol. The Amendment no longer is valid because it was repealed. After some mild bickering they decided to read the entire thing as it is. The most embarrassing part of the whole proceeding has to be the fact that they skipped over some key paragraphs of the document because two of the pages got stuck together. No one noticed this for a while until it was finally pointed out and then they went back and read the parts that were skipped. An interesting and embarrassing start for the 112th Congress.

The Number Of MIllionaires Is Growing In The U.S.

In what some people see as a positive development in the economy the number of millionaires in the U.S. is growing over the last several years. A millionaire is defined as a person or family who have assets in excess of 1 million dollars after you exclude the value of their primary residence. In other words, if they have more than 1 million dollars in assets after you subtract the value of their primary residence or home. In 2009 the number rose to 7.8 million. This was up from 6.7 million in 2008. The all time high in the U.S. was 9.2 million in 2007. The number of people who are considered "ultra rich" has risen too. The ultra rich are defined as individuals or families who have a net worth of over 5 million dollars after excluding the value of their primary residence. That number rose to 980,000 in 2009. This is up from 840,000 in 2008. Usually rich people are a little older as well. The average age of an individual with assets of over 1 million dollars in the U.S. is 62 years old. The Average age of the "ultra rich" is 67.

Your TV Will Soon Be 3-D

Do you remember when the Movie "Avatar" came out? It was in 3-D and it made almost 3 billion dollars at the box office (2.8 billion more precisely) and it spawned about a thousand other movies that came right after it that had the 3-D feature and pretty much stunk? Well the same type of revolution is getting set to occur with television. The 3-D tv is here already. It is expected that by the end of 2010 there will be over 3.2 million 3-D tv sets that will have been sold in the USA. By 2014 the projection is that over 90 million will be sold that year. The price of the Tv's themselves will not be so much more than an ordinary 2-D HDTV set either. Some 3-D tv sets can even be found now priced at under $1000 for a 50 inch set. The problem right now however is this. There Ain't a whole lot of good stuff to watch on tv in 3-D yet. A lot of shows on tv are reality shows. Who needs 3-D for that? Comedy shows, a lot of channels with talk shows, a lot of channels with old tv shows from the past like "The Brady Bunch" or "Gilligan's Island." This kind of content does not call for a 3-D set. It is however fantastic for sports like the Superbowl or the World Series but these events are only once a year and unless your a real sports fanatic it does not have that much of an appeal.
Another big problem with 3-D tv is that you have to buy a lot of stuff to go with your 3-D tv in order to get it to work right. Of course there are the 3-D glasses. They will run about $150 a pair. If you have a lot of people in your family that can add up quick. You might have to get a new 3-D Blu Ray player if you want to watch movies in 3-D, which of course you will want to do because you just bought a 3-D tv, thats about another $250 or so. Some of these 3-D glasses will only work with certain 3-D tv's too so there will be that to worry about. They are only now introducing the very first sets of 3-D glasses that are universal so maybe that wont be as much of a problem as originally feared. 3-D is going to be a brave new world that will require the consumer to make brave new choices. The best advice here perhaps is to proceed with caution as you go and to wait for the 3-D revolution to shake out a little more and develop before you join in.