Because today is her birthday, let's watch some matches from my favorite pro wrestler of all time, the stunning Amy Dumas, a.k.a. Lita. If you have a problem with pro wrestling, read my defence of it, coincidentally posted on this very day some four years ago. Here's the first match:
This next one is a particular treat, as it features two of the most beautiful women on TV from the previous decade, and let's face it, Molly Holly's pretty hot, too.
Check out the pop Lita gets in both of these matches. That isn't piped in or cooked up as an angle for this storyline, it's real. She was awesome, and being awesome is damn sexy.
It's only proper to finish with a main event, and this sure is one. Refereed by none other than the legendary Earl Hebner of Montréal fame, this is pro wrestling the way it was meant to be. Admittedly the ladies play second fiddle in this one, but it's just such an awesome match.
Say what you like about Triple H, but he sure can sell.
Watching these clips reminded me all over again of what a huge crush I had on Lita when she was still wrestling. And I'm not sure that past tense is warranted. Happy birthday Amy! Wrestling was never the same without you.
Road traffic injuries are a major but neglected public health challenge that requires concerted efforts for effective and sustainable prevention. Of all the systems with which people have to deal every day, road traffic systems are the most complex and the most dangerous. Worldwide, an estimated 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes each year and as many as 50 million are injured. Projections indicate that these figures will increase by about 65% over the next 20 years unless there is new commitment to prevention. Nevertheless, the tragedy behind these figures attracts less mass media attention than other, less frequent types of tragedy.
It's true: despite great improvements in car safety over the years, road accidents are still a major cause of death everywhere in the world that has cars. So it's a subject worth taking a look at. And because that news item on Chinese prisoners being forced to play World of Warcraft got me thinking about China, we'll take a look at Chinese road safety.
**
The Euro NCAP does crash tests of commercially available cars and posts the results online, so we can see what we're getting into when we buy a car. As a starting example, here's the crash test video from a Volvo V70 estate. My dad drove one, or something very similar to it, and even though it was never crashed properly, one of the near-death situations in my life did occur in it when a lunatic in Finland ran a red light at very high speed, nearly hitting us.
To get an idea of how things are supposed to work, here's the Euro NCAP video of a Volvo V70 crash test:
As you can see, the essential features of modern car safety are functioning. There's airbags to cushion the impact, and most of the force of the collision is absorbed by the crumple zones of the car while the passenger compartment stays intact. The V70 got a five-star rating, out of a possible maximum of five.
Here, on the other hand, is a Chinese-made Brilliance BS6 in an Euro NCAP crash test.
As you can see, well, yeah. It got one star. In case you're wondering what you have to do to get no stars, here's the Jiangling Motors Landwind:
And if that wasn't frightening enough, here's an inside view:
And finally, an unidentified Chinese car being crashed into a barrier at 64 km/h in Russia.
**
I'm not in a position to offer any kind of advice on buying cars, but I will say this: there seems to be a rather large difference between a five-star rating and a no-star if-you-drive-this-you-are-going-to-die rating.
Remember last summer when Israeli commandos stormed a couple of Turkish ships in international waters and murdered people on them? Or, in other words, what Wikipedia euphemistically calls the Gaza flotilla raid? Of course, as you know, Wikipedia has "a strong liberal bias", according to The Trustworthy Encyclopedia, so that's hardly surprising.
Anyway, I got into a sort of Facebook mini-discussion about the flotilla incident, and I was sent links to some Youtube videos that would explain to me exactly what happened. Those videos were clips from Glenn Beck's show. I'm not going to link to them because they're too asinine to be believed. Instead, while I was listening to music on YouTube, I ran into a video somebody put together of Glenn Beck explaining why the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen are, in fact, communists. In my opinion, the level of insight and presentation here should give everyone a fairly good idea of what Beck's show is like. Remember that this is an edited version; in the actual show, he spends around a third of the entire time staring at his blackboard and repeating what he said before. But anyway, here's Glenn Beck on music.
