Why the world is the way it is today.

Post 534 - Here's another set of strange and wonderful facts and findings that help to explain why the world we live in today is the way it is:

Here are the percentages of each president's cabinet who'd worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet:

T. Roosevelt........ 38%
Taft.................40%
Wilson .............52%
Harding..............49%
Coolidge.............48%
Hoover ..............42%
F. Roosevelt........50%
Truman...............50%
Eisenhower...........57%
Kennedy..............30%
Johnson..............47%
Nixon................53%
Ford.................42%
Carter...............32%
Reagan...............56%
GH Bush.............51%
Clinton ..........39%
GW Bush..............55%
Obama.................8%

More than 57,000 high school students applied for about 4,700 places in the fall 2010 entering class at UCLA. The weighted average high school GPA of those admitted was approximately 4.25. I'm glad I enrolled there thirty-five years ago.

In 2008, there were 53,500 working barbers in the U.S. according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau predicts that by 2018, the number will jump 12 percent to 59,700, primarily because of increased population. To be a licensed barber in California, you must complete a 1,500-hour course (involving at least 750 haircuts) at an approved institution, as well as passing the written and practical portions of the state licensing examination.

Global temperatures in the first half of the year were the hottest since records began more than a century ago, according to two of the world's leading climate research centers. Scientists have also released what they described as the "best evidence yet" of rising long-term temperatures. The report is the first to collate 11 different indicators – from air and sea temperatures to melting ice – each one based on between three and seven data sets, dating back to between 1850 and the 1970s.

Researchers from Brigham Young University reviewed 148 studies that tracked the social habits of more than 300,000 people. They found that people who have strong ties to family, friends or co-workers have a 50 percent lower risk of dying over a given period than those with fewer social connections. The researchers concluded that having few friends or weak social ties to the community is just as harmful to health as being an alcoholic or smoking nearly a pack of cigarettes a day. Weak social ties are more harmful than not exercising and twice as risky as being obese, the researchers say.

Japanese women have enjoyed the longest life expectancy in the world for the past quarter of a century, according to government figures. In 2009, they could expect to live, on average, a record 86.4 years – up almost five months from the previous year – followed by women in Hong Kong and France. Experts attribute Japan's extraordinary longevity statistics to a traditional diet of fish, rice and simmered vegetables, easy access to healthcare and a comparatively high standard of living in old age.

There are 309,860,745 people in the U.S. If everyone were lined up in single file, the line would stretch around the Earth almost seven times. That's a lot of people!

In addition, the U.S. Census Bureau statistics tell us that there are at least 151,671 different last names and 5,163 different first names in common use. Some names are more common than others. There are 44,803 people named John Smith, 974 people named James Bond, 102 people named Harry Potter, 436 people named George Bush, and 31 people named Emily Dickinson. However, Johnny Cash (32 people) songs aside there are, statistically speaking, very few boys named Sue.

Wondering about your own name? Check it out at http://howmanyofme.com/

And finally, in all the EU member states, except Ireland, more than eight in ten interviewees felt that people driving under the influence of alcohol constituted a major road safety problem in their country. However, in Ireland, just 62 percent of respondents regarded drink-driving as a major threat to road safety and 31 percent simply regarded it as a minor problem. Go figure - maybe they were a bit under the influence when they were interviewed.