Ping Pong Balls . . .

PING PONG BALLS are incredibly flammable. Something irrelevant to ponder on this Canada Day.

Heads up . . .

AUTOBLOG has a report on a clever new helmet for bikers that uses corrugated cardboard as the shock-absorbing medium. If you need a brain-bucket, check it out before you wish you had.

The technology is called Kranium, and it uses interlocking ribs made from cardboard housed under a stiff plastic shell. Since the cardboard is easily manufactured and cut to shape, custom fitment is possible by means of a simple and personalized head-shaped template. This way, the guts can be cut out of a single cardboard sheet and replaced without buying a completely new helmet.

Tests show that these cardboard helmets can withstand four times more impact energy than regular helmets.

Air Canada shaves more weight from Jazz flights.

And they've done it at the expense of your safety.

The race by airlines to shave weight and save fuel is now reaching safety equipment.

Jazz airlines, Air Canada's regional affiliate, recently removed life vests from all of its planes – including those that fly over water – to reduce fuel consumption and save money.

Transport Canada regulations allow carriers that fly within 50 nautical miles of shore to use flotation devices instead of vests. Safety cards in seat pockets will now direct passengers to use the seat cushions, which float.

Air Canada Jazz will still be flying over open water, and in case you haven't experienced it, 50 miles is a long way from land.

Jazz planes criss-cross Canada and the U.S., flying over the Great Lakes and up the Eastern seaboard from Halifax to Boston and New York.

"We operate within Transport Canada regulations and in this case we're within their regulations for operations over water," says Jazz spokesperson Debra Williams. A number of east coast routes were adjusted to bring them within the 50-mile boundary.

They also fly over the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland.

Take a look at that seat card (click it to expand). Do you see the obvious problem? Imagine yourself surviving an in-water air crash but with one broken arm, or a dislocated shoulder, or a snapped wrist. You couldn't possibly hang on to a seat cushion, even if you could get it off the seat. Never mind what would happen if you had two broken arms.

Unconscious survivors? Totally hooped. You're going to die, even if someone straps you to one of these cushions. The design of inflatable life vests is such that it will roll you out of a face-in-the-water attitude within five seconds and then support your head while keeping your face out of the water. The graphic presentation on the seat card has the survivor backwards from where he should be to prevent drowning and unable to assume a heat escapement loss prevention posture. In other words, when a survivor needs every possible calorie of heat retained to slow the effects of hypothermia, Jazz has just eliminated one small advantage... to save money.

It's not just fuel they're saving either. Inflatable life vests are not cheap, so, while you may never hear about it, someone at some board meeting will be announcing a savings to the company in passenger safety equipment.

In a water ingress emergency passengers (and crew) suffer from water immersion shock upon entering the water. For several minutes a person entering cold water has limited control over their ability to move and react. Grasping a seat cushion would be struggle in the Strait of Georgia or the Gulf of St. Lawrence for the first five minutes after entering the water. That's enough time to drown. Given the position of the survivor on this cushion, if the weather is rough and the water has any significant chop, the survivor will likely drown.

Shall we discuss the problem of small children and infants? Nah. They're dead.

So there you are. Jazz's attempts to shave costs at the expense of passenger safety gives a whole new meaning to "bums in seats".

Hat tip Cheryl.

Pedestrian Safety Program . . . .

For more on this exciting new pedestrian safety program, check out The Onion . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

"Skew"-ered. Are you prepared for the big one Mrs. Cleaver?

It would seem that only 4 percent of us have the kind of safety kit that Public Safety Canada thinks we should have. That would be the same PSC over which story-teller Stockwell Day hovers.

Apparently the reason for our negligence has been identified. So, PSC is going to target the one group who hasn't responded.

The "Is Your Family Prepared" campaign, launched in the fall of 2006, is being tweaked this year in an attempt to convince more people to have a fully stocked emergency kit in their homes, according to a new request for proposals issued by Public Safety Canada.

"Only four per cent of Canadians have all the kit contents that PSC asks for as a basic kit," reads the request.

"The plurality of (opinion poll) respondents still think that they only need to be prepared for 24 hours."

The government is looking for outside help to run the upcoming phase of the campaign, which will include $2.1 million in ads over 12 months. It will target "parents, with a skew toward women" in the middle income and age brackets, with the message that "if you don't prepare yourself or your family for an emergency, you are placing at risk the lives or well-being of your family," the documents say. (Emphasis mine)

A skew towards women? That's an outward and blatant blame-game.

Women, make sure you get the meaning of this. You belong at home. When disaster strikes, you are expected to have everything ready because if you don't you have failed the system; you have failed Stockie; and you have failed your family.

If disaster strikes when you're out shopping or (gawd forbid) at your little job, you will be expected to rush home and deploy the supplies. It is your domain. You are responsible for house, home and children.

Men, you will finish your beer. Put all thoughts of home out of your head. You will not worry about the children. (Hell, you don't care about them anyway, right?). Rescue. You will do rescue, and fight fires, and manly stuff. They'll be wanting the sandbags and chainsaw in the back of your pick-up. When you do get home, your woman will have things under control. You just pull out the unregistered 30.06 and get ready to hold off the marauding hordes of young single folk who never got the word.

Thanks... I think... to a very pissed-off Cheryl for the tip.