chaos averted .. and you'll never guess why

I've been a fan of The Straight Dope for many years, going back to the days when I lived in Redondo Beach, California and was told about Cecil Adams' series of books by Bob (who is not a -Bob).

Later came the web, and The Straight Dope's e-newsletter (today's included a pointer to a classic: Who decided red means "stop" and green means "go"?) We've come to accept certain things as global (if not universal) standards, that it's seldom questioned. What if we traveled to another country (France, no doubt) where the signal light standard is:

maroon means go and and teal means stop?

Chaos has been averted (in this case) by the American Railroad Industry. Go figure.

I recall another column where Cecil (not a -Bob) explained why the size of our space-bound rockets can be traced back to the Roman chariots (no lie!). As Tonto once said: "Heap Strange, Kemo-Sabe."

Deep Thought #46: why didn't the Mars Rover find ancient traffic signals? Could that be why life never flourished on The Red Planet?

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Deep Thought #47: boycotts don't work (the vast majority of the time) but here's an interesting alternative to those opposed to the Bush Regime: BuyBlue.org