As you know, rubber is a key component of tires. What you may not know, however, is that there are two kinds of rubber used by tire manufacturers. The first is natural rubber, which is made from the latex harvested from tropical rubber trees. This natural rubber makes up about 30% of today’s tires. The second is synthetic rubber, a type of rubber that is made from petroleum. Synthetic rubber makes up about 70% of the rubber in your average tire. Pretty simple, except one type of rubber can be problematic to source.

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Every year, there’s a surge of interest as movie release dates are published. Suffice it to say, 2017 is no different, and once again, an array of talent appears to be on offer over the subsequent months.

Already, we’ve seen the likes of “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Fate of the Furious” rock cinemas, but new releases are on the horizon.

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Yes, it’s time once again for our annual salute to classic cinema and this year’s TCM Film Fest. The 2017 edition was a bittersweet affair this year due to the passing of the network’s universally beloved host, Robert Osborne. Mr. Osborne was a unique figure in the annals of cinephiles and movie buffs in that, though he never looked old enough for this to be true, he had begun his career as an actor in the old studio contract system of Hollywood’s classic-era heyday. So, I guess we should go ahead and dedicate the first of our cocktails to him.

We’ll start with the first film I caught this year, William Wyler’s 1938 “Jezebel,” starring Bette Davis as a fiery, self-centered belle who manages to muck everything up between her and fiancé Henry Fonda with her acts of wanton rebellion. On the one hand, there’s no getting around the idea that Davis’ character is set-up as an antiheroine not so different from Scarlet O’Hara of “Gone with the Wind” fame, a role many fans felt was tailor made for Davis. (This film was regarded as something of a consolation prize, though it’s quite possibly the better film.) On the other hand, looking at things through a more contemporary and more feminist lens, it’s really about a woman driven to assert some power in a world ruled by males, who start all the wars and make all the rules.

When she finally breaks one rule too many, it’s by wearing a red dress to a ball. Yup, in pre-bellum New Orleans, an unmarried woman wearing a red dress in public was enough to start a chain of events that could lead to death for anyone foolish enough to take a strong position on the lady’s honor. It was really the worst thing in the world to wear that dress. And, yeah, these people all own slaves. So much for priorities.

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The definition of a guilty pleasure is something that we enjoy but think others won’t approve of or hold in high regard. Along the way, society has begun to embrace the idea of guilty pleasures and even cater to them. Women have all sorts of admitted guilty pleasures. We men have them too; we just don’t admit them as openly. However, there are 10 things nearly all men would consider a guilty pleasure.

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Unlucky as it may sound, there are countries in the world that still live behind the barriers of gambling restrictions. Instead of encouraging safer platforms for people to take part in wagering, or controlling the venues for betting to impose reliability, they simply just restrict it. Just as it has continually been repeated in history, the measures these countries take to put penalties on the individuals caught breaking these laws or the casino operators and betting halls don’t seem to be effective.

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