12/5    What's the purpose of putting titanium dioxide in lollipops?  Is it a
        preservative?  Isn't titanium very expensive?
        \_ It is a dye. It is very white. The amount they use is miniscule.
        \_ Titanium metal is expensive, titanium dioxide is cheap.
           The expense is almost entirely in extracting and machining
           the pure titanium metal.
           \_ I see.  I thought titanium is like gold where the element itself
              is rare.
        \_ It's a conspiracy to ship titantium out of the country via shipments
           of seemingless harmless candy.
           \_ And they encoded some 1024-bit encryption algorithms in the
              quarks of those titanium atoms too.
                \_ Who told you?!  Now you'll have to die!