Posted on 11/16/2005 7:13:45 PM PST by Xenophobic Alien
True Facts
Hewlett Packard's first product was an automatic urinal flusher.
All of David Letterman's suits are custom made; there are no creases in his suit trousers.
Cranberry Jell-O is the only flavor that contains real fruit flavoring.
Fewer than half of the 16,200 major league baseball players have ever hit a home run.
In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first.
Richard Versalle, a tenor performing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, suffered a heart attack and fell 10 feet from a ladder to the stage just after singing the line "You can only live so long."
If the entire population of earth was reduced to exactly 100 people, 51% would be female, 49% male; 50% of the world's currency would be held by 6 people, one person would be nearly dead, one nearly born.
In 1920, Babe Ruth out-homered every American League team.
Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores.
Toxic house plants poison more children than household chemicals.
The original name of Bank of America was Bank of Italy.
In many countries, a bunny rabbit represents Easter. In Switzerland, children get eggs from the Easter cuckoo.
The ant, when intoxicated, will always fall over to its right side.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles has issued six driver's licenses to six different people named Jesus Christ.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
People in China and Japan die disproportionately on the 4th of each month because the words death and four sound alike, and they are represented by the same symbol.
Chicago is closer to Moscow than it is to Rio de Janeiro.
Dogs have two sets of teeth, just like humans. They first have 30 "puppy" teeth, then 42 adult teeth.
In 1950, President Harry Truman threw out the first ball twice at the opening day Washington DC baseball game; once right handed and once left handed.
A Swiss ski resort announced it would combat global warming by wrapping its mountain glaciers in aluminum foil to keep them from melting.
The chameleon has a tongue that is one and a half times the length of his body.
Beethoven dipped his head in cold water before he composed.
There once was a town named "6" in West Virginia.
Ten years ago, only 500 people in China could ski. This year, an estimated 5,000,000 Chinese will visit ski resorts.
In 1920, Babe Ruth broke the single season home run record, with 29. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 30 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 50 home runs.
A Nigerian woman was caught entering the UK with 104 kg of snails in her baggage.
Profanity is typically cut from in-flight movies to make them suitable for general audiences. Fox Searchlight Pictures has substituted "Ashcroft" for "A**hole" in the movie Sideways when dubbed for Aerolineas Argentinas flights.
Author Hunter S. Thompson, who committed suicide recently, wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be shot out of a cannon on his ranch.
Sports Illustrated magazine allows subscribers to opt out of receiving the famous swimsuit issue each year. Fewer than 1% choose this option.
There is a company that will (for $14,000) take your ashes, compress them into a synthetic diamond to be set in jewelry for a loved one.
The RIAA sued an 83 year old woman for downloading music illegally, even though a copy of her death certificate was sent to the RIAA a week before it filed the suit.
Two 1903 paintings recently sold at auction for $590,000 - the paintings were in the famous "Dogs Playing Poker" series.
Russian scientists have developed a new drug that prolongs drunkenness and enhances intoxication.
Romanian firefighters could not get their trucks close enough to a burning building, so they put out the fire by throwing snowballs at it.
A perfect SAT score is 1600 combined. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, Bill's partner in Microsoft, scored a perfect 1600. Bill Cosby scored less than 500 combined.
Motorists traveling outside Salem, Oregon saw one of the "litter cleanup" signs crediting the American Nazi party. Marion County officials had no choice but to let that group into the adopt-a-road program. The $500 per sign was picked up by Oregon taxpayers. The Ku Klux Klan is also involved in the adopt-a-road program in the state of Arkansas.
Spam filters that catch the word "cialis" will not allow many work-related e-mails through because that word is embedded inside the word "specialist".
McDonald's restaurants will buy 54,000,000 pounds of fresh apples this year. Two years ago, McDonald's purchased 0 pounds of apples. This is attributed to the shift to more healthy menu options (the Apple Pie, which has been at McDonald's for years uses processed Apple Pie Filling).
The biggest dog on record was an Old English Mastiff that weighed 343 pounds. He was 8 feet, 3 inches from nose to tail.
Mailmen in Russia now carry revolvers after a recent decision by the government.
All of Queen Anne's 17 children died before she did.
There are over 87,000 Americans on waiting lists for organ transplants.
American made parts account for only 1% of the Chrysler Crossfire. 96% of the Ford F-150 Heritage Truck is American.
A Dutch court ruled that a bank robber could deduct the 2,000 Euros he paid for his pistol from the 6,600 Euros he has to return to the bank he robbed.
Only 6% of the autographs in circulation from members of the Beatles are estimated to be real.
The time spent deleting SPAM costs United States businesses $21.6 billion annually.
John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, loved to skinny dip in the Potomac River.
La Paz, Bolivia has an average annual temperature below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it has never recorded a zero-degree temperature. Same for Stanley, Falkland Islands and Punta Arenas, Chile.
41% of Chinese people eat at least once a week at a fast food restaurant. 35% of Americans do.
A Wisconsin forklift operator for a Miller beer distributor was fired when a picture was published in a newspaper showing him drinking a Bud Light.
So many Americans decided not to get a flu shot in winter 2004/2005 that there is now a surplus of flu immunizations; if more people don't get flu shots soon, there will be thousands of doses that will go to waste.
G-rated family films earn far more money than any other rating. Yet only 3% of Hollywood's output is G-rated.
Richard Hatch, winner of the first "Survivor" reality series, has been charged with tax evasion for failing to report his $1,000,000 prize.
The entire fleet of Unicoi County Tennessee's salt trucks was rendered out of commission in one accident. All three trucks were badly damaged when one of them began skidding down a road, causing a chain reaction accident. Officials blamed road conditions.
More people study English in China than speak it in the United States of America (300 million).
Fast food provider Hardee's has recently introduced the Monster Thickburger. It has 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat.
More than 2,500 left-handed people are killed each year from using products that are made for right-handed people.
For every person on earth, there are an estimated 200 million insects.
There are 2,000,000 millionaires in the United States.
1.5 million Americans are charged with drunk driving each year.
A Georgia company will mix your loved one's ashes with cement and drop it into the ocean to form an artificial reef.
The Washington Times newspaper is owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
The busiest shopping hour of the holiday season is between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm on Christmas Eve.
In 2002, women earned 742,000 bachelor's degrees. Men earned only 550,000 during the same year. The difference is growing so large that many colleges now practice (quietly) affirmative action for male applicants.
Most of the deck chairs on the Queen Mary 2 have had to be replaced because overweight Americans were breaking them.
Actor Bill Murray doesn't have a publicist or an agent.
Only 30% of stolen artwork worth more than $1,000,000 each is recovered.
The typical American child receives 70 new toys a year, most of them during the holiday season.
90% of Canada's 31,000,000 citizens live within 100 miles of the U.S. border.
Costco is the largest wine retailer in the United States. Annual wine sales are about $700 million.
The worst air polluter in the entire state of Washington is Mount St. Helens.
There are less than 100 surviving American World War I veterans.
Actor Bruce Willis has filed a lawsuit against the movie studio that produced his film "Tears of the Sun", alleging he was struck in the forehead by a fake bullet. Since 2002 (when the movie was in production), the lawsuit claims he has endured "extreme mental, physical, and emotional pain and suffering".
A ten year old mattress weighs double what it did when it was new, because of the -ahem- debris which is absorbed through the years. That debris includes dust mites (their droppings and their decaying bodies), mold, millions of dead skin cells, dandruff, animal and human hair, secretions, excretions, lint, pollen, dust, soil, sand and a lot of perspiration, of which the average person loses a quart per day. Good night!
About 20% of gift cards never are redeemed at the full value of the card.
Only 939 of the 1,400,000 high school seniors who took the SAT in 2004 got a perfect score of 1600. Two of them are twin brothers Dillon and Jesse Smith from Long Island, NY.
Billboard magazine has recently launched a top 20 chart of cell phone ringtones.
The US Army is handing out $2,500 to Fallujah residents whose property was destroyed by US planes and artillery.
In 2015, it is estimated that half the federal budget will be spent on programs for the elderly.
Dolly Parton is planning on having breast reduction surgery soon to relieve the pain on her back.
A private elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia, accidentally served margaritas to its schoolchildren, thinking it was limeade.
The Chicago Cubs are suing former Hartford Courant newspaper carrier Mark Guthrie to get back $301,000 in pay that was intended to go to a Cubs pitcher with the same name. The Tribune Company owns both the Hartford Courant and the Chicago Cubs.
In February 2004, a Disneyland employee was killed when he fell from a parade float and was trapped between two float sections. OSHA termed this a serious workplace violation, but Disney was fined only $6,300.
Even today, 90% of the continental United States is still open space or farmland.
The second Saturday in September is usually a popular time for weddings. Not in 2004, as most couples did not want their anniversaries on September 11.
Mel Gibson has personally earned almost $400,000,000 from his movie "The Passion of the Christ".
Austin High School in Texas has removed candy from its vending machines. Now some enterprising students are earning $200 per week dealing in black market candy.
In 2004, Virgin Atlantic Airlines introduced a double bed for first class passengers who fly together.
The world's largest book, "Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey" is in a Chicago public library. The book measures 5 feet tall by 7 feet wide when open. It weighs 133 pounds.
Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley are distant cousins.
55% of Americans claim they would continue working even if they received a $10,000,000 lottery prize.
The company that manufactures the greatest number of women's dresses each year is Mattel. Barbie's got to wear something.
All radios in North Korea have been rigged so listeners can only receive a North Korean government station. The United States recently announced plans to smuggle $2,000,000 worth of small radios into the country so North Koreans can get a taste of (what their government calls) "rotten imperialist reactionary culture".
La Paz, Bolivia is the world's most fireproof city. At 12,000 feet about sea level, the amount of oxygen in the air barely supports a flame.
The estates of 22 dead celebrities earned over $5 million in 2004. These celebrities include Elvis Presley, Dr. Seuss, Charles Schulz, J.R.R. Tolkien and John Lennon.
George Washington spent about 7% of his annual salary on liquor.
Each year, more people are killed by teddy bears than by grizzly bears.
If you disassembled the Great Pyramid of Cheops, you would get enough stones to encircle the earth with a brick wall twenty inches high.
Nearly one third of New York City public school teachers send their own children to private schools.
The New York City Police Department has a $3.3 billion annual budget, larger than all but 19 of the world's armies.
CBS's fine for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in the 2004 Super Bowl show was $550,000. This could be paid with only 7.5 seconds of commercial time during the same Super Bowl telecast.
In September 2004, a Minnesota state trooper issued a speeding ticket to a motorcyclist who was clocked at 205 mph.
Al Gore's roommate in college (Harvard, class of 1969) was Tommy Lee Jones.
In her later years, Florence Nightingale kept a pet owl in her pocket.
The New York Jets were unable to find hotel rooms for a game in Indianapolis recently because they had all been booked up by people attending Gencon, a gaming convention.
China is the world's largest market for BMW's top of the line 760Li. This car sells for $200,000 in China - more than almost all people in China make in a lifetime.
A chef's hat is shaped the way it is for a reason: its shape allows air to circulate around the scalp, keeping the head cool in a hot kitchen.
Life expectancy for Russian men has actually gone down over the past 40 years. A Russian male born today can expect to live an average 58 years.
Each year, sixteen million gallons of oil run off pavement into streams, rivers and eventually oceans in the United States. This is more oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
An employee of the Alabama Department of Transportation installed spyware on his boss's computer and proved that the boss spent 10% of his time working (20% of time checking stocks and 70% of the time playing solitaire). The employee was fired, the boss kept his job.
In 1985, the most popular waist size for men's pants was 32. In 2003, it's 36.
Solid structures (parking lots, roads, buildings) in the United States cover an area the size of Ohio.
A Brussels Airlines flight to Vienna was aborted because the pilot was attacked in the cockpit. The attacker was a passenger's cat, who got out of its travel bag.
Physicists have already performed a simple type of teleportation, transferring the quantum characteristics of one atom onto another atom at a different location.
At General Motors, the cost of health care for employees now exceeds the cost of steel.
There is a regulation size half-court where employees can play basketball inside the Matterhorn at Disneyland.
One of pitcher Nolan Ryan's jockstraps recently sold at auction for $25,000.
Television stations hung banners at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, including Al-Jazeera, until it was noticed and taken down.
A woman was chewing what was left of her chocolate bar when she entered a Metro station in Washington DC. She was arrested and handcuffed; eating is prohibited in Metro stations.
The New York City subway system, in an effort to raise revenue, is considering selling sponsorships of individual stations to corporations. Riders could soon be getting off at Nike Grand Central Station or Sony Times Square.
The Nike swoosh was designed by a Portland State University student, and purchased by Nike for $35.
Gerald Ford once worked as a cover model for Cosmopolitan magazine.
Gillette spent $1,000,000 to place razor samples in the welcome bags handed out at the Democratic National Convention, only to have them confiscated as they were considered a threat. This caused huge delays at all security checkpoints.
Quebec City, Canada, has about as much street crime as Disney World.
Jim Carrey voted in 2004 at the Beverly Hills City Hall. He had an assistant wait in line for him, however.
As part of a charity event, 500 cats were spayed and neutered in the cafeteria of an elementary school. School was cancelled for days and $10,000 was spent on cleaning and sterilizing the room.
The United States has five percent of the world's population, but twenty-five percent of the world's prison population.
Seven percent of Americans claim they never bathe at all.
The largest McDonald's is in Beijing, China - measuring 28,000 square feet. It has twenty nine cash registers.
A house in Baghdad worth $15,000 before the Iraq war now sells for $120,000 to $150,000.
There are between 5,000 and 7,000 tigers kept as pets in the United States.
The fertility rate in states that voted for George Bush is 12% higher than states that favored John Kerry.
The chicken is one of the few things that man eats before it's born and after it's dead.
The number of US college students studying Latin is three times the number studying Arabic.
In 2004, one in six girls in the United States enter puberty at age 8. A hundred years ago, only one in a hundred entered puberty that early.
If you hook Jell-O up to an EEG, it registers movements almost identical to a human adult's brain waves.
Some dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure, and even protect the child from injury. They're not trained to do this, they simply learn to respond after observing at least one attack.
32 out of 33 samples of well-known brands of milk purchased in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California had trace amounts of perchlorate. Perchlorate is the explosive component in rocket fuel.
The remains of 125 people will be launched into space where they will orbit the Earth for centuries.
The leading cause of on-the-job deaths in workplaces in America is homicide.
So far, Congress has authorized $152,600,000,000 for the Iraq war. This is enough to build over 17,500 elementary schools.
Americans take an average of just ten days per year vacation. In France, the law guarantees everyone five weeks of vacation, and most full-time workers get two full months vacation.
The IRS admits that one in five people who call their help line get the wrong answer to their question.
20% of Americans think that the sun orbits around the Earth.
Van Halen singer David Lee Roth trained to be an EMT in New York City, and planned to be certified by November 2004.
The thong accounts for 25% of the United States women's underwear market.
On average, 40% of all hotel rooms in the United States remain empty every night.
When you hear a bullwhip snap, it's because the tip is traveling faster than the speed of sound.
There is a new television show on a British cable called "Watching Paint Dry". Viewers watch in real-time. Gloss, semi-gloss, matte, satin, you name it. Then viewers vote out their least favorite.
The largest ocean liners pay a $250,000 toll for each trip through the Panama Canal. The canal generates fully one-third of Panama's entire economy.
French author Michel Thaler published a 233 page novel which has no verbs.
The spring thaw finally allows cemeteries in Alaska to start digging graves for those who died during the winter.
When Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen turn 18 in mid-2004, they will take official control of a company worth more than the gross national product of Mongolia. Their earnings in 2003 topped $1 billion.
Orthodox rabbis warned that New York City drinking water might not be kosher; it contains harmless micro-organisms that are technically shellfish.
David Bowie thinks he is being stalked by someone who is dressed like a giant pink rabbit. Bowie has noticed the fan at several recent concerts, but he became alarmed when he got on a plane and the bunny was on board.
A party boat filled with 60 men and women capsized in Texas after all the passengers rushed to one side as the boat passed a nude beach.
In 1997, a woman in Bradenton, Florida lost her cat. In 2004, she got a call from the local animal shelter. The cat turned up wandering the streets in San Francisco, California. The cat's identity was proven with a microchip that had been implanted prior to 1997.
Almost 20% of the billions of dollars American taxpayers are spending to rebuild Iraq are lost to theft, kickbacks and corruption.
The treasury department has more than twenty people assigned to catching people who violate the trade and tourism embargo with Cuba. In contrast, it has only four employees assigned to track the assets of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
There are 40,000 New York City cab drivers, who collectively drive more than a million miles each day.
An estimated 800,000 senior citizens voluntarily give up their driving privileges each year. The average age at which they surrender the wheel is 85.
More than 8,100 US troops are still listed as missing in action from the Korean war.
3,400,000 Americans are considered "Extreme Commuters". These people commute over 90 minutes round trip every day to work.
82% of Americans made a purchase at Wal-Mart in 2002.
Oslo, Norway is the world's most expensive city. A gallon on gas costs almost $5, and it costs $1.32 to use the public restrooms.
Villanova University's commencement speaker this year is the actor who plays Big Bird.
In 1965, auditions were held for the "Monkees" TV show. Some of the people who responded (but were not hired) were Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson, Paul Williams and Charles Manson.
Kevin Spacey's older brother is a professional Rod Stewart impersonator.
71% of office workers stopped on the street for a survey agreed to give up their computer passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.
If current trends continue, Medicare costs will absorb 51% of all income tax revenues by 2042.
The prison system is the largest supplier of mental health services in America, with 250,000 Americans with mental illness living there.
Newest trend in the Netherlands: Tiny jewels implanted directly into the eye.
Researchers have found that doctors who spend at least three hours a week playing video games make about 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery than surgeons who didn't play video games.
Before he had his own show, Jerry Seinfeld appeared on three episodes of the TV show "Benson" as the governor's speechwriter.
There are 1,008 McDonald's franchises in France.
Hostess Twinkies were originally filled with banana filling. The filling was changed during World War II when the United States experienced a banana shortage.
World War II veterans are now dying at the rate of about 1,100 each day.
A deployed air bag adds as much as $2,000 to the cost of repairing a vehicle. That's enough for insurance companies to often declare the car "totaled".
For the first time in history, the number of people on the planet aged 60 or over will soon surpass those under 5.
A British gymnast survived a fall from a fourth story window because he went into a somersault and came down on two feet.
One out of five people in the world (1.1 billion people) live on less than $1 per day.
The Swedish pop group ABBA recently turned down an offer of $2 billion to reunite.
The New Yorker magazine now has more subscribers in California than New York.
Five years ago, 60% of all retail purchases were made with cash or check. Now it's 50%. By 2010, 39% of purchases will be made by cash or check.
35 Billion e-mails are sent each day throughout the world.
The richest self-made American under 40 is Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computers. He is worth $18 billion.
Legislators in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are considering a law that would require pets to wear seat belts when traveling in a car.
Life Savers got their shape by a malfunctioning machine, which mistakenly punched a hole in the center of each candy.
SUV sales are up 18% in the first quarter of 2004 vs. the same period of 2003, even though gas prices are skyrocketing. Consumer surveys show that gas prices would have to hit $3.75 per gallon before there will be any real impact on SUV sales.
Airport security agents at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts caught a passenger trying to sneak a severed seal head onto a plane inside a cooler. The man said he was a biology professor and had found the dead animal on the beach.
Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO in Georgia.
There are 150,000,000 cell phones in use in the United States, more than one per every two human beings in the country.
A Boeing 767 airliner is made of 3,100,000 separate parts.
The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade.
Last December, the House of Representatives earmarked $50,000,000 to create an indoor rain forest in Iowa.
Amusement park attendance goes up after a fatal accident. It seems many people want to ride upon the same ride that killed someone.
Jeffrey and Sheryl McGowen in Houston turned to vitro fertilization. Two eggs were implanted in Sheryl's womb, and both of them split. Sheryl gave birth to two sets of identical twins at once.
For every ton of fish that is caught in all the oceans on our planet, there are three tons of garbage dumped into the oceans.
June Foray did the voice for Rocky the Flying Squirrel and the Chatty Cathy dolls.
Japanese and Chinese people die on the fourth of the month more often than any other dates. The reason may be that they are "scared to death" by the number four. The words four and death sound alike in both Chinese and Japanese.
People with initials that spell out GOD or ACE are likely to live longer than people whose initials spell out words like APE, PIG, or RAT.
More people in the United States die during the first week of the month than during the last, an increase that may be a result of the abuse of substances purchased with benefit checks that come at the beginning of each month.
In the film Forrest Gump, all the still photos show Forrest with his eyes closed.
There are an average of 18,000,000 items for sale at any time on EBay.
On EBay, there are an average of $680 worth of transactions each second.
The New York Times reports that in February 2004, 62% of all e-mail was spam.
A Massachusetts surgeon left a patient with an open incision for 35 minutes while he went to deposit a check.
In 1991, the average bra size in the United States was 34B. Today it's 36C.
U.K. telecom provider Telewest Broadband is testing a device that hooks to your PC and wafts a scent when certain e-mails arrive.
The average North Korean 7-year-old is almost three inches shorter than the average South Korean 7-year-old.
In 1993, David McLean developed lung cancer. He died on October 12, 1995. McLean's death made him the second Marlboro Man to die of lung cancer. Another actor, Wayne McLaren, died in 1992 at the age of 51 from lung cancer.
There is a bar in London that sells vaporized vodka, which is inhaled instead of sipped.
According to market research firm NPD Fashionworld, fifty percent of all lingerie purchases are returned to the store.
The Eiffel Tower shrinks 6 inches in winter.
The first FAX machine was patented in 1843, 33 years before Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone.
72% of Americans sign their pets' names on greeting cards they send out.
In an effort to encourage the use of nuclear energy, the United States lent highly enriched uranium to countries all over the world between 1950 and 1988. Enough weapons-grade material to make 1,000 nuclear bombs has still not been returned by such countries as Pakistan, Iran, Israel and South Africa.
Homing pigeons use roads where possible to help find their way home. In fact, some pigeons followed roads so closely that they actually flew around traffic circles before choosing the exit that led them home.
Every year, 2700 surgical patients go home from the hospital with metal tools, sponges, and other objects left inside them. In 2000, 57 people died as a result of these mistakes.
A snowflake can take up to a hour to fall from the cloud to the surface of the Earth.
Only 5 percent of the ocean floor has been mapped in as much detail as the surface of Mars.
The only people whose likenesses adorn Pez dispensers are Betsy Ross and Paul Revere.
We forget 80 percent of what we learn everyday.
Pain is measured in units of "dols". The instrument used to measure pain is a "dolorimeter".
In a nod to astronauts, Texas is the only state that permits residents to cast absentee ballots from space.
Eleven top executives of the Direct Marketing Association (the telemarketers' group that is trying to kill the federal "Do Not Call" list) have registered for the list themselves.
An iceberg the size of Long Island, New York, has broken off Antarctica and has blocked sea lanes used by both ships and penguins.
In 2003, the Transportation Security Administration dropped a requirement that air marshals pass a marksmanship test. Some applicants were even hired after they repeatedly shot flight attendants in mock hijacking episodes.
As of January 2004, the United States economy now borrows $1,500,000,000 each day from foreign investors.
A Costa Rican worker who makes baseballs earns about $2,750 annually. The average American pro baseball player earns $2,377,000 per year.
Former keyboard player for Jethro Tull David Palmer is now a woman named Dee Palmer. He waited until his wife died before going through with his longtime desire for a sex change.
During Bill Clinton's entire eight year presidency, he only sent two e-mails. One was to John Glenn when he was aboard the space shuttle, and the other was a test of the e-mail system.
The only state with a one syllable name is Maine.
Albert Einstein never knew how to drive a car.
The UK's best selling hiking magazine published faulty coordinates for descending Scotland's tallest peak (Ben Nevis), and recommended a route that leads climbers off the edge of a cliff.
The Mars Rover "Spirit" is powered by six small motors the size of "C" batteries. It has a top speed of 0.1 mph.
Zeppo Marx (the unfunny one of the Marx Brothers) had a patent for a wristwatch with a heart monitor.
The entire town of Capena, Italy (including children as young as 2 years old) lights up cigarettes each year in honor of St. Anthony's Day. This tradition is centuries old.
The Amish a diet high in meat, dairy, refined sugars and calories. Yet obesity is virtually unknown among them. The difference is since they have no TVs, cars or powered machines, they spend their time in manual labor.
Microsoft threatened 17 year old Mike Rowe with a lawsuit after the young man launched a website named MikeRoweSoft.com.
As of January 1, 2004, the population of the United States increases by one person every 12 seconds. There is a birth every eight seconds, an immigrant is added every 25 seconds, but a death every 13 seconds.
There is a Starbucks in Myungdong, South Korea that is five stories tall.
Astronauts cannot burp in space. There is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.
There has been no mail delivery in Canada on Saturday for the last thirty five years.
The weight of air in a milk glass is about the same as the weight of an aspirin tablet.
The world's smallest winged insect is the Tanzanian parasitic wasp. It's smaller than the eye of a housefly.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
If you have three quarters, four dimes and four cents, you have $1.19. But you cannot make exact change for a dollar.
There are more plastic flamingoes in the United States than real ones.
The chance that you will die on the way to buy your lottery ticket is greater than the chance of you winning the big prize in most lotteries.
Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton Look-Alike contest.
An average of 100 people choke to death on ball point pens each year.
The National Anthem of Greece has 158 verses.
Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
Toto was paid $125 per week while filming the "Wizard of Oz".
All polar bears are left handed.
Fidgeting can burn about 350 calories a day.
To help reduce budget deficits, several states have begun reducing the amount of food served to prison inmates. In Texas, the number of daily calories served to prisoners was cut by 300, saving the state $6,000,000 per year.
The only member of the band ZZ Top without a beard has the last name Beard.
Pope John Paul II is the world's Scrabble champion in the over-70 category.
Montpelier, Vermont is the only state capitol without a McDonald's.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
Wearing headphones for an hour increases the bacteria in your ear 700 times.
In 1993, the board of governors at Carl Karcher Enterprises voted (5 to 2) to fire Carl Karcher. Carl Karcher is the founder of Carls Jr. restaurants.
The little hole in the sink that lets the water drain out, instead of flowing over the side, is called a "porcelator."
The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.
Ted Turner owns 5% of New Mexico.
Over 8 years, this happened 284 times: "Cosmo" Kramer went through Jerry Seinfeld's apartment door.
The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2 moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel fuel that it burns.
There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States.
Maine has no venomous snakes.
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
65% of Elvis impersonators are of Asian descent.
More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
Burt Reynolds was originally cast to be Han Solo in the first Star Wars film. He dropped out before filming.
Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter" in 2000.
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation M - 1, named so because it was the first paved road anywhere.
There are only three types of snakes on the island of Tasmania and all three are deadly poisonous.
It is believed that Shakespeare was 46 around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was written. In Psalms 46, the 46th word from the first word is "shake" and the 46th word from the last word is "spear".
If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat it measures 87 feet long.
The strength of early lasers was measured in Gillettes, the number of blue razor blades a given beam could puncture.
The drive-through line on opening day at the McDonald's restaurant in Kuwait City, Kuwait was at times seven miles long.
Point Roberts in Washington State is cut off from the rest of the state by British Columbia, Canada. If you wish to travel from Point Roberts to the rest of the state or vice versa, you must pass through Canada, including both Canadian and U.S. customs.
The Pentagon in Washington, D. C. has five sides, five stories, and five acres in the middle.
Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
There is an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, which has a winter population of 200.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Newborn babies are given to the wrong mother in the hospital 12 times a day worldwide.
The Starbucks at the highest elevation is on Main Street in Breckenridge, Colorado.
Each year, over 1,000,000 people fail to itemize out the mortgage interest deduction on their income taxes. Last year, this amounted to $473,000,000 in taxes.
In 1998, more fast-food employees were murdered on the job than police officers.
The lead singer of The Knack, famous for "My Sharona," and Jack Kevorkian's lead defense attorney are brothers, Doug & Jeffrey Feiger.
Two very popular and common objects have the same function, but one has thousands of moving parts, while the other has absolutely no moving parts - an hourglass and a sundial.
One out of three employees who received a promotion use a coffee mug with the company logo on it.
If you know a millionaire who happens to be married, what is the most likely profession of his wife? She's probably a teacher.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows.
1 pound of lemons contain more sugar than 1 pound of strawberries.
The "you are here" arrow on maps is called an ideo locator.
60% of all US potato products originate in Idaho.
61,000 people are airborne over the US at any given time.
A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.
Mark Twain was born on a day in 1835 when Halley's Comet came into view. When he died in 1910, Halley's Comet was in view again.
The Weddell seal can travel underwater for seven miles without surfacing for air.
In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first (and only) home run.
The longest words in the English language with only one syllable are the nine-letter "screeched" and "strengths".
Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye".
All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" read 4:20.
A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
A baby is born without kneecaps. They appear between age 2 and 6.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
A snail can have about 25,000 teeth.
A snail can also sleep for three years.
A starfish can turn its stomach inside out.
A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans.
About a third of all Americans flush the toilet while they're still sitting on it.
According to Genesis 1:20-22 the chicken came before the egg.
Soldiers from every country salute with their right hand.
The microwave oven was invented by mistake when an engineer testing a magnetron tube noticed that the radiation from it melted the chocolate bar he had in his pocket.
Moisture, not air, causes super glue to dry.
Only 14% of Americans say they've skinny dipped with the opposite sex.
What separates "60 Minutes" on CBS from every other TV show? No theme song or music.
Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of their birthplace.
Most boat owners name their boats. The most popular boat name requested is Obsession.
100% of all lottery winners gain weight.
An average American will spend an average of 6 months during his lifetime waiting at red lights.
The Olympic flag's colors are always red, black, blue, green and yellow rings on a field of white. This is because at least one of those colors appears on the flag of every nation on the planet.
Cats can hear ultrasound.
In a recent survey, Americans revealed that banana was their favorite smell.
In all three Godfather films, when you see oranges, there is a death (or a very close call) coming up soon.
The arteries and veins surrounding the brain stem called the "circle of Willis" looks like a stick person with a large head.
Brushing your teeth regularly has been shown to prevent heart disease.
If you were to spell out numbers, you would you have to go until 1,000 until you would find the letter "A".
23% of employees say they have had sex in the office.
Bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers were all invented by women.
Married men change their underwear twice as often as single men.
A kiss stimulates 29 muscles and chemicals causing relaxation. Women seem to like it light and frequent, men like it more strenuous.
There are more collect calls on Father's Day than any other day of the year.
Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
40% of all people who come to a party in your home snoop in your medicine cabinet.
3.9% of all women surveyed say they never wear underwear.
Superman is featured on every episode of "Seinfeld", either by name or pictures on Jerry's refrigerator.
85% of the guys who cheat on their wives die while having sex.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than for the US Treasury.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served first class.
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28
Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38
Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80
Percentage of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50
Percentage of men who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 58
Percentage of women who say they are happier: 85
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
Percentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90
Percentage of mammal species that are monogamous: 3
Chances that a burglary in the US will be solved: 1 in 7
Portion of land in the US owned by the government: 1/3
Only bird that can fly backwards: Hummingbird
Only continent without reptiles or snakes: Antarctica
An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.
In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.
February 1865 was the only month in recorded history that didn't have a full moon.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
When George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an R and numbered the dialog starting with a D. Sound designer Walter Murch asked George for Reel 2, Dialog 2 by saying "R2D2". George liked the way that sounded so much he integrated that into another project he was working on.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school.
Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses.
Pilgrims ate popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
Your nose and ears never stop growing.
They have square watermelons in Japan...they stack better.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
Heinz Catsup leaving the bottle travels at 25 miles per year.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.
Men get hiccups more often than women.
Armadillos can be housebroken.
Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.
The first Fords had engines made by Dodge.
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients in dynamite.
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it is known as Tennessee.
The flashing warning light on the cylindrical Capitol Records tower spells out HOLLYWOOD in Morse code.
Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.
One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.
The average American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.
You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
Over 1000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.
The State of Florida is bigger than England.
Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.
It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food. That's the weight of about 6 elephants.
Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food.
Dolphins sleep with one eye open.
The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old.
In space, astronauts cannot cry, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow.
About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
More people use blue toothbrushes than red ones.
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe.
In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.
Slugs have 4 noses.
Recycling one glass jar saves enough energy to watch TV for 3 hours.
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.
Owls are the only birds who can see the color blue.
The average American drinks about 600 sodas a year.
It's against the law to slam your car door in Switzerland.
There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.
Honeybees have hair on their eyes.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.
A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.
The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump.
The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.
One quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.
America once issued a 5-cent bill.
You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in your lifetime.
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under is cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings.
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.
A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
The pitches that Babe Ruth hit for his last-ever homerun and that Joe DiMaggio hit for his first-ever homerun where thrown by the same man.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.
In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.
There are over 52.6 million dogs in the U.S.
Dogs and cats consume almost $7 billion worth of pet food a year.
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.
The Pentagon has twice as many restrooms as necessary. When it was built, segregation was still in place in Virginia, so separate restrooms for blacks and whites were required by law.
In England, in the 1880's, "Pants" was considered a dirty word.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
In 2003, there were 86 days of below-freezing weather in Hell, Michigan.
The average person laughs 15 times a day.
Are there any other kinds of facts?
True fact: More vanities are posted on FR than actual news sources.
Just damn.
Whew!
Stay away from the chat section and you'll miss alot of them.
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Fewer than half of the 16,200 major league baseball players have ever hit a home run.
>>
There aren't anywhere near that many players in the Majors.
Also, Charles Manson never auditioned for The Monkees (he was in Federal prison at the time).
Quite a few of the other facts look dubious, but these are two I know are inaccurate.
If anybody read this entire post as I did....they might be stuck on stupid.
They are referring to the number of people who have played MLB, not the number currently active in MLB.
Profanity is typically cut from in-flight movies to make them suitable for general audiences. Fox Searchlight Pictures has substituted "Ashcroft" for "A**hole" in the movie Sideways when dubbed for Aerolineas Argentinas flights.
I was watching "Heartbreak Ridge" on AMC the other night, and I heard the edited line, "...you're a walking CLUSTERFLOP as an infantry officer!"
Where did they get THAT word??
Count me in! I'm babysitting, I can't get deep into some political article right now. Still counts as FReeping, though!
Maybe it was a substitute for cluster f*ck.
...All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" read 4:20..."
False. There are at least three instances where the face of a timepiece is shown. Winston Wolf's watch shows an early morning time. Butch's father watch when Col. Koontz delivers it to him. It shows two different times. Third, the clock in the Jimmy's kitchen shows 9:30 am.
"Just the facts..." HOW MANY OF THESE DID YOU ALREADY KNOW? -- 1. The three LORD OF THE RINGS movies were all filmed at the same time with the same director and cast -- in New Zealand. 2. American car horns sound in the key of F. So do regular telephone dial tones. 3. More than one-third of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. 4. The average lifespan of a major league baseball is only 7 pitches. Major League Baseball goes through 900,000 balls per season at a cost of about $5.5 million, almost as much as a major league first baseman. 5. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game. 6. The microwave oven was invented at Raytheon in the '40s after research chief Percy Spencer walked by a radar tube, and a chocolate bar in his pocket melted. 7. You burn more calories eating a stick of celery than the amount of calories you get from it. Plus, chowing down on lots of raw celery can fill you up without many calories at all (unless you foolishly dip them in a creamy dressing). Recently researchers have found just 4 stalks a day may help reduce blood pressure. 8. In 1951 the average house cost $16,000, an ounce of gold was $35, a gallon of gasoline cost $.20, a loaf of bread $.16, a candy bar or a bottle of soda pop $.05, and a first-class postage stamp? 3 cents! 9. The base price of the '59 Chevy El Camino was $2,500; The average price of a movie ticket in 1972 was $1.58. 10. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado. 11. Utah is the youngest state. The median age of its population is 28, eight years below the national median. 12. If you stretch a standard Slinky out flat, it measures 87 feet long. 13. No sidewalks? In America pedestrians who walk on the improper (right) side of the road are TWICE as likely to be killed as those who walk on the recommended (left) side, facing traffic. And bicyclists who ride on the wrong (left) side of the road are more than FIVE TIMES as likely to be killed as those who ride on the recommended (right) side with traffic, where motorists approaching from cross-streets do usually notice them in time. Motorists approaching from their left on cross-streets or driveways and turning right (into them) don't see them because they don't look to their right enough. So whenever YOU're driving a car and turning right, after looking over your left shoulder to see if it's safe to go from THAT direction, make sure you snap your head to the right and check for cyclists BEFORE you turn right! 14. The most dangerous optical illusion is the one which tricks your brain into thinking you're driving much slower and safer than you actually are in heavy rain and blizzards, and especially in simple haze and fog conditions, when in fact you're actually driving much too fast for those conditions. In other words, fog diminishes your sense of speed drastically -- and sometimes, fatally. 15. Trains, large trucks and other large vehicles are ALWAYS moving MUCH faster than they look. Their size can fool your depth perception and sense of speed. NEVER risk outracing ANYTHING big. 16. The surface of a black car can become as much as 60 degrees (fahrenheit) hotter than that of a white car sitting all day in the hot summer sun. A silver car? Up to 40 degrees hotter. Studies show that black and green cars suffer the highest percentage of accidents, as old people often can't see them in time. People who drive with their headlights on during the day suffer 7% fewer accidents (than those who don't) in the lower latitudes, and as much as 40% fewer accidents in the higher latitudes (where the sun is in your eyes more often)! 17. "Small" floods can be VERY powerful! Don't risk getting washed away! Moving water just 6 inches deep can knock a person over, and just 2 feet deep can float a BUS, let alone a car, and wash it away! 70% to 80% of all flood deaths are in vehicles! 18. People who habitually back into their parking spaces in parking lots, garages and driveways run over a lot fewer toddlers, animals, pedestrians, cyclists and even inanimate objects than people who don't, especially when it's time to leave, which they can do with much greater visibility (and speed). According to research reported in Money magazine, EVERY YEAR 2,400 kids are backed-up over BY SUVs ALONE (It's IMPOSSIBLE to see a toddler right behind you while you're backing an SUV). 19. The best and safest car, boat, plane, truck and SUV drivers engage in exercise programs which deliberately isolate and strengthen their leg, arm and torso muscles with emphasis on their obliques, wrists, and especially, their foot and ANKLE muscles. This enables them to continuously make tiny, precise "fine-tuning" control adjustments of their vehicles while they drive, instead of, for example, just stomping on the gas and brake pedals with a "lead foot." 20. The wingspan of a Boeing 747 is longer than the Wright brothers' entire first flight. 21. So far, 747's have carried about a billion and a half passengers, roughly equivalent to one-quarter of the world's population. 22. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes. 23. Does saving pennies add up? Well, American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating ONE olive from each salad served in first-class (too bad governments don't think that way!). 24. Always put heavy objects on the bottom shelf of shelving units to weigh them down; you never know when visiting toddlers or airhead cleaning people will try to climb up the shelves and pull the whole unit over on themselves. It also helps to put a yardstick or strip of lath under the front of the unit so it tilts back slightly against a wall. 25. When making change in a retail establishment, if you give your customers their COINS FIRST, and THEN their bills, you cause fewer mishaps despite being able to speed up. After all, if you give them a chance to palm their coins while they put their bills in their wallets, the coins are much less likely to fall on the floor by trying to balance them on top of the bills. This, of course, is especially important at DRIVE-UP WINDOWS, right? 26. The quacks of ducks don't echo, and no one knows why, but they surely help them find each other. 27. Cats can make over one hundred different vocal sounds, but dogs? Only about ten. 28. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," uses every letter in the alphabet. It was developed by Western Union to test its telex/two communications, after which it became a favorite with typing teachers. "Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz" is another one. Can you find the f?. 29. "Typewriter" is the longest word typed on only one row of the qwerty keyboard. "Stewardesses" is the longest English word that is typed with only the left hand on it. Most typing (56%) is done with the left hand. 30. There is a seven-letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein" -- the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein. 31. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle (maybe cuz it's so little?). 32. The symbol which most people call a "pound" or "number" sign (#) has a formal name: an octothorpe. 33. Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." was the first CD pressed in the U.S.A. 34. Parents, heads up! It is estimated that 50,000 sexual predators are online at any given time. 35. Why is real maple syrup so expensive? About 40 gallons of slowly- collected maple sap have to be boiled down to make just one gallon of syrup. 36. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, 2nd and 3rd Presidents respectively, (also 1st and 2nd Vice Presidents respectively) both died on July 4, 1826 -- exactly 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 37. The Ten Commandments contain 297 words. The Bill of Rights is stated in 463 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address contains 266 words. A recent federal directive regulating the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words. 38. Amendment X to the Constitution of the United States, together with Article I, Section 8, prohibits the U.S. Congress from involving itself in cabbage pricing, education, health care, personal safety, campaign financing, most criminal law, toilet capacity, the banning of amino acid supplements (such as tryptophan) and thousands of other things it has gotten away with (so far). (see http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/constquery.html ) 39. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds (So do many politicians, apparently). 40. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. (ditto!) 41. Once on the books, a federal law, regulation, act, or establishment of a new federal agency, nomatter how ineffective, expensive or even counter- productive it turns out to be, is more than 80 times more likely to remain in effect -- and even expanded -- than ever to be ended. 42. "Your tax dollars at work"? A recent survey showed that out of every 100 federal government employees who get unsatisfactory job ratings, less than two are fired. Eighty out of the one hundred even get raises! During a budget dispute between congress and the president in 1995, most of the U.S. government was shut down for awhile, and 98 percent of the employees in some agencies were deemed "non-essential" and told not to bother coming to work. 43. Almost all large first-time campaign contributions given by private individuals or companies are asked for by the politicians, not offered by the donors. That's why, despite the "conventional wisdom", the vast majority of them involve politicians' "sales pitches" and extortion than any donors' attempts at bribery. So the problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power. 44. No jurisdiction in the U.S. will invalidate your ballot if you don't vote on every item or office in it -- in fact, you can vote on just one, and it will count. The only exception (sort of) is in Wyoming, where there's a unique state rule that counts ballots left blank for referendum measures as "no" votes. 45. Before the re-release of E.T., Steven Spielberg had all the weapons the government men were carrying painted-over and replaced with walkie-talkies so they would appear less vicious and dangerous, and wouldn't remind people of the government atrocities at Waco, Ruby Ridge or the Elian Gonzales kidnapping. 46. The Bible was named most often in a survey conducted by The Library of Congress in which respondents were asked to name a book that had made a difference in their lives. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand was named second most often. 47. There are two different kinds of selfishness, the good kind and the bad kind. The good kind is taking care of yourself and your family and the pursuit of happiness; the bad kind is taking advantage of unwilling others -- even by screaming "You're selfish!" at them. 48. The Sears Tower in Chicago was built with 2 million cubic feet of concrete. 49. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 50. By 1997, after the first 30 years of the "War on Poverty," $5.4 Trillion in tax dollars had been spent on poverty programs, and the national debt had risen to (guess what? yep...) $5.4 Trillion. And the poverty rate? Uh-huh, EXACTLY THE SAME as it was 30 years before. 51. A million seconds is less than 12 days; a billion seconds is over 31 years; a trillion seconds is more than 31,000 years, and 5.4 trillion seconds is over 167,000 years! 52. People who don't drink their requisite 8 glasses of pure water a day suffer more headaches (and heart attacks, BTW) than those who do. And often enough, they aren't helped as much by the pain-killers they take as they are by the water they wash them down with. If it contains fluorides however, tap water is not recommended, as fluorine has recently been shown to increase the assimilation of aluminum, a suspected cause of Alzheimers. 52. Fresh water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level, but salt water boils at about 226 degrees or so, depending on the concentration. 54. People whose diets are limited are usually not as healthy as those whose are varied, especially if they contain foods which seem to have a lot of rare nutrients, including turkey, salmon, cranberries, blueberries, yams, broccoli, beans, wild rice, liver, guava, noni, kelp, mangosteen, garlic and root beer! 55. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball. 56. Serotonin, an important chemical produced in the brain, is a neurotransmitter considered essential for relaxation, concentration, sleep and calmness. Its lack or suppression can lead to severe mental disturbances and even violent behavior. To make serotonin the body requires sufficient levels of magnesium, tryptophan and vitamin B-6, nutrients which many nutritionists say American diets are severely deficient in, but which medical doctors rarely run tests for -- even when they prescribe ritalin or other medications which depend on adequate serotonin levels (which is often!), and even when just taking supplements for those missing nutrients may be all that is needed. 57. There are about 20,000 deaths a year in the U.S. because of illegal drugs, and about 200,000 deaths, or ten times as many, because of prescription (legal) drugs, including the homicides and suicides from "serotonin re-uptake inhibiters" and other so-called anti-depressives. 58. Most American medical doctors have taken no more than 5 hours of nutrition classes in medical school if any at all, yet they are subjected to dozens and dozens of presentations by pharmaceutical company representatives on patent medications every year. So it should be no wonder why more and more people look elsewhere for advice on real nutrition. 59. Cheap vitamins are just as easily absorbed and utilized as expensive ones, but you must have a high level of minerals in your system first, before you can process enough vitamins of any kind. Unfortunately, most mineral supplements on the market are neither readily absorbed nor usable by the body even if they are. Evidence is accumulating to show that the most effective (and cost-effective) mineral supplements are those which are "chelated" with amino acids, some of which should be in the form of long branch-chain molecules and which are bound to the minerals with multiple bonds. 60. The only vitamins known to be absorbed through the lining of the mouth and throat are vitamins C and B12 (all others are absorbed in the small intestine). Sucking on vitamin B12 lozenges has been found to help with canker sores in the mouth. Gargling and swallowing liquid vitamin C has been found to be a very effective natural remedy for ordinary sore throat conditions (adding a drop of tea tree oil and/or grapefruit seed extract sometimes helps). Humans are the only mammals who have lost the ability to produce vitamin C in their bodies. Vitamin C advocate Dr. Linus Pauling took 10 to 18 grams (10,000 to 18,000 mg.) of Vitamin C every day (and never suffered from constipation) until he died at the age of 93. 61. Many people who suffer from dyslexia and/or a general lack of muscular coordination were encouraged to walk too early by impatient or ignorant parents. (Impatient people should never be parents anyway). If you want your babies to develop excellent left-brain/right-brain coordination, make sure you provide a large enough area (NOT a playpen!) to keep them crawling until long after they're really, really good at it. Look up "cross crawl" in your favorite search engine. 62. You inherit your cellular mitochondria (and thus, your energy level) only from your mother. So, men: if you want the best chance of having successful children: choose a high-energy (yet patient) wife! Perhaps this is why it's biology, and not Hollywood, which has made women with thinner figures (implying highly active lifestyles) more attractive to most American men. 63. The average federal income tax rate for the 437,036 individual returns filed for the year 1916 was .0275 (2.75 percent) and the highest rate was 7 per cent. And to think that Senator Nelson Aldrich had urged passage of the income tax, vehemently bellowing on the floor of the Senate his impassioned assurances that it would never, never, EVER go above one percent! 64. The Declaration of Independence has 1,337 words. The entire Holy Bible has about 773,000 words. So far, over 7 million words covering well over 40,000 pages of complex regulations make up the U.S. income tax code. According to a study by the Joint Committee on Taxation, tax compliance alone costs Americans $250 BILLION a year. Since the so-called "Tax Simplification Act" was passed in 1986, the tax code has been changed over 6,000 times. 65. Today the top 1% of American income-earners pay more than one-third of all individual income taxes, (WAY over -- more than 37% -- even though they earn only 17 percent of all individuals' income), and the top 5% pay over half. In the past, their savings and other investments have been used for creating over 90% of all new jobs -- when their taxes were low and they weren't punished so much for moving their money from less productive projects to more productive ones. 66. There are SIX state capitals at a longitude WEST of Los Angeles: Honolulu, Juneau, Olympia, Portland, Sacramento and ... and RENO! Notice that the only two state capitals which end in the letter "u" are included here. One's a "lulu." Did juneau that? 67. Opassa are odder than you thought. Every 'possum has 13 nipples! 68. According to Dr. Thomas Sowell, many people are unaware that the money that is taken out of their paychecks for Social Security is NOT being put aside to pay for their retirement. That money is paying for people who are retired right now, and anything that is left over is being spent by politicians in Washington for anything from farm subsidies to Congressional junkets. The trustees of the Social Security Administration say the system as it stands will begin paying out more in benefits than it receives in taxes as soon as 2017. 69. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by christian socialist control freak Francis Bellamy for the purpose of replacing liberty and individualism with conformity and obedience. He wanted to spread reverence for the federal government and its symbols, to quell objections to state powers being usurped by Washington, and (with the world "indivisible") to stamp out the idea of any state ever trying to secede from the union again. It was Bellamy who invented the straight-arm salute, first used for his pledge, and later adopted by the German Nazis. Very few other countries have a pledge of allegiance or oath of loyalty of any kind. 70. People who brush their gums thoroughly and often as they brush their teeth keep their teeth much longer into old age; it vastly improves the circulation, firmness and general health of the tissues. The best results come from brushing with a rechargeable ultrasonic toothbrush for 2 full minutes every time. If you're messy about it, brush in the shower! 71. "If you are going to travel halfway around the world, you may as well go all the way around the world, since it will take the same amount of time to get back home. And travel from east to west, because that means longer days and fewer of them -- more sunshine and smaller hotel bills." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell 72. The U.S. mortality rate for breast cancer is 25%, but with "single payer" health care systems it's worse. In Canada and Australia it is 28%, in Germany it's 31%, in France it's 35%, and in New Zealand and the United Kingdom it's 46%. For prostate cancer, the U.S. mortality ratio is 19%. In Canada it is 25%, in New Zealand it's 30%, in Australia it's 35%, in Germany 73. A 1989 study by researchers at Harvard and the Brookings Institution concluded that fuel economy standards kill thousands of Americans each year. After all, when politicians mandate more fuel efficiency, it often means making the vehicles lighter and flimsier and therefore less safe in crashes. As Prof. Donald Boudreaux says, "Politicians, like bombers, seldom see their victims." 74. The growing consensus among lawn and garden experts is that lawn-watering is best done at about 4am or 5am in the morning for a variety of reasons, from avoiding mildew from watering too early in the evening to avoiding sunburn and excess evaporation from watering during the day. Besides, since it often causes wet and slippery streets and sidewalks, it's a lot safer done during those hours of the early morning when there are the fewest people on the road. 75. Since oil drilling and pipeline operations began in Prudhoe Bay on the north slope of Alaska, caribou herds in the area have increased to more than 7 times their previous size. Even though TV networks may misleadingly show pictures of rolling grasslands with rushing streams with beaver and other wildlife while Section 1002 of the ANWR is discussed, it is actually nothing but barren ground and tundra with occasional sparse outcroppings of lichens, cottongrass and few other plants. 76. It would take enough solar cells to cover 53,760 acres, or 84 square miles, in order to supply as much energy at the same rate as just one average gas station. 77. Sea temperature calculations prove that between 600AD and 1100AD world temperatures were about 2 degrees higher than they are now. During this period, northern Europe experienced a golden age for agriculture. Greenland, now a frozen wasteland, was then a habitable Viking colony and it was actually green, not white as it is now. There were even vineyards in the south of England. Temperatures then dropped in the 1600s when we experienced the "Little Ice Age" and they have been rising slowly ever since. But they are still much lower than a thousand years ago. So some more global warming would be a good thing. 78. Recently, the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest published a very thorough investigation involving decades of research which showed that there is NO correlation between class sizes and students' performances except in kindergarten and first grade, where there was only a small measurable (but lasting) difference. 79. One sure sign of maturity is shown when a person simply says, "Thank you" whenever others tell him something he already knows. Besides, people who say (like the Muppet Miss Piggy) "I know that!" sound like defensive adolescent airheads and wind up so discouraging others they even stop warning them of imminent danger. 80. In the International Adult Literacy Survey it was found that nearly one in four Americans ages 16 to 25 scored at or below the Survey's lowest level of literacy. This represents a tremendous drop in literacy rates in the last 50 years while there was tremendous growth in the apparatus of public schooling and an accelerating increase in the cost, which is now FIVE TIMES what it was then, even in inflation-adjusted dollars. In public schools, anyway, MORE money has been accompanied by WORSE performances for decades, with the worst performances actually accompanying the highest per-student costs, as in D.C., Hartford and Baltimore. 81. According to economist Walter E. Williams, 4 percent, or 1 out of 25 Americans -- nearly 11 million people, are millionaires, most of whom started out with little or nothing. And according to the U.S. Trust survey, the wealthiest Americans worked an average of 56 hours a week for their first 29 working years since less than 11% of them inherited their money. Many people don't know the difference between income and wealth. The income tax hampers those still TRYING to get rich, NOT those who already are. 82. Compound interest is earning interest even on your interest, and it can be amazing. If you start at age 24 and invest $2000 a year for ONLY 8 YEARS at a 10% annual return, and you leave it all in to grow at that rate, it will become $642,752.65 when you're 65. If you don't start investing until you're 32, but then you invest $2000 a year EVERY year until you're 65 (each of 34 years) at the same rate of return, you'll only have $540,048.74 when you're 65. So who says it doesn't matter when you start investing or going into your own business? It most certainly DOES!! Conversely, PAYING interest on interest, as people do when they don't pay off their credit cards COMPLETELY EVERY month, can RUIN you big time, and much, much faster. 83. Some credit repair services are scams. Safe ones are listed at http://ClarkHoward.com . 84. NO financial planner, broker or insurance salesman who works on commission can truthfully claim he has your welfare as his number one priority, no matter how much, how intensely nor how elaborately he goes about insisting that it is. Work with fee-based advisors only. 85. Watch out for people standing near you at retail stores, restaurants, grocery stores, etc., who have a cell phone in hand. With the new camera phones, they can take pictures of your credit card, which gives them your name, number, and expiration date. 86. NEVER put anything in your back pockets thicker than a piece of paper. Especially if you drive, sitting on a wallet, checkbook or anything else as thick will, more often than not, result in curvature of the spine, pinched nerves and backache over time. 87. To quickly relieve a "charley horse" or leg cramp in the calf, try to touch your knee on that leg with your big toe. You won't be able to, of course, but the effort can stretch the calf muscle enough to make the cramp go away. 88. NO web page will be up forever, not even the ones in the web archive (http://web.archive.org). If you find some which are really valuable to you, making your own backup copies in some kind of portable medium is the best way to make sure you'll have continued access to them. 89. When making a collect call, it is advisable to repeat your name both quickly and slowly, as the software often cuts off the beginning or the end of your name when replaying it for the recipients (like asking them whether they want to accept a collect call from "mmmftt?") Best yet, say your name quickly twice and slowly twice, giving your recipient the best chance to figure out who is trying to call. 90. Children (and some adults) have difficulty hearing negatives. They process mostly positive instructions, at least subconsciously. If you say, "Don't forget your lunch money," for example, their subconscious processes only the "forget your lunch money" part. If you say, "don't get hurt," the "get hurt" part, and so on. So it's very important to say things in as positive a way as possible, for instance, "REMEMBER your lunch money," or "BE careful," or "STAY clean!" And don't say the same thing every time, or it loses impact. Try response-generating variations like, "Can you buy lunch?" Can you stay safe?" or "Can you look neat and tidy all day?" 91. Gun accidents account for only 7/10 of 1% of all accidental deaths. Most accidental deaths involve motor vehicles or are due to drowning, falls, fires, poisoning, medical mistakes or choking. According to Dr. Preston Covey of Carnegie-Mellon University, a gun in the U.S. is used over 32 times more often to scare off or defend against a criminal threat than to actually kill anybody, whether accidentally or on purpose. So guns are much more of a boon to honest citizens than they are to criminals. Way more. 92. A comprehensive national study by the University of Chicago in 1996 found that states which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rates by an average of 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%. 93. Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces have found enough chemical weapons in Iraq to kill about one half million people -- but not in clearly-marked "stockpiles" or warehouses. Nonetheless neither the U.S. nor the UN had the burden of proving Iraq still had WMDs. Saddam had the burden of proving he DIDN'T have them any more. He failed to do so, and he paid the price. 94. No matter what the commercials for your favorite detergent might say, cold water or cold liquids will NEVER dissolve as much dirt (or coffee, tea or whatever) as hot water or hot liquids. And dissolving iced tea mix in cold water can NEVER get as strong as tea dissolved in HOT water and then cooled down (which, if maxed out, is called a "super-saturated solution"). And, BTW, don't let your kids get away with "washing" their hands in cold water. That's NOT good enough. 95. The larger branches on old rotten or damaged trees can be deadly. Those from common hardwoods such as oaks can weigh as much as 3,000 pounds, and from giant redwoods (called "widowmakers") as much as 12,000 pounds. Any of these can plunge right through the roof of a house or a car when ripped loose in severe wind conditions, so avoid them during storms and keep them trimmed if they're on your property. 96. Walking for at least 3 hours a week helps to keep your heart, endurance and sense of well-being in shape, even well into old age. Recent studies indicate it's as good as, if not better than, running. Also, weight loss and weight control programs which include brisk nonstop 55-minute walks every other day if not every day appear to trigger the most helpful 97. If a deer or a smaller animal jumps out in front of you while you're driving, slow down WITHOUT swerving. Better a dead deer than a dead YOU; STAY IN YOUR LANE!!!! 98. Political parties are neither authorized nor prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. In fact, political parties are not mentioned in it at all. No less than five different candidates for President received electoral votes in each of the first four Presidential elections. In the third election, 14 different candidates did. 99. Third-party candidates don't "steal" votes from anybody -- except perhaps that largest of all groups in the electorate, the habitual non-voters and disgusted and would-be ex-voters. Besides, no one but the voters "owns" their votes in the first place. The third party in the U.S. with the largest number of regular dues-paying members, registered voters, candidates for public office and holders of public office is the Libertarian Party. Nationally syndicated radio talk 100. Many people who suffer intense back or neck pain due to degenerated spinal disks can get complete relief much more safely and at one-eighth the cost of surgery by undergoing DRX 9000 therapy developed by Axiom Worldwide (see axiomworldwide.com -- this unsolicited mention is by a happy patient, NOT a doctor or the manufacturer). - - - - - - Yes, you may pass this along! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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Also Jimmy Carter didn't report an UFO in Georgia. he reported one while flying a mission with the airforce. All he meant by his report was that he saw an "unindentifed flying object" no neccesary an alien spaceship.
Wouldn't that be destruction of a National treasure?
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My research is incomplete but I'm on the case. |
Duck's quacks DO echo!!! All sound echos it is just that you usualy see ducks in wide open areas where the sound has nothing to bounce off of. Saw this on "myth busters"
Thanks!
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