Veegle - Substantiated True Facts

SUBSTANTIATED TRUE FACTS - BUSINESS

Tourists are paying $65 each for a guided bus tour of Los Angeles' violence filled gang turf. Customers are required to sign a waiver, acknowledging risk of gunfire. - The Week Magazine, 1/29/10

43% of all U. S. venture capital in 2008 went to the San Francisco Bay Area. - Time Magazine, 11/2/09

The only bookstore in Laredo, Texas (B. Dalton) has closed. Now the closest bookstore to Laredo is in San Antonio, which is 150 miles away. - The Week Magazine, 2/5/10

Colorado will reduce minimum wage by 4 cents in 2010 - becoming the first state to lower the minimum wage in over seventy years. - Time Magazine, 10/26/09

Toby Cosgrove, chief executive of the Cleveland Clinic (one of the nation's largest medical centers), said that if it was up to him, he would stop hiring the obese. - Los Angeles Times, 2/1/10

On average (in July 2009), there are six job seekers for each job opening in the United States. - Fortune, 10/26/09

A South African company tested its Internet Service Provider. It took 2 hours, 7 minutes to download data over a fifty mile distance. The same data took a carrier pigeon, carrying a flash drive, fifty minutes less. - Time Magazine, 9/28/09

22,000 Americans die annually because they lack health insurance. - Newsweek, 9/21/09

The United States is the only developed nation where medical bankruptcies occur. - Newsweek, 9/21/09

The Ellen DeGeneres Show is being sued by four of the world's biggest record companies, accused of using more than 1,000 songs without permission. - The Week Magazine, 9/25/09

34,000,000 pounds of Parmesan cheese are being held in Italian bank vaults as collateral from cheesemakers struggling through the recession. The cheese is valued at $187,000,000. - Newsweek, 9/14/09

The United States has 2,300,000,000 square feet of space in self-storage units. This is 7 square feet per citizen. - The Week Magazine, 9/18/09

The odds are 1 in 71 (1.4%) that your bag arrived at your destination at a different time than you did when flying commercial airlines. - The Week Magazine, 8/28/09

There are twice as many ATMs in Antarctica than there are permanent residents. - Wired Magazine, 9/09

The first ATM machine in America (mechanical cash dispenser) was installed in 1939. It was removed six months later because of non-use. - Wired Magazine, 9/09

Low cost European airline Ryanair has asked Boeing to design a plane with standing room. Standing passengers would fly with a belt buckling them to a metal pole. - The Week Magazine, 7/17/09

Camel-milk chocolate could be in stores in the U.S. within months. - The Week Magazine, 8/7/09

Having a "healthy options" section of a menu at a restaurant actually makes consumers more likely to choose unhealthy dishes. - Discover Magazine, 7/09

The odds are 54 in 100 (54%) that you will look for a new job after this recession ends. - Newsweek Magazine, 7/13/09

Truckers that were text-messaging behind the wheel were 23 times as likely to get into an accident or a near miss. - Time Magazine, 8/10/09

In the first three months of 2009, there were 21 days when the Dow Jones average fell or rose by 2% or more. This never happened in the entire year 2006. - The Week Magazine, 5/22/09

Despite the recession, vitamin sales have risen 8% this year. - Time Magazine, 4/20/09

The best selling vehicle in the United States in April 2009 was the Honda Accord. This was the first time in 18 years the Ford F-150 truck wasn't the best selling vehicle in America. - The Week Magazine, 5/15/09

The co-pilot of the regional aire carrier Colgan Air that crashed in Buffalo in February 2009 made only $16,000 per year. - The Week Magazine, 5/26/09

The first Italian restaurant has recently opened in North Korea. Kim Jong Il had chefs trained in Italy for the new restaurant. - The Telegraph (UK), 3/16/09

If you were one of the seven people who had correctly picked the first four horses (the superfecta) in the 2005 Kentucky Derby, you would have won $864,253 on your $2 gamble. The trifecta (picking the first three horses in order) paid $133,134 on a $2 gamble. - USA Today, 5/7/05

Every year, up to 10,000 steel shipping containers snap loose from the decks of storm-tossed ships, scattering their contents in the seas. - Wired Magazine, 4/09

Landfills are getting up to 30% less trash because of the troubling economy. - Seattle Times, 3/15/09

Across the nation, 19 million houses and apartments -- nearly one out of every seven -- are vacant, the highest percentage since the 1960s. - New York Times, 3/6/09

Teens with cell phones average 2,272 text messages a month. - Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail, 2/22/09

A person can earn $50 per hour sitting on balloons while being filmed (for fetish videos). - Time Magazine, 3/30/09

The average total sales price in January 2009 for a house in Detroit, Michigan was $6,035. - North County Times, 3/15/09

All the U.S. coins and bills in circulation have a total worth of $829 billion. Two thirds of that is held overseas. - Discover Magazine, 4/09

A deer with an injured leg bounded into a PetSmart in Ohio recently. The deer got stitched up by the on-duty veterinarian and then bounded out of the store. - The Week Magazine, 2/20/09

Dane Cook's half-brother was arrested for embezzling over $10,000,000 from the comedian. - The Week Magazine, 1/16/09

Richard Branson has offered US Airways pilot/hero Chesley Sullenberger double his salary if he comes to work for Virgin Air. - The Week Magazine, 2/13/09

General Motors lost $181,000 each minute of the second quarter 2008. - Newsweek, 12/29/08

Out of the 11,585 stock mutual funds tracked by Morningstar, Inc., 11,584 have lost money in 2008. The sole exception, APX Midcap Growth Fund, posted a market-beating return of 0%. - The Week Magazine, 12/5/08

Walmart has more than 2,100,000 employees - about the same as the entire population of the country Latvia. - Fast Company, 12/08

The odds are 1 out of 7 (14%) that you have replaced your land-line phone with your cell phone. - The Week Magazine, 12/26/08

25% of employees who use the Internet visit porn sites during the workday. - Time Magazine, 12/8/08

Gas stations are actually making more profit now that gas prices are much lower. - The Week Magazine, 12/12/08

An Iowa man is suing Martha Stewart and KMart for an injury caused by a deck chair. Patrick Albanese claims he is no longer able to perform magic and play the banjo, due to his severed fingertip. - Des Moines Register, 11/18/08

Because of taxes, the average cost of a pack of cigarettes in New York City is $8.66. - The Week Magazine, 11/28/08

A Brazilian lingerie designer has introduced a line of lacy underthings fitted with GPS devices to track the woman wearing them. - The Week Magazine, 11/14/08

Twinkies are now coming in those 100 calorie packs. - New York Daily News, 11/3/08

In 2007, Wall Street's biggest firms (Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley) paid out $39 billion in bonuses. Shareholders lost $74 billion during the same period. - ABC News, 9/22/08

In the 1990s, there were only 142 G-rated movies produced. - Fast Company, 11/08

Bands whose songs are featured in Guitar Hero games can expect their on-line music sales to triple. - The Week Magazine, 10/24/08

Aerosmith has made more money in licensing income from Guitar Hero than from sales of any of their albums. - The Week Magazine, 10/24/08

A Pennsylvania Holiday Inn stored perishable food in an empty guest room because their refrigerator wasn't working. Employees assured the health department that they had turned the air conditioner all the way up. - WHTM.com (Lancaster PA), 9/29/08

An XL Airllines flight from Orlando, Florida to London was taxiing for takeoff when it suddenly stopped, turned around and headed back to the terminal. The passengers eventually were told that the airlline had declared bankruptcy, and all 260 passengers were stranded in Orlando. - WFTV.com (Orlando, FL), 9/12/08

About 80% of all marijuana grown outdoors in the United States is on state or federal land, usually in parks or forest reserves. - The Week Magazine, 9/26/08

Every man, woman and child who resides in Alaska will receive a check for $3,269 in late 2008 - their share of Alaska's oil wealth. - Associated Press, 9/5/08

Despite soaring housing foreclosures, and financial market turmoil linked to easy credit, banks still mailed out 1,540,000,000 solicitations for new credit cards during the three months of the second quarter 2008. - Reuters, 8/18/08

Warner Bros. is suing the makers of an Indian film "Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors" because of similarities to a certain very popular film franchise. - Reuters, 8/27/08

ExxonMobil had the highest profit of any company anywhere in 2Q08. It broke the record set in 4Q07, also set by ExxonMobil. - Houston Chronicle, 8/5/08

The computer mouse turned 40 years old in 2008. Gartner Group analyst Steve Prentice says the mouse will be obsolete in three to five years. - The Week Magazine, 8/15/08

If you're entering a congested highway from an on-ramp, if everyone on the on-ramp waits until the last possible moment to merge into traffic (the very end of the on-ramp), traffic flow is improved 15% when compared to conventional merges. - Dept. of Transportation, 12/28/04

A Kentucky woman was asked to leave a shopping mall because her dress was too short. She bought the dress the day earlier at the same mall. - WKYT.com, 8/10/08

The depth in the pool in Beijing is partially responsible for the eye-opening speed of Michael Phelps and other Olympic swimmers. The Olympic pool in Beijing is about three feet deeper than pools used in earlier Olympics. The additional depth reduces the drag on a swimmer's body. - The Week Magazine, 9/5/08

Southwest Airlines flight 2709, from Houston to San Diego, is the most delayed flight in the country, arriving late 100% of the time. - USAToday, 7/9/08

Several pornographic websites have reported an "upswing in sales" since American taxpayers have received their economic stimulus checks from the government. - United Press International, 7/7/08

The American retail sector lost 7,500 jobs in June 2008 - and almost two-thirds of them (4,800 jobs) were in auto dealerships. - Center for Economic and Policy Research, 7/3/08

Each year, the average American spends $100 more on footwear than on vegetables. - The Week Magazine, 7/18/08

Bennett Christiansen applied for and received his first credit card recently. Bank of America gave him a $600 credit limit, even though on the application Bennett truthfully filled in an income of "$0", gave his actual birthdate, and signed the application. Bennett is six years old. - CBS2Chicago, 6/17/08

Wall Street trading mysteriously fell 71,000,000 shares (9.2%) on Monday, June 16 - the day that Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open in a sudden death playoff. - The Week Magazine, 6/27/08

Giraffe meat is kosher. - New York Times, 10/19/05

New taxes have increased the price of a pack of cigarettes to over $10 in New York City. - WNBC News (New York City), 6/2/08

Frederic J. Baur was the designer of the Pringles potato chip can. He died recently, and his cremated remains were buried in one of those cans. - CNN.com, 6/2/08

76% of American commuters drive to work alone. - The Week Magazine, 6/6/08

The last week in May 2008 was the first week in over ten years that a "Harry Potter" book has not appeared on the New York Times best-seller list. - NPR, 5/2/08

The pilot of an Air France flight brought a young boy into the cockpit and started showing off - by banking the plane sharply left and right, right into the path of another plane. The pilot recovered by taking the plane up another 10,000 feet, all along terrifying passengers in the process. - Fox News, 5/6/08

In 2007, 68,000,000 television sets were thrown out or recycled. - Gulf News, 5/16/08

Mazda is destroying 4,703 brand new vehicles as the freighter (the Cougar Ace) on which they were being imported to the United States spent weeks bobbing on the ocean at a 60 degree angle. No one knows for sure if that caused damage, so Mazda is playing it safe and destroying the new cars. - San Diego Union, 4/30/08

As of May 2008, 13% of the 100 top-grossing films of all time were made by either Steven Spielberg or George Lucas. - The Week Magazine, 5/2/08

Used condoms are being recycled into hair ties and rubber bands in South China. - USAToday, 11/15/07

In late April 2008, the boat "Earthrace" will attempt to break the maritime around-the-world speed record, using only biofuels - including fat liposuctioned from its skipper, Pete Bethune. - London Daily Mail, 12/19/07

Microsoft is piloting a project called "MyLifeBits", which attempts to capture everything that happens in an individual's life. Automatically archiving e-mails, text documents, webpages, the project also includes a wearable camera that snaps a picture every thirty seconds. - Discover Magazine, 5/08

Collisions with birds cause more than a billion dollars worth of damage to civil aircraft each year. - Discover Magazine, 5/08

An average tree produces 8,333 sheets of paper. - San Diego Union, 4/20/08

An average office worker prints 10,000 pages each year, of which 14% are promptly thrown into the trash. - San Diego Union, 4/20/08

Last year, New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens was paid $19,800,000. This averages $200,000 per inning he pitched. - The Week Magazine, 4/11/08

It's estimated that United States businesses lose $800,000,000 every Friday the 13th due to absenteeism and reluctance to travel or make decisions. - Chicago Tribune, 3/15/08

Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees makes more money than the entire Florida Marlins team. - San Diego Union, 4/2/08

The Washington Generals basketball team has won only six games during the 42 years 1953 to 1995. During the same time period, they have lost more than 13,000 games. The Generals play only one opponent - the Harlem Globetrotters. - Sporting News, 3/31/08

The number of ski resorts in the United States has dropped from 727 in 1985 to 485 in 2008. The drop is attributed to global warming. - The Week Magazine, 2/22/08

The average domestic airfare in spring 2007 was $326. This is $50 less than in 1997 (after adjusting for inflation) - even though fuel costs have nearly tripled during the same time period. - Wired Magazine, 2/08

The Canadian post office revealed that one of the volunteers who respond to letters addressed to Santa Claus had written obscene replies to at least ten children. A spokeswoman said, "We firmly believe there is just one rogue elf out there." - Reuters, 12/14/07

Starbucks spends more on health insurance for its employees than it does for its raw coffee beans. - MSNBC, 9/14/05

On 12-19-07, UPS expected to deliver 22 million packages worldwide. That's 250 packages each second. - San Diego Union, 12/20/07

Louisiana is now the third largest movie production center in the United States, after California and New York. - The Week Magazine, 12/7/07

Lahde Capital, a California Hedge Fund, has made more than 1,000% return this year. It is one of the world's best performing funds of all time. - Dow Jones Financial News, 11/26/07

6% of British homeowners use their credit cards to pay their mortgages, even though the average credit card interest rate is more than double mortgage rates. - Yahoo! News, 11/1/07

There are now 3.3 billion mobile services accounts in existence. This works out to be one for every two human beings on the planet. - Network World, 12/3/07

The average monthly revenue per mobile services user in Kuwait is $71. The average monthly revenue per mobile services user in Sri Lanka is $2.83. - Network World, 12/3/07

Disneyland is finding many people are scattering ashes of family members on their favorite rides. Several separate events have been noted - and custodians have been issued special vacuums to remove suspicious debris. - Los Angeles Times, 11/14/07

Japan's Kaneko Sangyo Company is marketing a portable toilet for your car. It supposedly will "come in handy during major disasters, such as earthquakes, or when you are caught in a traffic jam". - Yahoo! News, 10/23/07

Overdraft fees cost Americans $17.5 billion in 2006. - Reuters, 7/11/07

Ohio State University has an athletics budget of $109,382,222 this year. That works out to be about $110,000 per student enrolled in its athletic program. That's also three times as much as the school spends to educate each student. - Wall Street Journal, 10/19/07

Yum brands, which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell is now opening about one restaurant a day in China. - The Week Magazine, 9/28/07

70% of all visits to Internet porn sites happen during normal work hours. The average worker admits to wasting two hours a day at work on the Internet. - The Week Magazine, 9/21/07

KFC will soon promote its new $2.99 lunches by pumping the smell of its fried chicken into workplaces. The chicken odors will come from the carts used to deliver mail throughout office buildings. - The Week Magazine, 9/14/07

Starbucks is now the most frequented retailer in the world. It serves 50,000,000 customers worldwide, and opens an average of seven new stores each day. - North County Times, 9/6/07

McDonald's sells about 17 Big Macs each second in the United States. - The Week Magazine, 9/7/07

An investor who entrusted $1,000 to Warren Buffett 50 years ago would have over $27,600,000 at the end of 2006. - The Week Magazine, 8/17/07

The amount of water that it takes to make the plastic containers for bottled water is twice the amount of water that actually goes into the bottles. - San Diego Union, 7/26/07

The United States imported $5,300,000 worth of American flags manufactured in other countries in 2006. - The Week Magazine, 7/20/07

The new double-decker jet, the Airbus A380, will hold 840 passengers. - Time Magazine, 7/2/07

For the first time ever, imported car brands have a bigger share of the United States market than Ford, GM and Chrysler. The Big Three U.S. carmakers accounted for 48.2% of all U.S. car sales in July 2007. - The Week Magazine, 8/17/07

100% of all toys recalled this year by the Consumer Product Safety Commission were manufactured in China. - Time Magazine, 7/9/07

The Beatles still sell an average of 280,000 albums per month worldwide. The Beatles still receive more airplay than any other group. - The Week Magazine, 5/25/07

Gas prices getting higher? ExxonMobil reported a record $9,280,000,000 profit for the first quarter of 2007. Since 2004, ExxonMobil has posted about $100 billion dollars in cumulative profits. - The Week Magazine, 5/11/07

Federated CEO Terry Lundgren was paid $16,000,000 in 2006. He also gets 40% discount on anything he buys from any of the Federated stores (including Macy's and Bloomingdale's). All other employees only get a 20% discount. - The Week Magazine, 5/11/07

There are 80,000 Boeing employees in the Seattle area. The daily commute for all employees totals 85 trips around the world. - Time Magazine, 4/9/07

The Minnesota Twins announced that four of this season's home games will have a designated "peanut-free" seating section for fans with peanut allergies. - The Week Magazine, 5/11/07

If every home in the United States paid its bills online, solid waste would be decreased by 1,600,000,000 tons each year. - Time Magazine, 4/9/07

40% of Amsterdam commuters get to work by bicycle. - The Week Magazine, 5/18/07

ESPN has signed on to televise 2007's USA Rock Paper Scissors League championship in May. - Variety, 3/12/07

The one activity that results in more catastrophic spinal and head injuries than all other high school and college sports combined? Cheerleading. Emergency room visits for cheerleading injuries have doubled since the early 1990s. - The Week Magazine, 4/13/07

A Sacramento, California area amusement park has banned screaming on their new roller coaster. The coaster's name is "The Screamer". - CBS5 (Sacramento CA), 4/6/07

Eighty percent of American women could be reached with one television ad on the big 3 networks (CBS, ABC, NBC) in 1960. - San Diego Union, 3/31/07

The Pentagon's biggest contractor in Iraq, Halliburton, recently announced it is moving its headquarters from Houston, Texas to Dubai - fueling speculation that it is moving to avoid taxes and/or accountability. Recent audits showed Halliburton charged the US government $27,400,000 for a shipment of natural gas from Kuwait that cost the company only $82,000. - The Week Magazine, 4/6/07

Half of the women in the United States have taken an all-female trip in the past three years. Almost 90% of them have plans for one. - San Diego Union, 3/31/07

A Washington woman was "freaked out" when giving her dog a bath - the dog's ear floated away. It appears that a groomer cut off the dog's ear and attempted to glue it back on with super glue. - Fox News, 2/15/07

The US military corps has 4,000 robots, which include "PackBots" which are involved in the search for Osama Bin Laden. These "PackBots" are made by iRobot, the same company that makes the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, Taliban fighters have discovered that they can disable the robots by flipping them over with a common ladder. - Discover Magazine, 4/07

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is the world's leading buyer of Hennessy Cognac. He spends up to $720,000 annually on Hennessy. - The Week Magazine, 3/23/07

Robotics expert Henrik Christensen predicts humans will be having sex with robots by 2011. - Discover Magazine, 4/07

A Michigan couple were surprised to find two unexpected packages from China delivered to them from DHL. They were even more surprised to discover that inside one package was a human liver; inside the other was a partial human head. The packages were supposed to be delivered to a Michigan medical lab. - 46News (Atlanta, GA), 3/7/07

The robots "Spirit" and "Opportunity", launched in 2003, were built to last only ninety days on the surface of Mars. Both are still going strong in March 2007. - Discover Magazine, 4/07

The National Federation of the Blind is asking that laws be passed to require hybrid cars to make noise as many blind people use the sound of the traffic to determine when to cross the street. - Fox News, 2/14/07

The suicide rate among police officers is far higher for police officers than the general population. In 2006, 450 American police officers killed themselves, three times the number killed in the line of duty. - The Week Magazine, 2/27/07

In 2006, e-mail spammers sent off 183,000,000,000 messages each day. That's about 70% of all e-mail. - Business Week, 9/19/06

Japanese chemists have created vanillin, the main component of vanilla-bean extract used in artificial flavorings, from cow dung. - Discover Magazine, 3/07

Every bathroom stall at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California is equipped with a high-tech equipment (heated seats, bidets, and dryers). The company believes that quirky perks will keep employees productive and thinking in unconventional ways. - Washington Post, 10/26/06

In 52% of solved cases of identity theft, the victim knew the thief personally. - San Diego Union, 2/6/07

Nine of the ten largest leveraged buyouts in history have taken place in the last eighteen months. - The Week Magazine, 1/19/07

More than 22,000,000 pounds of marijuana are grown in the United States annually. This crop exceeds in value the combined worth of American corn, hay and soybeans. - The Week Magazine, 1/12/06

A woman sent her 1-month-old grandson through an X-ray machine at Los Angeles International Airport. Airport officials said it was an innocent mistake by an inexperienced traveler. - CNN, 12/21/06

A Massachusetts man has been fired because his urine tested positive for nicotine. His former employer, Scotts Company, specifically forbids workers from using tobacco. - The Week Magazine, 12/15/06

British stem-cell researchers have applied for a license to create human-cow hybrid embryos. - BBC News, 11/06/06

A company that helped build a fourteen-mile border fence between California and Mexico has agreed to pay almost $5,000,000 in fines for hiring hundreds of illegal immigrant workers. - The Week Magazine, 1/12/07

"House of the Rising Sun", the breakthrough hit of the Animals in 1964, took eight minutes to complete: the first four minutes was the run-through, the second four minutes was the actual recording. - Blender Magazine, 12/06

92% of frequent flier miles are never redeemed. - The Week Magazine, 12/1/06

There were 70,000,000 acetominophen caplets scanned by metal detectors due to the possibility of metal shavings being inside. Only 200 tainted caplets were found; the odds of a caplet being one of the problematic caplets is 1 in 349,650. - Time Magazine, 11/20/06

Sanitation workers in the United States die on the job at a higher rate than policemen or fire fighters. - The Week Magazine, 11/24/06

The old-time crime of cattle rustling is enjoying a resurgence. Former baseball great Nolan Ryan has been a victim of rustling twice in the last year. - USA Today, 10/28/06

Each runner in this year's New York Marathon will have a GPS device tracking their progress. - The Week Magazine, 11/10/06

Princeton computer scientists confirm that undetectable vote-stealing software can be installed on the new electronic voting machines in less than a minute. - Discover Magazine, 12/06

On average, Starbucks opens six stores each day. - North County Times, 10/26/06

25% of students with perfect SAT scores who applied to Harvard in 2006 were rejected. - The Week Magazine, 11/10/06

There is a 1 in 7 chance that an airliner has dangerous levels of disease-carrying pathogens in its drinking water. - San Diego Union, 10/19/06

104 people have been sickened so far this year by drinking the bottled fluid called "Fabuloso", found in many 99 cent stores. While packaged in four different colors and in a bottle not unlike a sports drink, Fabuloso is actually a cleaning product. - New York Times, 10/17/06

The lab accident rate at schools and colleges is 100 to 1,000 times greater than at firms like Dow or DuPont. - Discover Magazine, 11/06

Paul McCartney applies for exclusive rights to use his name on meat, poultry and fish products. He did this not to actually use his name in advertising for these items, but to prevent others from using his name in this fashion. - Yahoo! News, 10/13/06

Starbucks recently announced plans to double the number of outlets in North America. - MSNBC, 10/5/06

The average detainee at Guantanamo has gained 20 pounds since their capture. - Washington Post, 10/3/06

Wenger has made a collector's Swiss Army knife - with 85 tools. This knife is 8.75 inches wide. - Popular Science, 11/06

The average company loses about 6% of revenue to fraud each year. The biggest culprits are employees. - The Week Magazine, 10/20/06

The MPAA has paid $9,000 each to train 2 dogs to sniff out pirated DVDs. The dogs cannot distinguish between legitimate and bootleg DVDs, however. - Los Angeles Times, 9/27/06

In the early 1950s, The Lorillard Tobacco Company made billions of Kent cigarettes with a new feature: the Micronite filter. This Micronite filter was only later disclosed to have the filtering agent crocidolite asbestos, deadly in its own right. - PBS, 10/2/01

It costs more to own a car in Detroit (an amazing $12,210 per year for a mid-sized sedan) than in any other city in the country. - CNN, 9/5/06

In order to help people care about animal rights, the Humane Society of America has coined this new "politically correct" term for dogs: Canine Americans - LA.com, 9/12/06

The video game Madden NFL '07 made $100 million in its first week - almost as much as the highly anticipated movie "The Da Vinci Code" made in its first week of release. - The Week Magazine, 9/15/06

Passengers on a flight from France to Mauritius have filed suit against Air France after musician Bonnie Tyler performed a song at the request of the co-pilot. - UPI, 9/3/06

The pilot of a Canadian airliner who went to the washroom during a flight found himself locked out of the cockpit, forcing the crew to remove the door from its hinges to let him back in. There were 50 passengers on the flight and the plane was pilotless for ten minutes. - CNN.com, 8/31/06

The amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose an average of almost 10% from 1998 to 2004, with brands most popular with young people and minorities registering the biggest increases and highest nicotine content, according to a new study. Kool Lights actually had an increase of 30%. - Washington Post, 8/31/06

A federal court in San Francisco has rejected a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the National Federation of the Blind against Target Corporation. The lawsuit filed Feb. 7 claimed that the corporation's Web site was inaccessible to blind customers. - Computerworld, 9/11/06

Madonna has approached the nuclear industry with a plan to clean up nuclear waste by washing it in a magical Kabbalah fluid. - The Week Magazine, 9/8/06

PC sales decreased 2.1% during the same period compared with the previous quarter. - Information Week, 7/24/06

A San Francisco startup, the DeCaf company, has invented a tongue-depressor-like stick which extracts caffeine from a cup of coffee with just a few stirs. Experts say that up to 70% of caffeine is removed in less than a minute. - Red Herring, 8/7/06

The direct medical costs of obesity now account for $93,000,000,000 per year. That's a full 9% of America's health care bill. - The Week Magazine, 8/11/06

"Mobility Scooters" - such as the Rascal - are being used by more and more people who don't have a disability. They're being used by people who "just don't feel like walking". - Wall Street Journal, 7/15/06

Panasonic is planning to sell a 103 inch plasma television this holiday season. This television is the size of a queen size bed, and will cost about $70,000. - New York Times, 7/24/06

Apple sells an average of 14,444 computers each day. That's a 19% increase over the previous fiscal quarter. PC makers reported a decrease in sales of 2.1% for the same period. - Information Week, 7//24/06

Food stamp usage doubles in counties with new Wal-Mart stores acccording to Penn State agricultural economists. - Discover Magazine, 8/06

Nokia has shown a prototype of a cell phone that lets you wirelessly send a scent to another phone. The "Scentsory" phone sends a signal to the fragrance emitter in the recipient's handset which produces the desired aroma. - Infoworld, 6/26/06

In 2005, the average CEO earned more in one workday than the average worker earned all year. - The Week Magazine, 7/14/06

An Atlanta school district overpaid $250,000 for phone service because a lower bid for the contract got stuck in the district's SPAM filter. - Network Computing, 6/8/06

The basic ingredient of bubble gum (polyvinyl acetate) is used for the glue on U.S. postage stamps. - San Diego Union, 6/26/06

Large companies are so concerned about the contents of the electronic communications leaving their offices that they're employing staff to read employees' outgoing e-mails. According to Forrester Consulting, 44 per cent of large corporations in the United States now pay someone to monitor and snoop on what's in the company's outgoing mail. - ZDNet, 7/20/04

Los Angeles police will test a new system which may minimize those deadly high-speed car chases. When chasing a fast moving crook, the police will now fire a GPS homing device which will stick on the fleeing car. The GPS chip will then track the car, allowing the authorities to track the vehicle by computer and coordinate a calmer arrest. - Popular Science, 7/05

Lithuanian police were so astonished when they pulled over a truck driver and his breathalyzer test registered 18 times the legal alcohol limit, they thought their testing device must be broken. It wasn’t. - Boston Herald, 5/23/06

The speed limit on some Texas roads is now 80 miles per hour. - Washington Times, 5/30/06

According to a recent study, almost one quarter of hospitalized patients over 70 years old were catheterized, even though there was no medical need. - San Diego Union, 5/30/06

Within ten years, you may be able to buy fruit and vegetables "fortified" with smart drugs and medication. - Business 2.0, 6/06

The name "Nevaeh" was more popular for a baby girl in 2005 than Vanessa, Sara and Amanda. Nevaeh is "Heaven" spelled backwards. - New York Times, 5/18/06

Staples was expected to sell its millionth "Easy Button" in summer 2006. - Business 2.0, 6/06

Researchers in England and the United States are developing an "invisibility cloak" - not unlike the one Harry Potter inherited from his father in the popular books. An early version, said to mask microwaves and other electromagnetic radiation, may be unveiled in 2007. - San Diego Union, 5/26/06

DaimlerChrysler now embeds fiber from a banana plant into plastic covers for spare tire wells, saving up to 60% of energy over fiberglass. - Discover Magazine, 6/06

Americans spend $40,000,000,000 annually (more than the gross domestic product of many countries) on caring for their lawns. - Ottawa Citizen, 5/21/06

German thieves have stolen a 20-ton roller coaster that was being transported to a fair. - The Week Magazine, 5/26/06

International Space Station crew members stuffed an old space suit with a radio transmitter (complete with digitized recordings of children's voices), and old clothes, and jettisoned the suit. This new satellite broadcast the voices to ham radio operators worldwide before the batteries died. The suit is expected to burn up in the atmosphere in August 2006. - Popular Science, 6/06

164 of 168 nations guarantee paid maternity leave for working mothers. The four that don't are Lesotho, Swaziland, Papua New Guinea and the United States. - The Week Magazine, 5/26/06

Roadside billboards are prohibited in 4 of the United States: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont. - San Diego Union, 5/24/06

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has linked exposure to artificial butter flavoring in microwave popcorn to lung disease that sickened nearly 200 workers at popcorn plants and killed at least three. - ABC News, 4/24/06

John Koza has networked 1,000 computers together to form an "invention machine". Koza feeds information into the machine, and the machine randomly comes up with potential solutions, and then tests them. One of the invention machine's creations has earned a patent, as the patent examiner did not know it was the work of a computer. - Popular Science, 5/06

$30 of raw popcorn can translate into as much as $3,000 in sales at the movie theaters. - Chicago Tribune, 3/18/06

A Malaysian man received a $218,000,000,000,000 phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution. - MSNBC, 4/10/06

Coca-Cola indeed once did contain cocaine, but the company insists it does not now buy coca leaves. However, the only legal importer of coca leaves is the Stepan Co. of Maywood, New Jersey. Much of the 382,000 pounds of coca leaves it imports is made into a "flavoring extract"; its main customer for that "flavoring extract" is reported to be the Coca-Cola Company. - The Week Magazine, 3/31/06

In South Bend, Indiana, a man was arrested for selling bogus flat-screen TVs to unsuspecting victims. The item was bubble wrapped, had Wal-Mart markings and came with a remote control. The flat-screen TV was actually an oven door. - South Bend Tribune, 4/1/06

The Chicago Public School system requires all students take driver's education, including blind students. - MSNBC, 3/10/06

A Qantas Airways baggage handler was suspended after he was caught opening a passenger's luggage and discovered a camel costume. He drove around the tarmac of Sydney airport wearing the head. - Business 2.0 Magazine, 1/06

The Canadian Recording Industry Association's own research now concludes that Peer-to-peer illegal downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers. Also it found that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, and that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic. - CRIA Consumer Study, 2/06

Kraft Foods has reformulated Alpha-Bits cereal using a whole grain formula. Unfortunately it yields letters that are too chunky to read, and the elimination of the sugar coating causes the letters to break apart more readily in milk. - New York Times, 8/11/05

Russell Stover has introduced a new confection for this Easter: six inch chocolate crucifixes. - Business 2.0 Magazine, 1/06

The United States meat industry discards $1,000,000,000 worth of edible meat annually as it is considered too "ugly" to sell. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/19/06

Each and every day, Saudi Arabia receives $500,000,000 from oil-consuming nations, including almost $100,000,000 from the United States. - The Week Magazine, 3/17/06

Apple recently celebrated the sale of the 1 billionth song on their music download service iTunes. Illegal peer-to-peer sites still are responsible for traffic of about 1 billion songs each month. - Rolling Stone, 3/23/06

A congressional committee was told that 24 people have disappeared from cruise ships in the past two years. - The Week Magazine, 3/10/06

U.S. airlines last year lost about 10,000 bags a day on average. - USA Today, 2/16/06

Starbucks says China is their #1 growth market. At $6 a cup, the coffee costs more than the average Chinese worker earns in a day. - Yahoo.com, 2/14/06

Cheap red wine was used to power environmentally-friendly buses in Sweden because of an ethanol shortage. - New York Times, 9/20/95

Taipei 101 is the world's tallest building - 508 metres (1,667 feet) high. At 700,000 tons, it is among the heaviest. But the sheer size of the Taiwan skyscraper is thought to have triggered two recent earthquakes because of the stress that it exerts on the ground beneath it. - The Guardian, 12/2/05

Americans spend more money on the purchase of garbage bags each year than the combined gross domestic product of 90 of the world's developing countries. - San Diego Union, 12/28/05

On average, every man, woman and child uses three gallons of oil daily. Transportation accounts for two of those gallons. - San Diego Union, 12/28/05

Wikipedia, the open-source on-line encyclopedia that anyone can edit, is nearly as error-free as Encyclopedia Brittanica, according to a team of expert reviewers. - The Guardian, 10/26/04

The ingredient that gives Dannon Boysenberry yogurt and Tropicana Ruby Red Grapefruit juice their distinctive colors comes from crushed female cochineal beetles. - Wall Street Journal, 1/27/06

The average American home today contains more synthetic chemicals than the average chemical plant a century ago. - San Diego Union, 12/28/05

Employees at a Ford Truck Plant in Dearborn, Michigan will have to drive Ford vehicles to work or park across the street, the plant manager announced earlier this week. - Money Magazine, 1/27/06

A 150 watt personal computer left on continuously for a year consumes the electricity equivalent of 100 gallons of oil. - San Diego Union, 12/28/05

A British company sent out hundreds of packaged hams whose wrappers listed “dog sh*t” as an ingredient. The company blamed an employee’s prank, but customers nonetheless were cautious. - The Week Magazine, 2/3/06

Some of the companies that claimed they were harmed in the 9-11 attacks and received government loans were: a Virgin Islands perfume shop, a Utah dog boutique and a South Dakota radio station. Over 100 Dunkin' Donuts and Subway Sandwich shops in various locations also applied for help. - Associated Press, 12/29/05

Scientists at MIT's Media Lab have invented an alarm clock that makes even the laziest of sleepers, those who repeatedly hit the snooze button, leap out of bed. After the snooze button is pressed, the clock, which is equipped with padding and a set of wheels, rolls off the table to another part of the room. Each day, the clock finds a new place to hide. - MSNBC, 3/22/05

With 62 percent of adults now considered obese or overweight, Mercedes-Benz and Subaru have widened front seats by half an inch for this year’s models, while seats in the 2006 Honda Civic are wider by three-quarters of an inch. - The Week Magazine, 1/6/06

Toilet manufacturers are now starting to use miso (soybean curd) to test their toilets instead of plastic balls. It is said to be more realistic in testing. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/8/05

Cell phone ringtones generate 2 billion dollars in annual income for the music industry. - Fortune Magazine, 12/12/05

The leading source of malicious code on computers in the workplace is user behavior (employees knowingly clicking on attachments or downloading software indiscriminately). - IT Architect, 12/05

An Ohio business man spent over a half million dollars opening a sports bar before realizing it is located in a district that prohibits the sale of alcohol. - 19 Action News, 12/11/05

The small town of Clark, Texas has renamed itself to be "Dish, Texas" in return for free satellite dishes for all its residents. - BusinessWire.com, 11/16/05

Apple's iTunes online store is the seventh largest music retailer in the United States, placing it above Tower Records, Borders and Sam Goody. - Billings Gazette, 12/9/05

The original Hollywood sign has sold on eBay for $450,000. - San Jose Mercury News, 12/7/05

The spring toy Slinky is celebrating its 60th birthday this year. Slinky guards its trade secrets fiercely, and in those 60 years, there have never been reporters or photographers allowed inside the Slinky factory. - Time Magazine, 12/5/05

Dartmouth College researchers have created a robot so small that 200 could fit on the tip of your finger. These robots may one day repair circuitry on computer chips. - Popular Science, 12/05

The average retiree has between 18 and 20 years of life ahead of him. In 1900, the average life after retirement was 1.2 years. - Yahoo Finance, 10/19/05

A Minnesota inventor has discovered a way to make brightly colored soap bubbles that do not leave a stain when the bubble breaks. This new technology will soon appear in other products, such as a bathroom wipe that leaves a momentary trail to show you where you have cleaned already, and a toothpaste that turns kids' mouths bright pink until they have brushed for thirty seconds. - Popular Science, 12/05

There were 3,500 less television roles for actors in 2004, primarily due to the popularity of reality TV shows. - Yahoo News, 10/6/05

A German inventor has found a way to convert a mixture of weeds, old tires and dead cats into inexpensive diesel fuel. - Reuters, 9/14/05

Gillette has come out with a razor with five blades. The "Fusion" has bested its own Mach 3 and Schick's Quattro. - Newsweek, 9/26/05

Boeing has scheduled their 787 Dreamliner to be delivered in 2008. This jet will consist of 50% composite materials (plastics) instead of metal. - Discover Magazine, 10/05

Broadband via power lines is a reality; several small towns already offer high-speed internet via power lines. It will become more prevalent in 2006. - Newsweek, 9/12/05

University of California at Irvine Neuroscientist Gary Lynch has created a compound called CX717 which makes people temporarily smarter. It has been tested on monkeys and humans, and a commercial drug is "only a matter of time." - Discover Magazine, 10/05

There are 4,000,000 surveillance cameras in Britain's public places. The average commuter has his image captured 300 times each day. - BBC News, 2/7/02

A 6' 10" man was turned down for a job as an air traffic controller. While he passed all the tests, his legs would not fit under the desk. - News.com, 7/29/05

Henry Ford came up with the idea for charcoal briquettes in the 1920s. Also having a hand in the invention was Thomas Edison and Ford's cousin's husband, E.G. Kingsford. - The Week Magazine, 8/5/05

A Santiago, Chile restaurant named "Car Crash" had to close temporarily because a car crashed into it. - Seattle Times, 7/28/05

Stephen Crawford recently resigned as co-President of Morgan Stanley. He was on the job for 15 weeks, and was paid $32,000,000. Assuming he worked seven days a week, sixteen hours a day, he still made $19,000 per hour. - Business Week, 7/11/05

U. S. workers say they waste over two hours a day (not including their lunch hour) at their jobs, either by surfing the web, socializing with co-workers or simply "spacing out". - Reuters, 7/12/05

At Atlanta's Turner Field and the Florida Panthers' Office Depot Center, Lexus drivers get the best parking spots. The auto maker worked out a deal with the management of the venues. - The Week Magazine, 7/22/05

Oprah Winfrey visited a Hermes store in Paris, France just after closing time and was denied entry. - New York Daily News, 6/22/05

If you brew your own coffee instead of purchasing a $3 latte each day, you would have $55,341 after 30 years (calculation includes interest). - Motley Fool, 6/21/05

A Romanian farmer is hoping to make a fortune after a chicken was born with four working legs. Doru Grigoras said, "Think of all the extra chicken drumsticks you can get off a chicken with four legs instead of two."He is planning to keep the black feathered chick until it grows up and then breed it to produce more four-legged birds. - Window to Romania, 6/1/05

On 19 nights in the 2004-2005 television season, Univision (which broadcasts in Spanish) has ranked number 1 among the 18-to-34-year-old viewers (the demographic that advertisers pay a premium to reach), according to Nielsen Media Research. - Baltimore Sun, 5/9/05

Apple is the fastest growing brand in the world according to a study that measures earning growth along with brand awareness. - Forbes, 6/20/05

A theatre in Springfield, Illinois that was showing the newest Star Wars movie was robbed by someone in a Darth Vader mask. - E! Online, 5/24/05

Total annual spending on weddings has risen to $125 billion, according to a recent survey by the Fairchild Bridal Group. This is as much as Ireland's yearly gross domestic product. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/10/05

Northwest Airlines will stop serving pretzels on its flights. This is estimated to save them $2,000,000 per year. - Contra Costa Times, 5/27/05

A robbery attempt and a gunshot wound to the leg didn't stop a Tampa pizza delivery man from making his deliveries. Thomas Stefanelli says it was "dedication" that drove him to deliver four pizzas after being shot in the thigh by a man in a Halloween mask who pointed a gun and demanded money. - CBSNews.com, 6/8/05

A 24-hour suicide hot line in Canada will only be open between 9 am and 5 pm on weekdays because of budget cuts. - Houston Chronicle, 5/27/05

The owners of Jo's Brasserie, a restaurant in Queensland Australia, face heavy fines for painting over a dead rat in the kitchen rather than bothering to sweep it up. - News.com, 5/4/05

The Sea Harvest Restaurant in New Smyrna Beach, Florida sells fish like white snapper and silver snapper. These species do not exist. A manager of the restaurant admits the fish is actually cod. - MSNBC, 5/10/05

US Airways mistakenly sold round-trip flights for $1.86 to more than 1,000 customers over an April 2005 weekend. US Air, which is operating in bankruptcy, said it will honor the tickets. It blamed the prices on a computer glitch. - CNN.com, 4/19/05

Burger King has launched its Enormous Omelet Sandwich. One sausage patty, two eggs, two American cheese slices and three strips of bacon, on a bun. It has 730 calories and 47 grams of fat. - USA Today, 3/28/05

According to an estimate by industry analyst Gartner, approximately 133,000 PCs are disposed of per day in the US. - The Week Magazine, 4/22/05

Health care benefits to GM workers add $1,500 to the price of every GM car made in the United States. - Detroit News, 3/11/04

The decision by the North American ice hockey league, the NHL, to cancel its entire season following a lockout left hundreds of highly paid sporting superstars out of work. But rather than hang up their skates, more than 70 are now playing in Russia. - BBC News, 3/12/05

Once hot and trendy, low-carb Atkins diet foods that never got sold are being shipped to food banks. In the past six months, 14 truckloads of Atkins Nutritional bars, shakes and breakfast mixes have been sent to charities that hand out free food. - Cincinnati Enquirer, 4/8/05

Americans spent $1.2 billion in 2004 on ringtones, wallpaper and other "personalization" services and an additional $1.4 billion on cell-phone games and other entertainment. - Time, 4/4/05

McDonald's will soon pay rappers to use the term "Big Mac" in their lyrics. Each time a song with a Big Mac reference is played on the radio, the artist will get between $1 and $5. - New York Daily News, 3/28/05

Ten years ago, China didn't have a single ski resort. Now it has over 200. - CNN.com, 3/7/05

A Chevron station in West Covina, California boasts a chandelier, marble walls, sculptured art and gold fixtures. Owner Paul Moghadan says he "wanted to show how much I respect my customers." - Miami Herald, 3/16/05

Wal-Mart's profit in 2004 were $20,000 per minute. - New York Times, 2/27/05

Spam filters are never perfect, but their job is made more difficult by the fact that the word "Specialist" has the word "cialis" embedded in it. - San Jose Mercury-News, 2/24/04

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