NO EXCUSES- KISS ME!

In the U.S., a white adult murder victim has most likely been poisoned or given an overdose of a legal or illegal drug (80%) while a black adult murder victim was most likely shot (55%)

Number of children under age 15 in the world:  2.2 billion  (More than half are underfed and lack access to safe drinking water)

Life expectancy in the United States:

White Females   -80 years

White Males   -74.5 years

Asian Females   -79.8 years

Asian Males   -77.7 years
Latino Females   -74.8 years
Latino Males   -69.8 years
Black Females   -74.8 years

Black Males   -67.3 years

Native American Females   -58 years

Native American Males   -49 years

Cost to American tax payers to incarcerate people arrested on marijuana-related offenses:  $1.5 billion annually

Rate at which someone is arrested in the U.S. for marijuana possession:  1 every 45 seconds

Cost to American tax payers to combat marijuana use in the U.S.:  $4 billion annually  (Does not include tax payer money spent in their local and state governments for same purpose)

Percent of Americans who claim to smoke marijuana on occasion, regularly, or to have experimented in trying it at least once:  82%

Largest export crop from United States:  Marijuana  (Wheat is second)

Percent of Dutch teens who can speak fluent English:  90%

Percent of American teens who can speak fluent English:  84%

A lawsuit is filed against Wal-Mart every 3 seconds each day across the globe

THE IMPOSTORS:

• Brian MacKinnon (1963 -  ), AKA Brandon Lee, the 32 year-old who passed himself off as a pupil at Bearsden Academy. MacKinnon was a medical student in the University of Glasgow but he kept failing his exams and was eventually taken off the course. Determined to become a physician, he posed as Canadian teenager Brandon Lee to re-qualify and get back into medical school. So, 1993 he enrolled in the same school he had graduated from 13 years earlier, Bearsden Academy in Bearsden, a suburb of Glasgow. Although some of the teachers were there when MacKinnon was there thirteen years earlier, he was accepted by all as a new sixteen year old pupil. He stayed for two years, after which he received five 'A' grade Highers in 1994 in Maths, English, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. He was accepted by the University of Dundee's medical school to begin classes that autumn. He left the University after a few months due to financial issues but was accepted to restart in September 1995. Shortly before he was due to re-commence his studies, he took two girls from the school to a holiday in Tenerife. After their return an anonymous phone call to the school headmaster exposed him.

• Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr. (1921- 1982) AKA The Great Impostor. As Dr. Joseph Cyr, he joined the Royal Canadian Navy as surgeon where he managed numerous successful surgeries including the removal of a bullet from a man’s chest. Making great use of his photographic memory, Demara taught himself all he needed to know for his deception by reading books on the subject. The Canadian Navy, having eventually discovered that Demara was using a false name, kicked him out but his credentials as a surgeon were not questioned. He then went on to create a series of new identities including: zoology Ph.D., law student, cancer researcher, hospital orderly, deputy sheriff, prison warden and teacher.

• Marvin Hewitt A high school dropout was found in 1954 to be Dr Kenneth D Yates working as associate professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire. It was his third college (as far as we know) and fifth teaching position in seven years in spite of having no qualification of any sort. The college described him as a "brilliant physicist" and a very satisfactory teacher.

• Harry Stokes a 19th-century bricklayer was only unmasked as a woman after his death. Fearing her true nature was about to be revealed she committed suicide and even then her identity was only revealed by chance.

• Louis Grin valet in the 1890s, claimed to be Louis de Rougement, an adventurer who lived with the cannibalistic tribes of Australia for 30 years. There were many newspaper articles published about his exploits and how he survived for so long. They were all fictitious and many based on novels he had read.

• Dr James Barry (1799 - 1865) joined the army in 1813, passed through the grades of assistant surgeon and surgeon in various regiments, and had served as such in this capacity all over the world. In around 1840 he became promoted to the rank of medical inspector, and was transferred to Malta. He went from Malta to Corfu where he was based for many years where he died. Upon his death after forty years of service as an officer in the British army and a matchless reputation in his field he was discovered to be a woman.

• Stanley Clifford Weyman (1890-1960) was an American impostor who impersonated government officials, including Secretary of State and various military officers. He once famously inspected the USS Wyoming playing the part of the Consul General for Romania, fooling the ships captain and crew. He treated them all to dinner afterwards, the bill was supposed to be covered by the Romanian consulate. He was arrested at the dinner and only annoyed because they did not let him finish his meal.

Money spent on video games today:  $64,000,000 (US)

Blog posts that will appear on the Internet today, including this one:  558,292

Deaths of women during childbirth in 2009 (reported):  623,199

Kissing Bugs feed by sucking the blood of humans - their favorite feeding spot is the face and in particular the lips, hence the name

Currently, 1500 people a die each day from cancer

CAUGHT WITH EXCUSES:
From a Police report in the North Bay, Ontario) on 2009 November 7: An officer in line at a traffic light, realizing that cars had not moved through two light changes, walked up to the lead car to investigate. The driver said she was not able to move on the green lights because she was still on the phone and thus driving off would be illegal. The officer said a brief lecture improved the woman's understanding of the law.

Reported in the Washington Times:  The inspector general of the National Science Foundation
revealed that on-the-job viewing of pornography websites was so widespread at the agency that the resultant ethics investigations hindered his primary mission of investigating fraud on grant contracts. The agency report, obtained by the Washington Times in 2009 September, said the heaviest user was a senior executive who
logged on to pornography at least 331 days in 2008. He subsequently retired, but before leaving defended his habit, claiming that his website visits actually helped impoverished women in Third World countries to earn a decent living (by posing for pornography).

Albert Freed's lawsuit for defective underwear against Hanes was dismissed in 2009 October by a Pensacola, Florida judge, even though Freed had complained that the briefs had caused severe pain and ruined his vacation. Freed said the garment's flap had inexplicably failed to close, allowing his penis to protrude and rub against swim trunks that contained sand from the beach that irritated the sensitive skin. However, Freed admitted that he delayed diagnosing the problem by declining to inspect his penis. He explained that he cannot easily peer over his "belly" (and wouldn't even consider, he said, examining his naked self in a mirror or asking his wife to inspect). Consequently, he had endured increased irritation before recognizing the source of the chafing.

GIVING THOUGHT

Most actual thinking occurs in humans in the cortex of the brain, which is only on the surface and a thin 3.4 mm thick - to maximize the amount of surface area in a relatively cramped space (your skull), humans evolved brains whose surface has folds - if we unfolded the cortex it would stretch to nearly 3 square feet, or .24 square centimeters, roughly the size of a standard ironing board

The city of London has an average of 100 cameras per person, and the average resident or visitor is captured on video about 300 times a day

In the continental United States the odds that an adult will have sex within an hour of going to bed are 1 in 3.7

CHARITABLE GIVING DIFFERENCES AMONG GENERATIONS

-- Younger generations (commonly referred to as Gen-X and Gen-Y) are more likely to give to charities focused on global issues of poverty or AIDS than older generations (Odds a Gen-Yer gave to an international charity in 2008:  1 in 4.2/ Odds that a Gen-Xer gave to a similar charity:  1 in 5.41/ Odds that a "Baby Boomer" gave:  1 in 6.76/ Odds that a "Silent Generation" person gave:  1 in 8.3/  Odds that a member of the "Great Generation" gave:  1 in 8.9)

-- Older generations tend to be drawn toward traditional charitable organizations that they are familiar with and such that care for the needs of the poor

-- About half of both the Silent Generation and the Great Generation give to charities that directly help the poor but are local, and often through their church or other place of worship

-- Younger generations are twice as likely to give to international groups and to diversify their giving among several causes, and are ten times more likely than older generations to donate online

-- Baby Boomers, of all generation groups in the U.S., are the most likely to restrict giving to charitable organizations based in the United States rather than providing assistance to groups who will carry the donation overseas

-- A 2009 report analyzed these trends and found a sharp decrease in donations to charitable organizations that meet people's basic needs of food, shelter and clothing and found a significant increase in donations to organizations working for broader public/societal shifts  -  The study concludes that these trends suggest that organizations providing local and immediate relief are struggling to keep up with innovative projects that seek to solve complex problems - digitally-connected younger generations are looking more broadly and giving globally

On average men hiccup more than women

American Charles Osbourne had the hiccups for 68 years (1922 - 1990) - they stopped as spontaneously as they had started - Osbourne had hiccuped about 50 times a minute through most of his life

Odds that an American holds at least a four-year college degree:  1 in 3.99 (roughly 25% of the population)

No single organization regularly collates STD/STI (Sexually Transmitted Disease/Sexually Transmitted Infection) statistics worldwide and individual countries vary significantly in their tracking methods and in what diseases and infections are tracked at all  -  despite this lack of hard data, the WHO (World Health Organization) estimates 340 million new cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia occurred throughout the world in 1999 in men and women aged 15-49 years  -  the WHO estimates this figure increased to over 400 million for these same age groups in 2009

About 5 million tons of petroleum produced each year ends up in the oceans

In the U.S., about 30% of energy used in households is consumed in heating water 

Despite the recent crash of world markets and a drastic recession in the U.S., the United States controls 53% of the world's wealth

Percent of Dutch teens who can speak fluent English:  90%

Percent of American teens who can speak fluent English:  84%

A lawsuit is filed against Walmart every 3 seconds each day somewhere in the world

By the end of the first quarter of 2010, the United Nations predicts India will become the home to the largest population of English speakers in the world

Country where you are most likely to be arrested:  United States 

Longest prison sentence given to an individual for a single crime:  10,000 years to a U.S. convict for the crime of murder

Number one behavioral cause of death:  Tobacco smoking

Men tend to dream about men, while women tend to dream about men and women with equal frequency

On average, 12 babies are given to the wrong parent(s) at hospital each day around the world

New York City has been undergoing work on the Second Avenue Subway project since 1919

Percent of Americans who say they save pennies:  92%

A single space shuttle toilet costs $24 million

Honda pays prisoners jailed in the U.S. $2 an hour for the same labor an autoworker in a factory would be doing for $25 an hour with benefits

Prison labor in the U.S. typically produces auto parts, blue jeans and other garments, electronics and furniture

In Oregon, 100% of state prisoners must work  -  in March 2007, Colorado replaced "illegal" farm workers with Homeland Security-mandated prisoners who now earn 60 cents a day (a prisoner who loses a day of work for illness or refusal, loses "good time" credit which can extend his or her length of incarceration)

While the incidence of crime has decreased in nearly every category in the U.S., including murder and other violent crime, the number of prisons has increased to meet the needs of an increase in those incarcerated, and sentences have also increased  -  many prisons are now privately-owned and operated, supplying prison labor for companies such as Walmart, JC Penney, Toys-R-Us, Revlon, McDonald's, Starbucks, Nintendo, and Dell Computers  (the largest users of prison labor)

Generally, for each dollar paid to a prisoner 20 cents is deducted for their incarceration, 11 cents is deducted for state and federal taxes, 10 cents goes to state victim compensation funds, and 59 cents goes to the prisoner who will work nearly two hours to earn $1 in net pay

Native Americans are the largest prison population in the United States per capita, followed by African Americans and Latinos  -  whites comprise the largest population by sheer number but that is declining   

The U.S. national unemployment rate is 10% but for Blacks and Native Americans in some areas of the country these groups face triple-digit unemployment rates or higher

Prisoners in 37 states now work for private corporations, including female prisoners who often are employed as customer service operators or reservation processors for airlines and rental car companies

Percent of men who claim they did not enjoy their first consensual sexual encounter:  14%  -  percent of women:  60%

STUDY FINDS KIDS LIKE SEARCHING "SEX" ON THE INTERNET:

SAINTS AND SINNERS

Unemployment insurance in the United States reaches about half of the jobless due to restrictions in who can qualify to receive benefts, and replaces about half of the lost income for those it does reach - the U.S. system is tax-funded, so recipients have already paid into the system while employed, but coverage is limited in most cases to 6 months (applications for extended coverage can be submitted in most states, but it is granted less than half the time)

More prisoners are incarcerated in California state prisons (190,000) than there are federal prisons in the United States (175,000)

Scientists have found that rats learn complex mazes on average three times faster than college students

In February 2008, the United Nations released a report that predicted that half the world's population would live in urban areas by the end of the decade - as of December 2009, that prediction had been realized

According to anthropologists and other researchers, history began with the advent of writing and pre-history denotes anything occurring before writing - history, therefore, began at different times for different peoples around the world depending - researchers who had previously thought a few ancient ruins were "pre-historic" have since realized that the carvings found at the sites were a "written" record of what the people believed and experienced

Until about 10,000 years ago, most humans lived as hunter-gatherers - about 6,000 years ago the first proto-states developed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley - military forces were formed as well as government bureaucracies for administration

Around 2000 to 3000 years ago, some states (such as Persia, India, China, Rome and Greece) developed through conquest into the first expansive empires

On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, Anousheh Ansari became the first Muslim woman to participate in a spaceflight - she was a self-funded space tourist who visited the International Space Station through Russia's space program  (the cost: $20 million US)

In the United States, it is against the law to have sex with a dead person

The United States has more laws governing sex than all European nations combined

Most experts agree that the total number of African slaves sent to all parts of the world between 1500 and 1865 was at least 12 million - given that only 1 in 10 made the trip alive, the number of Africans enslaved or killed during this period is about 120 million

World population:  6.8 billion humans
World population:  6.8 billion chickens

The first Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina lasted 12 seconds and is hailed as the "birth of human flight" - the longest chicken flight ever recorded lasted 13 seconds

Percent of the Earth's surface used to grow food:  11%

Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, had a phobia of the dark

In the United States, 1 in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is in jail or prison - the rate for Black men in  that age group is 1 in 9

The mortality rate in the U.S. saw the most rapid decline between 1936 and 1954, due to medical advances - the next great decline happened between 1968 and 1982, also due to medical advances - mortality rates in the U.S. continue to decline, but more slowly and steadily

The average human experiences about 1,460 dreams per year

Number of tourists who traveled to a small town in the state of New Mexico, USA in 2007 to visit a tortilla chip that some claimed bore the "face of Jesus":  over 11,000

In 2002, a Nike commercial appeared on American television that had been filmed in Kenya with a Samburn tribesman - the tribesman speaks in his native language as the slogan "Just Do It" appears at the bottom of the screen next to the Nike logo - translated, the tribesman was saying "I don't want these"

The Naked Recreation and Travel industry has grown 233% in the past decade

In 1991, during an attempted coup on Russian President Boris Yeltsin, food supplies had dwindled at the Parliment building - the solution was to order 100 pizzas delivered from Pizza Hut

In 1990, the world's largest McDonald's opened in Moscow with the capacity to seat 900 people

In the United States, each citizen is issued a Social Security Card which is used as their identification and for employment as a citizen - the nine digits issued to each person mean:
- the first 3 digits show what part of the country you applied from
- the next 2 digits show, in coded form, the year you applied
- the last 4 digits indicate your "citizen's number" kept on file with the federal government

Amount of time people spend traveling each day, on average, in all societies:  1.1 hours

About 1 in 6 people in the world owns a television

About 1 in 6 people in the world are suffering starvation


THE PATRON SAINT OF...
Accountants   -   St. Matthew
Gun Dealers   -   St. Adrian Nicomedia
Beekeepers   -   St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Advertisers   -   St. Bernardino of Siena
Flight Attendants   -   St. Bona
Butchers   -   St. Luke
Comedians   -   St. Vitus
Librarians   -   St. Jerome
Postal Workers   -   St. Gabriel
Unhappy Marriages   -   St. Gengulf
Hairdressers   -   St. Martin de Porres

WHAT'S NEWS?!
Findlay, Ohio, police blotter: "A woman called the police early Saturday morning (2009 October 31) during an argument with her husband after he claimed that the woman's daughter performed oral sex on him, and the daughter was "better" at it."

Steamboat Springs, Colorado, 2009 November 4, police blotter: "Called to a report of a suspicious incident in the 2900 block of West Acres Drive where a woman reported that she found feces in her toilet that she did not think she put there."

Daniel Adler, 61, was arrested in October in Stony Point, N.Y., and charged with assault. Police said Adler had been solicited by a Sears Home Improvement telemarketer and had agreed to an appointment but that when the employee arrived, Adler allegedly punched him in the face. Adler said he had scheduled the appointment only to "advise" Sears, in person, to stop calling him.

In September 2009, Nebraska prison guard Michal Preclik, 32 (who had been on the job for a year and had just been promoted), was discovered to be on the lam from Interpol for drug and fraud crimes in the Czech Republic. The Corrections Department's background check, on the FBI's National Criminal Information Center database, had turned up nothing, but when officials subsequently Googled Preclik, the Interpol wanted poster was one of the top results.

When the DRP party candidate for president of Mexico City's most populous borough lost in the primary this year, party officials hatched a plot to elevate a street peddler, "Juanito" Angeles, to run in the general election, with the "understanding" that he would step aside if victorious, in favor of the original candidate Clara Brugada. Helped by his "everyman" image (according to a New York Times dispatch), Angeles won the election. However, his sudden power and celebrity apparently went to his head, and he refused to relinquish the presidency. (He finally agreed, in September 2009, but only after receiving concessions from the party.)

Franciscan monk Cesare Bonizzi, 63, who 15 years ago turned from spiritual new age music to heavy metal (inspired, he said, by the groups Metallica and Megadeth) and who has spent the last several years as the robe-clad lead singer of his own band, Fratello Metallo, announced his retirement in November after realizing, he said, that the devil had tempted him too much with celebrity and turned him away from his brothers.

William Evans, 57, on trial in St. Augustine, Fla., in August 2009 for a sex crime that occurred nearly 30 years ago (but not erased by the statute of limitations), committed suicide while away from the courthouse, awaiting the jury's decision. Without knowing that, the jury came back and declared him not guilty.

Engineering student Ken Kitamura, 19, drowned in the Yodogawa River in Osaka, Japan, in August. He and several colleagues had constructed a prototype canoe made of concrete, and Kitamura was the first to try it out.

REALLY BIG THINGS

The largest snowflakes ever recorded fell on 28 January 1887, in Fort Keogh, Montana, USA - one was measured at 8 inches thick and 15 inches in diameter

Odds worldwide that a person has a third nipple somewhere on their body:  1 in 18

At the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865, as many as 2,500 former Confederate (southern states/pro-slavery) soldiers and families moved to Mexico - most returned within a year, and of these most settled in Texas - of those that did not leave voluntarily, most were driven out by 1897 - of the handful of families that did stay, most were completely assimilated within about three generations

Other former Confederates moved to Brazil with most historians believing as many as 25,000 soldiers and families deciding to relocate to the country where they were known as Confederados - assimilation was very fast for these settlers and within three generations nearly none of the younger spoke English  (only Portuguese), and nearly none of the older spoke of the war, the Confederacy, or America

Inventor of the pet-flap door:  Sir Isaac Newton, physicist

A domesticated cat can run at a top speed of 30 MPH (Miles Per Hour) - the fastest human in the world right now, Usain Bolt, can run at a top speed of 27 MPH in the 100-meter run

Births today:  Approximately 180,000

Deaths today:  Approximately 75,000

Population Density (2009)

Cars produced this year:  About 50,987,376

Bicycles produced this year:  About 222,689,320

Internet users worldwide:  Over 1.6 billion

New book titles published worldwide this year:  931,522

Cellular phones sold worldwide today:  1.8 million

Number of obese people in the world:  340,393,442

Number of overweight people in the world: 1,538,938,390

People who will die of hunger today:  12,000  (Nearly half will be children)

Days left until the world runs out of oil supply (assuming current consumption rates):  15,340  (About 42 years)

Population in the world is currently growing at a rate of around 1.15 % per year - Annual growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at 2% and above

The Ancient Babylonians were the first to brew beer - punishment for brewing a bad batch was to be drown in it

Vikings believed that a giant goat with udders that streamed an endless supply of beer was waiting for them in Valhalla (Viking word for heaven)

The annual growth rate is currently declining and is projected to continue to decline in the coming years, but the pace of the future change is uncertain - Currently, it is estimated that it will become less than 1% by 2020 and less than 0.5% by 2050.

Year	Population
1	200 million
1000	275 million
1500	450 million
1650	500 million
1750	700 million
1804	1 billion
1850	1.2 billion
1900	1.6 billion
1927	2 billion
1950	2.55 billion
1955	2.8 billion
1960	3 billion
1965	3.3 billion
1970	3.7 billion
1975	4 billion
1980	4.5 billion
1985	4.85 billion
1990	5.3 billion
1995	5.7 billion
1999	6 billion
2000	6.1 billion
2005	6.45 billion
2006	6.5 billion
2010	6.8 billion
2020	7.6 billion
2030	8.2 billion
2040	8.8 billion
2050	9.2 billion

How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?

It was written during the 1970s that 75% of the people who had ever been born were alive at that moment. This was grossly false.

Assuming that we start counting from about 50,000 B.C., the time when modern Homo sapiens appeared on the earth (and not from 700,000 B.C. when the ancestors of Homo sapiens appeared, or several million years ago when hominids were present), taking into account that all population data are a rough estimate, and assuming a constant growth rate applied to each period up to modern times, it has been estimated that a total of approximately 106 billion people have been born since the dawn of the human race, making the population currently alive roughly 6% of all people who have ever lived on planet Earth.

The "triple-X" Symbol means:

XXX  -  the number 30 in Roman numerals
XXX  -  plus-sized clothing (generally 3 times larger than large size)
XXX  -  especially explicit material, such as pornography
XXX  -  a "turkey" - the North American slang term for three consecutive strikes in the game of bowling
XXX  -  generic name for homemade whiskey or "moonshine"
XXX  -  short for Triple X Syndrome, characterized by the presence of an extra X chromosome in human females
XXX  -  used to signify the official flag of Amsterdam
XXX  -  "kisses" on a letter or in an email