Tuesday, January 26, 2010

FEEDS WILL RETURN NEXT WEEK!

Note: Regular weekly issues of FEED*YOUR*HEAD come out each week on Mondays... last week and this week, due to circumstances beyond my control, no new full-length issues were released.  Please stay tuned- a new issue is coming out on Monday, 01 Feb. 2010... a double issue! 

If you are in need of nibbles in between, and are on FaceBook, please note that you can join the FB fan page and get a trivia snack daily. 

Please forgive the interruption of regularly scheduled feeds. 

Monday, January 11, 2010

FLUFFY PILLOW

60 million Americans are overweight or obese, which is slightly over 20% of the entire population of the U.S.

The same number of Americans who are overweight or obese- 60 million or about 1 in 5- own a dog

Of America's 15 top-rated hospitals, six have fast-food chains in their lobbies and family/visitor waiting areas

In the United States alone, over $11 billion a year is spent to feed dogs and cats

The tobacco industry produces 6 trillion cigarettes a year - about 1,000 cigarettes for every woman, man and child on earth

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that the brains of people with relative higher intelligence are less active than the brains of less intelligent people when working out the same problem or task

20-30% of the world's adult population has sexual fantasies and/or has had sexual relations with another species of animal

Every second, Americans collectively eat one hundred pounds of chocolate

50 Bibles are sold in the world each minute (which is 3000 every hour, 72,000 each day, 26,280,000 each year)

Most dust particles in your home are from dead skin flaking off the bodies of humans in your home

Starting in 1984, Australian Graham Barker has extracted his own belly lint every day, acquiring a record-breaking amount of "belly fluff" that has been documented in the Guinness Book of World Records - Barker's goal is to accumulate enough of his own belly lint to stuff a standard-size bed pillow

Generally, only "innie" belly buttons collect lint, which is the accumulation of dead skin and clothing fibers - men tend to accumulate more navel lint because hair on the stomach and chest help capture stray fibers, but either sex with a belly piercing will collect more than the average amount of belly button lint

On average, 12 newborns are given to the wrong parent(s) each day

Before becoming famous in Hollywood, actor Brad Pitt had a job dressing up as a giant chicken to promote an el Pollo Loco restaurant

Most likely day of the week to be murdered in the United States.: Saturday, at about 11 p.m. (Friday is the most likely day worldwide, also around 11 p.m. local time)

In order to contain rowdiness at Australia's popular Bathurst 1000 auto race in 2009, attendees were limited to a maximum of 24 cans of beer or shots of hard liquor each

Odds of a married couple having sex with each other "several times a week" in the first three years of marriage:  73%

Odds of a married couple having sex with each other "several times a week" after ten years of marriage:  32%

An exchange of five letters of correspondence between Pierre Fermat and Blaise Pascal in the 1650s is credited with introducing the mathematical field Probability

In 1908, the United States government funded the experiments of Dr Charles Guthrie who attempted to surgically transplant the head of one dog onto the body of another dog - both dogs died in each attempt, while no exact total is listed for how many tries were made

In the mid-1960s, the United States funded neurosurgeon Robert J White's experiment in transplanting monkey brains from one monkey to another- all monkeys died, so White began experimenting with implanting monkey brains into the heads of other animals with no success on record of any of the animals surviving

The average fuel economy of a car sold in 2005 was 6% lower than a car sold in 1987

After three failed marriages, Charlie Chaplin finally settled into a marriage that lasted until his death with his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill - they were married in 1943 despite attempts by her father, famous playwright Eugene O'Neill, to prevent the marriage - she was 18 years of age, and Chaplin was 54

Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss’ editor, bet him that he couldn’t write a book using 50 words or less. The Cat in the Hat was pretty simple, after all, and it used 225 words. Not one to back down from a challenge, Mr. Geisel started writing and came up with Green Eggs and Ham – which uses exactly 50 words. The 50 words, by the way, are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

NEWS FEED:
Natives of the Erromango section of the Pacific island Vanuatu recently held a formal "conciliation" with the great-great-grandson of the British missionary whom the islanders' ancestors ate when he came ashore in 1839. Charles Milner-Williams's forbear, Rev. John Williams, was regarded as the most famous Christian missionary of the era. Vanuatan legislator Ralph Regenvanu told BBC News that cannibalism was traditionally a sacred warrior practice for "vanquishing a threat [and] absorbing the power of the enemy." Nonetheless, he said, the island has long felt "guilt," and even a "complex," from killing and eating Rev. Williams. In penitence, Vanuatu symbolically gave the Williams family a 7- year-old girl, who will not be eaten but whose education Milner-Williams promised to underwrite  (December 2009)

Salvadorean citizen Ernesto Gamboa, who worked for 13 years in the Seattle area as a snitch for federal drug agents and contributed to at least 92 convictions for drug- and weapons-smuggling, was "fired" by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in May after asking the agency for regular employment. Gamboa originally entered the U.S. as a visitor but overstayed and now aspires merely to an "S visa" granted aliens who assist law enforcement. Not only did ICE deny that request but, according to a November Seattle Times report, the agency informed Gamboa that he should prepare to be deported  (November 2009)

In a December letter, lawyers for the world-famous Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City threatened litigation against Lincoln County, Miss., which recently changed the name of its Lincoln County Multi-Purpose Facility to "Lincoln Center." The facility, in the town of Brookhaven (pop. 9,800), is used mostly for livestock shows and family reunions  (December 2009)

In November 2009, a Chicago judge ruled that former firefighter Jeffrey Boyle is entitled to his $50,000 annual pension even though he had pleaded guilty in 2006 to eight counts of arson (and allegedly confessed to 12 more). Boyle is known locally as "Matches" Boyle to distinguish him from his brother, John "Quarters" Boyle, who is now in federal prison for bribery following the theft of millions of dollars in state toll-gate coins. Judge LeRoy Martin Jr. concluded that Matches's arsons were wholly separate from his firefighting




Monday, January 4, 2010

EX FILES

ALERT:
IN THE U.S.: If you see a homeless person call the Hypothermia hot-line (800) 535-7252  (This number is verified, so please add it to your cellular phones - a caller can request emergency assistance anonymously by reporting the location information for a homeless person.  Operators contact services in your local area.  In areas where no shelters are available, most hospitals will take in homeless persons when the outdoor temperature places them at risk for severe injury or death from exposure to low temperature.) 

Percent of Americans receiving food stamps (government assistance to purchase non-taxable food supplies) who live in households with zero income:  nearly 20%  (about 6 million people, with 1.2 million being children under age 16)

All the oil, wood, gas, and coal on Earth would only keep the Sun burning for 3-4 days

Fingernail polish usually contains four or five chemicals the US Environmental Protection Agency has named "potentially harmful"  -  If a person bought a 55-gallon drum of fingernail polish, the empty container could not legally be disposed of in a landfill due to EPA regulations  -  as many as 35,000 nail polish bottles find their way into municipal landfills in the US every year  (EPA guidelines recommend that amount in total would have to be disposed of at a hazardous waste facility, but no guidelines exist for the accumulated disposal of smaller quantities)

7.2 million Americans contract something in hospital to add to whatever they were originally admitted for treatment -  15,000 Americans die each year from infections contracted during a hospital stay

Novelist Jerry Kosinski was "utterly frustrated" when his luggage was lost by the airline during a New York stopover on a trip from Paris to L.A. in 1969 because it caused him to miss seeing his friend for a dinner party that evening in Los Angeles  -  the friend was Sharon Tate, and later Kosinski learned that sometime that night, members of Charlie Manson's cult had arrived and murdered all guests as well as Tate

89 out of 103 random people who were handed an unlabeled copy of the Declaration of Independence at a Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA shopping mall were unable to identify it

Bobby Leech survived going over Niagara Falls in a barrell in 1911  -  a year later, while in New Zealand, he slipped on a piece of garbage, hit his head, and died

Net population growth per day in 2009, on average:  113,000

Where in the U.S. you are most likely to be murdered by a serial killer:  California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Florida  (Maine has the least serial killings with none reported, with Hawai'i, Montana, North Dakota, Delaware and Vermont each having only ever reported one arrest of a serial killer)

Most serial killers are white (94%), heterosexual (88%), men (89%)  -  most victims are white (89%) and female (75%)

The average human retains about 3% of the information they are exposed to each day

Most humans (about 60%) fall asleep on their side

Mexico has more American residents than any other country outside the United States

The Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport is larger than Manhattan

Alaska has the highest percentage of people who walk to work than any other state in the U.S.

90% of Canadians live within ten miles of the United States border

Only 4% of Americans did not eat at a McDonald's or Burger King last year

Once a document is filed in an office in the U.K., a 90% chance exists that it will not be looked at again  -  in the U.S. this chance increases to 94%

For each of the past five years, Internet growth (number of users plus number of added blogs, websites and email accounts) has increased 314,000%

Every year, London's public parks are doused in one million gallons of dog urine

The average human can distinguish 6,850 smells  -  95% can differentiate between a male and a female by smelling their breath

Number one cause of burglar alarm activation in the U.S.: owner error (burglary ranks 7th)

When humans meet for the first time, our eyes widen and our eyebrows lift

The amount of oil used worldwide in one year is doubling every 10 years

Percent of Americans who have spent a night in jail: 13%

 Last two European countries to grant women the right to vote: Sweden-1971, and Leichtenstein-1984

Since 1976 in the U.S., more than 100 pizza box patents have been issued to inventors

 IN THE NEWS:
Atlanta municipal bus driver Leroy Matthews was suspended in 2009 November for an incident in which he suddenly stopped the bus and refused to open the doors until the riding passengers joined hands with him in
prayer

Shannon Broome, 15, of Jacksonville, Fla., with her leg in a cast and still laid up from a 2009 June rollover accident in an SUV, was hit again in December when another out-of-control SUV came through her bedroom wall and re-broke the leg (among other injuries inflicted)

At Britain's West Midland Safari Park, the African elephant "Five" spends portions of almost every day puffing away at a harmonica she found in her enclosure in the Spring of 2009. Said a Park spokesperson, "Five was making tunes within a few weeks" 

Sara Foss, 39, the mother of 13 in Derby, England, who is scheduled to deliver number 14 in March, told the Daily Mail in 2009 November of her vow to continue getting pregnant until she fulfills her desire to have twins

Bandanna-clad Jason Zacchi, 27, was arrested in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, USA in 2009 November after, according to police, pointing a shotgun at a Wendy's employee at the drive-in window and demanding money. Moments later, the shift manager angrily approached the window and yelled at Zacchi, "What the hell are you doing?" (The manager had recognized Zacchi through his bandanna. Zacchi is her son)

In 2002 April, the U.S. Patent Office awarded patent number 6,368,227 to Steven Olson, age 7, of St. Paul, Minnesota, whose father had filed to help him protect a method of swinging on a swing. The Olsons' discovery: While seated, if you pull alternately on one side's chain/rope and then on the other side's, while gradually introducing a forward-backward thrust, you can swing in an oval-shaped arc, as long as the side-to-side motion is greater than the forward-backward motion. According to the Patent Office, licenses to use the patented method are available from the inventor

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