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