Ur Place

February 18, 2008

18% te Amerikaneve kujtojne se Dielli rrotullohet rreth Tokes

Filed under: Lajme --- News — halfevil @ 7:39 pm

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ — Thanks to the Internet and other trappings of the Information Age, facts and figures now come cheaper and faster than ever before. But where does that leave good, old-fashioned general knowledge, the kind people carry around in their heads?

A new Gallup poll includes three questions that tap Americans’ level of general knowledge. Overall, most Americans did well, answering these questions correctly.

In anticipation of Independence Day, Americans were asked if they could identify the specific historical event celebrated on July 4th. Fifty-five percent say it commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence (this is a common misconception, and close to being accurate; July 4th is actually the date in 1776 when the Continental Congress approved the Declaration, which was officially signed on August 2nd.) Another 32% give a more general answer, saying that July 4th celebrates Independence Day.

When Americans are asked to identify the country from which America gained its independence, 76% correctly name Great Britain. A handful, 2%, think America’s freedom was won from France, 3% mention some other country (including Russia, China, and Mexico, among others named), while 19% are unsure.

Groups that have higher degrees of self-reported patriotism (see Gallup’s Fourth of July release), such as older people and whites, are also more likely to correctly name the country from which America gained its independence. Only 66% of those aged 18-29 know that America gained its independence from England, compared to 79% of those aged 30 and older. The knowledge gap is even wider on the basis of gender and race:

  • 85% of men compared to only 69% of women know that America’s freedom was won from England
  • 80% of whites vs. 54% of blacks answered correctly

Four out of Five Americans Know Earth Revolves Around Sun
Probing a more universal measure of knowledge, Gallup also asked the following basic science question, which has been used to indicate the level of public knowledge in two European countries in recent years: “As far as you know, does the earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the earth?” In the new poll, about four out of five Americans (79%) correctly respond that the earth revolves around the sun, while 18% say it is the other way around. These results are comparable to those found in Germany when a similar question was asked there in 1996; in response to that poll, 74% of Germans gave the correct answer, while 16% thought the sun revolved around the earth, and 10% said they didn’t know. When the question was asked in Great Britain that same year, 67% answered correctly, 19% answered incorrectly, and 14% didn’t know.

The results below are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,016 adults, 18 years and older, conducted June 25-27, 1999. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

As far as you know, what specific historical event is celebrated on July 4th?

Signing of the Declaration of Independence/day it was signed 55%
Independence Day 32
Birth of United States 1
Other 6
No opinion 6
  100%

As far as you know, from what country did America gain its independence following the Revolutionary War?

England/Great Britain/United Kingdom 76%
France 2
Other 3
No opinion 19
  100%

As far as you know, does the earth revolve around the sun, or does the sun revolve around the earth?

Earth revolves around the sun 79%
Sun revolves around the earth 18
No opinion 3
  100%

Sulmohet ambasada amerikane ne Serbi

Filed under: Lajme --- News — halfevil @ 7:37 pm

Belgrade Clashes Over Kosovo’s Independence

Photo by Balkan Insight

Photo by Balkan Insight

17 February 2008 Belgrade _ Hundreds of protesters clashed with Serbian police on Sunday evening, hours after Kosovo’s leaders unilaterally declared the province’s independence from Serbia.

At least 12 protesters, mainly fans of local soccer clubs and skinheads, were injured and arrested in several skirmishes in the Serbian capital.

The crowd damaged the Slovenian embassy, a McDonald’s restaurant and about a dozen shop windows.

“We hate the West, we hate Western values and civilization,” said a club-wielding protestor who identified himself as Nikola.

They chanted «Kosovo is Serbia» and slogans against Kosovo Albanians, Serbian President Boris Tadic and pro-Western opposition leaders, but also against conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

Masked thugs chanted the name of the Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic, accused of genocide in the Bosnian 1992-95 war, who is still at large.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets in a skirmish at the downtown Terazije square, forcing the crowd to disperse, leaving overturned garbage containers, broken glass, stone fragments and other debris behind.

Eyewitnesses said that protesters stoned the Belgrade headquarters of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, the only Serbian political party that has supported the possibility of Kosovo’s independence, and a nearby café.

B92 television reported that at 9 pm several groups were still in the streets, regrouping and returning to places from which police had earlier chased them away. The station reported that at least 11 policemen had been injured in clashes.

The protesters also smashed windows at the embassies of France and Brazil, according to local media and eyewitnesses, where later re-reinforced police protected and restore order.
«Then police started fighting back at demonstrators,» said a journalist from a Belgrade daily «Alo» who himself got beaten by police but was not seriously hurt.

He said that protesters were smashing everything they came across before police stepped in

Although officials have publicly called for calm, B92 also reported that journalists had seen officials of Democratic Party of Serbia, the party of Vojislav Kostunica, the current prime minister, among protesters in the northern city of Novi Sad.

Also spotted, according to the report, were representatives from the Socialist Party of Serbia, the party previously led by Slobodan Milosevic, the late wartime president.

Protesters in Novi Sad threw stones at two bakeries and a local McDonald’s restaurant.

A strong police presence was expected to remain in place in downtown Belgrade through Sunday night, guarding government buildings and embassies

Earlier in the evening, protesters had blocked the United States embassy in downtown Belgrade, pelting the embassy building and police with stones and signal torches. At least one policeman was carried away in an ambulance.

Serbian police in full riot gear had cordoned off the embassy and managed to push protestors away from the embassy.

“We want to show we hate Yanks and Shiptars,” said a young protester who identified himself only as Dejan. “Shiptar” is a derogatory Serbian term for Kosovo Albanians.

The protest was staged despite repeated warnings from top officials, including Serbia’s president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker, who urged people to remain calm while promising that they would employ peaceful means to annul Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

“Serbia will not turn to violence. This is the only approach that will allow us to fulfill our legitimate goal aimed at preserving integrity of the country,” Boris Tadic, the president, said in a statement .

In an emotional address to the nation, Vojislav Kostunica, the prime minister, said that the United States had “humiliated and forced Europe Union to discard its basic principles.”

“Europe bowed before America and it will be held responsible for all the consequences that will arise from Kosovo’s independence,” Kostunica said.

Meanwhile, Tadic’s office announced he would travel to New York to take part in an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, called by Russia.

Serbia and Russia staunchly oppose Kosovo’s independence, which has been backed by the US and most EU member states.

Nafte ne Titan

Filed under: Shkence, teknologji --- Science — halfevil @ 7:31 pm
Titan’s Surface Organics Surpass Oil Reserves on Earth
02.13.08

Artist concept of terrain on Titan An artist’s imagination of hydrocarbon pools, icy and rocky terrain on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon Titan. Image credit: Steven Hobbs (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia).
› Larger image
Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.

The new findings from the study led by Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., are reported in the Jan. 29 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.

“Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material — it’s a giant factory of organic chemicals,” said Lorenz. “This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan.”

At a balmy minus 179 degrees Celsius (minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit), Titan is a far cry from Earth. Instead of water, liquid hydrocarbons in the form of methane and ethane are present on the moon’s surface, and tholins probably make up its dunes. The term “tholins”was coined by Carl Sagan in 1979 to describe the complex organic molecules at the heart of prebiotic chemistry.

Cassini has mapped about 20 percent of Titan’s surface with radar. Several hundred lakes and seas have been observed, with each of several dozen estimated to contain more hydrocarbon liquid than Earth’s oil and gas reserves. The dark dunes that run along the equator contain a volume of organics several hundred times larger than Earth’s coal reserves.

Proven reserves of natural gas on Earth total 130 billion tons, enough to provide 300 times the amount of energy the entire United States uses annually for residential heating, cooling and lighting. Dozens of Titan’s lakes individually have the equivalent of at least this much energy in the form of methane and ethane.

Part of an animation showing lakes on Titan This movie, comprised of several detailed images taken by Cassini’s radar instrument, shows bodies of liquid near Titan’s north pole.
› Video and full caption
“This global estimate is based mostly on views of the lakes in the northern polar regions. We have assumed the south might be similar, but we really don’t yet know how much liquid is there,” said Lorenz. Cassini’s radar has observed the south polar region only once, and only two small lakes were visible. Future observations of that area are planned during Cassini’s proposed extended mission.

Scientists estimated Titan’s lake depth by making some general assumptions based on lakes on Earth. They took the average area and depth of lakes on Earth, taking into account the nearby surroundings, like mountains. On Earth, the lake depth is often 10 times less than the height of nearby terrain.

“We also know that some lakes are more than 10 meters or so deep because they appear literally pitch-black to the radar. If they were shallow we’d see the bottom, and we don’t,” said Lorenz.

The question of how much liquid is on the surface is an important one because methane is a strong greenhouse gas on Titan as well as on Earth, but there is much more of it on Titan. If all the observed liquid on Titan is methane, it would only last a few million years, because as methane escapes into Titan’s atmosphere, it breaks down and escapes into space. If the methane were to run out, Titan could become much colder. Scientists believe that methane might be supplied to the atmosphere by venting from the interior in cryovolcanic eruptions. If so, the amount of methane, and the temperature on Titan, may have fluctuated dramatically in Titan’s past.

“We are carbon-based life, and understanding how far along the chain of complexity towards life that chemistry can go in an environment like Titan will be important in understanding the origins of life throughout the universe,” added Lorenz.

Cassini’s next radar flyby of Titan is on Feb. 22, when the radar instrument will observe the Huygens probe landing site.

For images and more information visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The radar instrument was built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the United States and several European countries.

Kosova shpall pavarsine

Filed under: Lajme --- News — halfevil @ 7:30 pm

PRISTINA, Kosovo (CNN) – Fireworks lit the skies and crowds filled the streets of Kosovo’s capital Sunday after the territory’s parliament declared independence from Serbia, a move backed by many Western governments, but which Serbia and Russia bitterly oppose.

art.celebrations.jpg

Fireworks light up the night sky in Pristina, Kosovo, as thousands celebrate independence.

“The day has come,” Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former separatist guerrilla leader, told his parliament. “From this day onwards, Kosovo is proud, independent and free.”

The province has been under U.N. administration and patrolled by NATO troops since a 1999 bombing campaign that halted a Serb-led campaign against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority.

Thousands of people swarmed Pristina’s streets ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary declaration, singing, dancing and holding signs in freezing wind after the vote was announced. But Serbs consider the territory the cradle of their civilization, and protesters clashed with police outside the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade as the declaration was issued.

Serbia said it will not oppose independence with violence, but Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said his country will never accept the establishment of a “false country” on its territory.

“Anything and everything that we couldn’t achieve today will be obtained by new generations of Serbian people in the future,” Kostunica said Sunday in a televised address. “Citizens of Serbia, we have to come together and show the whole world that we do not acknowledge the creation of a false state in our territory. The violence that has been perpetrated upon Serbia is very obvious.”

About 100,000 Serbs still live in Kosovo, making up about 5 percent of the population, and Kostunica said Serbs have been killed or lost their land in the eight-plus years the country has been under international rule. But Fatmir Sejdiu, the nascent republic’s president, pledged to create a nation “where all citizens of all ethnicities feel appreciated.”

“Today is probably a day of trepidation for some of you, but your property and your rights will be respected in the future,” he said.

Former U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, who led the NATO alliance during the 1999 conflict, said “There was no way beyond moving to this step.” But he urged the international community to work with Serbia to keep the country moving toward integration with Europe and “to help them understand their situation.”

“I’m very sad that the Serbs are unable to understand what’s happened,” Clark told CNN. “But the magnitude of Serb repression of the Albanian majority there and the violence that accompanied the ethnic cleansing in 1998 and 1999 was just so overwhelming that I think the Serb people have to understand that the Albanians themselves have to have this separation.”

Thaci said Kosovo’s declaration of independence “marks the end of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia,” which triggered years of bloodshed across the Balkans.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic launched a crackdown against ethnic Albanian insurgents led by Thaci in 1998 and refused to yield to Western pressure to halt the campaign. When NATO responded by launching airstrikes against Serbia and Montenegro, the last remaining Yugoslav republics, Yugoslav troops drove hundreds of thousands of Kosovars out of the region and killed thousands more.

Milosevic died in 2005 while awaiting trial for war crimes before a U.N. tribunal in The Hague.

The United States and leading European nations, including France, Britain and Germany, have supported Kosovo’s move toward independence. But Russia, the Serbs’ historical ally, has opposed independence, fearing it would incite other separatist movements in its backyard.

The U.N. Security Council held emergency talks on the issue Sunday afternoon at Russia’s request. Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters that the declaration violates the U.N. resolution that placed Kosovo under international administration at the end of the conflict.

“Our position is that this declaration should be disregarded by the international community,” as well as by the head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, Churkin said. He said the council would meet again Monday, with Serbian President Boris Tadic expected to address the session.

But no country supported the Russian call for the U.N. to declare Sunday’s declaration “null and void,” said Sir John Sawers, the British ambassador to the world body.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all parties “to refrain from any actions or statements that could endanger peace, incite violence or jeopardize security in Kosovo and the region.”

The European Union decided Saturday to launch a mission of about 2,000 police and judicial officers to replace the U.N. mission that has controlled the province since 1999. And U.S. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States had “noted” that Kosovo had declared its independence and was reviewing the issue.

Earlier Sunday, President Bush said Kosovo’s status must be resolved before the Balkans can become stable.

“We are heartened by the fact that the Kosovo government has clearly proclaimed its willingness and its desire to support Serbian rights in Kosovo,” Bush told reporters in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.

The United States and many of its European allies support a plan negotiated by former Finnish President Maarti Ahtisaari that would give Kosovo limited statehood under international supervision.

But Russia, which has fought two wars against separatist rebels in its southwestern republic of Chechnya, said U.S. and European support for Kosovo’s independence could lead to an “uncontrollable crisis” in the Balkans.

In a statement, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana urged “everybody to act calmly and in a responsible way. I am convinced that the Kosovar leaders will be up to their responsibilities in this crucial moment.” Solana said EU foreign ministers would meet Monday to consider the issue

Me shume “planete” ne Rrugen e Qumeshtit

Filed under: Lajme --- News — halfevil @ 7:25 pm

Illustration of planets. Picture credit: Nasa

Scientists say there may be many more worlds in our galaxy

Rocky planets, possibly with conditions suitable for life, may be more common than previously thought in our galaxy, a study has found.

New evidence suggests more than half the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way could have similar planetary systems.

There may also be hundreds of undiscovered worlds in outer parts of our Solar System, astronomers believe.

Future studies of such worlds will radically alter our understanding of how planets are formed, they say.

New findings about planets were presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston.

Nasa telescope

Michael Meyer, an astronomer from the University of Arizona, said he believed Earth-like planets were probably very common around Sun-like stars.

I expect that we will find a very large number of planets
Alan Stern, Nasa

“Our observations suggest that between 20% and 60% of Sun-like stars have evidence for the formation of rocky planets not unlike the processes we think led to planet Earth,” he said. “That is very exciting.”

Mr Meyer’s team used the US space agency’s Spitzer space telescope to look at groups of stars with masses similar to the Sun.

They detected discs of cosmic dust around stars in some of the youngest groups surveyed.

The dust is believed to be a by-product of rocky debris colliding and merging to form planets.

Nasa’s Kepler mission to search for Earth-sized and smaller planets, due to be launched next year, is expected to reveal more clues about these distant undiscovered worlds.

Frozen worlds

Some astronomers believe there may be hundreds of small rocky bodies in the outer edges of our own Solar System, and perhaps even a handful of frozen Earth-sized worlds.

We have to find the right mass planet and it has to be at the right distance from the star
Debra Fischer, San Francisco State University

Speaking at the AAAS meeting, Nasa’s Alan Stern said he thought only the tip of the iceberg had been found in terms of planets within our own Solar System.

More than a thousand objects had already been discovered in the Kuiper belt alone, he said, many rivalling the planet Pluto in size.

“Our old view, that the Solar System had nine planets will be supplanted by a view that there are hundreds if not thousands of planets in our Solar System,” he told BBC News.

He said many of these planets would be icy, some would be rocky, and there might even be objects with the same mass as Earth.

“It could be that there are objects of Earth-mass in the Oort cloud (a band of debris surrounding our planetary system) but they would be frozen at these distances,” Dr Stern added.

“They would look like a frozen Earth.”

Goldilocks zone

Excitement about finding other Earth-like planets is driven by the idea that some might contain life or perhaps, centuries from now, allow human colonies to be set up on them.

The key to this search, said Debra Fischer of San Francisco State University, California, was the “Goldilocks zone”.

This refers to an area of space in which a planet is “just the right distance” from its parent star so that its surface is not-too-hot or not-too-cold to support liquid water.

“To my mind there are two things we have to go after: we have to find the right mass planet and it has to be at the right distance from the star,” she said.

The AAAS meeting concludes on Monday.

Apartamenti me i shtrenjte ne bote.

Filed under: Lajme --- News — halfevil @ 7:22 pm

This is the first image of how the interior of London’s most expensive property will look.The computer-generated picture visualises the £100 million One Hyde Park penthouse, the most expensive flat in the world, upon completion in 2010.

Other homes in One Hyde Park, Knightsbridge, have already sold at record prices of £6,000 per square foot.

£100m flat one hyde parkEarly viewing: The first image of how one of the penthouses at One Hyde Park will look. The £100m properties will feature bullet-proof windows and purified air systems

Enlarge the image

Russian oligarchs, oil barons, Saudia princes and A-list stars are among those said to be buying the Candy brothers apartments.

Managed by brothers Christian and Nick’s development company Candy & Candy, the project features 80 flats designed by architect Richard Rogers with communal spas, squash courts and a private wine-tasting facility.

The most expensive penthouse apartments will feature bullet proof windows, purified air systems and “panic rooms” and everyone on site will have access to an underground passage leading to the nearby Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Half of the units have already been sold at an average of more than £20 million each with average per square-foot prices hitting £6,000 this year.

The figure dwarfs London’s earlier record struck last June when a newly converted flat stretching across the first and second stories of two Regency houses in the nearby Lowndes Square, Belgravia, sold for more than £4,250 per square foot.

christian and nick candyNew heights: Christian and Nick Candy have already sold flats at their Knightsbridge development for the record price of £6,000 per square foot

A consortium-of which Christian Candy’s offshore development company CPC owns a third share, bought the One Hyde Park site for £150million in 2004 when it was occupied by the run down Fifties office block Bowater House.

Knight Frank’s head of residential research, Liam Bailey, said sales at One Hyde Park proved the super-prime property market was still strong.

He said: “One Hyde Park is the most prominent example of activity at the top of the market, but its performance is not an anomaly. The pull effect of One Hyde Park has meant that whereas £2,500 per sq ft represented the peak of the market in Knightsbridge in 2006, 18 months later £4,000 per sq ft is not only achievable, it is now expected for refurbished and newly developed properties in the super-prime sector.”

The biggest group of buyers are Russian, making up a third of the total. A quarter of buyers are Middle Eastern, 20 per cent are British and the remaining 22 per cent is split equally between the European and American markets.

Nick Candy said: “We are not surprised by the variety of purchasers at One Hyde Park; it is a truly international development and is representative of London’s status as the global capital of the world.”

At the end of last month the Candy Brothers sealed Britain’s most expensive home property deal when Chelsea Barracks, located between Sloane Square and the Thames, was bought by the Qatari government and the Candy brothers for £959 million.

Shoqerite “Top-Secret”

Filed under: Kuriozitete, Facts — halfevil @ 7:19 pm

1.The Freemasons
Image

This is the granddaddy of all not-so-secret secret societies. Freemasonry, or “The Craft” as its members call it, most likely has its roots in 17th-century stoneworkers’ guilds. Mason lore, however, extends its origins back to biblical times, linking the society to the building of the Temple of Solomon. Freemasonry is split into numerous subgroups and orders, all of which consider God the Grand Geometrician, or Grand Architect of the Universe. At their hearts, these groups are all means of exploring ethical and philosophical issues, and their rituals and symbols are famous (or infamous). Take, for instance, the square-and-compass logo often seen on the backs of Cadillacs. Or the use of secret handshakes, passwords, and greeting postures/gestures called “due guards,” all collectively known as the Modes of Recognition. The list of famous Masons is massive, a virtual Who’s Who of modern history, explaining the many conspiracy theories regarding the Masons’ influence and intentions. Mozart, FDR, Harry S. Truman, George Washington, Mark Twain, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, John Wayne, W. C. Fields, and Douglas MacArthur were all Masons. But perhaps the Masons’ greatest strides have been made in fast food: KFC’s Colonel Sanders and Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas knew how to secret-shake with the best of ’em.

2.The Illuminati
Image

Over the centuries, lots of groups have called themselves the Illuminati (“Enlightened Ones”), but the one we’re talking about here began as the Bavarian Illuminati. A radical product of the Enlightenment and offshoot of the religion-based Freemasons, the Illuminati espoused secular freethinking and intellectualism and proved a threat to Europe’s old order. Although they were officially banned by the Bavarian government in 1784, some claim that they live on to this day in other guises. So, what’s the Illuminati’s goal? To establish a new world order of capitalism and authoritarianism, of course! They’ve been accused of manipulating currencies, world stock markets, elections, assassinations, and even of being aliens. One common myth is that the eye-and-pyramid image on the dollar bill is a symbol of the Illuminati watching over us. Nope. It’s a symbol of strength and durability (though unfinished, symbolizing growth and change), and the all-seeing eye represents the divine guidance of the American cause. Or so the government says.

3.Opus Dei
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This organization has a $42 million, 17-story headquarters building on Lexington Avenue in New York City, claims 85,000 members in 60 countries, and was featured in Dan Brown’s bestseller The Da Vinci Code. Now that its existence has been significantly unsecretized, this ultraorthodox Catholic sect has definitely raised its share of eyebrows. Founded in 1928 by Saint Josemaría Escrivá (a Spanish priest who bore an uncanny resemblance to Karl Malden), Opus Dei is the short name for the Prelature for the Holy Cross and the Work of God. The sect (some would say cult) stresses a return to traditional Catholic orthodoxy and behavior, especially celibacy, with members falling into one of three levels. Numeraries live in Opus Dei facilities, devote their time and money to the prelature, attend mass daily, and engage in mortification of the flesh (wearing a spiked chain around the thigh called a cilice, taking cold showers, or flagellating themselves with a knotted rope called “the discipline”). Next come Associates (kind of like Numeraries, but living “off campus”), then Supernumeraries (the rank-and-file members). The group did gain the praise of Pope John Paul II, and has engaged in a lot of charity work. Yet, critics accuse the group of being linked to fascist organizations like Franco’s government in Spain, and of anti-Semitism and intolerance, even of other Catholics.

4.Skull and Bones
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Top dog among all the collegiate secret societies, Yale’s Skull and Bones dates to 1832 and goes by other spooky names like Chapter 322 and the Brotherhood of Death. With a large number of Bonesmen who have attained positions of power, including the president and the head of the CIA, it’s no wonder that rumors abound that the society is hell-bent on obtaining power and influencing U.S. foreign policy. The fact that they meet in an imposing templelike building on the Yale campus called (what else?) the Tomb doesn’t really help. Bonesmen are selected, or “tapped,” during their junior year and can reveal their membership only after they’ve graduated. But they can never talk about it. The Bones have been accused of all sorts of crazy rituals and conspiracies, including drug smuggling and the assassination of JFK (a hated Hahvahd man, after all). It’s even rumored that the skull of Geronimo resides in the Tomb, stolen from its resting place by Prescott Bush, Dubya’s granddad. In one of the more commonly known rituals, the initiate spends all night naked in an open coffin, confessing all his sexual experiences to the group. So, who’s lucky enough to have made such a confession? George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, John Kerry, William Howard Taft, McGeorge Bundy, William F. Buckley, and Henry Luce are just a few.

Nje njeri i ka shpetuar renies nga … 47 kate

Filed under: Kuriozitete, Facts — halfevil @ 7:17 pm

US doctors say they have never seen anything like it: A window washer who fell 47 stories from the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper is now awake, talking to his family and expected to walk again.Alcides Moreno, 37, plummeted almost 152 metres in a December 7 scaffolding collapse that killed his brother.

Somehow, Moreno lived, and doctors at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Centre announced today that his recovery has been astonishing.

He has movement in all his limbs. He is breathing on his own. And on Christmas Day, he opened his mouth and spoke for the first time since the accident.

His wife, Rosario Moreno, cried as she thanked the doctors and nurses who kept him alive.

“Thank God for the miracle that we had,” she said. “He keeps telling me that it just wasn’t his time.”

Dr Herbert Pardes, the hospital’s president, described Moreno’s condition when he arrived for treatment as “a complete disaster”.

Both legs and his right arm and wrist were broken in several places. He had severe injuries to his chest, his abdomen and his spinal column. His brain was bleeding. Everything was bleeding, it seemed.

In those first critical hours, doctors pumped 24 units of donated blood into his body - about twice his entire blood volume.

They gave him plasma and platelets and a drug to stimulate clotting and stop the hemorrhaging. They inserted a catheter into his brain to reduce swelling and cut open his abdomen to relieve pressure on his organs.

Moreno was at the edge of consciousness when he was brought in. Doctors sedated him, performed a tracheotomy and put him on a ventilator.

His condition was so unstable, doctors worried that even a mild jostle might kill him, so they performed his first surgery without moving him to an operating room.

Nine orthopedic operations followed to piece together his broken body.

Yet, even when things were at their worst, the hospital’s staff marvelled at his luck.

Incredibly, Moreno’s head injuries were relatively minor, for a fall victim. Neurosurgeon John Boockvar said the window washer also managed to avoid a paralysing spinal cord injury, even though he suffered a shattered vertebra.

“If you are a believer in miracles, this would be one,” said the hospital’s chief of surgery, Dr Philip Barie.

Penisi rritet ne dore

Filed under: Kuriozitete, Facts — halfevil @ 7:16 pm

Russian doctors have conducted an 11-hour operation to replace a patient’s deformed penis with one grown on his forearm, the Moskovskiy Komsomolets daily reports.

The 30-year-old Russian man, whose name was changed in the article to protect his privacy, had a defect from birth — his penis was crooked, two-and-a-half-inches long and lacked a scrotum, the newspaper writes.

The doctors had the penis removed and attached to the man’s arm. Using his body tissue it grew to six-and-a-half inches and was sewn back on to his groin. Silicone tubes were inserted into the organ to ensure an erection was possible. Doctors also created a scrotum from the patient’s own skin and placed silicone testicles in it.

So funny!

A Moscow surgeon said the man will be able to have sex in a few months. He added: “Women will never suspect it is artificial.”

Disa Kuriozitete, Fakte

Filed under: Kuriozitete, Facts — halfevil @ 7:15 pm

1. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it)

2. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
(Now that’s more like it)

3. A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
(In my next life I want to be a pig)
(How’d they figure this out, and why?)

4. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
(Still can’t get over that pig thing)
(Don’t try this at home…maybe at work?)

5. Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(Is that why Flipper was always smiling?)
(And pigs get 30-minute orgasms? Doesn’t seem fair)

6. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmmmmmm……..)

7. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
(If you’re ambidextrous do you split the difference?)

8. The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
(From drinking little bottles of…?)
(Do taxpayers pay for this research??)

9. Polar bears are left handed.
(Who knew….? Who cares? How’d they find out, did they ask them?)

10. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What can be so tasty on the bottom of the pond?)

11. The flea can jump 350 times its body length.
It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field.
(30 minutes…can you imagine?? And why pigs?)

12. A cockroach will live nine days without it’s head, before it starves to death.
(Creepy)

13. The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off.
(Honey, I’m home. What the….)
(Well, at least pigs get a break there…)

14. Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(In my next life I still want to be a pig … quality over quantity)

15. Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Oh, Geez) (That’s almost as bad as catfish)

16. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than it’s brain.
(I know some people like that.)

17. Starfish don’t have brains.
(I know some people like that too.)

Interesting Facts II

1. Mosquito repellents don’t repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito’s sensors so they don’t know you’re there.

2. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

3. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.

4. No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.

5. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

6. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.

7. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.

8. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley’s gum.

9. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.

10. A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother’s first flight.

11. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.

12. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

13. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

14. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

15. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.

16. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.

17. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.

18. Marilyn Monroe had six toes. (rumor)

19. All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn’t like being seen wearing them in public.

20. Walt Disney was afraid of mice.

21. Pearls melt in vinegar.

22. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

23. The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

24. It is possible to lead a cow upstairs…but not downstairs.

25. A duck’s quack doesn’t echo and no one knows why. (Or does it? http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_world/duck/duck.htm)

26. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.

27. Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word ‘criminal.’ The second was William Jefferson Clinton.

28. Turtles can breathe through their butts.

29. Butterflies taste with their feet.

30. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world’s nuclear weapons combined.

31. On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.

32. On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

33. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.

34. Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.

35. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

36. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

37. It’s physically impossible for you to lick your elbow. (or can you? http://www.uvm.edu/~dfisher1/random/elbow.jpg http://www.uvm.edu/~dfisher1/random/elbow2.jpg)

38. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

39. A snail can sleep for three years.

40. No word in the English language rhymes with ‘MONTH.’

41. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.

42. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!

43. The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

44. All polar bears are left handed.

45. In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

46. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

47. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

48. ‘Go’, is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

49. If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

50. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

51. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

52. Almost everyone who reads this will try to lick their elbow.

53. Every day is about 55 billionths of a second longer than the day before it.

54. Earthworms have five hearts

55. The Himalayan gogi berry contains, weight for weight, more iron than steak, more beta carotene than carrots, more vitamin C than oranges.

56. If a native Hawaiian woman places the flower on her right ear, she is available. (The bigger the flower, the more desperate)

57. Pele has always hated his nickname, which he says sounds like “baby-talk in Portuguese”.

58. As of 2006, 200 million blogs were left without updates

59. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.

The Pope’s been known to wear red Prada shoes.

Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defense secretary in US history.

Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.

Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.

In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.

Ghandi didn’t allow his wife to take penicillin to save her life from pneumonia but took quinine to save himself from malaria.

Sex workers (Prostitutes) in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.

As of 2006, more than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet.

More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.

The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.

Barbie’s full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.

Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five liters of cooking oil a year.

Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.

For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality. (As of 2006)

Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for children

Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study.

The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air.

Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%.

The egg came first.

Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing “less problematic behavior” involving sex, drugs and drink.

“lost world” exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species.

The two most famous actors who portrayed the “Marlboro Man” in the cigarette ads died of lung cancer.

The first known marketer of the flushing toilet was Thomas Crapper.

The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.

The average American consumes 1.2 pounds of spider eggs a year and eat 2.5 pounds of insect parts a year. (This fact and the one prior to it have been judged as urban legends by many)

Every drop of seawater contains approximately 1 billion gold atoms.

During World War II, IBM built counting machines the Nazis used to manage their death/concentration camps.

During World War II, the British Intelligence used the Colossus Machines (precursor to computers) at Bletchley Park to help decode the enigma code of the Nazis.

The first Computer was ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, unveiled on February 14, 1946 (Thanks D.B. of AU)

The total combined weight of the worlds ant population is heavier than the weight of the human population.

The deadliest war in history excluding World War II was a civil war in China in the 1850s in which the rebels were led by a man who thought he was the brother of Jesus Christ.

Just about 3 people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second. The result is about a 2 and 2/3 net increase of people every second.

Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.

Happy Birthday (the song) is copyrighted.

The number of people alive on earth right now is higher than the number of all the people that have died. Ever.

Men with a certain rare medical condition can breastfeed babies

There is a rare condition called Exploding Head Syndrome which you have probably never heard of.

Scientists have determined that fungi are more closely related to human beings and animals than to other plants.

In some (maybe all) Asian countries, the family name is written first and the individual name written second

Abe Lincoln bought 50 cents worth of cocaine in 1860

A German World War II submarine was sunk due to malfunction of the toilet.

Washington State has the longest single beach in the United States.Long Beach, WA

The largest living thing on the face of the Earth is a mushroom underground in Oregon, it measures three and a half miles in diameter.

The town of Los Angeles, California, was originally named “El Pueblo la Nuestra Senora de Reina de los Angeles de la Porciuncula”

9 out of 10 people believe Thomas Edison invented the light bulb.This isn’t true; Joseph Swan did.

Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

The Population of the world can live within the state boundaries of Texas.

Plastic lawn flamingos outnumber real flamingos in the U.S.A.

Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel with over 50,000 words, none of which containing the letter “e.”

Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is not considered an insult! Despite the expensive food, tipping is welcome as in any other country.

The largest pumpkin weighed 377 pounds.

The largest cabbage weighed 144 pounds.

Pinocchio was made of pine.

Alfred Hitchcock had no belly button for it was eliminated during surgery.

A quarter has 119 grooves around the edge.

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

Cranberry Jell-0 is the only kind that contains real fruit.

Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.

New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states.

There was once a town in West Virginia called “6.”

The parking meter was invented in North Dakota.

Napoleon made his battle plans in a sandbox.

Roman Emperor Caligula made his horse a senator.

The green stuff on the occasional freak potato chip is chlorophyll.

Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.

There are 333 toilet paper squares on a toilet paper roll.

The Eiffel Tower has 2,500,000 rivets in it.

“Jaws” is the most common name for a goldfish.

On an average work day, a typist’s fingers travel 12.6 miles.

Every minute in the U.S. six people turn 17.

Ten tons of space dust falls on the Earth every day.

On average, a 4-year-old child asks 437 questions a day.

Blue and white are the most common school colors.

Swimming pools in Phoenix, Arizona, pick up 20 pounds of dust a year.

In a normal lifetime an American will eat 200 pounds of peanuts and 10,000 pounds of meat.

A new book is published every 13 minutes in America.

America’s best selling ice cream flavor is vanilla.

Every year the sun loses 360 million tons.

Because of Animal Crackers, many kids until they reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as a giraffe.

The Gulf Stream could carry a message in a bottle at an average of 4 miles per hour.

The bulls-eye on a dartboard must be 5 feet 8 inches off the ground.

The doorbell was invented in 1831.

The electric shaver was patented on November 6, 1928.

Japan is the largest exporter of frog’s legs.

There are seven points on the Statue of Liberty’s crown.

Napoleon was terrified of cats.

The first Lifesaver flavor was peppermint.

The typical American eats 263 eggs a year.

The parking meter was invented by C.C. Magee in 1935.

The oldest known vegetable is the pea.

Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes.

The avocado has the most calories of any fruit.

The first zoo in the USA was in Philadelphia.

France has the highest per capita consumption of cheese.

The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is “feedback.”

The state of California raises the most turkeys out of all of the states.

George Washington Carver invented peanut butter.

Iceland was the first country to legalize abortion in 1935.

The dumbest domesticated animal is the turkey.

Russia has the most movie theaters in the world.

The most fatal car accidents occur on Saturday.

The Eiffel Tower has 1792 steps.

The mongoose was barred live entry into the U.S. in 1902.

Goldfish swallowing started at Harvard in 1939.

Dry fish food can make goldfish constipated.

The stall closest to the door in a bathroom is the cleanest, because it is the least used.

Toilet paper was invented in 1857.

Alaska could hold the 21 smallest States.

If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.

Kermit the Frog is left-handed.

The car in the foreground on the back of a $10 bill is a 1925 Hupmobile.

If you can see a rainbow you must have your back to the sun.

It’s rumored that sucking on a copper penny will cause a breathalyzer to read 0. Myth Busters on the Discovery Channel proved this wrong.

The ship, the Queen Elizabeth 2, should always be written as QE2. QEII is the actual queen.

The correct response to the Irish greeting, “Top of the morning to you,” is “and the rest of the day to yourself.”

Columbia University is the second largest landowner in New York City, after the Catholic Church.

When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home to a sellout crowd, the stadium becomes the state’s third largest city.

Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the U.S., but technically it is Number 47. Until August 7, 1953, Congress forgot to vote on a resolution to admit Ohio to the Union.

When Saigon fell, the signal for all Americans to evacuate was Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” being played on the radio.

The pet ferret was domesticated more than 500 years before the house cat.

The dome on Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, conceals a billiards room. In Jefferson’s day, billiards were illegal in Virginia.

The most common speed limit sign in the United States is 25 m.p.h.

At any one time, there are 100 million phone conversations going on in the United States.

The world’s record for continuous pogo stick jumping is 41 hours.

The Ottoman Empire once had seven emperors in seven months. They died of (in order): burning, choking, drowning, stabbing, heart failure, poisoning and being thrown from a horse.

You can make edible cheese from the milk of 24 different mammals.

Sir Isaac Newton, who invented Calculus, had trouble with names to the point where he would forget his brothers’ names.

In medieval Thailand, they had moveable type printing presses. The type was made from baked oxen dung.

By law, employees do not have to wash hands after sneezing.

The average American consumes enough caffeine in one year to kill a horse.

More American workers (18%) call sick on Friday than any other day of the week. Tuesday has the lowest percent of absenteeism (11%).

Enough beer is poured every Saturday across America to fill the Orange Bowl.

A newborn expels its own body weight in waste every 60 hours.

Whales die if their echo system fails.

Florida’s beaches lose 20 million cubic yards of sand annually.

Naturalists use marshmallows to lure alligators out of swamps.

It takes a ton of water to make a pound of refined sugar.

Weevils are more resistant to poisons in the morning than at night.

Cacao, the main ingredient of chocolate is the most pest-ridden tree in the jungle.

In deep space most lubricants will disappear.

America once issued a 5-cent bill.

The average person can live 11 days without water.

In 1221 the daughter of Genghis Khan ordered the killing of the entire population of the city of Nishapur (about 60,000) in one hour. The order came after her husband killing. (Moguls claim that 1.7 million were killed)

There are 35 million digestive glands in the stomach.

In 1800 on 50 cities on earth had a population of more than 100,000.

More steel in the US is used to make bottle caps than to manufacture automobile bodies.

It is possible for any American citizen to give whatever name he or she chooses to any unnamed mountain or hill in the United States.

King Henry III of France, Louis XVI of France and Napoleon all suffered from ailurophobia–fear of cats.

Before 1850 golf balls were made of leather and stuffed with feathers.

Clocks made before 1687 had only one hand, and hour hand.

The motto of the American people, “In God We Trust,” was not adopted as the national slogan until 1956.

More Americans have died in automobile accidents than have died in all the wars ever fought by the United States.

The ampersand (&amp ;) was once a letter of the English alphabet.

There are more than 40,000 characters in Chinese script.

During the time of Peter the Great, any Russian man who had a beard was required to pay a special tax.

The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television was Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S. treasury.

The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters (I was thankfully corrected by a friend: The Hawai’ian alphabet has 13 letters, A, E, I, O, U, H, K, L, M, N, P, W, ‘ (which is called an okina).

Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.

Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80%.

Percentage of American women who say they’d marry the same man: 50%.

Cost of raising a medium size dog to the age of 11: $6,400.

Average people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.

Average lifespan of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.

The only President to win a Pulitzer Prize: John Kennedy for “Profiles in Courage.”

The youngest Pope was 11 years old.

Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.

First novel ever written on a typewriter: “Tom Sawyer.”

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades–King David, Clubs–Alexander the Great, Hearts–Charlemagne and Diamonds–Julius Caesar.

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one leg front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all 4 legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. The last signature wasn’t added until 5 years later.

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are useable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.

The first airline, DELAG, was established on October 16, 1909, to carry passengers between German cities by Zeppelin airships. Up to November 1913, more than 34,000 people had used the service.

Titanic was running at 22 knots when she hit the iceberg

The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; ‘7′ was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. ‘UP’ indicated the direction of the bubbles

Francis Scott Key was a young lawyer who wrote the poem, ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, after being inspired by watching the Americans fight off the British attack of Baltimore during the War of 1812. The poem became the words to the national anthem

Because radio waves travel at 186,000 miles per second and sound waves saunter at 700 miles per hour, a broadcast voice can be heard sooner 13,000 miles away than it can be heard at the back of the room in which it originated

Methane gas can often be seen bubbling up from the bottom of ponds. It is produced by the decomposition of dead plants and animals in the mud.
There are more than 1,700 references to gems and precious stones in the King James translation of the Bible.

There are only four words in the English language which end in ‘-dous’: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous

If you attempted to count to stars in a galaxy at a rate of one every second it would take around 3,000 years to count them all.

Less than 3% of Nestlé’s sales are for chocolate.

The average person will spend two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change

More than 2500 left handed people are killed every year from using right handed products

It is estimated that at any one time, 0.7% of the world’s population are drunk

The tip of a 1/3 inch long hour-hand on a wristwatch travels at 0.00000275 mph

Less than one per cent of the 500 Chinese cities have clean air, respiratory disease is China’s leading cause of death.

The number of cars on the planet is increasing three times faster than the population growth

The X’s that people sometimes put at the end of letters or notes to mean a kiss, actually started back in the 1000’s when Lords would sign their names at the end of documents to other important people. It was originally a cross that they would kiss after signing to signify that they were faithful to God and their King. Over the years though, it slanted into the X

“Naked” means to be unprotected. “Nude” means unclothed

Upper and lower case letters are named ‘upper’ and ‘lower’, because in the time when al original print had to be set in individual letters, the ‘upper case’ letters were stored in the case on top of the case stored smaller, ‘lower case’ letters
In the 40’s, the Bich pen was changed to Bic for fear that Americans would pronounce it ‘Bitch.’

There is about 200 times more gold in the worlds oceans, than has been mined in our entire history.

Hair and nails do not continue to grow after death. The skin recedes, making it appear to grow. Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland.

Termites eat wood twice as fast when listening to heavy metal music.

Dolphins don’t automatically breath; they have to tell themselves to do it.

The term Cop comes from Constable on Patrol, which is a term used in England.

Onions get their distinctive smell by soaking up sulfur from the soil.

Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered as a propagator of violence-he invented dynamite.

Whoopi Goldberg was a mortuary cosmetologist and a bricklayer before becoming an actress.

Guinness Book Of Records holds the record for being the book most stolen from Public Libraries.

Charlie Chaplin won third place in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest.

Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he didn’t wear pants.

From 1942 until the end of World War II, Oscars were made out of plaster to conserve metal. After the war, the winners received “real” replacement statues.

The only Oscar statuette ever made of wood was presented to Edgar Bergen in 1938 for his “outstanding comic creation,” his ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy.

A person afflicted with hexadectylism has six fingers or six toes on one or both hands and feet.

Pamela Lee-Anderson is Canada’s Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial anniversary of Canada’s independence.

Tokyo has had 24 recorded instances of people either killed or receiving serious skull fractures while bowing to each other with the traditional Japanese greeting.

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