Cheap Flight International
International Flight Rates Knowledge Base
Is there a website that shows flight rates to international destinations based on date and budget? I like travelling to international destinations every year. But going through various travel sites gets to be a chore. Does anyone know of a website out there where I can enter the dates I want to go and provide a maximum amount I'm willing to pay, and have it come back with all of the possible destinations that fall into that category? This only have to work with flights since that is always the most expensive part of the trip.
Where can I get the best rates for an international flight from Mexico to Madrid? I'm looking for the best online site to get the cheapest air flight
Is it true that we can get the air tickets for domestic flying on some international flights at cheap rates? I mean suppose you want to go to Mumbai to Delhi from a flight which is actually going to USA(Route will be Mumbai, New delhi and USA). Now, it may be possible that some passengers will catch this flight from Delhi so accordingly some seats will be vacant from Mumbai to Delhi. Is it possible that we can get these seat to reach to Delhi on cheap rates?
Buying a round-trip ticket on an international flight but not using the return ticket--tagged as suspicious? My brother is going to Rome for about six months for culinary school, leaving the U.S. the last week of September. I was checking flights for him, and it's going to cost about $1700 if he books his return flight for six months down the road, instead of, say, scheduling his return ticket a month later but not using it until springtime. I realize there are a lot of really sticky regulations with international flights, especially flying back into the U.S., and I got to wondering if my brother's ticket would be tagged as suspicious if he didn't use his return flight on this ticket but booked another round-trip ticket later. He won't be coming back to the States for six months, but we don't have the extra $600 we'd have to pay to schedule his return trip for April--the rate quoted for a late October return was just over $1100. What should my brother do to keep from being tagged as suspicious in booking his flight? Any links for first-time international travelers would be awesome.
from which website i can get all the latest airfares of domestic as well as international flights from india? i m planning to fly to bombay from vadodara..i wanna know the LATEST rates for this domestic flight as well as international flights...for all in one purpose...name of website which is regularly updating the price? price in rupees do i need a valid passport to fly in domestic airline? at a domestic level? do i need passport ?
can I find cheap international flight around $700 in summer? Im trying to book a flight Madrid, Spain to Pittsburgh, PA or Buffalo or Erie, PA in mid-August to mid-September. i can't barely find anything less than a $1000. is there anyway to find that flight for around $700? I know that it is the summer so the rates are higher. Ive looked and looked. need help.
Upgrade from Coach to Business Class on an International Flight? Tomorrow I will be flying from Boston to Prague on Air France. Presently I have coach seats but I would like to upgrade to Business Class. When/How should I contact Air France to do so? Also, I looked at the current price for Business class tickets and they are over $2,000, more than double what I paid for coach. Will I have to pay the difference if I can upgrade or is there a special rate? Thanks in advance.
What is the best airline to use for international flights? I will be flying from Chicago to Europe. We can fly into London, Frankfurt, or Amsterdam. The best rates I have found are with Lufthansa, Air India, Brittish Air, United and American. I do not mind paying a little more money for a better carrier since it will be such a long flight. Any other suggestions are welcomed.
Finding inexpensive flight rates....heeellllppppp? I used to go online to look up flight price comparisons and it was so easy a few years back. Now I am trying to look this info up and it every time I end up in a site that you have to search each "other site" individually.... Anyone know of a site that will search all airlines at one time...as it "used" to be? This is driving me nuts. Just looking for a round trip from Chicago Midway to Stewart International anytime during April...for approx. a week stay. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a ton!
which airline in the U.S is rated as the best and known for its best international flights? which airline in the U.S is one of the most prefered by passengers and offer safe,comfortable and best services for most of its international flights?
How can I book and international flight for the lowest fare possibe? So Im trying to save up enough money travel for a summer vacation in another country(Morocco) but the rates keep changing every week. So my question is..........are the rates that are displayed online really what I am going to be charged that rate? Or will they give me a better rate if I reserve on the phone. Thanks. @garrisonbight: Well I dont know...how I was expecting to get a "cheap flight." Maybe you should take in cosideration that this is my first time flying on a plane before you try to use your dumb brain and smart mouth to try to answer my question.
Cheapest international flights from the US? I'm not looking for anywhere specific. I am a person who loves to travel, but it is a very expensive hobby. I was wondering if there was any sort of website that lists undersold international flights and sells them at a highly reduced rate, maybe last minute? I'm not talking about the orbitz or expedia thing. I want a website that doesn't necessarily give you a choice, it just lists tickets going for cheap that they need to get rid of. Does this exist?
How much does it cost to check in a extra piece on an international flight? I'm trying to find a cheap way to ship a suitcase from Chicago to Spain but the rates with all the companies I found were out of my range. Then I heard that it could be cheaper if I check it in as a third piece with any airline. Have you ever paid for an extra suitcase? If so, how much and with what airline? Thanks so much. Let me be clear here: "Chicago" to "Spain". And everybody is allowed not one but two suitcases per person to check in with any airline, since it's an international flight. I also have "carry on" luggage. I want to take an extra big suitcase with me.
I want my classic PAGE back !!! The opening one I had it ALL set up...the weather where my kids live (even international), flight rates (yup, even, international). local theater info. my news choices....I LOVED my page....no blogs, no "stuff" I do not want or have to edit....it was perfect the way it was....PLEASE just give me back My Yahoo !!!! But how?? ..and where is my toolbar??
How much do flight attendants make? Is there a website out there that will tell me specific carriers and pay rate? If you want to tell me your specific carrier and pay rate that would be great too, but I understand if you do not want to do both I really want to know the pay scale for 1st and 2nd year flight attendants domestic (us) vs. international. Also benefits such as medical, pension, stock options and the like. If there is a website I can go to that will be specific that would be great. Thanks in advance for your answers.
How far beforehand should you buy an international airline ticket? Like before the rates jump considerably for the flight.
How much do airlines charge if ur baggage is overweight? Are the rates different from domestic and international flights?
Any websites or Airlines for cheap flights to Orlando, and any cheap hotels in International Drive area? I plan to go to Orlando in July next year, but the problem is I can only find flights (From Manchester, UK, cant travel any further) from £600-£800 ($1,216 - $1,621). I am looking for the price for a return flight to be less than £500 ($1,000). I also have a problem trying to find a hotel because as I am not 21, certain hotels wouldn't allow me to check in. The points that the hotel must have are: - free transportation to the Universal's and Sea World. - the minumum check in age to be 19 or under - the night rate to be £20-35 ($40.50- $71) - Hotel to be around 3* - In the International Drive Area Could somebody please help me out because it is really beginning to stress me, I know I have another 10 months to book it, but I need to book now before I spend my money! Thank You!
How does one purchase an in-cabin international plane ticket for small dog to fly with them? I plan on going to Catania, Sicily (Italy) from Washington, D.C. on December 13th and returning January 11th with United & Lufthansa. The flight leaves D.C. with United and then goes to Rome, Italy. The connecting flight after that and the entire return trip is all with Lufthansa. Do I have to purchase my dog's ticket with United, Lufthansa, or both and would it be a flat rate for the entire trip or would I need to buy him a ticket for each stop that is made to switch planes? Anyone have an estimate on how much this will cost since the dog is only ~ 5 lbs and hopefully in-cabin with me? Thanks! After calling Lufthansa I was informed that flying my pet from D.C. to Catania, Sicily would cost $127 each way and that would also include the flight with United. They also said my Maltese would be allowed to travel in-cabin with me for most of the flight. I am aware that he'll need a pet passport, ISO microchip, and up to date on shots, but I believe the 6 month blood test after rabies shot is mostly for the U.K. and Italy does not require it. However, I will not even be going through U.K.
Did Collins software integration effort resemble Aeroflot Flight 593 ? Aeroflot Flight 593, a "Russian Airlines"[1] Airbus A310-304 passenger airliner, registration F-OGQS, operating on behalf of Aeroflot, crashed into a hillside in Siberia on 23 March 1994. All 75 passengers and crew were killed. Voice and flight data recorders revealed that the pilot's 15-year-old son Eldar Kudrinsky, while seated at the controls, had unknowingly disabled the A310's autopilot's control of the ailerons, which put the aircraft into a steep bank, and then an uncontrolled dive. The pilots were not aware of the partial disconnection of the autopilot, which occurred with no audible alarm, and did not regain control of the aircraft. The jet was en route from Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) to Hong Kong's former Hong Kong International Airport (Kai Tak Airport). Most of the passengers were businessmen from Hong Kong and Taiwan who were looking for economic opportunities in Russia. The relief pilot, Yaroslav Kudrinsky (Ярослав Кудринский), was taking his two children on their first international flight and they were brought to the cockpit while he was on duty. Aeroflot allowed families of pilots to travel at a discounted rate once per year. With the autopilot active, Kudrinsky, against regulations, offered to let them sit at the controls. First his daughter Yana took the pilot's left front seat. Kudrinsky adjusted the autopilot's heading to give her the impression that she was turning the plane, though she actually had no control of the aircraft. Next, his son Eldar Kudrinsky (Эльдар Кудринский) took the pilot's seat. Unlike his sister, Eldar applied enough force to the control column to contradict the autopilot for 30 seconds. What nobody knew was that by doing this, he completely disconnected the aileron's autopilot: the flight computer switched the plane's ailerons to manual control while maintaining control over the other flight systems. The plane did not audibly signal a warning that this had occurred, although an indicator light did come on. It apparently went unnoticed by the pilots, who had previously flown planes with an audible warning signal. The first to notice a problem was Eldar, who observed that the plane was banking right. Shortly after, the flight path indicator changed to show the new flight path of the aircraft as it turned. Since the turn was continuous, the resulting predicted flight path drawn on screen was a 180 degree turn. This indication is similar to the indications shown when in a holding pattern, where a 180 degree turn is intentional to remain in one place. This confused the pilots for nine seconds. Soon the plane banked past a 45-degree angle (steeper than it was designed for). This increased the g-force on the pilots and crew, making their bodies feel much heavier than usual, and making it impossible for the Captain to replace his son at the controls. After banking as much as 90 degrees, the remaining functions of the autopilot tried to correct the plane's altitude by putting the plane in an almost vertical ascent, nearly stalling the plane. The co-pilot and Eldar managed to get the plane into a nosedive, which reduced the G-force on the pilots and enabled the Captain to take the controls. Though he and his co-pilot did regain control, their altitude by then was too low to recover, and the plane crashed at high speed, killing all aboard. Families of western victims placed flowers on the crash site, while families of ethnic Chinese victims scattered pieces of paper with messages written on them around the crash site.
Would you use your mobile on an aeroplane? Emirates are to trial technology that will allow passengers to use mobile phones on their flights, potentially from January 2007. Ryanair will begin a similar service as of mid-2007, looking to charge calls at a comparable international rate, and encouraging those who would use it to switch their phones to silent or vibrate as a courtesy to other passengers. Should airlines allow passengers to use mobile phones?
Is this enough to get hired by a regional airline? Is 625 flight hours with ,30 multi engine flight hours with Private Pilot Certificate Instrument Rating Commercial Pilot Certificate Multi-Engine Rating Flight Instructor Certificate Instrument Flight Instructor Rating Multi-Engine Flight Instructor Rating, and Airline Transport Pilot Certificate and a batchlors degree in international bussiness enough to get hired by a regional airline?
where can i find a cheap rate for airplane flights? Im going to Montreal (Canada) with my sister. and i need a good website where i can get cheap rates for two adults round-trip. Starting from Myrtle Beach international airport in South Carolina.
Booked online ticket with married surname? I booked a ticket online with married surname, the only ID that i have is with the maiden name. On the phone now with the airlines for over an hour. They aren't sure if its okay (!?) They are trying to modify the ticket but supposedly they cant because i bought it at a discounted rate. My only option is to cancel the current ticket and buy a new one at the premium ticket. what should I do? By the way its a non-international flight.
Malaysia tour agent and Malaysia airlines? I'm trying to determine if the new airlines MASWings has certain flights. Their website has changed 2 times and I need to book a flight that is now not on their schedule. Does anyone know how to obtain whether or not this flight will be returning or not? I've tried to call but was put on hold (international rates).
Why are refundable airline tickets so much more expensive than refundable tickets? I may have been looking in the wrong place, but I noticed that the same $700 (non-refundable) flight I'm thinking about taking to Germany went up to over $2,000 if I want refundable. Why such a jump? And are there any international airlines that offer a more decent rate for refundable tickets?
Am i being scammed in this on line relationship? Recently separated divorced. My wife left me for another man where she works. Dated my wife for several years before several years of marriage. Maybe dating soon myself. Many sources including fix ups from family members, meeting woman in public, and the on line thing which is totally new to me. Signed up for a free on line dating. Was just starting the profile, sent some invitations to a few woman. One 24 year old said i was practically as old as her dad and wondered if this was a joke. Okay, here is the question. This girl sends me an im. Saw my profile and interested. Let's meet at for coffee, chat, whatever. Turns out she is in England. She wants me to pay for half her flight. Expensive first date. London to Boston. So i check Virgin Atlantic, it's $2400 round trip. So she wants me to pay half and wire her the money. i said look honey that's a lot. We chat some more. i said this im is so slow can't i call you or check the international rates. She says cheaper to get a webcam and set that up and we can chat on the webcam with camera and mic. Then she says her isp is lousy and wants to upgrade so the connection on Webcam runs better. How much is 140 pounds plus there are fees with Western Union. Please do not treat this as a joke. i want to know if any couples met on line, live great distances apart, do you guys have an arrangement about commuting back and forth. This girl says what we do is she flies here. Then fly to London. Back and forth. wonder if she will pay for half my flight. Do any couples use web cam to chat? is that cheaper than long distance calls? never did the long distance relationship. dated a girl in college from New York area and long distance bills were high when we talked practically every night New York to Boston. Some of my male buddies think it's a scam. Female friends not sure. i have seen about a dozen photos of her. She says she lives with her brother and wire check to him at his address. She just moved to London from elsewhere and just has a work permit and no bank account. The woman in the UK is 29 single. i am 47 divorced.
How do you go about getting an Instructors rating for general aviation? I am doing a Commercial Pilots Licence and will continue onto a frozen Airline Transport Licence and am weighing up possible initial careers to gain maximum flight hours to be credited toward my Airline Transport Licence which is a minimum of 1500 hours. I hope to fly for an international airline upon completion of the ATPL or gain further experience in the field.
Can I buy flights from a US website if I live in the UK? Due the current exchange rate, it would appear to be cheaper to buy 2 one-way flights from a US airline website rather than a Return ticket from a UK airline website. Assuming you live in the UK, have a british passport and can arrange international delivery of the actual tickets, is this legitimate?
purchased sta flight ticket.... but where is it? I purchased a online airplane ticket today through STA Travel, and they sent me an email. But where is the ticket? Do online tickets come through the mail? I've never purchased one online before. And also, I don't have a international tudnet discount card or whatever card that the email said i needed if i got the rate at a student rate (which i did). do i have to purchace some card to be able to use my ticket? the email said they would check for the card.
i received a job offer latter 4rm sheraton hotel.its fake or true? Attn.Ashish Shakya Attn.Ashish Shakya, We have recieved your mail and the content are dully noted. You are to notify the attorney with the required scan copies of your document with the processing fee to enable him stand on your behalf in the British crown court to obtain the affidavit document for you and the processing fee is the only fee you are required to pay the legal attorney. Regards to the medical aspect,the management has already make provision for that both accomodation is for free check and read your offer letter once again. So i advice you to notify with the attorney ASAP.As soon as you obtain the document from the attorney,you have to send it to us to help us process your visa/work permit. Once you obtain the Affidavits of Guaranty and Trust Certificate with letter of attestation, you are required to send to us through e-mail the scanned copy of the following documents: 1. Affidavits of Guaranty and Trust Certificate with letter of attestation 2. Signed Job Offer Letter 3. Scanned Copy of International Passport (Data Page) 4. Scanned Copy of Passport Photograph (Colored) Upon receipt of the above mentioned documents from your side SHERATON PARK TOWER HOTELS LONDON. Will contact the British Consulate in your country and fax all your documents to them to facilitate your visa. Your benefit includes: 1. Visa 2.Work and Residence Permit papers 3. Flight Ticket 4. 2 Months Salary in Advance 5. Transportation And reimbursement of any expenses you made during procurement of your affidavit. Always update us with your proceedings with the Attorney so as to advise further and also note that we are already behind schedule with respect to time to enable us start due processes on time as we awaits your arrival to contribute positively to the growth of this firm. Mr RICHARD SMITH Chief Recruitment Manager. Sheraton Park tower Hotel London. E-mail:careers.sheratonhotel@yahoo.co.uk E-mail:sheratontowershotel@live.com E-mail:humanresource@sheratonhotelandresort.co.uk TEL: {(+44) 7024080571 TEL: [+44] 7024097894 Fax: 0044-91-741-93-23 In regards and acquisition to proceed with your affidavit of guaranty with letter of attestation,you are requested to remit the processing fee to our corresponding Indian account for fast receiving,as soon as you make the payment scan and send to us the payment receipt together with the filled affidavit application form and 4 scan copies of your recent passport as an e-mail attachment for confirmation for us to commence immediately on processing of your affidavit document. NOTE:YOU HAVE TO MAKE CASH DEPOSIT AND THE MONEY SHOULD BE MADE IN YOUR LOCAL CURRENCY [48,500 INR) EQUIVILENT TO (GBP 650 POUNDS) IN INTERNATIONAL CURRENCY RATES BELOW ARE THE ACCOUNT INFORMATION. ACC.NAME:A.S. TRADERS ACC.NO.:628105030412 PAN.NO.:BDPPP3069R BANK:ICICI BRANCH:HAZRATGANJ[PAY IN ANY BRANCH] Once the payment charges are received,I shall use my good office/professional competence to secure the Affidavit of Guarantee certificate documents and letter of attestation for you within 48 hours from the time of receiving the payment. Thank you for choosing Adams and Reese Chambers [LLP].Your legal satisfaction and right is our top priority. Yours in legal services, Adams and Reese Chambers [LLP] Alder Castle 15 Noble Street London EC2V 7JU United Kingdom E-mail:baradams@lawyer.com E-mail:baradamschambers@googlemail.com E-mail:baradamschamber@sify.com TEL:+447011174578 TEL:+447024097854 TEL:+447024034866 Fax 44-20-7367-1
Airport Security Poll/Survey? Hello everyone, I have to have forty people take a 20 question poll/survey on airport security and I would really appreciate it if you could just post your answers as a reply and Age, Gender and Ethnicity if you could. Thanks in advance. ~Charlie 1) Are the new increasing airport security procedures right for America? a) Yes b) No c) It doesn’t need to happen d) It should have happened a long time ago 2) Have you avoided the airport because of the lengthy and somewhat extreme security process? a) Yes b) No c) No, however have thought about it 3) From 1 to 10, rate how safe you feel when flying or in the terminals before your flight. a) 1-2 b) 3-4 c) 5-6 d) 7-8 e) 9-10 4) Should pilots or government officials be allowed to carry concealed weapons onboard? a) Yes, it is important for the safety of the people and the plane b) Yes, it will prevent the high-jacking of planes c) No, security is secure enough d) No, it may cause potential risk 5) How many air marshals should be present on every domestic/international flight? a) 1 b) 2 c) 3 d) 4 or more 6) How much control should the airport security have over us, the people? a) Total control b) Somewhat control c) No control 7) On a scale from 1 to 10, how safe do you feel in an airport/flight? a) 1-3 b) 4-6 c) 7-8 d) 9-10 8) How many years of training/experience do you think an air marshal needs to protect flyers? a) 1-2 b) 3-4 c) 5-6 d) 7 or more years 9) Have you ever felt uncomfortable while going through security at an airport? a) No, it is for good measure and safety b) Yes, I felt violated at some points 10) Do you believe that we should be forced to undergo full body scans? a) Yes, it is a necessity b) Yes, because it will make people feel more safe c) No, it is a waste of time and money d) No, I feel violated when this happens 11) Should all people be put up to a full body scan regardless of age, gender, or race? a) Yes, it will add more security b) No, it will slow down the process 12) Have you, or someone you know personally, ever been selected for a full body scan? a) Yes b) No¬ 13) Do you feel that it is necessary to take your shoes off before you walk through the metal detector? a) Yes, because it will reduce the threat of terrorism b) Yes, because it will make more people fee safe c) No, it is completely unnecessary d) No, metal detector should pick up any foreign objects inside everyone’s shoes 14) Have you ever been randomly selected to be searched farther than a metal detector? a) Yes b) No 15) Should you be able to take food purchased from outside the airport, into the airport? a) Yes, I hate paying ridiculous prices inside the airport when I can buy them cheaper outside b) No, it is a security factor that should be taken seriously 16) Is it right to have 12 Islamic countries be classified as high risk in security relations? a) Strongly Agree b) Agree c) Disagree d) Strongly Disagree 17) Are the new airport security measures unjustly targeting Muslim travelers? a) Strongly Agree b) Agree c) Disagree d) Strongly Disagree 18) Is it a violation of your personal rights to have your bags searched when traveling from country to country? a) Yes b) No c) It is for the safety of the people, so I don’t mind. 19) When entering the United States from any other country, should there be search dogs sniffing out all bags? a) Yes, I feel safer knowing there will be dogs there b) No, it is unnecessary because of the scanners they will go through 20) Have you or anybody you know ever had anything confiscated even though you think it should not have been? a) No b) Yes
hey rate this outta 10 please :)? Invincible!!! (Verse 1) I’m unconquerable, indomitable, indestructible, I’m dominant, prominent, predominant, I’m hard, former yeoman of the guard, I’m barred, I’m scarred, and I’ve been hit across the head with a cumbersome bollard, So I wielded my sword, to the lord, got bored, toward the award, Said I was corrupted, depraved and extremely badly misbehaved, Tough and rough so he put me in cuffs but I’m not a puff, So I went and copped me a gun only a revolver 901, Command processing overhead time, work so hard to make this rhyme, it’s bordering on the line of sublime. (Verse 2) Bravely Enslaved Mr. Rave right down to his grave, he thought he saved but didn’t realise ‘twas a cave, so I engraved and waved and I misbehaved, showed once again that I was depraved. All of the flowers were blighted, this place was benighted, it Was a telescopic sight, and no one cares about the divided rights, they’ll all be on an international flight, with ultra violet lights, I’m a tyrant in a morgue of haze, with hundreds of thousands of adversaries, all mod cons and stuff nowadays but I like to do it the original way. (CHORUS) Everywhere has been diversed into homicides, To seek the criminals that don’t even hide, simply because they stride with pride and the police have tried, Everything but we just take the sting out of their so called cunning, Plans but we know the police like the back of our hands, I can read them like a book, I’m not just a typically thick Crook, I’m pretty smart but I’ve got no heart they all call me sir Henry Jones Bart (Verse 3) My voice resonates through this place over the top of the distant bass, I’m running from a copper, I jump on my chopper, he try’s to hit me with a popper, He misses, the copper hisses, very remiss, he dismisses, The case, what a disgrace he says he likes his face, As it is, I’m good at showbiz, he made my coke fizz, is this a quiz, Coz like I said I aint as thick as a brick my reflexes are quick and I sure can kick, So stay away okay or you’ll pay coz I’ll bray you. (Chorus) Everywhere has been diversed into homicides, To seek the criminals that don’t even hide, simply because they stride with pride and the police have tried, Everything but we just take the sting out of their so called cunning, Plans but we know the police like the back of out hands, I can read them like a book, I’m not just a typically thick Crooke, I’m pretty smart but I’ve got no heart they all call me sir Henry Jones Bart.
MD 80 crash/fire in Madrid.2 crashed in 1997 out of 934 MD80 in service. Is this crash rate unacceptably high? Operational history In August 2008, a total of 934 MD-80 aircraft (all variants) were in airline service, including American Airlines (304), Delta Air Lines (118), Alitalia (74), Scandinavian Airlines System (44), and Allegiant Air (35). Other operators fly fewer numbers of the type.[4] 16 August 2005; West Caribbean Airways MD82; near Machiques, Venezuela: The aircraft was on an international flight from Panama City, Panama to Martinique when the crew reported to air traffic control that the aircraft was experiencing some kind of engine problem and requested a descent from cruising altitude of 33,000 feet down to 14,000 feet. The crew later reported that both engines were experiencing problems and that the aircraft was not controllable. All eight crew members and 152 passengers were killed. Fatal Events for Airlines from Latin America and the Caribbean 16 September 2007; One-Two-Go Airlines MD82; Phuket, Thailand: The aircraft was on a scheduled domestic flight from Bangkok (DMK) to Phuket (HKT). After landing, the aircraft skidded off the runway, impacted several trees, and caught fire. There was reportedly heavy rain and poor visibility at the time of the crash. There were at least 89 deaths, including 85 of the 123 passengers and five of the seven crew members. Fatal Events Involving Asian Airlines 30 November 2007; Atlasjet MD83; near Keciborlu, Turkey: The plane was on a domestic flight from Istanbul to Isparta when it disappeared from radar screens. The crew had requested permission to land shortly before the aircraft crashed in mountainous terrain near the town of Keciborlu, about 12km (7.5 miles) from the Isparta airport. All seven crew members and 50 passengers were killed. Description: Audio (MP3), Video (MP4, WMV, YouTube) Fatal Events Involving MD80 Series Aircraft Fatal Events Involving Atlasjet 20 August 2008; Spanair MD82; Madrid, Spain: The aircraft crashed shortly after attempting a takeoff for a scheduled domestic flight from Madrid to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Early reports indicate that one of the engines caught fire during the takeoff, the aircraft became airbore, and that the crew set the aircraft down in a area to the right of the departure runway. The aircraft broke up and caught fire. Should read 2 MD 80s crashed in one year, 2007 (not 1997).
Just a couple of questions from an aussie to all those United Kingdom citizens out there...? So I'm an aussie and in 3 weeks im heading over to the UK to work for 2 years. I'm excited.... and PETRIFIED! Thanks in advance to anyone who answers and you dont have to answer every question if you cant, just label which questions your answering (e.g. question 3 ..........) and then answer away!! 1. So i've been hearing all these people saying that the UK has like the highest crime rate and there are like all these gangs and stabbings and stuff. But, i guess my question is, if i avoid bad parts of town, at bad times of the night, anywhere in the uk - i should be fine right? Like in Nottingham, Leeds, London etc? Is it really just all about using your common sense? Because i've heard that people have been getting stabbed in like broad daylight in the middle of cities! 2. is it illegal to carry guns and stuff in the uk? it is illegal in australia, but not in america, so i was just wondering. 3. do you guys measure by pounds or kilograms? 4. Has anyone flown british airways before? This is a random question but do they have an individual screen for international flights or one communal screen where they chose the movie for you. random, i know. 5. If you were to recommend any city in the entire UK, either a big city, or small town for me to move to, that is both safe and has quite alot of young people living there, what city would it be? 6. Is edinburgh really as good as its cracked up to be? Also, is it safe? 7. I know the uk has allowed A LOT of immigration in the past 10-20 years or so. when i look on the tv there are all different types of nationalities that make up the uk - arabic, indian, african etc. What im wondering is whether the ethnic foreign immigrants and the caucasean white's of the uk have any trouble with each other (because this is the case in australia). Like, is there fights between the foreign gangs and the British/Scottish citizens. Do they dislike the amount of immigration to the United Kingdom? 8. In america they have walmart which is a massive superstore that sells clothes and food and stuff. is there an equivalent for the uk where i can buy a big winter jacket for cheap? How cheap would i be able to get one? And what are your big supermarkets called? 9. does every single place in the uk have central heating to combat the cold? Coming from a climate where it's hardly ever under 10 degrees, im freaking out about how cold its gonna be. 10. do you guys measure in degrees or faranheit? Thank you so much to everyone who has answered my questions so far!!! It has been a great help, especially about the whole crime misconception. I can't wait to move there!
How does NAIA Terminal 3 stack up against other airports (foreign and domestic)? I'm curious about how people perceive the terminal based on aesthetics and facilities/amenities (the only standard available at the moment as the terminal is just about to open next week). I will ask about service/function once the airport services international flights. Please take note that my question pertains to how the airport stacks up now and not when it was allegedly finished years ago. Please tell me your nationality, rate your answer 1-5 (1 - It's the best airport right now, 2 - At par with the best airports, 3 - Above average airport, 4 - Decent, 5 - It's still way behind modern day airports), and then explain why. Thanks. If you need more information, pictures/data are available on the net or in this messageboard: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=649095&page=12
I am looking for Affordable Hongkong Package (Manila departure)? HK regular package 3 people May 23-25 Regular HKG package including hotel, tranfers, airfare. optional 1/2 day city tour and daily breakfast Hotel choices: Guandong, Imperial, BP International, Shamrock(standard) Flight:PAL or Cebu Pacific MNL Dep-8am HKG Dep 8pm Kindly give me the rate including all the taxes. I am looking for the cheapest rate available. My budget is from $250-350.
What's 390 times more deadly than terrorism? Car crashes kill 400 times more people than international terrorism does in developed countries The death toll from car crashes in developed countries is almost 400 times greater than the number of deaths caused by international terrorism, reports a study in the latest issue of Injury Prevention. In 2001 as many people died every 26 days on US roads as died in the terrorist bombings of 9/11, the study shows. The authors compared the number of deaths from international terrorism and car crashes in the 29 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) between 1994 and 2003. They used the US State Department Counterterrorism Office database for deaths caused by international terrorist activity, and the OECD International Road Transport Accident Database for 2000 and 2001 for those caused by car crashes. For the 29 OECD countries, 33 acts of international terrorism occurred during the study period, accounting for 3064 deaths, excluding those of the perpetrators. The attacks all occurred in 10 of the OECD countries, with the highest number of fatal attacks in Turkey. The annual death rate from car crashes was around 390 times higher than the death toll from international terrorism. Among the 10 countries where people had died as a result of international terrorism, the ratio of road deaths to terrorist deaths ranged from 142 times greater in the US to over 55,000 times greater in Poland. Deaths from car crashes were equivalent to the impact of a 9/11 attack every nine day, for all the countries put together. The authors cite other evidence, suggesting that the number of Americans who avoided flying after 9/11 and were subsequently killed in car crashes was higher than the total number of passengers who died on the four 9/11 flights. The authors are at pains not to minimise the emotional, economic, and political impacts of terrorism. But they point out there is a huge difference in the scale of death between terrorism and car crashes. And the evidence to inform policy is also much greater for car crashes. "Policy makers need to consider these issues when allocating resources towards preventable interventions that can save lives from these two avoidable causes of mortality," they conclude. Deaths from international terrorism compared with road crash deaths in OECD countries [Injury Prevention 2005; 11: 332-3]
What is the equation underlying the mainstream view of macroeconomics? 1. Rising wages for women in the United States have: a. increased the proportion of women working part time compared to working full time. b. increased labor costs and thus shifted the nation's production possibilities curve inward. c. increased average family size in the United States. d. increased the percentage of married women in the workforce. 2. Examples of industrially advanced nations (IACs) are: a. the United States, Canada, and Mexico. b. Pakistan, India, and China. c. Japan, South Korea, and China. d. Germany, Italy, and France. 3. Which of the following is typically not a problem for low-income DVCs? a. capital flight b. "brain drains" c. high saving rates d. poor infrastructure 4. At the present time the largest percentage of the national incomes of the low-income DVCs is used for: a. imports of the finished products of foreign industries. b. food. c. infrastructure. d. industrial development. 5. The World Bank: a. is also known as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). b. lends money to developing nations for basic infrastructure projects such as dams, irrigation, health and sanitation, communications, and transportation. c. is an affiliate of the World Trade Organization (WTO). d. provides subsidies to private firms so they can improve their wages and working conditions. 6. What is the equation underlying the mainstream view of macroeconomics? 7. The crowding-out effect refers to the possibility that: a. when used simultaneously, expansionary fiscal and monetary policies are counterproductive. b. the asset demand for money varies inversely with the interest rate. c. deficit financing will increase the interest rate and reduce investment. d. an increase in the supply of money will result in a decline in velocity.
Would you pay extra to fly on a Muslim-free airline? With the exception of the Tamil Tigers (who direct their attacks solely against the India and Sri Lanka), every suicide bombing in the past fifty years have been perpetrated by Muslims. Yet, in the wake of the attempted bombing of Flight 253 (BY A MUSLIM), the Huffington Post, ACLU, CIAR, and many other Liberal groups are protesting (and threatening to sue) the TSA because the TSA proposed additional screening for individuals who possess characteristics common among airline suicide bombers/attackers. Considering how our (alleged*) president constantly gives in to the demands of the Radical Left and “International Opinion” (whatever that is…), I’m sure that it won’t be long before Obama orders to TSA to stop “profiling” individuals who hail from known terrorist strongholds and return to hassling 80 year old grandmothers from Ohio while ignoring men like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab out of fear that they will be sued for “profiling” people whose fathers have fingered then to the CIA… In response to this absurdity, I’m wondering if there’s the opportunity for an airline to make an absurd amount of money by becoming and advertising itself as the “Muslim Free Airline: Jihad free is the way to be!!!” Of course, such an airline would need a catchy name and something along the lines of “Civilized Air” would probably work quite well. While such an airline would undoubtedly be sued by organizations like the ACLU and CAIR (which is nothing more than a political/litigious front group for Al Qaeda), and Liberal Justices would (of course) side with the ACLU and CAIR, I’m thinking that the airline could easily make up for any legal fees and lost judgments through lower insurance premiums (no risk of losing a plane to Jihadists) and by charging customers a slightly higher ticket price for the peace of mind the comes from knowing that the man sitting in the seat next to you isn’t suddenly going to scream “Allah Ackba!!!” and attempt to bring down the aircraft. Not only would such an airline likely be able to get lower insurance rates and charge a higher ticket price, but their planes would likely be filled to capacity (something most planes are not) with passengers who don’t want to risk their lives flying on the other “politically correct” airlines. Just out of curiosity, if an airline like “Civilized Regional United Southern Atlantic Direct Express (Crusade Airlines)” actually existed , would you pay extra to fly on an airline where you know the person sitting in the row ahead of you doesn’t have bombs strapped in his underwear and if so, how much more (50% more than the average ticket, twice the average ticket, etc.)? *After Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was apprehended attempting to detonate a bomb on NW Flight 253, B. Hussein Obama couldn’t even bring himself to call the would-be bomber a “terrorist” and insisted on referring to him as an “alleged attacker.” Thus, Obama will henceforth be known as the “alleged” president. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/whats-next--muslim-only-l_b_408305.html
What to do during a long layover at Dallas Fort Worth with luggage? I have an 8 hour layover in Dallas Fort Worth Airport next month. Because I will be flying in from an international location, and flying to another international location, I predict I'll have about 5 hours free. I've looked into renting a car, but for some reason on the day I'll be there, even the rates to rent an economy car, are at the very least $70 and on average $120. I've checked multiple sites already! This is regardless of whether I have it for one day or overnight. Also, because the airline I'm flying (British Airways) only has one flight from Dallas per day, I'll probably be lucky if the check in counter is open when I arrive in Dallas. Chances are I'll probably have to tote my suitcase around, unless I can find someplace to store it for a few hours. What would you recommend somebody toting their luggage with an 8 hour layover, and car rental prices being very high, do? Thanks all!
What's going on at AIG? ? American International Group (AIG), which sponsors Manchester United FC, was hit hard by deterioration in the credit markets last week and yesterday issued a statement that said it was reviewing its operations. Its stock dropped 45% since the start of the week amid concerns about the security of its assets, many of which are linked to the financial turmoil on Wall Street. Over the weekend it crafted a $40bn loan facility from the federal reserve, which had obviously taken the view that AIG posed more of a systemic risk than Lehman. Who's next? Washington Mutual is named by several analysts as the next to find itself in serious trouble. It was the subject of a rescue led by private equity firm Texas Pacific group in the spring. But the billions poured into its coffers no longer look sufficient to satisfy investors and they are taking flight. It is possible shareholders will flee Bank of America, if they consider Merrill Lynch a bad buy. Another victim could be the US mono line insurers, so called because they only insure the bonds of large company's, including mortgage lending institutions. Like AIG, the insurance cover they provide could be invoked by customers and, like a tsunami, overwhelm their finances. In the UK, mortgage banks such as Halifax owner HBOS, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, could suffer further if investors switch to safer havens. Will it make a recession worse? Yes. The CBI predicts a "shallow recession" next year, but this now appears optimistic. If the last five years of our decade-long economic boom were characterised by reckless lending, then living standards, along with property prices, have a long way to fall. We are all spending money we simply don't have and when we stop it will spell the end for many jobs in retail, hospitality and may other industries. A fall in the value of the pound will help exporters and that will offset the worst of the economy's problems. But without banks willing or able to lend money to millions of people, except at sky-high interest rates, a long and deep recession seems inevitable. What are your views???????????
how to buy a cheap air ticket or get corporate rate? my boss always travel to guang zhou,china more than twice times a month.normally booking for business class and departure in penang international air-port but my boss said he is don't mind to transit the flight if can save a lot of money. may i know how to get the corporate rate for air ticket? may i know the travel agent @ web site if you are expert on this.thks
BARBADOS! I need some questions answered!? Ok, so my family is traveling to Barbados in 3 weeks. But we need to know some things... By the way, we will be staying at the Hilton. Here are our questions: 1. What is the exchange rate? Can we use American money? Because I know in some Islands you can use American money as well as the islands money... 2. How long is the flight from San Juan to Barbados Grantley Adams International Airport? 3. How long is the Hilton from the Airport? 4. What places shall we visit? I know we are already visiting North Point... 5. Does the hilton offer water sports? Tubing? 6. How is the snorkeling? I am very scared of snorkeling. I live in Puerto Rico and have been snorkeling only once because it was so scary! We are scheduled to do a snorkeling trip not sure where.... Should I go? We called the place and said that I can decide when we get there and they won't charge us if I don't want to go. Thanks...
I have receive a job offer latter from a hospital of United kingdom as a PT,how i can know is it real of fake? Lanchester Road, Maiden Law, Lanchester, County Durham, DH7 0QS.UK Email: hr@maidenlawhpl.co.uk WEBSITE: www.maidenlawhpl.co.uk ATTN: AHAD BABU, Sequel to the recent screening processes which were conducted by the screening department of Maiden law Hospital, the Board of Directors of this Hospital is pleased to offer you an initial position as the: POSITION: PHYSICAL THERAPIST your job profile remain as the same as stated on your resume which you have submitted for screening). JOB LOCATION: Lanchester Road, Maiden Law, Lanchester, County Durham, DH7 0QS.UK APPROVAL DATE: 23rd SEPTEMBER 2009 STARTING DATE: 30th OCTOBER 2009. On this date, you are to report at 8:00 a.m. to the Human Resources Department at the Hospital premises, where you will be provided with packet containing information on Maiden law Hospital Benefits, facilities; you will as well attend an orientation program before job commencement. Should you accept this job offer, per company policy you'll be eligible to receive the following beginning on your hire date. •Salary: Monthly NET starting salary of GBP £8,385.00 (Eight Thousand Three Hundred and Eighty-Five Pounds) paid by your of payment either international certified Bank draft of telegraphic Transfer / Bank wire. (This salary is take home after TAX deduction) •Job Description: (your job profile remain as the same as stated on your resume which you have submitted for screening). •Contract Duration: 2 Years (Renewable) •Benefits: Maiden law Hospital provides benefits for all employees, which includes the following. Childcare and healthcare assistance Education assistance Health, life and disability insurance Sick leave Vacation and personal days (Maiden law Hospital have 30 working days annual leave (which is additional to public/religious holidays), which can be taken at any time during the year (subject to approval). During any of your vacation, Maiden law Hospital shall pay for your flight ticket, pay you GBP 4,805.00 as leave allowance and as well pay you 1,720.00 GBP flat rate travel / entertainment allowance. Accommodation (three-Bed-Room Apartment for married staffs and One-Bed-Room Apartment for single staff, this accommodation is free) Transportation (Free Transportation, from home to place of work every day) Free meal according to your choice dietary Payment of your initial four (4) months upfront salary before you join us Comprehensive healthcare JOINING US: 1. Visa: All International Applicant should note that Maiden law Hospital shall pay for the Visa Fees of every applicant coming from outside the UNITED KINGDOM, and if the applicant is coming with the members of his / her family, their Visa fee will also be paid by Maiden law Hospital. 2. Residence / Work Permit: On confirmation of your affidavit of guarantee and letter of attestation from the British Crown Court, Maiden law Hospital shall secure your residence and work permit papers from the HOME OFFICE here in UK and send it down to your country of residence for the endorsement of your international passport with your two (2) years Visa permit to enable you make your entrance down to UK. 3. Flight Ticket: Your flight ticket fee shall also be sent to you by the management of Maiden law Hospital to enable you purchase your flight ticket in time; fee for family flight ticket will also be issued to you if we are aware that you are relocating with the members of your family. 4. Accommodation: Maiden law Hospital provides accommodation to all foreign national at the Government Reserved Area at Lanchester; both singles and family accommodation are available. 5. Interview: There shall be no other form of interview as this is an online recruitment process and your basis of selection were strongly based on your professional experience and some core values found in your resume by the screening department, there will only be a an orientation and training section for you to educate you more on your environment and the challenges facing you. 6. Reimbursement: Every applicant shall be provided with Reimbursement Application Form before assumption of duty which is to be completed with all expenses which he / she has incurred during the course of preparing to join us, while submitting the form back you are to attach receipt of every expense made as valid proof that such expenses were actually made by you. PLEASE READ Employment Terms I understand that I may voluntarily terminate my employment. I further understand that I will not be terminated involuntarily at will, rather it will be with cause or prior notice, at any time, regarding of documents or oral or written statements issued Maiden law Hospital or its representatives. With this understanding, I accept the position with the terms as stated above. Visa Information Due to the high rise of contract break up
URGENT! NEED HELP proof read my scholarship essay~~PLEASE HELP ME!? NEED HELP BAD!! I am an aviation student and I am trying to write an essay for NetJets Scholarship I need to write 500 word essay on my Goals and Career Interests in Aviation and A Brief Statement of my Financial Need(s) and Situation I NEED PEOPLE PROOF READ THIS, PLEASE PLEASE change all my grammar mistakes or maybe change some of my wording, because I am an international student Here it is My name is Chung-Chiang Kao, I am a senior at Ohio State University. I am major in Aviation Management and Operations Management though the Fisher College of Business. And at same time, I am currently taking flight training at Ohio State University Flight School with about 70 hours of total flight time. I have chosen this academic degree to achieve my short-term goal to become an airport manager. At same time I will keep taking flight training and hopefully become a commercial airlines pilot as my ultimate career goal. First to show that I am passionate about aviation; I am an active member of Alpha Eta Rho (co-ed aviation fraternity), we always seek the opportunity to educate more people about the aviation industry. I took the board member position for the Aviation Spring Conference, trying to attract more people to interest in aviation. I also helped to found the OSU chapter of American Association of Airport Executives. I volunteer to conduct airport tours for younger kids at Ohio State University Airport, hopefully to inspire them to want to learn more about aviation. Since when I was young, whenever there is an airplane in the sky, I will always look up and wish that I can do it some days. As an immigrant from Taiwan, I did not have any opportunity to learn anything about aviation. Pilot is almost impossible to become because of lack of aviation school and flight school. Until I moved to the United States, I discovered that anything is possible if you pursuit your dream. I am currently living my dream right now from flying airplanes. If my financial allow, I would like to get my instrument rating, CPL and CFI. I have been taking more than 6 classes (20 credit hours) for the past 3 quarters, so I don’t have much time to work. But since I am an extremely hard working student, my GPA for the past 3 quarters is average around 3.5. My goal is to make the aviation environment better and safer. Aviation is a unique industry; airports and airlines are struggling to make profit or even not lose any money. Also I want to let more people know about how great aviation industry is and draw more people to help to make the industry better. I hope after finishing reading this essay, you’ll have a picture of who I am. Thank you for your time and your consideration. My father was providing my tuition because my mother doesn’t earn enough money. Due to family problems, my father no long will pay for my tuition. As the result, my mother will need to provide tuition for me and both of my sisters. And I need to start working to pay for my own living cost and flight training. Flight training is extremely expensive for a college student. Also, I have been taking more than 6 classes (20 credit hours) for the past 3 quarters, so I don’t have much time to work. Another reason that I am taking so many classes is because hopefully I can graduate earlier by cramming all the class together. By graduating earlier, I can save some tuition money. It will be extremely helpful if I have the money I need to take flight training so I can worry more about school instead of worry about money issue.
Response to the US Vs UK military questions? Just read this article. It came out of the most anti-American newspaper in the world. The Guardian... That being said, even these idiots can not deny the scope of American power. Oh yeah...There is no way Britain could even begin to dream about winning a (hypothetical) war against America. Read up on the US Military - no one even comes close. This isn't opinion...its fact. -------- American power -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Armed to the teeth Is Bush's awesome increase in military spending a reasonable response to the afermath of September 11, or is he creating a force almost too powerful for its own good? Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy report Is America too powerful for its own good? You can have your say online here. Observer Worldview Sunday February 10, 2002 The Observer There is a United States special forces dog-handler who meets journalists, diplomats and aid workers off the UN flight to Kabul. His job is to search luggage and ensure the security of US troops in Afghanistan. He is short, gingery and aggressive. His skills at persuasion are limited to shouting at the milling crowd: 'Stand back! Stand back! My dog will bite!' Last week that phrase had become the defining motto and operating credo for the military and foreign policy of the Bush administration. Already President George W. Bush has put Iran, Iraq and North Korea on notice as terrorist-sponsoring nations at the centre of an international 'axis of evil', despite the CIA's recent evidence that none of them was in the business of threatening the United States at present. Article continues -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last Monday, to back that explicit threat, he announced an increase in US military spending of 15 per cent, the biggest in 20 years, more than double the military spending in all of the European Union. The rise will be $36 billion (£26.5bn) this year, $48 billion next year and $120 billion over the next five years, rising to a staggering two trillion over the next five years. Even this is not enough for General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. They want the US defence budget to increase at an even faster rate. What all this means is clear. Troubled by the 11 September attacks and buoyed by the ease of the war against Afghanistan, Bush's message to the 'evil doers' of the world is that he has a dog; that it is very big, getting bigger, and certainly it will bite. The puzzle about the latest rise in defence spending is that America at the beginning of the 21st century is already not so much a superpower as a behemoth on the world stage. Economically dominant, it enjoys military and cultural power unrivalled since the days of the Roman emperors, as the American author Robert D. Kaplan reminds us in his new book, Warrior Politics. Typically, it has been left to the French, traditionally suspicious of US global hegemony, to find the best words to describe it. Gigantisme militaire they call it, in a phrase that describes both the scale of America's ambitions and also a pathological condition: an organism grown so large it is sick. The question the rest of the world is asking itself is: Who is the enemy America is arming itself so against? And why? 'Ostensibly,' says one European diplomat, 'this is about security. But quite how a massive increase in defence spending is supposed to prevent another terrorist attack remains unclear. Instead this seems to be about repairing the bruised American psyche after 11 September. America's powerlessness in the face of this attack requires big gestures and reassurances, even if they are counter-productive and meaningless.' Indeed, some analysts say, if it is security that America seeks it is better sought in dialogue with potentially threatening states, rather than in reinforcing the idea already held by many anti-US groups that it is an evil empire bent on world domination. Cynics have identified more overtly self-serving strands in the Republican obsession with America's defence. The 'war' rhetoric, as some US liberal commentators have pointed out, serves a purely domestic Republican agenda in the post-11 September mood of national paranoia: to win Bush a second presidential term and, in the shorter term, regain Congress. The reality - even before the latest proposed increases in military spending - is that America could beat the rest of the world at war with one hand tied behind its back. The requirement that US armed forces be able to fight two fully fledged wars with two separate adversaries simultaneously may recently have been dropped, but only because it would be hard pushed to find two such equal foes to fight. A single US nuclear-powered carrier group - which forms around the USS Enterprise, for example, with a flight deck almost a mile in length and a superstructure 20 storeys high - concentrates more military power in one naval group than most states can manage with all their armed forces. America has seven of these battle groups. It is not just the scale and power of these weapons systems. The reach of US arms, too, is awesome. When the USS Kitty Hawk was sent with its accompanying warships from Yokohama to the Gulf for the war against Afghanistan, it covered 6,000 miles in just 12 days to be transformed into a vast floating forward attack station for thousands of US special forces. Its B-52 bombers can fly and refuel across the world armed with cruise missiles that can be fired hundreds of miles away from hostile skies, the missiles themselves directed to their targets by satellites in orbit. And America's supremacy in bombs, planes, satellites, tanks and real-time intelligence have made the prospect of US casualties remote, except in the event of cock-up or disaster. And, significantly, as the world's only economic hyper-power, it can afford this level of militarisation. But against all this even the manufacturers of America's arms - like the aviation giant Lockheed-Martin - have been struggling for a decade or so to define the threat its top-shelf jets will be battling in the skies, being forced in one memorable presentation to show the European Eurofighter as a potential adversary. So why the need for more and better military power? Even military analysts are baffled. 'The rise in US military spending,' says Dan Plesch, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, 'ought to be compared to the decision in the First World War to order up more cavalry when the first wave had been mown down by machine-guns. 'The US has no competitor in high-tech military equipment. And what it is spending its money on is mostly irrelevant against the knives used to carry out 11 September. The bombing of Afghanistan has created the illusion of victory.' Professor Paul Kennedy at Yale University calculates that the US now spends more each year than the next nine largest national defence budgets combined. Indeed America is responsible for about 40 per cent of the world's military spending. The new defence expenditure will be paid for by a freshly dug deficit and cuts to every other federal spending programme - including social security, Medicare and urban renewal - apart from tax breaks loaded heavily in favour of the upper-income brackets. Amid all this, military might has emerged as the central tenet of America's new power, the defining feature of the Bush administration. Already it is causing alarm, even among America's closest allies in Nato, where Lord Robertson, the usually unflappable secretary-general, has been moved to warn some members that unless the declining European defence expenditure is reversed then Europe - and the Europeans in Nato - are in danger of becoming military pygmies. It is not a prospect likely to worry the military hawks in the Bush administration, who favour unilateralism over alliance. Indeed the Nato alliance, built to counter the rival superpower conflict of the Cold War, is already almost redundant, some diplomats claim. 'Will the Americans ever fight a war through Nato again?' asks Carl Bildt, former Swedish Prime Minister. 'It's doubtful. The United States reserves the right to itself to wage war, and dumps on others the messy, expensive business of nation-building and peace keeping'. And the Afghan war has not only put the US in sole command of the world, but fundamentally reshaped the architecture of international alliances. Central Asia is splattered with new American fortresses; the Pacific and Indian oceans are patrolled by aircraft carriers and accompanying fleets of awesome size.
When Barack Obama Was Born in 1961 Can you Relate? 1961 The cold war continued to worsen with the USSR exploding some very large bombs during testing and then masterminding the building of the Berlin Wall separating East from West Berlin, America sent a battle group to Germany and Americans and Russians Glared at each other across the border, due to this uncertainty many Americans built backyard fallout shelters incase of nuclear war. To make matters worse the Americans financed anti-Castro Cubans for an invasion at the bay of pigs which was an unmitigated disaster. The Soviets put the first man in space in April Yuri Gagarin followed by the US in May with Alan Shepard. popular music included Chubby Checkers "The Twist" and top movies included "West Side Story" and "The Parent Trap" . Cost Of Living 1961 How Much things cost in 1961 Yearly Inflation Rate USA 1.07% Yearly Inflation Rate UK 2.9% Average Cost of new house $12,500.00 Average Income per year $5,315.00 Cost of a gallon of Gas 27 cents Average Cost of a new car $2,850.00 Bacon for 1LB 67 cents Eggs per dozen 30 cents Below are some Prices for UK guides in Pounds Stirling Average House Price 2,770 What Events Happened In 1961 Fidel Castro declares Cuba is to adopt Communism and bans free elections US Cuban Exiles and CIA mount unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Castro known as the ( Bay of Pigs ) John F. Kennedy inaugurated as President of the United States President John F. Kennedy advises American families to build bomb shelters The Peace Corps is established by John F. Kennedy President Kennedy asks Congress for $531 million to put a man on the moon Race Riots in Cities throughout the United States The Xingu National Park is created in Brazil Britain applies for membership of the EEC Segregation on railways in the south ends Texas Sales Tax Introduced Construction of the Berlin Wall begins. East German Authorities close the border between east and west Berlin UN General Assembly condemns Apartheid Estimate of the Worlds Population reaches 4 billion Farthings no longer legal tender in Britain South Africa becomes an independent republic. Last Journey of The Orient Express Paris - Bucharest The first six flags theme parks opens "Six Flags Over Texas" at Arlington, Texas Amnesty International Started in United Kingdom The Antarctic Treaty System comes into force to regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica to ensure in the interests of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes Pampers the first disposable diaper are introduced Members of the Portuguese leftist movement hijack The luxury cruise liner "Santa Maria". Members of The UK Portland Spy Ring are found guilty of selling plans of the HMS Dreadnought, Britain's first nuclear submarine to the Russians During the Monza Italian Grand Prix Race Baron Wolfgang von Trips Ferrari crashes off the track onto embankment filled with spectators killing 14 plus the driver. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) started "Freedom Riders" test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia on May 20th , over local segregation ordinances Popular Culture The farthing coin, used since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender in the United Kingdom. British satirical magazine Private Eyeis published for first time The Jerk , the Frug , the Pony become popular dances Black and white 5 pound notes cease to be a legal tender in the UK Popular Films The Guns of Navarone The Parent Trap The Absent-Minded Professor The Alamo Swiss Family Robinson 101 Dalmatians Breakfast at Tiffany's El Cid West Side Story Popular TV Mister Ed The Avengers Technology 1961 Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space. The First inflight movie is shown on TWA The First electric toothbrush is produced Squibb Co. Alan Shepard makes first US Space Flight Niagra Falls starts producing hydroelectric power The first quasar is discovered by Allan Sandage at Mt Palomar, California IBM introduces the Selectric typewriterGolfball Inventions Invented by Inventors and Country ( or attributed to First Use ) Human Space Travel Russia Yuri Gagarin - the first human in space
I received an offer of employment from Western Geco Ltd. How can I know if this is a scam or not? Tel: +447045713892 Fax: +448704795285 Ingoted: +448063439406 Date: 05/06/07 Ref: WG-HR/OE/CSE-908/2007 Attention: MANISH VISHWAKARMA, RE: NOTIFICATION OF EMPLOYMENT/ JOB ENGAGEMENT: 1.1 After verification and confirmation of details contained in your submitted Resume/CV, it is with great pleasure that we extend to you the offer to join the Western Geco Ltd in UK as (SENIOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEER) a total monthly wage of GBP 8,200.00 (Eight Thousand Two Hundred British Pounds Sterling) Only. You have been requested to join the Western Geco Ltd in the UK on JULY 23RD 2007. Western Geco Ltd shall arrange and pay for your flight ticket to join us in the UK for commencement of job in due time upon your compliance with the Western Geco Ltd/ British Expatriate Services paper works requirements. JOB STATUS: You shall be expected to enter into an initial job engagement contract with the Western Geco Ltd for a maximum duration of 365 days and can be converted/renewed to full-time service or otherwise upon your successful/satisfactory performance and preference. Where the Government of the EU/UK either by legislation or administrative pronouncement, provides for new and/or additional benefits, including increase in salaries or directs that such benefits should apply to private sector, the Western Geco Ltd and you shall meet to discuss the new measures. You shall be entitled to travel and relocation expenses plus travel/ contingencies allowances of GBP3, 200.00 that is excluded of relocation expenses and flight ticket prior to your job commencement as part of our service commitment/incentive to encourage our employees who have met our official statuary requirements. 1.2 YOU HAVE BEEN OFFERED THE POSITION SENIOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEER: As one of our Senior Electrical Engineers, you’ll provide specialist engineering technical support and advice in specifying appropriate maintenance, inspection and reliability activities. We’ll also require you to evaluate new systems and procedures and provide advice regarding application and support for their introduction. You’ll identify, share and apply best practices, both from within Shell Group and from external sources, and provide electrical engineering support for projects and plant changes, either managed locally or by the project department. You can expect to assist the ENG Team Leader Electrical Engineering and ENG Distribution Engineer in long term planning of the electrical infrastructure and management of the generation and distribution system, including protection coordination, system modelling and system studies. In addition to these tasks, you’ll also have the following tasks: Acting as contract holder of a number of site term contracts Estimating or providing input to estimating for plant changes and projects Providing input to the site standards and procedures, electrical safety rules, guidance notes, electrical permit to work system, etc. Designing support for projects across the whole of the site Providing discipline input to multi-discipline teams looking at specific site issues or problems. 1.3 Other employment benefits/entitlements include and not limited to: . Fully furnished accommodation (Family/Single housing) . Medical, Dental and Optical care for employee/family . Scholarship / Educational assistance . Mobility. . Relocation Expenses . Life/Health Insurance Policy implementations . Overtime Allowance benefits 1.7PARTY A shall pay to EMPLOYEE on satisfactory performance of the services stated in 1.1, the sum of ₤9,200 (Nine thousand two hundred pounds sterling) monthly basic salary, or equivalent depending on EMPLOYEE’S home country and currency preference. (a)PARTY A shall pay EMPLOYEE for the services rendered under this agreement by cheque presented on a monthly basis upon due presentation and receipt of undisputed Quality single or family housing shall be provided by SPDC or in the alternative the sum of ₤2,000.00 per month shall be paid to you as Housing Allowance. (b)The sum of ₤3,100.00 shall be paid to you for personal effects shipment and excess baggage allowance. (c)SPDC shall provide you access to some of the finest social and recreational facilities in the United Kingdom. (d) SPDC will provide the employee with comprehensive health care for the terms of contract and follow-on care for injuries suffered during the term of contract for employer and family. (e)The sum of ₤2330.00 per month shall be paid to you as Educational Assistance Benefit with family status contracts. (f)Complete meals for you as deemed appropriate. (g) ₤3.200.00 flat rate travel / entertainment allowance shall be paid by your employer for each international trip. Travel shall be by business / first class. However for the purpose of commencement, the cost of travel ticket shall be paid in addition to travel / entertainment allowance. Cost shall be substantiated and shall be the rate charged at the period / time of employees. Travel ticket including that of employees’ family only on employees’ early notification to employer and as shall be requested by employee. (h) Employee shall also be entitled to maximum security including members of the state security service in housing community. (I) the employee will be reimbursed by the employer for reasonable moving expense incurred only as a result of relocation or early termination of leases, storage charges: procurement of travel documents, immunization etc. Reimbursements shall be paid not more than five (5) working days from submission of report / and receipt as proof of payments. 1.4 CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT. 1.8 Serve as other wise specifically stated in a superseding document, the project administrator of PARTY A, shall maintain general administration and management of this contract on behalf of PARTY A and all correspondences relating or pertaining with this agreement should be made, forwarded, addressed to same. 1.9PARTY B / EMPLOYEE agree to indemnify PARTY A in respect of any third party claims arising from PARTY B’s performance of this contract. 2.0 This agreement shall not be assigned or transferred in part of whole by due to termination of same any party to this agreement without prior written consent of the other party, which consent shall not unreasonably be withheld. Notwithstanding any of the aforementioned obligations, terms and conditions neither party shall be deemed, considered in default of any of its obligations under this agreement as a result of “Force Majeure”, but if an interruption of performing the obligations under this agreement as a result of “Force Majeure’ condition for a period more than one month; PARTY A shall pay EMPLOYEE only 70% of the amount stated in paragraph 1.7 of this agreement as standby or agreement termination fee. PARTY A shall; in the event of default or non-compliance of PARTY B/EMPLOYEE with the terms and conditions of this agreement; in writing give notice to PARTY B / EMPLOYEE specifying the areas of default and PARTY B / EMPLOYEE shall upon receipt of the said notice have ten (10) calendar days to rectify to the satisfaction of PARTY A the said default. 1.5 WORK HOURS. The working hours shall be 40 hours working per week: Monday to Friday inclusive. Saturdays, Sundays and Gazettes public holidays shall be rest days. However, some employees’ who work on shift may have different work hours and rest days other than Saturdays and Sundays. 1.6 WEEKEND/ HOLIDAY DUTY ALLOWANCE: Where an employee is required to be on duty on Saturdays, Sundays and Gazette public holidays, he will be paid as follows: Total Performance: 9.0%- for work done for 6hours and above Partial Performance: 4.5%- for work done for 3 hours but not up to 6 hours Transport Allowance: GBP 30.00 per day worked Meal Allowance: GBP 40.00 per day worked 1.7 SHIFT ALLOWANCE: Western Geco Ltd shall pay shift allowance of GBP 45.00 only per shift to employees who work on shift either in the offices or fields. Presence Weekend (PW), this rule will apply to periods arising from delays in evacuating the field, location site or office according to the arrangements subsisting between the Western Geco Ltd and the Department in question. 1.8 VACATION: You shall be authorized Three (3) times paid vacation (Not exceeding 21 Working Days) each year, to be used at your discretion after duly informing and receiving approval from employer’s management. Employer will pay for travel expenses (i.e. flight tickets) and flat rate travel allowance of GBP2, 800.00. COMPASSIONATE LEAVE: In the event of death or serious illness of employees’ father, mother, wife husband or child, necessitating presence of staff, Western Geco Ltd shall grant compassionate leave with pay up to a maximum of 12 working days per year. INTERNATIONALIZATION OF EMPLOYEE: You shall be given the opportunity for international assignments within the group for the acquisition of experience and exposure to enhance your competence and not limited to job engagements as shall be required by the Western Geco Ltd as such you shall also be entitled to benefits on such issues. DISCIPLINE: You are expected to recognize the right of the Western 1.TERMINATION: In addition, the company reserves the right to terminate the employment of any staff who flagrantly or repeatedly fails to comply with the company’s code of conduct or commits an offence of a magnitude that the company considers him unsuitable to be in its employment. 2.SUMMARY DISMISSAL: In rare cases, an employee may be dismissed for the commission of a grave offence, in which case no notice is given. Such offences shall include inter-alias. a)Theft and fraud in connection with company’s business or property. Any staff found guilty or implicated in any of these offences may be liable to prosecution. b)Disclosure of confidential information of the company or its associate to a third party. c)Conviction and/or imprisonment for criminal offence. The Employee’s High Commission, Embassy/Consulate shall be given benefit of consultation in any case involving the dismissal of its citizens as such, Employee will also be given the chance of fair hearing and proper investigation prior to decisions conclusion. With compliance with the mobilization, advancement & reimbursement policies (MA&DP) of the Western Geco Ltd, you shall be required to incurred all initial expenses as a result of your documentation & paper work processes/procurement and would be reimbursed in not more than five (5) working days upon your submission of invoice receipt or proof of incurred expenses. This is for confirmation of readiness & seriousness of employee to join the Western Geco Ltd. team within the stipulated time frame and also based on previous occurrences experienced by our corporate management from expatriate services employees. NOTE: You would be required to personally bear the initial expenses as regards the processing, procurement and acquisition of your legal immigrant paper works as a sign of your readiness and seriousness to join our team here in the UK in due time and you shall be reimbursed incurred expenses by the Western Geco Ltd management prior to your resumption in not more than Five (5) working days from date of your acquisition of the legal permit documentation , if you do not find this term agreeable, then do not hesitate to furnish us with a letter of declination of your job engagement offer as soon as possible to enable us timely replacement on your position. Welcome to our family. Sincerely, Prof. Richard Don Lawrence Human Resources Manager, Western Geco Limited. Gatwick Airport RH6 0NZ, West Sussex, United Kingdom. MANAGING DIRECTOR MR. MICHAEL FISH AND ………………………………………… EMPLOYEE SIGNATURE & DATE
Why did it take us so long to realize the threat of Terrorism? 1993 WTC 2001 Within a decade, the World Trade Center has been attacked twice. However, where the terrorists failed in 1993, they would succeed in 2001. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the events on those two tragic days, discuss the individuals involved, and to comprehend why the 1993 attacks were not the wake up call to prepare for the 2001 attacks. Perhaps even more disturbing than the 1993 attacks, not waking up the American public to terrorism, is why the other attacks on the U.S, between 1993 and 2001, were not wake up calls themselves. This article will attempt to explore these issues in depth. On February 26, 1993, terrorists declared war on the United States, alas, we would not realize it for another eight years. On that terrible day Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the attack, had one of his accomplices, Mohammed Salameh, drive a truck filled with 1500 pounds of explosives into the parking garage of the World Trade Center. “The bomb was made of urea pellets, nitroglycerin, sulfuric acid, aluminum azide, magnesium azide, and bottled hydrogen,”(Wikipedia). The total cost of the bomb was estimated at only $300. The plan was to rupture the foundation of Tower 1 so that it would fall over and collapse into Tower 2, effectively destroying both Towers. Luckily, the plan failed and the Towers remained intact. Unfortunately, six people were killed and over 1000 were wounded. The evidence left behind at the World Trade Center led investigators to Mohammed Salameh, a Palestinian, who rented the truck in his own name. His arrest led investigators to the arrests of his accomplices shortly after the bombing. The perpetrators were a mix of Arabs from different countries but according to government reports, they were all under the control of Omar Abd al-Raham, a radical Egyptian cleric. The arrest of Salameh eventually led investigators to Yousef’s apartment where they would find materials to make bombs and documents with names of people within his faction. It was during this investigation that authorities would first hear the name, Osama Bin Laden. After all the arrests were complete and the sentences handed down, all of the conspirators, including Omar Abdel-Raham, were sentenced to life in prison. However, before the arrests were made, there was much speculation into who was responsible for the attacks. “One FBI investigator recalls that he initially suspected Serbian involvement, and later the prevailing opinion was that Libyans were behind the attack. Others thought that perhaps the Iraqis were seeking revenge for Operation Desert Storm. This theory gained support when it was discovered that Ramzi Yousef traveled to the United States with a valid Iraqi passport,”(White, Jonathan). Eventually intelligence came in that disproved these theories and the true perpetrators were apprehended. The confusion that befuddled the team of investigators and our government was caused by the simple fact that these were a new breed of terrorists. They did not operate under a flag or have a specific nation for which they fought. Their unity came from a shared hatred of the United States of America. Perhaps one of the most puzzling questions of this tragedy is why were these attacks not the wake up call for America to prevent the September 11, 2001, attacks? With the exception of poor intelligence by our government, three possible reasons come to mind. The first is that there was minimal damage done to the building, unlike the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995. From the outside, not much damage to the World Trade Center could be seen. Another reason, there was relatively limited loss of life. Do not get me wrong, six dead is six too many, but in comparison to other tragedies, the death toll was relatively low. The final reason many people did not see the 1993 attacks as a wake up call is because the nation was too preoccupied with another newspaper headline. Incase you do not remember, the O.J Simpson trial was going on around the same time. With many Americans enamored with O.J, they simply did not notice the serious implications of the attack. This would prove to be one of the greatest blunders in American history. OTHER ATTACKS ON THE U.S Terrorism is nothing new in much of the rest of the world, but for Americans it is a relatively new concept. Just three years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States was hit again. Only this time it would not be on our own shores. The attack that I am referring to is the Khobar Towers bombing. The Khobar Towers were being used to hold military personnel of the United States Air Force in Saudi Arabia. It is believed that the attack came from a terrorist group that was hell bent on removing the United States from the region. The attack claimed the lives of 19 Americans and left close to 400 people wounded. The investigation led to the arrest of 13 Saudis and 1 Lebanese man, yet America had still not woken up. Why? The most obvious reason for our ambivalence to the situation was the sole fact that it happened in another country far from our homeland. It is like the old adage, “out of sight, out of mind.” And the sad truth is, it really was out of mind for most of the Aamerican public. Then, just two years later the U.S was struck by terrorists again. As with the Khobar Towers bombing, the attacks took place in a distant land. This time it was Africa and entailed simultaneous attacks on three U.S embassies. The operation, led by Al Qaeda operatives, claimed the lives of 220 people and left nearly 4,000 injured. These attacks focused international attention on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It was also at this point that Osama Bin Laden began to foster his Allah-like status among Islamic radicals. To put it quite simply, Bin Laden became a hero. The United State’s response was swift and led to Cruise Missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan. Policies were also drafted by the Clinton Administration to make it illegal to do business with Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda warriors. This was an attempt to put a strangle hold on their financial support. It was around this point that Americans began to open their eyes to this grave new danger but we were still not ready to understand fully, the seriousness of the situation that confronted us. The final attack on the United States, before 9/11, was the attack on the USS Cole, in 2000. The destroyer was docked at a Yemeni port in Aden when a boat filled with explosives trolled up beside it and detonated a bomb, tearing a gaping hole in the side of the ship. The attack claimed the lives of 17 Americans and injured 39 others. The attack was planned by Osama Bin Laden and was carried out by Al Qaeda suicide bombers, Ibrahim al-Thawr and Abdullah al-Misawa. This would be the first terrorist attack on a U.S. Navy vessel in the history of the United States. However, the ship did not sink and was carried back to the United States for repairs. The attack on the USS Cole was, to say the least, very different from the previous attacks on the United States. The attack was considered an act of terrorism but under law, an attack on a military target could not be deemed a terrorist attack. According to the Annual Country Report on Terrorism, “the term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetuated against noncombatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents.” Now, it is true that a group of sub national agents committed the attacks but their target was a combatant target and therefore it could not be viewed as a terrorist attack. It is because of this slight technicality that the American public still had not been awakened to the terrorist threat and also, because the attack happened in a distant place like the first two and received minimal news coverage, considering the severity of the event. However, it would not be long before America would wake up to a nightmare that finally brought the fear of terrorism into our reality. A DAY OF INFAMY On September 11, 2001, terrorists viciously attacked the United States of America. Nineteen Al-Qaeda operatives, under the command of Osama Bin Laden, hijacked four commercial airliners with the intent of ramming them into buildings that were symbolic of American primacy. The World Trade Center, symbolic of America’s economic wealth, and the Pentagon, symbolic of American military power, made prime targets. According to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the fourth plane was intended to hit the Capitol Building or the White House, both symbolic institutions of American control. Fortunately, the plane never reached its target but, regrettably, all on board the plane were killed. The attacks on America claimed the lives of 2,986 people and left thousands injured. Armed with nothing more than box cutters, the hijackers took control of American Airlines Fight 11. The plane departed from Logan International Airport at around 8:00am on a transcontinental flight for Los Angeles. Within approximately 15 minutes, the terrorists took the plane. According to voice transcripts from the plane, the hijackers killed three of the passengers at the begging of the assault, claimed to have a bomb, and sprayed pepper-spray into the first-class cabin. Presumably, this was done to prevent the passengers from fighting back and possibly retaking the plane. At approximately 8:45am; the plane, carrying 92 passengers and crew, slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing everyone on board and hundreds more in the tower instantly. United Airlines Flight 175 also departed from Logan International. It was supposed to take off at the same time as Flight 11 but due to delays at the airport was held up. According to voice transcripts from the plane, the hijackers had box cutters and sprayed pepper spray into the front cabin as they did on AAF 11. “At approximately 9:03, Flight 175 flew into the south side of the southern tower of the World Trade Center, between floors 78 and 84. The plane was carrying 56 passengers (including the 5 hijackers) and 9 crew members”(Wikipedia). All people on board were killed including hundreds more in the building. The two planes that hit the World Trade Center were bound for Los Angeles. Since they were making a transcontinental flight, they had both been filled to the brim with jet fuel. When the planes hit the buildings they both knocked off the fire proofing that covered the steel structures and disabled the fire sprinklers, rendering the building helpless to extinguish the fire. Experts believe that the heat created from the burning jet fuel was hot enough to weaken the support trusses of the building. After some time the floors began to sag and eventually came crashing down. The falling floors created a domino effect that brought the buildings to the ground. The South Tower was the first to go, followed by its twin. However, the buildings were able to stand for some time after the impact and did not fall for almost an hour. The collapse of the building left most of lower Manhattan covered in smoke for days. In all, seven buildings in Manhattan had been destroyed and another 25 seriously damaged. American Airlines flight 77 departed from Dulles International Airport in Fairfax County Virginia at approximately 8:20a.m. It is believed that the flight was taken over at about 8:55a.m. because the transponder was turned off and the plane began to turn around at that point. Voice transcripts from the plane described four men with box cutters or knives forcing all the passengers and the pilots to the back of the plane. “Flight 77 crashed into the western side of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just south of Washington, D.C. at 9:37 AM EDT, killing all of its 58 passengers (including the hijackers) and 6 crew members” (Wikipedia). The Pentagon sustained some serious damage but because of its design, most of the building survived the attack. Flight 77 marked the third attack of the day but would not be the last. United Flight 93 departed from Newark International Airport at approximately 8:45a.m. Had there been no delays, the plane would have taken off at 8:00a.m like the other planes were scheduled to do. Unlike the other three planes, Flight 93 never reached its target and instead crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The plane was carrying 37 passengers and 7 crew members. All on board were killed instantly. It is widely accepted that the intended target was either the White House or the Capital Building in Washington, DC. According to voice transcripts and phone calls taken from the plane, the passengers knew of their impending doom and made an effort to retake control of the plane. In all, 10 phone calls were made and from the statements that were recorded, we have been able to construct the possible scenario that unfolded on the plane. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, some, if not all the passengers on board were aware that terrorist had been flying planes into buildings up and down the east coast. Calls taken from the plane suggest that the passengers tried to take back control of the plane and in doing so scared the terrorists into crashing the plane. That crash would mark the final attack of the day. After nearly eight years and half a dozen attacks on the United States, we finally got the message. The attacks made the country fully aware that we were no longer living in a safe world and that not even the United States was safe from terrorism. The attacks brought about a huge international response. Governments from all over the world condemned the attacks and vowed support for the United States. A French newspaper, Le Monde, ran the headline, “We are all Americans,” in support of our tragedy, and many other countries came to our aid. Coincidentally, George Bush’s approval rating at the time was around 86%. Most Arab countries around the world also condemned the attacks while a small majority viewed the attacks as America’s comeuppance. The final question that needs to be answered is why we were attacked and what was the specific motivation. There is much speculation as to why the attacks descended upon our cities. The Bush Administration claimed that the attacks by Al Qaeda were spurred by their intense hatred of freedom and democracy, while other government sources said that the attacks were an attempt to unify the Muslim world and pave the way for a world under Islamic control. However, there are less radical explanations of the motivations behind the attacks. “The motivation for this campaign was set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, and Fazlur Rahman”(Wikipedia). According to the fatwa, the attacks were carried out because of U.S. support of Israel, U.S. occupation of Arab lands, and previous U.S. aggression towards the Iraqi people. The fatwa goes on to state that the United States “plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula, dictates policy to the rulers of those countries, supports abusive regimes and monarchies in the Middle East, thereby oppressing their people, has military bases and installations upon the Arabian Peninsula, which violates the Muslim holy land, in order to threaten neighboring Muslim countries, intends thereby to create disunion between Muslim states, thus weakening them as a political force, and supports Israel, and wishes to divert international attention from (and tacitly maintain) the occupation of Palestine” (Wikipedia). According to Osama Bin Laden and his followers, attacks upon the United States will continue until these grievances have been rectified. AMERICA RESPONDS Following the September 11 attacks on the United States, steps were taken to ensure our safety. Increased boarder control and airline security were the first steps taken to decrease the likelihood of another attack. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, beefing up agencies already in place, and the Patriot Act were among other measures taken by the Bush Administration. The attacks also brought about what is being called the “War on Terrorism.” This war has included an increase in satellite surveillance, increased information sharing between countries, sanctions on known terrorist states, and the 2001 Invasion of Afghanistan followed by the 2003 invasion of Iraq. All of which have created much controversy throughout the entire world including the United States. Some attest that the U.S. decision to invade Iraq has effectively squandered the international good will toward our country and has in essence made us more vulnerable to future terrorist attacks. At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who say we are safer because the invasions have the terrorists on the run, making it difficult for them to plan and carry out attacks. Only time will tell who is right and who is wrong but one thing remains certain: Americas days of ignoring terrorism are over and we can no longer stand idle while the looming threat of terrorism is upon us. For the record, I wrote this paper on my own. It was an essay I wrote for Terrorism 442 in college...
Why my question/opinion about the Myth of political leadership was remove? only from this cateory ¡¡? In this dreadful election season, many politicians have promised to "lead us into the future." I can hardly think of a worse fate for any society than to be led into the future by the political class of gangsters, marauders, looters, and liars. Even the most honest and well-intended among them are powerless to improve the world in any way except by diminishing rather than increasing their power. Politicians haven't the capacity to lead whole societies anywhere. They are outclassed and outrun by trends in the world economy that are beyond the ability of the political class to control or direct. The market economy—globalized, enormously powerful, breathtaking in scope and breadth—is remaking the world in ways that far surpass any existing political development in the US, from the crafted blather of Congressional hearings on this or that to the mad rush to grab the presidential brass rings. We are living through changes that may appear slow if observed from the point of view of the daily headlines, but which are momentously fast and completely transforming when looked at globally and from the point of view of years and decades into the future. These developments are going to bring about surprising political shifts, profound upsets in rooted cultural assumptions, and an eventual and merciful end to the US imperium. These changes will touch everyone in ways that will be both stunning and glorious for average Americans, and deeply disturbing for the American regime that aspires to unchallenged global hegemony. What is the underlying cause? The unleashing of human energies in nations that have been isolated, regimented, and closed for centuries. China, Malaysia, India, the countries of Latin America, and the new economies of Eastern Europe, among many others, are expanding at as much as twice the rate of American and European markets. This is not only remaking their nations, but the way we perceive the geographical distribution of wealth and power. Over time, and extended far into the future, this trend is going to mean dramatic upheavals in the way Americans perceive their role in the world. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. The people in these emerging countries, confronted with new economic opportunities, are making the fruits of their labors, assisted by investments by US firms, available to American consumers, driving down prices and driving up the quality of everyday goods and services consumed by Americans. This phenomenon has been the saving grace of the US economy for a decade, and, in the future, it will become integral to our very lives. To get a glimpse of the change, take a tour of the local Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, and take note of the stunning availability of a huge range of consumer goods at very low prices. Note too that such an array would be inconceivable without the work of international trade. From bicycles and electronics to foodstuffs and flowers, we find the shelves dominated by goods that were produced, in part or in whole, by countries outside US borders, and to this we owe the low prices and the quality that accords with US consumer preferences. Now, Wal-Mart isn't on some campaign to become the leading importer; it is only looking to make available to consumers all the things they want at the lowest possible prices. Where they find these goods is outside the US, where we find ever more comparative advantages. Every retailer in the world is taking notice of this fact, studying the case of Wal-Mart to see how and why it so quickly became the dominant player in the world economy. Its example of seeing both the wholesale and retail market as global in scope—all in the interest of consumer service—has taught the entire business class that nationalism and parochialism are losing propositions. The left may continue to rail against this company, and the right may continue to warn of its dangers to local culture and life, but the example is there for all to see. Average people love this company. It is all old-fashioned consumer service combined with a global reach to bring to average people things that improve their lot in life. Wal-Mart may eventually go the way of so many companies, displaced by some other firm that knows how to do it even better. The point is the model from which it is working. It is a global model focused on the individual buyer, and it works its wonders by depending on the voluntary decisions of average people. The nation state as such plays no part in its calculus, and this has proven to be the winning ticket. So it will continue to be. What about the economic impact? Is marketing all these wares to the world a danger? One might be initially alarmed by this, until one considers the savings to the consumer. For every dime saved in consumer prices, one more dime is made available for other pursuits, whether savings, consumption, or investment. It is this fact which is subsidizing American prosperity right now. Far from being a sign that America has lost its edge, it constitutes the world's gift to American consumers. The trade is mutually beneficial, producing winners on all sides, with the only losers being those American producers who can't seem to drive their costs down low enough to compete in the world marketplace. It is because of this, and despite the constant attempts by central banks to inflate the currency, that prices are continuing to fall for consumer goods. People who have noted these trends say that we should panic that there won't be any jobs left for Americans to do. What this forgets is the reality of scarcity in the world, which implies that there are always and everywhere jobs to do because there are always and everywhere unmet needs. Specialization and the division of labor permits Americans to produce most efficiently in a way that is integral to world demand and not waste time and resources in jobs that can be done more cheaply elsewhere. This does indeed mean a change in world patterns of production, but the market will manage the change with minimum disruption, as it has for the last several hundred years. For the developing world, it means something far more dramatic: a nearly complete abandonment of traditional economic pursuits that were imposed on them by virtue of their previous isolation from the capitalist West. The point is not that their economies are free or have been completely unleashed from the chains of the state. The US and Western Europe, in many respects, remain the most free economies. What matters here is the direction of change. Whereas the US and Europe are increasingly controlled, countries such as China, India, Romania, Poland, Thailand, and many others, are far less controlled than they once were. This has unleashed pent-up human energies and made a fantastic difference in the ability of these people to integrate themselves into the worldwide division of labor. This has meant rising incomes, better diets, less starvation, less disease, better sanitation, falling infant mortality, much longer lifespans, and ever more economic opportunities for work and investment. The fate of these economies has two major links to that of American citizens: in their capacity as consumers, they have a strong interest in seeing it continue, and, as investors, many portfolios of US investors are heavily invested in these emerging economies. The quality of life in these distant lands is increasing in ways that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago, with information technologies made available by the private sector coming into the hands of a new generation that relies on cell phones and high-speed web access, where their parents struggled barely to survive. The lifespan in China alone has risen from 25 years to 65 years in the course of a century. It also means more revenue for the governments of these countries, which, if driven to build up militaries to fend off US political influence, could eventually challenge the supremacy of the US in world public affairs. Again, this is nothing to regret. A world dominated by a single superpower is a gravely dangerous place, especially when that power is irresponsibly managed (and, some would say, is managed by maniacs). A decline in the power, might, and influence of the US is not the same thing as a decline in America; quite the opposite. The only real downside is the transition: the US government may increasingly behave like a dying and rabid animal, posing a danger to its random victims. But once you hear the "thud" of the final fall, the world will be more peaceful and prosperous than ever before. In the meantime, political trends in the US will become increasingly irrelevant, despite appearances. Until recently, Americans thought of themselves as a self-contained people with a nationally bound culture and economy that can be conceptualized and managed in the way that civics texts describe. This is on the verge of being impossible. The managerial class of the regime will continue to pose as experts and top-flight managers, but old assumptions about government are being shredded. Trends on this scale reduce the bellowing of politicians for protection to mere peeps. There is a tendency on the part of everyone to judge a historical moment by our own daily affairs and in relation only to the headlines that dominate the news. Economic analysis takes a much broader view to consider the overall impact of billions of people in many lands over a long period of time. It is through examining these trends that we can see that we are entering into a new world of global economic expansion that will rout any attempt to keep it at bay. Now, clearly, this will not occur without periods of crisis, particularly so long as the world is on a dollar standard and governments are still at work bringing calamity wherever they can. Take a look at where and how the products you use every day are made. Therein lies a remarkable story of the genius of entrepreneurship, the capacity for the world economy to manage itself and overcome ten thousand barriers, and the direction we are headed. It is a world in which consumers and producers from all nations can join hands in praise of the networks that draw them together, and against their common enemy: governments that would stand in the way. To understand the world being recreated before us, we must constantly keep this principle in our mind: trade based on ownership is always and everywhere mutually beneficial. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. If we understand this, we have no reason to fear our fate except to the extent that anyone anywhere dares to interfere. If we understand this, we can see why being led into the future by the political class is something we should neither desire nor expect. Deleted Answer: In this dreadful election season, many politicians have promised to "lead us into the future." I can hardly think of a worse fate for any society than to be led into the future by the political class of gangsters, marauders, looters, and liars. Even the most honest and well-intended among them are powerless to improve the world in any way except by diminishing rather than increasing their power. Politicians haven't the capacity to lead whole societies anywhere. They are outclassed and outrun by trends in the world economy that are beyond the ability of the political class to control or direct. The market economy—globalized, enormously powerful, breathtaking in scope and breadth—is remaking the world in ways that far surpass any existing political development in the US, from the crafted blather of Congressional hearings on this or that to the mad rush to grab the presidential brass rings. We are living through changes that may appear slow if observed from the point of view of the daily headlines, but which are momentously fast and completely transforming when looked at globally and from the point of view of years and decades into the future. These developments are going to bring about surprising political shifts, profound upsets in rooted cultural assumptions, and an eventual and merciful end to the US imperium. These changes will touch everyone in ways that will be both stunning and glorious for average Americans, and deeply disturbing for the American regime that aspires to unchallenged global hegemony. What is the underlying cause? The unleashing of human energies in nations that have been isolated, regimented, and closed for centuries. China, Malaysia, India, the countries of Latin America, and the new economies of Eastern Europe, among many others, are expanding at as much as twice the rate of American and European markets. This is not only remaking their nations, but the way we perceive the geographical distribution of wealth and power. Over time, and extended far into the future, this trend is going to mean dramatic upheavals in the way Americans perceive their role in the world. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. The people in these emerging countries, confronted with new economic opportunities, are making the fruits of their labors, assisted by investments by US firms, available to American consumers, driving down prices and driving up the quality of everyday goods and services consumed by Americans. This phenomenon has been the saving grace of the US economy for a decade, and, in the future, it will become integral to our very lives. To get a glimpse of the change, take a tour of the local Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, and take note of the stunning availability of a huge range of consumer goods at very low prices. Note too that such an array would be inconceivable without the work of international trade. From bicycles and electronics to foodstuffs and flowers, we find the shelves dominated by goods that were produced, in part or in whole, by countries outside US borders, and to this we owe the low prices and the quality that accords with US consumer preferences. Now, Wal-Mart isn't on some campaign to become the leading importer; it is only looking to make available to consumers all the things they want at the lowest possible prices. Where they find these goods is outside the US, where we find ever more comparative advantages. Every retailer in the world is taking notice of this fact, studying the case of Wal-Mart to see how and why it so quickly became the dominant player in the world economy. Its example of seeing both the wholesale and retail market as global in scope—all in the interest of consumer service—has taught the entire business class that nationalism and parochialism are losing propositions. The left may continue to rail against this company, and the right may continue to warn of its dangers to local culture and life, but the example is there for all to see. Average people love this company. It is all old-fashioned consumer service combined with a global reach to bring to average people things that improve their lot in life. Wal-Mart may eventually go the way of so many companies, displaced by some other firm that knows how to do it even better. The point is the model from which it is working. It is a global model focused on the individual buyer, and it works its wonders by depending on the voluntary decisions of average people. The nation state as such plays no part in its calculus, and this has proven to be the winning ticket. So it will continue to be. What about the economic impact? Is marketing all these wares to the world a danger? One might be initially alarmed by this, until one considers the savings to the consumer. For every dime saved in consumer prices, one more dime is made available for other pursuits, whether savings, consumption, or investment. It is this fact which is subsidizing American prosperity right now. Far from being a sign that America has lost its edge, it constitutes the world's gift to American consumers. The trade is mutually beneficial, producing winners on all sides, with the only losers being those American producers who can't seem to drive their costs down low enough to compete in the world marketplace. It is because of this, and despite the constant attempts by central banks to inflate the currency, that prices are continuing to fall for consumer goods. People who have noted these trends say that we should panic that there won't be any jobs left for Americans to do. What this forgets is the reality of scarcity in the world, which implies that there are always and everywhere jobs to do because there are always and everywhere unmet needs. Specialization and the division of labor permits Americans to produce most efficiently in a way that is integral to world demand and not waste time and resources in jobs that can be done more cheaply elsewhere. This does indeed mean a change in world patterns of production, but the market will manage the change with minimum disruption, as it has for the last several hundred years. For the developing world, it means something far more dramatic: a nearly complete abandonment of traditional economic pursuits that were imposed on them by virtue of their previous isolation from the capitalist West. The point is not that their economies are free or have been completely unleashed from the chains of the state. The US and Western Europe, in many respects, remain the most free economies. What matters here is the direction of change. Whereas the US and Europe are increasingly controlled, countries such as China, India, Romania, Poland, Thailand, and many others, are far less controlled than they once were. This has unleashed pent-up human energies and made a fantastic difference in the ability of these people to integrate themselves into the worldwide division of labor. This has meant rising incomes, better diets, less starvation, less disease, better sanitation, falling infant mortality, much longer lifespans, and ever more economic opportunities for work and investment. The fate of these economies has two major links to that of American citizens: in their capacity as consumers, they have a strong interest in seeing it continue, and, as investors, many portfolios of US investors are heavily invested in these emerging economies. The quality of life in these distant lands is increasing in ways that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago, with information technologies made available by the private sector coming into the hands of a new generation that relies on cell phones and high-speed web access, where their parents struggled barely to survive. The lifespan in China alone has risen from 25 years to 65 years in the course of a century. It also means more revenue for the governments of these countries, which, if driven to build up militaries to fend off US political influence, could eventually challenge the supremacy of the US in world public affairs. Again, this is nothing to regret. A world dominated by a single superpower is a gravely dangerous place, especially when that power is irresponsibly managed (and, some would say, is managed by maniacs). A decline in the power, might, and influence of the US is not the same thing as a decline in America; quite the opposite. The only real downside is the transition: the US government may increasingly behave like a dying and rabid animal, posing a danger to its random victims. But once you hear the "thud" of the final fall, the world will be more peaceful and prosperous than ever before. In the meantime, political trends in the US will become increasingly irrelevant, despite appearances. Until recently, Americans thought of themselves as a self-contained people with a nationally bound culture and economy that can be conceptualized and managed in the way that civics texts describe. This is on the verge of being impossible. The managerial class of the regime will continue to pose as experts and top-flight managers, but old assumptions about government are being shredded. Trends on this scale reduce the bellowing of politicians for protection to mere peeps. There is a tendency on the part of everyone to judge a historical moment by our own daily affairs and in relation only to the headlines that dominate the news. Economic analysis takes a much broader view to consider the overall impact of billions of people in many lands over a long period of time. It is through examining these trends that we can see that we are entering into a new world of global economic expansion that will rout any attempt to keep it at bay. Now, clearly, this will not occur without periods of crisis, particularly so long as the world is on a dollar standard and governments are still at work bringing calamity wherever they can. Take a look at where and how the products you use every day are made. Therein lies a remarkable story of the genius of entrepreneurship, the capacity for the world economy to manage itself and overcome ten thousand barriers, and the direction we are headed. It is a world in which consumers and producers from all nations can join hands in praise of the networks that draw them together, and against their common enemy: governments that would stand in the way. To understand the world being recreated before us, we must constantly keep this principle in our mind: trade based on ownership is always and everywhere mutually beneficial. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. If we understand this, we have no reason to fear our fate except to the extent that anyone anywhere dares to interfere. If we understand this, we can see why being led into the future by the political class is something we should neither desire nor expect.
Why was the 93' attack on the WTC not the wake up call? 1993 WTC 2001 Within a decade, the World Trade Center has been attacked twice. However, where the terrorists failed in 1993, they would succeed in 2001. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the events on those two tragic days, discuss the individuals involved, and to comprehend why the 1993 attacks were not the wake up call to prepare for the 2001 attacks. Perhaps even more disturbing than the 1993 attacks, not waking up the American public to terrorism, is why the other attacks on the U.S, between 1993 and 2001, were not wake up calls themselves. This article will attempt to explore these issues in depth. On February 26, 1993, terrorists declared war on the United States, alas, we would not realize it for another eight years. On that terrible day Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the attack, had one of his accomplices, Mohammed Salameh, drive a truck filled with 1500 pounds of explosives into the parking garage of the World Trade Center. “The bomb was made of urea pellets, nitroglycerin, sulfuric acid, aluminum azide, magnesium azide, and bottled hydrogen,”(Wikipedia). The total cost of the bomb was estimated at only $300. The plan was to rupture the foundation of Tower 1 so that it would fall over and collapse into Tower 2, effectively destroying both Towers. Luckily, the plan failed and the Towers remained intact. Unfortunately, six people were killed and over 1000 were wounded. The evidence left behind at the World Trade Center led investigators to Mohammed Salameh, a Palestinian, who rented the truck in his own name. His arrest led investigators to the arrests of his accomplices shortly after the bombing. The perpetrators were a mix of Arabs from different countries but according to government reports, they were all under the control of Omar Abd al-Raham, a radical Egyptian cleric. The arrest of Salameh eventually led investigators to Yousef’s apartment where they would find materials to make bombs and documents with names of people within his faction. It was during this investigation that authorities would first hear the name, Osama Bin Laden. After all the arrests were complete and the sentences handed down, all of the conspirators, including Omar Abdel-Raham, were sentenced to life in prison. However, before the arrests were made, there was much speculation into who was responsible for the attacks. “One FBI investigator recalls that he initially suspected Serbian involvement, and later the prevailing opinion was that Libyans were behind the attack. Others thought that perhaps the Iraqis were seeking revenge for Operation Desert Storm. This theory gained support when it was discovered that Ramzi Yousef traveled to the United States with a valid Iraqi passport,”(White, Jonathan). Eventually intelligence came in that disproved these theories and the true perpetrators were apprehended. The confusion that befuddled the team of investigators and our government was caused by the simple fact that these were a new breed of terrorists. They did not operate under a flag or have a specific nation for which they fought. Their unity came from a shared hatred of the United States of America. Perhaps one of the most puzzling questions of this tragedy is why were these attacks not the wake up call for America to prevent the September 11, 2001, attacks? With the exception of poor intelligence by our government, three possible reasons come to mind. The first is that there was minimal damage done to the building, unlike the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995. From the outside, not much damage to the World Trade Center could be seen. Another reason, there was relatively limited loss of life. Do not get me wrong, six dead is six too many, but in comparison to other tragedies, the death toll was relatively low. The final reason many people did not see the 1993 attacks as a wake up call is because the nation was too preoccupied with another newspaper headline. Incase you do not remember, the O.J Simpson trial was going on around the same time. With many Americans enamored with O.J, they simply did not notice the serious implications of the attack. This would prove to be one of the greatest blunders in American history. OTHER ATTACKS ON THE U.S Terrorism is nothing new in much of the rest of the world, but for Americans it is a relatively new concept. Just three years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States was hit again. Only this time it would not be on our own shores. The attack that I am referring to is the Khobar Towers bombing. The Khobar Towers were being used to hold military personnel of the United States Air Force in Saudi Arabia. It is believed that the attack came from a terrorist group that was hell bent on removing the United States from the region. The attack claimed the lives of 19 Americans and left close to 400 people wounded. The investigation led to the arrest of 13 Saudis and 1 Lebanese man, yet America had still not woken up. Why? The most obvious reason for our ambivalence to the situation was the sole fact that it happened in another country far from our homeland. It is like the old adage, “out of sight, out of mind.” And the sad truth is, it really was out of mind for most of the Aamerican public. Then, just two years later the U.S was struck by terrorists again. As with the Khobar Towers bombing, the attacks took place in a distant land. This time it was Africa and entailed simultaneous attacks on three U.S embassies. The operation, led by Al Qaeda operatives, claimed the lives of 220 people and left nearly 4,000 injured. These attacks focused international attention on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It was also at this point that Osama Bin Laden began to foster his Allah-like status among Islamic radicals. To put it quite simply, Bin Laden became a hero. The United State’s response was swift and led to Cruise Missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan. Policies were also drafted by the Clinton Administration to make it illegal to do business with Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda warriors. This was an attempt to put a strangle hold on their financial support. It was around this point that Americans began to open their eyes to this grave new danger but we were still not ready to understand fully, the seriousness of the situation that confronted us. The final attack on the United States, before 9/11, was the attack on the USS Cole, in 2000. The destroyer was docked at a Yemeni port in Aden when a boat filled with explosives trolled up beside it and detonated a bomb, tearing a gaping hole in the side of the ship. The attack claimed the lives of 17 Americans and injured 39 others. The attack was planned by Osama Bin Laden and was carried out by Al Qaeda suicide bombers, Ibrahim al-Thawr and Abdullah al-Misawa. This would be the first terrorist attack on a U.S. Navy vessel in the history of the United States. However, the ship did not sink and was carried back to the United States for repairs. The attack on the USS Cole was, to say the least, very different from the previous attacks on the United States. The attack was considered an act of terrorism but under law, an attack on a military target could not be deemed a terrorist attack. According to the Annual Country Report on Terrorism, “the term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetuated against noncombatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents.” Now, it is true that a group of sub national agents committed the attacks but their target was a combatant target and therefore it could not be viewed as a terrorist attack. It is because of this slight technicality that the American public still had not been awakened to the terrorist threat and also, because the attack happened in a distant place like the first two and received minimal news coverage, considering the severity of the event. However, it would not be long before America would wake up to a nightmare that finally brought the fear of terrorism into our reality. A DAY OF INFAMY On September 11, 2001, terrorists viciously attacked the United States of America. Nineteen Al-Qaeda operatives, under the command of Osama Bin Laden, hijacked four commercial airliners with the intent of ramming them into buildings that were symbolic of American primacy. The World Trade Center, symbolic of America’s economic wealth, and the Pentagon, symbolic of American military power, made prime targets. According to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the fourth plane was intended to hit the Capitol Building or the White House, both symbolic institutions of American control. Fortunately, the plane never reached its target but, regrettably, all on board the plane were killed. The attacks on America claimed the lives of 2,986 people and left thousands injured. Armed with nothing more than box cutters, the hijackers took control of American Airlines Fight 11. The plane departed from Logan International Airport at around 8:00am on a transcontinental flight for Los Angeles. Within approximately 15 minutes, the terrorists took the plane. According to voice transcripts from the plane, the hijackers killed three of the passengers at the begging of the assault, claimed to have a bomb, and sprayed pepper-spray into the first-class cabin. Presumably, this was done to prevent the passengers from fighting back and possibly retaking the plane. At approximately 8:45am; the plane, carrying 92 passengers and crew, slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing everyone on board and hundreds more in the tower instantly. United Airlines Flight 175 also departed from Logan International. It was supposed to take off at the same time as Flight 11 but due to delays at the airport was held up. According to voice transcripts from the plane, the hijackers had box cutters and sprayed pepper spray into the front cabin as they did on AAF 11. “At approximately 9:03, Flight 175 flew into the south side of the southern tower of the World Trade Center, between floors 78 and 84. The plane was carrying 56 passengers (including the 5 hijackers) and 9 crew members”(Wikipedia). All people on board were killed including hundreds more in the building. The two planes that hit the World Trade Center were bound for Los Angeles. Since they were making a transcontinental flight, they had both been filled to the brim with jet fuel. When the planes hit the buildings they both knocked off the fire proofing that covered the steel structures and disabled the fire sprinklers, rendering the building helpless to extinguish the fire. Experts believe that the heat created from the burning jet fuel was hot enough to weaken the support trusses of the building. After some time the floors began to sag and eventually came crashing down. The falling floors created a domino effect that brought the buildings to the ground. The South Tower was the first to go, followed by its twin. However, the buildings were able to stand for some time after the impact and did not fall for almost an hour. The collapse of the building left most of lower Manhattan covered in smoke for days. In all, seven buildings in Manhattan had been destroyed and another 25 seriously damaged. American Airlines flight 77 departed from Dulles International Airport in Fairfax County Virginia at approximately 8:20a.m. It is believed that the flight was taken over at about 8:55a.m. because the transponder was turned off and the plane began to turn around at that point. Voice transcripts from the plane described four men with box cutters or knives forcing all the passengers and the pilots to the back of the plane. “Flight 77 crashed into the western side of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just south of Washington, D.C. at 9:37 AM EDT, killing all of its 58 passengers (including the hijackers) and 6 crew members” (Wikipedia). The Pentagon sustained some serious damage but because of its design, most of the building survived the attack. Flight 77 marked the third attack of the day but would not be the last. United Flight 93 departed from Newark International Airport at approximately 8:45a.m. Had there been no delays, the plane would have taken off at 8:00a.m like the other planes were scheduled to do. Unlike the other three planes, Flight 93 never reached its target and instead crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The plane was carrying 37 passengers and 7 crew members. All on board were killed instantly. It is widely accepted that the intended target was either the White House or the Capital Building in Washington, DC. According to voice transcripts and phone calls taken from the plane, the passengers knew of their impending doom and made an effort to retake control of the plane. In all, 10 phone calls were made and from the statements that were recorded, we have been able to construct the possible scenario that unfolded on the plane. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, some, if not all the passengers on board were aware that terrorist had been flying planes into buildings up and down the east coast. Calls taken from the plane suggest that the passengers tried to take back control of the plane and in doing so scared the terrorists into crashing the plane. That crash would mark the final attack of the day. After nearly eight years and half a dozen attacks on the United States, we finally got the message. The attacks made the country fully aware that we were no longer living in a safe world and that not even the United States was safe from terrorism. The attacks brought about a huge international response. Governments from all over the world condemned the attacks and vowed support for the United States. A French newspaper, Le Monde, ran the headline, “We are all Americans,” in support of our tragedy, and many other countries came to our aid. Coincidentally, George Bush’s approval rating at the time was around 86%. Most Arab countries around the world also condemned the attacks while a small majority viewed the attacks as America’s comeuppance. The final question that needs to be answered is why we were attacked and what was the specific motivation. There is much speculation as to why the attacks descended upon our cities. The Bush Administration claimed that the attacks by Al Qaeda were spurred by their intense hatred of freedom and democracy, while other government sources said that the attacks were an attempt to unify the Muslim world and pave the way for a world under Islamic control. However, there are less radical explanations of the motivations behind the attacks. “The motivation for this campaign was set out in a 1998 fatwa issued by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, and Fazlur Rahman”(Wikipedia). According to the fatwa, the attacks were carried out because of U.S. support of Israel, U.S. occupation of Arab lands, and previous U.S. aggression towards the Iraqi people. The fatwa goes on to state that the United States “plunders the resources of the Arabian Peninsula, dictates policy to the rulers of those countries, supports abusive regimes and monarchies in the Middle East, thereby oppressing their people, has military bases and installations upon the Arabian Peninsula, which violates the Muslim holy land, in order to threaten neighboring Muslim countries, intends thereby to create disunion between Muslim states, thus weakening them as a political force, and supports Israel, and wishes to divert international attention from (and tacitly maintain) the occupation of Palestine” (Wikipedia). According to Osama Bin Laden and his followers, attacks upon the United States will continue until these grievances have been rectified. AMERICA RESPONDS Following the September 11 attacks on the United States, steps were taken to ensure our safety. Increased boarder control and airline security were the first steps taken to decrease the likelihood of another attack. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, beefing up agencies already in place, and the Patriot Act were among other measures taken by the Bush Administration. The attacks also brought about what is being called the “War on Terrorism.” This war has included an increase in satellite surveillance, increased information sharing between countries, sanctions on known terrorist states, and the 2001 Invasion of Afghanistan followed by the 2003 invasion of Iraq. All of which have created much controversy throughout the entire world including the United States. Some attest that the U.S. decision to invade Iraq has effectively squandered the international good will toward our country and has in essence made us more vulnerable to future terrorist attacks. At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who say we are safer because the invasions have the terrorists on the run, making it difficult for them to plan and carry out attacks. Only time will tell who is right and who is wrong but one thing remains certain: Americas days of ignoring terrorism are over and we can no longer stand idle while the looming threat of terrorism is upon us. Wazzo_2005 ...you loose all credability by referencing 9/11 loose change....that entire film,,,though well done, is the biggest sting of lies and ill truths I have ever seen...Therefore, if you believe what you saw in that movie, you too are a lier.
I was on the Global Warming Gravy Train? You want to know some facts ? I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train By David Evans 5/28/2007 I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case. I am now skeptical. In the late 1990s, this was the evidence suggesting that carbon emissions caused global warming: 1.Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, proved in a laboratory a century ago. 2.Global warming has been occurring for a century and concentrations of atmospheric carbon have been rising for a century. Correlation is not causation, but in a rough sense it looked like a fit. 3.Ice core data, starting with the first cores from Vostok in 1985, allowed us to measure temperature and atmospheric carbon going back hundreds of thousands of years, through several dramatic global warming and cooling events. To the temporal resolution then available (data points more than a thousand years apart), atmospheric carbon and temperature moved in lockstep: they rose and fell together. Talk about a smoking gun! 4.There were no other credible causes of global warming. This evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we are absolutely certain when we apparently need to act now? So the idea that carbon emissions were causing global warming passed from the scientific community into the political realm. Research increased, bureaucracies were formed, international committees met, and eventually the Kyoto protocol was signed in 1997 to curb carbon emissions. The political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence above fell away. Using the same point numbers as above: 2.Better data shows that from 1940 to 1975 the earth cooled while atmospheric carbon increased. That 35 year non-correlation might eventually be explained by global dimming, only discovered in about 2003. 3.The temporal resolution of the ice core data improved. By 2004 we knew that in past warming events, the temperature increases generally started about 800 years before the rises in atmospheric carbon. Causality does not run in the direction I had assumed in 1999 — it runs the opposite way! It took several hundred years of warming for the oceans to give off more of their carbon. This proves that there is a cause of global warming other than atmospheric carbon. And while it is possible that rising atmospheric carbon in these past warmings then went on to cause more warming ("amplification" of the initial warming), the ice core data neither proves nor disproves this hypothesis. 4.There is now a credible alternative suspect. In October 2006 Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays cause cloud formation. Clouds have a net cooling effect, but for the last three decades there have been fewer clouds than normal because the sun's magnetic field, which shields us from cosmic rays, has been stronger than usual. So the earth heated up. It's too early to judge what fraction of global warming is caused by cosmic rays. There is now no observational evidence that global warming is caused by carbon emissions. You would think that in over 20 years of intense investigation we would have found something. For example, greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions should warm the upper atmosphere faster than the lower atmosphere — but until 2006 the data showed the opposite, and thus that the greenhouse effect was not occurring! In 2006 better data allowed that the effect might be occurring, except in the tropics. The only current "evidence" for blaming carbon emissions are scientific models (and the fact that there are few contradictory observations). Historically, science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations. Some theories held by science authorities have turned out to be spectacularly wrong: heavier-than-air flight is impossible, the sun orbits the earth, etc. For excellent reasons, we have much more confidence in observations by several independent parties than in models produced by a small set of related parties! Let's return to the interaction between science and politics. By 2000 the political system had responded to the strong scientific case that carbon emissions caused global warming by creating thousands of bureaucratic and science jobs aimed at more research and at curbing carbon emissions. But after 2000 the case against carbon emissions gradually got weaker. Future evidence might strengthen or further weaken it. At what stage of the weakening should the science community alert the political system that carbon emissions might not be the main cause of global warming? None of the new evidence actually says that carbon emissions are definitely not the cause of global warming, there are lots of good science jobs potentially at stake, and if the scientific message wavers then it might be difficult to later recapture the attention of the political system. What has happened is that most research efforts since 1990 have assumed that carbon emissions were the cause, and the alternatives get much less research or political attention. Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. Climate change has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly blames carbon emissions, to the point of silencing critics. The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effect of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming. I recently bet $6,000 that the rate of global warming would slow in the next two decades. Carbon emissions might be the dominant cause of global warming, but I reckon that probability to be 20% rather than the 90% the IPCC estimates. I worry that politics could seriously distort the science. Suppose that carbon taxes are widely enacted, but that the rate of global warming increase starts to decline by 2015. The political system might pressure scientists to provide justifications for the taxes. Imagine the following scenario. Carbon emissions cause some warming, maybe 0.05C/decade. But the current warming rate of 0.20C/decade is mainly due to some natural cause, which in 15 years has run its course and reverses. So by 2025 global temperatures start dropping. In the meantime, on the basis of models from a small group of climate scientists but with no observational evidence (because the small warming due to carbon emissions is masked by the larger natural warming), the world has dutifully paid an enormous cost to curb carbon emissions. Politicians, expressing the anger and apparent futility of all the unnecessary poverty and effort, lead the lynching of the high priests with their opaque models. Ironically, because carbon emissions are raising the temperature baseline around which natural variability occurs, carbon emissions might need curbing after all. Maybe. The current situation is characterized by a lack of observational evidence, so no one knows yet. Some people take strong rhetorical positions on global warming. But the cause of global warming is not just another political issue, subject to endless debate and distortions. The cause of global warming is an issue that falls into the realm of science, because it is falsifiable. No amount of human posturing will affect what the cause is. It just physically is there, and after sufficient research and time we will know what it is. ________________________________________ David Evans, a mathematician, and a computer and electrical engineer, is head of Science Speak
I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train: Do you want to know some facts? I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train By David Evans 5/28/2007 I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case. I am now skeptical. In the late 1990s, this was the evidence suggesting that carbon emissions caused global warming: 1.Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, proved in a laboratory a century ago. 2.Global warming has been occurring for a century and concentrations of atmospheric carbon have been rising for a century. Correlation is not causation, but in a rough sense it looked like a fit. 3.Ice core data, starting with the first cores from Vostok in 1985, allowed us to measure temperature and atmospheric carbon going back hundreds of thousands of years, through several dramatic global warming and cooling events. To the temporal resolution then available (data points more than a thousand years apart), atmospheric carbon and temperature moved in lockstep: they rose and fell together. Talk about a smoking gun! 4.There were no other credible causes of global warming. This evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we are absolutely certain when we apparently need to act now? So the idea that carbon emissions were causing global warming passed from the scientific community into the political realm. Research increased, bureaucracies were formed, international committees met, and eventually the Kyoto protocol was signed in 1997 to curb carbon emissions. The political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence above fell away. Using the same point numbers as above: 2.Better data shows that from 1940 to 1975 the earth cooled while atmospheric carbon increased. That 35 year non-correlation might eventually be explained by global dimming, only discovered in about 2003. 3.The temporal resolution of the ice core data improved. By 2004 we knew that in past warming events, the temperature increases generally started about 800 years before the rises in atmospheric carbon. Causality does not run in the direction I had assumed in 1999 — it runs the opposite way! It took several hundred years of warming for the oceans to give off more of their carbon. This proves that there is a cause of global warming other than atmospheric carbon. And while it is possible that rising atmospheric carbon in these past warmings then went on to cause more warming ("amplification" of the initial warming), the ice core data neither proves nor disproves this hypothesis. 4.There is now a credible alternative suspect. In October 2006 Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays cause cloud formation. Clouds have a net cooling effect, but for the last three decades there have been fewer clouds than normal because the sun's magnetic field, which shields us from cosmic rays, has been stronger than usual. So the earth heated up. It's too early to judge what fraction of global warming is caused by cosmic rays. There is now no observational evidence that global warming is caused by carbon emissions. You would think that in over 20 years of intense investigation we would have found something. For example, greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions should warm the upper atmosphere faster than the lower atmosphere — but until 2006 the data showed the opposite, and thus that the greenhouse effect was not occurring! In 2006 better data allowed that the effect might be occurring, except in the tropics. The only current "evidence" for blaming carbon emissions are scientific models (and the fact that there are few contradictory observations). Historically, science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations. Some theories held by science authorities have turned out to be spectacularly wrong: heavier-than-air flight is impossible, the sun orbits the earth, etc. For excellent reasons, we have much more confidence in observations by several independent parties than in models produced by a small set of related parties! Let's return to the interaction between science and politics. By 2000 the political system had responded to the strong scientific case that carbon emissions caused global warming by creating thousands of bureaucratic and science jobs aimed at more research and at curbing carbon emissions. But after 2000 the case against carbon emissions gradually got weaker. Future evidence might strengthen or further weaken it. At what stage of the weakening should the science community alert the political system that carbon emissions might not be the main cause of global warming? None of the new evidence actually says that carbon emissions are definitely not the cause of global warming, there are lots of good science jobs potentially at stake, and if the scientific message wavers then it might be difficult to later recapture the attention of the political system. What has happened is that most research efforts since 1990 have assumed that carbon emissions were the cause, and the alternatives get much less research or political attention. Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. Climate change has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly blames carbon emissions, to the point of silencing critics. The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effect of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming. I recently bet $6,000 that the rate of global warming would slow in the next two decades. Carbon emissions might be the dominant cause of global warming, but I reckon that probability to be 20% rather than the 90% the IPCC estimates. I worry that politics could seriously distort the science. Suppose that carbon taxes are widely enacted, but that the rate of global warming increase starts to decline by 2015. The political system might pressure scientists to provide justifications for the taxes. Imagine the following scenario. Carbon emissions cause some warming, maybe 0.05C/decade. But the current warming rate of 0.20C/decade is mainly due to some natural cause, which in 15 years has run its course and reverses. So by 2025 global temperatures start dropping. In the meantime, on the basis of models from a small group of climate scientists but with no observational evidence (because the small warming due to carbon emissions is masked by the larger natural warming), the world has dutifully paid an enormous cost to curb carbon emissions. Politicians, expressing the anger and apparent futility of all the unnecessary poverty and effort, lead the lynching of the high priests with their opaque models. Ironically, because carbon emissions are raising the temperature baseline around which natural variability occurs, carbon emissions might need curbing after all. Maybe. The current situation is characterized by a lack of observational evidence, so no one knows yet. Some people take strong rhetorical positions on global warming. But the cause of global warming is not just another political issue, subject to endless debate and distortions. The cause of global warming is an issue that falls into the realm of science, because it is falsifiable. No amount of human posturing will affect what the cause is. It just physically is there, and after sufficient research and time we will know what it is. ________________________________________ David Evans, a mathematician, and a computer and electrical engineer, is head of Science Speak
Do you think Jesse Jackson is a hero? If so, read this letter someone wrote to him. I was crying I was laughing so hard. Maybe this guy should run for president in 08'! Dear Jesse Jackson Posted: September 19, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern Dear Rev. Jackson: I read with interest your Sept. 12, 2006, article "Goodwill, unity, money have been squandered since Sept. 11," which appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times. I do not object, as such, to your poisonous screed directed at President Bush. I object to the substance that so freely flows from your mouth and that can best be likened unto that which is consistent with encopresis albeit in your case, the malady can hardly be defined as involuntary. You purport yourself to be a minister a reverend a so-called man of God but a minister is a servant and a reverend is a member of the clergy, which means said individual is to be obedient unto the God he serves. If one serves the "god" of chaos, deceit, lies, whore-mongering, dysfunction, greed and resentment then perhaps within ecclesiastical environs it can be said you serve well. Apart from same being the case, you are antithetical of everything that can remotely be identified as a biblical servant of the true "Living God." But I get ahead of myself. In the piece you wrote, our military is "stranded ? [in Iraq] with inadequate training and inadequate direction." On what did you base that premise? On what basis do you brand the finest all-volunteer military in the history of civilization as poorly trained and inept? Or was your statement an effluence based on an apriori moment designed to gain political p oints for the upcoming election? You spoke of "catastrophic climate change, global pandemics and unsustainable trade deficits" but you never make mention of the catastrophic zeitgeist that has wreaked havoc and "more economic damage" upon the community you self-servingly claim to represent. You are never heard making reference to the "pandemic" level of black on black crime, black abortion rates, black single-parent homes (albeit you contributed to those numbers) and black criminal behavior, all of which threatens the future of blacks as a whole. You wrote that the president, "instead of asking Americans to sacrifice to meet the challenge [of 9/11] ? called on them, literally, to go shopping." You condescendingly wrote, "He allowed business as usual to go on in Washington." I ask you how much more could Americans have sacrificed than watching their innocent family members and co-citizens perish? How much more sacrifice could the president have called upon the people to make? Or by sacrifice were you saying that the president could have called upon Americans to give more pints of blood or more supplies to charity groups that were immediately besieged with donations? Perhaps you reasoned that ordinary people performing extraordinary acts of volunteerism and acts of mercy were not sacrifice enough. Or were you suggesting that President Bush should have ordered everyone to hide under their kitchen tables and quake in fear? What part of the American spirit do you perceive wasn't grieving after those attacks? What do you believe the people of Washington and its metropolitan area experienced daily as they commuted past the final resting place of those aboard United Flight 77? What would you have done differently? How would you have displayed leadership? In the article, you spoke of the 9/11 commission being "nonpartisan": Does that include Richard Ben-Veniste and Jamie Gorelick? You derided the very intelligence tools that have prevented terrorist attacks on our soil since 9/11. You intentionally and erroneously labeled domestic eavesdropping "warrantless wiretapping," never mentioning that it prevented Lyman Farris from blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge , was instrumental in protecting the Sears Towers and was key in uncovering the UK suicide bombers' plan to blow up 10 international passenger planes just one month ago. You blame the president for bringing "discredit to the nation across the world." My question to you is, who brought discredit on the nation in 1979 when we had a president who betrayed a trusted ally and was unable to free Americans held hostage . Who brought "discredit" on America in the years preceding 9/11, as the mongrel followers of a pedophile and false god bombed American interests around the world? Is President Bush to blame for the 1993 World Trade Tower bombings? You referred to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "ugly and dishonest." I ask you, is that not a more appropriate self-description? You are the man who rubbed the blood of a fallen hero on your clothing and then lied, saying he died in your arms. Shall we outline your financial dealings? You claim the president's credibil! ity is g one, when in truth it is you who has no credibility. President Bush is fulfilling the role of his office. But as a minister, can the same be said of you? Are you fulfilling God's prescripts for the priestly office you claim to hold? How many people have you personally led to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? How many people have you preached the salvation message to? What have you done to bring glory and honor to the name of Christ? Is that what you were doing as you paraded your pregnant mistress around the White House while supposedly ministering to a president taken with sexual sin of his own? "Goodwill, unity, money" have indeed been squandered, but not since 9/11. They have been squandered on you and your morally depraved kind. You claim a title that should offer "hope," but instead you offer fool's parsley. My prayer for you would be, and is, that you would confess the error of your ways while there is yet time, because the "Living God" takes a dim view of those who intentionally lead his children astray. Sincerely, Mychal S. Massie P.S. I am available to debate you, anywhere, on the relative principles of your ersatz theology versus true Christianity. Wouldn't you love to shake this man's hand? I know I would!
Political leadership or hard worker honest people taking care of family?? In this dreadful election season, many politicians have promised to "lead us into the future." I can hardly think of a worse fate for any society than to be led into the future by the political class of gangsters, marauders, looters, and liars. Even the most honest and well-intended among them are powerless to improve the world in any way except by diminishing rather than increasing their power. Politicians haven't the capacity to lead whole societies anywhere. They are outclassed and outrun by trends in the world economy that are beyond the ability of the political class to control or direct. The market economy—globalized, enormously powerful, breathtaking in scope and breadth—is remaking the world in ways that far surpass any existing political development in the US, from the crafted blather of Congressional hearings on this or that to the mad rush to grab the presidential brass rings. We are living through changes that may appear slow if observed from the point of view of the daily headlines, but which are momentously fast and completely transforming when looked at globally and from the point of view of years and decades into the future. These developments are going to bring about surprising political shifts, profound upsets in rooted cultural assumptions, and an eventual and merciful end to the US imperium. These changes will touch everyone in ways that will be both stunning and glorious for average Americans, and deeply disturbing for the American regime that aspires to unchallenged global hegemony. What is the underlying cause? The unleashing of human energies in nations that have been isolated, regimented, and closed for centuries. China, Malaysia, India, the countries of Latin America, and the new economies of Eastern Europe, among many others, are expanding at as much as twice the rate of American and European markets. This is not only remaking their nations, but the way we perceive the geographical distribution of wealth and power. Over time, and extended far into the future, this trend is going to mean dramatic upheavals in the way Americans perceive their role in the world. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. The people in these emerging countries, confronted with new economic opportunities, are making the fruits of their labors, assisted by investments by US firms, available to American consumers, driving down prices and driving up the quality of everyday goods and services consumed by Americans. This phenomenon has been the saving grace of the US economy for a decade, and, in the future, it will become integral to our very lives. To get a glimpse of the change, take a tour of the local Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, and take note of the stunning availability of a huge range of consumer goods at very low prices. Note too that such an array would be inconceivable without the work of international trade. From bicycles and electronics to foodstuffs and flowers, we find the shelves dominated by goods that were produced, in part or in whole, by countries outside US borders, and to this we owe the low prices and the quality that accords with US consumer preferences. Now, Wal-Mart isn't on some campaign to become the leading importer; it is only looking to make available to consumers all the things they want at the lowest possible prices. Where they find these goods is outside the US, where we find ever more comparative advantages. Every retailer in the world is taking notice of this fact, studying the case of Wal-Mart to see how and why it so quickly became the dominant player in the world economy. Its example of seeing both the wholesale and retail market as global in scope—all in the interest of consumer service—has taught the entire business class that nationalism and parochialism are losing propositions. The left may continue to rail against this company, and the right may continue to warn of its dangers to local culture and life, but the example is there for all to see. Average people love this company. It is all old-fashioned consumer service combined with a global reach to bring to average people things that improve their lot in life. Wal-Mart may eventually go the way of so many companies, displaced by some other firm that knows how to do it even better. The point is the model from which it is working. It is a global model focused on the individual buyer, and it works its wonders by depending on the voluntary decisions of average people. The nation state as such plays no part in its calculus, and this has proven to be the winning ticket. So it will continue to be. What about the economic impact? Is marketing all these wares to the world a danger? One might be initially alarmed by this, until one considers the savings to the consumer. For every dime saved in consumer prices, one more dime is made available for other pursuits, whether savings, consumption, or investment. It is this fact which is subsidizing American prosperity right now. Far from being a sign that America has lost its edge, it constitutes the world's gift to American consumers. The trade is mutually beneficial, producing winners on all sides, with the only losers being those American producers who can't seem to drive their costs down low enough to compete in the world marketplace. It is because of this, and despite the constant attempts by central banks to inflate the currency, that prices are continuing to fall for consumer goods. People who have noted these trends say that we should panic that there won't be any jobs left for Americans to do. What this forgets is the reality of scarcity in the world, which implies that there are always and everywhere jobs to do because there are always and everywhere unmet needs. Specialization and the division of labor permits Americans to produce most efficiently in a way that is integral to world demand and not waste time and resources in jobs that can be done more cheaply elsewhere. This does indeed mean a change in world patterns of production, but the market will manage the change with minimum disruption, as it has for the last several hundred years. For the developing world, it means something far more dramatic: a nearly complete abandonment of traditional economic pursuits that were imposed on them by virtue of their previous isolation from the capitalist West. The point is not that their economies are free or have been completely unleashed from the chains of the state. The US and Western Europe, in many respects, remain the most free economies. What matters here is the direction of change. Whereas the US and Europe are increasingly controlled, countries such as China, India, Romania, Poland, Thailand, and many others, are far less controlled than they once were. This has unleashed pent-up human energies and made a fantastic difference in the ability of these people to integrate themselves into the worldwide division of labor. This has meant rising incomes, better diets, less starvation, less disease, better sanitation, falling infant mortality, much longer lifespans, and ever more economic opportunities for work and investment. The fate of these economies has two major links to that of American citizens: in their capacity as consumers, they have a strong interest in seeing it continue, and, as investors, many portfolios of US investors are heavily invested in these emerging economies. The quality of life in these distant lands is increasing in ways that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago, with information technologies made available by the private sector coming into the hands of a new generation that relies on cell phones and high-speed web access, where their parents struggled barely to survive. The lifespan in China alone has risen from 25 years to 65 years in the course of a century. It also means more revenue for the governments of these countries, which, if driven to build up militaries to fend off US political influence, could eventually challenge the supremacy of the US in world public affairs. Again, this is nothing to regret. A world dominated by a single superpower is a gravely dangerous place, especially when that power is irresponsibly managed (and, some would say, is managed by maniacs). A decline in the power, might, and influence of the US is not the same thing as a decline in America; quite the opposite. The only real downside is the transition: the US government may increasingly behave like a dying and rabid animal, posing a danger to its random victims. But once you hear the "thud" of the final fall, the world will be more peaceful and prosperous than ever before. In the meantime, political trends in the US will become increasingly irrelevant, despite appearances. Until recently, Americans thought of themselves as a self-contained people with a nationally bound culture and economy that can be conceptualized and managed in the way that civics texts describe. This is on the verge of being impossible. The managerial class of the regime will continue to pose as experts and top-flight managers, but old assumptions about government are being shredded. Trends on this scale reduce the bellowing of politicians for protection to mere peeps. There is a tendency on the part of everyone to judge a historical moment by our own daily affairs and in relation only to the headlines that dominate the news. Economic analysis takes a much broader view to consider the overall impact of billions of people in many lands over a long period of time. It is through examining these trends that we can see that we are entering into a new world of global economic expansion that will rout any attempt to keep it at bay. Now, clearly, this will not occur without periods of crisis, particularly so long as the world is on a dollar standard and governments are still at work bringing calamity wherever they can. Take a look at where and how the products you use every day are made. Therein lies a remarkable story of the genius of entrepreneurship, the capacity for the world economy to manage itself and overcome ten thousand barriers, and the direction we are headed. It is a world in which consumers and producers from all nations can join hands in praise of the networks that draw them together, and against their common enemy: governments that would stand in the way. To understand the world being recreated before us, we must constantly keep this principle in our mind: trade based on ownership is always and everywhere mutually beneficial. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. If we understand this, we have no reason to fear our fate except to the extent that anyone anywhere dares to interfere. If we understand this, we can see why being led into the future by the political class is something we should neither desire nor expect
What is happening with the European economy? Half of it in depression per this? What do you think? http://www.gata.org/node/7098 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Monetary union puts half of Europe in depression Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2009-01-17 20:18. Section: Daily Dispatches By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The Telegraph, London Saturday, January 17, 2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/427864... Events are moving fast in Europe. The worst riots since the fall of Communism have swept the Baltics and the south Balkans. An incipient crisis is taking shape in the Club Med bond markets. S&P has cut Greek debt to near junk. Spanish, Portuguese, and Irish bonds are on negative watch. Dublin has nationalised Anglo Irish Bank with its half-built folly on North Wall Quay and E73 billion (L65 billion) of liabilities, moving a step nearer the line where markets probe the solvency of the Irish state. A great ring of EU states stretching from Eastern Europe down across Mare Nostrum to the Celtic fringe are either in a 1930s depression already or soon will be. Greece's social fabric is unravelling before the pain begins, which bodes ill. Each is a victim of ill-judged economic policies foisted upon them by elites in thrall to Europe's monetary project -- either in the European Monetary Union or preparing to join -- and each is trapped. As UKIP leader Nigel Farage put it in a rare voice of dissent at the euro's 10th birthday triumph in Strasbourg, EMU-land has become a Volker-Kerker -- a "prison of nations," to borrow from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This week, Riga's cobbled streets became a war zone. Protesters armed with blocks of ice smashed up Latvia's finance ministry. Hundreds tried to force their way into the legislature, enraged by austerity cuts. "Trust in the state's authority and officials has fallen catastrophically," said President Valdis Zatlers, who called for the dissolution of parliament. In Lithuania, riot police fired rubber-bullets on a trade union march. Dogs chased stragglers into the Vilnia river. A demonstration outside Bulgaria's parliament in Sofia turned violent on Wednesday. These three states are all members of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM2), the euro's pre-detention cell. They must join. It is written into their EU contracts. The result of subjecting ex-Soviet catch-up economies to the monetary regime of the leaden West has been massive overheating. Latvia's current account deficit hit 26 percent of GDP. Riga property prices surpassed Berlin. The inevitable bust is proving epic. Latvia's property group Balsts says Riga flat prices have fallen 56 percent since mid-2007. The economy contracted 18 percent annualised over the last six months. Leaked documents reveal -- despite a blizzard of lies by EU and Latvian officials -- that the International Monetary Fund called for devaluation as part of a E7.5 billion joint rescue for Latvia. Such adjustments are crucial in IMF deals. They allow countries to claw their way back to health without suffering perma-slump. This was blocked by Brussels -- purportedly because mortgage debt in euros and Swiss francs precluded that option. IMF documents dispute this. A society is being sacrificed on the altar of the EMU project. Latvians have company. Dublin expects Ireland's economy to contract 4 percent this year. The deficit will reach 12 percent of GDP by 2010 on current policies. "This is not sustainable," said the treasury. Hence the draconian wage deflation now threatened by the Taoiseach. The Celtic Tiger has faced the test bravely. No government in Europe has been so honest. It is a tragedy that sterling's crash should have compounded their woes at this moment. To cap it all, Dell is decamping to Poland with 4 percent of GDP. Irish wages crept too high during the heady years when Euroland interest rates of 2 percent so beguiled the nation. Spain lost a million jobs in 2008. Madrid is bracing for 16 percent unemployment by year's end. Private economists fear 25 percent before it is over. Spain's wage inflation has priced the workforce out of Europe's markets. EMU logic is wage deflation for year after year. With Spain's high debt levels, this is impossible. Either Mr Zapatero stops the madness, or Spanish democracy will stop him. The left wing of his PSOE party is already peeling off, just as the French left is peeling off to fight "l'euro dictature capitaliste." Italy's treasury awaits each bond auction with dread, wondering if can offload E200 billion of debt this year. Spreads reached a fresh post-EMU high of 149 last week. The debt compound noose is tightening around Rome's throat. Italian journalists have begun to talk of Europe's "Tequila Crisis" -- a new twist. They mean that capital flight from Club Med could set off an unstoppable process. Mexico's Tequila drama in 1994 was triggered by a combination of the Chiapas uprising, a current account haemorrhage, and bond jitters. The dollar-peso peg snapped when elites bega The dollar-peso peg snapped when elites began moving money to US banks. The game was up within days. Fixed exchange systems -- and EMU is just a glorified version -- rupture suddenly. Things can seem eerily calm for a long time. Politicians swear by the parity. Remember John Major's "soft-option" defiance days before the ERM blew apart in 1992? Or Philip Snowden's defence of sterling before a Royal Navy mutiny forced Britain off the Gold Standard in 1931. Don't expect tremors before an earthquake -- and there is no fault line of greater historic violence than the crunching plates where Latin Europe meets Teutonia. Greece no longer dares sell long bonds to fund its debt. It sold E2.5 billion last week at short rates, mostly 3-months and 6-months. This is a dangerous game. It stores up "roll-over risk" for later in the year. Hedge funds are circling. Traders suspect that investors are dumping their Club Med and Irish debt immediately on the European Central Bank in "repo" actions. In other words, the ECB is already providing a stealth bailout for Europe's governments -- though secrecy veils all. An EU debt union is being created, in breach of EU law. Liabilities are being shifted quietly on to German taxpayers. What happens when Germany's hard-working citizens find out?
With all these great things. What was so bad about the Nazi's? Statements on the Internet on what the Nazis invented/ contributed to the modern world Volkswagen KdF computer, invented by Konrad Zuse 1941. Jet plane in 1939 by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke. The first manned rocket flight in 1945 (unfortunately it lasted only some seconds and pilot Lothar Sieber died) Nazi doctors, in line with their campaign for public health were the first to write a major scientific paper linking smoking with lung cancer, I believe smoking was even banned, for a brief time in the Luftwaffee. Nazis invented Nerve gasses Sarin and Tabun. Invented first effective automatic rifle, single person anti-tank weapons (precursors to RPGs). You can see some magnificant architecture by Speer that was planned in nearly any documentary on the man. Autobahns Stealth technolgy was invented by the Horten brothers during the Reich. Audio technology using magnetic tape was a Third Reich invention. Copying German tape recorders was how the famous American corporation Ampex got its start. Magnetic tape was also essential later for the video tape recorder. Allies hadn't a clue how the Axis was transmitting speeches and programs hours apart to different locations and having them sound "live." It was top of the list of technologies to capture as the war concluded. Management systems for keeping massive and complex development programs on track was another "invention" transferred to the US, along with its scientists and project managers. These systems allowed the Germans to have developments underway in numerous categories and perform them remarkably well. The Wankel engine, which is now referred to as the "rotary engine" was invented during the Third Reich. Mazda uses this engine extensively. Someone mentioned the Autobahnen as really an idea thought up during the Weimar Republic. Yes, but that brings to light another achievement, and that is simply the will and energy to put unemployed workers to work doing things that needed to be done, something the Weimar government was totally inept at doing. "Parliamentary chaos" combined with acquiescence to WWI reparations were the problems. Missile technology: Ground-to-ground, air-to-air, air-to-ground, ground-to-air, ship-to-ship, etc., using wire guidance, TV guidance, IR guidance (everything but laser quidance). Most of these missiles were not at the highest form of development, but their work launched and made a bundle of money later on for corporations like Boeing, Raytheon, Hughes Aircraft, North American Aviation (Rocketdyne Div.), etc. All of these companies had their German "Chief Scientist" heading up research and development operations. The promising IR technologies were mostly all developed during the Third Reich. They had "night vision" devices while the Allies were still wondering if such things were possible. Modern sewer treatment facilities are all derived from Third Reich technology. You've probably seen them with their settling ponds and huge skimmers. While the Englishman, Farnsworth, gets credit for the invention of a very rudimentary television, it was the Third Reich that perfected television and conducted the first broadcasting. Application of geophones for seismic wave detection was used for locating artillary. The "wishbone cannon" was invented and installed at Calais, France. It was destroyed before it was operable. The "rail gun" was another significant invention, which the US and SU copied. This weapon employes a series of ring magnets to propell a rail mounted projectile. The significant feature of this "gun" is that it can accelerate the projectile at a speed nearing infinity -- at least in theory. Conventional explosives are limited by their individual, finite rates of expansion and hence constrained in how fast they can make a projectile move. The intial "invention" of the Third Reich that made everything possible was the breaking away from the international banking system, which made its money on debt finance; i.e., usury. This act was probably the most important event which caused WWII to later occur. In the Thirties the German economy was booming and all sorts of new humane benefits were granted to workers. Elsewhere, deep economic depression was underway, and Roosevelt, for instance, really couldn't get things to moving until we went into a war economy mode. In all, 300,000 patents and copyrights were expropriated from Germany by the Allies after 1945. The Fischer-Tropsch process to produce synthetic fuels from coal, which fueled Germany's armed forces throughout the war. The dicovery of the ingesting of faecal bacteria to cure gut problems http://www.rense.com/general4/bac.htm Dr Morell used his Mutaflor to treat Hitler's foul smelling stools. And used today as Symbioflor http://www.biosym.dk/english/produkt_symbioflor.htm The chemical enhancing of soldiers' ability to fight http://www.rense.com/general34/enhance.htm During the Nazi era, German scientists
Is thye political leadership a Myth ?? more cost than benefit ?? Elections? In this dreadful election season, many politicians have promised to "lead us into the future." I can hardly think of a worse fate for any society than to be led into the future by the political class of gangsters, marauders, looters, and liars. Even the most honest and well-intended among them are powerless to improve the world in any way except by diminishing rather than increasing their power. Politicians haven't the capacity to lead whole societies anywhere. They are outclassed and outrun by trends in the world economy that are beyond the ability of the political class to control or direct. The market economy—globalized, enormously powerful, breathtaking in scope and breadth—is remaking the world in ways that far surpass any existing political development in the US, from the crafted blather of Congressional hearings on this or that to the mad rush to grab the presidential brass rings. We are living through changes that may appear slow if observed from the point of view of the daily headlines, but which are momentously fast and completely transforming when looked at globally and from the point of view of years and decades into the future. These developments are going to bring about surprising political shifts, profound upsets in rooted cultural assumptions, and an eventual and merciful end to the US imperium. These changes will touch everyone in ways that will be both stunning and glorious for average Americans, and deeply disturbing for the American regime that aspires to unchallenged global hegemony. What is the underlying cause? The unleashing of human energies in nations that have been isolated, regimented, and closed for centuries. China, Malaysia, India, the countries of Latin America, and the new economies of Eastern Europe, among many others, are expanding at as much as twice the rate of American and European markets. This is not only remaking their nations, but the way we perceive the geographical distribution of wealth and power. Over time, and extended far into the future, this trend is going to mean dramatic upheavals in the way Americans perceive their role in the world. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. The people in these emerging countries, confronted with new economic opportunities, are making the fruits of their labors, assisted by investments by US firms, available to American consumers, driving down prices and driving up the quality of everyday goods and services consumed by Americans. This phenomenon has been the saving grace of the US economy for a decade, and, in the future, it will become integral to our very lives. To get a glimpse of the change, take a tour of the local Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, and take note of the stunning availability of a huge range of consumer goods at very low prices. Note too that such an array would be inconceivable without the work of international trade. From bicycles and electronics to foodstuffs and flowers, we find the shelves dominated by goods that were produced, in part or in whole, by countries outside US borders, and to this we owe the low prices and the quality that accords with US consumer preferences. Now, Wal-Mart isn't on some campaign to become the leading importer; it is only looking to make available to consumers all the things they want at the lowest possible prices. Where they find these goods is outside the US, where we find ever more comparative advantages. Every retailer in the world is taking notice of this fact, studying the case of Wal-Mart to see how and why it so quickly became the dominant player in the world economy. Its example of seeing both the wholesale and retail market as global in scope—all in the interest of consumer service—has taught the entire business class that nationalism and parochialism are losing propositions. The left may continue to rail against this company, and the right may continue to warn of its dangers to local culture and life, but the example is there for all to see. Average people love this company. It is all old-fashioned consumer service combined with a global reach to bring to average people things that improve their lot in life. Wal-Mart may eventually go the way of so many companies, displaced by some other firm that knows how to do it even better. The point is the model from which it is working. It is a global model focused on the individual buyer, and it works its wonders by depending on the voluntary decisions of average people. The nation state as such plays no part in its calculus, and this has proven to be the winning ticket. So it will continue to be. What about the economic impact? Is marketing all these wares to the world a danger? One might be initially alarmed by this, until one considers the savings to the consumer. For every dime saved in consumer prices, one more dime is made available for other pursuits, whether savings, consumption, or investment. It is this fact which is subsidizing American prosperity right now. Far from being a sign that America has lost its edge, it constitutes the world's gift to American consumers. The trade is mutually beneficial, producing winners on all sides, with the only losers being those American producers who can't seem to drive their costs down low enough to compete in the world marketplace. It is because of this, and despite the constant attempts by central banks to inflate the currency, that prices are continuing to fall for consumer goods. People who have noted these trends say that we should panic that there won't be any jobs left for Americans to do. What this forgets is the reality of scarcity in the world, which implies that there are always and everywhere jobs to do because there are always and everywhere unmet needs. Specialization and the division of labor permits Americans to produce most efficiently in a way that is integral to world demand and not waste time and resources in jobs that can be done more cheaply elsewhere. This does indeed mean a change in world patterns of production, but the market will manage the change with minimum disruption, as it has for the last several hundred years. For the developing world, it means something far more dramatic: a nearly complete abandonment of traditional economic pursuits that were imposed on them by virtue of their previous isolation from the capitalist West. The point is not that their economies are free or have been completely unleashed from the chains of the state. The US and Western Europe, in many respects, remain the most free economies. What matters here is the direction of change. Whereas the US and Europe are increasingly controlled, countries such as China, India, Romania, Poland, Thailand, and many others, are far less controlled than they once were. This has unleashed pent-up human energies and made a fantastic difference in the ability of these people to integrate themselves into the worldwide division of labor. This has meant rising incomes, better diets, less starvation, less disease, better sanitation, falling infant mortality, much longer lifespans, and ever more economic opportunities for work and investment. The fate of these economies has two major links to that of American citizens: in their capacity as consumers, they have a strong interest in seeing it continue, and, as investors, many portfolios of US investors are heavily invested in these emerging economies. The quality of life in these distant lands is increasing in ways that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago, with information technologies made available by the private sector coming into the hands of a new generation that relies on cell phones and high-speed web access, where their parents struggled barely to survive. The lifespan in China alone has risen from 25 years to 65 years in the course of a century. It also means more revenue for the governments of these countries, which, if driven to build up militaries to fend off US political influence, could eventually challenge the supremacy of the US in world public affairs. Again, this is nothing to regret. A world dominated by a single superpower is a gravely dangerous place, especially when that power is irresponsibly managed (and, some would say, is managed by maniacs). A decline in the power, might, and influence of the US is not the same thing as a decline in America; quite the opposite. The only real downside is the transition: the US government may increasingly behave like a dying and rabid animal, posing a danger to its random victims. But once you hear the "thud" of the final fall, the world will be more peaceful and prosperous than ever before. In the meantime, political trends in the US will become increasingly irrelevant, despite appearances. Until recently, Americans thought of themselves as a self-contained people with a nationally bound culture and economy that can be conceptualized and managed in the way that civics texts describe. This is on the verge of being impossible. The managerial class of the regime will continue to pose as experts and top-flight managers, but old assumptions about government are being shredded. Trends on this scale reduce the bellowing of politicians for protection to mere peeps. There is a tendency on the part of everyone to judge a historical moment by our own daily affairs and in relation only to the headlines that dominate the news. Economic analysis takes a much broader view to consider the overall impact of billions of people in many lands over a long period of time. It is through examining these trends that we can see that we are entering into a new world of global economic expansion that will rout any attempt to keep it at bay. Now, clearly, this will not occur without periods of crisis, particularly so long as the world is on a dollar standard and governments are still at work bringing calamity wherever they can. Take a look at where and how the products you use every day are made. Therein lies a remarkable story of the genius of entrepreneurship, the capacity for the world economy to manage itself and overcome ten thousand barriers, and the direction we are headed. It is a world in which consumers and producers from all nations can join hands in praise of the networks that draw them together, and against their common enemy: governments that would stand in the way. To understand the world being recreated before us, we must constantly keep this principle in our mind: trade based on ownership is always and everywhere mutually beneficial. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. If we understand this, we have no reason to fear our fate except to the extent that anyone anywhere dares to interfere. If we understand this, we can see why being led into the future by the political class is something we should neither desire nor expect.
I was in the global warming gravy Train : observational evidence or models ? co2 the real cause? By David Evans 5/28/2007 I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case. I am now skeptical. In the late 1990s, this was the evidence suggesting that carbon emissions caused global warming: 1.Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, proved in a laboratory a century ago. 2.Global warming has been occurring for a century and concentrations of atmospheric carbon have been rising for a century. Correlation is not causation, but in a rough sense it looked like a fit. 3.Ice core data, starting with the first cores from Vostok in 1985, allowed us to measure temperature and atmospheric carbon going back hundreds of thousands of years, through several dramatic global warming and cooling events. To the temporal resolution then available (data points more than a thousand years apart), atmospheric carbon and temperature moved in lockstep: they rose and fell together. Talk about a smoking gun! 4.There were no other credible causes of global warming. This evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we are absolutely certain when we apparently need to act now? So the idea that carbon emissions were causing global warming passed from the scientific community into the political realm. Research increased, bureaucracies were formed, international committees met, and eventually the Kyoto protocol was signed in 1997 to curb carbon emissions. The political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence above fell away. Using the same point numbers as above: 2.Better data shows that from 1940 to 1975 the earth cooled while atmospheric carbon increased. That 35 year non-correlation might eventually be explained by global dimming, only discovered in about 2003. 3.The temporal resolution of the ice core data improved. By 2004 we knew that in past warming events, the temperature increases generally started about 800 years before the rises in atmospheric carbon. Causality does not run in the direction I had assumed in 1999 — it runs the opposite way! It took several hundred years of warming for the oceans to give off more of their carbon. This proves that there is a cause of global warming other than atmospheric carbon. And while it is possible that rising atmospheric carbon in these past warmings then went on to cause more warming ("amplification" of the initial warming), the ice core data neither proves nor disproves this hypothesis. 4.There is now a credible alternative suspect. In October 2006 Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays cause cloud formation. Clouds have a net cooling effect, but for the last three decades there have been fewer clouds than normal because the sun's magnetic field, which shields us from cosmic rays, has been stronger than usual. So the earth heated up. It's too early to judge what fraction of global warming is caused by cosmic rays. There is now no observational evidence that global warming is caused by carbon emissions. You would think that in over 20 years of intense investigation we would have found something. For example, greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions should warm the upper atmosphere faster than the lower atmosphere — but until 2006 the data showed the opposite, and thus that the greenhouse effect was not occurring! In 2006 better data allowed that the effect might be occurring, except in the tropics. The only current "evidence" for blaming carbon emissions are scientific models (and the fact that there are few contradictory observations). Historically, science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations. Some theories held by science authorities have turned out to be spectacularly wrong: heavier-than-air flight is impossible, the sun orbits the earth, etc. For excellent reasons, we have much more confidence in observations by several independent parties than in models produced by a small set of related parties! Let's return to the interaction between science and politics. By 2000 the political system had responded to the strong scientific case that carbon emissions caused global warming by creating thousands of bureaucratic and science jobs aimed at more research and at curbing carbon emissions. But after 2000 the case against carbon emissions gradually got weaker. Future evidence might strengthen or further weaken it. At what stage of the weakening should the science community alert the political system that carbon emissions might not be the main cause of global warming? None of the new evidence actually says that carbon emissions are definitely not the cause of global warming, there are lots of good science jobs potentially at stake, and if the scientific message wavers then it might be difficult to later recapture the attention of the political system. What has happened is that most research efforts since 1990 have assumed that carbon emissions were the cause, and the alternatives get much less research or political attention. Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. Climate change has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly blames carbon emissions, to the point of silencing critics. The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effect of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming. I recently bet $6,000 that the rate of global warming would slow in the next two decades. Carbon emissions might be the dominant cause of global warming, but I reckon that probability to be 20% rather than the 90% the IPCC estimates. I worry that politics could seriously distort the science. Suppose that carbon taxes are widely enacted, but that the rate of global warming increase starts to decline by 2015. The political system might pressure scientists to provide justifications for the taxes. Imagine the following scenario. Carbon emissions cause some warming, maybe 0.05C/decade. But the current warming rate of 0.20C/decade is mainly due to some natural cause, which in 15 years has run its course and reverses. So by 2025 global temperatures start dropping. In the meantime, on the basis of models from a small group of climate scientists but with no observational evidence (because the small warming due to carbon emissions is masked by the larger natural warming), the world has dutifully paid an enormous cost to curb carbon emissions. Politicians, expressing the anger and apparent futility of all the unnecessary poverty and effort, lead the lynching of the high priests with their opaque models. Ironically, because carbon emissions are raising the temperature baseline around which natural variability occurs, carbon emissions might need curbing after all. Maybe. The current situation is characterized by a lack of observational evidence, so no one knows yet. Some people take strong rhetorical positions on global warming. But the cause of global warming is not just another political issue, subject to endless debate and distortions. The cause of global warming is an issue that falls into the realm of science, because it is falsifiable. No amount of human posturing will affect what the cause is. It just physically is there, and after sufficient research and time we will know what it is. ______________________________... David Evans, a mathematician, and a computer and electrical engineer, is head of Science Speak
Is political Leadership a Myth ? In this dreadful election season, many politicians have promised to "lead us into the future." I can hardly think of a worse fate for any society than to be led into the future by the political class of gangsters, marauders, looters, and liars. Even the most honest and well-intended among them are powerless to improve the world in any way except by diminishing rather than increasing their power. Politicians haven't the capacity to lead whole societies anywhere. They are outclassed and outrun by trends in the world economy that are beyond the ability of the political class to control or direct. The market economy—globalized, enormously powerful, breathtaking in scope and breadth—is remaking the world in ways that far surpass any existing political development in the US, from the crafted blather of Congressional hearings on this or that to the mad rush to grab the presidential brass rings. We are living through changes that may appear slow if observed from the point of view of the daily headlines, but which are momentously fast and completely transforming when looked at globally and from the point of view of years and decades into the future. These developments are going to bring about surprising political shifts, profound upsets in rooted cultural assumptions, and an eventual and merciful end to the US imperium. These changes will touch everyone in ways that will be both stunning and glorious for average Americans, and deeply disturbing for the American regime that aspires to unchallenged global hegemony. What is the underlying cause? The unleashing of human energies in nations that have been isolated, regimented, and closed for centuries. China, Malaysia, India, the countries of Latin America, and the new economies of Eastern Europe, among many others, are expanding at as much as twice the rate of American and European markets. This is not only remaking their nations, but the way we perceive the geographical distribution of wealth and power. Over time, and extended far into the future, this trend is going to mean dramatic upheavals in the way Americans perceive their role in the world. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. The people in these emerging countries, confronted with new economic opportunities, are making the fruits of their labors, assisted by investments by US firms, available to American consumers, driving down prices and driving up the quality of everyday goods and services consumed by Americans. This phenomenon has been the saving grace of the US economy for a decade, and, in the future, it will become integral to our very lives. To get a glimpse of the change, take a tour of the local Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world, and take note of the stunning availability of a huge range of consumer goods at very low prices. Note too that such an array would be inconceivable without the work of international trade. From bicycles and electronics to foodstuffs and flowers, we find the shelves dominated by goods that were produced, in part or in whole, by countries outside US borders, and to this we owe the low prices and the quality that accords with US consumer preferences. Now, Wal-Mart isn't on some campaign to become the leading importer; it is only looking to make available to consumers all the things they want at the lowest possible prices. Where they find these goods is outside the US, where we find ever more comparative advantages. Every retailer in the world is taking notice of this fact, studying the case of Wal-Mart to see how and why it so quickly became the dominant player in the world economy. Its example of seeing both the wholesale and retail market as global in scope—all in the interest of consumer service—has taught the entire business class that nationalism and parochialism are losing propositions. The left may continue to rail against this company, and the right may continue to warn of its dangers to local culture and life, but the example is there for all to see. Average people love this company. It is all old-fashioned consumer service combined with a global reach to bring to average people things that improve their lot in life. Wal-Mart may eventually go the way of so many companies, displaced by some other firm that knows how to do it even better. The point is the model from which it is working. It is a global model focused on the individual buyer, and it works its wonders by depending on the voluntary decisions of average people. The nation state as such plays no part in its calculus, and this has proven to be the winning ticket. So it will continue to be. What about the economic impact? Is marketing all these wares to the world a danger? One might be initially alarmed by this, until one considers the savings to the consumer. For every dime saved in consumer prices, one more dime is made available for other pursuits, whether savings, consumption, or investment. It is this fact which is subsidizing American prosperity right now. Far from being a sign that America has lost its edge, it constitutes the world's gift to American consumers. The trade is mutually beneficial, producing winners on all sides, with the only losers being those American producers who can't seem to drive their costs down low enough to compete in the world marketplace. It is because of this, and despite the constant attempts by central banks to inflate the currency, that prices are continuing to fall for consumer goods. People who have noted these trends say that we should panic that there won't be any jobs left for Americans to do. What this forgets is the reality of scarcity in the world, which implies that there are always and everywhere jobs to do because there are always and everywhere unmet needs. Specialization and the division of labor permits Americans to produce most efficiently in a way that is integral to world demand and not waste time and resources in jobs that can be done more cheaply elsewhere. This does indeed mean a change in world patterns of production, but the market will manage the change with minimum disruption, as it has for the last several hundred years. For the developing world, it means something far more dramatic: a nearly complete abandonment of traditional economic pursuits that were imposed on them by virtue of their previous isolation from the capitalist West. The point is not that their economies are free or have been completely unleashed from the chains of the state. The US and Western Europe, in many respects, remain the most free economies. What matters here is the direction of change. Whereas the US and Europe are increasingly controlled, countries such as China, India, Romania, Poland, Thailand, and many others, are far less controlled than they once were. This has unleashed pent-up human energies and made a fantastic difference in the ability of these people to integrate themselves into the worldwide division of labor. This has meant rising incomes, better diets, less starvation, less disease, better sanitation, falling infant mortality, much longer lifespans, and ever more economic opportunities for work and investment. The fate of these economies has two major links to that of American citizens: in their capacity as consumers, they have a strong interest in seeing it continue, and, as investors, many portfolios of US investors are heavily invested in these emerging economies. The quality of life in these distant lands is increasing in ways that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago, with information technologies made available by the private sector coming into the hands of a new generation that relies on cell phones and high-speed web access, where their parents struggled barely to survive. The lifespan in China alone has risen from 25 years to 65 years in the course of a century. It also means more revenue for the governments of these countries, which, if driven to build up militaries to fend off US political influence, could eventually challenge the supremacy of the US in world public affairs. Again, this is nothing to regret. A world dominated by a single superpower is a gravely dangerous place, especially when that power is irresponsibly managed (and, some would say, is managed by maniacs). A decline in the power, might, and influence of the US is not the same thing as a decline in America; quite the opposite. The only real downside is the transition: the US government may increasingly behave like a dying and rabid animal, posing a danger to its random victims. But once you hear the "thud" of the final fall, the world will be more peaceful and prosperous than ever before. In the meantime, political trends in the US will become increasingly irrelevant, despite appearances. Until recently, Americans thought of themselves as a self-contained people with a nationally bound culture and economy that can be conceptualized and managed in the way that civics texts describe. This is on the verge of being impossible. The managerial class of the regime will continue to pose as experts and top-flight managers, but old assumptions about government are being shredded. Trends on this scale reduce the bellowing of politicians for protection to mere peeps. There is a tendency on the part of everyone to judge a historical moment by our own daily affairs and in relation only to the headlines that dominate the news. Economic analysis takes a much broader view to consider the overall impact of billions of people in many lands over a long period of time. It is through examining these trends that we can see that we are entering into a new world of global economic expansion that will rout any attempt to keep it at bay. Now, clearly, this will not occur without periods of crisis, particularly so long as the world is on a dollar standard and governments are still at work bringing calamity wherever they can. Take a look at where and how the products you use every day are made. Therein lies a remarkable story of the genius of entrepreneurship, the capacity for the world economy to manage itself and overcome ten thousand barriers, and the direction we are headed. It is a world in which consumers and producers from all nations can join hands in praise of the networks that draw them together, and against their common enemy: governments that would stand in the way. To understand the world being recreated before us, we must constantly keep this principle in our mind: trade based on ownership is always and everywhere mutually beneficial. Within the institution of trade—whether on the most local level or the global level—we find the key to peace, prosperity, and human flourishing. If we understand this, we have no reason to fear our fate except to the extent that anyone anywhere dares to interfere. If we understand this, we can see why being led into the future by the political class is something we should neither desire nor expect. _______________________________ Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr Sorry, Some Ideas need this long........
Would you like to check out these 320 useless facts? 1. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was born on and died on days when Halley's Comet can be seen. During his life he predicted that he would die when it could be seen. 2. US Dollar bills are made out of cotton and linen. 3. The "57" on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of pickle types the company once had. 4. Americans are responsible for about 1/5 of the world's garbage annually. On average, that's 3 pounds a day per person. 5. Giraffes and rats can last longer without water than camels. 6. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks so that it doesn't digest itself. 7. 98% of all murders and rapes are by a close family member or friend of the victim. 8. A B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945. 9. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper. 10. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle. 11. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top. 12. Benjamin Franklin was the fifth in a series of the youngest son of the youngest son. 13. Triskaidekaphobia means fear of the number 13. Paraskevidekatriaphobia means fear of Friday the 13th (which occurs one to three times a year). In Italy, 17 is considered an unlucky number. In Japan, 4 is considered an unlucky number. 14. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate. 15. All the chemicals in a human body combined are worth about 6.25 euro (if sold separately). 16. In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles. 17. The ZIP in "ZIP code" means Zoning Improvement Plan. 18. Coca-Cola contained Coca (whose active ingredient is cocaine) from 1885 to 1903. 19. A "2 by 4" is really 1 1/2 by 3 1/2. 20. It's estimated that at any one time around 0.7% of the world's population is drunk. 21. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades = David ; Clubs = Alexander the Great ; Hearts = Charlemagne ; Diamonds = Caesar 22. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals. 23. Every person, including identical twins, has a unique eye and tongue print along with their finger print. 24. The "spot" on the 7-Up logo comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was an albino. 25. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 dictionary were misspelled. 26. The "save" icon in Microsoft Office programs shows a floppy disk with the shutter on backwards. 27. Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin both married their first cousins (Elsa Löwenthal and Emma Wedgewood respectively). 28. Camel's have three eyelids. 29. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day. 30. John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son. 31. Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine are brother and sister. 32. Chocolate can kill dogs; it directly affects their heart and nervous system. 33. Daniel Boone hated coonskin caps. 34. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape. 35. 55.1% of all US prisoners are in prison for drug offenses. 36. Most lipstick contains fish scales. 37. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode. 38. Dr. Seuss pronounced his name "soyce". 39. Slugs have four noses. 40. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine. 41. The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil). 42. India has a Bill of Rights for cows. 43. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. (DON'T TRY IT, DUMBASS) 44. During the California gold rush of 1849, miners sent their laundry to Honolulu for washing and pressing. Due to the extremely high costs in California during these boom years, it was deemed more feasible to send their shirts to Hawaii for servicing. 45. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by taking out an olive from First Class salads. 46. About 200,000,000 M&Ms are sold each day in the United States. 47. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood. 48. Over a course of about eleven years, the sun's magnetic poles switch places. This cycle is called "Solarmax". 49. There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess. 50. Upper and lower case letters are named "upper" and "lower" because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the lower case letters. 51. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos. 52. The numbers "172" can be found on the back of the US 5 dollar bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. 53. Coconuts kill about 150 people each year. That's more than sharks. 54. Half of all bank robberies take place on a Friday. 55. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before it. 56. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672. 57. The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. 58. The average raindrop falls at 7 miles per hour. 59. It took Leonardo Da Vinci 10 years to paint Mona Lisa. He never signed or dated the painting. Leonardo and Mona had identical bone structures according to the painting. X-ray images have shown that there are 3 other versions under the original. 60. If you put a drop of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. 61. Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to slow the film down so you could see his moves. 62. The largest amount of money you can have without having change for a dollar is $1.19 (3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies cannot be divided into a dollar). 63. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA". 64. IBM's motto is "Think". Apple later made their motto "Think different". 65. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white, due to low budget. 66. The original name for butterfly was flutterby. 67. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. 68. One in fourteen women in America is a natural blonde. Only one in sixteen men is. 69. The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service. 70. When the Titanic sank, 2228 people were on it. Only 706 survived. 71. In America, someone is diagnosed with AIDS every 10 minutes. In South Africa, someone dies due to HIV or AIDS every 10 minutes. 72. Every day, 7% of the US eats at McDonald's. 73. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, which Motorola got their name from. 74. In the US, about 127 million adults are overweight or obese; worldwide, 750 million are overweight and 300 million more are obese. In the US, 15% of children in elementary school are overweight; 20% are worldwide. 75. In Disney's Fantasia, the Sorcerer to whom Mickey played an apprentice was named Yensid (Disney spelled backward). 76. During his entire life, Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting, "Red Vineyard at Arles". 77. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand. 78. One in ten people live on an island. 79. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. 80. 28% of Africa is classified as wilderness. In North America, its 38%. 81. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. 82. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. 83. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said "Elementary, my dear Watson", Humphrey Bogart NEVER said "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, and they NEVER said "Beam me up, Scotty" on Star Trek. 84. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing. 85. Sharon Stone was the first Star Search spokes model. 86. The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head. 87. More people are afraid of open spaces (kenophobia) than of tight spaces (claustrophobia). 88. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher. 89. There is a 1 in 4 chance that New York will have a white Christmas. 90. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries. 91. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. 92. Back in the mid to late '80s, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered 100% compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator. 93. $203,000,000 is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S. 94. Every US president has worn glasses (just not always in public). 95. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. 96. Jim Henson first coined the word "Muppet". It is a combination of "marionette" and "puppet." 97. The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with (not counting the words "North" and "South). 98. The Michelin man is known as Mr. Bib. His name was Bibendum in the company's first ads in 1896. 99. About 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activity. 100. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want. 101. About 14% of injecting drug users are HIV positive. 102. A word or sentence that is the same front and back (racecar, kayak) is called a "palindrome". 103. A snail can sleep for 3 years. 104. People photocopying their buttocks are the cause of 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide. 105. China has more English speakers than the United States. 106. Finnish folklore says that when Santa comes to Finland to deliver gifts, he leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko instead. According to French tradition, Santa Claus has a brother named Bells Nichols, who visits homes on New Year's Eve after everyone is asleep, and if a plate is set out for him, he fills it with cookies and cakes. 107. One in every 9000 people is an albino. 108. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. 109. You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world. 110. Everyday, more money is printed for Monopoly sets than for the U.S. Treasury. 111. Every year 4 people in the UK die putting their trousers on. 112. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds; dogs only have about ten. 113. Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing. 114. In every episode of "Seinfeld" there is a Superman picture or reference somewhere. 115. If Barbie were life-size her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck. 116. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants. 117. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. 118. Each year in America there are about 300,000 deaths that can be attributed to obesity. 119. About 55% of all movies are rated R. 120. About 500 movies are made in the US and 800 in India annually. 121. Arabic numerals are not really Arabic; they were created in India. 122. Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations (implemented on July 16, 1969) makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles. 123. The February of 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. 124. The Pentagon in Arlington Virginia has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites. 125. There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable. 126. The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. 127. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call. 128. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. 129. There are about 2 chickens for every human in the world. 130. The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick. 131. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. 132. For every memorial statue with a person on a horse, if the horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died of battle wounds; if all four of the horse's legs are on the ground, the person died of natural causes. 133. On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the American flag is flying over the Parliament Building. 134. An American urologist bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000. 135. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. 136. Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "MT". 137. $283,200 is the absolute highest amount of money you can win on Jeopardy. 138. Almonds are members of the peach family. 139. Rats and horses can't vomit. 140. The penguin is the only bird that can't fly but can swim. 141. There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day. 142. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies room during a dance. 143. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. 144. There are only four words in the English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. 145. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. 146. Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie. 147. "101 Dalmatians" and "Peter Pan" are the only Disney animations in which both of a character's parents are present and don't die during the movie. 148. You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider. 149. Hedenophobic means fear of pleasure. 150. Ancient Egyptian priests would pluck every hair from their bodies. 151. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. 152. Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18. 80% of burglaries are committed by people aged 13-21. 153. An ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. 154. All polar bears are left-handed. 155. The catfish has over 27000 taste buds (more than any other animal) 156. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. 157. Butterflies taste with their feet. 158. Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump. 159. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. 160. Starfish have no brains. 161. 11% of the world is left-handed. 162. John Hancock and Charles Thomson were the only people to sign the Declaration of independence on July 4th, 1776. The last signature came five years later. 163. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. 164. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. 165. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. 166. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. 167. A healthy (non-colorblind) human eye can distinguish between 500 shades of gray. 168. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. 169. Lizards can self-amputate their tails for protection. It grows back after a few months. 170. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula". It can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A. 171. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. 172. A honeybee can fly at fifteen miles per hour. 173. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. 174. A "jiffy" is the scientific name for 1/100th of a second. 175. The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade. 176. The youngest pope ever was 11 years old. 177. The first novel ever written on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer. 178. One out of every 43 prisoners escapes from jail. 94% are recaptured. 179. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. 180. The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs melted into it. 181. A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair. 182. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes. 183. Elwood Edwards did the voice for the AOL sound files (i.e. "You've got Mail!"). He is heard about 27 million times a day. The recordings were done before Quantum changed its name to AOL and the program was known as "Q-Link." 184. A polar bears skin is black. Its fur is actually clear, but like snow it appears white. 185. Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis middle name was spelled Aron, in honor of his brother. 186. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors. 187. Donkeys kill more people than plane crashes. 188. Shakespeare invented the words "assassination" and "bump." 189. There are a million ants for every person on Earth. 190. If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white. 191. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. 192. The name Jeep comes from "GP", the army abbreviation for General Purpose. 193. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do. 194. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. 195. Cats' urine glows under a black light. 196. A "quidnunc" is a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip. 197. The first US Patent was for manufacturing potassium carbonate (used in glass and gunpowder). It was issued to Samuel Hopkins on July 31, 1970. 198. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors, the helicopter, and many other present day items. 199. In the last 4000 years no new animals have been domesticated. 200. 25% of a human's bones are in its feet. 201. David Sarnoff received the Titanic's distress signal and saved hundreds of passengers. He later became the head of the first radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). 202. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. 203. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than every Nike factory worker in Malaysia combined. 204. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the '30s lobbied against hemp farmers (they saw it as competition). 205. "Canada" is an Indian word meaning "Big Village". 206. Only one in two billion people will live to be 116 or older. 207. If you yelled for 8 years 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. 208. Rape is reported every six minutes in the U.S. 209. The human heart creates enough pressure in the bloodstream to squirt blood 30 feet. 210. A jellyfish is 95% water. 211. Truck driving is the most dangerous occupation by accidental deaths (799 in 2001). 212. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. 213. Elephants only sleep for two hours each day. 214. On average people fear spiders more than they do death. 215. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. (the heart is not a muscle) 216. In golf, a 'Bo Derek' is a score of 10. 217. In the U.S, Frisbees outsell footballs, baseballs and basketballs combined. 218. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. 219. If you plant an apple seed, it is almost guaranteed to grow a tree of a different type of apple. 220. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. 221. The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross. 222. There are about 450 types of cheese in the world. 240 come from France. 223. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers plays football at home the stadium becomes Nebraska's third largest city. 224. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life". 225. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours. 226. In Iceland, a Big Mac costs $5.50. 227. Broccoli and cauliflower are the only vegetables that are flowers. 228. Newborn babies have about 350 bones. They gradually merge and disappear until there are about 206 by age 5. 229. There is no solid proof of who built the Taj Mahal. 230. In a survey of 200000 ostriches over 80 years, not one tried to bury its head in the sand. 231. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. A quarter has 119. 232. On an American one-dollar bill there is a tiny owl in the upper-left-hand corner of the upper-right-hand "1" and a spider hidden in the front upper-right-hand corner. 233. Judy Scheindlin ("Judge Judy") has a $25,000,000 salary, while Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has a $190,100 salary. 234. The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z. 235. Andorra, a tiny country on the border between France and Spain, has the longest average lifespan: 83.49 years. 236. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. 237. Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. 238. In America you will see an average of 500 advertisements a day. 239. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles. 240. You can lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs. 241. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. 242. "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English. 243. There are 336 dimples on a regulation US golf ball. In the UK its 330. 244. The Toltecs (a 7th century tribe) used wooden swords so they wouldn't kill their enemies. 245. "Duff" is the decaying organic matter found on a forest floor. 246. The US has more personal computers than the next 7 countries combined. 247. There have been over 600 lawsuits against Alexander Grahm Bell over rights to the patent of the telephone, the most valuable patent in U.S. history. 248. Kuwait is about 60% male (highest in the world). Latvia is about 54% female (highest in the world). 249. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters. 250. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined. 251. At the height of its power in 400 BC, the Greek city of Sparta had 25,000 citizens and 500,000 slaves. 252. Julius Caesar's autograph is worth about $2,000,000. 253. The tool doctors wrap around a patient's arm to measure blood pressure is called a sphygmomanometer. 254. People say "bless you" when you sneeze because your heart stops for a millisecond. 255. US gold coins used to say "In Gold We Trust". 256. In "Silence of the Lambs", Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) never blinks. 257. A shrimp's heart is in its head. 258. In the 17th century, the value of pi was known to 35 decimal places. Today, to 1.2411 trillion. 259. The bestselling books of all time are The Bible (6billion+), Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (900million+), and The Lord of the Rings (100million+) 260. Pearls melt in vinegar. 261. "Lassie" was played by a group of male dogs; the main one was named Pal. 262. In 1863, Paul Hubert of Bordeaux, France, was sentenced to life in jail for murder. After 21 years, it was discovered that he was convicted of murdering himself. 263. Nepal is the only country that doesn't have a rectangular flag. Switzerland is the only country with a square flag. 264. Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer are the only angels named in the Bible. 265. Tiger Woods' real first name is Eldrick. His father gave him the nickname "Tiger" in honor of a South Vietnamese soldier his father had fought alongside with during the Vietnam War. 266. Johnny Appleseed planted apples so that people could use apple cider to make alcohol. 267. Abraham Lincoln's ghost is said to haunt the White House. 268. God is not mentioned once in the book of Esther. 269. The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census. 270. Scotland has more redheads than any other part of the world. 271. There is an average of 61,000 people airborne over the US at any given moment. 272. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane in case there is a crash. 273. The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad. The most common name (of any type) in the world is Mohammed. 274. The surface of the Earth is about 60% water and 10% ice. 275. For every 230 cars that are made, 1 will be stolen. 276. Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital. 277. Lightning strikes the earth about 8 million times a day. 278. Around 2,000 left-handed people die annually due to improper use of equipment designed only for right handed people. 279. The "if" and "then" parts of conditional ("if P then Q") statement are called the protasis (P) and apodosis (Q). 280. Humans use a total of 72 different muscles in speech. 281. If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode. 282. Only female mosquitoes bite. 283. The U.S. Post Office handles 43 percent of the world's mail. 284. Most household dust is made of dead skin cells. 285. One in about eight million people has progeria, a disease that causes people to grow faster than they age. 286. The male seahorse carries the eggs until they hatch instead of the female. 287. The "countdown" (counting down from 10 for an event such as New-Years Day) was first used in a 1929 German silent film called "Die Frau Im Monde" (The Girl in the Moon). 288. Negative emotions such as anxiety and depression can weaken your immune system. 289. There are seven suicides in the Bible: Abimelech. Samson, Saul, Saul's armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri, Judas. 290. A mongoose is not a goose but more like a meercat, which is not a cat but more like a prairie dog, which is not a dog but more like a ground squirrel. 291. Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years after Galileo died. 292. Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit. 293. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe died on July 4th. Adams and Jefferson died in the same year. Supposedly, Adams last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives." 294. The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth, not Babe Ruth the baseball player. 295. Dolphins can look in different directions with each eye. They can sleep with one eye open. 296. The Falkland Isles (pop. about 2000) has over 700000 sheep (350 per person). 297. There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today. 298. While many treaties have been signed at or near Paris, France (including many after WWI and WWII), nine are actually known as the "Treaty of Paris": Seven Years' War (1763), American Revolutionary War (1783), French-Swede War (1810), France vs Sixth Coalition (1814), Battle of Waterloo (1815), Crimean War (1856), Spanish-American War (1898), union of Bessarabia and Romania (1920), establishment of European Coal and Steel Community (1951). 299. Robert Todd Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln's oldest son) was in Washington DC during his father's assassination as well as during President Garfield's assassination, and he was in Buffalo NY when President McKinley was assassinated. 300. The city of Venice stands on about 120 small islands. 301. The past-tense of the English word "dare" is "durst". 302. Don Mac Lean's song "American Pie" was written about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), who all died in the same plane crash. 303. The drummer for ZZ Top (the only one without a beard) is named Frank Beard. 304. Hummingbirds can't walk. 305. When movie directors do not want their names to be seen in the credits, they use the pseudonym "Allen Smithee" instead. It has been used over 50 times, starting with "Death of a Gunfighter" (1969). 306. Four different people played the part of Darth Vader (body, face, voice, and breathing). 307. Pamela Lee-Anderson was the first to be born in Canada on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence (7/1/1967). 308. There is about 200 times more gold in the oceans than has been mined throughout history. 309. William Shatner is credited for being the first person on TV to say "hell" as well as to have the first inter-racial kiss (with Nichelle Nichols), both in episodes of Star Trek. 310. While the US government's supply of gold is kept at Fort Knox, its supply of silver is kept at the Military Academy at West Point, NY. 311. Alexander Graham Bell's wife and mother were both deaf. 312. Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works. 313. In the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, if a man was not married by age 30, he would not be allowed to vote or watch athletic events involving nude young men. 314. Attila the Hun (invader of Europe; 406-453), Felix Faure (French President; 1841-1899), Pope Leo VII (936-939), Pope John VII (955-964), Pope Leo VIII (963-965), Pope John XIII (965-72), Pope Paul II (1467-1471), Lord Palmerston (British Prime Minister, 1784-1865), Nelson Rockefeller (US Vice President, 1908-1979), and John Entwistle (The Who's bassist, 1944-2002) all died while having sex. 315. Humans and dolphins are the only animals known to have sex for pleasure. 316. Pac-Man, Namco's 1979 arcade game, was originally called "Puck Man". The name was changed when they realized that vandals could easily scratch out part of the letter "P". 317. Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, April 23, 1616. 318. There are about 7.7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population). 319. The youngest mother on record was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina. She gave birth to a boy by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 (which happened to be Mother's Day), at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days. 320. The "middle finger" gesture originates back to 423 BC in Aristophanes play "The Clouds". Have fun reading it. Some interesting stuff on there. I didn't type them up myself either. Just copied and pasted them. No offense taken. Just skim through it, it ain't rocket science. Yes there is a one thousand limit on characters but i don't care. And i am not bored for a change. Triple Ho took hostage of my avatar. It's better than the male face though. Triple Ho took hostage of my avatar. It's better than the male face though.
anybody intrested check this out? 1. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was born on and died on days when Halley's Comet can be seen. During his life he predicted that he would die when it could be seen. 2. US Dollar bills are made out of cotton and linen. 3. The "57" on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of pickle types the company once had. 4. Americans are responsible for about 1/5 of the world's garbage annually. On average, that's 3 pounds a day per person. 5. Giraffes and rats can last longer without water than camels. 6. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks so that it doesn't digest itself. 7. 98% of all murders and rapes are by a close family member or friend of the victim. 8. A B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945. 9. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper. 10. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle. 11. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top. 12. Benjamin Franklin was the fifth in a series of the youngest son of the youngest son. 13. Triskaidekaphobia means fear of the number 13. Paraskevidekatriaphobia means fear of Friday the 13th (which occurs one to three times a year). In Italy, 17 is considered an unlucky number. In Japan, 4 is considered an unlucky number. 14. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate. 15. All the chemicals in a human body combined are worth about 6.25 euro (if sold separately). 16. In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles. 17. The ZIP in "ZIP code" means Zoning Improvement Plan. 18. Coca-Cola contained Coca (whose active ingredient is cocaine) from 1885 to 1903. 19. A "2 by 4" is really 1 1/2 by 3 1/2. 20. It's estimated that at any one time around 0.7% of the world's population is drunk. 21. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades = David ; Clubs = Alexander the Great ; Hearts = Charlemagne ; Diamonds = Caesar 22. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals. 23. Every person, including identical twins, has a unique eye and tongue print along with their finger print. 24. The "spot" on the 7-Up logo comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was an albino. 25. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 dictionary were misspelled. 26. The "save" icon in Microsoft Office programs shows a floppy disk with the shutter on backwards. 27. Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin both married their first cousins (Elsa Löwenthal and Emma Wedgewood respectively). 28. Camel's have three eyelids. 29. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day. 30. John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son. 31. Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine are brother and sister. 32. Chocolate can kill dogs; it directly affects their heart and nervous system. 33. Daniel Boone hated coonskin caps. 34. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape. 35. 55.1% of all US prisoners are in prison for drug offenses. 36. Most lipstick contains fish scales. 37. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode. 38. Dr. Seuss pronounced his name "soyce". 39. Slugs have four noses. 40. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine. 41. The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil). 42. India has a Bill of Rights for cows. 43. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. (DON'T TRY IT, DUMBASS) 44. During the California gold rush of 1849, miners sent their laundry to Honolulu for washing and pressing. Due to the extremely high costs in California during these boom years, it was deemed more feasible to send their shirts to Hawaii for servicing. 45. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by taking out an olive from First Class salads. 46. About 200,000,000 M&Ms are sold each day in the United States. 47. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood. 48. Over a course of about eleven years, the sun's magnetic poles switch places. This cycle is called "Solarmax". 49. There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess. 50. Upper and lower case letters are named "upper" and "lower" because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the lower case letters. 51. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos. 52. The numbers "172" can be found on the back of the US 5 dollar bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. 53. Coconuts kill about 150 people each year. That's more than sharks. 54. Half of all bank robberies take place on a Friday. 55. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before it. 56. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672. 57. The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. 58. The average raindrop falls at 7 miles per hour. 59. It took Leonardo Da Vinci 10 years to paint Mona Lisa. He never signed or dated the painting. Leonardo and Mona had identical bone structures according to the painting. X-ray images have shown that there are 3 other versions under the original. 60. If you put a drop of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. 61. Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to slow the film down so you could see his moves. 62. The largest amount of money you can have without having change for a dollar is $1.19 (3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies cannot be divided into a dollar). 63. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA". 64. IBM's motto is "Think". Apple later made their motto "Think different". 65. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white, due to low budget. 66. The original name for butterfly was flutterby. 67. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. 68. One in fourteen women in America is a natural blonde. Only one in sixteen men is. 69. The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service. 70. When the Titanic sank, 2228 people were on it. Only 706 survived. 71. In America, someone is diagnosed with AIDS every 10 minutes. In South Africa, someone dies due to HIV or AIDS every 10 minutes. 72. Every day, 7% of the US eats at McDonald's. 73. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, which Motorola got their name from. 74. In the US, about 127 million adults are overweight or obese; worldwide, 750 million are overweight and 300 million more are obese. In the US, 15% of children in elementary school are overweight; 20% are worldwide. 75. In Disney's Fantasia, the Sorcerer to whom Mickey played an apprentice was named Yensid (Disney spelled backward). 76. During his entire life, Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting, "Red Vineyard at Arles". 77. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand. 78. One in ten people live on an island. 79. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. 80. 28% of Africa is classified as wilderness. In North America, its 38%. 81. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. 82. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. 83. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said "Elementary, my dear Watson", Humphrey Bogart NEVER said "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, and they NEVER said "Beam me up, Scotty" on Star Trek. 84. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing. 85. Sharon Stone was the first Star Search spokes model. 86. The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head. 87. More people are afraid of open spaces (kenophobia) than of tight spaces (claustrophobia). 88. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher. 89. There is a 1 in 4 chance that New York will have a white Christmas. 90. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries. 91. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. 92. Back in the mid to late '80s, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered 100% compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator. 93. $203,000,000 is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S. 94. Every US president has worn glasses (just not always in public). 95. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. 96. Jim Henson first coined the word "Muppet". It is a combination of "marionette" and "puppet." 97. The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with (not counting the words "North" and "South). 98. The Michelin man is known as Mr. Bib. His name was Bibendum in the company's first ads in 1896. 99. About 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activity. 100. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want. 101. About 14% of injecting drug users are HIV positive. 102. A word or sentence that is the same front and back (racecar, kayak) is called a "palindrome". 103. A snail can sleep for 3 years. 104. People photocopying their buttocks are the cause of 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide. 105. China has more English speakers than the United States. 106. Finnish folklore says that when Santa comes to Finland to deliver gifts, he leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko instead. According to French tradition, Santa Claus has a brother named Bells Nichols, who visits homes on New Year's Eve after everyone is asleep, and if a plate is set out for him, he fills it with cookies and cakes. 107. One in every 9000 people is an albino. 108. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. 109. You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world. 110. Everyday, more money is printed for Monopoly sets than for the U.S. Treasury. 111. Every year 4 people in the UK die putting their trousers on. 112. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds; dogs only have about ten. 113. Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing. 114. In every episode of "Seinfeld" there is a Superman picture or reference somewhere. 115. If Barbie were life-size her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck. 116. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants. 117. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. 118. Each year in America there are about 300,000 deaths that can be attributed to obesity. 119. About 55% of all movies are rated R. 120. About 500 movies are made in the US and 800 in India annually. 121. Arabic numerals are not really Arabic; they were created in India. 122. Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations (implemented on July 16, 1969) makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles. 123. The February of 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. 124. The Pentagon in Arlington Virginia has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites. 125. There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable. 126. The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. 127. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call. 128. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. 129. There are about 2 chickens for every human in the world. 130. The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick. 131. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. 132. For every memorial statue with a person on a horse, if the horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died of battle wounds; if all four of the horse's legs are on the ground, the person died of natural causes. 133. On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the American flag is flying over the Parliament Building. 134. An American urologist bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000. 135. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. 136. Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "MT". 137. $283,200 is the absolute highest amount of money you can win on Jeopardy. 138. Almonds are members of the peach family. 139. Rats and horses can't vomit. 140. The penguin is the only bird that can't fly but can swim. 141. There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day. 142. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies room during a dance. 143. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. 144. There are only four words in the English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. 145. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. 146. Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie. 147. "101 Dalmatians" and "Peter Pan" are the only Disney animations in which both of a character's parents are present and don't die during the movie. 148. You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider. 149. Hedenophobic means fear of pleasure. 150. Ancient Egyptian priests would pluck every hair from their bodies. 151. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. 152. Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18. 80% of burglaries are committed by people aged 13-21. 153. An ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. 154. All polar bears are left-handed. 155. The catfish has over 27000 taste buds (more than any other animal) 156. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. 157. Butterflies taste with their feet. 158. Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump. 159. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. 160. Starfish have no brains. 161. 11% of the world is left-handed. 162. John Hancock and Charles Thomson were the only people to sign the Declaration of independence on July 4th, 1776. The last signature came five years later. 163. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. 164. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. 165. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. 166. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. 167. A healthy (non-colorblind) human eye can distinguish between 500 shades of gray. 168. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. 169. Lizards can self-amputate their tails for protection. It grows back after a few months. 170. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula". It can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A. 171. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. 172. A honeybee can fly at fifteen miles per hour. 173. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. 174. A "jiffy" is the scientific name for 1/100th of a second. 175. The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade. 176. The youngest pope ever was 11 years old. 177. The first novel ever written on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer. 178. One out of every 43 prisoners escapes from jail. 94% are recaptured. 179. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. 180. The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs melted into it. 181. A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair. 182. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes. 183. Elwood Edwards did the voice for the AOL sound files (i.e. "You've got Mail!"). He is heard about 27 million times a day. The recordings were done before Quantum changed its name to AOL and the program was known as "Q-Link." 184. A polar bears skin is black. Its fur is actually clear, but like snow it appears white. 185. Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis middle name was spelled Aron, in honor of his brother. 186. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors. 187. Donkeys kill more people than plane crashes. 188. Shakespeare invented the words "assassination" and "bump." 189. There are a million ants for every person on Earth. 190. If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white. 191. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. 192. The name Jeep comes from "GP", the army abbreviation for General Purpose. 193. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do. 194. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. 195. Cats' urine glows under a black light. 196. A "quidnunc" is a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip. 197. The first US Patent was for manufacturing potassium carbonate (used in glass and gunpowder). It was issued to Samuel Hopkins on July 31, 1970. 198. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors, the helicopter, and many other present day items. 199. In the last 4000 years no new animals have been domesticated. 200. 25% of a human's bones are in its feet. 201. David Sarnoff received the Titanic's distress signal and saved hundreds of passengers. He later became the head of the first radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). 202. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. 203. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than every Nike factory worker in Malaysia combined. 204. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the '30s lobbied against hemp farmers (they saw it as competition). 205. "Canada" is an Indian word meaning "Big Village". 206. Only one in two billion people will live to be 116 or older. 207. If you yelled for 8 years 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. 208. Rape is reported every six minutes in the U.S. 209. The human heart creates enough pressure in the bloodstream to squirt blood 30 feet. 210. A jellyfish is 95% water. 211. Truck driving is the most dangerous occupation by accidental deaths (799 in 2001). 212. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. 213. Elephants only sleep for two hours each day. 214. On average people fear spiders more than they do death. 215. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. (the heart is not a muscle) 216. In golf, a 'Bo Derek' is a score of 10. 217. In the U.S, Frisbees outsell footballs, baseballs and basketballs combined. 218. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. 219. If you plant an apple seed, it is almost guaranteed to grow a tree of a different type of apple. 220. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. 221. The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross. 222. There are about 450 types of cheese in the world. 240 come from France. 223. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers plays football at home the stadium becomes Nebraska's third largest city. 224. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life". 225. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours. 226. In Iceland, a Big Mac costs $5.50. 227. Broccoli and cauliflower are the only vegetables that are flowers. 228. Newborn babies have about 350 bones. They gradually merge and disappear until there are about 206 by age 5. 229. There is no solid proof of who built the Taj Mahal. 230. In a survey of 200000 ostriches over 80 years, not one tried to bury its head in the sand. 231. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. A quarter has 119. 232. On an American one-dollar bill there is a tiny owl in the upper-left-hand corner of the upper-right-hand "1" and a spider hidden in the front upper-right-hand corner. 233. Judy Scheindlin ("Judge Judy") has a $25,000,000 salary, while Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has a $190,100 salary. 234. The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z. 235. Andorra, a tiny country on the border between France and Spain, has the longest average lifespan: 83.49 years. 236. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. 237. Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. 238. In America you will see an average of 500 advertisements a day. 239. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles. 240. You can lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs. 241. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. 242. "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English. 243. There are 336 dimples on a regulation US golf ball. In the UK its 330. 244. The Toltecs (a 7th century tribe) used wooden swords so they wouldn't kill their enemies. 245. "Duff" is the decaying organic matter found on a forest floor. 246. The US has more personal computers than the next 7 countries combined. 247. There have been over 600 lawsuits against Alexander Grahm Bell over rights to the patent of the telephone, the most valuable patent in U.S. history. 248. Kuwait is about 60% male (highest in the world). Latvia is about 54% female (highest in the world). 249. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters. 250. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined. 251. At the height of its power in 400 BC, the Greek city of Sparta had 25,000 citizens and 500,000 slaves. 252. Julius Caesar's autograph is worth about $2,000,000. 253. The tool doctors wrap around a patient's arm to measure blood pressure is called a sphygmomanometer. 254. People say "bless you" when you sneeze because your heart stops for a millisecond. 255. US gold coins used to say "In Gold We Trust". 256. In "Silence of the Lambs", Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) never blinks. 257. A shrimp's heart is in its head. 258. In the 17th century, the value of pi was known to 35 decimal places. Today, to 1.2411 trillion. 259. The bestselling books of all time are The Bible (6billion+), Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (900million+), and The Lord of the Rings (100million+) 260. Pearls melt in vinegar. 261. "Lassie" was played by a group of male dogs; the main one was named Pal. 262. In 1863, Paul Hubert of Bordeaux, France, was sentenced to life in jail for murder. After 21 years, it was discovered that he was convicted of murdering himself. 263. Nepal is the only country that doesn't have a rectangular flag. Switzerland is the only country with a square flag. 264. Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer are the only angels named in the Bible. 265. Tiger Woods' real first name is Eldrick. His father gave him the nickname "Tiger" in honor of a South Vietnamese soldier his father had fought alongside with during the Vietnam War. 266. Johnny Appleseed planted apples so that people could use apple cider to make alcohol. 267. Abraham Lincoln's ghost is said to haunt the White House. 268. God is not mentioned once in the book of Esther. 269. The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census. 270. Scotland has more redheads than any other part of the world. 271. There is an average of 61,000 people airborne over the US at any given moment. 272. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane in case there is a crash. 273. The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad. The most common name (of any type) in the world is Mohammed. 274. The surface of the Earth is about 60% water and 10% ice. 275. For every 230 cars that are made, 1 will be stolen. 276. Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital. 277. Lightning strikes the earth about 8 million times a day. 278. Around 2,000 left-handed people die annually due to improper use of equipment designed only for right handed people. 279. The "if" and "then" parts of conditional ("if P then Q") statement are called the protasis (P) and apodosis (Q). 280. Humans use a total of 72 different muscles in speech. 281. If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode. 282. Only female mosquitoes bite. 283. The U.S. Post Office handles 43 percent of the world's mail. 284. Most household dust is made of dead skin cells. 285. One in about eight million people has progeria, a disease that causes people to grow faster than they age. 286. The male seahorse carries the eggs until they hatch instead of the female. 287. The "countdown" (counting down from 10 for an event such as New-Years Day) was first used in a 1929 German silent film called "Die Frau Im Monde" (The Girl in the Moon). 288. Negative emotions such as anxiety and depression can weaken your immune system. 289. There are seven suicides in the Bible: Abimelech. Samson, Saul, Saul's armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri, Judas. 290. A mongoose is not a goose but more like a meercat, which is not a cat but more like a prairie dog, which is not a dog but more like a ground squirrel. 291. Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years after Galileo died. 292. Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit. 293. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe died on July 4th. Adams and Jefferson died in the same year. Supposedly, Adams last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives." 294. The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth, not Babe Ruth the baseball player. 295. Dolphins can look in different directions with each eye. They can sleep with one eye open. 296. The Falkland Isles (pop. about 2000) has over 700000 sheep (350 per person). 297. There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today. 298. While many treaties have been signed at or near Paris, France (including many after WWI and WWII), nine are actually known as the "Treaty of Paris": Seven Years' War (1763), American Revolutionary War (1783), French-Swede War (1810), France vs Sixth Coalition (1814), Battle of Waterloo (1815), Crimean War (1856), Spanish-American War (1898), union of Bessarabia and Romania (1920), establishment of European Coal and Steel Community (1951). 299. Robert Todd Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln's oldest son) was in Washington DC during his father's assassination as well as during President Garfield's assassination, and he was in Buffalo NY when President McKinley was assassinated. 300. The city of Venice stands on about 120 small islands. 301. The past-tense of the English word "dare" is "durst". 302. Don Mac Lean's song "American Pie" was written about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), who all died in the same plane crash. 303. The drummer for ZZ Top (the only one without a beard) is named Frank Beard. 304. Hummingbirds can't walk. 305. When movie directors do not want their names to be seen in the credits, they use the pseudonym "Allen Smithee" instead. It has been used over 50 times, starting with "Death of a Gunfighter" (1969). 306. Four different people played the part of Darth Vader (body, face, voice, and breathing). 307. Pamela Lee-Anderson was the first to be born in Canada on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence (7/1/1967). 308. There is about 200 times more gold in the oceans than has been mined throughout history. 309. William Shatner is credited for being the first person on TV to say "hell" as well as to have the first inter-racial kiss (with Nichelle Nichols), both in episodes of Star Trek. 310. While the US government's supply of gold is kept at Fort Knox, its supply of silver is kept at the Military Academy at West Point, NY. 311. Alexander Graham Bell's wife and mother were both deaf. 312. Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works. 313. In the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, if a man was not married by age 30, he would not be allowed to vote or watch athletic events involving nude young men. 314. Attila the Hun (invader of Europe; 406-453), Felix Faure (French President; 1841-1899), Pope Leo VII (936-939), Pope John VII (955-964), Pope Leo VIII (963-965), Pope John XIII (965-72), Pope Paul II (1467-1471), Lord Palmerston (British Prime Minister, 1784-1865), Nelson Rockefeller (US Vice President, 1908-1979), and John Entwistle (The Who's bassist, 1944-2002) all died while having sex. 315. Humans and dolphins are the only animals known to have sex for pleasure. 316. Pac-Man, Namco's 1979 arcade game, was originally called "Puck Man". The name was changed when they realized that vandals could easily scratch out part of the letter "P". 317. Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, April 23, 1616. 318. There are about 7.7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population). 319. The youngest mother on record was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina. She gave birth to a boy by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 (which happened to be Mother's Day), at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days. 320. The "middle finger" gesture originates back to 423 BC in Aristophanes play "The Clouds".
100 Facts (pt. 1)? There are more cars in Southern California than there are cows in India. The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows. The province of Alberta, Canada is completely free of rats. Illinois has the most personalized license plates of any state. 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 front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672. The average chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it. There are 206 bones in the adult human body, but 300 in children (some of the bones fuse together as a child grows). Fleas can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms this is equal to a 6 foot person jumping 780 feet into the air. Snakes are true carnivores as they eat nothing but other animals. They do not eat any type of plant material. There are no poisonous snakes in Maine. The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles. The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year. It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest. Erosion at the base of Niagara Falls (USA) undermines the shale cliffs and as a result, the falls have receded approximately 7 miles over the last 10,000 years. The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime. 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. North Dakota has never had an earthquake. Alexander Graham Bell (who invented the telephone) also set a world water-speed record of over seventy miles an hour at the age of 72. There is enough fuel in a full tank of a jumbo jet to drive an average car four times around the world. Hawaii is moving toward Japan 4 inches every year. Chimps are the only animals that can recognize themselves in a mirror. The leg bones of a bat are so thin that no bat can walk. There are more living organisms on the skin of a single human being than there are human beings on the surface of the earth. Ants do not sleep. Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot. If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak. Almonds are members of the peach family. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. Americans on the average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. One person in two billion will live to be 116 or older. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes. Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was host of "Lorne Greene's Animal Kingdom". The dot that appears over the letter "i" is called a tittle. All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job (in case their pants split). The Spanish word esposa means "wife." The plural, esposas, means "wives," but also "handcuffs." If all Americans used one third less ice in their drinks the United States would become a net exporter instead of an importer of energy. If the Nile River were stretched across the United States, it would run nearly from New York to Los Angeles. San Francisco cable cars are the only National Monuments that move. The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. Its concrete will not be fully cured for another 500 years. Abraham Lincoln's dog, Fido, was assassinated too. All of David Letterman's suits are custom made - there are no creases in his suit trousers. Cranberry Jell-O is the only flavor that contains real fruit flavoring. Fewer than half of the 16,200 major league baseball players have ever hit a home run. In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first. Richard Versalle, a tenor performing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, suffered a heart attack and fell 10 feet from a ladder to the stage just after singing the line "You can only live so long." If the entire population of earth was reduced to exactly 100 people, 51% would be female, 49% male; 50% of the world's currency would be held by 6 people, one person would be nearly dead, one nearly born. In 1920, Babe Ruth out-homered every American League team. Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool, England, but only in tropical fish stores. Toxic house plants poison more children than household chemicals. The original name of Bank of America was Bank of Italy. The ant, when intoxicated, will always fall over to its right side. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has issued six driver's licenses to six different people named Jesus Christ. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. People in China and Japan die disproportionately on the 4th of each month because the words death and four sound alike, and they are represented by the same symbol. Chicago is closer to Moscow than it is to Rio de Janeiro. Dogs have two sets of teeth, just like humans. They first have 30 "puppy" teeth, then 42 adult teeth. In 1950, President Harry Truman threw out the first ball twice at the opening day Washington DC baseball game; once right handed and once left handed. A Swiss ski resort announced it would combat global warming by wrapping its mountain glaciers in aluminum foil to keep them from melting. The chameleon has a tongue that is one and a half times the length of his body. Beethoven dipped his head in cold water before he composed. There once was a town named "6" in West Virginia. Ten years ago, only 500 people in China could ski. This year, an estimated 5,000,000 Chinese will visit ski resorts. In 1920, Babe Ruth broke the single season home run record, with 29. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 30 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs. The same year, he became the first major leaguer to hit 50 home runs. A Nigerian woman was caught entering the UK with 104 kg of snails in her baggage. Profanity is typically cut from in-flight movies to make them suitable for general audiences. Fox Searchlight Pictures has substituted "Ashcroft" for "A**hole" in the movie Sideways when dubbed for Aerolineas Argentinas flights. Author Hunter S. Thompson, who committed suicide recently, wanted to be cremated and his ashes to be shot out of a cannon on his ranch. Sports Illustrated magazine allows subscribers to opt out of receiving the famous swimsuit issue each year. Fewer than 1% choose this option. There is a company that will (for $14,000) take your ashes, compress them into a synthetic diamond to be set in jewelry for a loved one. The RIAA sued an 83 year old woman for downloading music illegally, even though a copy of her death certificate was sent to the RIAA a week before it filed the suit. Two 1903 paintings recently sold at auction for $590,000 - the paintings were in the famous "Dogs Playing Poker" series. Russian scientists have developed a new drug that prolongs drunkenness and enhances intoxication. Romanian firefighters could not get their trucks close enough to a burning building, so they put out the fire by throwing snowballs at it. A perfect SAT score is 1600 combined. Bill Gates scored 1590 on his SAT. Paul Allen, Bill's partner in Microsoft, scored a perfect 1600. Bill Cosby scored less than 500 combined. Motorists traveling outside Salem, Oregon saw one of the "litter cleanup" signs crediting the American Nazi party. Marion County officials had no choice but to let that group into the adopt-a-road program. The $500 per sign was picked up by Oregon taxpayers. The Ku Klux Klan is also involved in the adopt-a-road program in the state of Arkansas. Spam filters that catch the word "cialis" will not allow many work-related e-mails through because that word is embedded inside the word "specialist". McDonald's restaurants will buy 54,000,000 pounds of fresh apples this year. Two years ago, McDonald's purchased 0 pounds of apples. This is attributed to the shift to more healthy menu options (the Apple Pie, which has been at McDonald's for years uses processed Apple Pie Filling). The biggest dog on record was an Old English Mastiff that weighed 343 pounds. He was 8 feet, 3 inches from nose to tail. Mailmen in Russia now carry revolvers after a recent decision by the government. All of Queen Anne's 17 children died before she did. There are over 87,000 Americans on waiting lists for organ transplants. American made parts account for only 1% of the Chrysler Crossfire. 96% of the Ford F-150 Heritage Truck is American. A Dutch court ruled that a bank robber could deduct the 2,000 Euros he paid for his pistol from the 6,600 Euros he has to return to the bank he robbed. Only 6% of the autographs in circulation from members of the Beatles are estimated to be real. The time spent deleting SPAM costs United States businesses $21.6 billion annually. 60.7 percent of eligible voters participated in the 2004 presidential election, the highest percentage in 36 years. However, more than 78 million did not vote. This means President Bush won re-election by receiving votes from less than 31% of all eligible voters in the United States. John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, loved to skinny dip in the Potomac River. La Paz, Bolivia has an average annual temperature below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it has never recorded a zero-degree temperature. Same for Stanley, Falkland Islands and Punta Arenas, Chile. 41% of Chinese people eat at least once a week at a fast food restaurant. 35% of Americans do. A Wisconsin forklift operator for a Miller beer distributor was fired when a picture was published in a newspaper showing him drinking a Bud Light. G-rated family films earn more money than any other rating. Yet only 3% of Hollywood's output is G-rated. Richard Hatch, winner of the first "Survivor" reality series, has been charged with tax evasion for failing to report his $1,000,000 prize. The entire fleet of Unicoi County Tennessee's salt trucks was rendered out of commission in one accident. All three trucks were badly damaged when one of them began skidding down a road, causing a chain reaction accident. Officials blamed road conditions. More people study English in China than speak it in the United States of America (300 million). Fast food provider Hardee's has recently introduced the Monster Thickburger. It has 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat. Sorry it's so long lol. Something to do right? And yes....PART ONE!!!! More will come....eventually...
Check this out! Anyone know of these usuless facts? 1. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was born on and died on days when Halley's Comet can be seen. During his life he predicted that he would die when it could be seen. 2. US Dollar bills are made out of cotton and linen. 3. The "57" on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of pickle types the company once had. 4. Americans are responsible for about 1/5 of the world's garbage annually. On average, that's 3 pounds a day per person. 5. Giraffes and rats can last longer without water than camels. 6. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks so that it doesn't digest itself. 7. 98% of all murders and rapes are by a close family member or friend of the victim. 8. A B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945. 9. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper. 10. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle. 11. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top. 12. Benjamin Franklin was the fifth in a series of the youngest son of the youngest son. 13. Triskaidekaphobia means fear of the number 13. Paraskevidekatriaphobia means fear of Friday the 13th (which occurs one to three times a year). In Italy, 17 is considered an unlucky number. In Japan, 4 is considered an unlucky number. 14. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate. 15. All the chemicals in a human body combined are worth about 6.25 euro (if sold separately). 16. In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles. 17. The ZIP in "ZIP code" means Zoning Improvement Plan. 18. Coca-Cola contained Coca (whose active ingredient is cocaine) from 1885 to 1903. 19. A "2 by 4" is really 1 1/2 by 3 1/2. 20. It's estimated that at any one time around 0.7% of the world's population is drunk. 21. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades = David ; Clubs = Alexander the Great ; Hearts = Charlemagne ; Diamonds = Caesar 22. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals. 23. Every person, including identical twins, has a unique eye and tongue print along with their finger print. 24. The "spot" on the 7-Up logo comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was an albino. 25. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 dictionary were misspelled. 26. The "save" icon in Microsoft Office programs shows a floppy disk with the shutter on backwards. 27. Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin both married their first cousins (Elsa Löwenthal and Emma Wedgewood respectively). 28. Camel's have three eyelids. 29. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day. 30. John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son. 31. Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine are brother and sister. 32. Chocolate can kill dogs; it directly affects their heart and nervous system. 33. Daniel Boone hated coonskin caps. 34. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape. 35. 55.1% of all US prisoners are in prison for drug offenses. 36. Most lipstick contains fish scales. 37. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode. 38. Dr. Seuss pronounced his name "soyce". 39. Slugs have four noses. 40. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine. 41. The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil). 42. India has a Bill of Rights for cows. 43. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. (DON'T TRY IT, DUMBASS) 44. During the California gold rush of 1849, miners sent their laundry to Honolulu for washing and pressing. Due to the extremely high costs in California during these boom years, it was deemed more feasible to send their shirts to Hawaii for servicing. 45. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by taking out an olive from First Class salads. 46. About 200,000,000 M&Ms are sold each day in the United States. 47. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood. 48. Over a course of about eleven years, the sun's magnetic poles switch places. This cycle is called "Solarmax". 49. There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess. 50. Upper and lower case letters are named "upper" and "lower" because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the lower case letters. 51. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos. 52. The numbers "172" can be found on the back of the US 5 dollar bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. 53. Coconuts kill about 150 people each year. That's more than sharks. 54. Half of all bank robberies take place on a Friday. 55. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before it. 56. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672. 57. The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. 58. The average raindrop falls at 7 miles per hour. 59. It took Leonardo Da Vinci 10 years to paint Mona Lisa. He never signed or dated the painting. Leonardo and Mona had identical bone structures according to the painting. X-ray images have shown that there are 3 other versions under the original. 60. If you put a drop of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. 61. Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to slow the film down so you could see his moves. 62. The largest amount of money you can have without having change for a dollar is $1.19 (3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies cannot be divided into a dollar). 63. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA". 64. IBM's motto is "Think". Apple later made their motto "Think different". 65. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white, due to low budget. 66. The original name for butterfly was flutterby. 67. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. 68. One in fourteen women in America is a natural blonde. Only one in sixteen men is. 69. The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service. 70. When the Titanic sank, 2228 people were on it. Only 706 survived. 71. In America, someone is diagnosed with AIDS every 10 minutes. In South Africa, someone dies due to HIV or AIDS every 10 minutes. 72. Every day, 7% of the US eats at McDonald's. 73. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, which Motorola got their name from. 74. In the US, about 127 million adults are overweight or obese; worldwide, 750 million are overweight and 300 million more are obese. In the US, 15% of children in elementary school are overweight; 20% are worldwide. 75. In Disney's Fantasia, the Sorcerer to whom Mickey played an apprentice was named Yensid (Disney spelled backward). 76. During his entire life, Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting, "Red Vineyard at Arles". 77. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand. 78. One in ten people live on an island. 79. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. 80. 28% of Africa is classified as wilderness. In North America, its 38%. 81. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. 82. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. 83. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said "Elementary, my dear Watson", Humphrey Bogart NEVER said "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, and they NEVER said "Beam me up, Scotty" on Star Trek. 84. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing. 85. Sharon Stone was the first Star Search spokes model. 86. The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head. 87. More people are afraid of open spaces (kenophobia) than of tight spaces (claustrophobia). 88. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher. 89. There is a 1 in 4 chance that New York will have a white Christmas. 90. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries. 91. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. 92. Back in the mid to late '80s, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered 100% compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator. 93. $203,000,000 is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S. 94. Every US president has worn glasses (just not always in public). 95. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. 96. Jim Henson first coined the word "Muppet". It is a combination of "marionette" and "puppet." 97. The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with (not counting the words "North" and "South). 98. The Michelin man is known as Mr. Bib. His name was Bibendum in the company's first ads in 1896. 99. About 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activity. 100. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want. 101. About 14% of injecting drug users are HIV positive. 102. A word or sentence that is the same front and back (racecar, kayak) is called a "palindrome". 103. A snail can sleep for 3 years. 104. People photocopying their buttocks are the cause of 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide. 105. China has more English speakers than the United States. 106. Finnish folklore says that when Santa comes to Finland to deliver gifts, he leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko instead. According to French tradition, Santa Claus has a brother named Bells Nichols, who visits homes on New Year's Eve after everyone is asleep, and if a plate is set out for him, he fills it with cookies and cakes. 107. One in every 9000 people is an albino. 108. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. 109. You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world. 110. Everyday, more money is printed for Monopoly sets than for the U.S. Treasury. 111. Every year 4 people in the UK die putting their trousers on. 112. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds; dogs only have about ten. 113. Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing. 114. In every episode of "Seinfeld" there is a Superman picture or reference somewhere. 115. If Barbie were life-size her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck. 116. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants. 117. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. 118. Each year in America there are about 300,000 deaths that can be attributed to obesity. 119. About 55% of all movies are rated R. 120. About 500 movies are made in the US and 800 in India annually. 121. Arabic numerals are not really Arabic; they were created in India. 122. Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations (implemented on July 16, 1969) makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles. 123. The February of 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. 124. The Pentagon in Arlington Virginia has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites. 125. There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable. 126. The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. 127. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call. 128. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. 129. There are about 2 chickens for every human in the world. 130. The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick. 131. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. 132. For every memorial statue with a person on a horse, if the horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died of battle wounds; if all four of the horse's legs are on the ground, the person died of natural causes. 133. On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the American flag is flying over the Parliament Building. 134. An American urologist bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000. 135. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. 136. Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "MT". 137. $283,200 is the absolute highest amount of money you can win on Jeopardy. 138. Almonds are members of the peach family. 139. Rats and horses can't vomit. 140. The penguin is the only bird that can't fly but can swim. 141. There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day. 142. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies room during a dance. 143. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. 144. There are only four words in the English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. 145. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. 146. Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie. 147. "101 Dalmatians" and "Peter Pan" are the only Disney animations in which both of a character's parents are present and don't die during the movie. 148. You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider. 149. Hedenophobic means fear of pleasure. 150. Ancient Egyptian priests would pluck every hair from their bodies. 151. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. 152. Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18. 80% of burglaries are committed by people aged 13-21. 153. An ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. 154. All polar bears are left-handed. 155. The catfish has over 27000 taste buds (more than any other animal) 156. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. 157. Butterflies taste with their feet. 158. Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump. 159. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. 160. Starfish have no brains. 161. 11% of the world is left-handed. 162. John Hancock and Charles Thomson were the only people to sign the Declaration of independence on July 4th, 1776. The last signature came five years later. 163. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. 164. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. 165. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. 166. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. 167. A healthy (non-colorblind) human eye can distinguish between 500 shades of gray. 168. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. 169. Lizards can self-amputate their tails for protection. It grows back after a few months. 170. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula". It can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A. 171. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. 172. A honeybee can fly at fifteen miles per hour. 173. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. 174. A "jiffy" is the scientific name for 1/100th of a second. 175. The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade. 176. The youngest pope ever was 11 years old. 177. The first novel ever written on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer. 178. One out of every 43 prisoners escapes from jail. 94% are recaptured. 179. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. 180. The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs melted into it. 181. A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair. 182. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes. 183. Elwood Edwards did the voice for the AOL sound files (i.e. "You've got Mail!"). He is heard about 27 million times a day. The recordings were done before Quantum changed its name to AOL and the program was known as "Q-Link." 184. A polar bears skin is black. Its fur is actually clear, but like snow it appears white. 185. Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis middle name was spelled Aron, in honor of his brother. 186. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors. 187. Donkeys kill more people than plane crashes. 188. Shakespeare invented the words "assassination" and "bump." 189. There are a million ants for every person on Earth. 190. If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white. 191. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. 192. The name Jeep comes from "GP", the army abbreviation for General Purpose. 193. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do. 194. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. 195. Cats' urine glows under a black light. 196. A "quidnunc" is a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip. 197. The first US Patent was for manufacturing potassium carbonate (used in glass and gunpowder). It was issued to Samuel Hopkins on July 31, 1970. 198. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors, the helicopter, and many other present day items. 199. In the last 4000 years no new animals have been domesticated. 200. 25% of a human's bones are in its feet. 201. David Sarnoff received the Titanic's distress signal and saved hundreds of passengers. He later became the head of the first radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). 202. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. 203. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than every Nike factory worker in Malaysia combined. 204. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the '30s lobbied against hemp farmers (they saw it as competition). 205. "Canada" is an Indian word meaning "Big Village". 206. Only one in two billion people will live to be 116 or older. 207. If you yelled for 8 years 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. 208. Rape is reported every six minutes in the U.S. 209. The human heart creates enough pressure in the bloodstream to squirt blood 30 feet. 210. A jellyfish is 95% water. 211. Truck driving is the most dangerous occupation by accidental deaths (799 in 2001). 212. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. 213. Elephants only sleep for two hours each day. 214. On average people fear spiders more than they do death. 215. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. (the heart is not a muscle) 216. In golf, a 'Bo Derek' is a score of 10. 217. In the U.S, Frisbees outsell footballs, baseballs and basketballs combined. 218. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. 219. If you plant an apple seed, it is almost guaranteed to grow a tree of a different type of apple. 220. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. 221. The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross. 222. There are about 450 types of cheese in the world. 240 come from France. 223. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers plays football at home the stadium becomes Nebraska's third largest city. 224. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life". 225. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours. 226. In Iceland, a Big Mac costs $5.50. 227. Broccoli and cauliflower are the only vegetables that are flowers. 228. Newborn babies have about 350 bones. They gradually merge and disappear until there are about 206 by age 5. 229. There is no solid proof of who built the Taj Mahal. 230. In a survey of 200000 ostriches over 80 years, not one tried to bury its head in the sand. 231. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. A quarter has 119. 232. On an American one-dollar bill there is a tiny owl in the upper-left-hand corner of the upper-right-hand "1" and a spider hidden in the front upper-right-hand corner. 233. Judy Scheindlin ("Judge Judy") has a $25,000,000 salary, while Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has a $190,100 salary. 234. The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z. 235. Andorra, a tiny country on the border between France and Spain, has the longest average lifespan: 83.49 years. 236. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. 237. Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. 238. In America you will see an average of 500 advertisements a day. 239. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles. 240. You can lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs. 241. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. 242. "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English. 243. There are 336 dimples on a regulation US golf ball. In the UK its 330. 244. The Toltecs (a 7th century tribe) used wooden swords so they wouldn't kill their enemies. 245. "Duff" is the decaying organic matter found on a forest floor. 246. The US has more personal computers than the next 7 countries combined. 247. There have been over 600 lawsuits against Alexander Grahm Bell over rights to the patent of the telephone, the most valuable patent in U.S. history. 248. Kuwait is about 60% male (highest in the world). Latvia is about 54% female (highest in the world). 249. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters. 250. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined. 251. At the height of its power in 400 BC, the Greek city of Sparta had 25,000 citizens and 500,000 slaves. 252. Julius Caesar's autograph is worth about $2,000,000. 253. The tool doctors wrap around a patient's arm to measure blood pressure is called a sphygmomanometer. 254. People say "bless you" when you sneeze because your heart stops for a millisecond. 255. US gold coins used to say "In Gold We Trust". 256. In "Silence of the Lambs", Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) never blinks. 257. A shrimp's heart is in its head. 258. In the 17th century, the value of pi was known to 35 decimal places. Today, to 1.2411 trillion. 259. The bestselling books of all time are The Bible (6billion+), Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (900million+), and The Lord of the Rings (100million+) 260. Pearls melt in vinegar. 261. "Lassie" was played by a group of male dogs; the main one was named Pal. 262. In 1863, Paul Hubert of Bordeaux, France, was sentenced to life in jail for murder. After 21 years, it was discovered that he was convicted of murdering himself. 263. Nepal is the only country that doesn't have a rectangular flag. Switzerland is the only country with a square flag. 264. Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer are the only angels named in the Bible. 265. Tiger Woods' real first name is Eldrick. His father gave him the nickname "Tiger" in honor of a South Vietnamese soldier his father had fought alongside with during the Vietnam War. 266. Johnny Appleseed planted apples so that people could use apple cider to make alcohol. 267. Abraham Lincoln's ghost is said to haunt the White House. 268. God is not mentioned once in the book of Esther. 269. The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census. 270. Scotland has more redheads than any other part of the world. 271. There is an average of 61,000 people airborne over the US at any given moment. 272. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane in case there is a crash. 273. The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad. The most common name (of any type) in the world is Mohammed. 274. The surface of the Earth is about 60% water and 10% ice. 275. For every 230 cars that are made, 1 will be stolen. 276. Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital. 277. Lightning strikes the earth about 8 million times a day. 278. Around 2,000 left-handed people die annually due to improper use of equipment designed only for right handed people. 279. The "if" and "then" parts of conditional ("if P then Q") statement are called the protasis (P) and apodosis (Q). 280. Humans use a total of 72 different muscles in speech. 281. If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode. 282. Only female mosquitoes bite. 283. The U.S. Post Office handles 43 percent of the world's mail. 284. Most household dust is made of dead skin cells. 285. One in about eight million people has progeria, a disease that causes people to grow faster than they age. 286. The male seahorse carries the eggs until they hatch instead of the female. 287. The "countdown" (counting down from 10 for an event such as New-Years Day) was first used in a 1929 German silent film called "Die Frau Im Monde" (The Girl in the Moon). 288. Negative emotions such as anxiety and depression can weaken your immune system. 289. There are seven suicides in the Bible: Abimelech. Samson, Saul, Saul's armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri, Judas. 290. A mongoose is not a goose but more like a meercat, which is not a cat but more like a prairie dog, which is not a dog but more like a ground squirrel. 291. Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years after Galileo died. 292. Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit. 293. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe died on July 4th. Adams and Jefferson died in the same year. Supposedly, Adams last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives." 294. The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth, not Babe Ruth the baseball player. 295. Dolphins can look in different directions with each eye. They can sleep with one eye open. 296. The Falkland Isles (pop. about 2000) has over 700000 sheep (350 per person). 297. There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today. 298. While many treaties have been signed at or near Paris, France (including many after WWI and WWII), nine are actually known as the "Treaty of Paris": Seven Years' War (1763), American Revolutionary War (1783), French-Swede War (1810), France vs Sixth Coalition (1814), Battle of Waterloo (1815), Crimean War (1856), Spanish-American War (1898), union of Bessarabia and Romania (1920), establishment of European Coal and Steel Community (1951). 299. Robert Todd Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln's oldest son) was in Washington DC during his father's assassination as well as during President Garfield's assassination, and he was in Buffalo NY when President McKinley was assassinated. 300. The city of Venice stands on about 120 small islands. 301. The past-tense of the English word "dare" is "durst". 302. Don Mac Lean's song "American Pie" was written about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), who all died in the same plane crash. 303. The drummer for ZZ Top (the only one without a beard) is named Frank Beard. 304. Hummingbirds can't walk. 305. When movie directors do not want their names to be seen in the credits, they use the pseudonym "Allen Smithee" instead. It has been used over 50 times, starting with "Death of a Gunfighter" (1969). 306. Four different people played the part of Darth Vader (body, face, voice, and breathing). 307. Pamela Lee-Anderson was the first to be born in Canada on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence (7/1/1967). 308. There is about 200 times more gold in the oceans than has been mined throughout history. 309. William Shatner is credited for being the first person on TV to say "hell" as well as to have the first inter-racial kiss (with Nichelle Nichols), both in episodes of Star Trek. 310. While the US government's supply of gold is kept at Fort Knox, its supply of silver is kept at the Military Academy at West Point, NY. 311. Alexander Graham Bell's wife and mother were both deaf. 312. Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works. 313. In the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, if a man was not married by age 30, he would not be allowed to vote or watch athletic events involving nude young men. 314. Attila the Hun (invader of Europe; 406-453), Felix Faure (French President; 1841-1899), Pope Leo VII (936-939), Pope John VII (955-964), Pope Leo VIII (963-965), Pope John XIII (965-72), Pope Paul II (1467-1471), Lord Palmerston (British Prime Minister, 1784-1865), Nelson Rockefeller (US Vice President, 1908-1979), and John Entwistle (The Who's bassist, 1944-2002) all died while having sex. 315. Humans and dolphins are the only animals known to have sex for pleasure. 316. Pac-Man, Namco's 1979 arcade game, was originally called "Puck Man". The name was changed when they realized that vandals could easily scratch out part of the letter "P". 317. Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, April 23, 1616. 318. There are about 7.7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population). 319. The youngest mother on record was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina. She gave birth to a boy by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 (which happened to be Mother's Day), at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days. 320. The "middle finger" gesture originates back to 423 BC in Aristophanes play "The Clouds". I really loved these facts, so I thought I'd share them with you guys. Please don't be mad! Have a nice day! :)
rev kamal karna roy a newer politician in strategic redevelopment _ changes to evade "jungle democracy"? Click here to join the NEWSWEEK community, post comments and subscribe to our e-mail newsletters User Name: Password: Forgot password? News Politics Tech and Business Culture Health Voices Quick Guide Periscope National News International Next 2008 Iraq War Issues 2008 Against the Odds Video Top Story Campaign 2008: A Game of Survivor My Journey to the Top Latest News Clinton hints at shared ticket PAKISTAN Elections Usher in a New Face By Zahid Hussain, Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK Mar 3, 2008 Issue « Return to Article Related:Makhdoom Amin Fahim Pakistan Peoples Party Pervez Musharraf Discuss Comments: Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 03/03/2008 10:05:01 PM Comment: TRIANGLE OF JUNGLE DEMOCRACIES USA TO PAISTAN TO RSSIA UJDER PUTIN TO USA. JUNGLES ARE DEEP FOREST BUT GREENS ARE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT OF SHADE. OTHER JUGLES ARE DEEPLY OF CONCERN TO PEOPLE. bUT WE THE PEOPLE MUST BRING TO EQUITY IN JUSTICE,LEADERSHIP AND OPTIMUM PRIVILEGES TO MOST SOONER THE BETTER, SAID DR THE REVEREND KAMAL KARNA ROY , A MR CLEAN FOR U S PRESIDECY 2008 AS SCHEDULED, BUT MAY NOT BE HELD WITH U S DISTRICT COURT INTERVENTIONS AS PROVIDED IN U S CONSTITUTION AND OTHER LAWS OF U S. REPORTED BY REV MR PREMANGHU ROY DAS EFORMS AGENT IN DEMOCRACIES WORLD WIDE IN NEED OF REDELOPMENT. SEE BELOW WE NEED TRUE DEMOCRATIC CONDITIONS FOR WE THE PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. Posted By: shaista @ 03/01/2008 5:36:46 AM Comment: THE lunch hosted by Mr Asif Zardari for the newly elected members of the three leading parties on Feb 27 may well be remembered as a landmark in the long awaited transition to a democratic dispensation in Pakistan. The squalls that rocked the state on Oct 12, 1999 and in the form of the 17th amendment inflicted much damage. Then, the catastrophe of Nov 3 put all salvaging efforts beyond the capacity of any single party. The existing distortions in that historic but half-alive Constitution present a nightmare and demand the exercise of the highest form of political wisdom and legal expertise. The process of eliminating them by creating a new interface between politics and law has just begun. Pakistan???s present crisis is characterised by the bitter harvest of constitutional violations, growing imbalance between a power-hungry centre and the handicapped federating units, uncontrollable violence by ever-proliferating bands of extremists and, above all, by a rapidly rising table of sub-surface social anger at glaring inequalities of income and opportunity. A reasonably broad-based coalition government may provide a healing touch. There is no great virtue in a two-party system anymore as, for quite some time to come, regional aspirations will deepen particular identities of the constitutive elements of a diverse nation. The greatest achievement of the three top leaders present at Mr Zardari???s lunch is that they successfully persuaded their followers that these identities were perfectly compatible with an overarching national identity. Scratch the surface and lurking just beneath the protest against the humiliation of the higher judiciary and repeated violations of the Constitution is a palpable anguish of poverty and deprivation. Pakistan must eschew politics of vendetta but that does not mean that every crime against the state and society be brushed under the carpet. It needs a high-powered Commission on Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in the interest of historical accuracy and to build dykes for future security. We need to replace mercenary relations with relations based on mutual respect, community of interests and coordinated pursuit of common objectives within our respective national parameters. A strong and stable national coalition can be built around the present understanding between the PPP, PML-N and ANP. The US-led West should welcome it and not undermine it as it alone can make Pakistan???s battle against militant extremists effective The west should to withdraw their support from the one Musharaf who loathed by the people at maximum Posted By: shaista @ 03/01/2008 5:07:40 AM Comment: THE results of the election that took place on Feb 18 were astonishing. President Musharraf???s supporting party Pakistan Muslim League (Q) was wiped out and the ministers who were lucky enough to keep their seats are now at a safe distance from President Musharraf. The people at large want the president to go with no other choice. However, the US has been unduly interfering in our politics as its Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher has emphasised the need to continue President Musharraf???s rule. Pakistan has remained under military rule for more than half of its life, and the people no longer want any dictator to rule over them. As the PPP has secured the maximum number of seats, followed by the PML (N), the ties made between these parties also pose a serious challenge to the president???s stay any further in office. His rule for eight long years has brought many hardships to the nation and now he should quit The US slogan for democracy is and justice is just a slogan and in real and practicle not willing to be so for their own agenda From whome to expect the justice and democracy in the world the only power it self violate This is not the Musharaf pakistan but of 1,600/-Millions people and what they think of the rest This is not in the benifit of US to support the cruel one of the country who now the people think as Mechile G.Choaf The people and the young generation have very strong anti US sentiments due to their blind support of Dictator Musharaf This is not a good sign and this will increase with passage of time Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/29/2008 2:12:44 AM Comment: IN THIS ENVIORNMENT OF ECONOMIC FEUDALISM WHERE THE MIDDLE CLASS MUST SUFFER IN ORDER TO INCREASE THE pROFITS OF MULTINATIONAL CORpORATIONS, WHO BENEFIT FROM CHEAp LABOR, THE AMERICAN DREAM HAS BEEN LOST. MULTINALTIONALS FROM INDIA HAVE BROUGHT THEIR CHEAp WAyS TO AMERICA. WE NOW HAVE AMERIANS GOING TO GET HEART SURGERy IN INDIA BEAUSE IT IS CHEApER. OUR INFORMATION TECHNOLy JOBS HAVE BEEN OUTSOURCED TO INDIA. CHINA WAITS UNTIL WE INVENT IT AND THEN THEy STEAL IT. WHy REINVENT THE WHEEL. ARABS FINANCIERS OWN OVER TWELVER pER CENT OF OUR ECONOMy AND IN RECENT MONTTHS HAVE "BAILED" OUT OUR BANKS. IN ADDITION, ARAB INTEREST FROM DUBAI AND KUWAIT HAVE FINANCED OUR pOLITICAL LEADERS ENDEVOURS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE pOLITICAL SpECTRUM.. IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE. We have been fooled by our own government and there is no way any Republican is going to win this election. THE Middle class has had it with all this Bin LADEN terrorist crap. WE are now scared of our own government more than we are of the terrorist because the decisions this government is making on our behalf is not in our best interests and it is killing us. The government is now dominating our civil liberties. They are giving the states millions for Real ID Cards. This is just the start of government intrusion. Combine this with the misuse of the Patriot Act and the future Plans of insurance comPanies and corporations to have full access to our personal records and we have a real crisis. Credit Card companies have already started selling and sharing our personal information with the private sector. We really have to wake up and protect our constitution it is all we have to defend ourselves against interests that become too rich and powerful in this country. The government keeps expanding and is being predominantly controlled by special interest and lobbyist. The middle class is being weakened and our civil liberties are being threatened. Real ID Cards will not make "us safer" infacat terrorists can obtain fake ones and move about freely. The American people did not vote on Real ID Cards, we need a vote. Our constitution would have to be ammended in order for Real ID's to become legal. I do not know what has happened in Washington but it is getting out of hand. They know what they are doing is unconstitutional so they are trying to bribe the states by offering them money. I hope every state agrees with me and Prevents the federal govenment from imPosing THIS unconstitutional law. If the states allow the government to do this then they would have set a bad Precedent that could lead to further government violations. WHy IS THERE A NEED TO WIRE TAp EVERy CITIZEN. ARE yOU KIDDING ME. yOU NEED A WARRANT. THIS IS MADNESS. GOVERNMENT IS USING TERRORISM AS AN EXCUSE TO INTRUDE ON OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES. THIS IS INSANE. McCain will continue to implementt these misguided REpublian policies. McCain's ONE HUNDRED year agenda is not in AMERICA"s BEST INTEREST. Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/28/2008 4:32:34 AM Comment: AND WHAT AN UGLy FACE IT IS. WE NEED TO CRUSH AL QUEDA IN PAKISTAN AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE. LET US REMEMBER BERG. I AM NOT JEWISH, HOWEVER I FEEL THAT WE MUST NEVER FORGET. IT IS WORTH THAT yOUNG ARABS AND JEWS FROM ALL BACKGROUNDS START FORMING GROUPS THAT ENCOURAGE THE INTERACTION BETWEEN JEWS ARABS MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. SOMETHING LIKE AN NGO. ANyONE FROM ANy BACKGROUND CAN CAN CONTRIBUTE. WITH ONE OBJECTIVE IN MIND. FRIENDLy RELATIONS. NO PRESSURE TO SET FOREIGN POLICy , JUST GETTING THE TWO ADVERSARIES IN THE SAME ROOM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WILL BE IN AMERICA'S AND THE WORLD'S BEST INTEREST. . THAT IS THE FIRST STEP . WHEN yOU TRy AND IMPOSE yOUR WILL "ALL OF A SUDDEN" ON THE MASSES, THEN ASSAASSINATIONS LIKE THOSOE OF RABIN AND BHUTTO WILL BE INEVITABLE. "WHEN ANy ONE INDIVIDUAL BEOMES LARGER THAN THE CAUSE THEy ARE CHAMPIONING THEN THEy THEMSELVES BECOME AN OBSTALE TO THEIR OWN CAUSE" EDDIWHERE 2008. EDDIEWHERE © 2008 Posted By: VoteResponsibly08 @ 02/27/2008 4:45:32 PM Comment: What is Obama going to do when he faces these people??? God Help us all..He does not have the know how and depending on advisers 100% is not my idea of a commander and chief! Do something! media, Press...you have given obama a Free Pass long enough! Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 02/27/2008 4:27:53 PM Comment: democracies in usa and pakistan, both are in jeopardy in respect of we the people of the nations, superpower or allied nation.both entities must detour to achieve people's wishes entertained. for dr kamal karna roy a small time democratic strategist in efforts to revive themes of equities for all.released by an assistant to dr roy identified by e mail id 2.27. 2008 new york Posted By: Houlbelat @ 02/27/2008 11:16:25 AM Comment: Is it a democracy reborn in Pakistan or sham of the highest order? People in Pakistan voted in favor of Bhutto's party, not for Zardari, who was responsible for her twice ouster from the Premiership due to his shameful dirty roles of Mr.10%. Country's biggest grass root party preaching "Government of the People, by the People, for the People", which was founded on the basic principle of providing them respectable " Bread, Dress and Shelter", was created by Bhutto, hanged by a military dictator. Now, the party is orphaned in a bomb-blast death of his daughter during another military rule. Situation brings forth her rootless spouse, "Mr.Tenpercent Zardari", holding the People's mandate ( at ransom?), for endless exploits. Whatever the words mean, they cannot change the genes. The name "Zardari" literally means "Gold-Lord" and he lives his name literally. He was responsible for legislating and monopolizing gold import into Pakistan (through an Emirates based gold-tycoon of Pakistan origin) on a ridiculous 2% custom duty and made unfathomable ocean of fortune. If the US administration is ready," to let them have their rounds of discussions, still expecting the [Pakistani] Army to take the necessary military action, counting on an interesting transition", then the whole riddle is solved. The ongoing change in Pakistan is not a change of " act" in the drama being staged but, a "change of gear into a powerful all terrain drive", to move forward on the designed road-map, crossing effectively all rugged and bogging tracts en-route. Posted By: engal @ 02/27/2008 3:08:04 AM Comment: Comment:Chinese's a Literature of the YanYuHongChen is very reality for the economy,the Culture,the Education,the Politice ,the Philosophy and the Business,but i expecting who the Leaders in International that will be the best support us and it will be Might spread you and the Literature to the Golabl.' chengchengcheng123@yahoo.cn Posted By: CANDIDATE_REPUBLICAN @ 02/26/2008 3:06:30 PM Comment: Pakistan's elected leaders must be slow and very effective in democratic gains or the gains couod be reversed by internal forcesalien to ruling coalition in jeopady with foreign interests. jungle democracies have been most powerful mvirus which curbs democratic rights of citizens, that is what history tells us. see also below as relevant. the reverend dr kamal karna karuna roy author of electronic and hard copies publications which may give insights to living beings as known as human_animals may often behave in pure animal conducts to support their polluted rational feelings. interests, vested interests etc etc. rationality vs animality is the tug of war type emements of the living beings all over the Globe: Pakistan leaders be careful in your step ahead. as the powerfuls, nations, superpower or most entities give priorities to their own hidden agendas. native leaders could be in a privileged position to judge events those may cause them favor or pains: pl see below; dreams of freedom for people individual or national may not award any grants from external forces or native rulers, but steadfast demand and actions if orchestrated with pragmatic resolutions may succeed in demands of true liberty of coexistence. quotation from democratic strategist *** republican candidate U s presidential electoral competition 2008 by the rev ms lisa n r alston. 2.26. 2008 new york. Posted By: SAM08 @ 02/26/2008 11:50:41 AM Comment: The people in pakistan should have asked Zardari before woting for him if his going rate of kick backs will still be 15% or will it be more Posted By: eddiewhere @ 02/25/2008 8:42:42 AM Comment: AND WHAT AN UGLy FACE IT IS. WE NEED TO CRUSH AL QUEA IN PAKISTAN AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE. Posted By: shaista @ 02/25/2008 5:19:05 AM Comment: The newly retired General Musharraf has displayed no intention of leaving office despite his king party losing even after plenty of evidence that he had planned to rig the elections. The caretaker government was anything but neutral and the Election Commission was suspect. But pressure from Washington compelled him to change his plans. Had he still engaged in massive rigging, not only would he have drawn Washington???s ire but also evoked ugly street protests. He knew that if the ???agitators??? caused the country to come to a standstill, the army would distance itself from him. Without their protection, he would not last a day in office. The habitual offender Musharaf this time fail for not carrying out a full pleadge crime of rigging due to international observer existing These people will never be convinced that it is time for the ex-general to go. To them, he is the embodiment of truth, the doer of all good things, and the prince of enlightened moderation without whom Pakistan would return to the Dark Ages. It is time for Musharraf, to wake up and realise that the game is over. Everything Musharraf stood for was repudiated on Feb 18. The electoral results have made it clear, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the people do not wish to see Musharraf holding court on radio and television day in and day out. Aitzaz Ahsan spoke for millions when he said, ???Musharraf is the most hated & loathed man in Pakistan.??? During the last several months, poll after poll showed Musharraf???s popularity plummeting like a lead coin in a bottomless well. But he continued to reject the polls by saying that they only represented the views of a few thousand people and asserted vainly that he was vastly popular in the populous countryside. But even the King???s party was not taken in by the myths spun out by the monarch. It knew that once rigging was no longer an option, its fate was sealed. Why else would they seek to obtain the release of one of the key instigators of the Lal Masjid takeover, Abdul Aziz, just days prior to the vote? This was an obvious ploy designed to play on the religious sympathies of the people and to garner much needed votes. How else could one justify releasing a real and confirmed terrorist from jail while holding the nation???s eminent justices and barristers under house arrest? Musharraf had said not too long ago that he would step down when he saw that the people were no longer with him. He said he was continuing as president only because it was in the national interest. He would rather be playing golf or tennis, he noted, but the situation required him to sacrifice his personal interests. Well, the time has now come for him to do the nation a favour and quit as he is the only evil for this country. Posted By: democratic_reforms @ 02/24/2008 11:12:22 AM Comment: JUNGLE DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN. NO PAKISTANI PREMIER SHOULD ENGAGE IN DIRECT FIGHT WITH PERVEZ MASSAREF TO ENGAGE PAKISTAN AGAIN N VIOLENCES, AND/OR EMMERGENCY. tHIS IS BECAUSE MUSSAREF IS NOT ALONE BUT HE HAS SUPPORT FROM INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL POWERBLOCS. A SLOWER APPROACH TO DEMOCRATIC SOLUTION IN PAKISTAN MAY BE MORECORRECT FOR THE TIME SCALES. THE REV DR KAMAL KARNA K ROY, A US AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL _ REPUBLICAN HOPEFUL, NEW YORK 2.24.2008 Posted By: Mohdsheikh @ 02/24/2008 12:49:45 AM Comment: Washington's top ranks seem unworried about what the new civilian leaders might decide. The only worry Americans have about the moment to keep up Musharraf in Presidency because Musharraf has amended the constitution in such a way no one else can do any thing without his consent and authority. This is worrisome for the new elected politicians. They know very much the hard fact that they have not been elected on merits, it is the hatred against Musharraf they have en-cashed. Because Musharraf have destroyed the true democrative spirit of the Pakistan???s Constitution by extremely autocratic and extra constitutional way before conducting the general election so that he could do the post election rigging. If those powers are not taken away from the presidency then the politicians will be nothing more than tools in his hands. If the politicians failed to restore highest court judges that will mean they are empty handed. Moreover they won???t be able to face their voters who have sent them Islamabad to clean up the mess and deliver good to them. Mohammad S Sheikh, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan Islamabad - Rawalpindi Posted By: Martin123 @ 02/24/2008 12:08:02 AM Comment: My salutations to Dr. Rice for a job well done on the American side. Posted By: Martin123 @ 02/24/2008 12:07:07 AM Comment: Hats off to Ms Rice, never in the history of public service t America has so much been freely given. SPONSORED LINKS Pakistani Dating Site 1000's Pakistani's Chatting Join Free! SalaamLove.com Singapore Air to Pakistan Deluxe Flights to Pakistan Best Fare Guarantee! Book A Flight. www.SingaporeAir.com 6.9¢ to Pakistan Long Distance from Cell & Home no PIN, no monthly fee - Try Today www.startec.com/Pakistan Reply Comments: Enter Your Comment Report Abuse Enter comments if any for reporting abuse Comments: Report Abuse Project Green Enterprise Leadership Boomer Files Giving Globally CES Coverage Education INNOVATION Not Made In Japan Christian Caryl Once upon a time, the country was a leader in technology. 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wanna know 320 useless facts tht u dont know and probably will never use!!? 1. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was born on and died on days when Halley's Comet can be seen. During his life he predicted that he would die when it could be seen. 2. US Dollar bills are made out of cotton and linen. 3. The "57" on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents the number of pickle types the company once had. 4. Americans are responsible for about 1/5 of the world's garbage annually. On average, that's 3 pounds a day per person. 5. Giraffes and rats can last longer without water than camels. 6. Your stomach produces a new layer of mucus every two weeks so that it doesn't digest itself. 7. 98% of all murders and rapes are by a close family member or friend of the victim. 8. A B-25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945. 9. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper. 10. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle. 11. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top. 12. Benjamin Franklin was the fifth in a series of the youngest son of the youngest son. 13. Triskaidekaphobia means fear of the number 13. Paraskevidekatriaphobia means fear of Friday the 13th (which occurs one to three times a year). In Italy, 17 is considered an unlucky number. In Japan, 4 is considered an unlucky number. 14. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate. 15. All the chemicals in a human body combined are worth about 6.25 euro (if sold separately). 16. In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles. 17. The ZIP in "ZIP code" means Zoning Improvement Plan. 18. Coca-Cola contained Coca (whose active ingredient is cocaine) from 1885 to 1903. 19. A "2 by 4" is really 1 1/2 by 3 1/2. 20. It's estimated that at any one time around 0.7% of the world's population is drunk. 21. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades = David ; Clubs = Alexander the Great ; Hearts = Charlemagne ; Diamonds = Caesar 22. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals. 23. Every person, including identical twins, has a unique eye and tongue print along with their finger print. 24. The "spot" on the 7-Up logo comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was an albino. 25. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 dictionary were misspelled. 26. The "save" icon in Microsoft Office programs shows a floppy disk with the shutter on backwards. 27. Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin both married their first cousins (Elsa Löwenthal and Emma Wedgewood respectively). 28. Camel's have three eyelids. 29. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day. 30. John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son. 31. Warren Beatty and Shirley McLaine are brother and sister. 32. Chocolate can kill dogs; it directly affects their heart and nervous system. 33. Daniel Boone hated coonskin caps. 34. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape. 35. 55.1% of all US prisoners are in prison for drug offenses. 36. Most lipstick contains fish scales. 37. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode. 38. Dr. Seuss pronounced his name "soyce". 39. Slugs have four noses. 40. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine. 41. The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil). 42. India has a Bill of Rights for cows. 43. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out. (DON'T TRY IT, DUMBASS) 44. During the California gold rush of 1849, miners sent their laundry to Honolulu for washing and pressing. Due to the extremely high costs in California during these boom years, it was deemed more feasible to send their shirts to Hawaii for servicing. 45. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by taking out an olive from First Class salads. 46. About 200,000,000 M&Ms are sold each day in the United States. 47. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood. 48. Over a course of about eleven years, the sun's magnetic poles switch places. This cycle is called "Solarmax". 49. There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess. 50. Upper and lower case letters are named "upper" and "lower" because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the upper case letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the lower case letters. 51. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos. 52. The numbers "172" can be found on the back of the US 5 dollar bill, in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. 53. Coconuts kill about 150 people each year. That's more than sharks. 54. Half of all bank robberies take place on a Friday. 55. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before it. 56. The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672. 57. The first bomb the Allies dropped on Berlin in WWII killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. 58. The average raindrop falls at 7 miles per hour. 59. It took Leonardo Da Vinci 10 years to paint Mona Lisa. He never signed or dated the painting. Leonardo and Mona had identical bone structures according to the painting. X-ray images have shown that there are 3 other versions under the original. 60. If you put a drop of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. 61. Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to slow the film down so you could see his moves. 62. The largest amount of money you can have without having change for a dollar is $1.19 (3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies cannot be divided into a dollar). 63. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA". 64. IBM's motto is "Think". Apple later made their motto "Think different". 65. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original "Halloween" was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white, due to low budget. 66. The original name for butterfly was flutterby. 67. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. 68. One in fourteen women in America is a natural blonde. Only one in sixteen men is. 69. The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service. 70. When the Titanic sank, 2228 people were on it. Only 706 survived. 71. In America, someone is diagnosed with AIDS every 10 minutes. In South Africa, someone dies due to HIV or AIDS every 10 minutes. 72. Every day, 7% of the US eats at McDonald's. 73. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, which Motorola got their name from. 74. In the US, about 127 million adults are overweight or obese; worldwide, 750 million are overweight and 300 million more are obese. In the US, 15% of children in elementary school are overweight; 20% are worldwide. 75. In Disney's Fantasia, the Sorcerer to whom Mickey played an apprentice was named Yensid (Disney spelled backward). 76. During his entire life, Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting, "Red Vineyard at Arles". 77. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand. 78. One in ten people live on an island. 79. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. 80. 28% of Africa is classified as wilderness. In North America, its 38%. 81. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. 82. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. 83. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said "Elementary, my dear Watson", Humphrey Bogart NEVER said "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, and they NEVER said "Beam me up, Scotty" on Star Trek. 84. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing. 85. Sharon Stone was the first Star Search spokes model. 86. The sound you here when you put a seashell next to your ear is not the ocean, but blood flowing through your head. 87. More people are afraid of open spaces (kenophobia) than of tight spaces (claustrophobia). 88. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher. 89. There is a 1 in 4 chance that New York will have a white Christmas. 90. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries. 91. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married. 92. Back in the mid to late '80s, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered 100% compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator. 93. $203,000,000 is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S. 94. Every US president has worn glasses (just not always in public). 95. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave. 96. Jim Henson first coined the word "Muppet". It is a combination of "marionette" and "puppet." 97. The names of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with (not counting the words "North" and "South). 98. The Michelin man is known as Mr. Bib. His name was Bibendum in the company's first ads in 1896. 99. About 20% of bird species have become extinct in the past 200 years, almost all of them because of human activity. 100. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want. 101. About 14% of injecting drug users are HIV positive. 102. A word or sentence that is the same front and back (racecar, kayak) is called a "palindrome". 103. A snail can sleep for 3 years. 104. People photocopying their buttocks are the cause of 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide. 105. China has more English speakers than the United States. 106. Finnish folklore says that when Santa comes to Finland to deliver gifts, he leaves his sleigh behind and rides on a goat named Ukko instead. According to French tradition, Santa Claus has a brother named Bells Nichols, who visits homes on New Year's Eve after everyone is asleep, and if a plate is set out for him, he fills it with cookies and cakes. 107. One in every 9000 people is an albino. 108. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. 109. You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world. 110. Everyday, more money is printed for Monopoly sets than for the U.S. Treasury. 111. Every year 4 people in the UK die putting their trousers on. 112. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds; dogs only have about ten. 113. Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears never stop growing. 114. In every episode of "Seinfeld" there is a Superman picture or reference somewhere. 115. If Barbie were life-size her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck. 116. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants. 117. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times. 118. Each year in America there are about 300,000 deaths that can be attributed to obesity. 119. About 55% of all movies are rated R. 120. About 500 movies are made in the US and 800 in India annually. 121. Arabic numerals are not really Arabic; they were created in India. 122. Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations (implemented on July 16, 1969) makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles. 123. The February of 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. 124. The Pentagon in Arlington Virginia has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When it was built in the 1940s the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites. 125. There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable. 126. The cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. 127. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call. 128. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. 129. There are about 2 chickens for every human in the world. 130. The word "maverick" came into use after Samuel Maverick, a Texan refused to brand his cattle. Eventually any unbranded calf became known as a Maverick. 131. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. 132. For every memorial statue with a person on a horse, if the horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died of battle wounds; if all four of the horse's legs are on the ground, the person died of natural causes. 133. On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the American flag is flying over the Parliament Building. 134. An American urologist bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000. 135. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. 136. Dreamt is the only English word that ends in the letters "MT". 137. $283,200 is the absolute highest amount of money you can win on Jeopardy. 138. Almonds are members of the peach family. 139. Rats and horses can't vomit. 140. The penguin is the only bird that can't fly but can swim. 141. There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day. 142. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies room during a dance. 143. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. 144. There are only four words in the English language that end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. 145. Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day. 146. Every time you lick a stamp you consume 1/10 of a calorie. 147. "101 Dalmatians" and "Peter Pan" are the only Disney animations in which both of a character's parents are present and don't die during the movie. 148. You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider. 149. Hedenophobic means fear of pleasure. 150. Ancient Egyptian priests would pluck every hair from their bodies. 151. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. 152. Half of all crimes are committed by people under the age of 18. 80% of burglaries are committed by people aged 13-21. 153. An ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. 154. All polar bears are left-handed. 155. The catfish has over 27000 taste buds (more than any other animal) 156. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. 157. Butterflies taste with their feet. 158. Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump. 159. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. 160. Starfish have no brains. 161. 11% of the world is left-handed. 162. John Hancock and Charles Thomson were the only people to sign the Declaration of independence on July 4th, 1776. The last signature came five years later. 163. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. 164. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. 165. The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses. 166. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. 167. A healthy (non-colorblind) human eye can distinguish between 500 shades of gray. 168. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. 169. Lizards can self-amputate their tails for protection. It grows back after a few months. 170. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula". It can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A. 171. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. 172. A honeybee can fly at fifteen miles per hour. 173. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. 174. A "jiffy" is the scientific name for 1/100th of a second. 175. The average child recognizes over 200 company logos by the time he enters first grade. 176. The youngest pope ever was 11 years old. 177. The first novel ever written on a typewriter is Tom Sawyer. 178. One out of every 43 prisoners escapes from jail. 94% are recaptured. 179. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. 180. The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs melted into it. 181. A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair. 182. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes. 183. Elwood Edwards did the voice for the AOL sound files (i.e. "You've got Mail!"). He is heard about 27 million times a day. The recordings were done before Quantum changed its name to AOL and the program was known as "Q-Link." 184. A polar bears skin is black. Its fur is actually clear, but like snow it appears white. 185. Elvis had a twin brother named Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis middle name was spelled Aron, in honor of his brother. 186. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors. 187. Donkeys kill more people than plane crashes. 188. Shakespeare invented the words "assassination" and "bump." 189. There are a million ants for every person on Earth. 190. If you keep a goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white. 191. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. 192. The name Jeep comes from "GP", the army abbreviation for General Purpose. 193. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed people do. 194. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. 195. Cats' urine glows under a black light. 196. A "quidnunc" is a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip. 197. The first US Patent was for manufacturing potassium carbonate (used in glass and gunpowder). It was issued to Samuel Hopkins on July 31, 1970. 198. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors, the helicopter, and many other present day items. 199. In the last 4000 years no new animals have been domesticated. 200. 25% of a human's bones are in its feet. 201. David Sarnoff received the Titanic's distress signal and saved hundreds of passengers. He later became the head of the first radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). 202. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. 203. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than every Nike factory worker in Malaysia combined. 204. One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the '30s lobbied against hemp farmers (they saw it as competition). 205. "Canada" is an Indian word meaning "Big Village". 206. Only one in two billion people will live to be 116 or older. 207. If you yelled for 8 years 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. 208. Rape is reported every six minutes in the U.S. 209. The human heart creates enough pressure in the bloodstream to squirt blood 30 feet. 210. A jellyfish is 95% water. 211. Truck driving is the most dangerous occupation by accidental deaths (799 in 2001). 212. Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. 213. Elephants only sleep for two hours each day. 214. On average people fear spiders more than they do death. 215. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue. (the heart is not a muscle) 216. In golf, a 'Bo Derek' is a score of 10. 217. In the U.S, Frisbees outsell footballs, baseballs and basketballs combined. 218. In most watch advertisements the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. 219. If you plant an apple seed, it is almost guaranteed to grow a tree of a different type of apple. 220. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. 221. The only real person to be a PEZ head was Betsy Ross. 222. There are about 450 types of cheese in the world. 240 come from France. 223. When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers plays football at home the stadium becomes Nebraska's third largest city. 224. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life". 225. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours. 226. In Iceland, a Big Mac costs $5.50. 227. Broccoli and cauliflower are the only vegetables that are flowers. 228. Newborn babies have about 350 bones. They gradually merge and disappear until there are about 206 by age 5. 229. There is no solid proof of who built the Taj Mahal. 230. In a survey of 200000 ostriches over 80 years, not one tried to bury its head in the sand. 231. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. A quarter has 119. 232. On an American one-dollar bill there is a tiny owl in the upper-left-hand corner of the upper-right-hand "1" and a spider hidden in the front upper-right-hand corner. 233. Judy Scheindlin ("Judge Judy") has a $25,000,000 salary, while Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has a $190,100 salary. 234. The name for Oz in the Wizard of Oz was thought up when the creator Frank Baum looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N and O-Z. 235. Andorra, a tiny country on the border between France and Spain, has the longest average lifespan: 83.49 years. 236. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. 237. Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. 238. In America you will see an average of 500 advertisements a day. 239. John Lennon's first girlfriend was named Thelma Pickles. 240. You can lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs. 241. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. 242. "The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English. 243. There are 336 dimples on a regulation US golf ball. In the UK its 330. 244. The Toltecs (a 7th century tribe) used wooden swords so they wouldn't kill their enemies. 245. "Duff" is the decaying organic matter found on a forest floor. 246. The US has more personal computers than the next 7 countries combined. 247. There have been over 600 lawsuits against Alexander Grahm Bell over rights to the patent of the telephone, the most valuable patent in U.S. history. 248. Kuwait is about 60% male (highest in the world). Latvia is about 54% female (highest in the world). 249. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters. 250. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined. 251. At the height of its power in 400 BC, the Greek city of Sparta had 25,000 citizens and 500,000 slaves. 252. Julius Caesar's autograph is worth about $2,000,000. 253. The tool doctors wrap around a patient's arm to measure blood pressure is called a sphygmomanometer. 254. People say "bless you" when you sneeze because your heart stops for a millisecond. 255. US gold coins used to say "In Gold We Trust". 256. In "Silence of the Lambs", Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins) never blinks. 257. A shrimp's heart is in its head. 258. In the 17th century, the value of pi was known to 35 decimal places. Today, to 1.2411 trillion. 259. The bestselling books of all time are The Bible (6billion+), Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (900million+), and The Lord of the Rings (100million+) 260. Pearls melt in vinegar. 261. "Lassie" was played by a group of male dogs; the main one was named Pal. 262. In 1863, Paul Hubert of Bordeaux, France, was sentenced to life in jail for murder. After 21 years, it was discovered that he was convicted of murdering himself. 263. Nepal is the only country that doesn't have a rectangular flag. Switzerland is the only country with a square flag. 264. Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer are the only angels named in the Bible. 265. Tiger Woods' real first name is Eldrick. His father gave him the nickname "Tiger" in honor of a South Vietnamese soldier his father had fought alongside with during the Vietnam War. 266. Johnny Appleseed planted apples so that people could use apple cider to make alcohol. 267. Abraham Lincoln's ghost is said to haunt the White House. 268. God is not mentioned once in the book of Esther. 269. The odds of being born male are about 51.2%, according to census. 270. Scotland has more redheads than any other part of the world. 271. There is an average of 61,000 people airborne over the US at any given moment. 272. Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane in case there is a crash. 273. The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad. The most common name (of any type) in the world is Mohammed. 274. The surface of the Earth is about 60% water and 10% ice. 275. For every 230 cars that are made, 1 will be stolen. 276. Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital. 277. Lightning strikes the earth about 8 million times a day. 278. Around 2,000 left-handed people die annually due to improper use of equipment designed only for right handed people. 279. The "if" and "then" parts of conditional ("if P then Q") statement are called the protasis (P) and apodosis (Q). 280. Humans use a total of 72 different muscles in speech. 281. If you feed a seagull Alka-Seltzer, its stomach will explode. 282. Only female mosquitoes bite. 283. The U.S. Post Office handles 43 percent of the world's mail. 284. Most household dust is made of dead skin cells. 285. One in about eight million people has progeria, a disease that causes people to grow faster than they age. 286. The male seahorse carries the eggs until they hatch instead of the female. 287. The "countdown" (counting down from 10 for an event such as New-Years Day) was first used in a 1929 German silent film called "Die Frau Im Monde" (The Girl in the Moon). 288. Negative emotions such as anxiety and depression can weaken your immune system. 289. There are seven suicides in the Bible: Abimelech. Samson, Saul, Saul's armor-bearer, Ahithophel, Zimri, Judas. 290. A mongoose is not a goose but more like a meercat, which is not a cat but more like a prairie dog, which is not a dog but more like a ground squirrel. 291. Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years after Galileo died. 292. Mercury is the only planet whose orbit is coplanar with its equator. Venus and Uranus are the only planets that rotate opposite to the direction of their orbit. 293. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe died on July 4th. Adams and Jefferson died in the same year. Supposedly, Adams last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives." 294. The Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth, not Babe Ruth the baseball player. 295. Dolphins can look in different directions with each eye. They can sleep with one eye open. 296. The Falkland Isles (pop. about 2000) has over 700000 sheep (350 per person). 297. There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today. 298. While many treaties have been signed at or near Paris, France (including many after WWI and WWII), nine are actually known as the "Treaty of Paris": Seven Years' War (1763), American Revolutionary War (1783), French-Swede War (1810), France vs Sixth Coalition (1814), Battle of Waterloo (1815), Crimean War (1856), Spanish-American War (1898), union of Bessarabia and Romania (1920), establishment of European Coal and Steel Community (1951). 299. Robert Todd Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln's oldest son) was in Washington DC during his father's assassination as well as during President Garfield's assassination, and he was in Buffalo NY when President McKinley was assassinated. 300. The city of Venice stands on about 120 small islands. 301. The past-tense of the English word "dare" is "durst". 302. Don Mac Lean's song "American Pie" was written about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper), who all died in the same plane crash. 303. The drummer for ZZ Top (the only one without a beard) is named Frank Beard. 304. Hummingbirds can't walk. 305. When movie directors do not want their names to be seen in the credits, they use the pseudonym "Allen Smithee" instead. It has been used over 50 times, starting with "Death of a Gunfighter" (1969). 306. Four different people played the part of Darth Vader (body, face, voice, and breathing). 307. Pamela Lee-Anderson was the first to be born in Canada on the centennial anniversary of Canada's independence (7/1/1967). 308. There is about 200 times more gold in the oceans than has been mined throughout history. 309. William Shatner is credited for being the first person on TV to say "hell" as well as to have the first inter-racial kiss (with Nichelle Nichols), both in episodes of Star Trek. 310. While the US government's supply of gold is kept at Fort Knox, its supply of silver is kept at the Military Academy at West Point, NY. 311. Alexander Graham Bell's wife and mother were both deaf. 312. Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works. 313. In the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, if a man was not married by age 30, he would not be allowed to vote or watch athletic events involving nude young men. 314. Attila the Hun (invader of Europe; 406-453), Felix Faure (French President; 1841-1899), Pope Leo VII (936-939), Pope John VII (955-964), Pope Leo VIII (963-965), Pope John XIII (965-72), Pope Paul II (1467-1471), Lord Palmerston (British Prime Minister, 1784-1865), Nelson Rockefeller (US Vice President, 1908-1979), and John Entwistle (The Who's bassist, 1944-2002) all died while having sex. 315. Humans and dolphins are the only animals known to have sex for pleasure. 316. Pac-Man, Namco's 1979 arcade game, was originally called "Puck Man". The name was changed when they realized that vandals could easily scratch out part of the letter "P". 317. Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day, April 23, 1616. 318. There are about 7.7 million millionaires in the world (more than 1/1000th of the population). 319. The youngest mother on record was a Peruvian girl named Lina Medina. She gave birth to a boy by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 (which happened to be Mother's Day), at the age of five years, seven months and 21 days. 320. The "middle finger" gesture originates back to 423 BC in Aristophanes play "The Clouds".
The Barber? •A man was getting a haircut prior to a trip to Rome. He mentioned the trip to the barber who responded, "Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It's crowded & dirty and full of Italians. You're crazy to go to Rome. So, how are you getting there?" "We're taking TWA," was the reply. "We got a great rate!" TWA?" exclaimed the barber. "That's a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they're always late. So, where are you staying in Rome?" "We'll be at the downtown International Marriott." "That dump! That's the worst hotel in the city. The rooms are small, the service is surly and they're overpriced. So, whatcha doing when you get there?" "We're going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope." "That's rich," laughed the barber. "You and a million other people trying to see him. He'll look the size of an ant. Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You're going to need it." A month later, the man again came in for his regular haircut. The barber asked him about his trip to Rome. "It was wonderful," explained the man, "not only were we on time in one of TWA's brand new planes, but it was overbooked and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a beautiful 28 year old stewardess who waited on me hand and foot. And the hotel-it was great! They'd just finished a $25 million remodeling job and now it's the finest hotel in the city. They, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us the presidential suite at no extra charge!" "Well," muttered the barber, "I know you didn't get to see the pope." "Actually, we were quite lucky, for as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder and explained that the pope likes to personally meet some of the visitors, and if I'd be so kind as to step into his private room and wait the pope would personally greet me. Sure enough, five minutes later the pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down as he spoke a few words to me." "Really?" asked the Barber. "What'd he say?" He said, "Where'd you get the shitty haircut?
Just how powerful is the United States..(militarily)??? This was not writen by an American...This comes from an european newspaper...I post this in lue of the recent uprising in "loosing confidence of the American Military. Our boys and girls, of the USAF, are the finest in the world...There is no question about it...Anyway...This is what people in Britain think of our military capability... Armed to the teeth Is Bush's awesome increase in military spending a reasonable response to the afermath of September 11, or is he creating a force almost too powerful for its own good? Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy report Is America too powerful for its own good? You can have your say online here. Observer Worldview Sunday February 10, 2002 The Observer There is a United States special forces dog-handler who meets journalists, diplomats and aid workers off the UN flight to Kabul. His job is to search luggage and ensure the security of US troops in Afghanistan. He is short, gingery and aggressive. His skills at persuasion are limited to shouting at the milling crowd: 'Stand back! Stand back! My dog will bite!' Last week that phrase had become the defining motto and operating credo for the military and foreign policy of the Bush administration. Already President George W. Bush has put Iran, Iraq and North Korea on notice as terrorist-sponsoring nations at the centre of an international 'axis of evil', despite the CIA's recent evidence that none of them was in the business of threatening the United States at present. Last Monday, to back that explicit threat, he announced an increase in US military spending of 15 per cent, the biggest in 20 years, more than double the military spending in all of the European Union. The rise will be $36 billion (£26.5bn) this year, $48 billion next year and $120 billion over the next five years, rising to a staggering two trillion over the next five years. Even this is not enough for General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. They want the US defence budget to increase at an even faster rate. What all this means is clear. Troubled by the 11 September attacks and buoyed by the ease of the war against Afghanistan, Bush's message to the 'evil doers' of the world is that he has a dog; that it is very big, getting bigger, and certainly it will bite. The puzzle about the latest rise in defence spending is that America at the beginning of the 21st century is already not so much a superpower as a behemoth on the world stage. Economically dominant, it enjoys military and cultural power unrivalled since the days of the Roman emperors, as the American author Robert D. Kaplan reminds us in his new book, Warrior Politics. Typically, it has been left to the French, traditionally suspicious of US global hegemony, to find the best words to describe it. Gigantisme militaire they call it, in a phrase that describes both the scale of America's ambitions and also a pathological condition: an organism grown so large it is sick. The question the rest of the world is asking itself is: Who is the enemy America is arming itself so against? And why? 'Ostensibly,' says one European diplomat, 'this is about security. But quite how a massive increase in defence spending is supposed to prevent another terrorist attack remains unclear. Instead this seems to be about repairing the bruised American psyche after 11 September. America's powerlessness in the face of this attack requires big gestures and reassurances, even if they are counter-productive and meaningless.' Indeed, some analysts say, if it is security that America seeks it is better sought in dialogue with potentially threatening states, rather than in reinforcing the idea already held by many anti-US groups that it is an evil empire bent on world domination. Cynics have identified more overtly self-serving strands in the Republican obsession with America's defence. The 'war' rhetoric, as some US liberal commentators have pointed out, serves a purely domestic Republican agenda in the post-11 September mood of national paranoia: to win Bush a second presidential term and, in the shorter term, regain Congress. The reality - even before the latest proposed increases in military spending - is that America could beat the rest of the world at war with one hand tied behind its back. The requirement that US armed forces be able to fight two fully fledged wars with two separate adversaries simultaneously may recently have been dropped, but only because it would be hard pushed to find two such equal foes to fight. A single US nuclear-powered carrier group - which forms around the USS Enterprise, for example, with a flight deck almost a mile in length and a superstructure 20 storeys high - concentrates more military power in one naval group than most states can manage with all their armed forces. America has seven of these battle groups. It is not just the scale and power of these weapons systems. The reach of US arms, too, is awesome. When the USS Kitty Hawk was sent with its accompanying warships from Yokohama to the Gulf for the war against Afghanistan, it covered 6,000 miles in just 12 days to be transformed into a vast floating forward attack station for thousands of US special forces. Its B-52 bombers can fly and refuel across the world armed with cruise missiles that can be fired hundreds of miles away from hostile skies, the missiles themselves directed to their targets by satellites in orbit. And America's supremacy in bombs, planes, satellites, tanks and real-time intelligence have made the prospect of US casualties remote, except in the event of cock-up or disaster. And, significantly, as the world's only economic hyper-power, it can afford this level of militarisation. But against all this even the manufacturers of America's arms - like the aviation giant Lockheed-Martin - have been struggling for a decade or so to define the threat its top-shelf jets will be battling in the skies, being forced in one memorable presentation to show the European Eurofighter as a potential adversary. So why the need for more and better military power? Even military analysts are baffled. 'The rise in US military spending,' says Dan Plesch, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, 'ought to be compared to the decision in the First World War to order up more cavalry when the first wave had been mown down by machine-guns. 'The US has no competitor in high-tech military equipment. And what it is spending its money on is mostly irrelevant against the knives used to carry out 11 September. The bombing of Afghanistan has created the illusion of victory.' Professor Paul Kennedy at Yale University calculates that the US now spends more each year than the next nine largest national defence budgets combined. Indeed America is responsible for about 40 per cent of the world's military spending.
barber...? A man was getting a haircut prior to a trip to Rome. He mentioned the trip to the barber who responded, "Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It's crowded, dirty and full of Italians. You're crazy to go to Rome. So, how are you getting there?" "We're taking TWA," was the reply. "We got a great rate!" "TWA?" exclaimed the barber. "That's a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are rude, and they're always late. So, where are you staying in Rome?" "We'll be at the downtown International Marriott." "That dump! That's the worst hotel in the city. The rooms are small, the service is surly and they're overpriced. So, whatcha doing when you get there?" "We're going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope." "That's rich," laughed the barber. "You and a million other people trying to see him. He'll look the size of an ant. Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You're going to need it." A month later, the man again came in for his regular haircut. The barber asked him about his trip to Rome. "It was wonderful," explained the man, "not only were we on time in one of TWA's brand new planes, but it was overbooked and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a beautiful 28 year old stewardess who waited on me hand and foot. And the hotel - it was great! They'd just finished a $25 million remodeling job and now it's the finest hotel in the city. They, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us the presidential suite at no extra charge!" "Well," muttered the barber, "I know you didn't get to see the Pope." "Actually, we were quite lucky, for as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder and explained that the Pope likes to personally meet some of the visitors, and if I'd be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the pope would personally greet me. Sure enough, five minutes later the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke to me." "Really?" asked the Barber. "What'd he say?" "He said, 'Where'd you get the lousy haircut?'"
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