Thursday, March 3, 2011
13 Things I Bet My Sister Doesn't Know
----- Western whiptail lizards shoot their tongues out about 700 times an hour.
----- The leading cause of death around the world for girls 15 to 19 is pregnancy and its complications.
----- There are about 20,000 volcanoes under the sea.
----- In 1990 paperboys on foot and on bikes delivered the newspaper to about 70% of home subscribers. By 2008 paperboys delivered only 13% of these newspapers. (The vast majority are now delivered by adults driving cars.)
----- 1.3 million Europeans are expected to die of cancer this year. (That's 7% fewer than in 2007.)
----- There are 3142 counties in the US. About 760 of them (about 24%) are fading away as deaths exceed births. (Virtually no US counties were fading away prior to the 1960s.)
----- It takes about 10 million mustard seeds to make one container of French's mustard.
----- At least 14% of Americans sleep with their pets. (I'm guessing most of those pets are cats and dogs and very few are hamsters or goldfish.)
----- China has 12 cities with a population above 5 million. (And I bet my sister has never heard of most of them.) That's more than any other country. (The US has exactly one city in that category.)
----- Walmart sells more strawberry-flavored Pop-Tarts when a hurricane is approaching.
----- 50% of the serious crime that occurs in Minneapolis occurs in just 6% of its area.
----- Phoenix, Arizona was founded in 1867 by a morphine addict.
----- The world produced 1.6 billion tons of steel in 2010. That was an all-time record. (It's also about 450 pounds of steel for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Where did YOUR allotment go?)
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Was morphine legal to possess and use in 1867?
ReplyDeleteHow did the Phoenix crime rate back then compare to now?
50% of the serious crime that occurs in Minneapolis occurs in just 6% of its area.
ReplyDeleteEither somewhere around Lake St, or somewhere in the Cedar-Riverside area.
I'd go Cedar-Riverside over Lake St, but not by much.
I'm contemplating non-serious crime. Is levity illegal in Minnesota?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like some sort of Puritan thing when they slap you in the stocks for being Jovial and non-Godly.
Like in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and Pakistan where the Talebs can beat you for cheering too boisterously at soccer games.
We must keep levity and enjoyment in check because God put us here to be serious. Joy has to be earned and is only available in the afterlife.
I now conclude my contemplation.
How many volcanoes are there on land? If Jules Verne had known about the volcanoes, would he have changed the title of his book to 20,000 Ways To Cook Giant Calamari?
ReplyDeleteWhere does all that steel come from? Where does radioactively contaminated steel go? And does a researcher who culls all the information regarding mustard seeds or pet and master sleeping habits make a livable wage? If so, that's the life for me! :-)