10 Random & Odd Facts -June 29 '07

1. A new study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that Americans who rely on Comedy Central fare—The Daily Show and Colbert Report, know much more about current events than those who watch Fox “News”.

2. Ministerial staff in France has been banned from using BlackBerrys due to the risk of US espionage. Government officials were told by Alain Juillet, the government chief of economic intelligence, that BlackBerry communications were not secure because the system channelled its “push” e-mails through servers in the United States and Britain. This made them vulnerable to agencies such as the US National Security Agency. “The risk of interception is real. It’s economic war,” says Mr Juillet.

3. Soulful singer Amy Winehouse recently shocked a US rock reporter by cutting herself with a shard of broken mirror during an interview. The Rehab star cut the words "I love Blake" into her stomach, proving once and for all that she isn’t interested in being a role-model. Wow, we get it already.

4. Saturn is the only planet that could float on water.

5. Britain is proposing to remove the term "prostitute" from the criminal statutes to avoid labeling those who chronically sleep with others for money. They are expected to replace the term with “sex worker”.

6. While popular in Mexico, Louisiana is the only state in the US that legally allows cockfighting.

7. Have you ever felt awful about having to pay a parking ticket? Imaging how Anna P. Brazzell, a waitress currently at the Big River Grille in Chattanooga, feels about currently owing the city court clerk’s office $27,948.06 in unpaid parking tickets, for chronically parking on Broad Street near the restaurant where she works. City officials have "booted," the car but will not take possession of it, because it has no value. Poor Anna, I hope she’s making good tips.

8. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow the film down so you could see his moves.

9. Conservative Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and head of President George W. Bush's Environmental Protection Agency claimed to have quit the Bush Administration to "spend more time with her family." Recently she told the Washington Post that the real reason she quit was because the Administration pressured her to accept pro-industry coal power plant rules, which threatened dangerous levels of air pollution, and because Bush endorsed raising legal levels of arsenic in drinking waters to an unsafe limit (in spite of her protests) as a favor to big industry. She says her conscious wouldn’t allow her to stay on board. Link

10. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) once said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Comments

[oddfacts]

I loved this. Exactly the kind off odd facts I like. I hope you don't mind, but I linked this post from my blog: http://odd-facts.blogspot.com/ Thanks for posting this. My favorite is 5.

[tvsm22]

I really doubt number 4