Conducting the ten question U.S.A. 2010 Census is estimated to cost $14.5 billion, all told. Shazaam, I am pleased that there weren’t 20 questions.
Have you ever watched the boats race in America’s Cup? Those sailing vessels are very well designed and often reach speeds of 38 miles per hour during races. That is faster than many inboard/outboard motor boats can safely traverse waterways.
Garlic has long been popular in China. Even Confucius spoke of the virtues of fine garlic. However, the market requests for garlic in the world’s most populous nation have recently increased dramatically. This intensified demand has spurred garlic prices in China to rise by more than 600% in the past 12 months. I read no reports concerning halitosis.
April Fool’s pranks have likely been the fashion since at least 1539. Flemish writings from that date make reference to an April 1st trick. The Dutch, French, British and Germans all have laid claim to the origin of the goofy tradition. The story that Emperor Constantine made the royal jester a king for a day on April 1st was itself an April Fool hoax launched by university professor Joseph Boskin in 1983.
Scientists estimate that golf courses in the U.S.A. are sprinkled with an average of 2 billion gallons of water each day, 365 days a year. Add that quantity to the daily average of 7 billion gallons used on American home lawns and the totals are almost astonishing.
Some good news on the water front: studious folk at Oregon State University have discovered huge quantities of water underneath our ocean’s floors. Some speculate that there may be more water under the ocean floors than in the oceans.
Earth has about 80 times as much mass as our moon.
The word “taxi” is spelled the same in German, English, Portuguese, Swedish and French.
Talk about a long poem to memorize: The Indian poem Mahabharata is more than ten times as long as the Iliad and Odyssey combined.
According to what must have been a government sponsored study, 94 % of American women cry at least once a month while 50% of American men admit to monthly weeping.
In the wild, the longest a duck-billed platypus can reasonably expect to survive is 14 years. Try working that info into your next party conversation.
Well, I hope that this column triggers no sobbing and that you are having a great week.