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Television stations hung banners at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, including Al-Jazeera, until it was noticed and taken down.




A woman was chewing what was left of her chocolate bar when she entered a Metro station in Washington DC. She was arrested and handcuffed; eating is prohibited in Metro stations.



The New York City subway system, in an effort to raise revenue, is considering selling sponsorships of individual stations to corporations. Riders could soon be getting off at Nike Grand Central Station or Sony Times Square.



The Nike swoosh was designed by a Portland State University student, and purchased by Nike for $35.



Gerald Ford once worked as a cover model for Cosmopolitan magazine.



Gillette spent $1,000,000 to place razor samples in the welcome bags handed out at the Democratic National Convention, only to have them confiscated as they were considered a threat. This caused huge delays at all security checkpoints.



Quebec City, Canada, has about as much street crime as Disney World.



Jim Carrey voted in 2004 at the Beverly Hills City Hall. He had an assistant wait in line for him, however.



As part of a charity event, 500 cats were spayed and neutered in the cafeteria of an elementary school. School was cancelled for days and $10,000 was spent on cleaning and sterilizing the room.



The United States has five percent of the world's population, but twenty-five percent of the world's prison population.



The largest McDonald's is in Beijing, China - measuring 28,000 square feet. It has twenty nine cash registers.



A house in Baghdad worth $15,000 before the Iraq war now sells for $120,000 to $150,000.



There are between 5,000 and 7,000 tigers kept as pets in the United States.



The fertility rate in states that voted for George Bush is 12% higher than states that favored John Kerry.



The chicken is one of the few things that man eats before it's born and after it's dead.



The number of US college students studying Latin is three times the number studying Arabic.



If you hook Jell-O up to an EEG, it registers movements almost identical to a human adult's brain waves.



Some dogs can predict when a child will have an epileptic seizure, and even protect the child from injury. They're not trained to do this, they simply learn to respond after observing at least one attack.



32 out of 33 samples of well-known brands of milk purchased in Los Angeles and Orange counties in California had trace amounts of perchlorate. Perchlorate is the explosive component in rocket fuel.



The remains of 125 people will be launched into space where they will orbit the Earth for centuries.



The leading cause of on-the-job deaths in workplaces in America is homicide.



So far, Congress has authorized $152,600,000,000 for the Iraq war. This is enough to build over 17,500 elementary schools.



Americans take an average of just ten days per year vacation. In France, the law guarantees everyone five weeks of vacation, and most full-time workers get two full months vacation.



The IRS admits that one in five people who call their help line get the wrong answer to their question.



20% of Americans think that the sun orbits around the Earth.



Harry S Truman's middle name was S. Just S, without the period. (thanks to Eric Snyder)



Van Halen singer David Lee Roth trained to be an EMT in New York City, and planned to be certified by November 2004.



The thong accounts for 25% of the United States women's underwear market.



On average, 40% of all hotel rooms in the United States remain empty every night.



When you hear a bullwhip snap, it's because the tip is traveling faster than the speed of sound.



There is a new television show on a British cable called "Watching Paint Dry". Viewers watch in real-time. Gloss, semi-gloss, matte, satin, you name it. Then viewers vote out their least favorite.



The largest ocean liners pay a $250,000 toll for each trip through the Panama Canal. The canal generates fully one-third of Panama's entire economy.



French author Michel Thaler published a 233 page novel which has no verbs.



The spring thaw finally allows cemeteries in Alaska to start digging graves for those who died during the winter.



When Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen turned 18 in mid-2004, they took official control of a company worth more than the gross national product of Mongolia. Their earnings in 2003 topped $1 billion.



Orthodox rabbis warned that New York City drinking water might not be kosher; it contains harmless micro-organisms that are technically shellfish.



David Bowie thinks he is being stalked by someone who is dressed like a giant pink rabbit. Bowie has noticed the fan at several recent concerts, but he became alarmed when he got on a plane and the bunny was on board.



A party boat filled with 60 men and women capsized in Texas after all the passengers rushed to one side as the boat passed a nude beach.



In 1997, a woman in Bradenton, Florida lost her cat. In 2004, she got a call from the local animal shelter. The cat turned up wandering the streets in San Francisco, California. The cat's identity was proven with a microchip that had been implanted prior to 1997.



Almost 20% of the billions of dollars American taxpayers are spending to rebuild Iraq are lost to theft, kickbacks and corruption.



The treasury department has more than twenty people assigned to catching people who violate the trade and tourism embargo with Cuba. In contrast, it has only four employees assigned to track the assets of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.



There are 40,000 New York City cab drivers, who collectively drive more than a million miles each day.



An estimated 800,000 senior citizens voluntarily give up their driving privileges each year. The average age at which they surrender the wheel is 85.



More than 8,100 US troops are still listed as missing in action from the Korean war.



3,400,000 Americans are considered "Extreme Commuters". These people commute over 90 minutes round trip every day to work.



82% of Americans made a purchase at Wal-Mart in 2002.



Oslo, Norway is the world's most expensive city. A gallon on gas costs almost $5, and it costs $1.32 to use the public restrooms.



Villanova University's commencement speaker this year is the actor who plays Big Bird.



In 1965, auditions were held for the "Monkees" TV show. Some of the people who responded (but were not hired) were Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson, Paul Williams and Charles Manson.



Kevin Spacey's older brother is a professional Rod Stewart impersonator.



71% of office workers stopped on the street for a survey agreed to give up their computer passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.



George W. Bush and John Kerry are 16th cousins, three times removed.



If current trends continue, Medicare costs will absorb 51% of all income tax revenues by 2042.



The prison system is the largest supplier of mental health services in America, with 250,000 Americans with mental illness living there.



Researchers have found that doctors who spend at least three hours a week playing video games make about 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery than surgeons who didn't play video games.



Before he had his own show, Jerry Seinfeld appeared on three episodes of the TV show "Benson" as the governor's speechwriter.



There are 1,008 McDonald's franchises in France.



Hostess Twinkies were originally filled with banana filling. The filling was changed during World War II when the United States experienced a banana shortage.



World War II veterans are now dying at the rate of about 1,100 each day.



George W. Bush is probably going to be the eighth president in US history to have completed a term in office without ever having issued a single veto.



A deployed air bag adds as much as $2,000 to the cost of repairing a vehicle. That's enough for insurance companies to often declare the car "totaled".



For the first time in history, the number of people on the planet aged 60 or over will soon surpass those under 5.



One out of five people in the world (1.1 billion people) live on less than $1 per day.



The Swedish pop group ABBA recently turned down an offer of $2 billion to reunite.



The New Yorker magazine now has more subscribers in California than New York.



Five years ago, 60% of all retail purchases were made with cash or check. Now it's 50%. By 2010, 39% of purchases will be made by cash or check.



35 Billion e-mails are sent each day throughout the world.



The richest self-made American under 40 is Michael Dell, chairman of Dell Computers. He is worth $18 billion.



Legislators in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are considering a law that would require pets to wear seat belts when traveling in a car.



Life Savers got their shape by a malfunctioning machine, which mistakenly punched a hole in the center of each candy.



SUV sales are up 18% in the first quarter of 2004 vs. the same period of 2003, even though gas prices are skyrocketing. Consumer surveys show that gas prices would have to hit $3.75 per gallon before there will be any real impact on SUV sales.



Airport security agents at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts caught a passenger trying to sneak a severed seal head onto a plane inside a cooler. The man said he was a biology professor and had found the dead animal on the beach.



Jimmy Carter once reported a UFO in Georgia.



There are 150,000,000 cell phones in use in the United States, more than one per every two human beings in the country.



A Boeing 767 airliner is made of 3,100,000 separate parts.