Economic Gains
Ninety-five percent of all economic gains in the U.S. since the Great Recession went to the top 1 percent.
Read moreCategory: Facts & Trends
Hog Slaughter
Portion of hogs slaughtered in the United States that are raised by a single Chinese company: 1/6
Read moreIn Poor Taste?
Gun-maker, American Legacy Firearms, unveiled the “Dallas Heritage Rifle” to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy. “If I hurt someone’s feelings, I’m sorry,” said company boss Steve Faler, “but I’m not gonna worry about it.”
Read moreBaby Boomer Drug Use
Baby Boomers who frequently used recreational drugs like marijuana and cocaine in their youth are now turning back to drugs like Oxycontin for relief of age-related pain and illness. As a result, the fatal-overdose rate for people ages 45 to 64 has become higher than that for 25 to 44-year-olds for the first time. More than 12,000 Boomers died of […]
Read moreMelanoma
The rate of U.S. diagnoses for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, has doubled in the past 30 years, from 11.2 cases per 100,000 people in 1982 to 22.7 cases per 100,000 in 2011, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released June 2. As a result, the agency expects the cost of melanoma care to […]
Read moreThe Real Beliefs of Islam
“We can’t end terrorism any more than we can end crime in general. But I look forward to the day when an act of terrorism by self proclaimed Muslims will be universally dismissed as nothing more than a criminal attack of a thuggish political organization wearing an ill fitting Muslim mask. To get to that point, we will need to […]
Read moreSpeedy Trial?
Estimated number of cases pending in India’s court system: 30,000,000
Read moreSlow TV
An Icelandic public broadcast station aired 24 hours of live sheep birthing, part of its “slow TV” campaign, which also featured chess, knitting, and wood-burning.
Read moreBy the numbers
141: The number of seasonal former IRS employees rehired by the agency between 2010 and 2013 despite having botched or failed to file their own tax returns, according to a February report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. 8.8 Million: The number of tons of plastic waste dumped into the oceans every year, according to a study in the journal […]
Read moreHOW HAPPY ARE YOU?
Gallup ranked 143 countries by how great a share of respondents said they had recently had positive experiences such as laughter or enjoyment. A sampling, from greatest to least: 1 – Paraguay 8 – Costa Rica 15 – U.S. 134 – Afghanistan 143 – Sudan
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