Need To Spend A Penny? Find Out Where You Can’t In Today’s Fact File.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Spending a penny is becoming more and more difficult these days, especially if you are in the US military as you will see. But then they are trained to take the pressure.

More fabulous facts below.

Enjoy.

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US penny

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Stores on US military bases around the world

don’t accept pennies as currency because they are

“too heavy and are not cost-effective to ship”.

Stores on US military bases

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A person’s pupils will dilate if they are lying.

In fact, because this is an involuntary behavior

it is usually a good indication.

dilated pupil

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The world’s first female American self-made millionaire,

Madame C.J. Walker, made her fortune

in the early 20th century cosmetics industry.

A black man appeared to her in a dream

and told her the mixture which would help

her falling-out hair grow back in.

It worked, and she enjoyed a lengthy career

selling her cosmetics products.

Madame C.J. Walker

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Australia’s National Science Agency

claims to have basically invented wi-fi

and has even sued over it.

But sure we all know it was Al Gore,

or was that the internet he didn’t invent?

Australia's National Science Agency CSIRO_headquarters

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Still on the subject of the internet,

when Montenegro gained its independence

from Yugoslavia its top level internet

domain went from .yu to .me

Montenegro

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And yet more Internet goodies,

in 1993 there were only 623 websites.

Today, more than 100,000 domain names

are registered every single day

List-of-Internet-top-level-domains

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The Incas constructed buildings without mortar,

the huge stones they used fitting together

so perfectly and tightly that

nothing could get between them.

machu-picchu-masonry - Incas constructed buildings without mortar

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In China reincarnation is illegal.

Unless you have permission from the government.

(But how would they know if you came back

as an American or maybe a dog?)

China reincarnation is illegal

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The first submarine attack in history

took place in New York Harbor in 1776.

The colonists attempted to attach gunpowder

to the hull of the British ship HMS Eagle

using a submersible they called ‘The Turtle’.

Turtle_submarine_first submarine attack in history took place in New York Harbor in 1776

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NASA will send you a text message

whenever the International Space Station

passes over your location.

International Space Station

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Is there such a thing as a jinx?

Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert Todd Lincoln

was by his father’s side as he passed away.

He then went on to witness the assassination

of President James Garfield.

Twenty years later, in 1901,  President William McKinley

invited him to the Pan-American exposition in New York

and on that day President McKinley was also assassinated.

Robert decided to decline any presidential invitations

from that day forth.

Robert Todd Lincoln

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Happy Birthday Dot.Com

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

dot com

Yesterday I was looking through the windows. Today it’s dot coms.

Technically I’m a week late but I thought I would wish good old Dot.Com many happy returns anyway.

Thirty years ago, on March 15th 1985, the first dot.com domain name was registered. It was symbolics.com.

It wasn’t a significant event at the time because way back in 1985 about the only people using the internet on a commercial basis were US government contractors. Ecommerce giants such as Amazon.com and Ebay.com hadn’t even been thought of.

It has all changed since then of course. Slowly at first, only four other dot.coms were registered in 1985, but now thirty years on the total number of registered top-level domains, or TLDs as they are known sometimes, has surpassed 288 million and showing no signs of stopping.

That total includes over 115 million dot coms, which are still the most sought after and most valuable, but there are also dot nets, dot orgs, dot biz, dot infos and a host of others. In fact more than 500 new TLDs are being added to the internet right now, with another 500 in the pipeline.

tlds

And the dot com era has spawned an entirely new industry. These names are now traded like commodities, most worth a few bucks, but quite a number making it to 6 and 7 figures (that’s over $1million!).

So what happened to the symbolics.com name? It was eventually sold off for an undisclosed sum to a Dallas, Texas-based investor group in August 2009.

Like I said at the start, Happy Birthday Dot.com, the first thirty years have been good.

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Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – What It Means To Be Governed.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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I had intended to indulge myself today with a bit of a Sunday Sermon about the increasing intrusiveness of government.

But then I found a quote from a Frenchman named Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and I decided to let him use my pulpit on this occasion.

He didn’t know about the “En ess a” snoopers who have been listening to our phone calls, reading our emails, and spying on the leaders of nations that are supposed to be friends and allies of the United States, because he was speaking about what it means to be governed more than two hundred years ago.

Nevertheless, his words ring eerily true.

Nothing, it seems, has changed.

In fact today’s technology has made things far worse.

This is what he had to say all those years ago….

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To be governed is to be

watched over,

inspected,

spied on,

directed,

legislated at,

regulated,

docketed,

indoctrinated,

preached at,

controlled,

assessed,

weighed,

censored,

(and) ordered about,

by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue.

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To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction,

noted,

registered,

enrolled,

taxed,

stamped,

measured,

numbered,

assessed,

licensed,

authorized,

admonished,

forbidden,

reformed,

corrected,

(and) punished.

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It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be

placed under contribution,

trained,

ransomed,

exploited,

monopolized,

extorted,

squeezed,

mystified,

(and) robbed;

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Then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be

repressed,

fined,

despised,

harassed,

tracked,

abused,

clubbed,

disarmed,

choked,

imprisoned,

judged,

condemned,

shot,

deported,

sacrificed,

sold,

betrayed;

and, to crown all,

mocked,

ridiculed,

outraged,

(and) dishonoured.

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That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

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The man knew what he was talking about.

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Portrait_of_Pierre_Joseph_Proudhon_1865

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, (1809 – 1865) was a French politician, the founder of Mutualist philosophy, an economist and a libertarian socialist. He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist and is among its most influential theorists. He is considered by many to be the “father of anarchism”. He became a member of the French Parliament after the revolution of 1848, whereupon and thereafter he referred to himself as a federalist.

(Bio source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon )

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