Depressive French

[En Francia] El suidicio es la segunda causa de mortalidad en la franja de los 15-24 años y la primera en la de los 25-40 años.

La cultura-mundo, G. Lipovetsky, J. Serroy

Roasted cat :9

One of the greates sources of amusement in sixteenth-centruy Paris was cat burning. At the midsummer´s fair and impresario would gather dozens of cats in a net, hoist them high into the air from a special stage, and then, to everyone´s delight, lower the whole writhing bundle onto a bonfire.

Source:  N. Davies, "Europe: A History" (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996)
Image source: http://irishherault.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/summer-solstice-france/

1.86 million souls going to hell only in Alabama!!!

Southern Baptists recently counted the number of people expected to go to hell from Alabama-a whopping 46.1%, or 1.86 million souls. The New York Times (1993) explained how: "The study took each county's population and subtracted from it the membership of all churches. After that, Baptist researchers used a secret formula to estimate how many people from different denominations and faiths were probably going to heaven." Newsday (1993) reported that based on this calculation "a higher percentage of Methodists are saved than are Roman Catholics" and that "virtually everyone not belonging to a church congregation was counted among the lost."

Source: Love Thy Neighbor - The Evolution of In-Group Morality
By John Hartung, Skeptic, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1995
(http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/ltn01.html)

Stealing apples: there is a word for it

scrump verb

/skrʌmp/ v [T] UK old-fashioned informal

Definition

to steal fruit such as apples from trees

 

Source: Cambridge Dictionary Online

Icebergs

An iceberg reaching a height of more than 75 m above the sea is officially classified as “very large.”

Source: The Encyclopedia of Useless Information, W. Hartston

Dead trees

If you chopped down a 15-year-old tree and used it to make paper grocery bags, you'd wind up with about 700. That's roughly the number of bags your local supermarket goes through in an hour.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/facts_4987734_fun-funny-facts-recycling.html

USA blocks by "mistake" 84.000 websites

Source: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/EE/UU/bloquea/error/84000/sitios/elpeputec/20110217elpeputec_2/Tes

El Gobierno de Estados Unidos ha cerrado por error 84.000 dominios que se vieron acusados de distribuir pornografía infantil.

The Government of the USA has closed 84000 web domains, accused of distributing child pornography.