i just looked through my latest national geographic and it has some interesting facts about Orlando & Disney World (FYI this is all in Florida)

-Living in a sprawling suburb versus a compact city can add 6 pounds to your weight
-The acres of citrus groves in Orange County have decreased 93 percent in the past forty years
-1,210 U.S. Protestant churches have weekly attendance over 2,000- nearly double the number five years ago
-28 percent of people living in American suburbs are ethnic minorities
-the size of an American home has increased 63 percent over the past three decades
- (this is my favorite) Americans spend the equivalent of 10 working days a year commuting to work

of course this is all american based so i dont want you british type comming in and laughing, because all of this can be put on a worldwide view; obviously these wont be the same values for other countries, but it does show the exponential growth of the world (and strange phenomena i guess too)
The world is growing and we all know it, and i guess this kinda goes along with Quicksilver's thread on the environment: http://www.lfsforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=42

Your right about it being world wide, here in the U.K there have been some odd facts about our country released recently.

- The average working persons home earned more money than they did last year. (house prices are insanely high)

- In my home town Southampton 1 in 10 people are now Polish (the other 90% are chavs)

- People spend an average of 2000 million billion days commuting to work each year (ok I made that up, but transport sucks here)

...other than that we are all alcoholic single parents with 20 kids all called Asda, we like fighting each other, oh and we always go over budget...on everything.

Oh and we don't like Americans because they are happy most of the time, while we are usually depressed and cynical, we think happy people must be trying to sell us something or steal our oversized jars with pennys in them.

Some more.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q

Very cool vid, Highsider9.

Quote from XCNuse :

- (this is my favorite) Americans spend the equivalent of 10 working days a year commuting to work

Wow, I wish I only spent the equivelant of 10 working days a year commuting. I spend 30 days a year both going and coming to/from work. Half hour drive in and a half hour drive home. I think this statistic is way off. 10 working day per year is only a 3 minute drive to work assuming an 8 hour workday, with 4 weeks vacation per year, working 5 days per week.

More British people have went to Spain live permenantly than Polish people went to Britain.

Quote from NoQuarter :

Very cool vid, Highsider9.

Yes, thanks for the video link Highsider9. Very thought provoking. I've forwarded the link to several people I know will appreciate it too.

Quote from Highsider9 :

Some more.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q

In a way, that vid reminds me of the old phrase "This day is the first day of the rest of your life". At first sight it looks impressive and thought-inspiring, but when you think about it some more, you find that it's utter BS. You can prove anything with statistics, especially if you use loads of it.

Frankly I find that video alarmist and vaguely fascistic - it seems to be making a claim for improved education, but if there's a reason for education, its not so that we can train our kids to be the bricks and mortar in a corporate barricade against everything "alien".

It makes the world seem smaller and more claustrophobic than it really is. Really manipulative and leaves a nasty taste in my mouth...

Goebbels would have been proud of it.