in a majority of u.s. states, undocumented immigrants pay a higher tax rate than the 1% of people who have the highest incomes.

in 2022, undocumented immigrants contributed us$26 billion to social security. under current u.s. law, this is money that they cannot ever benefit from.

in 2022, undocumented immigrants in the u.s. paid us$97 billion in taxes.

martial rape is still legal in more than 3 dozen countries.

1 in 8 u.s. adults is a victim of or is threatened with revenge porn.

of the more than 14,000 chemicals found in food packaging, about 1 in 4 of them (3,601) have been found in human blood, hair, brains, and/or milk.

many of these are known to disrupt the endocrine system and/or to cause cancer.

since 1978, ceo pay in the u.s. has risen 1,085%.

the usd$7.25/hr fed. minimum wage has not risen in 15 years and the tminimum wage for workers who receive tips has been usd$2.13/hr since 1991.

the first official minted coin in the u.s. said "mind your business", not "in god we trust".

a supreme court ruling written by justice antonin scalia found that u.s. police officers have no duty or obligation to protect citizens - even children - from harm.

according to a study of how police officers spend their work hours, the majority spend more time on officer-initiated stops than they do solving crimes. in fact, as much as 88% of their time, and 79% of that on traffic stops.

of those traffic stops, police officers were more than twice as likely to pull over black driversas opposed to white drivers, and only 11% of those stops were because the officer stopped the driver based on reasonable suspicion of a crime.

police departments in the u.s. and u.k. were originally created to control crowds - not to enforce the law or solve crimes.

48% of all species studied have declining populations (only 3% have populations that are growing.)

the current rate of extinction is faster than any of the 5 previous mass extinctions. the most recent mass extinction (not counting the current one) resulted in the loss of 95% of all life on earth.

great apes are on track to lose 94% of their range to climate change by 2050.

some police departments, government agencies, and private companies us a software application called fog reveal to monitor someone's 'patterns of life', including where and when people work and live, whom they associate with and what places they visit, without a warrant.

police officers in the united states who pull over motorists for traffic stops frequently touch the rear of the driver's car as they approach. this is so that there is some evidence that the officer interacted with the drive in case the driver flees (or the officer is assaulted or killed).

the following countries have refused to sign a treaty to ban child marriage:

• iran
• nauru
• palau
• sudan
• somalia
• tonga
• ... and the united states

prior to the civil war, the united states maxed out at 600,000 slave owners.

that's a LOT.

in the americas, covid19 was the number one cause of death from 2020 through 2021. hospitals were overrun and many healthcare workers quit due to nonstop mandatory overtime, sometimes for weeks at  time. so many people died that refrigerator trucks were stationed outside many hospitals just to temporarily store the dead.

you can see the data in minute detail here.

at the time of this writing, the most common sources of microplastics in your kitchen are, in no particular order:

• plastic cutting boards
• microwaveable food container
• plastic ice cube trays
• tea bags (plastic sealant and/or the bag itself)
• white paper cups (made waterproof with plastic)

there is convincing evidence that elephants call each other by name.

if you turned every piece of plastic that we have made as of the time of this writing into saran wrap, it would cover the entire planet.

we haven't done that, but the result is exactly the same: every square inch of our entire planet's surface - even at the bottom of the ocean and the top of mount everest - is covered in plastic.

if you are black or white, your ear wax is likely yellow or brown and sticky. if you are asian, your ear wax is dry and white.

a cruise ship's daily exhaust emissions are the equivalent of one million cars.

united states presidents can only pardon criminals for federal crimes. they can still be tried, convicted, and jailed for state or local crimes.

 orangutans chew up medicinal plants and use them to treat wounds.

the word 'astronaut' actually means 'star sailor' in latin.

only 3% of bird species have penises.

at the time of his inauguration, only one original tooth was left in george washington's mouth.

adjusted for inflation, gone with the wind is the highest grossing movie of all time (us$1.8 billion).

at the time of this writing, the average human being consumes the equivalent of a credit card's worth of plastic every week.

it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. this doesn't mean that they go away. instead, they become microplastics (sometimes also called nanoplastics) which absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment.

1 out of every 3 dead leatherback turtles choked to death on a plastic bag. the turtles eat them because they resemble jellyfish, which are a common food for the turtles.

almost all plastic produced in the u.s. ends up in landfills or the ocean - more than 1,500,000 tons per year. 

this is because many kinds of plastic cannot be recycled. and even when a plastic can be recycled, it is much less expensive to produce new plastic than it is to recycle old plastic.

the companies that produce plastic have always known this, but they deliberately lie about it.

in the u.s., every citizen uses an average of 365 single-use plastic bags per year.

in denmark, the average citizen uses 4 single-use plastic bags per year.

at the time of this writing, humans produce 5 trillion single-use plastic bags.

none of them are recycled.

your gut biome - the microscopic organisms passed on from your parents before you were born - communicates with the rest of your body via a language composed of thousands of bile acids. these acids aid in digestion, regulate your immune system, regulate lipid and glucose metabolism, and can fight scores of diseases.

according to a study by stanford university, first-generation male immigrants are more likely to have successful careers than u.s.-born males who do not finish high school.

according to a study by stanford university, u.s.-born men who didn't finish high school are the most likely demographic to go to prison.

during the civil war, the alabama cavalry flanked union general sherman and protected his troops' march to the sea.

during the civil war, nearly 100,000 white southerners volunteered to join the union army and fight to prevent the southern states from seceding.

of the 12 southern states that seceded during the civil war, 7 stated in their secession declarations that the reason that they were seceding was to protect slavery.

laundry pods dissolve into microplastic. and because no water treatment plant in any country is equipped to filter them, the microplastic goes right into our rivers, streams, and lakes. and from there into all of the fish, mollusks, water plants, and... us.

insects are not naturally attracted to lights. they can't tell the difference between artificial lights and the stars, so they become disoriented and either starve or are eaten by predators before morning.

(the praying mantises, snakes, and toads in our neighborhood hang out under streetlights at night, waiting on free meals.)

an amoeba has a genome that is more than 100 times larger than a human's.

mammals have a gene called tp53. its function is to ward off cancer and protect the cell. humans have 2 of these genes. if one becomes mutated or damaged, your potential for cancer skyrockets.

elephants have 20 of these genes.

schizophrenia can be caused by any one of up to 300 genes, or any combination thereof. and that's not taking into account other things that may cause it, too, such as your rna, gut biome, etc.

between 2019 and 2023, 27 million people have died of covid. and counting.

between 1981 and 2022, 33 million people died of hiv/aids.

between 1976 and today (1/20/24), 15,000 people have died of ebola, a flesh-eating disease.

between 1918 and 1920, more than 50 million people worldwide died of the spanish flu.

between 1894 and 1940, 15 million people died of the plague. it was the plague's third global pandemic.

in 1889, 4 million people worldwide died of the russian flu.

between 1865 and 1947, 23 million people in india died of cholera.

in your lifetime, you will walk past an average of 36 murderers.

when nelson mandela returned to south africa from zimbabwe, the cia alerted south africa's government, which put mandela in prison for 27 years. why did the cia do this?

they were afraid that mandela would spread communism in africa.

household income for the middle class in the u.s. has fallen steadily since 1970.

the average plastic bottle of water contains 250,000 pieces of nanoplastic that you swallow when you drink. they are as small as a virus and can pass the blood/brain barrier, which means that once you drink, they spread throughout your entire body.

so what does that do to you?

no one knows. yet.

currently in the u.s., the top 1% of wage earners pay less in state and local taxes than all other wage earners in 41 states.

as an example, the richest 1% in florida have a 2.7% tax rate, but the lowest-income folks in that state pay 13.2% - almost 5 times more.

there are 50 prisons that have been used by the united states since 9/11 to hold detainees in 28 countries (in addition to at least 25 more prisons in afghanistan and 20 in iraq).

it is estimated that the u.s. has also used 17 ships as floating prisons since 2001, bringing the total estimated number of prisons operated by the u.s. and/or its allies to house alleged terrorist suspects since 2001 to more than 100.

these terrorism suspects will never stand trial, likely never be released, and a sizable number of them are tortured.