Percentage of American voters who would use the new Super PAC App (created by former MIT students) that "listens" to political TV ads and tells the user how much money was spent on the ad, as well as the organization that funded it, according to a survey by Politcal.com: 77
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Percentage of Political.com voters who say Super PACs wield too much influence in national politics: 80
Source: Political.com.
Estimated number of people on dating websites in the U.S., according to research by LuvFax.com: 50 million
Percentage of all relationships that now start online: 20
Estimated number of dating websites in the U.S. alone: 1,400
Estimated amount spent on U.S. dating websites each year: $1.1 billion
Source: LuvFax.com.
Percentage of employers who notice an uptick in sick days around the winter holidays, according to a CareerBuilder survey: 31
Ranks of December, July, January and February on the list of the most popular month to skip out on work: 1, 2, 3, 4
Next to actually being sick, percentage of employees who said one of the reasons they call in sick is because they just don't feel like going to work: 34
Source: CareerBuilder.com.
Percentage of parents with children under the age of 18 who are beginning their holiday shopping prior to November, according to a RetailMeNot shoppers trend report: 39
Percentage of parents in the same group who still have a dismal view of the economy: 71
Percentage who worry about being able to make all the necessary purchases in the coming months: 25
Source: RetailMeNot.com.
Percentage of Americans who say they've recycled aluminum or steel cans in the past year, according to a poll conducted on behalf of Call2Recycle: 76
Percentage of recyclers who agree that "recycling is important for the Earth" and that "recycling is an important lesson for future generations": 92
Percentage who agree that "it is their civic duty to recycle": 84
Source: Ipsos Marketing, Global Consumer Goods Sector.
Year a long-running part of the nation's communications technology passed into history as the last hand-cranked telephone system in the country converted to direct dialing, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 1983
In Bryant Pond, Maine, that year, number of subscribers who were still on the old system and were still using equipment that had served rural customers since the turn of the century: 400
Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
Percentage of chief financial officers who say they now prefer to cultivate business relationships via social networking, according to a Robert Half Management Resources survey: 45
Percentage who say their primary purpose for networking is to grow business: 60
Percentage who said it was to keep up with industry news and developments: 20
Source: Robert Half.
Rank of motor vehicle crashes on the list of the leading causes of death for teens, according to a study conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety: 1
Among 16- and 17-year-old drivers involved in fatal crashes, percentage who were speeding and had no passengers: 30
Percentage who were speeding and had two teen passengers: 44
Percentage who were speeding and had three or more teen passengers: 48
Source: AAA.
Percentage of teens who say bullying remains worse than parents realize, according to a Harlequin TEEN and The Jed Foundation survey: 78
Percentage of young women who say they have been bullied: 70
Percentage who say they do not bully others: 69
Yet percentage who engage in behaviors deemed as bullying, such as gossiping, name-calling and teasing: 30
Source: Harlequin Enterprises Limited.
Idle Thought
"Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's." -- Billy Wilder
(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)