HOW BIZARRE NEWS (12/08/08)

PEOPLE WHO ATTEND BARACK OBAMA'S INAUGURATION WILL HAVE JUST OVER ONE SQUARE-FOOT OF SPACE TO STAND IN:

Are you thinking about attending BARACK OBAMA'S inauguration ceremony on January 20th? If so, you might decide to stay home after hearing THIS . . . According to estimates, about 5 MILLION Americans will attend Obama's inauguration ceremony at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Now, the National Mall is only about 146 acres . . . or about 6.36 MILLION square feet.

So, if you divide the number of square feet in the National Mall (--6.36 MILLION) by the number of people planning to attend the inauguration (--5 MILLION), that leaves each person with about 1.27 square feet to stand in . . . which is about the size of your shoes. (--In other words, it's going to be extremely cramped and you're not going to have any space . . . so you might just want to stay home and watch the inauguration on TV.) (MyFox - Washington, D.C.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BARACK OBAMA SAYS HE WON'T SMOKE IN THE WHITE HOUSE:

You might have heard that BARACK OBAMA is a smoker. Or that he was . . . and he's trying to quit. Either way, Obama promised yesterday in an interview on "Meet the Press" that he will NOT light up inside the White House. Obama said, quote, "There are times when I've fallen off the wagon. [But] I've done a terrific job, under the circumstances, of making myself much healthier. And I think that you will not see any violations of the [no-smoking] rules in the White House." (Google News)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

YOU'RE 34% MORE LIKELY TO BE HAPPY IF YOUR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR IS HAPPY:

You might think that YOU are in control of your own happiness. But according to a new study from Harvard Medical School . . . you're NOT. Researchers analyzed information on the happiness of nearly 5,000 people over 20 years. What they found is that you're 34% more likely to be happy . . . if your next door neighbor is happy. And if a friend who lives half a mile away is happy . . . you're 42% more likely to be happy.

A guy named Dr. Nicholas Christakis led the study. He says, "Your happiness depends not just on your choices and actions, but also on the choices and actions of people you don't even know who are one, two and three degrees removed from you. --"Emotions have a collective existence. They are not just an individual phenomenon." (--In other words, your overall mood is affected by a bunch of people . . . that you might not even LIKE all that much. How much does that stink?) (New York Times)