Strange But True
By SAMANTHA WEAVER

• Those who keep track of such things claim that since the Mad Tea Party ride opened at Disneyland in 1955, 115 million people have ridden it. I wonder how many of them managed to keep their lunches down.

• It was Founding Father Benjamin Franklin who made the following sage observation: "There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government."

• It's not easy being a lefty. Statistics show that 2,500 lefthanded people are killed every year because they used products intended for righties.

• While at a Turkish bath in San Francisco once, Samuel Clemens - better known to us

as Mark Twain - got involved in a chat with a local fireman. This may not seem at all interesting until you learn the name of that long-ago firefighter: Tom Sawyer. The author liked the name so much that today, all American schoolkids know it.

• You might already know that actor Mel Gibson grew up in Australia, but you might not know how he ended up there. He was actually born in New York, where he lived with his parents. The Vietnam War was going on, though, and his parents were afraid Mel would be drafted. After winning on "Jeopardy," they used the money to move to Australia.

• Of all the stamps that have been used by the U.S. Postal Service, more have featured George Washington than any other person; so far there have been 305 with the likeness of the nation's first president.

Thought for the Day: "We have a crisis of leadership in this country. Where are the Washingtons, the Jeffersons, the Jacksons? I'll tell you where they are - they are playing professional football and basketball." - Anonymous

(c) 2007 King Features Synd., Inc.