In 2010, the US government minted 4,010,830,000 pennies.

That’s about 127 pennies per SECOND.
That’s enough to give every adult on Earth a penny.
If stacked on top of each other, they’d be 3,948 miles high.
3,948 miles is 17 times higher than the space shuttle’s average orbit.

The really dumb thing about pennies? Well, aside from the fact that they cost 1.2 cents to make, there’s a bunch of them actually:

Benchley may have been a little less quotable than some other Algonquin Wits, but expressed his humor constantly in real life, like the time he submitted a magazine piece titled “I Like to Loaf” two weeks after deadline, explaining “I was loafing”.

You might think that after thousands of years of coming up too soon and getting frozen, the crocus family would have had a little sense knocked into it.
- Robert Benchley

Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other.
- Robert Benchley

After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get a new book out of him each year.
- Robert Benchley

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.
- Robert Benchley

I know I’m drinking myself to a slow death, but then I’m in no hurry.
- Robert Benchley

If you don’t enjoy our weekly excerpts, you could always just buy the whole thing.

SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

SAW, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head.

SCRIBBLER, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one’s own.

SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

SELF-ESTEEM, n. An erroneous appraisement.

SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one’s self and to nobody else.

SYCOPHANT, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.
- George Burns

I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.
- George Burns

I look to the future because that’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.
- George Burns

I would go out with women my age, but there are no women my age.
- George Burns

When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.
- George Burns

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
- Groucho Marx

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.
- Groucho Marx

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
- Groucho Marx

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.
- Groucho Marx

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?
- Groucho Marx

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
- Groucho Marx

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.
- Groucho Marx

Women should be obscene and not heard.
- Groucho Marx

We’ll be taking a long weekend, so this week, Factastical Friday is on Thursday. Have a great holiday. Or at least a better one than the turkeys!

In 2008, the average American ate 17.6 pounds of turkey.

The heaviest turkey ever raised was 86 pounds, about the size of a large dog.

The male turkey is called a tom. Baby turkeys are called poults.

675 million pounds of turkey are eaten each Thanksgiving in the United States.

Turkeys have been around for almost ten million years.

It takes 75-80 pounds of feed to raise a 30 pound tom turkey.

Turkey breeding has caused turkey breasts to grow so large that the turkeys routinely fall over.

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today.  Have you used one to say “thank you?”
- William A. Ward

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.
- G.B. Stern

Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.
- Estonian Proverb

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
- Eric Hoffer

Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
- Oprah Winfrey

I’m thankful to be breathing, on this side of the grass. Whatever comes, comes.
- Ron Perlman

And it seems there’s always a spoilsport:

Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.
- Joseph Stalin

Gratitude – the meanest and most sniveling attribute in the world.
- Dorothy Parker

Only eight more letters to go in our ongoing highlights from The Devil’s Dictionary. We promise not to do this again in 2012!

RANSOM, n. The purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller, nor can belong to the buyer. The most unprofitable of investments.

RASH, adj. Insensible to the value of our advice.

RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.

REAR, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.

REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.

RECONSIDER, v. To seek a justification for a decision already made.

RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against whom they are loaded.

RECRUIT, n. A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.

REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.

REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.

RESIDENT, adj. Unable to leave.

RESPECTABILITY, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.

RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor.

RETALIATION, n. The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of Law.

REVELATION, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.

REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

RIOT, n. A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal.

It’s hard to imagine the estranged relationship of twin sisters Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren as they pursued nearly identical careers for decades, but they sure churned out some gems.

At every party there are two kinds of people – those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.
- Ann Landers

Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
- Ann Landers

I don’t believe that you have to be a cow to know what milk is.
- Ann Landers

If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you’ll be married to a man who cheats on his wife.
- Ann Landers

Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.
- Ann Landers

One out of four people in this country is mentally unbalanced. Think of your three closes friends; if they seem OK, then you’re the one.
- Ann Landers

People who drink to drown their sorrow should be told that sorrow knows how to swim.
- Ann Landers

The Lord gave us two ends – one to sit on and the other to think with. Success depends on which one we use the most.
- Ann Landers ?

I like to think I have a pretty decent vocabulary, but once in a while I get blindsided and completely fail one of those “test your vocabulary” tests. My word bank hit a wall this week with the items below, so I thought I’d share. These words are so weird that it’s almost more fun to MAKE UP definitions for them, so feel free to do so in the comments, but we’ve included them right here anyway. How many of these words do you know?

1.) ort
2.) slumgullion
3.) zedonk
4.) interrobang
5.) bezoar

1.) n. a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
2.) n. a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
3.) n. the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.
4.)  n. a printed punctuation mark, available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
5.) n. a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.