Quotes & amp;amp; Notes

by Inlander Staff


1 Billion


Estimated number of Valentine's Day cards that are sent out each year. Feb. 14 is the second-largest seasonal card-sending holiday, after Christmas.





110 Million


The number of roses that will be sold and given on Valentine's Day.





1868


The year the first box of chocolates was sold for Valentine's by Richard Cadbury.





5


That's where sweethearts rank on the list of most popular recipients of Valentine's cards, just losing to children, mothers and wives. The No. 1 spot is held by -- drum roll, please -- teachers.





Still Running?


Somebody should alert the Republicans: Your guy won! He's the president! Party leaders don't seem to have gotten the message; they're still in campaign mode. Take, for example, last week's State of the Union address, in which President Bush promised to work with leaders from the Democratic Party to solve the nation's problems. On the next day, the GOP launched an all-out offensive against new Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Apparently, when he said he'd like to work with Reid and others, he really meant he'd like to give him the Swift Boat treatment.


When Bush went to North Dakota recently for a forum on Social Security, 40 locals discovered they were on a list that barred them from attending the event. Sound like the rules for events of a certain presidential campaign?


And journalists recall being blanketed in e-mails from the Republican National Committee during the presidential race. They put out an e-response to everything that happened, with dozens of e-mails rolling in every day up until Nov. 4. But the RNC couldn't resist that "send" button, and in recent weeks, they've fired up the propa-spam-da machine again, with four or five e-mails rolling in per day. We knew the war on terror was scheduled to go on forever -- but now the election, too?





"Our major problem is death from respiratory cancer. This is no surprise."


-- Henry Eschenbach, former health official for a subsidiary of W.R. Grace and Co., in a company memo written in the early 1980s. According to a federal indictment unsealed Monday, the company, Eschenbach and six other high-ranking employees knew that their mine in Libby, Mont., had been releasing cancerous asbestos into the air for decades but kept the information secret. It's been estimated that one third of Libby's residents will eventually die from exposure to the asbestos.





Publication date: 2/10/05