Some random facts accumulated during the past several months:

Rat cures: Rats with cancer have had their tumors shrunk with injections of Viagra.

Buenas dias, amigos: Cocaine easily adheres to paper currency. Spanish euro notes have the highest coke content of any European currency.

Don’t tell your wife: Men’s testosterone levels rise when in the presence of women whom they find attractive.

Augusta, take note: Behaviorists found that making people feel poor encourages the sale of lottery tickets.

Life no longer worth living: Alcoholic rats forced to do without booze no longer try to swim when placed in a bowl of water.

Foreign policy product: Since the search for WMDs in Iraq began, 13 more countries have announced intentions to pursue nuclear power.

Paranoia: Each month an average of 20,000 names are added to the U.S. terrorist watch list.

Getting heard in Washington: Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae spent $174,000,000 lobbying both Democrats and Republicans in the past 10 years.

Progress: 75 percent of Americans now support gays serving openly in the U.S. military.

Mormons notwithstanding: Zogby polling reports that 60 percent of registered voters would be willing to vote for an openly gay candidate for president.

Sick call: California permits sale of marijuana for medically approved use. Sales tax revenue this year is estimated at $100,000,000.

Progress in the Drug War: Since California legalized physician-approved marijuana use, there are over 200,000 approved users. That would mean about 30 users in Gorham Westbrook and Scarborough – but they would have to go to Portland to find a dispensary.

Sophie’s Choice: Male bees prefer sex with the Ophrys orchids rather than with female bees.

Do you love me? Tests have revealed that men who are deceitful have more sex than men who are truthful.

Farmer’s markets beware: Scientists have discovered that watermelon rinds contain a Viagra-like chemical.

Morality: Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue has outlawed the sale of cats and dogs to men on the grounds that the animals provide an entry for flirtation with women.

Building for the future: The Iraqi government deposits money from sale of oil into the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Since 2005 those deposits have totaled over $160 billion. The unspent surplus this year is estimated at $79 billion. The U.S. taxpayer is currently on the hook for $58 billion in ongoing construction of Iraq public facilities.

Attention investors: Data compiled over the life of the Dow Jones average show that stock returns averaged 7.2 percent during Democratic administrations and 3.6 percent during Republican administrations.

It must the JalapeA?±o peppers: Texas spends more than any other state on abstinence-only sex education. Federal statistics indicate that 52.9 percent of Texas high school students have sex, versus a national average of 47.8 percent.

Charge it: Last year Americans received 5,200,000.000 unsolicited credit card offers.

NASCAR sounds: The sound of revving engines in high-performance cars increases testosterone in both men and women.

You get what you pay for? The Tampa Rays paid the entire team less than the Yankees paid two of its players.

Room service: A Turkish hotel on the Mediterranean fired all of its male employees for having repeated affairs with female guests.

Barry Bonds believes: A new study showed than men who (without knowing) received fake hormone growth shots improved their score on jumping tests.

Growth business: There are 2.5 million prisoners in the U.S., over 500,000 of whom are serving time for drug offenses. Our prison population exceeds that of all European nations combined and is increasing at the rate of 1.5 percent per year.

Women are the best cooks: Girls are better than boys in recognizing sweet and sour tastes.

A Senate antique: An anonymous buyer offered the St. Paul, Minn., airport $5,000 for the Larry Craig toilet stall.

Rodney Quinn, who lives in Gorham, is a former Maine secretary of state. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.

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