Interesting Facts

Illegal tobacco is one of the most commonly smuggled products to the UK. (Criminals are often managing to beat UK border controls by sending illegal goods by post. More than a million such parcels are sent to British homes every year. Alongside cigarettes, criminals are sending guns, and drugs! It's all costing the taxman an estimated £3billion, a year, but I bet they pay with Bitcoins. Don't these criminals read the Royal Mail's terms and conditions ?)

Ports in the UK are on alert for the Asian tiger mosquito. (This species of mosquito can transmit up to 23 infections - including West Nile virus and dengue fever. It is not native to the UK, and is believed to have stowed away in used tyres being shipped from the Far East to the UK for retreading. It is slightly bigger than a native mosquito, and has distinctive black and white stripes.  With another report that there are 800,000 illegal immigrants currently living in the UK, I don't think the port authorities will have much luck stopping illegal mosquitoes.)

According to the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, in 2010 The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars on the War on Drugs. (That is a cost of about $500 per second, but that's just the federal government, state and local governments spent at least another 25 billion dollars. America is still the single largest marketplace for illegal drugs. One estimate is that around thirteen million Americans still occasionally buy illegal drugs, whist an estimated 5 and 6 million have more serious drug habits. The government estimates that users spend approximately $60 billion dollars a year.) You can follow an up-to-date calculator online.  http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock

Windows 7 has been banned in Germany! (Motorola has been granted an injunction against the distribution of key Microsoft products in Germany. The sales ban covers the Xbox 360 games console, Windows 7 system software, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, claiming that Microsoft has infringed two patents necessary to offer H.264 video coding and playback. . So as the patent wars rage on, I write this post on my now illegal operating system, waiting for a knock at the door as they come to confiscate my computer.)

According to a report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), 95% of music downloaded online is illegal. (The problem is going to get worse, as people forget what it was like in the "old days" when we actually paid for stuff. I think my CD collection is going to be considered very old-fashioned.)

According to the Guardian Newspaper Incest is not illegal in France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium or Portugal. (Eeew!)