Things I learned in the last 2 weeks 10 May 2012

• Patricia Reichardt is the real name of Peppermint Patty from Peanuts.
• Bibendum is the name of the Michelin Man.
• Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs is the Wizard of Oz.
• Nostradamus Shannon was better known as Bull on the TV show Night Court.
• Norville Rogers is the proper name of Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
• Twinkies originally had banana flavoured filling.
• The famous “I am stuck on Band-Aid…” jingle was written by Barry Manilow.
• The eight juices in V8 are tomato, spinach, celery, carrot, beet, lettuce, watercress and parsley.
• Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people during a rampage last summer, mentioned in court that he hated the song "Children of the Rainbow". 40,000 people then gathered in a square near the courthouse in Oslo to sing the song. 
• A Japanese bank will introduce ATMs that allow customers to carry out transactions after offering credentials in the form of a scan of their palm.
• A rich guy from Australia is going to build a working replica of the Titanic, but with modern features and safety equipment.
• Germany has more solar workers, than America has steel workers.
• The same person who sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was also the voice of Tony the Tiger.
• Jay-walking is essentially a measure lobbied for by the auto industry to keep people off of streets.
• If you scaled a grapefruit up to the size of the earth, an atom would be the size of a blueberry.
• Trade unions were outlawed from the 14th century when the Ordinance of Labourers was enacted in the Kingdom of England. Unions would eventually be outlawed everywhere and remain so until the middle of the 19th century.
• An alternative school in Walla Walla, WA for kids with behavioural problems, ditched the zero-tolerance approach to school discipline and treated traumatized, furious kids with compassion and understanding with dramatic improvement.
• Star Wars Land is rumoured to be coming to Disneyland Paris sometime in 2015.
• TestPAC, founded on Reddit, aims to oust congressman Lamar Smith, who authored SOPA and rammed it through committee without substantive debate, after taking large campaign contributions from the entertainment industry.