The funny thing, at least for me, is the fact that no one has posted any real, concrete numbers to support their claims. Whenever I hear "30 children were kidnapped in parks" I always wonder "out of how many? What's the crime rate in the zone? How does it compare with, saying, getting struck by lightning or winning the lotery?".

I respect Leonore Skenazy, I read her blog and I consider she is the first person in a long time to answer questions in a rational way. No one says there is no danger, because there always is (and always was), but you have to keep it in perspective, or you'll end up locked inside your house (where your kid could catch the extremely rare "house bug" and DIE - of course, it only happens in one out of 23 billion cases, BUT IT COULD STILL HAPPEN TO YOU!!)

Finally, as far as I know, most case of child abuse come from someone your child already knows (9 out of 10 times, according to Wikipedia), which means your kid is safer in the park than, say, alone at home with uncle Joe.

I heard once from a teacher that "some people" (don't ask me who - citation needed) considered Europe and Asia a single continent called "Eurasia".
I alredy knew that not even the U.N. knows how many countries exist, but it seems there isn't even an agreement on the number of continents... At least we agree on the Moon being a satellite and not a planet, right? :)

Ok, I know this will sound like trolling, but I really want to know this: in south America, it is assumed that "America" is the whole continent, while "south America" is... well, the south part of America. The title of this post, however, implies that "North America" and "South America" are two different continents, which just happen to share a common part in the name. Since it is not the first time I read something like this, I wonder: do people in north America really believe that north and south America are different continents? Or is just a poorly phrased title? And where would Mexico be (I always thought that region was "central America")?