My neighbors, the recyclers; our neighbor, Mexico

Good morning! On to a lighter topic for once! hah! I should rather say "back to a steady stream of lighter topics..."

This topic for no apparent reason:
Choose any evening between the hours of 8pm and 1am, and one might find that my new neighbors have an extremely active recycling center at their house. Once during those hours, someone next door dumps an astronomical amount of recycling into the bins right outside their back door. Now I know there are several people living there with a random rotation of children filing in and out, but can they really use that many recyclables each and every day? It's never just a can or two. No, indeed. Instead it sounds like a barrage of tin and glass being slung from the rooftop. How on earth can people consume so much out of cans and bottles? Do they eat or drink anything that does not come out of something recyclable? And what kind of food or drink is it that requires such containers? Maybe they eat caviar at every meal, or maybe it's tuna. Maybe they drink champagne every day, or maybe it's apple juice. It just has me wondering, that's all. And no, I'm not curious enough to actually go look - as yet my curiosity has not caused me to sink so low. Well, at least they're recycling and doing their nice environmental duty.

This topic to ask a slightly more serious question:
I occasionally watch BBC World News. Just to see what those Brits think of the world. Well, on Wednesday night, besides major news coverage of Katrina and the Iraqi stampede, I could swear that I heard a news story about Mexico and their new voting rights. Apparently, Mexicans will now be able to vote while not personally present in their polling precinct. Yes, indeed, folks: absentee voting by mail has come to Mexico. The only caveat is that each Mexican citizen voting must already be registered to vote; otherwise, no mailing in your ballot for you! I must confess to only half listening, though (so don't quote me if I'm wrong!), until I heard the following statistic, which I have been unable to find online in any news story yet (although I've only half-attempted to do that, too). According to Alistair Yates and his chummy news team, of all the Mexicans living abroad, 98% of them live in the U.S. I'd never heard such a statistic - never even thought about the possibilities on this one. Obviously I realized there were a lot of Mexicans living in the US - some legally, some not - but nearly 100% of those not living in Mexico? Does anyone know where to find such info (so I don't have to go look hard and can get accurate findings)? If it's true, can you imagine how disparate American statistics must be? I can't imagine that of all Americans living abroad, 98% of them would pick just one country. I also wonder how true that is of other countries: of all, say, European citizens living abroad, I wonder what the percentage is of them living in the U.S.

Well, I like it here in the U.S., recycling neighbors and all.