The Phantom Load - Not Cool Like Batman: How Our Appliances Waste Resources Including Electricity and Water, and Make Angel Puppies Cry
Oh the phantom load: anything with a plug may draw electricity without you even knowing about it = waste. The UK, which tends to be ahead of the US on metrics and awareness about things like this in my experience, pegs their phantom load at about 8% of total residential energy use - see the wikipedia link above, which also bears a rare gem for George W. Bush: in July 2001 he "...signed an executive order directing federal agencies to 'purchase products that use no more than one watt in their standby power consuming mode'."