Intimate partner violence among minorities

Black females experienced intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races. Black males experienced intimate partner violence at a rate about 62% higher than that of white males and about 22 times the rate of men of other races.

Native Americans are victims of rape or sexual assault at more than double the rate of other racial groups. For Native American victims of violence, the offender was slightly more likely to be a stranger than an intimate partner, family member or acquaintance.  Native Americans described the offender as an acquaintance in 34% of rapes/sexual assaults, and as an intimate partner or family member in 25% of sexual assaults.

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/domestic_violence/resources/statistics.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/10/02/nfl-meeting-with-black-womens-groups-on-domestic-violence-a-productive-beginning/

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/223691.pdf

Ebola—the virus has taken over the news

The news and talk shows are wall to wall Ebola. Conservative talkers are trying to make Obama look bad without saying so, and the Liberals are trying to ignore all the mess Obama has made in the Middle East, where we have ONE friend, Israel.

• Flu-associated deaths according to the CDC range from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people. They really have no way of knowing.
• CDC estimates that 27,000 unintentional prescription drug overdose deaths occur annually in the United States, 40% from opioids.
• A total of 9,582 TB cases (a rate of 3.0 cases per 100,000 persons) were reported in the United States in 2013. 65% were foreign born. There were 536 deaths from TB in 2011, the most recent year for which these data are available.
• Number of deaths from injuries annually in the USA: 187,464. 80.1 million saw a physician or visited the ER or were hospitalized from injuries. 33,783 Americans died in traffic accidents and 32,351 died from firearms, including suicides. 16,238 homicides (2010), 49% were blacks who are 12.5% of the population, and 93% were committed by blacks. There are 289,171 alcohol induced deaths, and  418,068 for drugs.

. . . So, Ebola is probably the least of our worries.

White couple suing because their daughter is bi-racial

Oh the horror! A bi-racial, AI baby for a white lesbian couple. So they sue. "They are concerned about raising her in the predominantly white community where they live." Yeah, sure. The liberal blame game. It's always someone else's attitude that is the problem. They could move; wonder if they thought of that?

Really, I wouldn’t be surprised if this weren’t a hoax.

http://cleveland.cbslocal.com/2014/10/02/2-white-lesbians-sue-after-becoming-pregnant-with-sperm-donated-by-black-man/

Indigenous peoples of what is now known as The United States of America

I'm waiting for those opportunists who think the word "Indian" or “tribe” is anachronistic, oppressive and racist to file a law suit against the federal government to change to “Pueblo-dwelling peoples” or “Navajo speaking people” or “indigenous peoples.”  Removing and updating government documents could employ a small army for years.  The word Indian appears in thousands of documents, even agency names like Bureau of Indian Affairs.  Just came across it in a gobble-de-gook summary of a section of the ACA aka Obamacare.

“With respect to the other seven exemptions, for reasons set forth below, we proposed that under the program provided for in section 1411(a)(4) of the Affordable Care Act, Exchanges would also issue certificates of exemption with respect to three additional categories (with exemptions also available through the tax filing process) based on membership in a health care sharing ministry, membership in an Indian tribe, and incarceration. In the four remaining exemption categories, however, we proposed that under the program established under section 1411(a)(4) of the Affordable Care Act, certificates would not be issued by Exchanges under section 1311(d)(4)(H) of the Affordable Care Act, and instead individuals would claim an exemption in one of those categories exclusively through the tax return filing process with the IRS.”  Federal Register July 1, 2013

“Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, Assistant Professor and Director of the Office for the Study of Indigenous Social and Cultural Justice in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, considers both terms, American Indian and Native American, to be “oppressive, ‘counterfeit identities.’” He prefers the terms indigenous peoples or First Nations peoples to either American Indian or Native American.” http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nc-american-indians/5526

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/04/departments/native-names-interactive

And God forbid you should ever say “hold down the fort,” or “on the warpath” or “low man on the Totem pole” or “Indian style.”

The residue of Silent Spring is still killing

Worried about Ebola?  Malaria will probably kill more while you’re reading this than the current Ebola epidemic.

“Published in 1962, Silent Spring used manipulated data and wildly exaggerated claims (sound familiar?) to push for a worldwide ban on the pesticide known as DDT – which is, to this day, the most effective weapon against malarial mosquitoes. The Environmental Protection Agency held extensive hearings after the uproar produced by this book… and these hearings concluded that DDT should not be banned. A few months after the hearings ended, EPA administrator William Ruckleshaus over-ruled his own agency and banned DDT anyway, in what he later admitted was a “political” decision. Threats to withhold American foreign aid swiftly spread the ban across the world.”  http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2010/02/16/the-green-death/

All methods of disease control eventually lose their effectiveness, so don’t send me progressive, liberal and greenie links,  but this was ripped out of the tool box of things that worked 50 years ago freeing Africans from a terrible scourge.  Millions have died or been crippled, and the victims are left with bed nets and local spraying of ponds and homes (and who knows what is in that brew). What works, really works quickly, is building hysteria over diseases that may not ever harm us, or not looking at all for the causes of the current illness sending children to the hospital coinciding with an unprecedented number of illegal immigrant children being spread around the country.

http://www.nature.com/news/ebola-outbreak-shuts-down-malaria-control-efforts-1.16029

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/26/malaria-deaths-ebola-diarrhea-pneumonia_n_5886652.html

A good thought

Eleven years of blogging

Can’t believe it’s October already

Syria is not Iraq

“The October 2002 joint congressional authorization to go to war was not just about fears of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Other worries prompted broad bipartisan support for the resolution. A majority of Democratic senators (as evidenced by their passionate speeches from the Senate floor) cited many of the resolution’s 23 writs. The latter were mostly concerned with things other than WMD: harboring terrorists, offering bounties for suicide bombers, giving refuge to at least one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing suspects, committing genocide, attempting to kill a former U.S. president, and so on. Hillary Clinton should watch her own 2002 speech from the Senate floor.” Victor Davis Hanson

And here are all 23 writs (whereas. . . ) http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ243/html/PLAW-107publ243.htm

The price of beef

Dinner Sunday and Monday was beef roast, potatoes, onions and carrots in the crock pot, fresh fruit, and carrot cake (I also count that as a vegetable). I only mention this to tell you I was horrified to pay nearly $10 for just under 2 lbs of a rather tough stringy cut of beef. Let's stop burning corn in cars; it mucks up the environment and causes food prices to soar.

http://time.com/61393/beef-prices-record-high-since-1987/#61393/beef-prices-record-high-since-1987/

http://www.postcrescent.com/story/money/2014/08/09/meat-prices-soar/13797437/

Think Tanks

Robert Kennedy Jr. wants to imprison over half the nation for disagreeing with him

“Scientific knowledge, by its nature, cannot ever be said to be so “settled” as to justify the silencing of critics. Still, even were the debate over climate change in some way to be resolved in perpetuity, the prospect of incarcerating those who dissented would be no less grotesque.”

“The United States government, Kennedy lamented in an interview with Climate Depot, is not permitted by law to “punish” or to imprison those who disagree with him — and this, he proposed, is a problem of existential proportions. Were he to have his way, Kennedy admitted, he would cheer the prosecution of a host of “treasonous” figures — among them a number of unspecified “politicians”; those bêtes noires of the global Left, Kansas’s own Koch Brothers; “the oil industry and the Republican echo chamber”; and, for good measure, anybody else whose estimation of the threat posed by fossil fuels has provoked them into “selling out the public trust.” Those who contend that global warming “does not exist,” Kennedy claimed, are guilty of “a criminal offense — and they ought to be serving time for it.” “

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/388595/robert-kennedy-jr-aspiring-tyrant-charles-c-w-cooke

Only 39.5% of 1,854 American Meteorological Society members who responded to a survey in 2012 said man-made global warming is dangerous.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136

Fake outrage as Democrat veterans attack Fox—are we surprised?

In a show of fake outrage, 60 veterans who work as Democrat politicians’ staff attacked a Fox News show, The Five,  in “An Open Letter to Fox News,”  because of a tasteless joke which the teller quickly had apologized for.

“Obama campaign workers, one ex-Obama White House aide, liberal activists, Democratic Party congressional candidates, Democratic Party state legislators, and more. The letter was sponsored by the Truman Project, a ten-year-old think tank with a focus on national security. Its board of directors includes Hunter Biden, the son of the Vice President. None of which was even whispered in the haughty “Open Letter” that was distributed to a media all too eager to go along with an attack on Fox News and two of the co-hosts on the Fox show The Five — Eric Bolling and Greg Gutfeld. Instead the letter was presented as a source of genuine outrage from average, non-partisan American veterans — while keeping the real identity of the signers secret.”

Add to this the 10 + a software program of Media Matters who have been bombarding advertisers about Rush Limbaugh and it is just more evidence of the left making a joke of free speech.

http://spectator.org/articles/60523/hit-job-fox-news

Faith based movies

The latte salute

Landmark $554 million settlement signed with Navajo Nation

The U.S. government has been bankrupting Indian nations for years through a bureaucracy that takes care of them cradle to grave. Native Americans who leave the reservation/tribe do just fine in income, careers and health. Not so those who live on the government teat. And it isn't just Bureau of Indian Affairs, it's also U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Education, and U.S. Department of Agriculture all of which have special and overlapping programs for native Americans. Their own schools, their own courts, their own police system, their own transportation and road system, their own child welfare agencies, their own medical service, plus all the foundations and charities that employ thousands "helping" the Indian. Truly, they are not treated like other Americans--they are over treated. And it hurts them, keeping them in child-like dependency, but with monetary gain for leaders and government employees.

“The $3.4 billion Cobell settlement, named for Elouise Cobell of Browning, Montana, resolves a class action lawsuit over billions of royalties lost from the accounts of individual Indians.”

http://www.nativetimes.com/index.php/news/federal/9470-payments-from-indian-trust-settlement-on-the-way

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865611873/Landmark-554-million-settlement-signed-between-feds-Navajo-Nation.html

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-holder-and-secretary-salazar-announce-1-billion-settlement-tribal-trust

Gone Girl

Haven’t read the book; won’t see the movie.  I’m not into thrillers.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/22/gone-girl-movie-reviews_n_5860538.html

http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2014/09/26/critics-agog-over-killer-gone-girl/

Every time we say good-bye

It's not too hard to find a movie I've never heard of, but last night I watched "Every time we say good-bye" with a very young Tom Hanks (1986). It was the time in his career as he was shifting from comedy to drama. It's a WWII romance that takes place in Israel and reviewers say it is predictable, but since I don't see many movies, I didn't think so. What makes this film somewhat more unusual is that about half is in Ladino with sub-titles, a Spanish based language spoken by Jews all over Spain, Eastern Europe and the middle east at one time. So I did have some fun researching that--I'd never heard of it. http://film.famousfix.com/tpx_624497/every-time-we-say-goodbye/

“Ladino, otherwise known as Judeo-Spanish, is the spoken and written Hispanic language of Jews of Spanish origin. Ladino did not become a specifically Jewish language until after the expulsion from Spain in 1492 - it was merely the language of their province. It is also known as Judezmo, Dzhudezmo, or Spaniolit.

When the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal they were cut off from the further development of the language, but they continued to speak it in the communities and countries to which they emigrated. Ladino therefore reflects the grammar and vocabulary of 14th and 15th century Spanish. The further away from Spain the emigrants went, the more cut off they were from developments in the language, and the more Ladino began to diverge from mainstream Castilian Spanish. “

http://www.sephardicstudies.org/quickladino.html

“Since the Expulsion [1492], Ladino has been spoken in North Africa, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, France, Israel, the United States and Latin America. At one time, an estimated 80 percent of Diaspora Jews were Ladino-speaking. However, the Holocaust wiped out about 90 percent of all the world's Ladino-speakers.”

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1085545/jewish/Will-Ladino-Rise-Again.htm

“David: What language was that you were speaking?
Sarah: Spanish.
David: How did you and Victoria come to speak Spanish?
Sarah: It is what we speak at home.
David: Oh, your family came from Spain?
Sarah: Yes.
David: Recently?
Sarah: About 400 years.
David: They must have some good memories.” Quote from the movie of Sarah explaining her language to David.

50,000 waited 2 hours in the sun, many elderly

This morning I watched Pope Francis celebrate Holy Mass with the Elderly in St. Peter’s Square. It honored the elderly and grandparents. One couple was from Iraq, married 51 years, and had been driven from their home and city, Qaraqosh (of the Diocese of Mosul). Their church had been having services and tolling bells for 2,000 years and now ISIS has destroyed it. Very sad. About 50,000 people from more that 20 countries attended along with a number of elderly priests who were also being honored. Here is the official text of the homily, in which the Pope says the younger generations are impoverished if they don't have a connection with their elders. I don’t know how many were given out, but large print editions of Mark were being distributed.

A very different take than Zeke Emanuel (Obamacare architect) who thinks 75 is a good age to check out. http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/09/28/pope_francis_elderly_are_key_to_health_of_free_society/1107471

Female lawyer in Mosul tortured and executed by ISIS

“Militants with the Islamic State group tortured and then publicly killed a human rights lawyer in the Iraqi city of Mosul after their self-proclaimed religious court ruled that she had abandoned Islam, the U.N. mission in Iraq said Thursday.

Gunmen with the group's newly declared police force seized Samira Salih al-Nuaimi last week in a northeastern district of the Mosul while she was home with her husband and three children, two people with direct knowledge of the incident told The Associated Press on Thursday. Al-Nuaimi was taken to a secret location. After about five days, the family was called by the morgue to retrieve her corpse, which bore signs of torture, the two people said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears for their safety.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, her arrest was allegedly connected to Facebook messages she posted that were critical of the militants' destruction of religious sites in Mosul. A statement by the U.N. on Thursday added that al-Nuaimi was tried in a so-called "Sharia court" for apostasy, after which she was tortured for five days before the militants sentenced her to "public execution." Her Facebook page appears to have been removed since her death.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/25/samira-nuaimi-killed_n_5880900.html