As of 2010, 68.8% of Federal individual tax receipts including payroll taxes, were paid by the top 20% of taxpayers. And these candidates will do their best to keep anyone else from getting rich.
49% of all 2014 spending paid for Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid; 20% went for income security (SNAP, TANF, housing, etc.). Obamacare’s new spending will cost more than $1.8 trillion over the next decade. Now add in all these freebies.
Whites and Hispanics score better than blacks on general science information, 8.4, 7.1 and 5.9. But why? This is information most of us had by 10th grade in general science class. It's not college level science. I scored 11 out of 12 and have been away from science classes for over 50 years, but I recognized a lot of the questions from freshman high school general science. The debate will continue, but it would certainly affect STEM graduation and future jobs. Asians are not included because there wasn’t a big enough pool for the researchers, but since they outscore whites in every area, I think we know what that would be. There is no breakdown by gender or age in the summary, although there is in the questions. I’m assuming males score higher than females and older higher than younger.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/15/the-race-gap-in-science-knowledge/
About 8 years ago I met the sweetest 11 year old boy. He was just adorable. We were taking a class together at Lakeside. He was really too young, but was so talented and precocious the teacher just overlooked the age requirement. Over the years I’d see him at his cottage and we’d wave and speak. His parents got a divorce, but the cottage stayed with one of him, so my friend continued to enjoy the lake. He didn’t seem to change much physically—always seemed to look like he was a fresh face kid, even though I figured he must at least be a junior or senior in high school. I came across him on Facebook and friended him a few years ago. He had a few interests he posted occasionally—nothing unusual for a teen age boy.
He’s now in college. Long stringy hair, no longer blond. He comments on every far left cause imaginable. Pro-Palestine. Anti-Columbus Day. Protesting against rape culture on his college campus. Demanding changes for climate change. White privilege. Empty the racist prisons.
Gee, I hope he grows up soon. This is almost like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
nor do I intend to watch the “debate.” It’s quite predictable. Old, tired, socialist . . . issues.
“I hate pot. I hate it even more than hard drugs. I’ve taught high school for 25 years and I hate what marijuana does to my students. It goes beyond missing homework assignments. My students become less curious when they start smoking pot. I’ve seen it time and time again. People say pot makes you more creative, but from what I’ve seen, it narrows my students' minds until they only reference the world in relation to the drug. They’ll say things like: “I went to the beach and got so high,” or “I went to a concert and got so high.” They start choosing their friends based on the drug. I hate when people say that it’s just experimenting. Because from what I’ve seen, it’s when my students stop experimenting.”
From Humans of New York on Facebook
And you should see the commenters defending their “friends” who use it all the time.
Americans are being told a pack of lies about marijuana; and worse, their addled, weakened brains can't even figure that out. I knew this is where the pleas for medical marijuana would lead. You should see the ads we’re getting in Ohio.
The more the government studies our nutritional needs, the heavier Americans get. I've gone back to butter and whole milk. If the experts can't figure out fats, carbs, and supplements, and now find good stuff in chocolate, coffee and wine, why follow the guidelines? Eat less, move more. The rest is footnotes.
My own theory is, the more fat and real sugar you remove from food, the hungrier people get, so they just eat more.
Academics still blame the higher rate for violent crime on poverty and discrimination. Not so.
“The formula for escaping poverty as an adult also has nothing to do with race: Graduate from high school, wait until you are married to have children, and work full-time. Whites who eschew those bourgeois behaviors are as likely to be poor as blacks who eschew them. Only 2 percent of individuals who follow those rules are in poverty, according to Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution; 72 percent of those who follow them earn at least $55,000 a year. The American poverty rate would be cut by 70 percent if the same percentage of Americans engaged in those responsible behaviors as did in 1970, regardless of race.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420565/charleston-shooting-obama-race-crime
"Lately I'm saying 'I used to’ a lot," my friend said while we were having coffee to catch up after our trip to Spain. I'd heard her say it before, but I think it is profound. It made me think. Yes, I say that frequently. At my age, there are many.
Here are some of my “used to” thoughts in no particular order.
I used to run. I think about that often now—didn’t occur to me before age 40 that someday I wouldn’t. Oh yes, I knew I wouldn’t run when I was 80, but the need or desire just went away. As a child I ran all the time, even when I didn’t need to.
I used to skip or take two at a time on the stairs. Sometimes I would run up stairs on all fours. I know I was an adult because I was doing it on Abington Road where we lived for 34 years. And until December 2013, I would even walk up and down stairs for exercise at our Mill Run church. Perhaps that’s why I have bursitis now. Even one stair is painful.
I used to go out every morning to a coffee shop. That habit started when I was a teen and ended in early 2014. I knew I couldn’t have caffeine anymore, and drinking Panera’s decaf was like hot water, so I gave it up and learned to make decaf at home. I began putting $2/day into the piggy bank for our trip to Spain. I didn’t always remember to do it, but had about $600 when September 2015 rolled around. Favorite haunts in addition to Panera’s the last decade were Chef-O-Nette, Paul’s Pantry, McDonald’s on Rt. 33, Bob Evans on Sunday, and at Lakeside Coffee ‘n Cream. The regulars at the Chef used to have parties together, attend weddings and funerals. I could hardly start the day without them.
I used to go to work five days a week. From fall 1986 to fall 2000 I was the Veterinary Medicine Librarian at The Ohio State University. Loved that job. The students were terrific, and the library was located on the far west side of campus, so I never had to fight the bad traffic. The field was fascinating, and I’ve remained interested in medical topics to this day as you can tell from my blog topics. It included research and publication, which I enjoyed. Blogging allows publishing without the middle man. But I’d had many jobs before that because I accepted temporary contracts before a tenured permanent job came along so I could be home with the children in the summers. I’d worked in agriculture, Latin American studies, user education, and I’d also worked for a library non-profit (Ohio-net) and the State of Ohio (Ohio Steps) before returning to Ohio State, and in both jobs I did research and publishing.
I used to bake pies. I used to call myself the 2nd best pie baker East of the Mississippi. Mom got first place, of course. When there would be a family event in Indiana or a church pot luck, someone would always suggest I bring dessert, because they knew it would be a pie. But something happened, maybe 10 or 15 years ago. The pie crusts just weren’t turning out. And as far as I’m concerned, no crust no pie. So I’ve passed the family mantle along to my daughter, who not only makes wonderful pies, they are works of art.
My Sugar free apple pie from 2009
Chocolate Peanut Butter, chocolate peanut butter cream cheese tart, Strawberry rhubarb, flaky pie crust, apple sour cream, applesauce pie, raisin (sugarless), cheesecake pumpkin, onion pie, apple dumplings, peach fluff pie, cheeseburger in paradise pie,
My daughter’s artistic pies.
I used to be a dog person. Since 1976 we’ve always had a cat (Mystery, We Be Three, Lotza Spotza, who is now about 18). When I was a child we always had a dog around. Lassie. Lassie 2. Pretty. Brownie (or was his name Fluffy?). Zero. Jerry. Lady. Polka dot. Lady and Polka dot were Dalmatians. Lassie, Pretty and Brownie were part collie. Zero was a mixed hound who “followed” me home one day (with a lot of encouragement). We left Lassie at my grandmother’s when we went to California in 1944—he died in a tractor accident.
I used to be a horse fan. Now I just enjoy looking at them. I would spend my afternoons at the Ranz’ horse/cattle barn near our home, I would ride the horses of friends, and I was fearless. The Wiggins children had a blind pony which I would ride bareback along the hi-way. I would draw pictures of horses and write stories. My brother and I would build snow horses in the yard. I saved all my babysitting and paper route money and finally when I was 11 years old I bought a horse. Got over it.
I used to draw and paint, both as a child and an adult. I probably haven’t painted anything in 4 years. Mainly I did watercolor most recently, but back in the 70s I did a lot of paintings using acrylics. When I was a child my mother would get rolls of discontinued wall paper for me to use, and provided stacks of used white newsprint from the printing plant in Mt. Morris. My grandmother gave me a box of oil paints when I was about 10 and gave me her old supplies. I still have my wood box. Our schools didn’t have art classes, but one year my mother took a typing class in night school in Freeport, and I went along and took an art class. I didn’t like it because I was the only child in the class and couldn’t draw horses.
Watercolor paintings from several years ago; I think these are studies done in classes I took.
Paintings from the 1970s when I used my children as subjects.
I used to not appear in public in jeans and athletic shoes. After I retired, I was always well dressed when I went to the coffee shop, then would change when I got home. Until about 2010, I always wore high heels with my slacks. After exercise class I would go home and change clothes rather than appear in the grocery store in my athletic clothes. Somewhere after 70 I decided that was probably wasted energy. Now I can look as much a slob as other retired people.
I used to be a Democrat—for 40 years. I voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and haven’t looked back. I may have been a Conservative for many years before since I am an evangelical Christian, was pro-business, and I was pro-life even as a Democrat. When my husband started his own business in 1994 I really had my eyes open, but it took awhile for that to translate to politics. That said, it still bothers me that Republicans are like bulls in a china closet, and can’t hang together to accomplish something or use a crisis the way the Democrats do.
I used to hate exercise. Actually, I still do. But I’ve participated in an exercise class at church most years since I retired. For 2015 I’ve been riding my nice Power Spin Gold’s Gym stationery bike, and by doing just a mile at a time about 6 or 7 times a day, I’ve found something that doesn’t hurt my legs and yet is good cardio and burns calories. I’ve ridden 1500 miles since Christmas and lost 35 pounds in 6 months. I could say “I used to weigh 170 lbs.”
I used to sing. About 9 years ago I decided to join the church choir. I grew up in a home with music and I missed that. I even sang in a little quartet with my siblings. Only one of us had the talent and determination to become a musician and it wasn't me, but I did take piano lessons and play trombone as well as participate in choirs until I graduated from high school. At UALC in 2006 I just loved it thinking my soprano range would come back. The director Mike Martin was wonderful. But the voice didn’t come back. If you don’t use something for 50 years, there are penalties. So after a year I gave it up.
A poetry prompt from Tweetspeak this week was on games. So I chose Hide and Seek and worked in the “I used to” theme. I used to write poetry, but hadn’t done it for several years.
-----------------------------------------
Poetry prompt--games
Hide and seek, 1950 and 2015
I used to run through damp grass at dusk
Hiding behind fat trees--or in the garage,
Excited that the all the kids showed up at our house.
Now I scan the shelves for my car keys
Looking for my purse--it’s not where I put it,
Concerned that the dinner date is in fifteen minutes
The October 6 issue of JAMA explores the promise of mindfulness as medicine.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2449182
Mindfulness is. . . Buddhism. It’s being welcomed with open arms (and money) in public institutions that would never permit instruction in prayer or Christian meditation.
Mindfulness is a Buddhist concept and practice, the seventh step of the Eightfold Path. Mindfulness is more than a meditative practice; it is an outlook on life and reality that ideally results from a type of meditation designed to cultivate detachment. Detachment in Buddhism is necessary, because Buddhism teaches that attachment to this world, to your thinking, to your identity as an individual self, and other attachments, such as desires, keep you in the cycle of rebirth.
Buddhism holds that the self does not exist, and identification with the self keeps you in that cycle of rebirth. Therefore, to achieve liberation from this cycle, one must break the attachment, so detachment is necessary. Mindfulness is the method, and detachment with ultimate liberation is its goal. Mindfulness is often defined as a moment-by-moment nonjudgmental awareness of the present. For many years, this writer attempted to incorporate mindfulness into her life prior to becoming a Christian.
Though thoroughly Buddhist, mindfulness has been heavily promoted to the secular world by Jon Kabat-Zinn (b. 1944), a Zen Buddhist, whose book, Wherever You Go, There You Are, brought him into the public eye; and by Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926), a Zen Buddhist from Vietnam whose books have enjoyed great success in the West. Both lecture around the United States. Read more: http://christiananswersforthenewage.org/Articles_Mindfulness.html
Mercer was booted from the military and had a suicide attempt. Data mining can stop some crimes--but police still have to do the leg work.
"A software program alerts police to a social-media posting by an individual of interest in their jurisdiction. An algorithm reminds them why the individual had become a person of interest—a history of mental illness, an episode involving a neighbor. Months earlier, discreet inquires by police had revealed an unhealthy obsession with weapons—key word, unhealthy. There’s no reason why gun owners, range operators and firearms dealers shouldn’t be a source of information for local police seeking information about who might merit special attention."
If you think Obama is wonderful and Carson is a clown, well, there’s just not much help for you.
Chicago, Obama's home town, probably wonders why he didn't go there instead of Oregon to talk about the problem of gun violence. Mike at Homicide Watch Chicago (Suntimes) notes: "More children have been victims of gun violence in the city of Chicago in the past 2 years, than all of U.S " mass school shootings " in the last decade. "
I didn't check his stats--he was commenting on the death of a 15 year old this week, but nationally the rate of firearm homicide in 2010 for blacks was 14.6 per 100,000, compared to 1.9 for whites. Washington Post said it was twice as high in one article, another 4x and another 6x. Dept. of Justice figures says 6.3x. (NCJ 243035)
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84653981/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Illinois
Chicago has no gun stores. Chicago's police department seizes more illegal weapons than any other in the nation — nearly 20 a day for a total of 5,500 so far this year. Black Illinois law makers have blocked stiffer penalties for illegal gun possession saying it would lock up more black men. Duh!
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84647473/
What is OpenCongress--the website that is collecting your personal information as you e-mail your Congress member (supposedly it reroutes it)? Well, as you might guess, it's a far left non-profit, tax exempt organization funded by Soros among others. This hoax will help build a database of both pro and con gun control/confiscation voters. People Magazine is promoting contacting Congress through this source about gun control. Shame on People Magazine for not making it clear that someone is taking names.
In this week's issue of PEOPLE, Editorial Director Jess Cagle used his Editor's Letter to address the frequency of mass shootings in America. Below, we have published Cagle's letter, and also provided contact information for all 535 voting members of the House and Senate. We urge readers to contact their elected representatives to make their voices heard.
http://www.people.com/article/preventing-gun-violence-people-call-to-action-jess-cagle
but it did fill up the prisons.
The Omnibus Crime Bill was passed in 1993 providing stiffer sentences and more money for crime control. Firearm-related homicides declined 39%, from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011. Nonfatal firearm crimes declined 69%, from 1.5 million victimizations in 1993 to 467,300 victimizations in 2011. In 2010, the rate of firearm homicide for blacks was 14.6 per 100,000, compared to 1.9 for whites, a decline of 51% for blacks and 48% for whites.
If I can find these BJS stats, then why can't the media? What will decrease mass shootings are armed security guards in schools and malls.
"Congress also used mandatory minimum penalties in its efforts to end the importation of slaves. The Constitution prohibited Congress from curtailing or abolishing the importation of slaves before 1808. In advance of the 1808 date, and with President Thomas Jefferson’s urging, Congress passed an Act prohibiting the importation of slaves in February 1807. Among other provisions, the 1807 Act prohibited citizens from bringing slaves into the United States or serving on a vessel that transported slaves. These offenses carried mandatory minimum penalties of at least five years and two years of imprisonment, respectively. However, the mandatory minimum penalties were much less severe than the mandatory death penalty many in the House of Representatives wanted to attach to these offenses, on grounds that importing human beings was a crime of morality and akin to murder. Other offenses created by the 1807 Act, such as outfitting slave vessels and purchasing or selling illegally imported slaves, carried only fines.”
It's very difficult for the world--academic or political--to accept a genuine black and brilliant American. Remember how Biden described Obama? "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man." But he was right, and it made Obama acceptable to white liberals who were accustomed to giving blacks hand outs.
The media are really ratcheting up their criticism and slicing and dicing his words to make him look like a minstrel clown. Carson has never been my first choice, but he’s looking better all the time.
Catholic schools have a 99% graduation rate and 97% go on to advanced schooling; much higher than public schools. (In Ohio, Cleveland about 66%; Columbus about 78% graduate.) And it goes beyond excellent academics--religious based schools include agreed upon values. That said, I really don't like government subsidies for private and religious schools. Technically, it’s not aid--it’s reimbursement for auxiliary services to comply with government (at all levels) mandates. Private schools also receive bus transportation and I think on Lake Erie they get transportation to the mainland for high school just like public school students. And yes, I know these schools actually save the taxpayer money, first by graduating good students, and second by relieving pressure in local schools. Still, if you accept the money, you have to accept the consequences of dancing with the one who brought (or bought) you.
The government has forced Catholics out of the adoption business by denying funding on which it had become dependent because they won’t place children in gay families, and it is pushing the hospitals to perform abortions. Promoting a social agenda is more important than a child’s well being or a patient’s health. It wants to close down nursing homes run by nuns if they won’t comply with contraception mandates for staff, and it’s only a matter of time before that includes abortion.
Thoughts?
I have been blogging since Oct. 1, 2003. I don't know when blogger.com (owned by Google) began recording statistics (not the original owner), but it says I've had 1,063,099 visitors. That doesn't mean they stopped to read or leave a comment, just that some algorithm sprinkled fairy dust as it went by.
I actually began on Oct. 3, but that didn’t look tidy, so I ‘back filled,” and Oct. 1, 2003 is a collection of links to my blogs.
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