While driving in to work this morning this debate was playing on my car radio. I thought of you all while listening to it.
It is relevant to the recent discussions here with respect to the notion that criticizing Israel is a new variation of anti-Semitism.
It is well worth the listen.
The Ten Worst Places to be a Christian
ReplyDeleteJanuary 24, 2014 by Majid Rafizadeh 7 Comments
Somalia Secret ChristiansThere are some common characteristics, intriguing trends and phenomena among the countries that have been specified as the top ten worst nations for Christians or religious minorities.
The top ten countries for persecuting Christians over the last year were ranked: North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran and Yemen, according to Open Doors USA, an organization that monitors and exposes Christian persecution around the globe. Particularly, the “2014 World Watch List”, a rather nuanced report, has highlighted these nations based on deep structures of persecution.
Going through the list, the question that comes to mind is what most of these countries have in common? Nine of the top ten (aside from North Korea), seem to be Islamic states with a majority Muslim population.
While I was living in the Middle East (both in Arab and Persian countries), I would repeatedly hear arguments from officials or others claiming that the country respects the rights of the minorities, particularly Christians, and that Islam is the most tolerant religion towards Christianity and Judaism.
Yet, why are these Muslim states and nations always at the top ranks of lists that chronicle places where Christians and religious minorities are systematically persecuted and killed?
The domination of Islamic states on the list of the worst places to be a Christian or another religious minority is not only limited to the report of the Open Doors USA. Several other human rights groups and governmental reports have come to similar results. However, unfortunately, the liberal media is less likely to report this news, fearing that they will offend the Muslim/Arab/Persian countries. Almost no liberal politician will also issue a simple statement condemning these persecutions, limitations of religious freedom, and egregious human rights violations.
While many Islamic leaders and Muslims would immediately point out that Islam is not the problem, the indispensible question remains: why Islamic countries are the ones with the most persecutions, tortures, and killings of religious minorities and particularly Christians.
The ideology of Islam, without a doubt, has something to do with these findings. In all the aforementioned Islamic countries, the law of the court is based on Islamic jurisprudence, the Sharia, and Islamic laws and constitutions.
DeleteChristians and minorities are being systematically targeted by two types of institutions. First of all, it is the Islamic state and the Islamic ruling party that has the power to arrest Christian and minorities, imprison them for years, torturing and even killing them on the basis of their faith and belief in Christ (or belief in any other person and book rather than Muhammad and the Quran). Many Christians and other religious minorities have to hide their religious beliefs, bibles, their religious practices and decision to follow Christ.
The second critical organized institution that targets Christians and other religions is not from the top— the state and government— but from the bottom. These are independent Islamic groups or individuals who view religious minorities including Christians as infidels (Kufar). Across the spectrum, they view Christians and other religions as either incomplete religious ideologies, or as heretic religions.
Based on Islamic rules and Sharia law, these groups found it mandatory to take the objectives of Allah, Muhammad, Islam, and Quran into their own hand. In exchange, these actors are promised a precious afterlife, praised by Allah and Muhammad. They are also promised by Sharia law, Quranic verses, Allah, and Muhammad, to sleep with as many virgins as they desire, and to drink the best wine— basically everything that they are forbidden to do or get in this world.
While the Islamic states dominated Open Doors’ 2014 world watch list— accounting for nine of the ten countries with the worst records regarding persecutions of Christians— Islamic states also dominated the full 50-country list released on Wednesday. According to Open Doors USA, from North Africa to Pakistan, Islamic extremism is “the main engine driving persecution of Christians,”
Not only do Christians have to fear being persecuted for their faith, hiding their decision to follow Christ, they also have to deal with the corrupt and unjust system that excludes religious minorities.
In most of these countries, Christians cannot hold key political positions, they cannot be judges, become president, and are excluded from many opportunities. At the end, there is no plausible argument claiming that the ideology of Islam does not have to anything to do with these persecutions. It is not a coincidence that Muslim states dominate the list of the worst places to be a Christian. It is not an accident that 9 out of the top 10 countries have Islam and Sharia as the religion and law of the land.
Link:
Deletehttp://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/the-ten-worst-places-to-be-a-christian
They even debate the argument about all the other bad actors in the region. The two main debaters are both Jewish if that should make it more palatable to you Bob. Give it a listen.
DeleteAsh it's a good debate, it shows 2 sides. One side, to me makes sense, the other? Brainwashed.... Guess which one I think is which...
DeleteHere is the easy answer about the issue.
Do the standards of behavior you apply to Israel apply to all other nations?
If not... then it's anti-semitism.
Doesn't matter if it's Jew doing the Israel bashing or not.
Modern Anti-zionism is anti-semitism.
Being critical of Israel and it's polices is NOT anti-semitic unless you couple that criticism with an exemption of equal examination of all nations. ONLY Israel is singled out as a perpetual and automatic violators on the UN's human right's commission. No other nation is. PERIOD.
I've become concerned of late that those who criticize my friend Ash are contributing to the new anti-Ashism that is obvious not only in USA but now in his adopted homeland too, Canada. It is a spreading phenomenon, moving into South American, Africa, even India.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is how do we legitimately criticize Ash without contributing to this anti-Ashism?
The anti-Ashism has gotten so bad in places that many are demanding Ash walk into the Mediterranean Sea and drown himself.
DeleteYou diss my bro biebs then youze now dissin' me too. Be careful!!
DeleteI, too, at one time, thought this was a hell of a good idea.
DeleteBut then Ash did me a personal favor and my attitude changed overnight.
So we must build bridges on a personal level first of all.....
The Moslems do this daily, saving people from perdition by giving them the choice of adhering to Islam or burning their churches down with them inside.
Deleteor bulldozing their homes with them in or out...
Delete....oh, wait, that's the other guys.
The policy was to destroy the homes of those involved in terrorism, I believe. I'm nearly certain they would have been given a chance to get out. It's a legitimate area of concern to bring up.
DeleteASh Israel bulldozed evacuated homes of terrorists. PERIOD.
DeleteIt is ANTI-semitic to spread blood libel otherwise.
If you reject the label and insist on simply spreading lies about israel? Then how about we just label you a sack of shit?
It is certainly legitimate to criticize Israel or any other state. Around here for awhile though that was all we had without a glance over at the arabs. That kind of criticism does contribute to anti-Semitism. I think this place is much better now having been opened up to a wider variety of points of view.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for criticizing your brother Biebs, Ash. I should have realized straight off you two were related.
:)
Drake too dude (and Jim Carey and...), we all are Canadians, we are all the same.
DeleteMark Steyn but he's getting out.
DeleteWhat I found interesting in that quote was "infinity". Is the universe infinite?
ReplyDeleteIf it is infinite, then must have been infinite from the beginning (c. 14 billion years ago) , and merely decreases in density as we move forward in time. If the universe was finite in the beginning, then it still must be finite, since you cannot reach infinity from a finite starting position at any finite rate, no matter how great.
Kant scratched his head about all this and said it was a quandary.
ReplyDeleteOne of his antimonies.
n. Jim said the moon laid all the stars.
Take your choice.
Contra Rufus Prognosticus -
ReplyDeleteJanuary 24, 2014
Impending Democrat Election Disaster
By Chriss Street
The Quinnipiac University National Poll released on January 22nd reveals that American voters rate President Barack Obama's leadership on the economy, jobs, and healthcare as very poor; his only positive marks come from fighting terrorism. Barack Obama's first presidential campaign narrative argued that President George W. Bush and the Republicans were so interested in fighting a "War on Terror" they had failed America at home. At his victory speech on November 5, 2008, President-elect Obama bellowed: "Tonight, because what we did in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America." According to the Gallup Poll, after 1492 days in office for President Obama and President Bush, they have virtually identical public approval ratings of 46%. But Americans are 24% more dissatisfied with their government under Obama than under Bush. The president's party usually suffers significant congressional election losses in his sixth year of his administration. But with Obama's popularity at the same Bush levels that caused Republicans huge losses in 2006 plus voter dissatisfaction with government 50% higher, the Democratic Party appears poised to suffer an epic election disaster in 2014.
The November 2006, the United States midterm elections featured contests for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 33 seats in the Senate, 36 state governorships, and many legislatures. The elections resulted in a convincing Democrat Party victory. They captured 30 seats to take control of the House of Representatives, 6 seats to take control of the Senate, 6 governorships and took control of 4 more legislatures from the Republicans. The election was also the first time in American history in which the losses for one side were so lopsided that the victorious party did not lose a single incumbent or open seat in Congress or in a governor's mansion.
Midterm elections tend to act as referendum on the president's popularity and the state of the nation. The American public view the elections as an opportunity to express their support or opposition for the president concerning whether the country is heading in the right direction; optimism over the state of the economy; whether the country is at peace or at war; and his overall performance.
When Quinnipiac Pollsters asked voters in January 2014 what should be the "the top priority for President Obama and Congress in 2014";18% listed healthcare, 16% listed jobs or unemployment, and 15% said the economy. These "bread and butter" issues have traditionally been the Democrats' strength. But according to Quinnipiac Polling Institute Assistant Director Tim Mallory, "It's the economy, Mr. President, say dissatisfied American voters who are not yet willing to give President Barack Obama a thumbs up on his presidency." The media may blame Republican intransigence and a do-nothing Congress for frustrating President Obama's agenda, but just 4% of voters listed bipartisanship or cooperation as a top priority.
DeleteThe president's party has always lost seats in the House of Representatives in midterm elections, with the only exceptions since 1900 being 1934 and 1998.Those losses are larger in a president's second term because voters get increasingly "tired" of the same leader as time goes on. The only recent exception was Bill Clinton, whose party lost its majority in the 1994 Republican landslide gain of 52 seats. The Republicans overplayed their popularity with voters when they impeached the president, but failed to get enough Senate votes to throw him out of office.
The midterm losses by the president's party are usually explained by the "surge and decline" thesis: higher turnout for the president's party in presidential elections leads to lower enthusiasm and much lower turnout in the off-years. After six years, the presidential support fades after having to make political decisions that alienate groups of voters. Since the 1930s, the average loss for the president's party has been 6 seats in the Senate and 35 seats in the House.
President Bush's party was pummeled in the 2006 mid-term over faulty intelligence that led to the invasion of Iraq and for his poor response to Hurricane Katrina. President Obama and his party's poll numbers were hammered in 2013 for the disastrous rollout of ObamaCare, revelations about sweeping domestic government surveillance, and his efforts to pass divisive legislation for both gun control and immigration in the same year.
But Obama has set his party up for even more severe voter retaliation in 2014. By limiting the 2013 initial rollout of Obamacare to just 11 million people, he has doomed 270 million Americans to suffer anxiety about the impacts of the wildly unpopular program during an election year.This may explain why the January 22nd Gallup Poll reveals that an all-time high of 65% of Americans are dissatisfied with the U.S. system of government and its effectiveness; versus 41% for President Bush in 2006, who the press referred to at the time as a "very unpopular president."
If the Republicans only achieve the average gain of an opposing party in the 6th year of a presidents' term, they will pick up six seats for control the Senate and push their majority in the House of Representatives to 68 seats. But with President Obama's approval rating at the same level as President Bush plus voter's dissatisfaction with government 24% higher, Democrats appear to be facing an epic election disaster.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/impending_democrat_election_disaster.html?utm_source=Copy+of+1-23-14&utm_campaign=AT+Newsletter+1-24-14&utm_medium=email#ixzz2rL3yw18K
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This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete"Democrats appear to be facing an epic election disaster"
ReplyDeleteEpic
Election
Disaster
Ooops, New Numbers!!
ReplyDelete13.57 Million!
800,000 QHP sold on The Exchange in the First 3 Weeks of January.
Total Disaster, I Tells Ya
Bob,
ReplyDeleteRe: infinite universe
In 1998, as I recall, two Jewish gentlemen shared a Nobel Prize for showing that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate (something that should not be happening under current physical laws). In any case, the expansion of the universe makes its infinitude impossibility at the moment. So, at this moment, while the universe is not measureable, it is also not infinite. Whether the universe will continue to grow over an infinite time (which cannot be measured by definition, not to mention human mortality) is unknown. But if it stops growing it is not infinite, it is safe to say.
Given that only about 3% of the matter which should be in our universe is accountable, the remainder is euphemistically called dark matter, which is a way of saying, "We don't know where it is." What we think we know is its mass, a finite quantity. This again brings us back infinity and whether it can be a reality given a finite quantity of matter to occupy it.
The Big Bang posits that all matter/energy (hypothetically infinite) that goes into making up our universe was initially a point, say the size of a period in this sentence. If that is the case, then the universe can never be infinite because it is limited and measureable by the dimensions of the point. Therefore, at its maximum, the universe would be some volume minus the point of origin and less than infinite.
One question begging an answer is the medium containing the point that would become the universe. It would also be the medium into which the universe continues to grow.
The Big Bang posits that all matter/energy (hypothetically infinite) that goes into making up our universe was initially a point, say the size of a period in this sentence.
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ, Allen. The theory only says that the universe becomes less dense as new space is inserted dynamically between existing space. It says nothing about the size of the universe at t + 10^-43 seconds. If the universe is infinite, it remains infinite, even as space is added and it becomes less dense. This seems to defy logic, but if you have a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, and they are all occupied, and an infinite number of guests show up for lodging, they can be accomodated simply by requesting all the guests who are currently in rooms relocate to all even-numbered rooms, and then let the new guests bed down in all the odd-numbered rooms.
According to the big bang theory, the universe began by expanding from an infinitesimal volume with extremely high density and temperature. The universe was initially significantly smaller than even a pore on your skin.
DeleteBig Bang: How Did the Universe Begin?
While appreciating your opinion, a link would be nice.
The night sky presents the viewer with a picture of a calm and unchanging Universe. So the 1929 discovery by Edwin Hubble that the Universe is in fact expanding at enormous speed was revolutionary. Hubble noted that galaxies outside our own Milky Way were all moving away from us, each at a speed proportional to its distance from us. He quickly realized what this meant that there must have been an instant in time (now known to be about 14 billion years ago) when the entire Universe was contained in a single point in space. The Universe must have been born in this single violent event which came to be known as the "Big Bang."
Delete...NASA site...
The Big Bang
allenFri Jan 24, 03:23:00 PM EST
Deletethe entire Universe was contained in a single point in space
This statement draws a distinction between the Universe and space. If space is the medium in which the Universe is growing, is it infinite?
The expansion of the universe may be a local expansion of just our part of it?
DeleteI thought space was expanding......?
DeleteI'm confused....
And Kant says space, and time too, are 'modes of human perception', categories of our understanding - which not really existing eliminates the problem of 'spooky action at a distance'......er, or, something......
How can two particles dance to the same tune when they are separated by billions of 'miles' of 'space' ?
I'm really confused....
How can Rufus be simultaneously at the refrigerator and at the keyboard?
DeleteMiss T, some hotels have 'double rooms' too.......how do you account for that, hmmmm?
DeleteHow can q be simultaneously both before the jury pleading his innocence and on the campaign trail?
DeleteAns: he's just another politician
Bob,
DeleteThe Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. It had heretofore been known to be expanding but at a decelerating rate. At this point, no one has posited an explanation.
As to density, a fixed number of wolves, for example, hypothetically will become less dense as the volume in which they are found grows, assuming each wolf will roam at will rather than clustering. Of course, wolves do cluster, so density becomes a pointless measurement. Since, 97% of the Universe's matter is invisible to current technology; it is not known whether distribution is uniform or clustered. From what we can see, clustering seems to be the rule - galaxies being an example.
One theory is that the Universe is filled with sub-sub-subatomic actors that change back and forth from matter to energy in trillionths of a second ad infinitum. My conjecture is that the Universe is a sea/soup of these actors, which account for the undetectable missing mass. If I am incorrect, I will not be broken hearted.
Consider this: it is theoretically possible, while technologically impossible at the moment, to construct a necklace of single gold atoms to any length chosen, say a thousand miles. Each atom has a diameter of 288/1,000,000,000,000 meter. It would be invisible but nonetheless as real as your hand and have every physical property known to gold. Indeed, it would be almost the perfect conductor for electrons, lacking resistance. Now imagine actors trillionths of trillionths the size of a gold atom bouncing in and out of existence across the Universe.
Light From Quasar Reveals Gas Cloud More Than 10 Times Bigger Than Milky Way Galaxy
Allen--
DeleteThere's "The Great Attractor" out there somewhere and the nearer we get the faster we go......
I read that somewhere.
Since I've given up on it, I go with the myths........the One breaks into the Many.....'always'........'inexplicably'........and that is that......and you are that.....Tat Tvam Asi.......
You can ask The Great Mother.......but she ain't talkin'......
:)
Exclusive: Patience runs thin as Syrian chemical handover stalls
ReplyDeleteSo, Iran will go nuclear and Syria will stay chemical. What's the problem? What is really important is how many Jewish homes will be constructed on land taken illegally by Jordan in 1948 and regained by Israel in 1967.
Beginning my promised week long Nigeria focus:
ReplyDeleteJihad Watch
Nigeria: Protesters throw stones, disrupt Sharia court holding gay trial with demands for immediate execution
Robert Spencer January 23, 2014 homosexuals, Nigeria, Sharia 8 Comments
BauchiShariaCourt
When Pamela Geller and I ran ads showing the Sharia-based victimization of gays, clueless and compromised gay activists such as Theresa Sparks and Chris Stedman attacked us — not the Sharia brutality. As everyone knows, Phil Robertson is the real problem. American Leftists consistently ignore, excuse, downplay and deny Sharia oppression.
“Protesters throw stones, disrupt Nigeria gay trial,” by Shehu Saulawa for the Associated Press, January 22 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
BAUCHI, Nigeria (AP) — Thousands of protesters threw stones into the Shariah court in a north Nigerian city Wednesday, urging the speedy convictions and executions of 11 men arrested for belonging to gay organizations.
Security officials fired into the air to disperse protesters in Bauchi city so the accused men could be safely returned to the prison. Judge El-Yakubu Aliyu closed the court abruptly.
“No one can be sentenced to death until confirmed without a reasonable doubt,” Aliyu said in response to calls for the men’s execution.
The court was arraigning seven of 11 accused men on Wednesday. Only three had given testimony when the mayhem began.
The defense counsel was unable to submit an application for bail, and the rest of the defendants were unable to give testimony. It was unclear when the arraignments would resume.
The same court last week convicted a young man of sodomy and had him publicly whipped with 20 lashes, and fined before being freed. The court said it was lenient, sparing him the sentence of death by stoning, as he had confessed to one instance of sodomy many years ago and had not committed any homosexual acts since.
Though he was tried under Islamic law, his was the first conviction of a gay man in Nigeria since the president signed a bill that further criminalizes homosexuality under the penal code. He was among 12 arrested in Bauchi the past few weeks.
The Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act that President Goodluck Jonathan signed on Jan. 7 has resulted in a frenzy of arrests of gays. The law bans all gay associations, with penalties up to 14 years’ imprisonment for marriage.
Bauchi state has both a Western-style penal code and Shariah, or Islamic law, in which sodomy can carry the death sentence with a judge deciding whether it should be done by a public stoning or by lethal injection. Shariah law is implemented to different degrees in nine of Nigeria’s 36 states. About half of the country’s more than 160 million people are Muslims, the other half Christians.
.
"Thousands of protesters threw stones into the Shariah court in a north Nigerian city Wednesday"
DeleteThey call that Target Practice
allen: While appreciating your opinion, a link would be nice.
ReplyDeleteI'm not interested in educating people who insist the theory says one thing when it doesn't, but I don't want others, such as Farmer Bob, to be led astray. It would be no different if a person started quoting the King James Bible and insisted that the Jews really did observe Easter in the time of Acts 12:4.
Lucky me. Now I have both Miss T and Ash covering my ass.
DeleteI call this my 'q' insurance.
allenFri Jan 24, 03:23:00 PM EST
ReplyDeletethe entire Universe was contained in a single point in space
Knock yourself out, allen, if you insist on thinking that must have been the case. If you're really curious, you'll dig deeper and learn more.
There is no need to personalize a link to NASA etc. I simple reported what they say. If you have a problem talk to NASA.
DeleteallenFri Jan 24, 03:23:00 PM EST
ReplyDeletethe entire Universe was contained in a single point in space
It was and is...
all depends on your definition of what a SINGLE point in space is or was.
The universe could still be a single point when looking from outside of our universe .
it's relative.
I Think it's contained, but not restrained, inside Quirks Ego.
DeleteI think Doug's outlook seems the most sensible of those presented so far.
DeleteNotice too that it does seem to be expanding at an increasing rate.......is not q's ego doing the same?.......
DeleteWiO,
DeleteYep :-)
"Nothing is great nor small save by comparison"
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder proposes up to $350 million in state funds to help Detroit exit bankruptcy and protect city pensions.
ReplyDeleteGD Morons!
Deuce: I propose you rename the Establishment:
Delete"Big Government Morons"
Queerks latest outburst of idiocy helped me realize that if you took the way we voted here an applied it across the country, it would have been the most massive landslide in history for Obama.
Quirk could celebrate w/another one of his endless monologues while Rufus crows about how well our great leader is doing in bringing down deficits.
The same one that has bequeathed over 17 Trillion on our children. (17 and rising)
The same debt that's gonna cause massive decimation of our Economy when interest rates start to rise and markets start to price the new reality into their calculations.
Not to mention additional panic selling.
Todays 300 point fall will just be a pleasant memory from the past.
Wisconsin Unemployment Rate
DeleteNot Bad in An Obama Economy that has resulted in 9 Million fewer folks having a job.
DeleteA policeman was rushed to the hospital with an inflamed appendix. The doctors operated and advised him that all was well; however, the patrolman kept feeling something pulling at the hairs in his crotch.
ReplyDeleteWorried that it might be a second surgery and the doctors hadn't told him about it, he finally got enough energy to pull his hospital gown up enough so he could look at what was making him so uncomfortable.
Taped firmly across his pubic hair and private parts were three wide strips of adhesive tape, the kind that doesn't come off easily --- if at all. Written on the tape in large black letters was the sentence,
"Get well soon from the nurse in the Jeep you pulled over last week."
He could soak it off with Acetone.
DeleteThat would be an experience never forgotten by his dong and balls.
"We do not know whether the Universe is finite or not."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Is_the_Universe_finite_or_infinite_An_interview_with_Joseph_Silk
I leave it to the reader to guess on what size an infinite universe would have been at any time "t" in the past, with a finite rate of expansion, and a finite time span from when it began. NASA stands for Need Another Seven Astronauts.
Silk says,
DeleteBut it could also be finite, because it could be that the Universe has a very large volume now, but finite, and that that volume will increase, so only in the infinite future will it actually be infinite.
allen said,
So, at this moment, while the universe is not measureable, it is also not infinite. Whether the universe will continue to grow over an infinite time (which cannot be measured by definition, not to mention human mortality) is unknown. But if it stops growing it is not infinite, it is safe to say.
That doesn't make any sense, that you can say the universe will attain infinite status in the infinite future, because it will always be short of that time. Propose any time "t" as the infinite future, and I will reply that there's still t+1 to account for.
DeleteSilk says,
DeleteI think that the simplest description of how the Universe originated is an explosion, in the sense that it began from a very small volume and increased very rapidly.
allen said,
The Big Bang posits that all matter/energy (hypothetically infinite) that goes into making up our universe was initially a point, say the size of a period in this sentence.
Is The Universe Finite Or Infinite? An Interview With Joseph Silk
Teresita,
DeleteI have no more idea than Dr. Silk whether the Universe is or will be "finite or infinite". He and I agree. We also agree that the Big Bank started with a point. Why you disagree is not a problem I am prepared to handle.
Teresita RedingerFri Jan 24, 08:24:00 PM EST
DeleteThat doesn't make any sense
I really, sincerely, hope your tongue was firmly lodged in your cheek when you wrote that!
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJust because the universe might stop growing doesn't mean it might not start growing again.
DeleteMaybe it's like a slowing growing prostate cancer, and the radiation treatments hold it for awhile but not forever.
This likens the universe to a cancer, and I don't like the analogy, but couldn't think of anything else.
q falling off the AA Vodka wagon might be better.
One African tribe likens the universe to The Great Preying Mantis.
There was just The Great Preying Mantis.
Then Shoe come along and stepped on and squished The Great Preying Mantis.
The One broke into the Many, there were all of a sudden many small mantii all about, and here we are.
You are not supposed to ask where Shoe come from.......
That only Shoe knows......and Shoe ain't talkin'
All that can be known with certainty is that the Universe is finite at this point in time. That must be the case because it is still growing and at an accelerating rate. The limit to how quickly the Universe can expand is the speed of light. Hawking’s' proposition that light will travel into infinity was startling because of the presupposition that the Universe will be infinite. This eliminates all the theories that claim the Universe will attain some state that will cause it to collapse back into a point.
DeleteWhether the initial origin of a Universe is called a point or tiny space we are brought back to the Indic belief in a recurring series of universal expansions and contractions. It has been many years, but I recall that the Vedas give a specific number of years (also lost to memory) for the age of a universe.
Because I quote or reference someone does not mean that I accept the factuality of the quote or reference.
Luke 22:17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
ReplyDeleteSo that was Jesus swearing off alcohol until the Rapture.
Next he had some grub:
19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
Fair enough. But what does he do RIGHT after that? His hand strays right back to the cup again, and he JUST told everyone he weren't gonna touch a drop until the end of history:
[20] Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Reminds me of my alcoholic brother, big time.
DeleteReminds of:
Noah.
Quirk.
Rufus if he ever swore off.
Excellent attentive reading, Miss T.
Excellent.
Never thought of that before, nor have seen it mentioned elsewhere.
Five Star *****
Women's Workout
ReplyDeleteSnatch 'n Purses-R-Us
Deletebit coin accepted
free brochure only $2.99
Contact:
q
Box 1000000001
Detroit, Michigan
Self addressed stamped return envelope required.
There is an interesting article on Drudge right now about Noah's Ark....aka Noah's Coracle.....which an old inscription would make one believe it must have been round, if one buys into the old legend that is.....
ReplyDeleteSince it says:
© 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
at the bottom of the article you should look for it yourselves I guess.
Interesting article though.
ObamaCare gets creamed in fancy debate --
ReplyDeleteGreen Room
Video: Obamacare critics defeat proponents in NYC debate
posted at 3:26 pm on January 24, 2014 by Guy Benson
Mary Katharine touched on this Megan McArdle piece last night, but I figured it’d be worth posting AEI’s handy recap video of the event described in her column. By way of background, two supporters of Obamacare (Jonathan Chait and Dr. Douglas Kamerow) locked horns with two opponents of the law (McArdle and Dr. Scott Gottlieb) in a formal debate on Manhattan’s Upper West Side last week. The proposition in question was whether the Affordable Care Act is beyond rescue. The winner of these “Intelligence Squared” debates is determined by which side persuades more attendees over the course of the event, as measured by audience polls conducted before and after the presentation. On that metric, the Obamacare critics won big:
Prior to the exchange, just 16 percent (!) of the audience was inclined to agree with McArdle and Gottlieb’s position. (Here’s a sense of just how out of touch Manhattan’s elites are on this issue). By the debate’s conclusion, that number doubled to 32 percent. Convincing nearly one-third of an UWS audience to adopt a conservative-leaning viewpoint is, shall we say, a challenge:
You’re looking at a map of how New York City’s precincts voted in the 2012 presidential election. Obama won the city in dominant fashion, carrying 81 percent of the total vote. Romney’s only strongholds were in Staten Island and certain neighborhoods of Brooklyn — plus a few tiny outposts in Queens and the Bronx. It doesn’t appear that the Republican won a single precinct in all of Manhattan. The Upper West Side, where this Obamacare debate was held, is that navy blue block just west of Central Park. Obama took many of these precincts with more than 90 percent of the vote. Gov. Cuomo’s purge wouldn’t take much effort in New York City, it seems.
Link to article and video:
Deletehttp://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2014/01/24/video-obamacare-critics-defeat-proponents-in-nyc-debate/
Even the uber libs can be talked into some better sense some days.
January 24, 2014
ReplyDeleteJust don't call them death panels
Thomas Lifson
When the government is in charge of health care, rationing happens, and some people are handed death sentences. The ObamaCare Left would prefer that this reality remain hidden for as long as possible, submerged in a warm bath of "healthcare for everyone" sentiment, but Sarah Palin eloquently summed up the actuality with the expression "death panels."
Here is how it works in the Mother of All Nationalized Healthcare Systems. From Jenny Hope of the UK Daily Mail:
Pensioners with cancer are being written off as too old to treat, campaigners said yesterday.
They cited figures showing survival rates for British patients aged 75 and over are among the worst in Europe.
Young lung cancer sufferers are only 10 per cent more likely to die within five years than their continental counterparts.
But pensioners with the disease have 44 per cent less chance of survival.
The figure for stomach cancer - at 45 per cent - is even worse.
And Britons with prostate cancer are a fifth less likely to survive than Europeans if they are 85 and over.
Just 43 per cent live for five years, compared with up to 67 per cent over the Channel.
Patients in their 70s and 80s with kidney cancer have a 32 per cent survival rate, compared with 46-53 per cent in Europe.
Ciarán Devane, of Macmillan Cancer Support, which helped produce the figures, said: 'It's wrong to write off older people as too old for treatment. With a proper assessment and appropriate treatment, our research shows that many older cancer patients can live for a long time and can even be cured.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the principal architects of ObamaCare, agrees in principle with the idea that fewer years of "useful" life left means that fewer dollars should be invested in care. President Obama, when asked in a town hall format about an elderly patient with a strong will to live who might need expensive treatment, responded that "a pill" might be the only treatment offered.
Needless to say, Zeke Emanuel, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi would never place themselves under such a regime. They can pay for whatever treatment they want because they are rich and well-connected. Death panels and their functional equivalents are for the little people, the ones they pose as champions of.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/01/just_dont_call_them_death_panels.html#ixzz2rO8C0FFf
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
What's the State of the Economy?
ReplyDeleteEconomic Conditions Dashboard
As I type, Wendy Davis is in a Death Wrestle with The Truth.
ReplyDeleteWill The Truth finally be able to pin her to the mat, and force her to admit she is a lying, upwardly mobile, gold digging bitch/witch and unfit mother, or will Wendy be able to run out the clock, and live to wrestle another day?
The next few weeks should tell the tale.
Unca 'hani keeps them twisting slowly in the wind --
ReplyDeleteUN human rights “experts” shocked that Rouhani’s “moderate” tone hasn’t led to moderation in execution rate
Robert Spencer January 24, 2014 Iran, United Nations, Useful idiots Jihad Watch
Members of the National Council of Resistance for Iran depict a public hanging
These “experts” either don’t know or don’t care that Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, said in November that it was a “misunderstanding” to think that Iran was “stepping back from goals and values of the Islamic regime.” In reality, he said, Iran was simply engaged in “an artistic maneuver and the use of different tactics to reach different goals and ideals of the Islamic regime.” And so now these vaunted “experts” are shocked that Iran is turning out to be insincere. But not to have taken Rouhani at his word would have been “Islamophobic.”
“Surge in Executions Worries Rights Experts,” by Nick Cumming-Brucejan for the New York Times, January 22:
United Nations human rights experts called on Wednesday for an urgent halt to a surge in executions in Iran in recent weeks, observing that the more moderate tone adopted on human rights since President Hassan Rouhani’s election last year has yet to yield any moderation in the country’s punitive practices. Iran reportedly hanged 40 people in the first two weeks of January, 33 of them in the last week, Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations expert monitoring human rights in Iran, and Christof Heyns, the organization’s expert dealing with summary executions, said in a joint statement released in Geneva. The hangings carried out by Iran since the start of the year follow the execution of 625 people, including 28 women, and a number of political detainees in 2013, an increase of more than 100 over the number of recorded executions the previous year, Mr. Shaheed said.
Iran, engaged in a long-running and violent battle with highly organized and often heavily armed narcotics traffickers, executed prisoners mainly for drug offenses and some for crimes against national security, the experts noted. However, these offenses do not meet the threshold for the application of the death penalty set by international law, which says it should be limited only to the most serious crimes, meaning intentional killings, Mr. Heyns said. The high rate of executions in Iran, second only to China in the number of people it puts to death, is in sharp contrast to the signs of political moderation that followed Mr. Rouhani’s inauguration in August.
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Obama angers U.S. friends, but his bid to ruin relations with Canada is doomed
ReplyDeleteBy Andrew Malcolm
Posted 01/24/2014 09:54 AM ET
Barack Obama has achieved acrimony among numerous sectors of Americans now fighting with each other bitterly. His ongoing efforts to screw up relations with America's closest allies have enjoyed some success during these 1,830 endless days of his reign.
Obama's undercut the Poles, Czechs, Israelis, angered the Brits, Brazilians, Egyptians and insulted the Germans, Japanese and Indians. And Obama single-handedly made Vladimir Putin look like the Nobel Peace Prize winner over the American's fictional red line in Syria.
But Obama's bid to ruin the U.S.-Canadian relationship is doomed to failure. Like Obama's 2000 challenge of Rep. Bobby Rush back home.
That's because the depth of ties and centripetal forces between the two former British colonies in culture, business, finance, security, language, family and trade are so deep and so profound that even a wily Alinsky-disciple cannot surmount them. The two countries enjoy the world's longest undefended border and by far its largest bilateral economic relationship.
They share terrorist data banks, air defense and traffic commands and computer networks. You can't get much farther apart on this continent than Miami and the Yukon's Dawson City. But when local Florida police check a driver's license on a routine traffic stop, they know immediately the Mounties want that man for murder near the Arctic Circle.
Currently, Obama is trying the polite Canadians' patience with his laughable, now five-year stall over approving the northern part of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring Alberta tar-sands oil to the world's best refineries in Texas.
His administration has been "studying" this pipeline now longer than the U.S. was in World War II.
DeleteLast week Secretary of State John "I Was for a Strike on Syria Before I Realized the President Changed My Mind" Kerry said the study is coming along.
Meanwhile, Canada, where trade makes up 45% of GDP, has twice studied and approved an alternate route to export the oil from British Columbia to China so the carbon emissions can drift back over the Pacific to the U.S.
The economic and political logic of constructing Keystone is overpowering. Let's see, build a stronger, secure, self-contained North American energy market and pay Canada or trust long treacherous sea lanes past Iran and ship billions more to shady sheikhs?
The problem is the North American route would make oil and gas energy cheaper for American consumers, the opposite of Obama's professed green goal. And it would delay the day that every American vehicle would carry its own windmill.
This week the southern portion of the Keystone pipeline, which crosses no international border and thus needs no federal approval, actually began pumping crude from overflowing storage facilities in Oklahoma to Texas. An existing pipeline leg already moves crude from Alberta to Illinois.
The international ignorance of Harvard grad Obama (no, sir, Austrians do not speak Austrian), was actually foretold during a Democrat primary debate in Chicago during the fall of 2007.
Obama, trying to suck up to union members, vowed that one of his very first acts in the White House would be to demand renegotiation of trade agreements with the president of Canada.
Which, of course, has no president. But it's OK because that Obama promise was as empty as his vow to close Guantanamo and fund millions of shovel-ready jobs and pore over every budget line-by-line and bridge the partisan divide in Washington and.....
Here's what Obama's up against in his effort to rile our North American community neighbor, or neighbour:
Yes, Canada is 10% larger than the United States with about one-tenth the population. But the two countries are each other's largest commercial partner by far, doing about $2 billion of business every single day. Just the trade across Detroit's Ambassador Bridge to and from Windsor exceeds the total value of every shipload exchanged with all of Japan.
Contrary to popular belief, America's largest imports from Canada are not singers and NHL players. It's energy and vehicles. New England would be far darker these winter nights without a vast river of Canadian hydroelectricity. Going the other way, it's vehicles and machinery.
Canada trade and investments are responsible for more than seven million U.S. jobs, with California (832,000) and Texas (522,000) the largest beneficiaries. Even Obama's favorite BlackBerry and sport are Canadian inventions.
All these ties and friendliness will be forgotten briefly next month if, as is quite possible, the two countries' hockey teams meet again in the Gold Medal Olympic game. Obama won't be there, naturally.
Obama could fly overnight from Washington to Copenhagen to plead (unsuccessfully) for Chicago to get the 2016 Summer Olympics. But the same man could not be bothered to travel 20 miles outside the U.S. when its best friend and trading partner hosted the Winter Olympics four years ago in Vancouver. That sure showed 'em something.
Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/012414-687490-keystone-xl-pipeline-open-canada-obama-stall.htm#ixzz2rPiuNFXJ
Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook
"Men? Oh." [pause]
ReplyDeleteMike Huckabee: "...if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing or them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it..."
ReplyDelete(In 2005, Mike Huckabee signed a law mandating that Arkansas insurance plans include contraception coverage, including church-affiliated organizations such as churches and hospitals. Thanks Uncle Sugar!)
Record 87,897,000 Americans Not in the Labor Force
ReplyDeleteThe real unemployment rate is not 7.8%, but over 30%. But hey, Rufus has good news on Obamacare signups at least!
Rufus remains insistent that his imagination will triumph over reality.
DeleteThat's imagination with the small i and has nothing to do with the Imaginal World.
DeleteJust to clarify.
http://www.cleanposts.com/images/f/f0/Libtards.jpg
DeleteWhat are you counting as labor force? Everyone 18 and Older? :)
DeleteThat Cleanposts is pretty funny.
DeleteSo is Rufus.
He will be voting for Hillary, have no doubt.
Please leave my name out of your inane comments.
Delete:)
DeleteDon't want to be associated with the truth, eh, Rufus?
Your boy has had nearly six years now and, fudge the stats all they might, everyone knows the economy SUCKS.
DeleteThat Cleanposts is pretty funny.
DeleteCleanposts is my very own website Bob.
Shit Southern Women Say
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUFL2GT1-2g
Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds.
DeleteIdaho women say, "You turn right back around, Bobby, and go back into Moscow and git me a Godiva 75 pounder or I'll call the police!"
Yup, we treat 'em right out this way, and they know how to pay us back proper too.
Delete*****
If you don't have anything at all creative to do you can always sit through all 20+ Episodes of Shit Southern Women Say.
Scarlett Johansson responds to SodaStream criticism
ReplyDeleteAmerican actress, the new face of West Bank-based Israeli company SodaStream, releases first statement after BDS cries of apartheid
"I remain a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine. SodaStream is a company that is not only committed to the environment but to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights. That is what is happening in their Ma’ale Adumim factory every working day. I believe in conscious consumerism and transparency and I trust that the consumer will make their own educated choice that is right for them.”
Read more: Scarlett Johansson responds to SodaStream criticism | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/scarlett-johansson-responds-to-sodastream-criticism/#ixzz2rPwrFbij
Read more: Scarlett Johansson responds to SodaStream criticism | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/scarlett-johansson-responds-to-sodastream-criticism/#ixzz2rPwcz5wB
Israel needs Palestinians in the work force. It does not need "Death to the Zionist Entity".
DeleteI will hence forth refer to X as R2.
ReplyDeleteAs a courtesy to R2, and as recognizing the necessity of the reader needing to know what idiot one is bashing.
...so much Weltschmerz, so little time...
DeleteNever mind that, it's gonna be 50F and sunny in Seattle, like late March, I'll take it. This is the day the LORD hath made.
DeleteThe real unemployment rate is for everyone 16 years and older plus disabled people who can't work and the lazy shits who don't want to work.
ReplyDeletehttp://freedomoutpost.com/2013/11/real-unemployment-rate-30/
I'm not good with graphs but this looks a whole lot different than a 30% unemployment rate
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
Good Chart, Melody. I think that I would start it at 2010 (Obama's first budget.)
DeleteUnemployment under Obama
Yep, that seems to include those on Social Security, those in College, those in Nursing Homes, and Hospitals, and Iraq War Quadraplegics.
DeleteAstute Economic Analysis, fer sure.
In fact, I guess that would include most High School Juniors, and Seniors.
Deletebeeyootiful :)
Have a great day
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02WIxgzt054
That brings back beautiful memories. Thanks.
DeleteMilady,
'Tis not your pledge that I require;
Rather, the soft caress of your desire...
A Sonnet, Boaz Alon
U.S. GDP Growth vs. Germany GDP Growth (you're going to be surprised.)
ReplyDeleteChart
That "tradingeconomics" is a nice website, Melody. I bookmarked it. Thanks.
DeleteYou two get a room.
DeleteGot one; thanks, anyway. :)
Delete'We Saved the World': WWI and America's Rise as a Superpower
ReplyDeletePaul Wolfowitz is the great grand-son of Woodrow Wilson.
Saved the world, you say? Maybe if we dinnit go "Over There" there'd have been no Versailles Treaty, no Weimar Republic, and a certain corporal who painted still-lifes of cottages would have kept his day job and there'd have been no Shoah for real, and not just in David Duke's dreams.
DeleteOur intervention ushered in the death of the republic. Americas GDP doubled from 1917-1919. This was not lost on the elite.
DeleteFigures don't lie but liars figure.
ReplyDeleteThere are still 9 Million fewer people working now than when Obama took office.
And some here, like Obama, wanna cry about increasing disparities, but guess who the President is who has had policies guaranteed to increase those disparities?
Figures Don't Lie, But Doug Lies.
DeleteThis is the second time you've used that nonsense nine million number; here's the real one.
Employment Numbers
Number Currently Employed - 144,586,000.
DeleteThat's up from a bit more than 138,000,000 at the start of Obama's first fiscal year.
That's an Increase of approx. 6.5 Million Persons Employed.
If true, I stand corrected.
DeleteI'll try to recheck my sources who said otherwise.
All that is well and good, but the economy is no producing enough jobs to keep up with the potential, growing workforce. Almost every month there is a deficit in that metric. When 1 in 5 Americans is reliant upon food subsidies, there is a problem, Houston.
DeleteThis is not an indictment of Mr. Obama – were that easy. No, the problem is systemic.
Tradingeconomics shows there were 142 million employed when he took office, not 138.
DeleteYes, but it was down to 138,000,000 before the beginning of his first budget. Prior to Oct 1, 2009, we were operating under Bush's last budget.
DeleteJBB:
DeleteJust blame Bush.
...after 6 years in office.
The impending arrival of our first radical socialist President influenced uncountable numbers of economic decisions before and after the election.
DeleteBusinesses and Markets are Forward, not Backward looking.
We still blame Hoover (and Coolidge,) and they've been out of office a heck of a lot longer than that.
DeleteTradingeconomics front page shows:
ReplyDeleteOnly Japan, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Ireland have higher debt to GDP rates than the USA.
Yep, and it also shows that our Budget is Declining by 4%, and our GDP is Increasing by about 4%.
DeleteHow many of those other places would you rather be at this time?
Yes, the Republican Sequester Hawks have done a pretty good job of reigning in your tax and spenders.
DeleteMaking Love (Into The Night)
ReplyDeleteYou'll notice I made a little love w/Rufie @ 11:44:00 AM EST
DeletePretty close to a nooner for some.
Yeah, and you took it in the ass, as usual. :)
DeleteStarting to enjoy it, eh? :)
Afternoon Delight
Delete...keeping with the theme...
:-)
That tune does not take into account any disputes concerning who's on top, so is not relevant, at this point.
DeleteLoan Me a Dime
DeleteGoin' Down Slow
DeleteI see decent articles citing the 'real unemployment number' at anywhere from around 14% to 30%, most in the high teens to low 20's.
ReplyDeleteSo everyone has a lot to choose from........the best comment made was, naturally, mine: the economy SUCKS.
SUCKS, HAS SUCKED, WILL CONTINUE TO SUCK
Obama and Company have been in charge for nearly 6 years.
R2 is fighting a losing battle on a frozen landscape here.
ReplyDeleteCNN, Nice left-leaning source:
The facts:
The number Castro cites is an accurate description of the growth of private-sector jobs since January 2010 , when the long, steep slide in employment finally hit bottom. But while a total of 4.5 million jobs sounds great, it's not the whole picture.
Nonfarm private payrolls hit a post-recession low of 106.8 million that month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figure currently stands at 111.3 million as of July.
While that is indeed a gain of 4.5 million, it's only a net gain of 300,000 over the course of the Obama administration to date. The private jobs figure stood at 111 million in January 2009, the month Obama took office.
And total nonfarm payrolls , including government workers, are down from 133.6 million workers at the beginning of 2009 to 133.2 million in July 2012. There's been a net loss of nearly 1 million public-sector jobs since Obama took office, despite a surge in temporary hiring for the 2010 census.
Meanwhile, the jobs that have come back aren't the same ones that were lost.
Are you better off?
According to a study released last week by the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project , low-wage fields such as retail sales and food service are adding jobs nearly three times as fast as higher-paid occupations.
Conclusion:
The figure of 4.5 million jobs is accurate if you look at the most favorable period and category for the administration. But overall, there are still fewer people working now than when Obama took office at the height of the recession.
An article From 2012???
DeleteWhy do you keep doing that? Can't you read?
There's been a gain of 1 Million jobs since that article, according to Tradingeconomics.
DeleteIf all that is true, your hero has added zero jobs in six years.
...and everyone but you know that the quality/hours of those jobs has declined.
And there are more folks now than six years ago.
"your hero has added zero jobs in six years"
DeleteWhich is exactly the way bobbo has it figured here.
Not even squat has happened.
Don't exaggerate: A lot more than squat has happened:
DeleteWe're 10 Trillion dollars deeper in debt than when W left.
That's not squat!
NO. If you'll look, Again, you will see that we added 2.3 Million Jobs from July 2012 till the present.
DeleteFrom 142.3 to 144.6.
Get it together.
...although Rufus will claim it is.
DeleteAnd what's not is W's fault anyways.
And, we are NOT 10 Trillion further in Debt.
DeleteGoddamn, boy. Don't you Ever fucking think?
Pick whatever nit you can find, the fact remains there were at least 146 employed in '08, according to Tradingeconomics.
DeleteThe recession happened, as they always do, the "recovery" has been "less than optimal" to everybody but you and the rest of the left-wing wackos.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt_chart.html
DeleteShows an increase of 6 - 7 Trillion, including Fed debt.
Nothing to write home about.
Same page shows debt to GDP approaching all time high of that after WWII.
Deletehttp://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons
DeleteThey're "double-counting" the Fed. It's actually about 4.4 T.
Delete"debt to gdp" is greatly overemphasized.
DeleteGreatly: As it is decreed, so it must be.
DeleteAmen
.
DeleteWhat some people fail to take into account when talking about jobs is that the US population grows by almost 3 million people per year. The Census Bureau estimate was about 303 million people in the population at the end of 2009. Five years later, the 2013 estimate was 317 million people. That 14 million additional require jobs too.
.
Some folks counter that with all the baby boomers starting to retire.
DeleteI figured that out last nite, and came up w/3 million additional during Obama Regime.
Quite a few less than your 14 million.
.
DeleteI won't quibble. Obviously, all of the 14 million wouldn't require a job anyway, stay at home moms or dads or whatever, but the old saw is that you need job growth of about 150,000 per month to keep up with those entering the workforce and that is before you take into account those already unemployed.
.
.
DeleteBy the way, Doug, where did you get your number on the number of Baby Boomers retiring? I couldn't find any. What I did find is that there are probably a lot of them over 50 in that long-term unemployment category and that a lot of them are being forced to delay retirement because of factors stemming from the great recession.
.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete.
DeleteAccording to the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. has had over 3 million high school graduates every year during the Obama administration --- those who would be potentially entering the work force for the very first time, even if they go on to also enroll in college.
So on average, theoretically, the U.S. would need to have 3 million retirees and disabled people every year going on the Social Security "dole" to necessarily break even on the labor force participation rate. But that hasn't been happening.
According to data from the Social Security Administration, as of January 2009 when Obama first took office, the U.S. had a total of 39,927,185 retired and disabled workers receiving a monthly Social Security benefit --- 32,484,808 retired and 7,442,377 disabled.
Almost 5 years later, as of November 2013, the U.S. had a total of 46,775,537 retired and disabled workers --- 37,833,877 retired and 8,941,660 disabled --- for a net gain of 6,848,352 retired and disabled workers (5,349,069 that retired and 1,499,283 who were awarded on a disability claim).
* It's also worth noting that, while disability "claims" were up in the aftermath of the Great Recession, a Congressional Budget Office study says claims are always up during recessions. But actual disability "awards" are down. Source: SSA (See the full post with data here)
Social Security disability awards
As for the high school graduating classes of 2008 through 2013, the U.S. has had an estimated 15,403,905 high school graduates --- a difference of 8,555,553 who might otherwise be in the labor force when compared to the additional 6,848,352 retired and disabled workers during that same period of time.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only 48.8 percent of the 3.2 million youth who graduated from high school (just from last year alone) were "in the labor force". In a 14-page report by Rutgers, they noted a whopping 44% of high school students were unemployed ----- meaning:
Since Obama's first year in office, the U.S. has had more "non-starters" than "quitters" in the labor force...
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2013/12/falsely-blaming-baby-boomers-for.html
.
Well, I went to sleep last night, woke up at 12, cussed myself out (again) for sleeping forever, and read part of some real-live murder mystery shit from the past looking for some totally unrelated health stuff.
ReplyDeleteThat went on for 4 hours, and I got depressed about not getting anything done by 4 in the afternoon.
Then I got up and wondered why it was so damned cold this time in the afternoon.
Then I looked out the window:
Pitch black.
4 AM
Should be an interesting day.
Lol
DeleteAllman Brothers Band Live at Fillmore East "In Memory of Elizabeth R
ReplyDeleteNow, dat's what I be tawkin bout!
video sucks, but the music - Wow!
I watched Janis Joplin sing w/Big Brother and the Holding Company at Fillmore West many many years ago.
DeleteI saw Debbie Reynolds play Liberace's mother in the movie Liberace many years ago.
DeleteLiberace was a freak.
Liberace had some poor kid he was buggering have facial surgery to look like Liberace.
Later dropped the kid for someone younger.
I mention this cause my wife just mentioned it cause of something on TV.
Liberace was the toast of LV for a long while.
I saw him (as a tyke) play his accordion at the CalNeva Lodge, lake Tahoe.
DeleteDis him if you must, you old homophobe, he just wanted to fuck himself.
Isn't that the ultimate victimless crime?
What kind of phobe uses his wife as an excuse for his cultural deficits?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete