"The enemy is the gramophone mind whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment."--Orwell, in the intro to Animal Farm.
And a reaction has developed. Some complain that "grit" is a bit too "manly," a bit too assertive. That kind of criticism is very flattering.
After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen nearly $5000 since 2007.
For the first time in American history there are more unmarried women than married women. The number of adults age 34 and under who have never been married is nearing 50 percent. In recent years, data showed just 20% of Americans ages 18 to 29 are wedded, compared to nearly 60% in 1960. Additionally, more than 40% of American births are to unmarried women. Among Hispanic women the percent is over 53, and among black women the rate is over 71%.
The last deep-pit coal mine in the U.K. plans to shut down next week, heralding the end of a centuries-old industry that helped fuel the industrial revolution and build the British Empire. Some of this is related to the climate religion but much is not. Pricing is a major factor. The U.K. already imports most of the coal that fuels its power plants, with imports first surpassing local production in 2001. Russia has been the biggest beneficiary of the U.K.'s increased appetite for imported coal, providing 46% of its thermal coal in 2014, according to the U.K. government. Coal supplies roughly one-third of the energy for electricity generation in the U.K., with natural gas and renewable sources making up the rest. Kellingley, operated by U.K. Coal, is the victim of vast market forces that have pushed prices for thermal coal--the kind used to fuel power plants--to their lowest level in more than nine years at $45.10 a metric ton, according Rotterdam coal futures traded on the Intercontinental Exchange. It costs Kellingley about $65 to produce a ton of coal, compared with $45 a ton for imported coal, a company official said.
So why, if more expensive coal made coal decline, do people think that arbitrary increase in wages will encourage more work?
The nation’s manufacturers are now producing 47 percent more than they did 20 years ago. What has declined is manufacturing employment, which is 29 percent lower than it was 20 years ago. Producing more output with fewer workers is called higher productivity, which in turn is driven by technological innovation. This change is hard on displaced workers, but it is good for the economy over all. Rising living standards are possible only if productivity increases. The real question remains: How to improve work opportunities? This has been a topic of debate for some of the world's great minds for centuries. Fortunately we have The View, the Democrats and the Rube-publicans to break it all down for us.
Venezuela has more oil than the United States or Saudi Arabia or anyone else. They should be rich. But they are not. Hong Kong has nothing and is rich. There is a lesson here. A people’s wealth is not determined by the quantity of raw materials that happen to exist within those people’s political jurisdiction. Instead, a people’s wealth is determined by how well their institutions and their attitudes encourage market-directed trade, commercial innovation, and entrepreneurial risk-taking. If such activities are encouraged, wealth for the masses is produced; if such activities are discouraged, the masses remain impoverished. This is important.
At a certain point, you gotta shoot. "I don’t know, at a certain point, you can’t take it,” Trump said. “I mean, at a certain point, you have to do something that, you just can’t take that. That is not right. It’s against all, you know, when you talk about Geneva convention, there’s gotta be things that are against it. You can’t do that. That’s called taunting. But it should certainly start with diplomacy and it should start quickly with a phone call to Putin, wouldn’t you think?.....And if that doesn’t work out, I don’t know, you know, at a certain point, when that sucker comes by you, you need to shoot. I mean, you gotta shoot. And it’s a shame. It’s a shame. It’s a total lack of respect for our country and it’s a total lack of respect for Obama. Which as you know, they don’t respect.”
This kind of talk scares the devil out of me. There are ways of making points and teaching lessons that do not involve warheads.
Who is...Sir John Dill?
"I've been working for you all my life!" Well, maybe not all of you. On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton said with a smile "We're going to put a lot of coal miners, and coal companies out of business." Bo Copely, a 39 year old West Virginian who recently lost his job at a coal company, asked her, "When you make comments like 'we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs' these are the kind of people that you're affecting, this is my family. I just want to know how you can say you're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs, and then come in here and tell us how you're going to be our friend." She answered, "I don't know how to explain it."
These people just say this stuff.
Caitlyn Jenner will appear on a summer cover of Sports Illustrated wearing "nothing but an American flag and her Olympic medal," a source reveals in the latest issue of Us Weekly. This is an advance, right?
Using satellite imagery and ancient Mayan astronomy charts, 15-year-old William Gadoury from Quebec, Canada is believed to have discovered a previously "unknown Mayan city" deep in the jungles of Mexico. The idea first struck Gadoury when he noticed that the Maya built their cities away from rivers, electing more marginal areas and even mountainous regions. He hypothesized that they must have had a different reason for choosing their locations.
Criminal organizations made up to $7 billion smuggling migrants into Europe last year, as 90% of those reaching the continent used smugglers, said Rob Wainwright, the head of Europe's police agency Europol.
More than half of immigrant-led households in the U.S. use at least one welfare program, according to research by the Center for Immigration Studies. By comparison, 30 percent of households led by native-born U.S. citizens take welfare. Immigrants from Mexico and Central America have the highest rate, with nearly three-quarters using at least one program. The Caribbean is second, with a 51 percent use rate.
Parlous: adj: full of danger or risk; obsolete : dangerously shrewd or cunning. usage: The company is in a parlous financial situation. He talked about the parlous state of the country. ety: Parlous is both a synonym and a derivative of "perilous"; it came to be as an alteration of "perilous" in Middle English. ("Perilous" is derived from the Anglo-French perilleus, which ultimately comes from the Latin word for "danger": "periculum.") Both words are documented in use from at least the 14th century, but by the 17th century "parlous" had slipped from common use and was considered more or less archaic. It experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 20th century (although some critics still regarded it as an archaic affectation), and today it appears in fairly common use, often modifying "state" or "times."
In 1936, Spain was still a new and fragile democracy when Francisco Franco led a military uprising of "Nationalists" against the government's "Republican" army, inaugurating the brutal, three-year Spanish Civil War. The government was the left-leaning Second Spanish Republic, and the Nationalists were supported by a number of conservative groups, including monarchists such as the religious conservative (Catholic) Carlists, and the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups. An estimated 500,000 people died in the war, including thousands upon thousands of civilians from murder, torture, and starvation. It is believed that the government of General Francisco Franco executed 100,000 Republican prisoners after the war, and another 35,000 Republicans died in concentration camps in the years that followed the war.
Pollen samples indicate the presence of cannabis in sub-Saharan Africa for at least two millennia. Introduced by overland traders from the Arab Middle East and later by Portuguese seamen traveling from India, the herb quickly spread throughout the continent.
Sanders’ health plan would eliminate private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and ObamaCare in favor of a single, government-run program, which he calls “Medicare for all.” There’d be no out-of-pocket costs for health care and long-term care.
When he released his plan, Sanders claimed it would cost about $14 trillion over 10 years. But not to worry, he said, since it would be fully paid for by the rich, and the middle class, and the working class, who would all see their taxes go up.
However, a new study from the liberal Urban Institute says that Sanders’s plan would cost more than
twice what he says.
For starters, Sanders claims that he could somehow extend free care to everyone while still spending $6 trillion less over the next decade than would be the case. The Urban Institutes says that Sanders’ plan would actually
increase national health spending by $6.6 trillion.
When you add it all up, the Urban Institute says, the price tag works out to
$32 trillion over 10 years. In other words, Sanders’ plan would increase the already gargantuan size of the federal government by almost two-thirds.
AAAAAaaaaaannnnndddddd.....a graph:
