Wednesday, May 27, 2015

"US News" owes Pope Francis an apology.

The tone is way out of line. I do believe the Pope knows more about the condition of the poor and state of humanity than "US News" could ever hope to know, yet understand.

Hernando de Soto? Really? That might better explain the global economic collapse if Wall Street is holding centuries old theory in their hearts. 

Mr. de Soto lived over a half millenium ago. More than 500 years. He never made it very far into South America. He discovered the Mississippi River.  Not only that, but, he was European. Does US News know what Europe did to South America? 

Small pox, turned the native South Americans into slaves to mine silver and all the silver was taken to Europe without any benefits to the people of South America. 

Now, if that is the kind of economics Wall Street endears as their own, it explains why we are suffering under dense measures of carbon dioxide and why Americans have an entire class of people called, "The Working Poor."  

Does US News want to know what they can do with their criticism of Pope Francis, a man only a breath away from being a saint? Let's just say, the devil is well served by Wall Street. 

May 27, 2015
By Mark W. Davis

Pope Francis (click here) revealed several days ago that he has not watched television since 1990. Listen to him and look at those big glasses, and you know that this is a guy with a pile of books on his nightstand. There is one book, however, that I doubt the pope has read – the same book the pope must read if he is to avoid harming the world's poor in his well-meaning but sometimes naive declarations about poverty. 

That book is by one of the pope's great South American contemporaries, an economist named Hernando de Soto who wrote "The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World." While he's at it, the pope would do well to get to know some of de Soto's more recent writings and the work of his Lima-based Institute for Liberty and Democracy.

No fair observer would deny that the pope's relentless focus on poverty is central to his Christian identity. After all, what are gospels if not the story of a man who lived among the poor, preached principally to the poor, and possessed nothing but a pair of sandals and a robe at the time of his crucifixion?

Is he running for priest? When does the stoning begin?

Do Republicans ever regret being silly? The water's edge. It sounds like a sympathetic statement for Texas. 

If Marco Rubio fears the First Amendment than say he fears for the First Amendment. There is a separation of church and state. It is up to him to prove his point of view. He obviously hasn't paid attention to Pope Francis lately. 

May 27, 2015
By Katie McDonough

Republican presidential contender (click here) and super thirsty guy Marco Rubio is worried that marriage equality is the first slippery step onto a very slippery slope toward labeling the Bible hate speech. Or something.

“If you think about it, we are at the water’s edge of the argument that mainstream Christian teaching is hate speech,” Rubio, who is Catholic, said Tuesday during an interview with the CBN News. “Because today we’ve reached the point in our society where if you do not support same-sex marriage you are labeled a homophobe and a hater.”

“So what’s the next step after that?” he continued. “After they are done going after individuals, the next step is to argue that the teachings of mainstream Christianity, the catechism of the Catholic Church is hate speech. And there’s a real and present danger.”

It’s hard to imagine that even Rubio believes what he’s saying here, but who knows. Massachusetts has been issuing marriage licenses to gay couples since 2004, and, last I checked, the state hasn’t moved to raze its Catholic churches or strip Boston College of its charter. Ditto for seriously every other state that has legalized equal marriage....

"The Atlantic" writes about the journey to reject the death penalty.

May 27, 2015
By Russell Berman

...In 2009, (click here) the state became the last in the nation to adopt lethal injections as its mode of execution, after its highest court ruled the electric chair unconstitutional. Yet like several other states, it has had a hard time procuring the cocktail of drugs needed to carry out the death penalty, and its lethal-injection chamber has remained dormant. That failure has given momentum to opponents of capital punishment, including a new group of conservatives that has invoked fiscal and religious arguments to woo right-leaning legislators to their side.

“It’s not just about the procurement of drugs,” said Marc Hyden of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, an organization that sprouted up in Montana several years ago and has since expanded nationally. “It’s not pro-life because it risks innocent life. It’s not fiscally responsible because it costs millions more dollars than life without parole.” Yet Nebraska’s bumbling and occasionally shady attempts to carry out death sentences—along with incidents in neighboring states like the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma—have given rise to another argument that sells among conservatives: the death penalty is just another example of government run amok....

This is a list of all inmates, both past and present, sentenced to death in Nebraska. (click here)

The large majority of Nebraska's executions were never carried out. Many were commuted. To commute a death penalty sentence shows lack of confidence in the decision. Interesting.

Jeremy Sheets (click here) had his sentence vacated and was released directly from death row in Nebraska.

A man convicted of first-degree murder was sentenced to the electric chair, but after five years in prison he was proven innocent and released. Jeremy Sheets, a member of the Witness to Innocence organization, came to KU to speak to students and faculty about his experience on death row and about certain aspects of the U.S. criminal justice system. 

Witness to Innocence is an organization of death row exonerees who are striving to educate the public about the death penalty and to eliminate it from our justice system. According to the organization, Witness to Innocence, “Sheets was arrested for the 1992 rape and murder of 17-year-old Honors student Kenyatta Bush in Omaha. He was convicted in 1997 based exclusively on a taped confession made by his co-defendant, Adam Barnett.”...

Case Details (click here)

Jeremy Sheets was arrested for the rape and murder of seventeen-year-old Kenyatta Bush. He was convicted in 1997 based exclusively on a taped confession by his co-defendant, Adam Barnett. However, Barnett hanged himself before the trial, so he could not be cross examined by Jeremy's defense attorneys. The trial judge denied a motion to bar the recording from evidence, and Sheets was sentenced to death. In 2000, the Nebraska Supreme Court overturned Jeremy's conviction due to the illegal use of the recorded confession. In 2001, Jeremy was freed, as there was absolutely no reliable evidence to retry him.

Democrats recruit the undocumented for votes.

Former Senator Rick Santorum dehumanized the Undocumented. He states the only reason Democrats want to bring them on board was for their votes.

He understands absolutely nothing about the Undocumented and only applies a political strategy to every aspect of the diversity of culture in the USA, including the Undocumented.

December 9, 2011
By Amanda Peterson Beadle

...When asked (click here) how to handle someone who is brought to the country illegally by their parents, Santorum said they continue to break the law by having fake documentation and also accused fellow presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich of having “false compassion.”

“You can’t be here for 20 years and commit only one illegal act … because everything you’re doing while you’re here is against the law …” Santorum said. “I understand Congressman Gingrich saying, ‘Well, you know, people have been here and they’ve been good citizens and paying taxes.’ Yeah, under somebody else’s Social Security number because you stole it.”

Families should be broken up when the law is broken, which includes illegal immigration, he added....

He might be right, I think I saw Democrats driving the train to the USA from counties troubled by drug cartels. The children were more interested in voting than food and water. 

As a matter of fact I think the conductor was Howard Dean.

Pencil thin prostitues earn $1000 per hour with a two hour minimum. That will empty a bank account in no time.

What kind of trading exactly goes on in the Wall Street pits? I don't recall any corporation offering prostitution as a volatile stock using the margins to predict returns on investment.

May 26, 2015
By Julian Robinson

...Escorts (click here) are charging their Wall Street clients up to $1,000 an hour amid claims the industry is booming in Manhattan.

Some of those working in New York are earning more than $200,000 a year by meeting wealthy traders five times a week, it has been reported.

According to one escort, business dropped off during the financial collapse - but has recovered after a bumper round of Wall Street bonus payouts in January and February....

... Another,29-year-old Chelsea, moved to Manhattan ten years ago from Canada and told CNBC how she earns more than $200,000 a year.
Describing her interaction with traders, she said: 'It's the market here in New York so that's what you're dealing with - Wall Street guys. They've got money and they want sex.'...

It's all attitude.

May 25, 2015

New Delhi: Can anyone imagine (click here) a crane taking on couple of tigers and after moments of hot pursuit escaped unscathed.

The story unfolds with a courageous act of a crane who in the first place refused to submit himself to fate and preferred to have a brave fight with three tigers and thereafter emerge a `victor’, if so to say.

The said brave act of the crane is well exhibited in a video in which it could be viewed with bated breath the courageous crane who managed to put up a strong fight against 3 tigers trying their best to catch hold of it but in vain.

It all started when a red-crowned crane accidentally falling into a tiger enclosure in a China zoo....

A new study points to education as the greatest single aspect of life to prevent crime.

The slow spiral into prison starts young. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolfe plans to invest in the future of the states young people. He put larger portions of the state budget into education, including pre-school.




...Quality early childhood education (click here) is a crime-fighting tool, Wolf said, that all political parties and taxpayers should embrace as evidenced by the Republican county prosecutors who stood with him in the prison parking lot

"We are all in this together," Wolf said. "We are not Republican, we are not Democrats. We are not right or left. We are pragmatists and that's what brings us together."


The Fight Crime: Invest in Kids report quotes heavily from a long-running study by the University of Illinois at Chicago. Starting in 1983, the study tracked 1,000 students who attended Chicago's preschool program and compared them with other students who did not. The Chicago study found the original 1983 preschoolers were 33 percent less likely to have a juvenile arrest record, 42 percent less likely to commit a violent crime and 51 percent less likely to suffer from child abuse or neglect....

Hamas used Jewish aggression as a cover to murder. Some of the murders assess as war crimes.

May 27, 2015

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hamas (click here) used the cover of last summer’s conflict with Israel to torture and kill Palestinians from rival factions, according to a new report.

“‘Strangling Necks’: Abduction, torture and summary killings of Palestinians by Hamas forces during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict,” a report released on Wednesday by Amnesty International, highlights the extrajudicial execution of at least 23 Palestinians and the arrest and torture of dozens of others, including members and supporters of Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas political rival.

During the 50-day conflict in July and August 2014, Hamas “took the opportunity to ruthlessly settle scores, carrying out a series of unlawful killings and other grave abuses,” said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International....

The murders were in response to the Israeli invasion. The people murdered were prisoners or viewed as sympathizers to Israel. These are not random murders, they were due to the Israeli aggression. It wasn't mad men simply killing to satisfy their own aggression.

People are used to thinking about their vulerability when it comes to rapidly rising water.

May 27, 2015

Extreme weather (click here) has been wreaking havoc in the US, where storms and tornadoes have caused major flooding in the states of Oklahoma and Texas. 


Parts of Houston - the US's fourth biggest city - remain under water.

Thousands of cars have been abandoned on city streets and highways. 

Hundreds of residents have been displaced and more than 1,000 homes have been destroyed. 

At least 17 people have been killed and dozens injured following record rainfall over the weekend.

More heavy rains are expected over the next few days. 

From what I hear and read the one example focused on was the loss of a mother and two children as the house they were in came off it's moorings. 

So, how do reasonable and intelligence people become victims to this severe flooding?

Water will rise quickly when met with resistance to it's flow. In this very troubling reality, the house shattered when it hit a bridge downstream from it's property. It is my guess, without having specific information, the water was rapidly flowing under the bridge. It reached a tipping point as the water rushed into the basin which became very saturated with rain. 

As the water rose quickly, at some point the bridge became a dam and increased the water levels very fast and without reason. 

There is no way of knowing about any one particular fact people can focus on to predict their danger. If a house is within a flood plain it will be lost during these storms. I am going to insult many local governments because I could never understand how homes are allowed to be built in a flood zone. It is playing the odds that are very unpredictable.

Beach houses regularly face rising waters when significantly powerful storms drive water toward shore in a manner called a storm surge. Inland properties can have a storm surge, too. It is different than that of the beach communities. It doesn't come from one distance, it comes from the ground up.