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This according to the Book of Odds- below are more amusing stats, which might be better called 'frequencies', since as 'chances' they can't possibly apply to all people (not everybody uses vending machines, for instance): Odds of any child being born with at least one extra finger or toe? 1-in-500 The odds of any American boy born in 1950 being named 'Robert' are just 21.8-to-1 You're not paranoid if you're Honduran, they really are after you (and odds are pretty good they'll getcha, too): 1 of every 1100 citizens of that Central American country will be murdered there over the course of...

In Metolius, Oregon, a 72-year-old man used a .38 caliber revolver to defend himself and his wife from a drunken attacker who broke down their bedroom door.   The attacker was their 45 year old son.    One of the prime weapons in the propaganda campaign to disarm Americans is a theory of homicide in the United States.   I call it the "progressive elite" theory.   It runs like this:  The majority of people, except for the exceptional elite, are just moments away from committing a criminal homicide.  They have poor impulse control and fly into rages which escalate into homicidal rages...

One unexpected benefit of medical marijuana legislation appears to be a decrease in painkiller overdoses, perhaps because some chronic pain patients are turning to cannabis instead of powerful opioid drugs. In states with laws legalizing medical marijuana, new research shows there are nearly 25 percent fewer deaths from painkiller overdoses. Opioid painkiller overdoses are a growing problem nationwide. More than 16,500 Americans died of opioid drug overdoses in 2010, and the numbers continue to rise. Although a casual relationship hasn’t been proven, there appears to be a significant association between marijuana legislation and a fall in overdose deaths. Researchers from...

Author Insights: Legalizing Medical Marijuana May Reduce Opioid Deaths BY BRIDGET M. KUEHN on AUGUST 26, 2014 Marcus A. Bachhuber, MD, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues found that states that legalize marijuana experience lower rates of opioid deaths, on average, compared with states that don’t allow medical marijuana. Image: University of Pennsylvania Opioid-overdose deaths increased in states across the country between 1999 and 2010, but states that legalized medical marijuana saw less-steep increases than those without, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week. Growing use...

After the first presidential debate, Factcheck.org reported, "We found exaggerations and false claims flying thick and fast during the first debate between President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney... Romney sometimes came off as a serial exaggerator." The Washington Post found that "Both President Obama and former governor Mitt Romney tossed out a blizzard of statistics and facts, often of dubious origin." In the second presidential debate, the candidates were again found to be less than truthful. (SNIP) It wasn't just in the debates that the truth was ignored. The New York Times reported that when Mitt Romney and...

On the surface, California's job market is booming. The state has now recovered all the jobs lost during the recession, and done so at a faster pace than all but five states. The growth, though, belies a troubling imbalance. The fastest job creation has come in low-wage sectors, in which pay has declined. At the high end of the salary scale, a different dynamic has taken hold: rising pay and improving employment after rounds of consolidation. Most distressing, middle-wage workers are losing out on both counts. "People talk about it like an hourglass," said Tracey Grose, vice president of the...

I was checking out WW2 stats, and came across research on the 30 greatest atrocities of the 20th century. An estimated 55 million died in WW2. In addition, 20 million died under Stalin, 40 million under Mao Zedong, 1.65 million under the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, and 400,000 under North Korea. The combined 62 million total tops WW2 by 7 million. The kicker is that, with the current U.S. population approaching 320 million, that figure of 62 million, if applied to the United States, would mean that 1/5, that is, 20% of us, would have perished!

*The largest ever study of the effects of the main psychoactive component of cannabis suggests that it can cause paranoia in vulnerable individuals* To discover whether cannabis really does cause paranoia in vulnerable individuals, we carried out the largest ever study of the effects of THC (∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the drug’s principal psychoactive ingredient). We recruited 121 volunteers, all of whom had taken cannabis at least once before, and all of whom reported having experienced paranoid thoughts in the previous month (which is typical of half the population). None had been diagnosed with a mental illness. The volunteers were randomly chosen to...

Gallup Values and Beliefs survey 2014 and Trends: Percent approve as morally acceptable Behavior 2001 [otherwise in brackets] 2014 Republicans Democrats Independents God (via precept or principal) Buying and wearing animal fur 60 58 71 49 59 "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." (Genesis 3:21; cf. Ex. 36:19) Medical testing on animals 65 57 69 50 59 "And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered...

A draft memo from a top Border Patrol official expresses alarm that the administration's handling of the border surge in south Texas is inviting more illegal crossings and overwhelming the DHS agencies. The memo calls for the administration to stop releasing illegal crossers into the United States and instead impose harsher "consequences" on illegal crossers. [DHS Logo] The document, attributed to Ronald D. Vitiello, deputy chief of the Border Patrol, includes revised estimates from the DHS statistics office on the size of the surge of unaccompanied minors. At the end of May, DHS projected that in FY 2014, the Border...

House Republicans find 10% of tea party donors audited by IRS Tells commissioner to come clean By Stephen Dinan-The Washington Times - Updated: 10:10 p.m. on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 Despite assurances to the contrary, the IRS didn’t destroy all of the donor lists scooped up in its tea party targeting — and a check of those lists reveals that the tax agency audited 10 percent of those donors, much higher than the audit rate for average Americans, House Republicans revealed Wednesday. Republicans argue that the Internal Revenue Service still hasn’t come clean about the full extent of its targeting,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Black students are more likely to be suspended from U.S. public schools -- even as tiny preschoolers. The racial disparities in American education, from access to high-level classes and experienced teachers to discipline, were highlighted in a report released Friday by the Education Department's civil rights arm. The suspensions -- and disparities -- begin at the earliest grades. Black children represent about 18 percent of children in preschool programs in schools, but they make up almost half of the preschoolers who are suspended more than once, the report said. Six percent of the nation's districts with preschools...

Show this article to anyone that believes that the economy has actually improved under Barack Obama. On Tuesday evening, Barack Obama once again attempted to convince all of us that things have gotten better while he has been in the White House. He quoted a few figures, used some flowery language and made a whole bunch of new promises. And even though he has failed to follow through on his promises time after time, millions upon millions of Americans continue to believe him. In fact, you can find a list of 82 unfulfilled promises from his previous State of the...

January 21, 2014 - In the not-so distant past, institutions were trusted and valued as important parts of a functioning society—from government, corporations and schools to marriage and even organized religion. Yet trust in institutions is quickly giving way to a nation of cynics. New Barna research reports that Americans are ranking their confidence in institutions at abysmal levels. And this institutional skepticism comprises a significant backdrop for the major faith and culture trends of 2014... During 2013 alone, citizens lamented the failure of their leaders and institutions. From the government shutdown to Pope Francis' public callout of the Vatican...

Much has been written, often with considerable glee, about the worsening divide in the Republican Party between its corporate and Tea Party wings. Yet Democrats may soon face their own schism as a result of the growing power in the party of high-tech business interests. Gaining the support of tech moguls is a huge win for the Democrats — at least initially. They are not only a huge source of money, they also can provide critical expertise that the Republicans have been far slower to employ. There have always been affluent individuals who backed liberal or Democratic causes, either out...

During 2013, America continued to steadily march down a self-destructive path toward oblivion. As a society, our debt levels are completely and totally out of control. Our financial system has been transformed into the largest casino on the entire planet and our big banks are behaving even more recklessly than they did just before the last financial crisis. We continue to see thousands of businesses and millions of jobs get shipped out of the United States, and the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated. Due to the lack of decent jobs, poverty is absolutely exploding. Government dependence is at an...

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington. The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated. And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it. Just two years before the presidential election...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The other day also we had economic news not good about the widening gap between the rich and the poor. We had the news that the smarter are getting wealthier and the stupider are getting poorer -- I mean, it wasn't good -- and that the wealth gap was wider, much wider today between the top 1% and everybody else than five years ago when Obama took office. We have more details on this, and one of the fundamental aspects of the story we had was the median income. We pointed out the median income in the...

Phony Current Employment Statistics (CES)“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.” ― Abraham Lincoln- By: Larry Walker, Jr. -According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), via its September 26th CES Preliminary Benchmark Announcement, the number of Private Sector Jobs reported in March 2013 was overstated by 136,000, and the number of Government jobs was understated by 12,000. But not to be outdone by a deteriorating economic reality, the BLS eliminated this bad news through a major change in its reporting...

Is there such thing as “class” in America? Not if you ask Rick Santorum. The once and possibly future GOP presidential candidate spoke to a Republican gathering in Lyon County, Iowa late last week and shared this piece of advice with his party: “Don’t use the term the other side uses.” That includes the “middle class.” Santorum proceeded to tear into President Obama for constantly invoking the term “middle class” in his speeches about the economy. “Since when in America do we have classes?” Santorum asked. “Since when in America are people stuck in areas or defined places called a...