Near-Record High See Religion Losing Influence in America

Americans' views of the influence of religion in the U.S. have fluctuated substantially in the years since 1957, when Gallup first asked this question. At that point, perhaps reflecting the general focus on family values that characterized the Eisenhower era, 69% of Americans said religion was increasing its influence, the most in Gallup's history.

Views of the influence of religion shifted dramatically in the mid-1960s. By 1970, in the midst of the protests over the Vietnam War and general social upheaval, a record 75% of Americans said religion was losing influence in American society. These views moderated in the years thereafter. At several points during the Reagan administration, a plurality of Americans returned to the view that religion was increasing its influence. By the early 1990s, Americans became more convinced again that religion was losing its influence. These views persisted until a sharp reversal after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when a number of social and political indicators, including presidential and congressional approval and overall satisfaction with the way things were going, showed substantial increases.

Near-Record High See Religion Losing Influence in America

Why Have Economists Been So Bad at Predicting the Impact of the Stimulus? - By Veronique de Rugy - The Corner - National Review Online

Almost two years after the adoption of the stimulus bill, the data shows that the funds didn’t stimulate GDP much, and didn’t stimulate employment either. One reason is that the package failed to prop up government purchases, or consumption purchases in general. For instance, as was the case with previous stimulus bills, it looks like most of the loan, grant, and contract money in the bill went to pay down state and local governments’ debt rather than buy stuff.

So why didn’t White House economists such as Christina Rommer or Moody’s Mark Zandi — two of the biggest stimulus enthusiasts out there — take these facts into considerations when predicting the impact of the stimulus?

Because their models are outdated and based on unrealistic assumptions.

Why Have Economists Been So Bad at Predicting the Impact of the Stimulus? - By Veronique de Rugy - The Corner - National Review Online

Eight Botched Environmental Forecasts

When I hear dire predictions from global warming believers I have to keep reminding myself of predictions of "Smart People" from the last couple years.

Paul Ehrlich appears to be the number one offender.

It would be funny if it hadn't put so much fear in folks.

Funny Stuff

The Baby Boomer Blues . .

I just cannot remember . . .

Length:3:14

This is important information to me, and will be to you SOMEDAY

The Five Myths of Aging

If you were an alien visiting our planet, you might think Earthlings never age. Even as awareness about aging rises, most major magazines and television stations still fail to display vital, older people. Medical journals, on the other hand, harp on the infirmities of old age. It's no wonder we fear

WOW, you mean that Sarah Palin took all that heat for nothing? She was despised for suggesting that there was such a thing. NOW WHAT? I'll bet someone has an answer for this. . I'm sure there's a good explanation for all this...or does someone owe Sarah an apology? Just asking.

Return of the Death Panel - HUMAN EVENTS

The New York Times ran a fascinating Christmas Day story about the return of the “death panels” for ObamaCare. The term comes fro

Pyrolsis is a great way to extract oil from plastic. Works for tires too. Most garbage. Unfortunately the heat needed is more than the heat value of the oil, but it turns plastic waste into something useful.

Man Invents Machine To Convert Plastic Into Oil

In an efficient and safe effort to save us from the ill-effects of plastic waste, Akinori Ito has developed a machine which can convert plastic back into oil.

Why Thomas Jefferson studied the Koran

What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad

Keith Ellison, the first Muslim U.S. congressman pledged his allegiance on Thomas Jefferson's Quran

I know this is a social justice issue, "are the rich paying their fair share of taxes". YET, when I read this the answer seems to be YES and worse, if we remain on this trendline there will come a day when it will all stop. There will be no more rich to pay. I am compelled to balance my mercy impulse with economic reality. I have a sense that taxes no longer can provide what

theblogprof: Fleeced: The upper 1% earned 19.6% of total income before tax, and paid 41% of the ind

I keep saying there is NO SHORTAGE of oil. There is a shortage of Cheap oil, but when the price get to a hundred bucks, they will come to Florida and drill in your back yard. There is more oil than we can possibly use.

CARPE DIEM: Julian Simon via John Tierney Wins Another Bet

"Giant new oil fields have been discovered off the coasts of Africa and Brazil. The new oil sands projects in Canada now supply more oil to the United States than Saudi Arabia does. Oil production in the United States increased last year, and the Department of Energy projects further increases over ...

You can be arrested in the USA for ANYTHING the jack booted thugs decide you should be. There is no justice

Almost Everything Is A Crime In America Now: 14 Of The Most Ridiculous Things That Americans Are Bei

Doesn't it seem like almost everything is becoming a crime in America now? Americans are being arrested and charged with crimes for doing things like leaving

I am an Economic Environmentalist. I hope Others will read these questions:
* Why do those who object to tampering with the environment approve of tampering with the economy? Isn’t the economy also a fragile ecosystem where a sudden change can trigger a devastating chain reaction?
* Aren’t most of today’s social ills the result of that tampering with social ecosystems

Pajamas Media » Question Insanity: What to Ask Progressives

The two women who showed up early for my book signing at a small bookstore in Houston, TX, never even bothered to open my book. Wearing knowing smiles, they engaged me in a bizarre discussion that wound up leaping all around the known and unknown universe. They hadn’t the slightest curiosity about m

You have to read the comments to see the anger people have over the TSA and the Government misbehavior. How Long before there is a real uprising against this MESS?

Chris Liu: I am the YouTube airline pilot | News10.net | Sacramento, California | News

COLFAX, CA - WORLD EXCLUSIVE: The airline pilot who lost his federally-issued gun and badge for posting video on YouTube critical of airport security has chosen to go public with his identity.

Spening us into oblivion

Last Congress Outspends First 100 Congresses

The United States has been a country for 234 years, and during that time we have had 111 congresses. The last one has a very distinguished (and shameful) accomplishment: they blew more of the American people’s money than the first 100 congresses combined. From CNS News: The federal government...

Hiring a hit mob paying a bounty to a mercenary who will kill for money. That's the kind of religion that must really please God...Mercy.

Muslim Protests As Cleric Offers Thousands For Killing Christian

Muslims began protests Friday, December 24, against plans to change Pakistan's blasphemy laws, after an Islamic leader offered nearly $6,000 for the killing of a Christian woman he accused of offending Islam.

Why are we so bad at education in this country? We spend zillions on trying to teach and kids come out of school with virtually no competencies. English is abysmal, Math crippled and Ignorance of the sciences and history makes people subject to all kinds of falsehood and propaganda. This is a crime. Let the Church educate. We can do better. VOUCHERS

K-12 Spending Per Student in the OECD | Mercatus

This chart by Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow Veronique de Rugy compares K-12 education expenditures per pupil in each of the world’s major industrial powers. As we can see, with the exception of Switzerland, the United States spends more than any other country on education, an average of $91

This is for my friends who are on the other end of the political spectrum. This helped me understand what it's all about

Dump the Bipartisan Mush: Here’s How You Do It for Real — The American, A Magazine o

Here’s how serious people transcend ideological differences. And we don’t need no stinkin’ ‘no labels’ badges.

Cultural breakdown

Manatee sheriff: Couple attacked at movie theater - Crime & Courts - BradentonHerald.com

MANATEE A Marine and his wife were attacked outside a movie theatre Christmas night after asking a group of teens to be quiet during a movie.

This is what we all have to look forward to with government health care. GEE...I don't feel better.

Man's penis amputated following misdiagnosis - The Local

A Swedish man was forced to have his penis amputated after waiting more than a year to learn he had cancer.

We just don't have that fire in the belly as a nation any more. How do we get it back?

The Poverty Of Ambition: Why The West Is Losing To China And India - The New World Order | Newgeogra

The last 10 years have been the worst for Western civilization since the 1930s. At the onset of the new millennium North America, Europe and Oceania stood at the cutting edge of the future, with new technologies and a lion’s share of the world’s GDP. At its end, most of these economies limped,

It's nights like this that I DON'T miss North Dakota. They are having a huge blizzard that has shut down the whole state. It's snowing. 40-50 MPH winds blowing the snow, below zero. AND people are out in it. A 100 car pile up just west of Fargo. You die in this kind of weather. BUT, people in ND look out for one ...another. No one did. Still in all...it's brutal.

SNOWcopalypse in North Dakota: 100 car pileup on I-94 [video]

Weather conditions have made travel dangerous in North Dakota and Minnesota. Hazardous road conditions prompted the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Minnesota State Patrol to close Interstate 94 and

Sometimes being merciful isn't. This makes me sad

New Orleans Boots Residents Out of Last FEMA Trailers

In the five years since Hurricane Katrina, FEMA trailers have been a fixture of the New Orleans landscape—but by the start of next year, the city wants the last ones gone. It calls the 221 remaining... US News Summaries.

The Militant Atheist Mean Spirited Heart

The loudest voices of today's militant atheism, for all their talk of rational thought, don't seem to want to do too much thinking at all. As James Wood wrote in The New Yorker, "The new atheists do not speak to the millions of people whose form of religion is far from the embodied certainties of contemporary literalism. Indeed, it is a settled assumption of this kind of atheism that there are no intelligent religious believers."

What spiritual quest are they on, except to put an abrupt end to those like my father's? For them, the science is settled, the data are conclusive and the book (no, not the Good Book) has been written. Time for everyone else to pack up and move on to other business, like, presumably, accumulating wealth and fulminating at the sight of the nearest Christmas tree.

The militant atheist wants nothing more than to spoil the believer's spiritual journey. That's both mean-spirited and radically unenlightened.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/12/29/2010-12-29_the_arrogance_of_the_atheists_they_batter_believers_with_smug_certainty.html#ixzz19b5U8Em3

How Did All That Happen?

The Improbables

There are a number of improbables, anomalies, paradoxes, ironies, absurdities — call them what you wish – on the national scene that simply defy reason. We usually fault an ignorant media as culpable for creating narratives that have no basis in fact and yet are rarely questioned. Here are some of the glaring examples and you decide how the unlikely became the gospel.

How Did All That Happen?

What the deal on the right says if you can't read it

Still doesn't come out....click on the picture and you will get a full sized image

Important Information

It takes 7 seconds for food to pass from mouth to stomach. A human hair can hold 3kg. The length of a penis is 3 times the length of the thumb. The femur is as hard as concrete. A woman's heart beats faster then a man's. Women blink 2x as much as men. We use 300 muscles just to keep our balance when we stand. The woman has read this entire text. The man is still looking at his thumb.

SOUTHERN LEE HIGH SCHOOL IN SANFORD NORTH CAROLINA should be closed. Its principal, and board of education, are too dumb to hold jobs. And its Superintendent, Jeffrey C. Moss, is no poster boy for Ed.D. degrees.

“Bottom line is we want to ensure every child feels safe on our campus.” Not safe from idiots like you, Mr. Moss. Because you’re unwilling to take responsibility for discipline, you formulate and enforce rules that make public schools — and now, particularly, yours — a national joke. From the comments: “Let’s have the students feel safe. How about letting them feel like their entire lives and livelihood aren’t at risk at your institution from an honest mistake. You are ruining this child’s life and future because some bonehead can’t recognize an honest mistake.”

It’s beginning to seem like placing your children in public schools is placing them at unacceptable risk.

U.S. Army waiting list near record levels with high unemployment, GI Bill | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

U.S. Army waiting list near record levels with high unemployment, GI Bill | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

The military is still an employer of last resort. I think that's good

DeMint: Palin has done more for the GOP ‘than anyone since Reagan’ | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

DeMint: Palin has done more for the GOP ‘than anyone since Reagan’ | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

The two have never met, but Sarah Palin’s star power hasn’t gone unnoticed by Sen. Jim DeMint.

“We’ve never spoken, but she left me a nice message, and I believe she’s done more for the Republican Party than anyone since Ronald Reagan,” DeMint said.

In a Politico article published Wednesday, DeMint and other senators

are quoted talking about 2012 election candidate and courting possibilities. Mitt Romney is “near the top of [DeMint's] list” as well.

DeMint is not the first political official to draw connections between Palin

and the 40th president. Earlier this year, Arizona Sen. John McCain made the Palin-Reagan comparison during a CNN interview.

“I think that anybody who has the visibility that Sarah has is obviously going to have some divisiveness,” McCain said. I remember that a guy named Ronald Reagan used to be viewed by some as divisive.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/29/demint-palin-has-done-more-for-the-gop-than-anyone-since-reagan/#ixzz19WYTLAKZ

The Year in Review: Top Spiritual Trends of 2010

The Year in Review: Top Spiritual Trends of 2010

Insane policies in High School

I don't know any more. Do you ever come to the conclusions that the world has gone completly nuts.

Read this and see if you agree.

School officials in Sanford, NC have suspended* a young high school girl for the rest of the year because she accidentally brought her dad’s lunchbox to school, which contained a small paring knife used to cut an apple.

17-year-old senior Ashley Smithwick, an academic and athletic standout who’s even won beauty pageants, was suspended from Southern Lee High School in October after school officials found the knife in her lunchbox during a random search for drugs.

TheDC analysis: EPA global warming regulations no ‘end run’ around Congress | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

TheDC analysis: EPA global warming regulations no ‘end run’ around Congress | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

This story is disturbing. The overreaching of government.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s pending global warming regulations are no “end run” around Congress, as many conservatives are charging. This time, Congress is being held hostage by its own laws.

The real story is the decades-long campaign by environmentalists to weave a legal web all but compelling the government to enact strict new climate change rules.

In 1970, before global warming was even on the radar map, Congress in the Clean Air Act gave the EPA the power to regulate air pollutants that damage “weather” and “climate” from automobiles and other moving pollution sources.

Members of Congress debating the law barely mentioned this language, according to a book about the law by environmental law professor Arnold Reitze. Meanwhile, a government report discussed the possibility that pollution could lead to another ice age.

It wasn’t until 1990 that the issue came to the forefront again, this time when Congress enacted a major update to the Clean Air Act. Then, some liberals in the Senate fought to require controls under the law on “greenhouse gases” thought to cause global warming. The provision was stripped from the bill in Conference Committee.

But in the last few years of the Clinton administration, the Carol Browner-led EPA issued a legal memo laying the groundwork for regulating global warming under the Clean Air Act’s existing language.

UAW Ready for Fresh Triumphs! - Newsweek

UAW Ready for Fresh Triumphs! - Newsweek

UAW President Bob King said the union intends to launch a campaign in January to organize the U.S. manufacturing plants of Asian and German automakers ...

King said the UAW has a better story to tell transplant workers today than it had over several decades of failed efforts to organize those workers.

And that "better story" is:　

a) Two of the three firms we've organized have already gone bankrupt!

b) In the process they lost almost 34,000 jobs!

c) "The UAW was first to the table to make concessions and sacrifices that have helped Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group to emerge from the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, [King] said. Those concessions equate to between $7,000 and $30,000 per worker."

d) "The UAW now represents about 120,000 hourly workers at the Detroit 3, down several fold from even a decade ago because of plant closings and buyouts."

e) Unionize and the Obama administration might help you out.

STUPID

A Faux Compassionate Christmas, Courtesy of the Left

Pajamas Media » A Faux Compassionate Christmas, Courtesy of the Left

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson pointed a figurative gun to the heads of large bank CEOs, demanding that they accept government “investment” in their institutions. Thus began the left-inspired statist encroachment that has since moved into more areas than can be named, some of which include auto manufacturing, small agriculture, education lending, and even school bake sales.

The statist “solution” for improving the economy they brought down was Keynesian “stimulus” — y’know, the strategy which was tried and failed with FDR in the 1930s and in Japan in the 1990s. We were supposed to keep a straight face when they told us: “This time it’s going to work.”

It becomes more reasonable with each passing day to believe that Pelosi, Obama, Reid, and the White House’s group of economic lamebrains knew it wouldn’t work, and didn’t care. Why? Because almost two years and over $3 trillion in debt later, after stimulus has clearly failed, it’s still the only “solution” they offer.

Read the whole thing

When we whistle past the graveyard, this is what the gravestones look like

From Heritage Foundation,

The top ten charts that tell us how close to the tipping point we really are.

HERE

Elenore thinks Sarah might be POTUS

I watched McGlaughlin Group Sat Nite. Elenore Clift thinks Sarah Palin will run and might even win the Presidency. The Republicans on the panel shuddered. WHY>

If Sarah Palin were Liberal and Black she would be considered to be profoundly qualified to be President of the USA

The left has a visceral hatred for Palin…because she is a maximum threat. Remember! Whatever the object of the liberal progressives hatred is, LQQK that direction because it means it is a threat. They will always tell you where their concerns are. Learn to read their actions.

TheDC Predictions: 11 things that will happen in 2011 | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

TheDC Predictions: 11 things that will happen in 2011 | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

This would be funny if it wasn't so true

Proof Positive: Saturday Linkaround

Proof Positive: Saturday Linkaround

This is a bunch of links you may appreciate since you have so much time on your hands.

Anti-Christian Group Attacks Ark Encounter

Anti-Christian Group Attacks Ark Encounter

Photo credit: Answers in Genesis

Fox News is reporting on the ongoing war on Christian freedom of religious expression perpetrated by “Reverend” Barry Lynn’s Americans United for Separation of Church and State organization.

The planned construction of Ark Encounter, a creationist theme park in Kentucky that could be eligible for millions of dollars in tax incentives, has come under fire from critics who say it would rupture the wall of separation between church and state.

Anti-Christians like Lynn couldn’t wait to howl about the Ark Encounter project as soon as it was announced. Answers in Genesis, the nonprofit ministry that will partner with Ark Encounter in funding the construction of the attraction, issued this statement in the wake of misinformation and incomplete information provided by the “mainstream” media:

We'll just all take a mark and buy and sell that way, yeah, that's the ticket

A cashless global economy might reduce organized crime and terrorism: Lipow - International Business

By getting rid of cash, nations around the world might be able to significantly reduce organized crime and political terrorism since those activities are heavily reliant on easy accessibility to dollars, euros, pounds sterling, yen and other paper currencies.

mmm...

Fox News: People, we're in deep trouble

Even compared to the manifest swindles and perversions of the past 20 years, we haven't seen anything like Fox News

But actually creationist believers still has high number

Poll: Belief in Evolution Increases : Discovery News

news.discovery.com

A new Gallup poll shows a slightly higher rate of acceptance of evolution.

9 hours ago · · Comment · Share

Losing Reagan's Legacy | Politeia | Big Think

When 71 senators to voted to ratify New START it was a huge victory for Obama and the Democrats. The vote would normally have been a victory for Republicans. The original START—which stands for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty—was one of Ronald Reagan’s signature achievements. Ultimately signed by Ge

h

America Warned Is Just Months Away From Financial Armageddon | Pakalert Press

The plan of the American Progressives, led by President Obama, to plunge the United States into economic chaos in order for their being able to ‘rebuild’ it from ‘the bottom up’ appears to be nearing success as new warnings have been issued stating that they are just months away from financial

Tea Partiers and the Spirit of Giving

Charitable gifts are a cheerful protest vote against the growing state.

When it comes to voluntarily spreading their own wealth around, a distinct "charity gap" opens up between Americans who are for and against government income leveling. Your intuition might tell you that people who favor government redistribution care most about the less fortunate and would give more to charity. Initially, this was my own assumption. But the data tell a different story.

The most recent year that a large, nonpartisan survey asked people about both redistributive beliefs and charitable giving was 1996. That year, the General Social Survey (GSS) found that those who were against higher levels of government redistribution privately gave four times as much money, on average, as people who were in favor of redistribution. This is not all church-related giving; they also gave about 3.5 times as much to nonreligious causes. Anti-redistributionists gave more even after correcting for differences in income, age, religion and education.

Of course, there are other ways to give than with money. Here again the results may be different from what you might expect. The GSS in 2002 showed that those who said the government was "spending too much money on welfare" were more likely to donate blood than those who said the government was "spending too little money on welfare." The anti-redistributionists were also more likely to give someone directions on the street, return change mistakenly handed them by a cashier, and give food (or money) to a homeless person.

So what does all this tell us? Contrary to the liberal stereotype of the hard-hearted right-winger, opposition to income-leveling is not evidence that one does not care about others. Quite the contrary. The millions of Americans who believe in limited government give disproportionately to others. This is in addition to—not instead of—their defense of our free-enterprise system, which gives the most people the most opportunities to earn their own success.

Read the whole thing

Of Course that dope Paul Krugman doesn't get this and writes that the Right is a bunch of Scrooges.

HA. Of course I shouldn't be surprised. He is wrong nearly all the time about almost everything.

Read and weep Mr Nobel prize winner....

Why we are broke

The new tax law is full of stupid spending.

The massive new tax bill signed into law by President Barack Obama is filled with all kinds of holiday stocking stuffers for businesses: tax breaks for producing TV shows, grants for putting up windmills, rum subsidies for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

There is even a tax break for people who buy race horses.

Millions of homeowners, however, might feel like they got a lump of coal. Homeowners who don't itemize their deductions will lose a tax break for paying local property taxes.

Read the whole thing but take a blood pressure pill first.