Not to mention that there seems to be some difficulty on your side of the fence distinguishing between Average and Median. The Median is by far more accurate, because large outliers on either side - large numbers of poor or rich - don't affect it as strongly.
Cycloptichorn
Maybe the NSA can help us with Bernard's code. Or maybe he can explain how, and to what extent, it contradicts Cyclo's map.
Sadly, NSA can only work with science, technology, linguists, mathemations, engineers, overhead, infrared, ELINT, TELINT, SIGINT, COMINT, HUMINT, our intelligence partners and intelligence anaylst's. There is no room for folks with rose colored glasses. And if you are a member of the John Birch Society, don't even THINK of applying. My apologies for Gen. Hayden, we didn't get a vote.
Thank you. McGentrix!
Anyone who operates above the level of a moron can find almost any RELIABLE statistics on the economy on the BLS link. It is quite simple. In the little box where it says-Search Web- you type in Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Even Cyclopitchorn can do it!!!!
Well I'll be damned, did Bernard just admit that he operates just slightly above a moron???? Who told him, was it you???? I'm guess that he must be one of Bush's Economic Advisors. You know the guys, the ones who linked Iraq with 9/11 and then got promoted.
Thank you. McGentrix!
Anyone who operates above the level of a moron can find almost any RELIABLE statistics on the economy on the BLS link. It is quite simple. In the little box where it says-Search Web- you type in Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Even Cyclopitchorn can do it!!!!
and now, I will give Cyclopitchorn some information which he can easily find on the Census Bureau link.
If Cyclopitchorn references the table
INCOME AND EARNINGS SURVEY MEASURES
HE WILL DISCOVER THE FOLLOWING:
For 2004----MEDIAN INCOME ALL HOUSEHOLDS----45,817
For 2005----MEDIAN INCOME ALL HOUSEHOLDS----46,326
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you. McGentrix!
Anyone who operates above the level of a moron can find almost any RELIABLE statistics on the economy on the BLS link. It is quite simple. In the little box where it says-Search Web- you type in Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Even Cyclopitchorn can do it!!!!
and now, I will give Cyclopitchorn some information which he can easily find on the Census Bureau link.
If Cyclopitchorn references the table
INCOME AND EARNINGS SURVEY MEASURES
HE WILL DISCOVER THE FOLLOWING:
For 2004----MEDIAN INCOME ALL HOUSEHOLDS----45,817
For 2005----MEDIAN INCOME ALL HOUSEHOLDS----46,326
AND CYCLOPTICHORN ALSO DOES NOT KNOW THE FOLLOWING FACTS!
The Census Bureau reported:
Poverty. The portion of Americans living in poverty declined to 12.6% in 2005, down from 12.7% a year earlier. About 37 million people lived in poverty in 2005. Poverty was defined as annual income of $19,971 or less for a family of four.
Seniors. Income rose fastest for people 65 and older, jumping 2.8%. Older Americans benefited from greater income from Social Security, pensions and dividends.
Minorities. Household income for blacks declined 0.8% to $30,858. Asians enjoyed a big income gain, up 2.8% to $61,094, adding to their status as the most prosperous racial or ethnic group. Hispanic income grew 1.6% to $35,967. Non-Hispanic whites had a 0.5% increase to $50,784.
Women. Women earned 77% of men, up slightly from 2004 and continuing a trend that has seen women's wages rise in relation to men from 71% in 1995.
The Census report is an imprecise measure of income and poverty. The numbers do not include the value of food stamps, housing subsidies, Medicaid, Medicare or the earned income tax credit.
The earned income tax credit is the nation's largest cash assistance program for the poor, providing an average of $1,600 to 21 million households in 2005.
What Cyclopitchorn does not know is that his figures are bogus since they do not include
THE VALUE OF FOOD STAMPS
HOUSING SUBSIDIES
MEDICARE
MEDICADE
THE EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT WORTH AN AVERAGE OF $1,600 TO EACH ELIGIBLE FAMILY!!!
Damn, I was right!
_________________
You haven't lived your whole life yet, so be careful how you judge people.
No more confirmation needed. Case closed.
Sorry Bernie, the party's over, here's your coat.
A Canadian gift of Americana to the Americans here...
Quote:Our magnificent isolation
It's hard for Americans to visualize our country's collapse. If the president turns out to be a shallow fool, we still expect to survive it.
By Garrison Keillor
Sep. 06, 2006 | Growing up in the '50s, we imagined our country defended by guided missiles poised in bunkers, jet fighters on the tarmac and pilots in the ready room prepared to scramble, a colonel with a black briefcase sitting in the hall outside the president's bedroom. But Sept. 11 gave us a clearer picture. We have a vast array of hardware, a multitude of colonels, a lot of bureaucratic confusion, and a nation vulnerable to attack.
The FAA has now acknowledged that the third of the four planes seized by the 19 men with box cutters had already hit the Pentagon before the FAA finally called there to say there was a problem. The FAA lied to the 9/11 Commission about this, then took two years to ascertain the facts -- a 51-minute gap in defense -- and released the finding on the Friday before Labor Day, an excellent burial site for bad news.
So America is not the secure fortress we grew up imagining. Perhaps it never was. What protects us is what has protected us for 230 years: our magnificent isolation. After the disasters of the 20th century, Europe put nationalism aside and adopted civilization, but we have oceans on either side, so if the president turns out to be a shallow jingoistic fool with a small rigid agenda and little knowledge of the world, we expect to survive it somehow. Life goes on.
It's hard for Americans to visualize the collapse of our country. It's as unthinkable as one's own demise. Europeans are different: They've seen disaster, even the British. They know it was a near thing back in 1940. My old Danish mother-in-law remembered the occupation clearly 40 years later and was teary-eyed when she talked about it. Francis Scott Key certainly could envision the demise of the United States in 1814 when he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry. Lincoln was haunted by the thought. We are not, apparently, though five years ago we saw a shadow.
You might think from the latest broadsides that the republic is teetering, that it's Munich again, the Nazis are on the loose, and the Current Occupant is Winston Churchill, and that to question him is treachery. The fury of the right wing is quite remarkable -- to maintain a sense of persecution after years of being in power is like Donald Trump feeling overlooked -- but life goes on.
We really are one people at heart. We all believe that when thousands of people are trapped in the Superdome without food or water, it is the duty of government, the federal government if necessary, to come to their rescue and to restore them to the civil mean and not abandon them to fate. Right there is the basis of liberalism. Conservatives tried to introduce a new idea -- it's your fault if you get caught in a storm -- and this idea was rejected by nine out of 10 people once they saw the pictures. The issue is whether we care about people who don't get on television.
Last week I sat and listened to a roomful of parents talk about their battles with public schools in behalf of their children who suffer from dyslexia, or apraxia, or ADD, or some other disability -- sagas of ferocious parental love vs. stonewall bureaucracy in the quest for basic needful things -- and how some of them had uprooted their families and moved to Minnesota so their children could attend better schools. You couldn't tell if those parents were Republicans or Democrats. They simply were prepared to move mountains so their kids could have a chance. So are we all.
And that's the mission of politics: to give our kids as good a chance as we had. They say that liberals have run out of new ideas -- it's like saying that Christians have run out of new ideas. Maybe the old doctrine of grace is good enough.
I don't get much hope from Democrats these days, a timid and skittish bunch, slow to learn, unable to sing the hymns and express the steady optimism that is at the heart of the heart of the country. I get no hope at all from Republicans, whose policies seem predicated on the Second Coming occurring in the very near future. If Jesus does not descend through the clouds to take them directly to paradise, and do it now, they are going to have to answer to the rest of us.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/09/06/keillor/print.html
The old fool wrote:Growing up in the '50s...
Thanks. I'll file this under more whining from the Defeatocrats.
So Sierra,is it now the Republican position that people in their fifties and sixties don't have anything important to say?
That's about the only conclusion that can be drawn by your highlighting the author's assertion that he grew up in the fifties as being somehow incriminating.
Personally, I think the Republicans shouldn't just let this fact simmer in the background. If the Republican party really thinks that people who grew up in the fifties ought to just be quiet and not voice their concerns, they shuold publicize this fact more so that the electorate can appreciate the bold freshness of Republican thinking.
Up to now, both parties always mouthed these platitudes about Americans all being in this together, etc. However, if the Republican Party now wishes to depart from this and essentially decide that certain age groups really don't count, they ought to shout it from the rooftops and let us know. Don't be shy. This is a bold initiative coming from the Republican Party, and I feel strongly all your candidates should make it a point to emphasize this during this election as an example of the excitingly fresh new thinking you get when you vote for a Republican.
And...a little something for the Dems who read this thread:
The numbers in the latest CQ projection: 220 Republican, 203 Democrat, 12 No Clear Favorite in the House of Representatives; 52 Republican, 45 Democrat, 3 No Clear Favorite in the Senate.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/06map.html
KW - are you working on those 'search' skills we chatted about? I found two more excellent articles (milestones really) of good news from Iraq yesterday. Get cracking. You don't want to be 'left behind', now do you?
And in defense of those folks in their fifties and sixties, a whole bunch are quite nicely conservative and even vote Republican. I know more than a few who aren't that crazy about Republicans but are much less crazy about the Defeatocrats with their whining and negativism and pessimism.
Are all Democrats Defeatocrats? Nope. Just those for whom the shoe fits.
My, Sierra, you certainly tried to change the subject quickly.
Once again, now that you feel it is a telling criticism for any writer to admit that he or she grew up in the fifties, I think you should expand on that. It is a bold departure from the usual "We are all Americans together" thing we continually hear, and I for one would like to find out what new policies we can expect based on the new Republican principle that people who grew up in the fifties really don't count.
Please amplify.
