Tom Faranda's Folly

My co-authored Journal News/Lohud.com op ed published this morning

Here it is - co-written with Judy Anderson. And with a picture from our recent live streamed forum, which you can also reach through the link.

Community view: Clinic law aims to restrict speech

New World Trade Center set to become tallest NYC building today

An interesting article on the New York skyline.

If the winds are forgiving enough over Lower Manhattan — up where workers can see the whole outline of the island’s tip — a steel column will be hoisted into place Monday afternoon atop the exoskeleton of 1 World Trade Center and New York will have a new tallest building.

More important, downtown will have reclaimed its pole star.

Poking into the sky, the first column of the 100th floor of 1 World Trade Center will bring the tower to a height of 1,271 feet, making it 21 feet higher than the Empire State Building.

After several notorious false starts, a skyscraper has finally taken form at ground zero. At first, its twin cranes could be detected creeping over the jumbled tops of nearby towers. Then, at the rate of a new floor every week, it began reshaping the Manhattan skyline as seen from New Jersey. By late last fall, it could be spotted from the control tower at La Guardia Airport, eight and a half miles away.

A tower has again become an inescapable presence at the southern end of Manhattan.

And my favorite building drops back into second place

This is the second time a skyscraper called 1 World Trade Center has edged over the Empire State Building. The first was on Oct. 19, 1970, when a section of steel framework elevated the north tower of the trade center to 1,254 feet, four feet above Empire State’s 1,250-foot benchmark.

Hit the link, the whole article is cool.

 

Live blogging a Mt. Everest ascent

Not live blogging by me of course.

As reported in the NY Daily News.

Mount Everest climbers live-blog their ascent, send breathtaking photos and real-time updates.

And here's the actual National Geographic blog -

ON EVEREST - Dispatches From the Roof of the World

Kimmel on Obama and the Secret Service

At the annual White House press dinner - pretty funny ...

 

Bill "Moose" Skowron

Ugh. This is depressing. The Yankee first baseman from the great late 50's early 60's era.

Moose Skowron big winner in game of life

The final out is in. Moose Skowron won.

William J. Skowron the son of a Depression-era garbage collector from Chicago's Northwest Side, died after a series of illnesses Friday at 81.

But his baseball legend and gift for friendship and good will long be remembered.

His major league statistics frame the empirical tale of an amazingly gifted athlete who traversed both the game's most fabled basepaths and the sport's most glamorous side channels.

His lifeline, from his marble-shooting days at Fullerton and Long to his eight World Series appearances to his final days at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, tell the story of a simple, dignified man whose primary constants were unremitting kindness and the unabridged directness of a royal craftsman.

"He was a professional. He was a champion. He was a great guy," former Yankees teammate Tony Kubek said.

Added White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf: "While Moose may have become a star in New York, he was a Chicagoan through and through. … My guess right now is that Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Hank Bauer and Moose are enjoying a good laugh together."

First time since the Depression: more Mexicans leaving U.S. then entering

From the Washington Post -

A four-decade tidal wave of Mexican immigration to the United States has receded, causing a historic shift in migration patterns as more Mexicans appear to be leaving the United States for Mexico than the other way around, according to a report from the Pew Hispanic Center.

Pete Fornatale

Gone at 66.

Pete Fornatale, a disc jockey who helped usher in a musical alternative to Top 40 AM radio in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s, presenting progressive rock and long album tracks that AM stations wouldn’t touch and helping to give WNEW a major presence on the still-young FM dial, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 66.

Mr. Fornatale (pronounced forn-a-TELL) had actually beaten WNEW to the punch. As a sophomore at Fordham University in 1964, he persuaded the school’s Jesuit leaders to let him do a free-form rock show on what was officially an educational station. He continued that show for a few years after he graduated, and for a while could be heard on both WFUV and WNEW.

WOR-FM became the first commercial station in New York to adopt the format, in 1966, but abandoned it after about a year. WNEW, with the slogan “Where Rock Lives,” adopted it in 1967.

Mr. Fornatale came on board in 1969 and quickly moved to the center of New York’s music scene. He gave early exposure to country-rock bands like Buffalo Springfield and Poco. He did one of the first American interviews with Elton John, and got a rousing ovation when he brought a rented surfboard to Carnegie Hall for a Beach Boys show. He introduced Curtis Mayfield to Bob Dylan at a Muhammad Ali fight.

Animal lovers: Bear comes down with a thud

Kind of a cute video.

Nice that they padded the landing zone!

 

Sign of the times - from my always insightful friend Joe

U.S. #1 in teenage/young adult mortality rate among wealthy countries

Pretty amazingly pathetic stats

The new mantra for a growing number of American youths: Party hard, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.

A new study of adolescent health around the globe found the United States had the highest mortality rate for people ages 10-to-24 of any high-income country in the world.

The American kids were also No. 1 in pot-smoking, moving toward the top spot in boozing — all while still hitting the gym harder than their contemporaries in other wealthy nations.

Death on the wrong end of a gun or any other violent method is up to 20 times more likely in the U.S. than the other 27 wealthy nations, according to findings reported in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

Traffic accidents combined with the violent deaths boosted the U.S. to its undesired position atop the mortality charts, The Lancet wrote in a series of articles this week.

The Prez on Jimmy Fallon Show

Funny, I suppose it's supposed to be. Is Fallon supposed to be a comedian? or something ... 380,000 plus viewers so far.I have never watched the Jimmy Fallon Show. Don't even know when it's on or what channel.

Looking to be the first African-American Republican in Congress.

Nice story. She's currently the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah. Evidently she has a good shot at winning this seat in Utah.

Mia Love won the GOP nomination for the 4th Congressional District race Saturday at the Utah Republican Convention, scoring a major upset after wowing the crowd with a roof-raising speech at the South Towne Expo Center in Sandy.

The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Mrs. Love took 70.4 percent of the delegate vote, well in excess of the 60 percent required to avoid a primary runoff under Utah’s unique rules. She defeated former state legislator Carl Wimmer, who had been viewed as the heavy favorite. He mustered only 29.6 percent of the vote.

If Mrs. Love, 37, defeats her Democratic opponent, Rep. Jim Matheson, she will become the first black Republican woman to serve in the House.

Love is a Mormon.

Exercising ... and a better brain!

Good feature in the NY Times. Not a quick read, but well worth the time.

For more than a decade, neuroscientists and physiologists have been gathering evidence of the beneficial relationship between exercise and brainpower. But the newest findings make it clear that this isn’t just a relationship; it is the relationship. Using sophisticated technologies to examine the workings of individual neurons — and the makeup of brain matter itself — scientists in just the past few months have discovered that exercise appears to build a brain that resists physical shrinkage and enhance cognitive flexibility. Exercise, the latest neuroscience suggests, does more to bolster thinking than thinking does.

Home prices now at 2002 levels

They'll be no economic recovery until housing prices turn around. We'll be waiting awhile.

From the just released Case-Shiller housing report, a grim reminder of how much time we've lost.

In China - that first step is a doozy

This video of the girl suddenly disappearing through the pavement in China is all over the internet. My friend Damian sent it to me off CNN - this version is from the UK Telegram.

A gutsy cab driver!

Movie: Went to "The Cabin in the Woods"

As I mentioned here Movie: "The Cabin in the Woods" we know Bill and Melinda Connolly, the parents of Kristen, who turned out to be the leading actress in this movie. We went to see it today (we rarely go to movies - last one was Avatar), really enjoyed it, and especially enjoyed Kristen, as Dana - sort of the girl next door, caught up in a horror movie.

It's actually a bit hard to classify this movie, since it's a little bit tongue in cheek. Here's a quote from the wiki entry for the movie:

Film critic Roger Ebert gave The Cabin in the Woods three stars out of four, and commented: "The Cabin in the Woods has been constructed almost as a puzzle for horror fans to solve. Which conventions are being toyed with? Which authors and films are being referred to? Is the film itself an act of criticism?"^[22]

But for us, the big thrill was seeing Kristen giving a fine performance "on the big screen"!

 

Study shows media favored Romney over Obama during the Primaries

Of course they're not running against each other yet.

I think the author of this piece, Howard Kurtz, is pretty reliable.

Forget liberal bias. A new study reveals that the press covered Romney twice as favorably as Obama during the primaries

Ahhh, but the reason for the negative treatment was that the media was reporting what the Primary candidates were saying - which is of course attacking Obama.

The 13 most useless college degrees

Mind you, this is according to "The Daily Beast" and they're associated with the very useless news magaxine, Newsweek. So consider the source ...

Most useless is Fine Arts. English and History are both on the list.

The 13 Most Useless Majors, From Philosophy to Journalism

Woman donates kidney for boss; boss fires her

Only in New York. The boss didn't get her kidney, but the donation moved her up the line to receive one ...

It was after each woman's surgeries last August that Brucia began showing a darker side, according to the complaint.

Organ transplant surgery requires extensive recovery time, but Stevens alleges that she felt pressured to return to work in September -- less than a month after the surgery -- even as Brucia was still recuperating at home.

According to the newspaper, Stevens went home sick three days after her return to work. That didn't sit well with Brucia who, while still convalescing at home, called Stevens to berate her.

"She ... said, 'What are you doing? Why aren't you at work?' I told her I didn't feel good," Stevens told the Post. "She said, 'You can't come and go as you please. People are going to think you're getting special treatment.' "

Stevens said such treatment continued after Brucia returned to work, with the boss yelling at Stevens in front of co-workers for supposed errors.

Eventually, Stevens says, she was demoted to another car dealership and subsequently fired.

In addition to the complaint filed with the Human Rights commission, Stevens is also pursuing a court challenge for her dismissal.

As for Brucia, she declined to return calls, and Atlantic Automotive Group didn't return a request for comment.

The Post notes that Brucia apparently is doing just fine months after the surgery, reporting that she was spotted outside her home Friday, "getting into a limo with plastic cups and what appeared to be a bottle of pink champagne."

Rugby: New Zealand Match, Auckland v. Wellington

Auckland Blues v. Wellington Hurricanes. Played three weeks ago and an exciting game.

 

The original BS bumper sticker removal kit!

Video has had 2 and a half million hits. Do your friends a favor and email them the link.

"Even works on a prius." HA!

Great video: "The History of English in Ten Minutes"

Funny, tongue in cheek, but loaded with facts. Only problem - you need ten minutes. If you click through to youtube, there's a brief explanation of how the video was put together.

 

Chuck Colson

Funny how all the headlines this morning about his death start off with the same line - "hatchet man" of Watergate. You'd almost think it was a conspiracy. Another case of GroupThink.

Here's CNN Watergate figure, Christian leader Chuck Colson dies as an example:

(CNN) -- Chuck Colson, a Watergate-era "hatchet man" for President Richard Nixon who became an influential evangelical leader after serving time in prison, died Saturday afternoon, according to his website. He was 80.

Of course Colson should be best remembered for his founding of Prison Fellowship Ministry to convicts. Through this ministry Colson has had a huge positive influence on hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of people.

He was also very involved in many interfaith initiatives such as The Manhattan Declaration, which has been signed by over 525,000 people, including Brigid and I.

Turns out the urban poor do have easy access to nutritious food

From the NY Times a few days ago.

It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables.

But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.

******

Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods. Despite campaigns to get Americans to exercise more and eat healthier foods, obesity rates have not budged over the past decade, according to recently released federal data.

“It is always easy to advocate for more grocery stores,” said Kelly D. Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, who was not involved in the studies. “But if you are looking for what you hope will change obesity, healthy food access is probably just wishful thinking.”

This reinforces my belief that Bread for the World, a group I've supported, should concentrate efforts internationally, not in the United States.

Down 0-9 to Red Sox, Yanks score 15!! - plus - White Sox perfect game

Incredible - Swisher had a grand slam and he and Texiera both had 6 RBI's.

People in Boston must be going out windows and off bridges.

Down nine early, gutsy Yanks stun Boston

AND

a former Met first round pick threw a perfect game ...  for the White Sox.

Phil Humber, who underwent Tommy John surgery seven years ago, threw the first perfect game in the majors in almost two years, leading the Chicago White Sox to a 4-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Saturday.

Here's an interview with Humber - seems like a nice guy.

Perfect in Seattle

 

It's a safe bet this guy has a LOT of money

Same sex marriage? Why not polygamy?

Of course. Why not?

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum got jeered for comparing the legalization of same-sex marriage to that of polygamy, but, whether or not the comparison is rationally sound, thoughts of the former’s facilitating the latter bring a smile to many Islamists. If the definition of marriage can evolve in terms of gender, some Muslims ask, why not in terms of number?

The “same argument” theme is fleshed out in an October 2011 piece titled “Polygamy: Tis the Season?” in the Muslim Link, a newspaper serving the Washington and Baltimore areas. “There are murmurs among the polygamist community as the country moves toward the legalization of gay marriage,” it explains. “As citizens of the United States, they argue, they should have the right to legally marry whoever they please, or however many they please.” The story quotes several Muslim advocates of polygamy. “As far as legalization, I think they should,” says Hassan Amin, a Baltimore imam who performs polygamous religious unions. “We should strive to have it legalized because Allah has already legalized it.”

Again and again the article connects the normalization of same-sex marriage and Islamic polygamy. “As states move toward legalizing gay marriage, the criminalization of polygamy is a seemingly striking inconsistency in constitutional law,” it asserts. “Be it gay marriage or polygamous marriage, the rights of the people should not be based on their popularity but rather on the constitutional laws that are meant to protect them.”

According to a survey carried out by the Link, polygamy suffers from no lack of popularity among American Muslims. Thirty-nine percent reported their intention to enter polygamous marriages if it becomes legal to do so, and “nearly 70 percent said they believe that the U.S. should legalize polygamy now that it is beginning to legalize gay marriage.”

Movie: "The Cabin in the Woods"

One of the stars of this movie, which has received very good reviews (like this headline one at the Wall Street Journal: A 'Cabin' Stocked With Scares, Style and Smarts ), is Kristen Connolly (Kristen is now on wikipedia. Yay!).

She's the daughter of our excellent friends Bill and Melinda Connolly.

Here's a link to the trailer -

The Cabin in the Woods

And here's an interview with Kristen (on the right) and two of the other characters in "The Cabin".

 

A Kansas priest who died in a Korean prison camp being considered for the Medal of Honor, and on the road to Canonization

Oddly enough, this is a BBC article.

Not short but very interesting. The current Conrgressional contigent from Kansas is pushing for his being awarded to Medal of Honor.

US Army chaplain Father Emil Kapaun stole, suffered and sacrificed his life for his fellow soldiers in a Korean prison camp. Six decades after his death, he is being considered for the Medal of Honor - and sainthood.

Maybe trivia, maybe not - did anti-Catholic sentiment doom the Titanic?

Sent to me by my friend Joe -It's not nice to belittle/persecute the Papists?!

Did anti-Catholic sentiment of Titanic workforce help doom the unsinkable ship?

“At Harland and Wolff it was not unknown for workers to paint on the sides of ships under construction the words “NO POPE” in letters ten feet high or more,” writes naval historian David Allen Butler.

There were widespread stories that each rivet hammered into the Titanic was accompanied by a ‘f.. the pope epithet

Any Catholics who were hired were subject to blatant discrimination.Some had hammers dropped on them from above and the atmosphere against Catholics was described as “poisonous”

The  author and historian Daniel Allen Butler writes about a how anti-Catholic sentiment in Northern Ireland at the time of the ship’s construction was blamed by some  for the tragedy.

“Very active in Ulster politics at this time was one William James Pirrie, who became the Chairman of Harland and Wolff in 1895.  He instituted an unwritten but strictly enforced policy that the firm would never knowingly employ a Roman Catholic,” writes Butler about the era during which the Titanic was being crafted in Belfast.

Nasty, but I rather doubt that anti-Catholic senitiment caused God to kill 1517 helpless seafarers.

The President: I ate the dog but I didn't mistreat it

After the big ta-do (amusing if the whole issue wasn't so STUPID) about Romney putting his dog in a travel cage on his car roof and going on a fmaily vacation years ago - but at least he didn't eat the dog.

Say what you want about Romney, but at least he only put a dog on the roof of his car, not the roof of his mouth.

Amusing: Pope's dual celebration of his birthday April 16th & today - 7th anniversary of his papacy

 Pope Benedict - just a regular guy.

Coulter: "Fighting the last War"

As she discusses the Republicans. Coulter has been a Romney supporter from the get-go.

sometimes it seems as if Republicans' only move on the economy is to cut taxes. With the highest corporate tax rate in the world, there's much to be said for cutting taxes. But, unlike when Reagan ran for president, it's going to take a lot more than tax cuts to rescue this country from its $16 trillion debt.

When Reagan took office, the top marginal tax rate in this country was a staggering 70 percent. Lowering that to 28 percent was an enormous shot in the arm to the economy.

Cutting the top tax rate today from 35 percent to 30 percent -- or even 20 percent -- cannot possibly have the same dramatic effect. Republicans, as the only responsible party, are going to have to do something that's never been tried before in Washington: Cut government spending.

To keep prattling about cutting taxes, rather than cutting our behemoth, useless government is fighting the last war.

She is 1,000% right.

A WSJ "Income Inequality" op ed

An op ed in the WSJ from last Friday.

Progressive means the higher earners pay proportionatally more in taxes.

Any analysis of taxes paid in high tax-and-spend countries shows that the U.S. has the most progressive income tax system in the world.

 

The Obama Campaign Poster for 2012

This was sent to me by my friend Bernadette -

First, a quote from the President:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America 's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America 's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

 

~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006!

Here's the poster - crude but effective

Mary Higgins Clark - 84 seconds - on being a successful writer

Cute.

I met her at a fundraiser about ten years ago.

 

The Buffett Rule & pending IRS form 1040-B (B as in Buffett)

This is great for people who are pro-choice, because you have the choice of how much to pay, as well as the choice as to which part of government to allocate your "contribution."

Here's the downloadable copy of the 1040-B

You can read the explanation here - Download your “Buffett Rule” 1040 forms here

And here's what the form looks like -

 

Obama advisor David Axelrod explains Obama tax policy

Axelrod is so disengenuous and all over the place that this bit of video is being used by the republicans -

 

A loyal dog story

Labs and shepherds are the dogs to have ... Sorry for the commercial on this

Another reason to like Tebow

He's a Yankee fan. Here he is at the Stadium last night, watching the Yanks dismantle the Angels, 11-5.

Emma Riner at 18 months

Ahhh, my college roommates granddaughter, who was born four months premature. You can read a bit about that here, A new - and tiny - baby or here Baby Emma goes home!, or simply type Emma in the search box to the right.

Go here to see how she's doing (GREAT!) at one and a half.

Emma's story

Here's what Emma looked like last August with her Dad - compare that to the pictures at Emma's story

"Oh, Marone" ... The Brooklyn Italian spelling bee

Sent to me courtesy of my friend Joe. I'm entitled to post this, since I am 1/4 Sicilian!!! Oh, and also works for Yonkers ...

An interesting quote from the captain of the Titanic - five years earlier

This is from the weekly email column of Fr. George Rutler, pastor of The Church of our Saviour in Manhattan and a well-known author. I've highlighted the quote: 

... This Sunday also is engraved in memory as the one-hundredth anniversary of the Titanic tragedy. In 1907, Captain Edward J. Smith, then captain of the Adriatic,  and felicitously unaware that five years later he would command the largest moving object in the world,  told a newspaper reporter:  

   “When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.”

   While there have been disasters on an even greater scale, the sinking of the Titanic has become a symbol of human triumph and failure, engineered strength against the greater forces of nature, and the perils of self-confidence. Honest pride in human achievement is a form of thanks to the Creator who has made man capable of procreating, but sinful pride is the origin of all other sins when it becomes a mantle of arrogance, turning Te Deum into Te Meum. Cardinal Newman warned: “Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.

Tim hits a new PR in the shot put - with the varsity 12 lb'er.

UPDATE: We've now bought a 12lb. shot put and a discus. Being mailed. Postage charge for the shot put - only $7.95!

Yesterday at the Ossining Relays. In the throwing events when it's a relay meet, you add the two best throws from two different teammates. Unfortunately Tim was the only Stepinac boy throwing the discus and he had a mediocre outing with it.

BUT, he did very well in the shot put and along with his teammate Matt - who is mainly a middle distance runner and hadn't thrown the shot put in weeks - Stepinac came fifth. A good showing since Tim is a freshman and Matt a sophomore, and the other schools had varsity throwers.

Tim's three throws were 29'5", done without the glide windup, and then 30'11" and 31'1". So he broke 30 feet on his second throw for the first time, and then broke 31 feet. Cool.

Here are his second and third throws, and you can see the glide ...

 

and here's his new PR - 31'1".

Through-hiking the Appalachian Trail

Not something I'll ever do, but kind of fun to read about how to do it!

As a note, I still have 20 miles to go, to finish the AT in NY state. Which is pathetic since it's only about 81 total miles and I've been working at it for five years! By the end of this summer, though, I'll be done. 

From Georgia to Maine the Appalachian Trail is 2,184 miles.

Here's the article, from Backpacker Magazine. It was first published in 2008 and they periodically send it around to their (free) email subscribers (that's me). The comments section from hikers is also very interesting.

American Classic: Hiking the Appalachian Trail

OK, here's one picture from the A.T. November 30, 2007. That's Brigid nearing the top of "Agony Grind", across the river and miles west of Bear Mountain. You can just make her out. In the foreground are Mike and Karen Riner (Mike with the much larger behind). This is an exceptionally difficult part of the Trail in NY.

 

Rugby: Two beautiful scores

Leinster v. Cardiff. Sick passing.

 

South African Stormers v. New Zealand Highlanders.

Whew... check this soccer goal

Off the ESPN youtube channel. the shooter is 15.

 

Yanks win in style on opening day in the Bronx - with Posada throwing the ceremonial 1st pitch

Yanks won, 5-0.

And go here to see the Posada first pitch. Quite a lovely scene.

Posada's return for first pitch thrills Yanks

A-Rod moved into a fifth place tie for most career home runs, with #630. A bomb to dead center.

 

One of those "funny" happenstances that might be further evidence that it's Romney's year

Every so often in sports, things will happen and start to string togther, and you'll end up saying "Yup it's the Giants (or whoever's) year".

That may be happening for Romney (in the same way it seemed to happen for Obama in 2008). Latest good luck: Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of Romneycare in Massachusetts, and the Dems and their folks in the press were all geared up for it. Then some nut job Democrat consultant named Hilary Rosen bizzarely and stupidly attacked Romney's wife, and that was all that was in the political news all day.

Quite a break for Romney. The planets are aligning ...

Why Hilary Rosen's Blunder Was Amazing Timing For Romney

Six years ago today, Mitt Romney signed a health-care reform bill in Massachusetts, now known as "Romneycare." 

Democrats we're hoping to talk about it all day today and do some damage to Romney. They even produced a big video about it. 

But now the entire day has been dedicated to talking about Ann Romney, and whether she can understand the concerns of women because she was a stay-at-home mother. Because a Democratic consultant insulted her last night on CNN. 

Now here's the real thing - if you hit the link you'll see a chart -

The above chart just looks at Medicaid spending. Zirui Song, and Bruce E. Landon produced a study looking at health-care spending in Massachusetts after "Romneycare passed." The takeaway: it is exploding and totally unsustainable. 

Yup, the planets are aligning ...

 

A tale from the Titanic

Here's a good one - a short and fascinating story.

Why one man survived, when 86% of the men in second class drowned.

My grandfather was standing on the top starboard deck of the boat with a large group of men when a rumor went around that the men were to be taken off on the port side. Almost everyone moved across the ship. Only he and two others stayed where they were.