Poor or Not Poor? Depends on Who you Ask . . .

Poor or Not Poor? Depends on Who you Ask . . .

Bruce Bartlett: What is poor?

In a supplementary report that got no press attention, the Census Bureau looked at some of these new necessities and their ownership by the poor. It turns out that many poor people today own appliances that were considered luxuries when I grew up, and some would still be considered luxuries today. For example, 91 percent of those in the lowest 10 percent of households -- all of whom are officially poor -- own color TVs; 74 percent own microwave ovens; 55 percent own VCRs; 47 percent own clothes dryers; 42 percent own stereos; 23 percent own dishwashers; 21 percent own computers; and 19 percent own garbage disposals.

When I grew up in the 1950s, only the wealthy owned color TVs, clothes dryers, stereos, dishwashers and disposals. These were all considered luxuries. We got by with black and white TVs, hanging our wet cloths on a line to dry, washing dishes by hand and throwing our potato peels in a pail instead of down the drain. So did most other middle-class families. Not even the wealthiest people owned microwave ovens, VCRs or computers. . . .

The Census Bureau itself acknowledges serious limitations to its calculations. One problem is that it is required by law to use a measure of inflation that is known to overstate price increases. Using a corrected inflation measure would have lowered the poverty rate from 12.1 percent to 10.8 percent last year. The inclusion of income that is not now counted, such as noncash income transfers like food stamps, would lower the rate to just 7.5 percent.

Lastly, it is worth noting that few of the poor remain poor for very long. According to the Census Bureau, over half of all those classified as poor between 1996 and 1999 were so for less than four consecutive months. Eighty percent were poor for less than a year. This sort of income mobility means that our measures of income inequality are also overstated, according to a new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study.

Kuwait Stops Smuggling of Non-Existent WMDs

Kuwait Stops Smuggling of Non-Existent WMDs

It remains to be seen if this story can be corroborated, but if it is . . . just how could WMD be smuggled out of Iraq when everyone knows they don't have any? Anymore, that is . . .

Kuwait foils smuggling of chemicals from Iraq : HindustanTimes.com

Kuwaiti security authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads from Iraq to an unnamed European country, a Kuwaiti newspaper said on Wednesday.

The pro-Government Al-Siyassah, quoting an unnamed security source, said the suspects had been watched by security since they arrived in Kuwait and were arrested 'in due time.' It did not say when or how the smugglers entered Kuwait or when they were arrested.

Sowell on Affirmative Action

Sowell on Affirmative Action

Thomas Sowell: Silly letters

One of the silly things that gets said repeatedly is that I should not be against affirmative action because I have myself benefitted from it.

Think about it: I am 73 years old. There was no affirmative action when I went to college -- or to graduate school, for that matter. There wasn't even a Civil Rights Act of 1964 when I began my academic career in 1962.

Adelman : Greenpeace Illegally Diverts Donation Money

Adelman : Greenpeace Illegally Diverts Donation Money

FOXNews.com - Views - Defense Central - Questionable Programs

Now the alleged lawlessness of the Greenpeace finances need to be investigated by the IRS. More than $24 million in tax-exempt contributions -- required by law to go exclusively to religious, educational, scientific, literary, or charitable purposes -- are said to go to Greenpeace’s “direct action campaign.”

Forget History! Offensensitivity Reigns!

Forget History! "Offensensitivity" Reigns!

Forget the fact that it ever actually happened. The only thing that matters is that no one ever see a Nazi flag again. Simply diplaying the flag is horribly, terribly, unblievably, disturbingly, intensely, frightfully, notoriously, staggeringly insensitive and should be punished. "History has no place in a high school," said concerned citizen Regina Laedere.

Newsday.com - Texas Band Chief Apologizes for Nazi Flag

DALLAS -- A high school band director has apologized for a halftime performance that included "Deutschland Uber Alles," the anthem closely associated with Adolf Hitler, and a student running across the field with a Nazi flag.

Charles Grissom, Paris High School's band director, said his intention was to have a historical performance featuring the flags and music of the nations that fought during World War II.

The show, titled "Visions of World War II," nearly caused a melee at Friday night's football game at Dallas' Hillcrest High School.

"We were booed," Grissom said Monday. "We had things thrown at us. We were cursed."

Paris' assistant coaches were even targeted as they made their way through the bleachers to a press box after halftime.

"The assistant coaches ... got blasted, cursed," said Brent Southworth, Paris' head football coach.

Grissom said he never intended to offend anyone, and he apologized repeatedly.

"We had an error in judgment," Grissom told The Dallas Morning News in an interview published Tuesday. "Our intent was never to cause any harm."

The show was performed in Paris, about 100 miles northeast of Dallas, a week earlier after the homecoming game against Athens.

The band, which began working on the show in August, planned to perform it at the University Interscholastic League contest Oct. 15.

The show also includes the flags and music of France, Britain, Japan and the United States. The flags were raised in intervals that corresponded with the music of the nations. An announcement over loudspeakers before the performance explained the school was trying to do a "historical, accurate depiction of the event."

Mark Briskman, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, said his organization received many calls and e-mails expressing shock "that in 2003, this type of insensitivity would occur."

"This can serve as an educational tool that there are certain tools and certain symbols that still carry ... an amount of hurt," Briskman said. "It was a mistake, and they've apologized for it, and we basically accept their apology."

CNN Dowdifies Novak Quotes

CNN Dowdifies Novak Quotes

By rearranging the order of quotes made by Robert Novak concerning Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, CNN makes it sound like the White house asked him (Novak) not to use her name in a story. Actually, it was the CIA who made that request after Novak called them to confirm some information.

CNN.com - Novak: Administration didn't 'call me to leak this' - Sep. 30, 2003

'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this,' Novak said on CNN's 'Crossfire,' of which he is a co-host. 'There is no great crime here.'

'They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative and not in charge of undercover operators,' Novak said.

SITCOMs Oppressed by Gov't Rapacity

SITCOMs Oppressed by Gov't Rapacity

FOXNews.com - Views - ifeminists - Families Pay Price for Government Spending

Consider the hidden costs imposed on the workplace, and so on the family, by the sexual harassment industry. They include: Red tape and lawsuits that make business less profitable -- less likely to hire and more likely to raise prices; marginal businesses that collapse from the strain of fulfilling government requirements; less productive employees who are hired or promoted because of gender thus lowering the general productivity of society.

Jumping the Diversity Train

Jumping the Diversity Train

Peter W. Wood on Diversity & Higher Education on National Review Online

At the end of August the University of Michigan announced how it would comply with the Supreme Court's ruling in Gratz v. Bollinger, the ruling in June that outlawed UM's undergraduate racial quotas for failing to meet the test of being 'narrowly tailored.' UM's response, unveiled on August 28, has three parts. Applicants will now have to divulge information about the educational backgrounds of family members; their high-school counselors or principals will have to respond to a form that asks whether they know of 'any socio-economic, personal, or educational circumstance that may have affected this student's academic achievement, either positively or negatively;' and applicants will have to write a 250-word 'diversity' essay.

More on Iraq Doing Better Than Reported

More on Iraq Doing Better Than Reported

But this week's Time magazine is typical of a press corps that has - mostly - raced to highlight every bit of bad news from Iraq, and virtually none of the good news.
When NBC anchor Tom Brokaw went to Iraq, it was as if he was visiting a different country than that any other TV journalist had reported from, because he left Baghdad and many of his reports actually had an optimistic tone.
Why? Perhaps because Brokaw has chronicled the Greatest Generation and World War II, a time of patience instead of attention deficit disorder and a demand for overnight success. Nowadays, one can imagine critics instantly howling for Dwight D. Eisenhower's head over the deaths on D-Day.
It's worth remembering, as critics revive their Vietnam quagmire comparisons, that over 57,000 U.S. troops died in Vietnam and so far the U.S. death toll in Iraq is 308, fewer than the 343 firemen who were killed on 9/11.
Every death is a tragedy. But that doesn't make the war a failure. In fact, it is a success.

Sowell's Random Thoughts

Sowell's Random Thoughts

Thomas Sowell: Random thoughts

Random thoughts on the passing scene:
If you have a right to respect, that means other people don't have a right to their own opinions.

Wilson's Wife's Work Wasn't Withheld

Wilson's Wife's Work Wasn't Withheld

Spy Games: Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA?

Mr. Wilson is now saying (on C-SPAN this morning, for example) that he opposed military action in Iraq because he didn't believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and he foresaw the possibility of a difficult occupation. In fact, prior to the U.S. invasion, Mr. Wilson told ABC's Dave Marash that if American troops were sent into Iraq, Saddam might "use a biological weapon in a battle that we might have. For example, if we're taking Baghdad or we're trying to take, in ground-to-ground, hand-to-hand combat."

Equally, important and also overlooked: Mr. Wilson had no apparent background or skill as an investigator. As Mr. Wilson himself acknowledged, his so-called investigation was nothing more than "eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people" at the U.S. embassy in Niger. Based on those conversations, he concluded that "it was highly doubtful that any [sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq] had ever taken place."

That's hardly the same as disproving what British intelligence believed — and continues to believe: that Saddam Hussein was actively attempting to purchase uranium from somewhere in Africa. (Whether Saddam succeeded or not isn't the point; were Saddam attempting to make such purchases it would suggest that his nuclear-weapons-development program was active and ongoing.)

For some reason, this background and these questions have been consistently omitted in the Establishment media's reporting on Mr. Wilson and his charges.

BUSH ADMIN NOT THE SOURCE - NOVAK

BUSH ADMIN NOT THE SOURCE - NOVAK

Not that the maor media will repeat this but . . .

MATT DRUDGE // DRUDGE REPORT 2003®

NOVAK RESPONDS: 'NOBODY IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CALLED ME TO LEAK THIS'

Iraqi's Gaining Economic Freedom

Iraqi's Gaining Economic Freedom

Influx of goods, cash puts Iraqis in buying mood Hoarded dollars, U.S.-paid wages go for once-unobtainable items

Since the collapse of Saddam's regime, police Officer Gailan Wahoudi, 31, has bought a new television, a refrigerator and an air conditioner. ''It is a new freedom I never had before,'' he says.

Media Slant in Iraqi Coverage

Media Slant in Iraqi Coverage

John Leo: Media reporting from Iraq is one-sided and flawed

The Internet campaign is another example of the new media going around the old media, in this case to counter stories by quagmire-oriented reporters. Perhaps goaded by Internet coverage, USA Today became the first mainstream outlet (as far as I can see) to highlight problems in current Iraq coverage. A strong article last week by Peter Johnson quoted this from MSNBC's Bob Arnot in Iraq: 'I contrast some of the infectious enthusiasm I see here with what I see on TV and I say, 'Oh, my God, am I in the same country?'' Time magazine's Brian Bennett added: 'What gets in the headlines is the American soldier getting shot, not the American soldiers rebuilding a school or digging a well.'

An Iranian's Take on the UN

An Iranian's Take on the UN

Amir Taheri: Motives in the U.N.

General De Gaulle called it “the gadget”. The late Pakistani leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto branded it “a club of queer trades.” And, more recently, President George W Bush warned that it had become “irrelevant”. And, yet, the United Nations has just opened its annual general assembly in New York with as much stiff upper lip as it could master.