XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: 07/08/11

Friday, 8 July 2011

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Presidential candidate promised to ban "all forms of pornography..." -

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge created by The Family Leader, a conservative, Iowa-based Christian group that opposes same sex marriage, Sharia law and pornography.

By signing the pledge (PDF), Bachmann vowed to support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage, as well as agreeing that same sex marriage was akin to polygamy.

The document also implies that homosexuality is a choice.

"No peer-reviewed empirical science or rational demonstration has ever definitively proven, nor has even shown an overwhelming probability that homosexual preference or behavior is irresistible as a function of genetic determination or other forms of fatalism," according to the Christian group.

With her signature, Bachmann seemed to be implicitly agreeing that black children were better off during slavery.

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President," the document said.

"Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive," Jack & Jill Politics' Cheryl Contee noted.

Sweden Is Planning To Teach Every Schoolchild Chinese In The Next 10 Years -

Sweden’s education minister said Wednesday that all schoolchildren will be taught Chinese within 10 years, reports AFP.

If Jan Björklund’s plan goes ahead, Sweden will be the first country in Europe to make Chinese compulsory.

“Chinese will be much more important, from an economic perspective, than French or Spanish,” Björklund told the Dagens Industri newspaper.

“Not everyone in the business world speaks English,” said Björklund. “Very qualified businesses are leaving Europe to move to China.”

12 Signs That The World Is Running Out Of Food -

The following are 12 signs that the world is running out of food….

#1 More than 3 billion people, close to half the world’s population, live on less than 2 dollar a day.

#2 Over the past year, the global price of food has risen by 37 percent.

#3 Just about every major agricultural commodity has been skyrocketing in price. Check out what a recent Bloomberg article had to say about what has been happening to many key agricultural commodities over the past year….

Corn futures advanced 77 percent in the past 12 months in Chicago trading, a global benchmark, rice gained 39 percent and sugar jumped 64 percent. There will be shortages in corn, wheat, soybeans, coffee and cocoa this year or next, according to Utrecht, Netherlands-based Rabobank Groep. Prices also rose after droughts and floods from Australia to Canada ruined crops last year. European farmers are now contending with their driest growing season in more than three decades.

#4 According to the World Bank, 44 million more people around the globe have been pushed into extreme poverty since last June because of rising food prices.

#5 Sadly, rising food prices is not a new trend. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the global price of food has gone up by 240% since 2004.

#6 To a large extent, this global food crisis has been brought on by the greed of the wealthy. A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research discovered that the bottom half of the world population ownsapproximately 1 percent of all global wealth.

#7 The average income per person in the poorest countries on the continent of Africa has fallen by one-fourth over the past twenty years.

#8 It is estimated that over 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where the income gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

#9 Approximately 1 billion people throughout the world go to bed hungry every single night.

#10 Every 3.6 seconds someone starves to death and three-quarters of them are children under the age of 5.

#11 It is estimated that the entire continent of Africa only owns approximately 1 percent of the total wealth of the world.

#12 According to the most recent “Global Wealth Report” by Credit Suisse, the wealthiest 0.5% of the global population controls over 35% of all the wealth on the planet.

Those of us that live in wealthy countries have it really good.

We get to shovel huge amounts of food into our faces whenever we want.

Disneyland has a speakeasy - Hidden in New Orleans Square - $10,000 in initiation fees and another $3,500 each year -

Hidden behind a dull green door in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square is one of the park’s most exclusive and mysterious attractions: a VIP lounge called Club 33.

Walt Disney built the club as a secret hideaway for dignitaries and celebrities, and he even went to New Orleans to personally pick out the knickknacks for the interior. During the 44 years that Club 33 has been operational, it’s served the likes of Johnny Depp, Elton John, and scads of executives from companies such as Boeing, Chevron, and AT&T.

But if you’re hoping to join, you’ll have to be patient. It takes about 10 years to get off the waiting list, after which you’ll have to fork over $10,000 in initiation fees and another $3,500 each year that you’re a member.

But it’s worth it; Club 33 is the only place at Disneyland where you can ditch the kids for a cocktail.