• Origin and Historic Meaning of Xmas
• Saudi King Could Ante to Move Ground Zero Mosque
• Wikileaks Whacks Moore’s Sicko
• Census News Grim for Democrats
• Is Mortgage Deduction Dead?
• Obama Blinks Iran Wins Another Round In Nuke Weapon Quest
• Breast Implant Bombs On Anniversary of Underwear Bomber
• Reaper To Replace Predator Drones
• Carter: U. S. Ready For Homosexual Commander-in-Chief
• Post Office May Collect and Sell Data
• $11,000 Per Trial in Half Billion Buck Long Beach Court House
• Religion and politics in America
• Two Years After Operation Cast Lead Fighting Erupts in Gaza

• New Poll “Audits” Tea Party

 Peculiarly Obama said in his final news conference of 2010 he was ready to make the pivot to jobs admitting he has not been focused on jobs. What is disturbing is that when the latest spasm of money washes through what of jobs then? Think about it?

The symbol ‘X’ for Christ is a tradition that dates far back into the history of Christianity into the first few centuries. That’s because our letter ‘X’ is identical to the Greek letter ’chi’, which is the first letter for Christos in Greek, and so early Christians many times would see the letter ‘X’ or combine that with the letter ‘rho’ in Greek to symbolize Christ. Xmas therefore means “Christ’s Mass,” so in many ways, the “X” in Xmas stands for Christ. 

Those unaware of the Greek origin of this “X” often mistakenly interpret Xmas as an informal shortening pronounced (eks-mas). Many therefore frown upon the term Xmas because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas. It’s also important to note that it is a written abbreviation, and should not be pronounced ’X'mas, but instead as “Christmas”.

Another interesting fact, in olden times when paper and ink were precious commodities, the “X” was used to save space when printing.

Hypocrite WikiLeaks’ CEO Julian Assange is whining that someone leaked the police report about sex charges filed against him in Sweden. The nincompoop’s  attitudinizing lawyer said “I do not like the idea that Julian may be forced into a trial in the media,” he continues. “I do not know who has given these documents to the media, but the purpose can only be one thing - trying to make Julian look bad.” Four-flushing, poseur Assange is especially upset at the UK Guardian, hitherto his big ally, for printing the damning documents.

A New York lawyer with ties to the Saud royal family claims the 87-year-old Saudi Arabian King Abdullah might want to move the controversial ground zero mosque to an Islamic cultural center he would build on the site of a shuttered Manhattan hospital. According to attorney Dudley Gaffin, the king also would pay to reopen most of the hospital units that closed when St. Vincent’s Medical Center filed for bankruptcy in April, sources told the New York Post.

Gaffin is floating the possibility to gauge community reaction, the New York Post reported Sunday in a story it labeled as an exclusive. Other sources say that the Saudi King may spend $300 million on the project.

“He’s asking what it would take to put in a bid,” the Post quoted a community leader who did not want to be identified as saying. “He says the king wants to do this as a PR move - to save the hospital and move the mosque away from the World Trade Center site. He wants to show that Muslims can do good works.”

The king is recovering from back surgery at another Manhattan hospital.

It’s been a soggy pre-Christmas week in California thanks to the Pineapple Express that dumped record Pacific rains on it. That sent mud and cars sliding every which way as record rains splattered the once golden state. As someone who spent numerous subzero nights knee deep in snow on a frozenInterstate 70 in Ohio I prefer the rain and 50 degree temperatures

A WikiLeaks document shows Cuba banned Sicko for depicting its ‘mythical’ healthcare system,  authorities there feared footage of a gleaming hospital in Michael Moore’s film would provoke a popular backlash. From Cubans banned from it and forced to third rate care if at all.  

Even Castro knows that Cuban health care is a disaster.  In fact only Maxine Waters California Democrat Congresswomen, the one now charged with ethics violations, has said she wished we had Cuban style health care. ( Not she had “we” had)

“Cuba banned Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary, Sicko, because it painted such a “mythically”  favourable picture of Cuba’s healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a “popular backlash”, according to US diplomats in Havana.

The revelation, contained in a confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks , is surprising, given that the film attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system.

But the memo reveals that when the film was shown to a group of Cuban doctors, some became so “disturbed at the blatant misrepresentation of healthcare in Cuba that they left the room”.

Michael Moore is the Sicko–he wants folks in the US to be starved for health care, like Cubans.  Of course Moore, through his lies, is now a muti-millionaire and can afford all of his health care needs–unlike most Americans.  Sadly, Moore and his friend Barack care more for government than quality health care.

Ironically Moore is a financier behind WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange.

Lameduck New York Gov. David Paterson was fined $62,125 for obtaining free tickets to a 2009 World Series game at Yankee Stadium, the state’s Commission on Public Integrity announced on Monday, calling his conduct “dishonest and unethical.”

Paterson assumed the Governship when disgraced Governor Spitzer resigned. Initially Paterson said he’d run for a full term in 2010 but later bowed out.

2010 census report came out Tuesday and included a boatload of good political news for Republicans and grim data for Democrats particularly those hoping to re-elect Obama and rebound from last month’s devastating elections.

The 308 million population continues to shift from Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to Republican-leaning Sun Belt states. The decadinal increase was 9.5% lowest since the great depression of the 1930s and much of that from illegal immigration. Political clout shifts, too, because the nation must reapportion the 435 House districts to make them roughly equal in population, based on the latest census figures.

The biggest gainer will be GOP-dominated Texas expected to gain up to four new House seats, for a total of 36. The chief losers - New York and Ohio, each projected to lose two seats - were carried by Obama in 2008. California will not lose a seat as predicted nor, will it gain.

Democrats’ problems don’t end there.

November’s elections put Republicans in control of dozens of state legislatures and governorships, just as states prepare to redraw their congressional and legislative district maps. It’s often a brutally partisan process, and Republicans’ control in those states will enable them to create new districts to their liking.

Each House seat represents an electoral vote in the presidential election process, giving more weight to states Obama probably will lose in 2012. The states he carried in 2008 are projected to lose, on balance, six electoral votes to states that his GOP challenger, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, won.

For the first timethe Census has counted illegals concerning many that could impact representation. Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter says it has attributing his state’s loss of a House seat to the horde of illegal immigrants living in other states. Vitter and Lousianans are hopping mad. Vitter says, “Louisiana stands to lose clout in Congress, while states that welcome illegal immigrants stand to unfairly benefit from artificially inflated population totals,” he says in a statement. Louisiana will have six seats in the U.S. House after reapportionment, down from the seven or eight it has held over the last 100 years.

“Even though we’ve been expecting this, the confirmation that Louisiana will lose a congressional seat is frustrating,” Vitter says. Louisiana’s population slide also stems from residents who left in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and haven’t come back.

The danger the GOP runs is trying to be too clever,” said Tim Storey, a redistricting authority for the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.

Bright spots for Democrats include:

• California where the November shellacking petered out. But, even there voters affirmed an independent reapportionment commission taking the redrawing out of purely political hands. California’s assembly, senate and governor’s mansion are all in the liberal hands and
• Much of the popular gains in Texas and the south are among browns and other minorities who strongly tend toward Democrat liberal positions.
• A further indicator of shifts is that Washington DC now has more than 600,000 a reversal frm decades of decline and symbolic of massive growth in federal government employees.

“I remember the story of a batter who, when facing the late Bob Feller, lit a match and held it above his head.  The umpire asked, “Do you think that match will help you see Feller’s fastball?”

The hitter replied, “No.  I just want to make sure Feller sees me.” Bill S.

The home mortgage TAX DEDUCTION been around since 1913, but its time may be up. Such a change would generate billions of dollars in federal revenue that could be used to cut the deficit while inflicting pain on most middle-class homeowners.

For many Americans it enabled them to have a house that was a little bigger and a little nicer than they would otherwise have thought they could otherwise afford.

Perhaps the most sacred of all the sacred cows in the tax code, the home mortgage deduction has long been seen as crucial to a major element of the American dream - owning your own home.

It has also been a boon to home builders, construction workers, the financial services industry and local governments that benefited from fatter real estate tax revenue.

But nearly a century after coming into existence, the mortgage deduction may face a day of reckoning. Although out of the spotlight while the lame-duck Congress thrashes to an end, the mortgage deduction issue is likely to resurface next year when the new Congress - including a lot more deficit-hawk Republicans - takes over.

In part, the hoary deduction has a target on its back as a result of policymakers rethinking the whole issue of homeownership. In the wake of the havoc that followed the latest housing bust - a calamity that still shadows the U.S. economy and will for years to come - it’s no longer so clear that near-universal homeownership should be a paramount goal.

Scholars have long argued that the mortgage deduction and other tax subsidies supporting housing, including a deduction for property taxes and tax exemptions for profits on home sales, are neither equitable nor economically efficient. Some say they’ve helped skew the economy’s reliance on an industry that has little export potential and often encourages over-consumption.

“It’s fair to ask whether [government money] is best spent on housing or plants and equipment or other investments,” said Richard K. Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.

More important, despite the deduction’s grip on the public and politicians, changing it as part of a package of other revisions offers Washington a chance to do something meaningful about the surging federal deficit: generate billions of dollars more in federal revenue that could be used to cut the deficit while inflicting surprisingly little pain on most middle-class homeowners.

The National Assn. of Realtors already is running ads warning that tampering with the deduction would hurt “hard-working American families.” The ads point out that 65% of the taxpayers who took the deduction made less than $100,000.

What the group doesn’t say is that about 75% of the entire $85.5 billion that people saved in taxes from the mortgage interest deduction in 2008 went to individuals or couples making $100,000 or more, according to an analysis by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation of the latest data available.

Based on the committee’s numbers, taxpayers who took the mortgage deduction saved, on average, $2,330 in 2008. But for those reporting incomes of $200,000 and more, the average savings were nearly triple that amount.

About half of all homeowners in the U.S. - and just a quarter of all taxpayers - benefit from the mortgage interest deduction at all. That’s because most people don’t have home loans or don’t pay enough in mortgage interest to take advantage of the benefit.

Also left out are many homeowners in cheaper housing markets, though people with pricier homes and larger mortgages - many of them affluent younger Americans in coastal cities in California and on the East Coast - reap a disproportionately large share of the tax savings.

Not surprisingly, this geographical and financial divide can be seen when homeowners are asked how they would feel if the mortgage deduction were scaled back - or replaced by a tax credit, as President Obama’s deficit commission has recently proposed as part of a broad overhaul of the tax code.

2011 could be a telling year for the sacred cow that could get slaughtered, and any number of political careers fried by touching taxations third rail.

Katzenjammer (KAT-sen-jam-uhr) noun: 1. Hangover 2. Distress; depression.
3. Confusion; clamor; uproar. Etymology from German, from Katzen, plural of Katze (cat) + Jammer (distress, wailing). Earliest documented use: 1849.  The Katzenjammer Kids, the longest-running comic strip, debuted on Dec 12, 1897. It features the adventures of twins Hans and Fritz:

Shortly before the impotent Six Power talks with Iran resumed this week, Obama ordered the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier to withdraw from Gulf waters opposite Iran and redeploy in the Aegean Sea. This action signaled Washington’s  switch to more talking and the search for firm ground on the nuclear controversy with Iran through engagement, sources report.

The mighty carrier with more than 70 warplanes was instructed to exit the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet Command which covers US military operations in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea and join the Sixth Fleet which is responsible for US naval and air activity in the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

Obama thus abandoned the military posture he adopted only six weeks ago to bring its rulers to heel  by a buildup of naval strength opposite Iran’s waters. It was then that he consigned the USS Abraham Lincoln to the Persian Gulf, raising the number of aircraft carriers deployed there to three, including the French Charles de Gaulle.

But the US president decided to change tactics before the new round of nuclear negotiations between the six powers ((US, Russia, UK, France, China and Germany) and Iran took off. By the time the delegations had sat down in Geneva Monday, Dec. 6, the Truman had been relocated to the big American naval base in Souda Harbor on the island of Crete. Only one carrier remains in the Persian Gulf, the Abraham Lincoln.

The visit Defense Secretary Robert Gates paid to Oman Sunday, Dec. 5 was another conciliatory gesture. Gates speaks for the administration faction opposed to US or Israeli military action against Iran’s nuclear sites. His visit broadcast a message from the White House that the military option had been set aside in favor of engagement to which high hopes of progress toward solving the nuclear controversy were now attached .

When he visited the Lincoln the next day, Gates praised its crews’ contribution to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but did not mention Iran.

The first day of the Geneva talks was taken up with an 80-minute harangue by Iran’s lead negotiator Saad Jalili, which omitted mention of his country’s nuclear projects, but railed instead against American and Israeli “crimes” of terrorist attacks on Iranian nuclear physicists.

The American delegate William J. Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, chose not to respond to those charges, a course emulated by the European Union’s external affairs executive Catherine Ashton.

That first encounter yielded a single decision, to meet again in Istanbul. That was Washington’s third concession to Tehran. It meant that after long objections to co-opting Turkey to the dialogue, the US had caved in. The six powers will in future face Iran much strengthened by the presence of its ally, Turkey.

In Abu Dhabi, there’s an $11 million Christmas tree. The prime minister of Abu Dhabi said he hoped the tree would be a symbol that Abu Dhabi has a lot more money than us. And that we’re paying far too much for gas. -Jimmy Kimmel

First it was the underwear bomber and then came news that Agents for Britain’s MI5 intelligence service have discovered that Muslim doctors trained at some of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals have returned to their own countries to fit surgical implants filled with explosives, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Women suicide bombers recruited by al-Qaida are known to have had the explosives inserted in their breasts under techniques similar to breast enhancing surgery. The lethal explosives - usually PETN (pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate) - are inserted during the operation inside the plastic shapes. The breast is then sewn up.

Similar surgery has been performed on male suicide bombers. In their cases, the explosives are inserted in the appendix area or in a buttock. Both are parts of the body that diabetics use to inject themselves with their prescribed drugs.

The discovery of these methods was made after the London-educated Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came close to blowing up an airliner last Christmas Day with explosives he had stuffed inside his underpants.

Hours after he had failed, GCHQ - Britain’s worldwide eavesdropping “spy in the sky” agency - began to pick up “chatter” emanating from Pakistan and Yemen that alerted MI5 to the creation of the lethal implants.

A hand-picked team was appointed by Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, to investigate the threat. He described it as “one that can circumvent our defense.”

Top surgeons who work in the National Health Service confirmed the feasibility of the explosive implants.

In a report to Evans, one said:

“Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines. You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray. Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner.”

Explosive experts at Britain’s Porton Down biological and chemical warfare research center told MI5 that a sachet containing as little as five ounces of PETN when activated would blow “a considerable hole” in an airline’s skin which would guarantee it would crash.

Illinois is the worst state in which to spend your golden years, according to the website TopRetirements.com.   Illinois topped the site’s list of 10 worst states for retirement, which heavily weighted three criteria: fiscal health, taxation, and climate. High tax states figured prominently on the list, as well as those with colder climates. Unsurprisingly, Florida, with the warmest winters in the country and no income tax, was No. 1 on TopRetirements.com’s list of best places to retire. California, meanwhile, was No. 5 on that list but also claimed the No. 2 spot on the retirement-unfriendly states list, because of its fiscal disarray and high cost of living.

The U. S. Air Force will take delivery of its last Predator drone next February. Flying at up to 25,000 feet for around 20 hours at a time, the drone was supposed to be a pure surveillance aircraft but was retrofitted with ordinance earning it the nickname of accidental warrior. The USAF will continue to fly it but as attrition thins its ranks it will be replaced by the new Reaper drone that is anything but an accidental warrior.

Also built by General Atomics, Reaper flies twice as fast (150-170 knots cruising, 260 max), at higher altitudes (around 50,000 feet), and carries ten times the payload (over 2 tons) as the Predator. That allows it to strap on the air to surface AGM-114 Hellfire missiles to defeat armor and as a powerful anti-personel weapon;  as well as GBU-12 a 500 pound aerial bomb (both are laser guided) and GBU-38 precision bombs with GPS capability. And as a surveillance aircraft, it’s got more electrical power than the Predator, which means it integrate new or improved sensors on the aircraft.

The Reaper came into use in 2007. So far, the Air Force owns 57 of the drones and plans to buy another 272, for a total buy of 329 planes - the pace of which will be determined by congressional moneymen. Many of the drones are already in Afghanistan. Air Force officers pilot them from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Reaper is already getting an upgrade: in July, General Atomics rolled out its post-Reaper drone, the faster, stealthier Avenger. Even as the Reaper takes over for the Predator in the U.S., the global proliferation of drone technology is the pathbreaking plane’s real legacy.

The drone program is a direct descendant of World War II Air Force and Navy remote control experiments. In fact Lt. Joseph Kennedy was killed after taking off a stripped and converted B-17 packed with explosives. He was to have handed over its control to a trailing plane pilot who would have then flown it by remote control to its target. But, the plane exploded in flight before Kennedy and another aviator could do so and bailout.

One of the great conspiracy theories involved that fatal flight that alleged the arming switch was defective and actually triggered the explosion when it was switched on in preparation for handover, and that the fault was known but ignored. Some say his death was no accident asserting he was killed to end his father’s aspiration to make a soin president - which he did when JFK was elected.

There’s little for states to cheer about in the budget bill passed by the U.S. House

this month. The measure basically freezes discretionary federal spending for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year at 2010 levels. The bill does increase funding for some key programs, but not significantly.

 “The main benefit for states is it removes any ambiguity and states can say,

‘Whatever we got last year is what we’ll get this year’,” said Marcia Howard,

executive director of the Federal Funds Information for States, which monitors the

fiscal impact of federal policy on state budgets.

 On the day before the Congress voted to end the controversial don’t ask don’t tell policy banning homosexuals from openly serving in the U. S. military. Former President Jimmy Carter said U.S. voters have reached the point where they would be willing to elect a homosexual commander-and-chief “in the near future.”

Carter made his remarks on the Big Think website, which bills itself as an “online knowledge forum.” The site offers over 1,500 interviews with prominent experts in a variety of fields.

“I think the entire population of America has come tremendous strides forward in dealing with the issue of gays,” Carter said in the video. He also compared the emergence of gay-rights concerns with the rise of the Civil Rights movement some 50 years ago.

“Step by step we have realized that this issue of homosexuality has the same adverse and progressive elements as when we dealt with the race issue 50 years ago,” he said.

Asked if he foresees a day when voters would elect a gay person to be commander in chief, Carter replied: “I would say the answer is yes. I don’t know about next election, but I think in the near future.”

He also cited President Obama’s election as an example of the evolving mindset of American voters.

“So I would say the country is getting acclimated to a president who might be female, who might obviously now be black, and who might be a gay person,” Carter told the site. “So I would say the answer is yes.”

Of 3,300 professional football fans 47% view Michael Vick favorably, while 55% see Brett Favre in a favorable light.  Meanwhile, 43% have an unfavorable opinion of Vick and 39% view Favre unfavorably. Thirty-four percent (34%) of football fans now believe the New England Patriots will win the Super Bowl this year. 

The United States Postal System is struggling to plug the $8.3 billion hole in its budget bucket. That amount set an all time record for losing money in any one year despite it cutting 100,000 jobs.

The USPS is even mumbling about insolvency as early as 2011. The quasi-independent organization is supposed to show a profit but is far better to losing billions than making a penny and begging Congress for billions in bailouts.

Taxpayers are increasingly avoiding mail to receive or pay bills and the internet has made letter writing a lost art. Even Christmas card sales have declined since a peak in 2005. The USPS did get a boast from increased internet shopping that had to be shipped. The percentage of consumers buying greeting cards for Christmas fell from 77 percent in 2005 to 73 percent in 2007 and to 62 percent in 2009, according to the market research firm.

USPS says it might be able to use its tens of thousands of vehicles to collect local information and data and sell it. One company is negotiating with a bus company to fit its vehicles with data gathering information and data. The idea is already used to gather local weather information and link it for forecasting, road safety and traffic data.

Whether or not any such enterprise could wiggle its way successfully into one of the world’s most entrenched bureaucracies remains unknown, and whether they can do so profitably.

Marco Rubio, Haley Barbour, and Mike Huckabee are the Republicans most likely to defeat President Obama in 2012, according to a new analysis of their communications skills says political pundits.

Of the 33 senators up for re-election in two years, many have not yet stated their intention to run again. But the size of their campaign accounts may offer an early indication of who is and who isn’t preparing for 2012.

“Though fundraising usually grows more intensive as Election Day approaches, large financial resources early on can signal a candidate getting primed for another election fight, whereas low totals may indicate an incumbent less interested in re-election,” notes U.S. News & World Report.

Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown tops the list of Senate incumbents with large war chests, according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings. He had just over $6 million on hand after he won Ted Kennedy’s seat in January’s special election.

Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California ($3,740,159) and Bill Nelson of Florida ($2,909,074) also have sizable war chests they could use for the 2012 election.

Indiana Republican Richard Lugar, who reportedly might face a primary battle from the right, has $2,376,679 in his campaign account.

Other senators with accounts topping $2 million are Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah ($2,323,407) and Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey ($2,270,508).

Senators with a $1 million-plus war chest include only two Republicans:

Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., $1,955,217

Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., $1,617,163

Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, $1,423,427

Kent Conrad, D-N.D., $1,414,464

Ben Nelson, D-Neb., $1,403,644

Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., $1,349,788

Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., $1,279,816

Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, $1,206,314

Bob Corker, R-Tenn., $1,001,651

At the bottom of the list are Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with $111,311; Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii ($75,838); Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas ($52,054); and Herb Kohl, D-Wis. ($26,725).

This year, 2010, is the 50^th anniversary of the terrifying Hitchcock film “Psycho” that opened in 1960.

In an astonishingly tone deaf move a new $490 million courthouse will be built in downtown Long Beach early next year.

After six months of negotiations, state officials announced Monday that they have signed a contract with Long Beach Judicial Partners to build and operate the new half billion dollar Long Beach Courthouse.

The agreement allows Long Beach Judicial Partners to begin building in 2011 the long-awaited regional project that will replace the aging structure on Ocean Boulevard.

State, County and City taxpayers are beating their collective heads against the wall of bureaucratic excess to build the TajMajal-like palacial building. Assuming a 20-year life plus estimated operating costs, cost of money and historic case loads it will costs taxpayers at least $11,000 plus personnel costs.

Rome police found a rudimentary, defective bomb under a seat in the subway on Tuesday.

Only 12% of voters feel it’s appropriate for their local religious leader, such as a parish priest, minister, rabbi or imam, to suggest who they should vote for. Seventy-nine percent (79%) do not find such suggestions appropriate.

Forty-eight percent (48%) of voters see a political candidate’s religious faith as at least somewhat important in determining how they vote, while 53% do not see it as important. Those figures include 17% who say religious faith is a Very Important factor and 25% who say it’s Not At All Important.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) of Likely Voters believe religious leaders have too much influence on government policy, while 25% say they don’t have enough. Thirty percent (30%) believe religious leaders have about the right amount of influence when it comes to actions by the government.

Just in time for Christmas troubled party-girl actress Lindsey Lohan is accused of assaulting a staffer at Betty Ford Center where she is drying out from drugs and alcohol. If proved LiLo could go to jail for 6 months for violating her probation and there could be other punishment for the attack.

Teenagers are giving birth at the lowest rates noted in seven decades of record-keeping, according to statistics from the federal government released Tuesday.

The report doesn’t speculate on why the birthrate has fallen, but two decades of public-health initiatives to curb teenage pregnancy may be paying dividends. The National Center for Health Statistics report shows that the teen birthrate fell to 39.1 births per 1,000 teenagers ages 15 to 19 in 2009. That’s a 6% drop from 2008 and the lowest rate since 1940. In 1991, in contrast, the rate was 61.8 per 1,000.

Birthrates fell for groups that have had the highest rates, including Hispanics, whose rate fell 10% but still stands at 70.1 births per 1,000.

Other birth data:The overall birthrate for all U.S. women fell for the second straight year. The decline appears to be continuing, based on data for the first half of 2010.

 

• About 41% of births were to unmarried mothers in 2009, up from 40.6% in 2008.

• The birthrate for women in their early 20s fell 7% and now stands at the lowest rate since 1973.

• The preterm birthrate continued its much-needed improvement — falling for the third straight year.

• The cesearean section rate reached a new high of 32.9%. It has increased every year since 1996, when the rate was 20.7%.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is out on bail and under house arrest at a 600-acre estate. That will teach him. - Letterman

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., released his annual “Wastebook” Monday, discussing 100 spending projects that squandered $11.5 billion of public money this year. The examples include $1.8 million spent on gathering and displaying historic Las Vegas casino signs and $165,000 given to the University of California at Santa Cruz to help its library digitize its collection of materials from the Grateful Dead rock band, The Hill reports.

“During these difficult times when families are struggling to make ends meet, the federal government can best assist hard-working Americans by keeping their taxes low and not burdening them with higher debt,” Coburn writes in the introduction to the report.

“Congress can do so by not spending money we do not have on things we do not need, like the over $11.5 billion of examples provided in this report,” Coburn added.

Singapore has a new campaign to clean up 70 percent of its public toilets by the year 2013. Or in much grosser news, Singapore has admitted that 30 percent of its public toilets will not be cleaned for three years.-Jimmy Fallon

Almost two years ago to the day, Operation Cast Lead began, and today, Israel and Hamas are back to fighting again.

Israeli Defense Forces warplanes struck Hamas targets in Gaza Tuesday in retaliation for Kassam rockets fired from Gaza. An Israeli girl was injured near Ashkelon. An Israeli spokesmen said it doesn’t matter to Israel which one of the terrorist organizations was responsible, it is Hamas who controls Gaza.

Three Palestinians were injured Tuesday as Israeli warplanes continued raids on Hamas security and military sites in Gaza.

The tenth airstrike in less than 24 hours targeted a security post for the deposed Hamas government that controls Gaza.

Three people were brought to the hospital after the latest attack, said a spokesman for the medical services. The three were moderately injured. It is unclear if they were security men.

An hour earlier, an airstrike targeted an evacuated military site for the armed wing of Hamas in Rafah City.

In the morning, Palestinian militants fired a crude rocket into southern Israel. Three Israelis were lightly wounded, according to Israel Radio.

The radio said that more than 10 mortar shells were fired from Gaza over the past 24 hours.

The Israeli airstrikes are the most intensive attacks since the end of Israel’s three-week military operation OPERATION CAST LEAD in Gaza almost exactly two years ago. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in that offensive.

A large-scale conflict has yet to evolve, but in the eyes of both sides, there is no question that the current escalation could easily lead to Cast Lead II - which neither side wants at the moment.

In the three months since Israel ended its settlement construction freeze in the West Bank, causing the Palestinians to withdraw from peace talks, a settlement building boom has begun, especially in more remote communities that are least likely to be part of Israel after any two-state peace deal.

Use of the phrases ‘illegal immigrant’ and ‘illegal alien’ by mainstream media is being questioned in order to remain faithful to the principles of our U.S. Constitution,” Leo Laurence wrote in the “Diversity Toolbox” column on the website for the Quill, which is produced by the Society of Professional Journalists formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi.  His application of PC principles to the Constriution is thin.

Forty-one percent (41%) believe the Tea Party movement will be stronger in 2012 than it was in 2010.

At year’s end, 21% of voters nationwide consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement. Another 11% have close friends or family members who are involved.

Eighty percent (80%) of Tea Party members consider themselves politically conservative, and 64% are Republicans. Twenty-eight percent (28%) are not affiliated with either major party, while eight percent (8%) are Democrats.

There are roughly equal numbers of men and women in the movement. Tea Party members tend to be a bit older than the population at large. Only eight percent (8%) of those under 30 consider themselves part of the movement. Ninety-two percent (92%) of Tea Party members are white.

 The Tea Party is part of a larger group that is frustrated with the political status quo. That larger group, identified as Mainstream voters, includes a solid majority of Americans. Mainstream voters tend to trust the wisdom of the American people more than the ideologies of politicians.  Among the larger group of Mainstream voters, 25% consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement. Another 11% have friends or family members in the movement.

The bottom 3 poorest counties are all in eastern Kentucky. The poorest has a medium income of less than $19,000 a year. The three richest  counties are all clustered around Washington DC with the top medium income of over $113,000 a year.