Here’s another collection of various facts, figures and statistics culled during the past few months from several sources.
Torture: In 2002, al Qaeda leader Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was tortured until he “confessed” that Hussein had trained him in the use of chemical and biological weapons – whereupon Vice President Dick Cheney and team proclaimed a national threat to the United States and Bush invaded Iraq. The confession was an entire fabrication.
Torture can’t be wrong: The text book for five centuries of Christian Inquisition specified the following rules for torture: 1. Those who do confess are guilty and deserve the stake. 2. Those who don’t confess are also guilty because only Satan could give them the willpower to withstand torture.
Torture works: The “witches” of Salem confessed they had intercourse with Satan – how else would the judges been able to prove it?
American scholarship: 43 percent of American college grades are “A.”
Where McKernan earns his millions: Only 10 percent of college students attend “for-profit” colleges, but 25 percent of government financial aid goes to those schools.
How about sex performance? 75 percent of college students believe that alcohol improves their ability to tell jokes.
Heaven awaits: 67 percent of Americans say they would vote for a well-qualified homosexual for president, but only 49 percent would vote for a well-qualified atheist.
Canadian spring: In Ontario last year, college spring break was blamed on a spike in pregnancy among teenagers.
Charity begins at home: There are 535 members of Congress – but only two (one Republican and one Democrat) contribute a portion of their salaries to help the national debt.
Share and share alike: If every household in American contributed $122,399, the national debt would be in really good shape. That’s less than the average home mortgage
The new American position: According to the CIA’s own ranking of countries by income inequality, the United States is more unequal than either Tunisia or Egypt.
Value for the money: Of the 100 highest-paid CEOs in the United States in 2010, 25 took home more pay than their entire company paid in corporate income taxes.
Note for diary: Countries grow more rapidly when incomes are more equal, and slow down when incomes are unequal.
Another Bush Benefit: Health-related prayer rose 36 percent between 1999 and 2007.
Cost of living increase: During 2010, CEO pay at the average American corporation increased 11 percent.
American equality: The top 1 percent of people in the United States possess more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent. America’s richest 400 people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million.
A Republican benefit: During the last two Republican administrations, 65 percent of economic gains went to the richest 1 percent.
Another Republican benefit: The official child poverty rate increased 18 percent between 2000 and 2009, and the number of children facing food insecurity soared to nearly 1 in 4.
Another Republican benefit: 71 percent of our national debt has been signed into law by Republican presidents.
Another Republican benefit: 75 percent of the increase in U.S. corporate profits since 2001 has come from depressed wages.
The Bush tax cuts kick in: Sales of luxury goods in the United States increased 7.3 percent.
The Tea Party speaks: Last August, Rep Joe Wash (R-Ill.) said, “Washington cannot put one more tax dollar on the backs of my kids.” In the same month, he was revealed to owe $98,422 in back child support.
Not enough money to pay for Social Security: At the present rate, by 2015, the government will subsidize oil industries to the tune of $78,000,000,000 – each year.
Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state and university history and government instructor, lives in Westbrook. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.
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