Double decker RV - full interior tour
A full tour of the interior of my double decker RV. The 'making of'-video about the bus is here:
In April 2019 we made sort of a revision of this video, where Byke tells how it is to live in the bus. You can find that video here: .
I got a lot of questions about the bus, so I made a FAQ on my website. Read it here:
More photos of the bus are to be found in this Google Photos folder:
The plans of the bus are for free available in the 3D Warehouse of Sketchup at:
The bus is for sale. Interested? Contact me. Email is in the 'about' of this YouTube-channel.
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Thank you! I am very grateful!
MUSIC
1 - I Found an Answer by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license ( Artist:
2 - You Had To Be by E's Jammy Jams
3 - Forget Me Not by E's Jammy Jams
4 - Nighttime Stroll by E's Jammy Jams
5 - Rag Time Time by Doug Maxwell/Media
Rocky Mountain Adventure Park & Resort - Now available to Partners & Investors
Rocky Mountain Adventure Park & Resort is now available to Partners & Investors
All plans & schematics are all taken care of we are ready to have you rock & roll immediately for the biggest theme park & resort 3,000 acres providing over 33,000 jobs in in Northern Utah
Please contact Kevin Moss at 435-225-3030 or at rockymountainadventurepark@gmail.com or sandtoys@hotmail.com
Texts, Baseball Bombshells, and Lots of Snapper Fish: Congressional Hits and Misses
It was a busy couple of days on Capitol Hill this week, with the blitz to get to know Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in full swing, plus a House hearing on the 2016 texts of embattled FBI agent Peter Strzok and Speaker Paul D. Ryan talking about his car getting eaten by woodchucks.
Thumbnail photo: Speaker Paul D. Ryan talks with staff as he walks to his weekly press conference in the Capitol on Thursday, July 12, 2018. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
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Secretary Jewell on the Future of Conservation
In remarks at the National Geographic Society, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell laid out a vision for actions the nation can take to build upon America’s rich conservation legacy, and pass on healthy public lands and waters to the next generation.
Racism, School Desegregation Laws and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States
The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955--1968) refers to the social movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against black Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South. The emergence of the Black Power Movement, which lasted roughly from 1966 to 1975, enlarged the aims of the Civil Rights Movement to include racial dignity, economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from oppression by white Americans.
The movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955--1956) in Alabama; sit-ins such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina; marches, such as the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities.
Noted legislative achievements during this phase of the Civil Rights Movement were passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964, that banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin in employment practices and public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. African Americans re-entered politics in the South, and across the country young people were inspired to action.
Desegregation busing in the United States (also known as forced busing or simply busing) is the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools in such a manner as to redress prior racial segregation of schools, or to overcome the effects of residential segregation on local school demographics.
President Obama Signs Major Public Lands Protections
President Obama signs the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009, one of the most sweeping pieces of conservation and public land management legislation in years.
(public domain)
An Insider's Scoop on America's National Parks (1802)
2017 Conference on World Affairs, Monday, April 10, 2017
CU Boulder campus
To request captions or transcripts, please contact cwa@colorado.edu
The Origin of AIDS, the CIA and Army Biological Warfare
AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which originated in non-human primates in Sub-Saharan Africa and was transferred to humans during the late 19th or early 20th century.
Two types of HIV infect humans: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is more virulent, is more easily transmitted and is the cause of the vast majority of HIV infections globally. The pandemic strain of HIV-1 is closely related to a virus found in the chimpanzees of the subspecies Pan troglodytes troglodytes, which lives in the forests of the Central African nations of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo (or Congo-Brazzaville), and Central African Republic. HIV-2 is less transmittable and is largely confined to West Africa, along with its closest relative, a virus of the sooty mangabey (Cercocebus atys atys), an Old World monkey inhabiting southern Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and western Ivory Coast.
Biological warfare (also known as germ warfare) is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Biological weapons (often termed bio-weapons or bio-agents) are living organisms or replicating entities (viruses) that reproduce or replicate within their host victims. Entomological (insect) warfare is also considered a type of biological warfare.
Biological weapons may be employed in various ways to gain a strategic or tactical advantage over an adversary, either by threats or by actual deployments. Like some of the chemical weapons, biological weapons may also be useful as area denial weapons. These agents may be lethal or non-lethal, and may be targeted against a single individual, a group of people, or even an entire population. They may be developed, acquired, stockpiled or deployed by nation states or by non-national groups. In the latter case, or if a nation-state uses it clandestinely, it may also be considered bioterrorism.
There is an overlap between biological warfare and chemical warfare, as the use of toxins produced by living organisms is considered under the provisions of both the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Toxins and Psychochemical weapons are often referred to as midspectrum agents. Unlike bioweapons, these midspectrum agents do not reproduce in their host and are typically characterized by shorter incubation periods.
The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied hundreds of thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.
The quote from the study:
Many experiments that tested various biological agents on human subjects, referred to as Operation Whitecoat, were carried out at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in the 1950s. The human subjects originally consisted of volunteer enlisted men. However, after the enlisted men staged a sitdown strike to obtain more information about the dangers of the biological tests, Seventh-day Adventists [SDAs] who were conscientious objectors were recruited for the studies.
The Army purchased an additional 147 acres (59 ha) in 1946 to increase the size of the original Area A as well as 398 acres (161 ha) located west of Area A, but not contiguous to it, to provide a test area known as Area B. In 1952, another 502.76 acres (203.5 ha) were purchased between West 7th Street and Oppossumtown Pike to expand the permanent research and development facilities.
Jeffrey Alan Lockwood finds that the biological warfare program at Ft. Detrick began to research the use of insects as disease vectors going back to World War II and also employed German and Japanese scientists after the war who had experimented on human subjects among POWs and concentration camp inmates. Scientists used or attempted to use a wide variety of insects in their biowar plans, including fleas, ticks, ants, lice and mosquitoes—especially mosquitoes that carried the yellow fever virus. They also tested these in the United States. Lockwood thinks that it is very likely that the U.S. did use insects dropped from aircraft during the Korean War to spread diseases, and that the Chinese and North Koreans were not simply engaged in a propaganda campaign when they made these allegations, since the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense had approved their use in the fall of 1950 at the earliest practicable time. At that time, it had five bio warfare agents ready for use, three of which were spread by insect vectors. By 1952, the U.S. had dropped insects carrying a wide variety of diseases over China and North Korea, including plague, anthrax, encephalitis, cholera, dysentery, neurotropic viruses, and plant and livestock pathogens.
Confusion over unpaid expenses for Barway Collins funeral
A group that collected money to help pay for the funeral of Crystal fourth-grader Barway Collins is on the hot seat, facing tough questions.
The Organization of Liberians in Minnesota (OLM) received several thousand dollars, but Estes Funeral Chapel which conducted the 10-year-old's funeral service says it hasn't been paid by the group. Barway's service cost more than $17,000, but at least $2,000 is still owed.
The owner of EZ African Market in Brooklyn Park helped pay for Barway's funeral. Owner Edoh Akakpo wrote OLM a check for $3,500 and says he would be disappointed if the money were misused.
It would make me feel a little sad, Akakpo said. We want to make sure everybody does their part so this boy can rest in peace, we should not try to kill his spirit again.
Akakpo said Barway and his father often went to his store.
Members of OLM and a group called Team Barway held a press conference Thursday to explain the unpaid expenses. According to Penny Castano of Team Barway, Akakpo's check did not go to Barway's funeral because it was their understanding the funeral was paid for. Members of Team Barway say they have the money, and if more money is needed, they will pay it.
Crystal police are also questioning money that was collected for Barway's funeral. However, they can not talk about it because it's part of the case against Pierre Collins.
Pierre Collins appears in court
The Crystal father charged with murdering his 10-year-old son was also back in court Thursday. Pierre Collins is accused of murdering his son, Barway, for insurance money.
Members of the Liberian community filled the courtroom that left people standing outside for Thursday's omnibus hearing that lasted 10 minutes. Collins did not speak and his attorney, Greg Scanlan, asked the judge for more time to review the large volume of evidence presented in the case. The judge granted a continuation of the pretrial hearing.
Court documents show Collins had two life insurance policies for his son and Collins tried to increase the amount for one of those policies two days before his son disappeared.
Collins, who is charged with second-degree murder, is due back in court July 7.
Sonya Goins, Corey Bork & 12 News Staff
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Channel 12 is on Comcast cable in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis and includes the cities Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Crystal, Golden Valley, Maple Grove, New Hope, Osseo, Plymouth and Robbinsdale.
The Rich in America: Power, Control, Wealth and the Elite Upper Class in the United States
The American upper class describes the sociological concept pertaining to the top layer of society in the United States. About the book:
This social class is most commonly described as consisting of those with great wealth and power and may also be referred to as the Capitalist Class or simply as The Rich. Persons of this class commonly have immense influence in the nation's political and economic institutions as well as public opinion.
Many politicians, heirs to fortunes, top business executives, CEOs, successful venture capitalists and celebrities are considered members of this class. Some prominent and high-rung professionals may also be included if they attain great influence and wealth. The main distinguishing feature of this class, which is estimated to constitute roughly 1% of the population, is the source of income. While the vast majority of persons and households derive their income from salaries, those in the upper class derive their income from investments and capital gains. Estimates for the size of this group commonly vary from 1% to 2%, while some surveys have indicated that as many as 6% of Americans identify as upper class. Sociologist Leonard Beeghley sees wealth as the only significant distinguishing feature of this class and, therefore, refers to this group simply as the rich.
The members of the tiny capitalist class at the top of the hierarchy have an influence on economy and society far beyond their numbers. They make investment decisions that open or close employment opportunities for millions of others. They contribute money to political parties, and they often own media enterprises that allow them influence over the thinking of other classes... The capitalist class strives to perpetuate itself: Assets, lifestyles, values and social networks... are all passed from one generation to the next. -Dennis Gilbert, The American Class Structure, 1998
Sociologists such as W. Lloyd Warner, William Thompson and Joseph Hickey recognize prestige differences between members of the upper class. Established families, prominent professionals and politicians may be deemed to have more prestige than some entertainment celebrities who in turn may have more prestige than the members of local elites. Yet, contemporary sociologists argue that all members of the upper class share such great wealth, influence and assets as their main source of income as to be recognized as members of the same social class. As great financial fortune is the main distinguishing feature of this class, sociologist Leonard Beeghley at the University of Florida identifies all rich households, those with incomes in the top 1% or so, as upper class.
Functional theorists in sociology and economics assert that the existence of social classes is necessary in order to distribute persons so that only the most qualified are able to acquire positions of power, and so that all persons fulfill their occupational duties to the greatest extent of their ability. Notably, this view does not address wealth, which plays an important role in allocating status and power.
In order to make sure that important and complex tasks are handled by qualified and motivated personnel, society offers incentives such as income and prestige. The more scarce qualified applicants are and the more essential the given task is, the larger the incentive will be. Income and prestige which are often used to tell a person's social class, are merely the incentives given to that person for meeting all qualifications to complete an important task that is of high standing in society due to its functional value.
It should be stressed... that a position does not bring power and prestige because it draws a high income. Rather, it draws a high income because it is functionally important and the available personnel is for one reason or another scarce. It is therefore superficial and erroneous to regard high income as the cause of a man's power and prestige, just as it is erroneous to think that a man's fever is the cause of his disease... The economic source of power and prestige is not income primarily, but the ownership of capital goods (including patents, good will, and professional reputation). Such ownership should be distinguished from the possession of consumers' goods, which is an index rather than a cause of social standing. -Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore, Principles of Stratification.
Sen. Toomey Works To Protect Kids In Schools
The Vietnam War: Reasons for Failure - Why the U.S. Lost
In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention. About the book:
As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted, First, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies... And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It's very dangerous.
Some have suggested that the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America's withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress... Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure... The...Vietnam War...legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military...Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy's strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam.
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail. Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion.
Doubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn't do the job. Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented.
The inability to bomb Hanoi to the bargaining table also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation. The North's leadership was composed of hardened communists who had been fighting for independence for thirty years. They had defeated the French, and their tenacity as both nationalists and communists was formidable. Ho Chi Minh is quoted as saying, You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours...But even at these odds you will lose and I will win.
The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland's attrition strategy, calling it wasteful of American lives... with small likelihood of a successful outcome. In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces.
Between 1965 and 1975, the United States spent $111 billion on the war ($686 billion in FY2008 dollars). This resulted in a large federal budget deficit.
More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam. James E. Westheider wrote that At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops. Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the President since World War II, but ended in 1973.
By war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed, more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled. According to Dale Kueter, Sixty-one percent of those killed were age 21 or younger. Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races. The youngest American KIA in the war was PFC Dan Bullock, who had falsified his birth certificate and enlisted in the US Marines at age 14 and who was killed in combat at age 15. Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. An estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted. In 1977, United States President Jimmy Carter granted a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers. The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war's conclusion.
Dangers of Pesticides, Food Additives Documentary Film
Pesticides are substances or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest. Pesticides are a special kind of products for crop protection. Crop protection products in general protect plants from damaging influences such as weeds, diseases or insects. A pesticide is generally a chemical or biological agent (such as a virus, bacterium, antimicrobial or disinfectant) that through its effect deters, incapacitates, kills or otherwise discourages pests. Target pests can include insects, plant pathogens, weeds, molluscs, birds, mammals, fish, nematodes (roundworms), and microbes that destroy property, cause nuisance, spread disease or are vectors for disease. Although there are human benefits to the use of pesticides, some also have drawbacks, such as potential toxicity to humans and other animals. According to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, 9 of the 12 most dangerous and persistent organic chemicals are pesticides. Pesticides are categorized into four main substituent chemicals: herbicides; fungicides; insecticides and bactericides.
Food additives are substances added to food to preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance. Some additives have been used for centuries; for example, preserving food by pickling (with vinegar), salting, as with bacon, preserving sweets or using sulfur dioxide as in some wines. With the advent of processed foods in the second half of the 20th century, many more additives have been introduced, of both natural and artificial origin.
With the increasing use of processed foods since the 19th century, there has been a great increase in the use of food additives of varying levels of safety. This has led to legislation in many countries regulating their use. For example, boric acid was widely used as a food preservative from the 1870s to the 1920s, but was banned after World War I due to its toxicity, as demonstrated in animal and human studies. During World War II, the urgent need for cheap, available food preservatives led to it being used again, but it was finally banned in the 1950s. Such cases led to a general mistrust of food additives, and an application of the precautionary principle led to the conclusion that only additives that are known to be safe should be used in foods. In the USA, this led to the adoption of the Delaney clause, an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, stating that no carcinogenic substances may be used as food additives. However, after the banning of cyclamates in the USA and Britain in 1969, saccharin, the only remaining legal artificial sweetener at the time, was found to cause cancer in rats. Widespread public outcry in the USA, partly communicated to Congress by postage-paid postcards supplied in the packaging of sweetened soft drinks, led to the retention of saccharin despite its violation of the Delaney clause.
In September 2007, research financed by Britain's Food Standards Agency and published online by the British medical journal The Lancet, presented evidence that a mix of additives commonly found in children's foods increases the mean level of hyperactivity. The team of researchers concluded that the finding lends strong support for the case that food additives exacerbate hyperactive behaviors (inattention, impulsivity and overactivity) at least into middle childhood. That study examined the effect of artificial colors and a sodium benzoate preservative, and found both to be problematic for some children. Further studies are needed to find out whether there are other additives that could have a similar effect, and it is unclear whether some disturbances can also occur in mood and concentration in some adults. In the February 2008 issue of its publication, AAP Grand Rounds, the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that a low-additive diet is a valid intervention for children with ADHD:
Although quite complicated, this was a carefully conducted study in which the investigators went to great lengths to eliminate bias and to rigorously measure outcomes. The results are hard to follow and somewhat inconsistent. For many of the assessments there were small but statistically significant differences of measured behaviors in children who consumed the food additives compared with those who did not. In each case increased hyperactive behaviors were associated with consuming the additives. For those comparisons in which no statistically significant differences were found, there was a trend for more hyperactive behaviors associated with the food additive drink in virtually every assessment. Thus, the overall findings of the study are clear and require that even we skeptics, who have long doubted parental claims of the effects of various foods on the behavior of their children, admit we might have been wrong.
Senator Reed Urges Confirmation of Richard Cordray to Lead the CFPB
Senator Jack Reed delivers remarks in support of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB was created to help stop unfair, deceptive, and abusive financial practices and keep the rules governing financial service products up-to-date.
Nuclear Power and Bomb Testing Documentary Film
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, is the world's third deep geological repository (after closure of Germany's Repository for radioactive waste Morsleben and the Schacht Asse II Salt Mine) licensed to permanently dispose of transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years that is left from the research and production of nuclear weapons. It is located approximately 26 miles (42 km) east of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in eastern Eddy County.
In order to address growing public unrest concerning construction of the WIPP, the New Mexico Environmental Evaluation Group (EEG) was created in 1978. This group, charged with overseeing the WIPP, verified statements, facts, and studies conducted and released by the DOE regarding the facility. The stewardship this group provided effectively lowered public fear and let the facility progress with little public opposition in comparison to similar facilities around the nation such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
The EEG, in addition to acting as a check for the government agencies overseeing the project, acted as a valuable advisor. In a 1981 drilling, pressurized brine was again discovered. The site was set to be abandoned when the EEG stepped in and suggested a series of tests on the brine and the surrounding area. These tests were conducted and the results showed that the brine deposit was relatively small and was isolated from other deposits. Drilling in the area was deemed safe due to these results. This saved the project valuable money and time by preventing a drastic relocation.
In 1979 Congress authorized construction of the facility. In addition to formal authorization, Congress redefined the level of waste to be stored in the WIPP from high temperature to transuranic, or low level, waste. Transuranic waste often consists of materials which have come in contact with radioactive substances such as plutonium and uranium. This often includes gloves, tools, rags, and assorted machinery often used in the production of nuclear fuel and weapons. Although much less potent than nuclear reactor byproducts, this waste still remains radioactive for approximately 24,000 years. This change in classification led to a decrease in safety parameters for the proposed facility, allowing construction to continue at a faster pace.
The first extensive testing of the facility was due to begin in 1988. The proposed testing procedures involved interring samples of low level waste in the newly constructed caverns. Various structural and environmental tests would then be performed on the facility to verify its integrity and to prove its ability to safely contain nuclear waste. Opposition from various external organizations delayed actual testing into the early 1990s. Attempts at testing were resumed in October 1991 with US Secretary of Energy James Watkins announcing that he would begin transportation of waste to the WIPP.
Despite apparent progress on the facility, construction still remained costly and complicated. Originally conceptualized in the 1970s as a warehouse for waste, the repository now had regulations similar to those of nuclear reactors. As of December 1991, the plant had been under construction for 20 years and was estimated to have cost over one billion dollars. At the time, WIPP officials reported over 28 different organizations claiming authority over operations of the facility.
In November 1991, a federal judge ruled that Congress must approve WIPP before any waste, even for testing purposes, was sent to the facility. This indefinitely delayed testing until Congress gave its approval. The 102nd United States Congress passed legislation allowing use of the WIPP. The House of Representatives approved the facility on October 6, 1992 and the Senate passed a bill allowing the opening of the facility on October 8 of the same year. The bill was met with much opposition in the Senate. Senator Richard H. Bryan fought the bill based on safety issues that concerned a similar facility located in Nevada, the state for which he was serving as senator. His efforts almost prevented the bill from passing. New Mexico senators Pete V. Domenici and Jeff Bingaman effectively reassured Senator Bryan that these issues would be addressed in the 103rd Congress. The final legislation provided safety standards requested by the House and an expedited timeline requested by the Senate.
Wealth and Power in America: Social Class, Income Distribution, Finance and the American Dream
Wealth in the United States is commonly measured in terms of net worth, which is the sum of all assets, including home equity, minus all liabilities. More on the topic:
For example, a household in possession of an $800,000 house, $5,000 in mutual funds, $30,000 in cars, $20,000 worth of stock in their own company, and a $45,000 IRA would have assets totaling $900,000. Assuming that this household would have a $250,000 mortgage, $40,000 in car loans, and $10,000 in credit card debt, its debts would total $300,000. Subtracting the debts from the worth of this household's assets (900,000 - $300,000 = $600,000), this household would have a net worth of $600,000. Net worth can vary with fluctuations in value of the underlying assets.
The wealth—more specifically, the median net worth—of households in the United States is varied with relation to race, education, geographic location and gender. As one would expect, households with greater income feature the highest net worths, though high income cannot be taken as an always accurate indicator of net worth. Overall the number of wealthier households is on the rise, with baby boomers hitting the highs of their careers. In addition, wealth is unevenly distributed, with the wealthiest 25% of US households owning 87% of the wealth in the United States, which was $54.2 trillion in 2009.
When observing the changes in the wealth among American households, one can note an increase in wealthier individuals and a decrease in the number of poor households, while net worth increased most substantially in semi-wealthy and wealthy households. Overall the percentage of households with a negative net worth (more debt than assets) declined from 9.5% in 1989 to 4.1% in 2001.
The percentage of net worths ranging from $500,000 to one million doubled while the percentage of millionaires tripled. From 1995 to 2004, there was tremendous growth among household wealth, as it nearly doubled from $21.9 trillion to $43.6 trillion, but the wealthiest quartile of the economic distribution made up 89% of this growth. During this time frame, wealth became increasingly unequal, and the wealthiest 25% became even wealthier.
According to US Census Bureau statistics this Upward shift is most likely the result of a booming housing market which caused homeowners to experience tremendous increases in home equity. Life-cycles have also attributed to the rising wealth among Americans. With more and more baby-boomers reaching the climax of their careers and the middle aged population making up a larger segment of the population now than ever before, more and more households have achieved comfortable levels of wealth. Zhu Xiao Di (2004) notes that household wealth usually peaks around families headed by people in their 50s, and as a result, the baby boomer generation reached this age range at the time of the analysis.
The Dirty Secrets of George Bush
A number of allegations have been written about several investigations that have taken place related to the Mena Airport as a CIA drop point in large scale cocaine trafficking beginning in the latter part of the 1980s. More from the author:
The topic has received some press coverage that has included allegations of awareness, participation and/or coverup involvement of figures such as future presidents Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, as well future Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Saline County prosecutor Dan Harmon (who was convicted of numerous felonies including drug and racketeering charges in 1997). The Mena airport was also associated with Adler Berriman (Barry) Seal, an American drug smuggler and aircraft pilot who flew covert flights for the CIA and the Medellín Cartel.
A criminal investigator from the Arkansas State Police, Russell Welch, who was assigned to investigate Mena airport claimed that he opened a letter which released electrostatically charged Anthrax spores in his face, and that he had his life saved after a prompt diagnosis by a doctor. He also claimed that later, his doctor's office was vandalized, robbed, and test results and correspondence with the CDC in Atlanta were stolen,
An investigation by the CIA's inspector general concluded that the CIA had no involvement in or knowledge of any illegal activities that may have occurred in Mena. The report said that the agency had conducted a training exercise at the airport in partnership with another Federal agency and that companies located at the airport had performed routine aviation-related services on equipment owned by the CIA.
Sen. John Boozman Pushes for Jobs Legislation
In the wake of the latest disappointing jobs report, U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR) took to the Senate floor to call for President Obama & Congress to put aside election year politicking and help put Americans back to work.
Global Warming or a New Ice Age: Documentary Film
Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation. More on this topic:
This hypothesis had little support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s and press reports that did not accurately reflect the scientific understanding of ice age cycles. In contrast to the global cooling conjecture, the current scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth has not durably cooled, but undergone global warming throughout the twentieth century.
Concerns about nuclear winter arose in the early 1980s from several reports. Similar speculations have appeared over effects due to catastrophes such as asteroid impacts and massive volcanic eruptions. A prediction that massive oil well fires in Kuwait would cause significant effects on climate was quite incorrect.
The idea of a global cooling as the result of global warming was already proposed in the 1990s. In 2003, the Office of Net Assessment at the United States Department of Defense was commissioned to produce a study on the likely and potential effects of a modern climate change, especially of a shutdown of thermohaline circulation. The study, conducted under ONA head Andrew Marshall, modelled its prospective climate change on the 8.2 kiloyear event, precisely because it was the middle alternative between the Younger Dryas and the Little Ice Age. The study caused controversy in the media when it was made public in 2004. However, scientists acknowledge that abrupt climate change initiated by Greenland ice sheet melting is not a realistic scenario for the 21st century.
Currently, the concern that cooler temperatures would continue, and perhaps at a faster rate, has been observed to be incorrect by the IPCC. More has to be learned about climate, but the growing records have shown that the cooling concerns of 1975 have not been borne out.
As for the prospects of the end of the current interglacial (again, valid only in the absence of human perturbations): it isn't true that interglacials have previously only lasted about 10,000 years; and Milankovitch-type calculations indicate that the present interglacial would probably continue for tens of thousands of years naturally. Other estimates (Loutre and Berger, based on orbital calculations) put the unperturbed length of the present interglacial at 50,000 years. Berger (EGU 2005 presentation) believes that the present CO2 perturbation will last long enough to suppress the next glacial cycle entirely.
As the NAS report indicates, scientific knowledge regarding climate change was more uncertain than it is today. At the time that Rasool and Schneider wrote their 1971 paper, climatologists had not yet recognized the significance of greenhouse gases other than water vapor and carbon dioxide, such as methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons. Early in that decade, carbon dioxide was the only widely studied human-influenced greenhouse gas. The attention drawn to atmospheric gases in the 1970s stimulated many discoveries in future decades. As the temperature pattern changed, global cooling was of waning interest by 1979.
The Last CIA Whistleblower: Drug Trafficking, Training Terrorists, and the U.S. Government
The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia is a major, nonfiction book on heroin trafficking—specifically in Southeast Asia from before World War II up to (and including) the Vietnam War. About the book:
Published in 1972, the book was the product of eighteen months of research and at least one trip to Laos by Alfred W. McCoy who was the principal author and who wrote Politics of Heroin while seeking a PhD in Southeast Asian history at Yale University. Cathleen B. Read, co-author and graduate student, also spent time there during the war.
Its most groundbreaking feature was its documentation of CIA complicity and aid to the Southeast Asian opium/heroin trade; along with McCoy's Congressional testimony, its initially controversial thesis has gained a degree of mainstream acceptance. The central idea is that at the time, the vast majority of heroin produced was produced in the Golden Triangle, from which:
It is transported in the planes, vehicles, and other conveyances supplied by the United States. The profit from the trade has been going into the pockets of some of our best friends in Southeast Asia. The charge concludes with the statement that the traffic is being carried on with the indifference if not the closed-eye compliance of some American officials and there is no likelihood of its being shut down in the foreseeable future.
Air America, which was covertly owned and operated by the CIA, was used for this transport, in particular. At the same time, the heroin supply was partly responsible for the parlous state of US Army morale in Vietnam: By mid 1971 Army medical officers were estimating that about 10 to 15 per cent... of the lower ranking enlisted men serving in Vietnam were heroin users.
Having interviewed Maurice Belleux, former head of the French SDECE intelligence agency, Mc Coy also uncovered parts of the French Connection scheme, as the French military agency had financed all of its covert operations, during the First Indochina War, from its control of the Indochina drug trade.