Alfred Woody's Kewl Blog [ 椼森 ]

Monday, December 28, 2009

29% of Americans say religion ‘out of date’

A Gallup poll of Americans' attitudes towards religion released on Christmas Eve found significant recent increases in those responding either that they have no religious preference, that religion is not very important in their lives, or that they believe religion "is largely old-fashioned or out of date."

Only 78% of Americans now identify as Christian, while 22% describe their religious preference as either "other" or "none."

Most of these changes have occurred since 2000 and represent the first significant shift since a sharp decline in religious adherence during the 1970s. Over the last nine years, the number with no religious preference has grown from a level of around 8% to 13%. The number for whom religion is not very important has climbed from just over 10% to 19%. And the number who believe religion is out of date and has no answers for today's problems has jumped from slightly more than 20% to 29%.

These changes do not appear to have affected the majority of Americans who still consider religion "very important" in their own lives. That figure remains at 56% -- roughly the same as for the last 35 years -- while 57% still say religion has answers to most of the world's problems.

The biggest difference is that in the late 1990s, up to 68% of Americans though religion had answers to the world's problems -- even though only about 60% said religion was personally very important to them. It seems as though over the last ten years a significant number may have gone from believing that religion is a positive factor in the world, even if they're not particularly religious themselves, to seeing religion in a far more skeptical or even negative light.

Even as the US economy recovers, a decade of joblessness and flat wages could lie ahead

WASHINGTON — The decade ahead could be a brutal one for America's unemployed - and for people with jobs hoping for pay raises.

At best, it could take until the middle of the decade for the nation to generate enough jobs to drive down the unemployment rate to a normal 5 or 6 per cent and keep it there. At worst, that won't happen until much later - perhaps not until the next decade.

The deepest and most enduring recession since the 1930s has battered America's work force.

The unemployed number 15.4 million. The jobless rate is 10 per cent. More than 7 million jobs have vanished. People out of work at least six months number a record 5.9 million. And household income, adjusted for inflation, has shrunk in the past decade.

Most economists say it could take at least until 2015 for the unemployment rate to drop down to a historically more normal 5.5 per cent. And with the job market likely to stay weak, some also foresee another decade of wage stagnation.

Even though the economy will likely keep growing, the pace is expected to be plodding. That will make employers reluctant to hire. Further contributing to high unemployment is the likelihood of more people competing for jobs, baby boomers delaying retirement and interest rates edging higher.

All this would come after a decade that created relatively few jobs: a net total of just 464,000. By contrast, 21.7 million new jobs were generated between 1989 and 1999.

Economist David Levy, chairman of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, says the country faces a new era of chronically high unemployment, averaging 8 per cent or more over the next decade.

The "New Abnormal," he calls it.

Levy thinks the New Abnormal also means average pay will dwindle, along with consumer prices. That would make it harder for households to pay down debt, he warns.

By the Federal Reserve's reckoning, the jobless rate could remain as high as 7.6 per cent in 2012. And it would take two or three years after that for the job market to return to normal, the Fed says.

It's possible jobs won't return to pre-recession levels at any point over the next 10 years, Levy says.

That's mainly because the economy's recovery, sluggish by historical standards, isn't expected to regain its vigour over the next few years. As a result, companies will be in no rush to ramp up hiring.

Other analysts think the economy will recover the jobs wiped out by the recession by 2013 or 2014 but that the unemployment rate will stay high. They note that the healing economy will cause more people to stream back into the labour force, vying for too-few jobs.

In addition, baby boomers whose retirement accounts have shrunk could put off retiring and stay in the work force longer. That would leave fewer positions available for the unemployed.

Other contributing forces - businesses squeezing more work from employees they still have and relying more on part-time and overseas help - have intensified. And record-high federal budget deficits and the threat of inflation could drive up interest rates, which could hobble growth and restrict job creation.

All those factors could combine to keep unemployment high.

"It will be the mother of all jobless recoveries," predicts economic historian John Steel Gordon.

On the other hand, it's possible some technological innovation not yet envisioned could generate a wave of jobs. Yet at the moment, most economists aren't betting that any such breakthroughs will rescue the labour market.

The last time the jobless rate reached double digits, in the early 1980s, it took six years to bring it down to normal levels.

Unemployment hit a post-World War II high of 10.8 per cent at the end of 1982 as the country was emerging from a severe recession. The rate fell to around 5 per cent in 1988. It took less than two years for the number of jobs to return to its pre-recession level.

In this recovery, the economy is far more fragile.

Hard-to-get credit is exerting a drag. Wounds from the banking system's worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s will take years to fully heal. People and companies, scarred by the crisis, are likely to restrain borrowing, spending and investing.

Some analysts think the jobless rate might have already peaked at 10.2 per cent in October. But most economists predict the rate will peak at around 10.5 per cent by the middle of next year.

"We are digging out of a very deep hole," says Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and chief economist for the National Association for Business Economics.

Reaser estimates it will take until 2015 for the unemployment rate to drop to 5.5 per cent.

A sputtering job market carries other consequences. One is flat wages. When many people compete for few jobs, employers have no incentive to raise pay.

The economic shocks of the past decade already have cut into Americans' incomes. That's among the reasons why people feel they're standing still economically.

Median household income, adjusted for inflation, fell to $50,303 in 2008, according to the U.S. Census. That gauge combines wages and salaries, investment income and government benefit payments like Social Security. It's down 4 per cent from a peak of $52,587 in 1999, when incomes were bolstered by stock gains from the dot-com boom.

That bubble burst in 2000. Since then, workers have seen meagre wage gains. Adjusted for inflation, wages grew about 13 per cent in the past 10 years - the slowest pace in five decades, according to calculations made by Scott Hoyt of Moody's Economy.com.

That trend is predicted to continue.

"There will be a continued hollowing-out of the middle class," says H.W. Brands, a historian at the University of Texas.

He points to productivity growth, which has let companies produce more with leaner work forces, the offshoring of service-sector jobs and the shrinking of factory jobs.

That's why Vicki Adriano, 51, who works at a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, looks ahead to the coming decade with trepidation.

The economic wreckage of the past year means she'll probably have to work longer than she had expected at the factory-at least seven more years. She frets about the loss of economic security.

"Everything you worked for all those years can be gone in a minute," she says.

Confirmed? "Sharp dressemd man" aided Northwest flight "Christmas Bomber" Umar Mutallab onto plane without passport. Who was involved, why ......

Metro Detroit Live

Kurt HaskellKurt Haskell's boarding pass for NWA Flight 253

A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport.

Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., who posted an earlier comment about his experience, talked exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday.

Kurt HaskellLori and Kurt Haskell

Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man.

Kurt and Lori Haskell are attorneys with Haskell Law Firm in Taylor. Their expertise includes bankruptcy, family law and estate planning.

While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, 'He's from Sudan and we do this all the time.'”

Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.

The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn't see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane.

Haskell said the flight was mostly unremarkable. That was until he heard a flight attendant say she smelled smoke, just after the pilot announced the plane would land in Detroit in 10 minutes. Haskell got out of his seat to view the brewing commotion.

“I stood up and walked a couple feet ahead to get a closer look, and that's when I saw the flames,” said Haskell, who sat about seven rows behind Mutallab. “It started to spread pretty quickly. It went up the wall, all the way to ceiling.”

Haskell, who described Mutallab as a diminutive man who looks like a teenager, said about 30 seconds passed between the first mention of smoke and when Mutallab was subdued by fellow passengers.

“He didn't fight back at all. This wasn't a big skirmish,” Haskell said. “A couple guys jumped on him and hauled him away.”

The ordeal has Haskell and his wife a little shaken. Flight attendants were screaming during the fire and the pilot sounded notably nervous when bringing the plane in for a landing, he said.

“Immediately, the pilot came on and said two words: emergency landing,” Haskell said. “And that was it. The plane sped up instead of slowing down. You could tell he floored it.”

As Mutallab was being led out of the plane in handcuffs, Haskell said he realized that was the same man he saw trying to board the plane in Amsterdam.

Passengers had to wait about 20 minutes before they were allowed to exit the plane. Haskell said he and other passengers waited about six hours to be interviewed by the FBI.

About an hour after landing, Haskell said he saw another man being taken into custody. But a spokeswoman from the FBI in Detroit said Mutallab was the only person taken into custody.

Northwest Bomb Plot 'Oddities'

In 2008, the ACLU estimated the US 'No Fly List' to have grown to over 1,000,000 names -- heck, even Cat Stevens and the late Senator Ted Kennedy were on it -- and it continues to expand. But, suspected terrorist Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was curiously able to obtain military-grade high explosives --80 grams of PETN (Gee, where'd he get that?) -- managed to escape airport security and detonate his underwear bomb!

In April 2009, American authorities reportedly refused an Air France flight from Paris to Mexico entry into US airspace because a left-wing journalist writing a book on the CIA was on board. Hernando Calvo Ospina, who works for Le Monde Diplomatique and has written on revolutionary movements in Cuba and Colombia, figured on the US authorities' 'no-fly list.' Air France said the April 18 flight was forced to divert to the French Caribbean island of Martinique before continuing its journey (telegraph.co.uk).

Got it? Write a book critical of the CIA -- you cannot fly. Carry explosives (allegedly from Yemen) on board when the US is trolling for an excuse to invade and occupy Yemen for its oil -- yes you can! The US needs false flags to provide cover for illegal invasions and occupations. The 9/11 terrorist attacks (aka inside job, six ways to Sunday) worked well for the US government; the security-industrial complex made billions and US corporaterrorists were able to negotiate the wholesale theft of Iraq's oil.

According to CNN, the terror suspect's father tried to warn authorities. CNN reported: The father of a man suspected in a botched terror attack aboard a Northwest Airlines flight contacted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria recently with concerns his son was planning something, a senior U.S. administration official said Saturday. The father -- identified by a family source as Umaru Abdul Mutallab -- contacted the U.S. Embassy "a few weeks ago" saying his son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had "become radicalized," the senior administration official, who is familiar with the case, told CNN.

And yet, Abdulmutallab was not obliged to undergo any additional airport screening layers, prior to boarding the last leg of his journey to Detroit.

Abdulmutallab was thwarted by a quote, unquote vacationing movie producer, Jasper Schuringa, who, within seconds, asserted that he not only tackled the suspect and put him in a headlock but also tried 'to search his body for any explosives' (CNN). Unless one was a bona-fide law enforcement professional or a military agent, who on earth would think of searching a man who had set himself on fire in a matter of seconds, for more explosives?

The goal is Yemeni oil. Hence the reason for the destabilization and the purported need for the US to stop al-Qaeda (literally, 'the database'). The Yemeni national security chief has declared that the country is receiving assistance from the US in the crackdown on what he called 'al-Qaeda operatives' in southern Yemen (Press TV). Translation: US corporaterrorists want Yemeni oil and they want it NOW.

Investigators: Northwest Bomb Plot Planned by al-Qaeda in Yemen --Officials Say Bomb Materials Sewn Into Suspect's Underwear by Top Terror Bomb Maker 26 Dec 2009 The plot to blow up an American passenger jet over Detroit was organized and launched by al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh] leaders in Yemen who apparently sewed bomb materials into the suspect's underwear before sending him on his mission, federal authorities tell ABC News. Investigators say the suspect had more than 80 grams of PETN, a compound related to nitro-glycerin used by the military. The so-called shoe bomber, Richard Reid, had only about 50 grams kin his failed attempt in 2001 to blow up a U.S.-bound jet.

Source: Terror suspect's father tried to warn authorities 27 Dec 2009 The father of a man suspected in a botched terror attack aboard a Northwest Airlines flight contacted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria recently with concerns his son was planning something, a senior U.S. administration official said Saturday. The father -- identified by a family source as Umaru Abdul Mutallab -- contacted the U.S. Embassy "a few weeks ago" saying his son, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had "become radicalized," the senior administration official, who is familiar with the case, told CNN. Abdulmutallab, 23, was charged in a federal criminal complaint Saturday with attempting to destroy the plane Friday on its final approach to Michigan's Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and placing a destructive device on the aircraft, the Department of Justice said.

Father alerted US about Nigerian plane bomb suspect 27 Dec 2009 The father of a Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a transatlantic jet on Christmas Day had voiced concerns to US officials about his son. The father, a top Nigerian banker, warned US authorities last month about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's extreme views, say officials. US sources confirm a file was opened, but say the information did not warrant placing the accused on a "no-fly" list.

Airline bomber was barred from Britain --Man who allegedly attempted to blow up US jet had UK visa request refused in May 27 Dec 2009 The son of a prominent Nigerian banker, who allegedly attempted to blow up a transatlantic flight over America, was barred from returning to Britain earlier this year. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, graduated from a university in London last year but his visa request was refused in May when he attempted to apply for a new course at a bogus college. Abdulmutallab, described as a devout Muslim, attempted to ignite an explosive device on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day after shouting about Afghanistan.

Uclear If Suspect's Name Was On Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment List --The list, maintained by United States National Counterterrorism Center, includes about 550,000 names 27 Dec 2009 The Nigerian man accused of trying to ignite an incendiary device aboard a trans-Atlantic jetliner on Friday came to the attention of American officials at least "several weeks ago," but the initial information was not specific enough to raise alarms that he could potentially carry out a terrorist attack, a senior Obama administration official said on Saturday... It was unclear whether Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name was entered into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, which includes people with known or suspected contact or ties to a terrorist or terrorist organization. Those people, however, are not necessarily placed on the federal government’s so-called no-fly list, which prohibits persons entering the United States because of known or suspected [or imagined] terrorists links. Mr. Abdulmutallab was not on that list, federal officials say.

US authorites divert Air France flight carrying 'no-fly' journalist to Mexico --American authorities reportedly refused an Air France flight from Paris to Mexico entry into US airspace because a left-wing journalist writing a book on the CIA was on board. 29 Apr 2009 Hernando Calvo Ospina, who works for Le Monde Diplomatique and has written on revolutionary movements in Cuba and Colombia , figured on the US authorities' "no-fly list". Air France said the April 18 flight was forced to divert to the French Caribbean island of Martinique before continuing its journey and that it might ask the US Transportation Security Administration for compensation. A spokesman for Mr Ospina's French publisher, Le Temps des Cerises, said: "Hernando, who was heading to Nicaragua to research a report, thus found out that he is on a 'no-fly list' that bans a number of people from flying to or even over the United States." Some 50,000 people are said to be on the list set up under George W. Bush, the former US president [sic]. The publisher accused the Central Intelligence Agency of being behind Mr Ospina's blacklisting, pointing out that the journalist was currently researching a book about the spy agency. "It shows to what degree its paranoia (has reached)," it said.

'I was trying to search his body for any explosives.' Passenger says he helped thwart terror attack 27 Dec 2009 Passenger Jasper Schuringa told CNN that with the aid of the cabin crew, he helped subdue and isolate Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged Saturday with trying to destroy a plane. Schuringa of Amsterdam, Netherlands, said he was traveling to Florida to visit friends. The journey aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 had been mundane, he said. But as the plane neared its destination of Detroit, Michigan, he heard a pop that sounded like a firecracker going off, and someone started yelling: "Fire! Fire!" Then, there was smoke. "Around 30 seconds later the smoke started to fill up on the left side beneath this person," he said. That's when Schuringa said he knew something was wrong. "I basically reacted directly. I didn't think. When you hear a pop on the plane you're awake, trust me," Schuringa said. When he noticed that Abdulmutallab was not moving, he grew suspicious. "I was on the right side of the plane and the suspect was on the left side, there were quite some seats in between." He jumped over the passenger next to him and lunged over Abdulmutallab's seat, "Because I was thinking he's trying to blow up the plane, and I was trying to search his body for any explosives."

Airports intensify security measures worldwide in wake of failed bomb attack aboard U.S.-bound jetliner --Terror suspect charged in jetliner bomb plot 26 Dec 2009 Federal authorities have charged Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, of Nigeria, with attempting to destroy Northwest flight 253 with a "destructive device" as it descended into Detroit on Christmas Day. In a case of attempted terrorism that has sparked a worldwide intensification of security at airports, U.S. officials said Saturday afternoon that a preliminary FBI analysis found a bomb-making chemical called PETN in the device Abdulmutallab tried to detonate. The affidavit, filed in the Eastern District of Michigan, also said FBI agents discovered the remnant of a syringe near the suspect's seat, part of what the agents believe was part of the explosive device.

US bombs Sa'ada governor's house, Houthis say 27 Dec 2009 A US fighter jet has carried out multiple airstrikes on the home of a senior official in Yemen's northern rugged province of Sa'ada, Houthi fighters say. The Yemen-based Houthi fighters say the warplane struck the home owned by the governor of Sa'ada province, Hassan Mohammad Manna in five blitzes. There were no reports on possible casualties in the attacks.

Yemen confirms receiving US military support 27 Dec 2009 The Yemeni national security chief has declared that the country is receiving assistance from the US in the crackdown on what he called 'al-Qaeda operatives' in southern Yemen. Mohamed al-Anisi has told the Saudi Arabian newspaper Okaz that Yemeni forces were cooperating with the US military on attacks against al-Qaeda camps, DPA reported on Saturday. Yemen's confirmation comes as an ABC report revealed that US President Barack Obama had signed the order for a recent military strike on Yemen in which scores of civilians, including children, were killed.

Yemen oil min- oil majors mull investments-paper 21 Feb 2009 Yemen has received investment offers from oil majors including Exxon Mobil Corp and Total, Oil Minister Amir al-Aidarous said in remarks published on Saturday. Yemen's Ministry for Oil and Mineral Resources has received eight oil investment bids from international companies, pan-Arab daily al-Hayat quoted Aidarous as saying, four of which were from oil majors seeking direct negotiations with Yemen. The companies include Exxon Mobil, Total, and BP, the minister said, but did not elaborate on the nature of the investments. Other companies that made bids included Austrian oil and gas group OMV, Nexen, and Occidental, he said.

Police lose battle over evidence of 'British 9/11' plot --Scotland Yard must reveal whether it had CIA intelligence 26 Dec 2009 Scotland Yard has been ordered to reveal whether it has any evidence to support America’s claim that Britain was saved from a 9/11-style disaster by the CIA’s secret foreign interrogation centres. The Times has won a case under the Freedom of Information Act forcing British police to say whether the US stopped a plot to fly planes into Canary Wharf and Heathrow. The claim was made by President [sic] Bush when he first acknowledged the existence of a clandestine CIA prison network created to fight his War on of Terror. Scotland Yard has been given 35 days to comply or appeal. If it admits that there is no such intelligence, it would undermine any political defence for America’s strong-arm tactics in fighting terrorism.