Tumblr has so many jewels that we have to share a few with you today. these are reposts of posts made on tumblr by some very astute bloggers. we’re going to do a list so that you can more easily check out the stories.
On the brink of the Heritage Foundation’s “Most poor people aren’t poor. See that microwave in their kitchen?” report (not intended to be a factual quote), I thought of a recent report from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights: Where We Need to Go: A Civil Rights Roadmap for Transportation Equity.
One of the big headlines to come out of the report, which argues that transportation is a civil rights issue: Individuals in the bottom 20th percentile income bracket spend 42 percent of their income on transportation.
Other findings:
- 33 percent of low-income African Americans do not have access to an automobile, compared to 25 percent for low-income Latinos and 12.1 percent for low-income Whites.
- Racial minorities are four times more likely than Whites to rely on public transportation for their work commute.
- People in neighborhoods with plentiful transit options spend just nine percent of their incomes on transportation, compared to the average American family’s expenditure of 19 percent.
- New York City residents earning less than $35,000 per year are eleven times more likely to have commutes over an hour each way than are those earning more than $75,000.
2. From - ilyagerner: CAP does a nice job responding to a much-touted “let them eat cell phones!” Heritage Foundation report, which argued that widespread ownership of consumer appliances meant America’s poor weren’t really struggling:Indeed, the rising cost of paying for electricity for the very appliances that Heritage thinks are indicators of luxury are eating a bigger and bigger hole into the pockets of the poor. Today struggling families are spending at least 15 percent of their household budget to pay their electric bills, and the poorest of the poor shell out an even higher percentage of their income for this basic expense. Somehow Heritage manages to completely ignore the fact in America, the U.S. Department of Agriculture found in 2008 that half (50.3 percent) of poor households with children said there were days when they didn’t know how or if they could pay for their next meal.
And these families are paying an extraordinary share of their income for basic housing, too. While the average renter makes about $13.52 an hour, the national average wage needed to afford a fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment is around $18.46 an hour. This problem is exacerbated for minimum wage working parents who earn just $7.25 an hour.
The fact that household conveniences can now be purchased with many fewer hours of work is a great mark of progress, but it also means that the ownership rates of refrigerators and cell phones are a poor standard by which to measure deprivation.
3. From - jvbrewer: “Marange diamond field: Zimbabwe torture camp discovered”
A torture camp run by Zimbabwe’s security forces is operating in the country’s rich Marange diamond fields, BBC Panorama has found.
The programme heard from recent victims who told of severe beatings and sexual assault.
The claims come as the European Union pushes to let some banned diamonds from the country led by President Robert Mugabe back onto world markets.
-WE Say HELL NO TO ZIMBABWEAN BLOOD DIAMONDS -
4. From – ustainable-sam: – This one has us really concerned
Photograph: Gleison Miranda/Funai/EPA
Brazil: Isolated Tribe Missing After Drug Traffickers Attack
What they feared ……may have happened.
5. From Our Friends at – azspot:
6. This is one that really caught our attention – because of the obvious Kennedy Connection. From : psies:
They’ve been vaulted since their recording a few months after her husband’s death, but now the secret confessions of Jackie Kennedy Onassis will be released. The shocking tapes reveal that the former first lady believed that Lyndon Johnson and Texas businessmen were behind the assassination of her husband on Nov. 22, 1963.
She also confesses to an affair with actor William Holden, an act of retaliation for her husband’s own romps with a 19-year-old White House intern and other women. Jackie recorded the tapes with the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., but asked that they not be released until 50 years after her death, fearing the confessions would have made her family targets for revenge.
Although she died only 17 years ago, her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, has agreed to release them early and have them aired on a special program on ABC. It is believed she agreed to the release in exchange for the network dropping its $10 million series about the family.
7. From liberal-life: Top 10 Things Texas Gov. Rick Perry Doesn’t Want You To Know About Him
(1) Perry allowed the execution of a likely innocent man, then impeded an investigation into the matter.
(2) Perry wants to repeal the 16th and 17th amendments, ending direct election of U.S. senators and the Federal income tax.
(3) Perry proposed letting states drop out of social security and medicaid.
(4) Texas is the country’s biggest polluter, but Perry sued the federal government for disapproving of the state’s air quality standards.
(5) Perry designated as “emergency legislation” a bill requiring all women seeking abortions to have sonograms first.
(6) Perry gutted childcare services, even as Texas childhood poverty hit 25%
(7) Perry was a strong supporter of Texas’s anti-sodomy laws.
(8) Perry is a stimulus hypocrite who loudly criticized federal recovery money, but used it to balance his state’s budget.
(9) Perry said that texas might have to secede from the United States
(10) Despite having the worst uninsured rate in the country, Perry claims that Texas has “the best health care in the country.
Click the link above to see more information about each of these items.
8. From azspot: Why Women Having a Seat at the Table is Not Enough
- Only 6 percent of Fortune 100 CEOs are women (and none of them run companies above #39)
- Only 8 percent of technology start-ups are led by women
- Only 9 percent of contributors on Wikipedia are women
- Women account for only a tenth of the voting power on the world’s key interest rates
- Only 13 percent of the top 100 billionaires worldwide are women and only one out of these thirteen holds an active leadership role, while others serve more of a shareholder and family inheritance role
- Only 15 percent of senior management in all industries are women
- Combined across eight major religions, women hold only 15 percent of the leadership roles in the clergy
- Less than 18 percent of Congressional seats are held by women
9. if you can believe this one – the rich say stop coddling us ; sarahlee310: Warren Buffet: “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich”
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.
These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.
[…]
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.
I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.
[…]
… I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.
But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.
My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.
10. and This is the Wrap Up - peterfeld:
Did you know that Facebook sucks all the contact information for your friends out of your phone, when you sync your contacts with Facebook? Even the ones who aren’t on Facebook?
Did you know that even if you’re not on Facebook, Facebook probably has your e-mail address and phone number via your friends who are on it?
Did you know that this (above) is the default setting? Unless you know enough to tell them not to, the corporate sociopaths at Facebook will “remind” your non-Facebook friends to join Facebook every two weeks.
Did the corporate sociopaths at Facebook tell you any of this? No, the Village Voice did.
Has Facebook ruined social networking?
Now that you’ve seen the news we only have one question for you
You know that you require this hot buttery goodness on a daily basis; so go ahead and hit that button and SUBSCRIBE. Don’t forget to hit the twitter bird on the right sidebar, to follow our Twitter too. you will be highly entertained, enlightened and enraptured by our daily plethora of look worthy tweets. Remember It’s Monday so Tomorrow we hit you with a PODCAST – And this one is all about Urban Summer 2011.
This is our Latest Video from the Brand New BadGalsVideoBlog found on YouTube
See Ya on the Flip Side,
