SamSaid!

STATISTICS

     Sometimes while reading  thru magazines and newspapers, numbers prominently jump out at the readers.   Here are a few examples.

   1.  A creative statistition has calculated that the mortality rate per 1000,000 people over 22 months is higher in Washington DC than it is among our military folks in Iraq. Since it is so dangerous in the Nation's Capital, I wonder if the anti-war left wingers advocate pulling out of Washington??

   2. When oil drilling began at  Prudoe Bay, Alaska, in 1977, the caribou population was 5000. Now, the population at 31,000. I did NOT get this data from the Sierra Club or the other “Greenies”. It's my guess that if we start drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Preserve, we'll probably have to resort to hunting permits to cull the herd.

   3. The annual earnings of shoppers at Walmart is $35,000. The comparable earnings figures at Target and Costco are $50,000 and $75,000 respectively. With all of the anti-Walmart propaganda nowadays, the solution seems to be for Walmart to raise its costs and force shoppers to move up to Target and Costco. I don't get the sense that Walmart shoppers are unhappy campers they way things are now.

   4. In the US, life expectancy has now risen to 77.6 years. Does that make the Pharmacuetical Companies good guys or just greedy, money hungry capitalists. I hate to read these articles that in effect say “It's too bad we really need those miserable #@!!Z*@## drug peddlers.” Anyone for more research?

   5. The unpaid deficit in repayment of student loans is now $7,000,000,000. Any way you look at it, $7 Billion is a lot of money. The student loan program was a good idea — and it still is  –  sort of like a civilian version of the GI Bill. But surviving as a good program is premised on the assumption that the recipients will pay back the loans. Obviously, that is not happening. It has gotten to the point where a portion of Social Security payments is being withheld to satisfy the loans.

     Even with the intellectual elite (?) there is the prevailing attitude that where tax dollars are concerned, repayment is no big deal. Since Social Security benefits start at age 62 (the earliest), how long have some of these unpaid loans been riding forward? Interest free??

   6. Last year, 1/3 of all of the babies born in the US were born to unwed mothers. Among blacks, the percentage of babies born to unwed mothers was 70%. What does that say about  family life in the next generation?

   7. At the Univ of California (Berkeley) the campaign for quotas in enrollment continues. The eggheads go to great lengths to avoid the word “quotas”. They look in all directions to find words that mean “quotas” without saying so  — like Equal Opportunity, Under-representation, Affirmative Action, Diversity, Total Experieice, and the like. Anything except merit and accomplishment. A banner heeadline in the local newspaper boasted, “Minority enrollment up at Berkeley”.—  meaning blacks and Hispanics.

    Buried in the article was a telling statistic. Enrollment for the coming year includes  48% Asian, and 31% white. Is this the product of Affirmative Action? Or diversity? Or under-represention? Who is discriminating against whom? If the Asians are a protected class, what are they being protected against?? If the blacks or hispanics have a beef, who is it against? The whites or the Asians? 

     Numbers!!