Mood:  chatty

Protests at Iran fuel rationing

Iranian motorists have reacted with fury after the government announced fuel rationing for private vehicles.

One petrol station was set on fire in Tehran. Fights were reported and drivers caused massive traffic congestion as they tried to fill up.

Iranians were given only two hours' notice of the move that limits private drivers to 100 litres of fuel a month.

Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and it imports about 40% of its petrol.

Iran has a large budget deficit largely caused by fuel subsidies and the inflation rate is estimated at 20-30%.

The BBC Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says Iran is trying to rein in fuel consumption over fears of possible UN sanctions over its nuclear programme.

Iran fears the West could impose sanctions on its petrol imports and cripple its economy.

'Dangerous move'
The restrictions began at midnight local time on Wednesday (2030 GMT Tuesday).

The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says there is anger and frustration the government did not give people more notice.

"Guns, fireworks, tanks, [President] Ahmadinejad should be killed," chanted angry youths, throwing stones at police.

Eyewitnesses have seen at least one petrol station in the outskirts of the west of Tehran on fire.

All over the city there are huge queues and reports of scuffles at petrol stations as motorists try to beat the start of the rationing and fill their tanks.

"I think rationing is not bad by itself but it must be organised," one man told the Associated Press news agency.

"One cannot announce at 9pm that the rationing would start at midnight, they should have announced the exact date at least two days earlier."

Iran's petrol is heavily subsidised, sold at about a fifth of its real cost.

The price of 1,000 rials ($0.11) per litre makes Iran one of the cheapest countries in the world for motorists.

So far there has been no announcement about whether Iranians can buy more petrol at the real market cost.

Licensed taxi drivers will be able to buy 800 litres a month at the subsidised price.

US pressure
Our correspondent says rationing fuel is only likely to add to high inflation.

It is a dangerous move for any elected government, especially in an oil-rich country like Iran where people think cheap fuel is their birthright and public transport is very limited, she says.

The US, which is leading efforts to pressure Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, has said Iran's fuel imports are a point of "leverage".

Washington and other Western nations accuse the Islamic Republic of seeking to build nuclear weapons.

Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and is solely aimed at producing civilian nuclear power.

BBC News ** Protests at Iran fuel rationing

Posted by yaahoo_ at 5:03 AM EDT

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ChiCom Students Not Interested in Marxism...

RUSH: We have a bunch of anti-capitalists that have grown very powerful in this country, and they're pushing for their own socialist dominance. In fact, it's interesting to note, too, because in China they're having trouble educating kids. Marx is not interesting to the students. The students are seeing this wild market development. In places like Beijing and Shanghai, development's going crazy. They're putting up buildings; people are driving cars, and students don't want to read Das Kapital. They want to read about capitalism, because they want a part of it, they want a piece of it. So teachers are having big problems. The Chinese government has unleashed the free market there. They've tried to control it like Gorbachev did with "glasnost" and "perestroika," but you can't. Once you unleash freedom to people who have had it denied them, it's only a matter of time before they're going to get what they want.

Marx loses currency in new China

Teaching socialism is mandatory, but learning it is monotonous for today's students, who revere money more than Mao.

Beijing -- It was like watching a man try to swim up a waterfall.

Professor Tao Xiuao cracked jokes, told stories, projected a Power Point presentation on a large video screen. But his students at Beijing Foreign Studies University didn't even try to hide their boredom.

Young men spread newspapers out on their desks and pored over the sports news. A couple of students listened to iPods; others sent text messages on their cellphones. One young woman with chic red-framed glasses spent the entire two hours engrossed in "Jane Eyre," in the original English. Some drifted out of class, ate lunch and returned. Some just lay their heads on their desktops and went to sleep.

It isn't easy teaching Marxism in China these days.

"It's a big challenge," acknowledged Tao, a likable man who demonstrates remarkable patience in the face of students more interested in capitalism than "Das Kapital." The students say he isn't the problem.

"It's not the teacher," said sophomore Liu Di, a finance major whose shaggy auburn hair hangs, John Lennon-style, along either side of his wire-rim glasses. "No matter who teaches this class, it's always boring. Philosophy is useful and interesting, but I think that in philosophy education in China, they just teach the boring parts."

Classes in Marxist philosophy have been compulsory in Chinese schools since not long after the 1949 communist revolution. They remain enshrined in the national education law, Article 3 of which states: "In developing the socialist educational undertakings, the state shall uphold Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung Thought and the theories of constructing socialism with Chinese characteristics as directives and comply with the basic principles of the Constitution."

But today's China is, in some respects, less socialistic than much of Western Europe, with a moth-eaten social safety net and a wild free-market economy. Students in almost any urban Chinese school can look out their classroom windows and see just about everything but socialism being constructed: high-rise office buildings, shopping malls, movie theaters, luxury apartment buildings, fast-food restaurants, hotels, factories -- the whole capitalist panorama.

It seems an understatement to say that there's a disconnect between reality and what the students are learning about Marx and Mao, who held that capitalism would inevitably and naturally give way to communism.

"Compared to my normal opinions about the world … it's something like fiction," said Du Zimu, one of Liu's classmates.

Professor Tao's lecture on this day was devoted to the arcane study of epistemology, ranging over the beliefs of Bertrand Russell, Charles Darwin and Marx, and building up to Mao's famous admonition to "seek truth from facts" -- hardly a disagreeable notion, but one that kindled no apparent flicker of interest in the students.

Chinese education officials are acutely aware of the problem, and say they have substantially reformed the country's ideological education. They haven't given Marx the heave-ho, but students in up-to-date primary and secondary schools learn more about patriotism and ethical behavior than about class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Students take two classes a week in ideological education from kindergarten through high school, and then must take two more courses in college.

"Before, there was a lot of indoctrination," said Zhou Mansheng, deputy director of the National Center for Education Development Research, an arm of the Education Ministry. Now, he said, "we stress a lot of traditional virtues, like respecting teachers and respecting the elderly. Especially now, we stress honesty.

"So as far as communist ideology," he continued, "some students will take it as their belief, but as for the majority, I think it will be enough if they act as legal and qualified citizens…. Not necessarily everyone has to become a Marxist believer."

There was a time, and Zhou, at 58, knows it well, when such a statement from a Chinese official would have been inconceivable, not to mention extremely dangerous.

Things certainly have changed. Daniel A. Bell, a Canadian who is the first Westerner in the modern era to teach politics at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China's most elite educational institution, wrote in the spring issue of Dissent magazine of his surprise at how little Marxism is actually discussed in China, even among Communist Party intellectuals.

"The main reason Chinese officials and scholars do not talk about communism is that hardly anybody really believes that Marxism should provide guidelines for thinking about China's political future," he wrote. "The ideology has been so discredited by its misuses that it has lost almost all legitimacy in society…. To the extent there's a need for a moral foundation for political rule in China, it almost certainly won't come from Karl Marx."

Still, it isn't easy to find students who will expressly renounce Marxism.

It may be because they know that to succeed in China, it helps immensely to be a member of the ruling Communist Party. It may be because Marxism and Maoist philosophy are so deeply woven into the fabric of Chinese life that students take them for granted, the way some American students accept a constitutional democracy without thinking too deeply about the alternatives. It may be because they truly believe in Marxism, and see the current period as a necessary stage on the path to true communism.

Or perhaps it may simply be because they're afraid.

"The students I know generally don't accept Marx as the best ideological foundation for modern China," said one student at a prestigious Chinese university. "Marx in China is only a flag used by different kinds of persons. Then, what is the ideological foundation for modern China? I think no one can give a satisfied answer."

Added the student: "You'd better not use my name."

On a recent morning when a light spring rain glistened the walkways and gardens of the Foreign Studies University, a group of students from Tao's class, all finance majors, gathered in a cafe on campus. Sitting around a long table, they talked -- guardedly at times, openly at others -- about their ideological education.

Zhao Fan, who uses the English name Nathan while he's studying the language, was the most conservative, arguing that Marxist education, if somewhat boring, was essential for any Chinese student.

"I think it's very important to learn these principles," he said. "Sometimes it's boring, but it's really useful."

Nathan saw no contradiction between Marxist beliefs and his career goals: He wants to go into marketing, ideally for one of China's largest corporations, get an MBA from a foreign university and go into management.

Gao Pan was on the other side of the ideological spectrum. Dressed in a black T-shirt, he was the rebel of the group, complaining about the lack of academic freedom in China. Referring to Marxism, he said, "If a theory proves to be wrong, you ought to be able to challenge it." That you can't, he said, "is a problem in China."

The one statement that everyone agreed with came from Liu, who had grumbled about China teaching "the boring parts" of philosophy.

"In our real life," he said, "most students complain a lot about these kinds of lessons. Nearly everyone. I think it's because we have learned all these things from the very beginning … even since kindergarten, so it's become so routine that everyone's bored. I think all of these lessons are very important and useful. But we shouldn't learn them every year."

That is where Chinese educators say reform will make a difference.

To demonstrate, they invited a reporter to a model junior high school in Beijing, not far from the iconic Temple of Heaven, one of China's greatest religious and architectural shrines. At the school, students are participating in a pilot program to learn the fundamentals of environmentalism, as part of a "values" class that used to contain a strong dose of Marxist ideology.

Tian Qing, a professor of environmental education at Beijing Normal University, said this was one of 30 schools in Beijing, and a larger number scattered around the country, using an environmental curriculum developed in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund and the British oil giant BP.

"Good afternoon!" the seventh-graders shouted in unison as teacher Song Xuefeng entered the room.

Song is a young man of boundless enthusiasm, and he led the class through a sometimes raucous, sometimes serious, always riveting hour of discussion about what the pupils can do to save Earth.

It was a sweltering day outside, temperatures well into the 90s.

"It's really hot," Song said to the students. "But we don't feel that hot now because we have air conditioning." This, in itself, is a rarity in a Chinese school. Song asked the students how low they should set the thermostat. One girl's hand streaked into the air. The air conditioner, she declared confidently, shouldn't be set higher than 26 degrees Celsius -- 79 Fahrenheit.

The whole class corrected her, shouting as one: "It can't be LOWER than 26 degrees!"

Later, Song had them write all the ways their families waste energy or water, and selected students to read their answers to the class. Everybody cracked up when one boy said his family might be wasting water because they have a fish tank with just one fish in it. "Maybe we should get another fish," he said with a smirk.

There wasn't a moment when interest flagged. The students peppered an American visitor with questions about U.S. environmental law and what families in the United States do to save water and power. The class, one education official added, adheres to the motto "Think globally, act locally" and is involved in trying to conserve a nearby canal.

"We do like it," 13-year-old Yu Yang said after class, "because it's relevant to our lives." Not, he said, like some classes -- history, for instance.

A lot of American students would say the same thing, so it's not fair to blame Marx for Yang's distaste for history. Still, what's happening at schools like his, not to mention what's happening outside their doors, suggests that Marx's hold on China may be slipping.

Talking over tea at the Education Ministry's modern offices in central Beijing, education official Zhou laughed a bit about today's students.

"They don't believe in God or communism," he said. "They're practical. They only worship the money."

mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
LA Times ~ Mitchell Landsberg ** Marx loses currency in new China

Posted by yaahoo_ at 4:10 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 27 June 2007 4:37 AM EDT

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Shock Photo of Rosie O'Donut's Daughter Wearing Bullet Belt Causes Stir at Her Own Blog...

A picture provokes a thousand libtard posts

Don't EVER ask me to explain why the moron does what she does, but Rosie O'Donut posted a pic of her little girl Vivi -- wearing a bullet belt -- at her blog. And the peacenik pacifist, hyper sensative, gutless pussy, candy ass libtards had a fit! Here's some of my favorite whiney-ass libtarded comments...

Jessi
My god… that picture. I can’t stop crying. This war is such bullshit.

Bill
Ro- So dissapointed to see your little ones with bullets…where are the guns? I thought for sure you would protect them more from such things…The internet is NOT OK…but bullets ARE?? Why Why??

The full effect of piss-lava libtardation has to be seen for yourself at her blog... Rosie.com ~ ro ** a picture says a thousand posts

Posted by yaahoo_ at 4:12 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 27 June 2007 4:45 AM EDT

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Mood:  spacey

Women Arrested, Accused Of Bathroom Sex In Front Of Children At Pool

  Third Woman Photographed Alleged Sex Acts, Police Say

Two women in Seminole County, Fla., are accused of performing sex acts in front of children at a community pool bathroom while a third woman photographed them, according to a police report.

Seminole County sheriff's deputies arrested Emily Hernandez and Johannie Jimenez over the weekend at the Casselberry public bathroom.

A woman told police that she was walking into the bathroom with her children, and noticed Hernandez and Jimenez naked and apparently performing oral sex. She said another woman was photographing the acts.

The pregnant mother said she tried to leave the area with her children but the women would not let her leave. She said she was threatened not to call the police.

The woman eventually left the area with her children unharmed, police said.

Hernandez and Jimenez face lewd and lascivious exhibition charges as well as battery on a pregnant person, false imprisonment of an adult and child under 13 years old.

While the women were being transported to the Seminole County Jail, an officer said that Hernandez apparently bit Jimenez inside the patrol car, according to the police report.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
Video: Police: Bathroom Sex In Front Of Kids Leads To Arrests
Local6.com ** Women Arrested, Accused Of Bathroom Sex In Front Of Children

Posted by yaahoo_ at 3:24 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 26 June 2007 3:44 PM EDT

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Parents Arrested For Leaving Toddler In Florida Sun 

Parents Accused Of Leaving Toddler In Sun For 45 Minutes At Disney Ride

Sheriff's Office: Girl Found Covered In Sweat, Nearly Lifeless 

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- Two Orange County parents face child abuse charges after riding the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Walt Disney World -- with their toddler left in a stroller in the sun for about 45 minutes.

Authorities said concerned guests moved a sleeping girl's stroller out of direct sunlight Monday and into some shade and called for help.

When investigators found the parents, they said there was confusion about who had the child.

The parents told investigators they accidentally left the 3-year-old girl in the stroller on Saturday afternoon.

They were with a group of other adults and children, and each parent thought the other had the girl.

According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office, the girl was found in the sun, turning red, covered in sweat and nearly lifeless.

Paramedics revived the girl after taking her indoors and giving her water.

Each parent was released from the Orange County jail on $2,500 bail.

Their children have been turned over to relatives while the Department of Children and Families investigates. Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

Photos: Images From Story - Video: Parents Charged After Child Found Alone At Disney
Local6.com ~ AP ** Parents Accused Of Leaving Toddler In Sun For 45 Minutes At Disney Ride

Posted by yaahoo_ at 2:46 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 26 June 2007 3:39 PM EDT

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UK Survey finds 71% of people believe global warming 'natural occurrence'

    Source: UK Life Style Extra ---- UK News

Three Quarters Believe Global Warming A 'Natural Occurrence'

Almost three quarters of people believe global warming is a 'natural occurrence' and not a result of carbon emissions, a survey claimed today.

This goes against the views of the vast majority of scientists who believe the rise in the earth's temperatures is due to pollution.

The online study which polled nearly 4000 votes found that a staggering 71 percent of people think that the rise in air temperature happens naturally.

And 65 percent think that scientists' catastrophic predictions if pollution isn't curbed are 'far fetched'.

Emma Hardcastle, publisher at Pocket Issue which carried out the research, said: "If 71% of people feel that Man has nothing to do with the recent change in our climate then those same people are not going to buy into any movement to reduce their carbon footprint.

"We need to make it clear that there is nothing natural about the significant rise in both carbon emissions and global temperatures since the industrial revolution.

"Pocket Issue’s brief is to help people to understand the facts, encouraging them to click through to a carbon counter as a result.

"Pocket Issue feel that the poll highlights the need for government and influential bodies to concentrate on getting the public to understand the facts about global warming and ‘why’ rather than ‘how’ they should reduce their carbon footprint."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which represents most scientists, stated earlier that the increase in global temperatures is 'very likely due to the observed increase of man-made greenhouse gas concentrations'.

They define very likely as 'more than 90 percent certain'.

UK Life Style Extra ** Three Quarters Believe Global Warming A 'Natural Occurrence'

Posted by yaahoo_ at 2:35 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 27 June 2007 6:19 AM EDT

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Photos You Won't See in The Lame-stream Media

Even though you've probably seen at least one of these photos, just posting them on the off-chance a libtard dares to click here...

Click pics for full size images...

Posted by yaahoo_ at 5:23 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 26 June 2007 5:52 AM EDT

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NJ School Sorry for Censoring Gay Kiss...

District Sorry for Censoring Gay Kiss

NEWARK, N.J. -- The school district said Monday it regretted ordering a picture of a male student kissing his boyfriend blacked out from all copies of a high school yearbook and said it apologized to the student.

Andre Jackson, the student, said he was disappointed that the superintendent had not delivered the apology face-to-face and in public. Because of that, he said he didn't accept it as sincere.

"I would accept an apology - a public apology," said Jackson, 18.

Jackson said he learned of the apology through the media.

The district issued a statement Monday saying it regretted the decision and that it would issue an unredacted version of the yearbook to any student of East Side High School who wants one.

"The decision was based, in part, on misinformation that Mr. Jackson was not one of our students and our review simply focused on the suggestive nature of the photograph," the district said.

"Superintendent Marion A. Bolden personally apologizes to Mr. Jackson and regrets any embarrassment and unwanted attention the matter has brought to him."

District spokeswoman Valerie Merritt said Bolden would meet with Jackson on Tuesday.

But Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, said Jackson had not heard from the district by 10 p.m. Monday.

"They don't have a meeting set up, it's not true," Goldstein said. "The school district hasn't contacted him. Whether they reach out to him on Tuesday remains to be seen."

Jackson said his teachers, classmates and his parents all knew he was gay and that his sexual orientation was never a problem at school.

"I've never had to deal with this before," he said. "It's shocking. It's crazy."

Previously, Bolden had described the picture, which showed Jackson kissing boyfriend David Escobales, as "illicit."

"If it was either heterosexual or gay, it should have been blacked out. It's how they posed for the picture," Bolden told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Saturday's editions.

In the 4 1/2-by-5-inch photo, Jackson is seen turning his head back over his right shoulder and kissing Escobales, 19, of Allentown, Pa. It was blacked out after Russell Garris, the district's assistant superintendent who oversees the city's high schools, told Bolden he was concerned that the photo could upset parents.

The photo was among several that appeared on a special personal tribute page in the yearbook.

Jackson, who paid $150 for the page, noted that the yearbook is filled with pictures of heterosexual couples kissing.

Newark public schools have about 42,000 students, making it the largest district in New Jersey.

On the Net: Newark schools
Tampa Bay Online ~ Associated Press - Jeffrey Gold ** District Sorry for Censoring Gay Kiss

Reading this put me on the verge of throwing up. Straight or gay, why does a yearbook need pictures of students kissing? Why not just skip any photos that have a "suggestive nature" in the first place? Sorry, I'm making sense and public education can’t have that.

So I guess the John Travolta picture would be out.

Posted by yaahoo_ at 4:53 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 26 June 2007 4:59 AM EDT

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Court bars atheists' suit against faith-based plan

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's faith-based initiatives got a boost Monday from the Supreme Court: a ruling that ordinary taxpayers cannot sue to stop conferences that help religious charities apply for federal grants.

President Bush called the 5-4 decision "a substantial victory for efforts by Americans to more effectively aid our neighbors in need of help."

The court blocked a lawsuit by a group of atheists and agnostics against eight Bush administration officials including the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

↓
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The taxpayers set out "a parade of horribles" they contended could happen, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. None did and "in the unlikely event that any of these executive actions did take place, Congress could quickly step in," he wrote.

The ruling's effects are limited, opponents said.

"Most church-state lawsuits, including those that challenge congressional appropriations for faith-based programs, will not be affected," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Lynn called Alito's statement that Congress could step in "quite incredible because the damage is done when the president acts." Lynn said Congress cannot anticipate action by the president that might violate the constitutional separation of church and state. "We have the courts to do precisely this, rein in the president or the Congress," he said.

The taxpayers' group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc., objected to government conferences in which administration officials encourage religious charities to apply for federal money.

The justices' decision revolved around a 1968 Supreme Court ruling that enabled taxpayers to challenge government programs that promote religion.

That earlier decision involved the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which financed teaching and instructional materials in religious schools in low-income areas.

"This case falls outside" the narrow exception allowing such lawsuits to proceed, Alito wrote. Congress must provide a specific appropriation, he said, and in the suit over the administration conferences the White House pulled the money out of general appropriations.

In dissent, Justice David Souter said the court should have allowed the challenge to proceed.

The majority "closes the door on these taxpayers because the executive branch, and not the legislative branch, caused their injury," wrote Souter. "I see no basis for this distinction."

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas would have gone further that the rest of the court, favoring a repudiation of the 1968 decision that in certain instances allows taxpayer lawsuits.

"We had an opportunity today to erase this blot on our jurisprudence, but instead have simply smudged it," Scalia wrote.

With the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Bush says he wants to level the playing field so religious charities and secular charities compete for government money on an equal footing.

Jim Towey, formerly head of the White House office, said the ruling is "good news for addicts and the homeless and others seeking effective social services."

"It's also a repudiation of the kind of secular extremism that ruled the public square for decades," said Towey, now president of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa.

"It's a bad day for the First Amendment. The Supreme Court just put a big dent in the wall of separation between church and state," said Ralph G. Neas, president of People For the American Way Foundation, a liberal-oriented group.

The White House program appears to have had a substantial impact.

In fiscal 2005, seven federal agencies awarded $2.1 billion to religious charities, according to a White House report. That was up 7 percent from the year before and represented 10.9 percent of the grants from the seven federal agencies providing money to faith-based groups.

Among the programs: Substance abuse treatment, housing for AIDS patients, community re-entry for inmates, housing for homeless veterans and emergency food assistance.

Yahoo News ~ Associated Press - Pete Yost ** Court bars suit against faith-based plan
Related: Supreme Court Kills Part of McCain-Feingold...
Yahoo News ~ Associated Press - Mark Sherman ** Court allows issue ads near elections

Posted by yaahoo_ at 4:14 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 26 June 2007 4:22 AM EDT

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Americans give record $295B to charity,

Twice as much as the next most charitable

NEW YORK -- Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charitable causes last year, setting a record and besting the 2005 total that had been boosted by a surge in aid to victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the Asian tsunami.

Donors contributed an estimated $295.02 billion in 2006, a 1% increase when adjusted for inflation, up from $283.05 billion in 2005. Excluding donations for disaster relief, the total rose 3.2%, inflation-adjusted, according to an annual report released Monday by the Giving USA Foundation at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy.

Giving historically tracks the health of the overall economy, with the rise amounting to about one-third the rise in the stock market, according to Giving USA. Last year was right on target, with a 3.2% rise as stocks rose more than 10% on an inflation-adjusted basis.

"What people find especially interesting about this, and it's true year after year, that such a high percentage comes from individual donors," Giving USA Chairman Richard Jolly said.

Individuals gave a combined 75.6% of the total. With bequests, that rises to 83.4%.

The biggest chunk of the donations, $96.82 billion or 32.8%, went to religious organizations. The second largest slice, $40.98 billion or 13.9%, went to education, including gifts to colleges, universities and libraries.

About 65% of households with incomes less than $100,000 give to charity, the report showed.

"It tells you something about American culture that is unlike any other country," said Claire Gaudiani, a professor at NYU's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and author of The Greater Good: How Philanthropy Drives the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism. Gaudiani said the willingness of Americans to give cuts across income levels, and their investments go to developing ideas, inventions and people to the benefit of the overall economy.

Gaudiani said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. ranked first at 1.7%. No. 2 Britain gave 0.73%, while France, with a 0.14% rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany.

Mega-gifts, which Giving USA considers to be donations of $1 billion or more, tend to get the most attention, and that was true last year especially.

Investment superstar Warren Buffett announced in June 2006 that he would give $30 billion over 20 years to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Of that total, $1.9 billion was given in 2006, which helped push the year's total higher.

Gaudiani said that gift reflects a growing focus on using donated money efficiently and effectively.

"I think it's also a strategic commitment to upward mobility exported to other countries, in the form of improved health and stronger civil societies," she said.

The Gates Foundation has focused on reducing hunger and fighting disease in developing countries as well as improving education in the U.S. Without Buffett's pledge, it had an endowment of $29.2 billion as of the end of 2005.

Meanwhile, companies and their foundations gave less in 2006, dropping 10.5% to $12.72 billion. Jolly said corporate giving fell because companies had been so generous in response to the natural disasters and because profits overall were less strong in 2006 over the year before.

The Giving USA report counts money given to foundations as well as grants the foundations make to non-profits and other groups, since foundations typically give out only income earned without spending the original donations.

USA Today ~ Associated Press ** Americans give record $295B to charity

To hear the libtarded UN, and their brain-dead stooges say it... "all Americans are greedy misers, who could care less about their fellow man." But we know the truth, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters...

Conservatives Are More Generous,
Right-wingers 'Outgive' Libtards Regarding Charities

Posted by yaahoo_ at 3:38 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 26 June 2007 3:45 AM EDT

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