July 26, 2006

Single city block hosts world's longest race
Jul 25, NEW YORK- The longest foot race in the world is 3,100 miles, long enough to stretch from New York to Los Angeles. Those who run it choose a different route: they circle one city block in Queens -- for two months straight....they stop for virtually nothing except to sleep between midnight and 6 a.m.

"I think this is what they're looking for: The feeling that you're living life for real," runner Pranab Vladovic said of himself and 13 other athletes now competing in the 10th annual Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile Race in Jamaica, Queens. (how sad and misguided to have to do that to feel “you’re living life for real.”…)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060725/sp_nm/athletics_run_dc

The previous story reminds me of aJerry Clower story-
Clower tells of a rich rancher in Texas whose pride and joy was his Cadillac. The rancher loved the Caddy so much he even had the windshield ground to his eyeglass prescription so he wouldn't need to wear his spectacles when he drove. This rancher died and in his will he stipulated that before anyone got any of his money he had to be buried in his Cadillac, sitting up in the drivers seat.

At the grave site as the Cadillac was being lowered into the huge hole one ranch hand said to another hand, "Man, that's really living."
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To the woman at the well Jesus said, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:13-14

Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10:10b

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Our Bible: A Message by Billy Graham
http://www.billygraham.org/DMag_article.asp?ArticleID=704&BA=632&QR=120

It's dangerous to be a young male worldwide
07/26/2006 - Young men worldwide have higher death rates than women but the causes vary according to their age and where they live, researchers said on Tuesday.

Accidents and suicide are the leading killers in men aged 15 to 34...
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14025729/?GT1=8307

Teens Admit To Carving Crop Circles
July 25, 2006 SANDYVILLE, Ohio -- An unexplained crop circle carved in a northeast Ohio field isn't a mystery anymore. Four teens have admitted to carving the geometric design in a field south of Canton. The crop circle created some buzz about UFOs and attracted aerial TV coverage. One clue that the crop circle wasn't otherworldly was that it was created near an elevated bridge, offering convenient viewing. Authorities said they expect to charge the teens with misdemeanor damaging.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/9570475/detail.html

Consumer confidence, home sales beat forecasts
Tue Jul 25, 2006 NEW YORK - U.S. consumer confidence rose unexpectedly in July and existing homes sales fell less than forecast in June, reports showed on Tuesday, boosting market expectations for an August rate hike by the Federal Reserve.

"Both numbers are stronger-than-expected -- and confidence does matter, and it increases the odds of an increase by the Fed," said Robert Macintosh, chief economist at Eaton Vance Management in Boston.

Tuesday's data suggested the economy remained resilient...

...The Conference Board said its index of consumer sentiment climbed to 106.5 in July, up from 105.4 in June. Sentiment indexes have traditionally been seen as a gauge of U.S. consumer spending, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of overall economic activity.

Analysts had expected the index to fall to 104.0.

"Present day conditions remain favorable..."said Lynn France, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center...

The business research group's present situation index rose to 133.0 from 132.2 in June, while the expectations component improved to 88.8 from 87.5 in June.

The National Association of Realtors said that sales of existing homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.62 million units in June from an upwardly revised rate of 6.71 million units in May. Analysts had expected home resales to slow even further to a 6.58 million unit rate from May's originally reported 6.67 million unit pace.

...Also released on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's monthly manufacturing and service index for July rose to 12 from a reading of 4 in June.

U.S. chain store sales rose in the third week of July, boosted by some back-to-school buying, according to Redbook Research.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2006-07-25T155844Z_01_N25166243_RTRUKOC_0_US-ECONOMY.xml&src=rss&rpc=23

Washington State Supreme Court Upholds Gay Marriage Ban
July 25, 2006 OLYMPIA - The state Supreme Court upheld a ban on gay marriage Wednesday, saying lawmakers have the power to restrict marriage to unions between a man and woman. ...Forty-five states have laws banning gay marriage or limiting marriage to between a man and a woman...http://komotv.com/stories/44579.htm

Hezbollah Didn't Expect War, Won't Lay Down Arms
July 25, 2006
A senior Hezbollah official said Tuesday the guerrillas did not expect Israel to react so strongly to its capture of two Israeli soldiers.

Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of the Hezbollah's political arm, also told The Associated Press that his group will not lay down arms.

His comments were the first time that a leader from the Shiite militant group has publicly suggested it miscalculated the consequences of the July 12 cross-border raid in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and three were killed.

"The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect [this] response . . . that [Israel] would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati.

He said Hezbollah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel.

In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hezbollah actions included sending commandos into Lebanon, seizing Hezbollah officials and briefly targeting specific Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon...
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/7/25/163706.shtml?s=ic

AIPAC MAP Shows Reality of Israel's Precision Bombing
Israelis Target Hezbollah Not Civilians; 99% of Beirut Unscathed (Note: The Map PDF is from July 21, but it makes the point.)http://download.premiereradio.net/guest/rushlimb/pdf/Beirut.pdf

Lebanese Expatriates Condemn Syria, Iran; and Praise Israel
26 Jul 26, '06...In addition to the Lebanese Canadian Coordinating Council (LCCC), the press release was endorsed by eleven Lebanese groups from the USA, Europe and Lebanon itself. The LCCC represents the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation, the Canadian Lebanese Free Patriotic Movement (FPM-Canada), the Phoenician Club of Mississauga (PCOM), the Canadian Phoenician Community Services Club (CPCSC), the Canadian Lebanese Christian Heritage Club (CLCHC), the World Lebanese Cultural Union-Canadian Chapter. The Lebanese Foundation for Peace (LFP), an international organization of Lebanese Christians, issued a press release last week that called upon Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to hit them hard and destroy their terror infrastructure. It is not [only] Israel who is fed up with this situation, but the majority of the silent Lebanese in Lebanon who are fed up with Hizbullah and are powerless to do anything out of fear of terror retaliation." The LFP also said that "thousands of volunteers in the Diaspora" are "willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from [Islamic] fundamentalism," with the logistical support of Israel...
complete article at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=108367
Gee...the press makes it sound like the Lebanese are condemning Israel...

Tax cuts: Then & Now
…John F. Kennedy believed that "an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits." So he proposed income tax rate reductions, which the Democratic Congress enacted the year after JFK's death. Back then, Democrats were for them: more than 80% of Democratic senators and representatives voted for the Kennedy tax cuts…

…As Pete DuPont explains in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, since George Bush signed the most recent tax cuts into law in the spring of 2003:

* In the past 33 months the size of America's entire economy has increased by 20 percent. He quotes National Review Online's Larry Kudlow as reporting, "In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy."

* In the 2 1/4 years before the 2003 tax cuts, economic growth averaged 1.1 percent annually; in the three years since, it has averaged 4 percent per year, and in the first quarter of this year it was 5.6 percent on an annualized basis; inflation-adjusted per capita gross domestic product (GDP) has grown 7.8 percent from 2003 through the first quarter of this year.

* According to the government's establishment survey, in the 36 months since the tax cuts became law, 5.3 million new jobs have been added to the economy.

* According to its employment survey, 288,000 jobs were added in May and 387,000 in June alone.

* The unemployment rate dropped from 6.1 percent in 2003 when the bills were signed to 5.4 percent at the end of 2004 and 4.6 percent today, and that rate has gone down for men, women, blacks and Hispanics.

* Incomes are up too. As Stephen Moore noted in the Wall Street Journal, "the percentage of Americans earning more than $50,000 a year rose from 40.8% to 44.2%" between 2002 and 2004. As for very wealthy families, the portion of total income "captured by the richest 1%, 5% and 10% of Americans is lower today than in the last year of the Clinton administration."

In spite of claims that the tax cuts would starve the federal government, disastrously reducing revenue from taxes, federal tax receipts jumped a hefty 15 percent – $274 billion – last year and 13 percent – $206 billion – in the first nine months of this fiscal year, which, as the Journal points out, means the nine-month increases for the past two years represent the highest growth rates in 25 years. Looking ahead to the end of this fiscal year, total inflation-adjusted government receipts will likely be 23 percent above 2003 when the Bush tax cuts were signed into law.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110008699

David Bennett <><
http://freewill-predestination.com
http://www.knology.net/~lonesomedove