Is America the "land of opportunity"? Not so much.
A new report from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) finds that social mobility between generations is dramatically lower in the U.S. than in many other developed countries.
So if you want your children to climb the socioeconomic ladder higher than you did, move to Canada.
The report finds the U.S. ranking well below Denmark, Australia, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Spain in terms of how freely citizens move up or down the social ladder. Only in Italy and Great Britain is the intensity of the relationship between individual and parental earnings even greater.
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), far from being cowed by the national exposure of his recent effort to hold up unemployment benefits for millions of laid-off workers, has blocked two new nominations because he is opposed to a tobacco-related law passed by the Canadian Parliament. "This is a perversion of the filibuster and a perversion of the role of the Senate," said Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). read more
LIMA, Peru Doctors in Peru mistakenly amputated the wrong foot of an 86-year-old man, then had no choice but to cut off the other one as well to keep an infection from spreading, relatives and officials said Monday.
"It was a terrible shock when I lifted up the sheets and saw they had amputated his left foot," the patient's daughter, Carmen Villanueva, told RPP radio.
She said doctors in the port city of Callao had been attending to an ulcer on Jorge Villanueva's right foot since Jan. 4.
When the infection worsened on Saturday, they ordered the ill-fated emergency surgery. Realizing their mistake, doctors performed a second operation the following day that left Villanueva footless.
Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012. "That date has not one stitch of biblical authority," Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. "It's like a fairy tale." The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.
I have wasted way too many hours in this chat room, if that's what the retort is.
One of my New Year's resolutions is to stop coming here. Bye all.


.....I was taught by a religious order in primary school, The Presentation Brothers, I remember one of them was so blatant, he was grabbing boys crotches in the school hallways with everyone present, I witnessed it myself......