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Tag: Americans

  • Winter Olympics Will See The Least American Visitors

    As we’re weeks away from this year’s Olympic games, it looks like Sochi will see the least amount of American spectators visiting an Olympic games in the last 20 years. US tour operators blame poor reception on several factors: terrorism fears, lack of hostels and resorts, and the difficulty of obtaining a travel visa to Russia. Now, there’s even been a travel alert issued, after two suicide bombings in nearby Volgograd killed 30 people.

    It’s been reported that Russia, who was expecting to do well with ticket sales, still has 30% of tickets unsold for the games. (The last Winter Olympics, held in Vancouver, sold 97% of their tickets.) Despite Putin’s promise that the games will be safe, along with thousands of police and security patrolling the area, the threats against the games feel very real and possible to many spectators.

    ”It doesn’t take an expert to look at that region and say the Olympics will be such a large target that insurgents will not try to do something,” says a security analyst for NBC. ”There has been an average of 10 to 15 attacks in North Caucasus every month in recent years. It’s just now the press is paying more attention to it.”

    Lt. Col. Robert Schaefer, a who wrote on the conflict happening in the North Caucasus, says the biggest concern should be in the construction workers: “many of them foreigners, they could have taken bribes to look the other way while explosives were buried or caches of weapons stored in the frenzied buildup of facilities over the last few years.”

    The games were decided to be held in Sochi back in 2007, when a personal appearance by Putin, selling his scenic snowy mountains and resort town by the Black Lake, convinced the committee on the location over South Korea and Austria. Now it seems up to Putin onto hold that promise. Schaefer also says that this is Putin’s chance to show that’s he’s the president that can tame the rebellion. ‘What could sell the world more than anything else is he’s the guy who finally did what all Russian Czars couldn’t – he tamed the Caucasus,” Schaefer says. ”You have a large Olympics and you pull it off without incident, then you demonstrate to everybody that you’ve beaten them.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Majority of Americans Dissatisfied With U.S. Direction

    As the American political landscape continues to become more polarized, a large majority of Americans continue to be dissatisfied with the state of things in the U.S.

    A new Gallup poll released today shows that only 23% of U.S. adults say they are satisfied with “the way things are going” in their country. This result, which was found during an early January survey, is not an outlier for American satisfaction in the past decade. It nearly matches the 24% average that Gallup found for American satisfaction during the entire year 2013.

    Though this latest finding is average, it does represent a significant increase in satisfaction from just a few months ago. In October Gallup measured American satisfaction with the direction of the U.S. at only 16%. October was the month in which House Republicans forced the U.S. Government shutdown and the month in which the botched rollout of the Healthcare.gov website began.

    With a Democratic President in office, Democrats are significantly more satisfied with the state of affairs in the U.S. than Republicans and independents – a state that has persisted since President Obama took office in 2009. The latest poll results show that 40% of Democrats are satisfied with where things are headed, while only 12% of Republicans are. Only 19% of Independents are satisfied with things, which falls well within the around 10% to 30% that have said the same over the past six years.

  • Forbes Richest 400: 2013 List Revealed

    Forbes Richest 400: 2013 List Revealed

    For those who anticipated seeing some new names top the famous Forbes 400, you’re expectations are definitely about to wane. Straight from the mouth of Forbes, the richest man of 2013 is, none other than, Microsoft Corporation co-founder, Bill Gates. Classified as the richest American for 20 consecutive years, it should come as a surprise to no one that Gates’ has once again dominated the Forbes’ list. The most intriguing part is that Gates is not just the richest American. At 57, with a $72 billion net worth, Gates’ has also been named the richest person in the world yet again. Last year, Gates’ dropped down a notch falling in second place to Mexico’s Carlos Slim, but nevertheless, he’s recouped this year.

    Second on the list is Berkshire Hathaway CEO, Warren Buffett. Another wealthy American that’s no stranger to the Forbes’ list, Buffett’s fortune is calculated at a whopping $58.5 billion fortune. Chief executive of the Oracle Corporation, Larry Ellison, placed third on the list with $41 billion. Brothers and businessmen Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries hold a tied net worth of $46 billion. The Koch brothers have also been noted as the richest residents in the city of New York.

    The four founders and share holders of Wal-Mart designated the sixth to ninth spots on the list, with a reported average net worth of $34 billion. New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, placed tenth on the list with a net worth of approximately $31 billion, deeming him the world’s richest mayor.

    The 2013 edition, which is marks the 32nd year of the Forbes list, went on to unleash a few surprises as well. Famed computer programmer and Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, raked in an additional $9.6 billion, catapulting him into the top 20 from No. 36 on the 2012 Forbes list.

    The top 400 wealthiest Americans are calculated to be worth a mind-blowing $2.02 trillion.

     

    Image via Forbes.com

  • Fattest State in America Revealed by the CDC

    It’s common knowledge that Americans are getting fatter, but the statistics paint a bleak picture of just how large we are, as well as how disparate different regions of the U.S. are in terms of the size of their people.

    This week the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention released its latest map showing adult obesity rates in individual states. According to the CDC’s annual Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) report, Mississippi is America’s most obese state for the sixth year in a row. The report shows that over one-third of Mississippians, 34.9%, are obese. Louisiana comes closest to Mississippi with 33.4% of its citizens classified as obese, and West Virginia rounds out the top three with a 32.4% obesity rate.

    On the other side of the spectrum, Colorado is the least obese (though not exactly trim) state with only one-fifth, 20.7%, of its population being obese. Hawaii (21.8%) and Massachusetts (22.7%) round out the top three least-obese states.

    The Southern states topping the most obese list and the western states topping the least obese list are no anomalies. The South had the highest precentage of adult obesity with 29.5%, while Western states had fewer obese people, with a 24.3% rate. The Midwestern states do rival the south’s size, though, with a 29% obesity rate. In fact, around a dozen Southern and Midwestern states are heavily tipping these rates higher with extremely high obesity rates. According to the CDC, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia all have obesity rates above 30%. The Northeastern states are closer to Western states, with a 25.3% obesity rate.

    A full list of states and the prevalence of obesity for the people who live in them can be found on the CDC website.

    When considering what these statistics say about the size of Americans, remember that these averages only include Americans who are obese. It does not include the number of Americans who are simply overweight. The CDC considers an adult who has a body mass index (BMI) of over 30 to be obese. Adults with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 are considered overweight.

    (Picture courtesy CDC)

  • Study: 1 in 5 Americans Pee in the Pool

    Study: 1 in 5 Americans Pee in the Pool

    Memorial Day weekend has passed. Pools are open across the country and the official welcome party for summer is over.

    If you went to a crowded pool this weekend, or if you plan to the rest of this summer, you might want to think about taking a long shower afterwards. A new study published in the Huffington Post reveals that 1 in 5 Americans Pee in the pool.

    The study was conducted by the Water Quality and Health Council, who found that not only were people admitting to peeing in the pool, but 7 in 10 people said they didn’t take a shower before getting in.

    According to the Chair of the Water Quality and Health Council, Dr. Chris Wiant; “Swimming is not a substitute for bathing. Too many people unknowingly treat the pool as a communal bathtub. It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s important to shower before you jump in the pool to help keep swimming healthy for everyone in the pool.”

    Sweat, cosmetics, sunscreen, hair products, fecal matter and dirt can mix with chlorine to create irritants that cause skin rashes and irritate the eyes. These irritants are what cause red eyes after swimming, and the strong chemical smell some pools have, not chlorine.

    It is also important to recognize that chlorine does not kill all germs. The Huffington Post notes that bacteria like Cryptosporidium can still survive in Chlorine. This germ is responsible for half of all gastrointestinal outbreaks.

    There is really no way to avoid any of this, except to stay away from public swimming pools al together… Which isn’t a bad idea for many reasons.