Jews: only .2% (but running the world)

(AP) VATICAN CITY (March 30) - Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.

"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook. He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims were at 19.2 percent."It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer," the monsignor said. Formenti said that the data refer to 2006. The figures on Muslims were put together by Muslim countries and then provided to the United Nations, he said, adding that the Vatican could only vouch for its own data. When considering all Christians and not just Catholics, Christians make up 33 percent of the world population, Formenti said. Spokesmen for the Vatican and the United Nations did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Sunday.

The Muslims and Christians are followed by Hindus (13%), Buddhists (6%), and Jews (at a mere .2%).

A look back at some of those .2%'s contribution to society...

• Over 22% of Nobel Prize Winners (29% since 1950)


• Over 10% of the US Senate


• Since 1917, over 17% of US Supreme Court Justices have been Jewish


• Of the 2003 CEOs of Fortune's 100 largest companies, 10 to 15 percent are Jews


• Of Fortune's 2003 list of the twenty-five most powerful people in business, six (24 percent) are Jews
  
• 30% of the Fifty Greatest All Time Standup Comics.


• 23% of Forbes 400 Richest.


• Enrollment in Ivy League schools at over 21%.


• Jews may be less than 1% of NBA Players, but they are over 33% of NBA team owners.

And some notable .2%'ers...

• Jesus
• Seinfeld
• Bob Dylan
• Einstein
• Michael Dell, Created the world's largest and most valuable computer company.
• Sergey Brin, Co-Founder of Google.
• Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder.
• Elliot Spitzer :)

invest in a baseball player...

(AP)

Randy Newsom has never thrown a pitch above AA ball. Still, he wants to put himself on the market.

The stock market, that is.

A minor-league pitcher with the Cleveland Indians, Newsom was working in obscurity this month on the crowded back fields at spring training in Winter Haven, Fla., distinguished from hundreds of hopefuls only by the red No. 41 on the back of his sweat-soaked blue uniform shirt...

In January, his company, Real Sports Investments, sold 1,800 shares of stock in Newsom's future. For $20, anyone could buy a share of the 25-year-old's career, an investment that could net 0.0016% of his future major-league earnings.

How much could investors make? The average major-league salary was $2,866,544 in 2006 and $2,944,556 and 2007, so a 0.0016% investment based on those figures would have paid off $92.98 over two years. However, average baseball salaries generally increase sharply from year to year.

I like this idea for blue chip prospects, as well. Imagine if you could have invested in Jose Reyes, David Wright or Derek Jeter while they were just budding prospects...

What if you owned .005% shares of A-Rod? His recent $300 Million contract alone (not including the $200 Million plus he made previously with the Rangers and Mariners) would have made you $1,500,000!

But why would a hot prospect want to sell shares of himself, you ask? Well, what if that prospect's career goes south the way of Bill Pulsipher or Drew Henson or Reuben Rivera? There's no such thing as a sure-thing in baseball. This "investment" money would be the ball player's insurance policy if things don't work out as expected. (Just see how many busts there are in Baseball America's top 100 over the past few years.)

This could work the same way as the real stock market. Buy shares in a player's career on the cheap (after injury or late-round prospect) and hope they blossom. Conversely, the big name prospects would obviously have to be priced on the high.

the nazi pilot and the little prince...

(NY Daily News) A 64-year-old French and German mystery now has a sprinkling of Greek tragedy: An ace Nazi World War II pilot learned that one of his 28 kills was also his favorite writer.

Horst Rippert, now 88, says he only just found out that the P-38 he says he shot down on July 31, 1944, over the Mediterranean was piloted by Antoine de Saint Exupery, best known as the author of the classic "The Little Prince."

"If I had known it was Saint Exupery, I would never have shot him down," Rippert told the Daily Mail. "I loved his books. He was probably my favorite author at the time.
"I am shocked and sorry. Who knows what other great books he would have gone on to write?"

...interestingly, Antoine's plane wreckage which was found off the coast of Marseille in 2004, showed traces of neither shooting nor aerial combat.

dont forget to make a bracha...

the next Bulgarian Idol...

bet you didn't know they even had Idol in Bulgaria...


it's interesting to see the Bulgarian version of Simon, Paula, and Randy.


also, Bulgaria = this years Kazakhstan?

these are the idol version of other interesting countries:

• Kazakhstan Idol
• Israeli Idol
• Hungarian Idol
• German Idol... i dunno, this guy reminds me of every Nazi in every WWII movie i've ever seen
• Polish Idol

have we officially gone mad?

... a letter to Yeshiva World's editor:

Dear Yeshiva world editor,

I ask you to please post this letter, as I think it is extremely important and raises a major issue that is affecting the Jewish Community at large.

As my wife was flipping through the pages of the Jewish Press one Friday night, she was shocked at a certain advertisement and called me over to have a look. What I saw might not cause such a reaction to many people, which is a problem in itself, but for this advertisement to appear in a “Frum” weekly newspaper was mind boggling to me. The ad was a picture of two women who where modeling shaitels for a certain Shaitel macher. I can’t understand how the Jewish Press allows such ads in their paper. The women are posing in such immodest ways; the advertisement belongs in People magazine not the “Jewish Press”.

I am definitely not someone who is on a level to give mussar and tell people what’s right and wrong, however I feel very strongly about this. Advertisements like this have to be part of the reason why the Jewish community is suffering so much pain recently. Tzinous is so very important and having the Jewish Press advertisement immodesty for a few bucks shows how far our community has fallen.

In the words of Rabbi Yaakov Salomon….”Something to Think About”

Ari Taub

Brooklyn, New York

This was followed up by these brilliant comment:

• Yes, this major issue is affecting the Jewish Community at large. It rivals the great controversy over the 4 pictures of women wearing wigs in a store window on Coney Island Ave, whose ramifications are still reverberating in the neighborhood. Let’s hope this latest outrage will be successfully resolved, least our community suffer some grave misfortune.
• If you read the Yated or Hamodia and leave the Jewish Press to yellow on the news sellers shelves they may get the message
• I agree, you cant even switch on the radio anymore.

and one comment I agree with...

• I am more offended by the ads for diamond encrusted watches that cost tens of thousands of dollars. These ads are mixed in with articles preaching modesty, unlavish lifestyles, and tzniut. And, do not forget the ads for the Pesach vacations.

how much longer till we're all wearing Burkas?

Mercaz HaRav Massacre Tribute

so sad.

(not the best song selection)

the truth does, in fact, not hurt...

newly appointed NY State Governor, david paterson, has revealed that he's had several affairs in the past. notice, no one's making a big deal about it. this is a great PR move. beat the media to the punch. just imagine if a few weeks from now, this came out via the media. it would be chaos all over again.

when the mitchell report came out a few months ago, all the players that admitted to taking steroids, pretty much got off clean. no big deal in the media. however, roger clemens, who has vehemently denied taking steroids is looked upon as an idiot by the public for his denial.

jeremiah wright, pastor to obama

...sorta' gets you nervous that the potential next president has been a member of a racist church for years.

Jewno

that's one latkeh you cant un-fry Heeb skillet...