1/. A VERY important story.....you should read this, especially in the light of the video below.....
The popular uprising against data centers has emerged so suddenly that politicians stumble over their own pitchforks racing to the front of the crowd. Where most industries would be launching into crisis P.R. mode, perhaps even engaging in some soul-searching, artificial intelligence companies seem determined to plow full steam ahead, building the future they want, even if they’re the only ones who want it.
The outrage over data centers can’t really be about environmental impact. These structures have always been water-sucking, power-draining, forest-clearing eyesores, yet the recent plunge in support for them is three times as deep as the one that nuclear power plants faced in the year after Three Mile Island. What has changed is people’s awareness of what’s going on inside: artificial intelligence. Less than a quarter of Americans expect A.I. to have a positive impact on K-12 education, arts and entertainment, how people do their jobs, the economy, personal relationships or happiness over the next 20 years.
2/. Watch this 5 minute report from CBS News, and when you see the solutions proposed at the very end, you will realise that
the human race is truly screwed.
We are dismissing climate change even as we career towards 3, 4 and maybe 5 degrees of warming, and neither the tech companies [might lose some $$$$] or Trump's government [???] will act in the next two years. It's all coming folks.....
3/. And speaking of Trump's government, amazing and frightening video from the Lincoln Project.....2 minutes....
4/. Bill McKibben with a report on climate change......not necessarily good news...
This will be an account of where we stand—mostly with regard to the new and much-touted UN report on climate change. But since it’s Labor Day, traditionally the start of fall campaigning (a quaint and lovely notion that), let’s start with the midterm elections. Where we stand is: all the polling shows Americans ready to vote out as many Republicans as gerrymandering allows. We’ve done our job over the last 22 months, driving up Trump’s negatives (with plenty of help from him) and making MAGA electoral poison.
5/. "The Great Renaming"....Tom Tomorrow.....
6/. Right wing Israeli politicians are making no secret of their intentions towards the Palestinians, but the media is ignoring it.....
So we have "normalised" genocide.....
he gap between what is being inflicted on Palestinians and the appropriate reaction on the part of the international community has always been vast. But now it yawns so wide that it swallows reality itself. As arms export licences for Israel from states such as Germany surge, talk of harsher measures and sanctions on the part of other European countries remains talk. People continue to be killed in Gaza, Palestinian families remain besieged in the West Bank, and the Israeli political right has been removing all doubt that these violations are intentional, by telling the world of its hopes and plan
7/. The future is coming!
8/. Out in plain sight - Republicans are fixing the midterms......
And our pathetic media is ignoring it.....
For over 50 years, our media has been covering up Republican voter suppression efforts. This year, though, they’re getting so obvious that it’ll be interesting to see if they continue to whitewash the practice.
Remember all those reports you’ve seen on TV during previous elections, where the reporter is outside a polling place with a line stretching around the block?
In the 2008 election, for example, CNN anchor Kirin Chetry noted that in Ohio:
“It was, after all, 120,000 votes that made the difference in that state in 2004 and gave the win to now President Bush.”
Republicans controlled the voting in Ohio, so they rigged polling places so people in mostly-Black, Hispanic, and student areas would have to wait hours and hours in line to vote, knowing that these were also the people most likely to be paid hourly and so would be unwilling to stand in line for hours to vote.
9/. Please please please......I want to be watching! About 30 seconds....
10/. Bill McKibben in a philosophical mood.....most interesting.....
Wendell Berry, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was such a great man that I hardly know where to start. He was on the very short list of the best writers of our time: his essays on rural America were the words that launched ten thousand farmers markets; his poems, the staple of many happy weddings (and I’ve peed in a dozen different bathrooms where the Manifesto of the Mad Farmer’s Liberation Front was framed above the toilet). If you’ve never read his short stories of the Port William Membership, or his finest novel, Jayber Crow, you can count yourself lucky that you’ll get to encounter them for the first time. https://billmckibben.
11/. Tell your kids to be a plumber or an electrician so AI won't take their job? Maybe not....
Really really funny......40 seconds....
12/. I went to Whole Foods recently to get some fruit, but the only brand they had was Driscolls.
I won't buy Driscolls because they are a truly evil corporation, putting out pesticide laden fruit, screwing the farmers and treating the workers in their contracted farms in Central and South America like slaves.
So I was very pleased to find this investigative video about how Driscolls managed to become so dominant, and how they stay that way.
It's very well done, and as a bonus they interviewed Hugh Kent who runs an organic blueberry farm in Lake County, and who some of you know from my enthusiastic endorsement of his wonderful blues.
It's 15 minutes long, and well worth the time, and after seeing it you'll buy your fruit in season from a farmers market!
13/. Florida Realtors want Prop 3 to pass......they'll make more money.....
A lobbying group for real estate agents just put $10 million into a campaign to pass Amendment 3, the proposed constitutional amendment that would dramatically cut and cap local property taxes across Florida — while also forcing steep cuts to local government services and further consolidating governing power in Tallahassee.
Just-posted campaign finance reports show that the Florida Realtors parked the $10 million late last week in “Vote Yes on 3.” It’s a political committee the real estate lobbying group recently set up that can be used to pay for television commercials, neighborhood canvassers, and other campaign expenses in support of the November ballot measure, which will need support from at least 60 percent of voters to pass.
14/. This one is pretty true......and mildly amusing......20 seconds.....
15/. The Times does these really good interactive articles....
This one is about how it's getting hotter, and we've just started.....
16/. Heather Cox Richardson with commentary on Trump's obvious Alzheimer's derangement.....
How can this possibly be allowed to continue? He's the President with the nuclear codes.
Way past time for the 25th amendment......
Since yesterday, President Donald J. Trump has been posting on social media at a frantic pace, showing AI images of himself with President George Washington on his own account and, on the official White House account, a video of himself as the DC Comics Green Lantern superhero. The White House social media account ripped off Green Lantern’s oath, captioning the video: “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might beware my power… Green Lantern’s light!”
I remember this from the Olympics - Raygun the break dancer......now it's a documentary on Netflix.....
Netflix’s Untold is ostensibly a series of sports documentaries. However, since its inception five years ago, it has been most successful when sport collides with the wider celebrity machine. There have been films about Caitlyn Jenner, Jake Paul and Vinnie Jones. The gold tends to come when the subjects spill over into public notoriety. With that in mind, it was only a matter of time before they made a film about Raygun.
You may remember Raygun as the Australian breakdancer who spent the biggest moment of her career at the Paris Olympics thrashing around like a toddler having a tantrum in a supermarket. If you didn’t see her routine, you will almost certainly be aware of the memes she inspired. Adele discussed her during a concert. Rachel Dratch did an impersonation of her on Jimmy Fallon. For months, Raygun was everywhere. As this film demonstrates, she really didn’t want to be.
Here's Raygun doing her thing......4 minutes...
Miami Vice, the movie. Time to have another look......
On its release in 2006, Michael Mann’s Miami Vice seemed primed to quickly fade from cultural memory. A summer blockbuster with the flavour-of-the-month hook that it was based on a popular 80s TV series, the film was at the time coolly received by audiences and critics, in part owing to how wilfully dissimilar it was from the show that inspired it.
Now, 20 years later, there’s a different picture. Critics have since declared Miami Vice “genius” and a “demented masterwork”, while the fervency of the film’s fandom today rivals that of arguably any movie by the Heat and Collateral film-maker Mann. https://www.theguardian.com/
Today's video.....Oops....1 minute....
Today's Newfie joke [Newfoundlanders! - the Canadian equivalent to a Polish joke]....
Today's Christmas joke....
'In honor of this holy season' Saint Peter said, 'You must each possess something that symbolizes Christmas to get into heaven.'
The Englishman fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a lighter. He flicked it on. 'It's a candle', he said.
'You may pass through the pearly gates' Saint Peter said.
The Scotsman reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He shook them and said, 'They're bells.'
Saint Peter said 'You may pass through the pearly gates'.
The Irishman started searching desperately through his pockets and finally pulled out a pair of women's panties.
St. Peter looked at the man with a raised eyebrow and asked, 'And just what do those symbolize?'
The Irishman replied, 'These are Carols.'
And So The Christmas Season Begins
Today's blond jokes...
- A young brunette goes into the doctor's office and says that her body hurts wherever she touches it.
- "Impossible," says the doctor. "Show me."
- She takes her finger and pushes her elbow and screams in agony. She pushes her knee and screams, pushes her ankle and screams and so it goes on, everywhere she touches makes her scream.
The doctor says, "You're not really a brunette, are you?"
She says, "No, I'm really a blonde."
"I thought so," he says. "Your finger is broken."
- A Blonde was down on her luck. In order to raise some money, she decided to kidnap a kid and hold him for ransom.
She went to the playground, grabbed a kid, took him behind a tree, and told him, "I`ve kidnapped you."
She then wrote a note saying, "I`ve kidnapped your kid. Tomorrow morning, put $10,000 in a paper bag and put it under the pecan tree next to the slide on the north side of the playground. Signed, Blonde."
The Blonde then taped the note to the kid`s shirt and sent him home to show it to his parents.
The next morning the blonde checked, and sure enough, a paper bag was sitting beneath the pecan tree.
The blonde opened the bag and found the $10,000 with a note that said, "How could you do this to a fellow Blonde?"
- A blonde went to the appliance store sale and found a bargain. "I would like to buy this TV," she told the salesman.
"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.
The blonde was very angry about this. She hurried home and dyed her hair, then came back and again told the salesman, "I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.
The blonde did not know how the salesman had recognized her. This time, she got a haircut and new color, a new outfit and big sunglasses. She then waited a few days before she approached the salesman.
"I would like to buy this TV."
"Sorry, we don't sell to blondes," he replied.
Frustrated, she exclaimed, "How do you know I'm a blonde?"
"Because that's a microwave," he replied.
Today's sexy joke.....
She was standing in the kitchen, preparing our usual soft-boiled eggs and toast for
breakfast, wearing only the 'T'shirt that she normally slept in.
As I walked in, almost awake, she turned to me and said softly, "you've got to make love to me
this very moment"
My eyes lit up as I thought, "I am either still dreaming or this is going to be my lucky day"
Not wanting to lose the moment, I embraced her and then gave it my all; right there on the kitchen table.
Afterwards she said, "Thanks," and returned to the stove, her T-shirt still around her neck.
Happy, but a little puzzled, I asked, "what was that about"
She explained, "The egg timer's broken"
Another sexy joke
A teenage girl comes home from school and asks her mother,
"Is it true what Rita just told me?"
"What's that?" asks her mother.
"That babies come out of the same place where boys put their penises?" said her daughter.
"Yes it is dear!" replies her mother, pleased that the subject had finally come
up and that she wouldn't have to explain it to her daughter.
"But then, when I have a baby," responded the teenager, "won't it knock my teeth out?"
