1/. David Wallace-Wells with an interesting observation - the vibe has shifted on this regime......
Remember the vibe shift? In 2024, first as the election approached and then after Donald Trump’s victory, pundits and political strategists lined up to declare its cultural meaning quite expansive — a shift not just in electoral politics but also in the partisan alignment and cultural life of the whole country. This was the beginning of an era, we were told; his election was perhaps as significant as the one that once heralded the Reagan revolution or what was called the emerging Democratic majority in Barack Obama’s multicultural America.
2/. Big Dick comes to visit Trump.....
3/. Thom Hartmann tells it like it is - we are all just prey to this Gub'mint and billionaires.
Its foundation is one of the most troubling aspects of human nature called predation: while most people just want to live their lives, raise their kids, and have a comfortable old age, some small percentage of those among us have simply become, for lack of a better word, predators.
In nature, there are natural predators and natural prey; foxes and rabbits are the classic example.
4/. Me Trump.....Swamp Creature.....
5/. Corporate Democrats need to retire.....
A recent chair of the Democratic National Committee apparently wants democratic socialists to get out of his party. “If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination,” Jaime Harrison tweeted on election day last week, shortly before results showed that three of those socialists had won Democratic primaries for Congress in deep-blue New York City. He didn’t identify his targets, but the implication was clear.
Harrison’s call for self-expulsion was the bizarre opposite of a welcome mat: “Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign.” The tweet turned reality on its head. Socialist candidates have been winning because they inspired multitudes of people to volunteer and provide what’s needed to win.
6/. Trump is the laughingstock of the world.......the Belgian players imitate his "dance".....
BTW this footage is not on any US Media website.....
7/ The always informative Bill McKibben on how the Ukraine is destroying Russia;s oil refineries.......
And driving multiple countries to renewables because of this example of how vulnerable fossil fuels are.......
I visited Omsk once, or at least its airport; we were en route from Moscow to Ulan Ade on the Mongolian border, and the Aeroflot flight landed there to refuel. (It was a memorable journey; this was still the Soviet Union, and on boarding for the full-day flight, the stewardess handed each passenger a baggie with a scrawny chicken drumstick). All of which is to say, I’m equipped to pronounce, with the gravitas proper to a pundit, that Omsk is long ways from anywhere else.
Including the Ukrainian border, which makes it remarkable that Zelensky’s drone specialists managed to fly a whole squadron of their craft more than 2,500 kilometers from home and bomb the heck out of Putin’s largest oil refinery. It was the high point of an ongoing campaign designed to highlight what may be Russia’s greatest weakness: that it, like a number of other countries, is heavily dependent on oil.
8/. And have him look up at the sun......
9/. People are getting tired of the forced silence at family gatherings, and just not showing up......
The “partisan split” of Americans showed up in a big way at Fourth of July celebrations and backyard barbecues last week, but the media, while noting or even complaining about it, rarely mentions exactly why it’s happening.
A few weeks ago Louise and I were having coffee with an old friend who’s known us since the early days of the radio show, and somewhere between the second cup and the muffins she said something that’s been rattling around in my head ever since. Her sister, a three-time Trump voter, had finally called — after months of silence — and demanded to know why our friend had stopped returning her calls.
“It’s just politics,” the sister said. “Why are you taking this so personally?” Our friend, who is queer and married, listened for about thirty seconds and then said, very quietly, “Because you voted for the people who want me to disappear, and you knew that when you did it.”
Then she hung up. She told us she felt awful about it for about an hour, and then she felt nothing at all, and the nothing was almost worse than the guilt would’ve been.
10/. It gets tiring, doesn't it......
11/. Bob Lefsetz with his look at Democratic politics......always interesting....
This is not the way I expected it to go down.
I expected revolution first, not the system working.
But I still don’t believe in the system, not anymore. But one thing’s for sure, it’s definitely a case of winners and losers, income inequality has burgeoned, the American Dream is just that…as George Carlin said, you’ve got to be dreaming to believe it!
Now what flummoxes me completely is how the Democratic establishment is so out of touch. How they’re exactly what the Republicans describe, elites who think they know better who are looking out for themselves despite giving occasional lip service to the little people.
What did they expect, that this would go on forever?
That’s like believing a band from the sixties will dominate the charts in the twenty first century. That’s not the way it works, things change, people’s attitudes change. The only enterprise that had this right was MTV, which refused to age with its audience. It scrubbed the deck clean every few years, out with the old veejays, in with the new.
12/. Just happened on a poll that asked what was the best guitar solo of all time........
The answer was "Comfortably Numb", with David Gilmour on lead......
Here they are, live in 2016, 45 years later than the original. You can't tell the difference......
13/ It's really, really hard not to chuckle a little at this story.....
Trump is grifting his base, the stupids who love him, to the tune of $3.8 billion!
An up-to-date tally of Trump followers turned crypto investors is in. And for them, the overall results are remarkably bad.
Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump’s memecoin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion.
The analytics firm’s assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636 million payout on the same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least $2.2 billion from all of his business ventures in 2025.
The odds were always in his favor. Mr. Trump profited whether the price of his memecoin went up or down. He collected returns whenever anyone traded the tokens, as he repeatedly pushed his followers to do, using his Truth Social account to promote the coin.
14/. Yup - AI Data centers!
`5/. The Times lists the best movies of the year, so far.....
The year’s barely half over and already it’s been an unusual one for moviegoers. Gen Z filmmakers have scored megahits with their feature debuts (“Obsession,” “Backrooms”), expected megahits have done just OK (“The Mandalorian and Grogu”) and established hitmakers like Steven Spielberg have proved divisive.
I asked our chief film critic, Manohla Dargis, and our movie critic, Alissa Wilkinson, to recommend releases you might want to catch up with this summer.
16/. Rolling Stone with the best TV of 2026.....
If there’s a theme that unites all the series on this best-so-far list, it’s anxiety. Anxiety about money, about class, about fame, about legitimacy. About the Blackfyre Rebellion. The creators of the best TV of the year so far took a hard look at the world around them and chose not to counterprogram. The shows that are sticking with us feature few warm-and-fuzzies and only rare uplifting family moments. In fact, almost every entry revolves around the workplace, or at least, work (or lack thereof). Schitt’s Creek is firmly in the rearview mirror.
And yet, this list also includes some of the funniest programs assembled in a long time. Many of these series refuse to stay in their lane, mixing genres and expectations, smashing up superheroes, horror tropes, and OnlyFans with genuine, gut-busting laughs. Deploying razor-sharp precision, they examine work’s slow creep into identity and self-worth at every level, skewering the gig economy, public service, global finance, Hollywood, and Westeros.
17/. Last week we put in a glowing review of "The Bear" final season from the Guardian
However.......Bob Lefsetz hated it, and explains why.......
Spoiler alert: I don’t reveal everything, but if you want to be fresh when you watch this series, beware.
This was a painful watch. If I hadn’t invested my time in the previous seasons, I would have stopped.
This is what happens when art supersedes plot. You see this most in literature today. Which tend not to sell anyway. So the intelligentsia, those with MFAs, try to impress each other by rewriting to the point that the prose is nearly incomprehensible and story becomes secondary. As if usage of words and analogies and similes make a great book. They don’t.
And historically this has been the great thing about TV, it’s cheap and therefore fast. The quintessential example being soap operas, which are almost all plot.
So the problem with most of this latest season of “The Bear” is NOTHING HAPPENS!
Today's lawyer jokes
HOW DO COURT REPORTERS KEEP STRAIGHT FACES????
These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down
and published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while the exchanges were taking place.
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
______________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
_________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ.
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death..
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
___________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_
____________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral...
_________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
______________________________________
And last:
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
Today's golfer joke
Only a golfer would understand this story of a…GOLFER AT THE DENTIST
A man and his wife walked into a dentist's office. The man said to the dentist, "Doc, I'm in one heck of a hurry. I have two buddies sitting out in my car waiting for us to go play golf, so forget about the anesthetic, I don't have time for the gums to get numb. I just want you to pull the tooth, and be done with it!
We have a 10:00 AM tee time at the best golf course in town and it's 9:30 already... I don't have time to wait for the anesthetic to work!'
The dentist thought to himself, "My goodness, this is surely a very brave man asking to have his tooth pulled without using anything to kill the pain."
So the dentist asks him, "Which tooth is it, sir?"
The man turned to his wife and said, "Open your mouth honey, and show him.
|
Today's drunk joke....
A man and his wife were awakened at 3 am by a loud pounding on the door. The man got up and went to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, was asking for a push. "Not a chance," said the husband, "it is 3 a.m. in the morning!" He slammed the door and returned to bed. "Who was that?" asked his wife. "Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answered. "Did you help him?" she asked. "No, I did not, it's 3 a.m. in the morning and it's bloody pouring rain out there "Well, you have a short memory," said his wife. "Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself! God loves drunk people, too, you know." The man did as he was told, got dressed, and went out into the pounding rain. He called out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?" "Yes," came back the answer. "Do you still need a push?" called out the husband. "Yes, please!" came the reply from the dark. "Where are you?" asked the husband. "Over here on the swing," replied the drunk. |
Today's Alzheimers joke
CHECK FOR ALZHEIMER'S - PRETTY AMAZING
The following was developed as a mental age assessment by the
School of Psychiatry at Harvard University . Take your time and see if
you can read each line aloud without a mistake.
The average person over 60 years of age cannot do it!
1. This is this cat.
2. This is is cat.
3. This is how cat.
4. This is to cat.
5. This is keep cat.
6. This is an cat.
7. This is old cat.
8. This is fart cat.
9. This is busy cat.
10. This is for cat.
11. This is forty cat.
12. This is seconds cat.
Now go back and read the third word in each line from the top down
and I bet you can't resist passing it on.........
Today's missionary joke
A Priest was about to finish his tour of duty, and was leaving his Mission in the jungle where he has spent years teaching the natives when he realizes that the one thing he never taught them was how to speak English. ...
So he takes the chief for a walk in the forest.
He points to a tree and says to the chief, "This is a tree."
The chief looks at the tree and grunts, "Tree."
The Priest is pleased with the response.
They walk a little further and he points to a rock and says, "This is a rock."
Hearing this, the chief looks and grunts, "Rock."
The Priest was really getting enthusiastic about the results when he hears a rustling in the bushes. As they peek over the top, he sees a couple of natives in the midst of heavy sexual activity.
The Priest is really flustered and quickly responds, "Man riding a bike."
The chief looks at the couple briefly, pulls out his blowgun and kills them both...
The Priest goes ballistic and yells at the chief that he has spent years
teaching the tribe how to be civilized and be kind to each other, so how
could he kill these people in cold blood that way?
The chief replied,
"My bike."
