1/ China and how the Chinese see us
Very good Thomas Friedman column.....a fair and balanced view of the Chinese economy.....and ours.....just makes you sick of our "leaders"......
There is absolutely no reason our democracy should not be able to generate the kind of focus, legitimacy, unity and stick-to-it-iveness to do big things — democratically — that China does autocratically. We’ve done it before. But we’re not doing it now because too many of our poll-driven, toxically partisan, cable-TV-addicted, money-corrupted political class are more interested in what keeps them in power than what would again make America powerful, more interested in defeating each other than saving the country.
2/ The Koch brothers again - and how they are other oil companies are pouring money into repealing California's clean energy bill.....they really are evil......a NYTimes editorial....
Four years ago, bipartisan majorities in the California Legislature approved a landmark clean energy bill that many hoped would serve as a template for a national effort to reduce dependence on foreign oil and mitigate the threat of climate change.
Now a well-financed coalition of right-wing ideologues, out-of-state oil and gas companies and climate-change skeptics is seeking to effectively kill that law with an initiative on the November state ballot. The money men include Charles and David Koch, the Kansas oil and gas billionaires who have played a prominent role in financing the Tea Party movement.
3/ Salmonella infected eggs
According to this story the DeCoster Farms have been poisoning people for 30 years, from when he started in Maine......their safety records have been awful....just on a side note Austin DeCoster is a major donor to Iowa Republicans and the Republican party....what a surprise.....
Farms tied to Mr. DeCoster were a primary source of Salmonella enteritidis in the United States in the 1980s, when some of the first major outbreaks of human illness from the bacteria in eggs occurred, according to health officials and public records. At one point, New York and Maryland regulators believed DeCoster eggs were such a threat that they banned sales of the eggs in their states.
4/ More on Food
Did you know 75% of the packaged foods in the supermarket are genetically modified? And GM foods aren't good for you.....this article is a start to educate yourself. If you want to eat properly and protect yourself click on some of the links in the article.....
There are eight GM food crops. The five major varieties—soy, corn, canola, cotton, and sugar beets—have bacterial genes inserted, which allow the plants to survive an otherwise deadly dose of weed killer. Farmers use considerably more herbicides on these GM crops and so the food has higher herbicide residues. About 68% of GM crops are herbicide tolerant.
The second GM trait is a built-in pesticide, found in GM corn and cotton. A gene from the soil bacterium called Bt (for Bacillus thuringiensis) is inserted into the plant’s DNA, where it secretes the insect-killing Bt-toxin in every cell. About 19% of GM crops produce their own pesticide. Another 13% produce a pesticide and are herbicide tolerant.
There is also Hawaiian papaya and a small amount of zucchini and yellow crookneck squash, which are engineered to resist a plant virus.
But wait - the FDA, you say, has approved these foods. Yes it has, but the approval was done with political pressure from the big food corporations....see below. Just make a note - GM crops are NOT allowed in Europe......but big Agra isn't as powerful in the EU as it is here.....again folks, the oligarchy using it's clout and money.....
But internal memos made public by a lawsuit2 reveal that their position was staged by political appointees who were under orders from the White House to promote GMOs. In addition, the FDA official in charge of creating this policy was Michael Taylor, the former attorney for Monsanto, the largest biotech company, and later their vice president.
In reality, FDA scientists had repeatedly warned that GM foods can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged long-term safety studies, but were ignored.
5/ Good Jon Stewart segment, his topic de jour is the Tea Party.....funny.....4 minutes.....
6/ Dollar Stores
One of the bright points in an otherwise dismal retail outlook are the dollar stores, as people are buying very small quantities of staples.....even WalMart is packaging smaller....hmmm....wonder how the middle class is doing in this economy.....
Some customers at Wal-Mart and the major dollar chains — Dollar General, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree — have such modest budgets that the retailers report upticks in spending at the beginning of the month, when government benefit checks and many paychecks come through. Late in the month, sales drop as even multiroll packs of paper towels are ditched for a single roll.
“People are literally running out of cash on hand as the month goes on and they’re looking for smaller package sizes,” said Craig Johnson, president of the retail consulting and research firm Customer Growth Partners. “They may have $10, $20, $30 to spend getting toward the end of the month, and they have to be able to still feed the family and get diapers and so forth.”
7/ Political redistricting - Amendments 5 and 6
Both parties are guilty - whoever is in power draws safe districts for their party every 10 years and this leads to the polarisation of our politics - if a politician is in a safe district, they can pander to extremists.....
Vote YES on Amendments 5 and 6.....
That's where Amendments 5 and 6 on the November 2 ballot come in. If approved (by 60 percent of Florida voters), these constitutional amendments would try to correct a fundamental cause of voter discontent and apathy: Their inability to choose members of the state Legislature and the U.S. House who live in their community and represent their values, hopes and aspirations. Too often, the names on the ballot reflect the aspirations and political agenda of the party in power that drew -- and usually gerrymandered -- the legislative and congressional district lines. Under our current system, the politicians choose the voters, not the other way around. This must change.
http://www.miamiherald.com/
8/ Hasn't been a decent boxing movie for a long time, so "The Fighter" with Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale and Amy Adams looks good, much more real and intense than "Rocky"....2 minute trailer.....
9/ Septic tanks in Florida
This is a pretty good illustration of how difficult it is to get even sensible things done in this State, governed by idiots pandering to the Tea Partiers. This story is about a bill that mandates inspections of septic tanks every five years, and as the present and past owner of houses with septic tanks this is a damn good idea....poop builds up over five years to an unspeakable mess....but no - it's 'big government" interference.....
"I just simply think that to mandate every five years for every homeowner with a septic tank to have it inspected is unnecessary and big government," Coley said. She introduced a bill to repeal the mandate during the July special session on oil drilling but the Legislature adjourned without voting on any legislation.
So screw our water supply.......
The bill was promoted as a measure to protect Florida's springs, which have become choked with weeds and algae as nitrogen in groundwater from a variety of sources has increased. DOH and the septic tank industry say septic tanks should be inspected and pumped out every three to five years to keep them functioning properly. Florida has 2.6 million septic tanks, according to a DOH study completed May 1.
10/ TV tonight
The Defenders with Jim Belushi - Wednesday at 10pm on CBS....sounds good
Questions of innocence are established fairly early in the far more appealing of the legal dramas beginning on Wednesday: “The Defenders” on CBS. Here the love connection is unambiguously platonic and winning, centered on two defense lawyers in partnership: one, Pete Kaczmarek, played by the boyishly louche Jerry O’Connell; and the other, Nick Morelli, delivered in the form of the saggily avuncular Jim Belushi.
The Whole Truth - Wednesday at 10 on ABC.....not so good
“The Whole Truth” presents itself as structurally innovative, speed-racing between the case-building efforts of the prosecution and the defense. Each warrior is given equal time and the evidence is piled up on both sides to maximize the suspense around the weekly suspect’s guilt or innocence. But the personality cost is too high for the payoff.
Better With You - ABC at 8.30 on Wednesday.....ehhh.....
But the single-family multigeneration setup seems to have facilitated an undertone of nastiness and desperation in the humor, most clearly expressed in the condescending portrayal of the youngest couple. Casey, especially, with his Barney Fife-style guilelessness, is a character that doesn’t exist in the real world, a holy fool for the digital age.
Undercovers, NBC at 8pm Wednesdays.....oops.....
The banter between the Blooms is so full of cloying sugar substitutes and so devoid of any real tension that there is no voyeuristic thrill to be had even from their — I’m just going to say it, because the show does — “sexpionage.” The gazes they exchange are part soft pornography, part Lifetime television. Someone just give these people a cooking show.
11/ Music Video
Mayer Hawthorne - I've heard some whining about how all of my videos are rock or pop - so here's one for the more "discriminating" viewer - this guy sounds like Smokey Robinson.....enjoy.....3 minutes.....
Todays video - "Toyota".....see how much both of them want the new car....funny.....
Todays philosophical joke
Ten Thoughts to Ponder
Number 10 - Life is sexually transmitted.
Number 9 - Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
Number 8 - Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich .
Number 7 - Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.
Number 6 - Some people are like a Slinky-not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.
Number 5 - Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals, dying of nothing.
Number 4 - All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
Number 3 - Why does a slight tax increase cost you $800.00, and a substantial tax cut saves you $30.00?
Number 2 - In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
And The Number 1 Thought - Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers--what you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
- - - and as someone recently said to me: "Don't worry about old age--it doesn't last long."
Todays blonde joke
Blonde Cop
This blonde cop stops a blonde driver and asks for identification.
The blonde driver looks all around in her purse and can’t find her license. “I must have left it at home, officer.”
“Well, do you have any kind of identification on you?” asks the cop.
The blonde takes out a pocket mirror and says, “I do have this picture of me.”
“Let me see it,” says the cop. She holds up the mirror and looks in it. Then she says, “Sorry. If I had known you were a police officer, I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
Todays retirement joke
Where to Retire?
You can retire to California where
1. You make over $250,000 and you still can't afford to buy a house.
2. The fastest part of your commute is going down your driveway.
3. You know how to eat an artichoke.
4. You drive your rented Mercedes to your neighborhood block party.
5. When someone asks you how far something is, you tell them how long it will take to get there rather than how many miles away it is.
6. The 4 seasons are: Fire, Flood, Mud, and Drought.
You can retire to New York City where
1. You say "the city" and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan . 2. You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can't find Wisconsin on a map. 3. You think Central Park is "nature." 4. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual. 5. You've worn out a car horn. (ed note: if you have a car) 6. You think eye contact is an act of aggression.
You can retire to Buffalo, NY where 1.. You only have four spices: salt, pepper, ketchup, and Tabasco . 2. Halloween costumes fit over parkas. 3. You have more than one recipe for deer. 4. Sexy lingerie is anything flannel with less than eight buttons. 5. The four seasons are: winter, still winter, almost winter, and construction.
You can retire to the South where 1.. You can rent a movie and buy bait in the same store. 2. "Y'all" is singular and "all y'all" is plural. 3. "He needed killin'" is a valid defense.
4. Everyone has 2 first names: Billy Bob , Jimmy Bob , Mary Sue, Betty Jean, Mary Beth , etc. 5. Everything is either "in yonder," "over yonder" or "out yonder." It's important to know the difference, too.
You can retire to Colorado where 1. You carry your $3,000 mountain bike atop your $500 car 2. You tell your husband to pick up Granola on his way home and so he stops at the day care center. 3. A pass does not involve a football or dating. 4... The top of your head is bald, but you still have a pony tail.
You can retire to the Midwest where 1. You've never met any celebrities, but the mayor knows your name. 2. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor. 3. You have had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" on the same day. 4. You end sentences with a preposition: "Where's my coat at?" 5. When asked how your trip was to any exotic place, you say, "It was different!"
AND You can retire to Florida where 1. You eat dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon...
2. All purchases include a coupon of some kind -- even houses and cars.
3. Everyone can recommend an excellent dermatologist.
4. Road construction never ends anywhere in the state.
5. Cars in front of you often appear to be driven by headless p eople.
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