1/ Paul Krugman on the Republican's "Pledge to America".....he makes the point that even while putting out this document as the platform for the Republican Party the politicians responsible for implementing it know that it's bullshit. This may be a new low in cynicism in our politics......
As he points out, the only way to balance the budget by 2020, while simultaneously (a) making the Bush tax cuts permanent and (b) protecting all the programs Republicans say they won’t cut, is to completely abolish the rest of the federal government: “No more national parks, no more Small Business Administration loans, no more export subsidies, no more N.I.H. No more Medicaid (one-third of its budget pays for long-term care for our parents and others with disabilities). No more child health or child nutrition programs. No more highway construction. No more homeland security. Oh, and no more Congress.”
The “pledge,” then, is nonsense. But isn’t that true of all political platforms? The answer is, not to anything like the same extent. Many independent analysts believe that the Obama administration’s long-run budget projections are somewhat too optimistic — but, if so, it’s a matter of technical details. Neither President Obama nor any other leading Democrat, as far as I can recall, has ever claimed that up is down, that you can sharply reduce revenue, protect all the programs voters like, and still balance the budget.
And the G.O.P. itself used to make more sense than it does now.
2/ On the same topic, the "Pledge to America", Jon Stewart has one of his better segments....very funny, on point.....if you watch it, remember your sister.......4 minutes.....
3/ We need our values back as a country - not the "family values" of the religious loonies but real, actual values. Like honour. Accepting responsibility. Being told, and dealing with, the truth, among others.
David Brooks [the conservative columnist] with a challenging column......for those of you with some brain cells left......
Somewhere in the country, though, there is a politician who is going to try to lead us out of this logjam. Whoever that person is, I hope he or she is listening carefully to what the public is saying. Because when you listen carefully, you notice the public anger doesn’t quite match the political class anger. The political class is angry about ideological things: bloated government or the predatory rich. The public seems to be angry about values.
The heart of any moral system is the connection between action and consequences. Today’s public anger rises from the belief that this connection has been severed in one realm after another.
Financiers send the world into recession and don’t seem to suffer. Neighbors take on huge mortgages and then just walk away when they go underwater. Washington politicians avoid living within their means. Federal agencies fail and get rewarded with more responsibilities.
What the country is really looking for is a restoration of responsibility. If some smart leader is going to help us get out of ideological gridlock, that leader will reframe politics around this end.
4/ Bill Maher has some great TV shows, and some stinkers as well.....but his written articles [mostly funny] are often excellent....like this article on the whining rich......waaaa.....my taxes....my taxes.....waaaa.......
New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being "rich", or what tax rate is "too much." But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.
And let's be clear: that's 3.6% only on income above 250 grand -- your first 250, that's still on the house.
5/ Ladies - have a fat problem? Want to look better?
Onion News has the answers for you in a fascinating interview with an expert on how to disguise those excess inches..........
6/ Florida - #1 in the nation.....yeahhhhhh......we'
Mortgage fraud is responsible for untold trillions of dollars in bad loans currently defaulting across the country, and Florida has played a starring role in the tragedy, a federal commission said during a hearing in Miami on Tuesday.
A panel of national and local experts sat before the federal Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission during a hearing focused on liar's loans, predatory mortgage practices and shady home appraisals. They concluded that the financial impact of the fraud was more severe than most have estimated, and prosecuting those responsible will be nearly impossible.
7/ Video about a guy in Mexico who has built a floating island out of plastic bottles....and lives on it......very strange.....he even grows his own crops on this island......4 minutes....hmmm...wonder if he grows his own weed.....
8/ Is this what YOU think?
"Coral reefs all over the world are dying due to climate change and the warming of the oceans....but I'm over 50 - so I don't give a shit.....there will be at least some fish for the next 25 years......so climate change won't really affect me....."
The problem is there are significant numbers of people in this country over 50 who really don't care, I repeat .....just ......don't....... care...... that the planet is heating up to the point that life in the next 20 years into the future will be seriously affected....badly. And these irresponsible and selfish pigs are the ones on the levers of power, the oligarchs that run our major corporations who think it might affect next quarters earnings to do the right things to at least slow the warming down.....screw the grandchildren, let them take care of themselves.....
Where are the young people in their 30's and 40's whose lives will be significantly degraded? Asleep? Or just stupid.....or watching Fox News.....
Oh well......sometimes you just say - see paragraph one.....
From Thailand to Texas, corals are reacting to the heat stress by bleaching, or shedding their color and going into survival mode. Many have already died, and more are expected to do so in coming months. Computer forecasts of water temperature suggest that corals in the Caribbean may undergo drastic bleaching in the next few weeks.
What is unfolding this year is only the second known global bleaching of coral reefs. Scientists are holding out hope that this year will not be as bad, over all, as 1998, the hottest year in the historical record, when an estimated 16 percent of the world’s shallow-water reefs died. But in some places, including Thailand, the situation is looking worse than in 1998.
Scientists say the trouble with the reefs is linked toclimate change. For years they have warned that corals, highly sensitive to excess heat, would serve as an early indicator of the ecological distress on the planet caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases.
9/ Another Florida's No. #1 story - I wonder if our Legislature is homophobic, as Florida has [or had] the most anti-gay adoption laws in the country.
You know what they say - scratch a homophobe, and there's a guy inside yearning to tap his foot in an airport mens room......come out of the closet boys, it's 2010......
Judge Cope wrote that at the trial, the state presented only two expert witnesses, one of whom undercut the state’s case by disagreeing with the idea of a blanket ban on gay adoption, stating instead that adoptions should be considered case by case. The other expert called by the state, Dr. George A. Rekers, was criticized by opposing experts as having provided research that was rife with “errors in scientific methodology and reporting” and that “did not meet established standards in the field.”
The court did not comment on the fact that Dr. Rekers, who was paid $120,000 for his work in the case, has since been enmeshed in a scandal after he was discovered to have taken a 10-day trip to Europe with a young man who advertised sexual services on a site for gay escorts.
According to the lower court decision cited in the opinion on Wednesday, “Florida is the only remaining state to expressly ban all gay adoptions without exception.”
10/ Think flying sucks? Have a look at the new airline "seat" they are trying to get approved! OMG.....look at the picture and imagine yourself in cattle class....Spirit and Ryanair here we come......
Aviointeriors said the seat allowed for a new basic class of seating with a “much reduced seat pitch.” Most coach seats have 31 or 32 inches of pitch, the industry definition of the distance between one point in a seat and the same point in the seat ahead. A few discount airlines have seats with 28 inches of pitch, but the SkyRider is intended to have 23 inches or less, depending on how an airline installs it.
11/ Movie and TV reviews
Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps, directed by Oliver Stone. Great review, worth seeing.......
The full title of Oliver Stone’s hectic new chapter in the Gordon Gekko cycle — a conventional sequel that is also a corrective, a parody and a sly act of auto-homage — is “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” and the movie has an insomniac restlessness that is by turns thrilling and enervating. It is as volatile as the Dow Jones on a day of seesaw, high-volume trading, as Mr. Stone and the screenwriters (Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff) scramble to capture the cacophonous cultural rhythms of right now, not so long ago and some vaguely recollected bygone age when things were differe
The Social Network, directed by David Fincher....quite a good review, a fascinating look at a new media tycoon.....
What makes Mark Zuckerberg run? In “The Social Network,”David Fincher’s fleet, weirdly funny, exhilarating, alarming and fictionalized look at the man behind the social-media phenomenon Facebook — 500 million active users, oops, friends, and counting — Mark runs and he runs, sometimes in flip-flops and a hoodie, across Harvard Yard and straight at his first billion. Quick as a rabbit, sly as a fox, he is the geek who would be king or just Bill Gates. He’s also the smartest guy in the room, and don’t you forget it.
TV - new tonight
Blue Bloods - CBS Fridays at 10pm with Tom Selleck....decent review, good to see Tom Selleck back....
“Blue Bloods,” though, addresses other issues, police brutality among them, more cogently. And it offers a potentially compelling narrative arc in the story line of the family’s youngest son, Jamie (Will Estes), who is asked to go undercover unbeknown to his father to investigate malfeasance in the department. Forget the Irish. “Blue Bloods” dangles before us the possibility that it might go mythically Greek.
Todays older mother joke
With all the new technology regarding fertility recently discovered, a 65-year-old friend of mine was able to give birth. When she was discharged from the hospital and went home, I went to visit.. 'May I see the new baby?' I asked 'Not yet,' She said 'I'll make coffee and we can visit for a while first.' Thirty minutes had passed, and I asked, 'May I see the new baby now?' 'No, not yet,' She said. After another few minutes had elapsed, I asked again, 'May I see the baby now?' 'No, not yet,' replied my friend. Growing very impatient, I asked, 'Well, when can I see the baby?' 'WHEN HE CRIES!' she told me. 'WHEN HE CRIES?' I demanded. 'Why do I have to wait until he CRIES?' 'BECAUSE I FORGOT WHERE I PUT HIM, O.K.?!!' |
Todays haunting jokes
QUESTIONS THAT HAUNT ME!
Can you cry under water?
How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?
Why do you have to "put your two cents in"... but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?
Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?
Why does a round pizza come in a square box ?
What disease did cured ham actually have?
How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby " when babies wake up like every two hours
If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?
Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
Why do doctors leave the room while you change?
They're going to see you naked anyway.
Why is "bra" singular and "panties" plural?
Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat ?
If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him?
Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane ?
If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?
Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours?
They're both dogs!
If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME stuff, why didn't he just buy dinner?
If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
Why did you just try singing the two songs above?
Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your butt?
Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
Do you ever wonder why you gave me your e-mail address in the first place?
Todays blonde joke
Two bowling teams, one of all Blondes and one of all Brunettes, charter a double-Decker bus for a weekend trip to Louisiana . The Brunette team rode on the bottom of the bus, and the Blonde team rode on the top level.
The Brunette team down below really whooped it up, having a great time, when one of them realized she hadn't heard anything from the Blondes upstairs. She decided to go up and investigate.
When the Brunette reached the top, she found all the Blondes in fear, staring straight ahead at the road, clutching the seats in front of them with white knuckles. the brunette asked, "What the heck's going on up here? We're having a great time downstairs!"
One of the Blondes looked up at her, swallowed hard and whispered... "
YEAH, BUT YOU'VE GOT A DRIVER!?!"
The Brunette team down below really whooped it up, having a great time, when one of them realized she hadn't heard anything from the Blondes upstairs. She decided to go up and investigate.
When the Brunette reached the top, she found all the Blondes in fear, staring straight ahead at the road, clutching the seats in front of them with white knuckles. the brunette asked, "What the heck's going on up here? We're having a great time downstairs!"
One of the Blondes looked up at her, swallowed hard and whispered... "
YEAH, BUT YOU'VE GOT A DRIVER!?!"
Dave - great posts! Keep 'em up!
ReplyDeleteHope you're doing well,
Jeff Duck