1/ Apparently Nicolas Kristof's portrayal of the US as a banana republic in his column last week offended some parties.......like South American countries, who point out the concentration of wealth at the top is diminishing in [say] Argentina while getting worse in the US.
But hell - let's give the billionaires another tax cut......
Since then, we’ve reversed places. The share controlled by the top 1 percent in Argentina has fallen to a bit more than 15 percent. Meanwhile, inequality in the United States has soared to levels comparable to those in Argentina six decades ago — with 1 percent controlling 24 percent of American income in 2007.
At a time of such stunning inequality, should Congress put priority on spending $700 billion on extending the Bush tax cuts to those with incomes above $250,000 a year? Or should it extend unemployment benefits for Americans who otherwise will lose them beginning next month?
One way to examine that decision is to put aside all ethical considerations and simply look at where tax dollars will do more to stimulate the economy. There the conclusion is clear: You get much more bang for the buck putting money in the hands of unemployed people because they will promptly spend it.
2/ Florida's Legislature
Had to put this in because of the first line of the story.....
In the past I've written that our state capitol, Tallahassee, is like a castle with a moat and a drawbridge guarded by lobbyists. The new legislature, more conservative than in "a hundred years" according to House Speaker Dean Cannon, takes that metaphor to new levels.
....but the article is about our hopelessly corrupt legislature that will give our money to the corporations and their friends while diverting the voters of Florida with stuff about abortion, gays and immigration as a distraction. It's worked before, and will work again.
Note the line in here about Florida Democrats....
3/ Climate change - a long and detailed article on the Greenland glaciers that are melting at an unprecedented rate. It also spells out the difficulty climate scientists have in gathering data, as budgets are being cut for this vital research. It's logical - if you are a Republican who doesn't believe in climate change, why allocate money for research into it?
What is happening is this - 98% of the scientists in the world are sure global warming is man made - 2% say it's cyclical. Those 2% of scientists are bought and sold by the oil and coal industries, but it doesn't matter. As long as Fox News can say there is a "debate", the climate deniers win and nothing will be done.
Read the article folks and then you decide if there's a debate needed.....but your opinion doesn't matter anyway. The energy oligarchy has decided we will just drift along as we are.....and we'll wake up in 15 years as Miami or New York floods, or Arizona and Nevada have no water at all and then we, stupid America, will say "why didn't the government do something?"
A moderate Republican Congressman, defeated by a Tea Party candidate, blasts the Republican position on climate change....but he's another sensible voice gone from the House this last election....all that's left are extremists....
"And I would also suggest to my Free Enterprise colleagues -- especially conservatives here -- whether you think it's all a bunch of hooey the Chinese don't. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century. They plan on innovating around these problems, and selling to us, and the rest of the world, the technology that'll lead the 21st century," Inglis told his colleagues. "So we may just press the pause button here for several years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button. And as a result, if we wake up in several years and we say, 'geez, this didn't work very well for us.'"
4/ Occasionally there's a story that illustrates why it's so hard to change anything in this country. Here we have a superior traffic solution to congestion, the roundabout, that works well in Europe and globally that traffic planners are finding resistance to putting into some states. They'd rather have a traffic light?
There must be another reason.....dumbing down of America perhaps?
There’s just one problem: Americans don’t know how to navigate them.
“There’s a lot of what I call irrational opposition,” said Eugene R. Russell Sr., a civil engineering professor at Kansas State University and chairman of anational task force on roundabouts, sounding mildly exasperated in a telephone interview. “People don’t understand. They just don’t understand roundabouts.”
5/ Lady Gaga and Beyonce in "Telephone", a mini-movie of a music video [10 minutes] with delights such as lesbians, costumes galore, prison stuff and a Thelma and Louise type of trip by the ladies......this is as good as, and as groundbreaking as "Thriller"......amazing images and the music is great as well......
6/ Say goodbye to the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna - an EU conference caved to the fishing interests of Spain, France and Italy and so this beautiful fish will be hunted to extinction by the giant factory fleets....I just have this image of us as a species as lemmings......there's the cliff [no more tuna] - OK lets go over it.......
It's pathetic....we are incapable of saving ourselves from ourselves.....
7/ Jon Stewart taking on the Palinettes, Sarah, Bristol and Willow, and Jason Jones with his own show modelled on Sarah Palin's Alaska.....good segment....7 minutes....
8/ I-Phoniacs? I-Phoners? OK OK - do you own an I-Phone?
Here's 10 of the tech guy at the Times' 10 favourite I-Phone apps......
I noticed that the No. 1 most e-mailed New York Times article for all of last week was Bob Tedeschi’s list of great iPhone apps. It’s still on the most-e-mailed list. Wow—hot topic, eh? O.K., fine—two can play that game. Here are my top 10 iPhone apps
9/ "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Part 1. Excellent review for this penultimate Potter movie.....can't wait to see it.....the story concentrates on the three young characters.....
In this chapter their adventures have an especially somber and scary coloration, as the three friends are cast out from the protective cocoon of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry into a bleak, perilous grown-up world that tests the independence they have struggled to obtain under the not-always-benevolent eyes of their teachers. Childish things have been put away — this time there is no quidditch, no school uniforms, no schoolboy crushes or classroom pranks — and adult supervision has all but vanished. Albus Dumbledore is dead, and though Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) and Alastor Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson) offer some assistance early on, Harry and his companions must rely on the kindness of house elves, on their own newly mastered wizarding skills and, above all, on one another.
Russell Crowe in "The Next Three Days", about a man determined to break into a prison to get his wife out.....
Review is .....good.....
Or maybe a violent, feature-length version of one of those once-hot cable television makeover shows. Here, a regular guy named John (Russell Crowe) is transformed into a scheming mastermind, planning and executing not a simple safe-cracking, but rather a daring and logistically complex jail break. He doesn’t acquire the requisite skills by watching movies, though. That’s what the Internet is for. This unassuming Pittsburgh dad — he makes his living mumbling about Don Quixote to students at a local community college — combs YouTube for videos showing how to forge skeleton keys and break into cars with a tennis ball.
Todays Holiday jokes
HOLIDAY EATING TIPS
1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Holiday spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It's rare... You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Holiday party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple, Pumpkin, Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.
10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner. Remember this motto to live by:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand and wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
Have a great holiday season!!
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. It's rare... You cannot find it any other time of year but now. So drink up! Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip? It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat.
4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk. If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
5. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Holiday party is to eat other people's food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
6. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
7. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the center of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.
8. Same for pies. Apple, Pumpkin, Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labor Day?
9. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.
10. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Re-read tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner. Remember this motto to live by:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand and wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
Have a great holiday season!!
Todays hunter joke
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Todays courtroom joke
These are actual quotes of what people said in court, word for word:
Q: Did you see my client flee the scene?
A: No, sir, I didn’t. But subsequently I observed someone running several blocks away who matched the description of the offender.
Q: Who provided you with the description?
A: The officer who responded to the scene.
Q: A fellow officer of yours provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust this fellow officer?
A: Yes, sir, with my life.
Q: With your life? Let me then ask you this, officer. Do you have a room were you change your clothes in preparation for the day’s duties?
A: Yes, sir, we do.
Q: And do you have a locker in that room?
A: Yes, sir, I do.
Q: And do you have a lock on your locker?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Why is it, officer, that if you trust your fellow officers with your life, that you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with those some officers?
A: You see, sir, we share the building with the court complex. And sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.
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