1/ Social Security is being demonised as one of the main drivers of the deficit, but that just isn't true. Repeat - not true. SS is fully funded for the next 20 years, and is an excellent program that is a lifeline for a majority of seniors. Medicare, Medicaid and military spending are driving the deficit....good Bob Herbert column.....
There has always been feverish opposition on the right to Social Security. What is happening now, in a period of deficit hysteria, is that this crucial retirement program is being dishonestly lumped together with Medicare as an entitlement program that is driving federal deficits. Medicare costs are a serious problem, but that’s because of the nightmarish expansion of health care costs in general.
Beyond Medicare, the major drivers of the deficits are not talked about so much by the fat cats and demagogues because they were either responsible for them, or are reaping gargantuan benefits from them, or both. The country is drowning in a sea of debt because of the obscene Bush tax cuts for the rich, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have never been paid for and the Great Recession.
Mugging the nation’s grandparents by depriving them of some of their modest, hard-earned Social Security retirement benefits is hardly an answer to the nation’s ills. And, believe me, those benefits are modest. The average benefit is just $14,000 a year, which is less than the minimum wage would pay. With employer-provided pensions going the way of the typewriter and pay telephones, the income from Social Security is becoming more precious by the day.
“If we didn’t have Social Security, we’d have to invent it right now,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. “It’s perfectly suited to the terrible times we’re going through. Hardly anyone has pensions anymore. People’s private savings have taken a huge hit, and home prices have been hit hard. So the private savings that so many seniors and soon-to-be seniors have counted on have just been wiped out.
“Social Security is still there, and it’s still paying out retirement benefits indexed to wages. It’s the one part of the retirement stool that is working.”
The deficit hawks and the right-wingers can scream all they want, but there is no Social Security crisis. There is a foreseeable problem with the program’s long-term financing, but it can be fixed with changes that do no harm to its elderly beneficiaries. One obvious step would be to raise the cap on payroll taxes so that wealthy earners shoulder a fairer share of the burden.
The alarmist rhetoric should cease. Americans have enough economic problems to worry about without being petrified that their Social Security benefits will be curtailed.
2/ Cold huh?.......here's the explanation, a little clearer than the article two weeks ago......
Ice reflects sunlight, and scientists say the loss of ice is causing the Arctic Ocean to absorb more heat in the summer. A handful of scientists point to that extra heat as a possible culprit in the recent harsh winters in Europe and the United States.
Their theories involve a fast-moving river of air called the jet stream that circles the Northern Hemisphere. Many winters, a strong pressure difference between the polar region and the middle latitudes channels the jet stream into a tight circle, or vortex, around the North Pole, effectively containing the frigid air at the top of the world.
“It’s like a fence,” said Michelle L’Heureux, a researcher in Camp Springs, Md., with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
When that pressure difference diminishes, however, the jet stream weakens and meanders southward, bringing warm air into the Arctic and cold air into the midlatitudes — exactly what has happened the last couple of winters. The effect is sometimes compared to leaving a refrigerator door open, with cold air flooding the kitchen even as warm air enters the refrigerator.
This has happened intermittently for many decades. Still, it is unusual for the polar vortex to weaken as much as it has lately. Last winter, one index related to the vortex hit its lowest wintertime value since record-keeping began in 1865, and it was quite low again in December.
So we're getting really cold in the winter and the arctic is warmer than usual - a trade-off. If you look at the map of polar ice in the article the ice has become 30% less since 1979. A couple of points here - right wing bloggers have seized on the cold weather to scoff at "global warming", without mentioning the warming of the arctic...
The uncertainty about what is causing the strange winters highlights a core difficulty of climate science. While mainstream researchers are sure that greenhouse gases released by humans are warming the Earth, they acknowledge being on shakier ground in trying to predict the regional effects of that change. It is entirely possible, they say, that some regions will cool temporarily, because of disruption of the atmospheric and oceanic circulation, even as the Earth warms over all.
Bloggers who specialize in raising doubts about climate science have gleefully pointed to the recent winters in the United States and Europe as evidence that climatologists must be mistaken about a warming trend. These commentators have not been as eager to write about the strange warmth in parts of the Arctic, a region that scientists have long predicted will warm more rapidly than the planet as a whole.
Without doubt, the winter weather that began and ended 2010 was remarkable. Two of the 10 largest snowstorms in New York City history occurred last year, including the one that disrupted travel right after Christmas. The two snowstorms that fell on Washington and surrounding areas within a week in February had no known precedent in their overall impact on the region, with total accumulations of 40 inches in some places.
The second point is that reputable climate scientists don't come up with theories based on a couple of years of abnormal weather - they prefer data gathered over decades of research....but in this case the patterns are changing quite quickly and noone really knows or can predict what will happen. All we truly know is that our climate is changing......that's not in dispute.
The huge success for the energy industry and the 2% of scientists they have purchased is that they have succeeded in politicising this issue....making it a right vs left debate, when in reality it's science. Facts. Data. It's not Obama's fault. Or the Chinese. Or the Indians. It just is, and we will have to live with it......and our children and grandchildren will cope with more and more change no matter what Fox News says.....
Oh well.....
3/ Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the most extreme right winger on a court of right wingers has "forgotten" to disclose his wife's income from Tea Party groups and other Koch Brothers related foundations.....there was criticism of this scumbag in the summer because some of her consulting fees were coming from unknown sources, which could include foreign corporations.....hmmm....on a 5 to 4 court, one Justice is owned by the Arabs? The Chinese? Anyone care?
Nothing will happen, because he's a right winger and the corporate media doesn't go after conservatives.....
Reporting from Washington —
Supreme Court JusticeClarence Thomas failed to report his wife's income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday.Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation's IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled "none" where "spousal noninvestment income" would be disclosed.
A Supreme Court spokesperson could not be reached for comment late Friday. But Virginia Thomas' employment by the Heritage Foundation was well known at the time.
Virginia Thomas also has been active in the group Liberty Central, an organization she founded to restore the "founding principles" of limited government and individual liberty.
In his 2009 disclosure, Justice Thomas also reported spousal income as "none." Common Cause contends that Liberty Central paid Virginia Thomas an unknown salary that year.
4/ Interesting video of an elephant seal and a tourist.....
This unique video is of a tourist who sat on the beach to watch the seals and penguins on Gold Harbor, South Georgia, Antarctica. Unexpectedly, one of the seals is apparently attracted to her and, slowly works his way over to her. He seems to 'fall in love' and snuggles and flirts with her. It is quite an unusual and interesting scene. The seals are huge (6,000 lbs), yet she never seemed afraid...more amused...while someone shot the video of this incident.
5/ Speaking of the Corporate media, apparently Keith Olbermann's firing was in the works for weeks.....he was a high profile nuisance to MSNBC because of his outspokenness and support of liberal issues.....and I am sure that behind the scenes he was difficult to work with, but although they are denying it right and left I am positive Comcast wanted him out......how long has Rachael Maddow got, I wonder?
Of course there is a double standard here.....do the Fox News bosses care about their hosts' support for Tea Party and other right wingnut causes? Of course not.....I guess liberals are held to a higher standard than the Fox boys....
Even his own boss, Phil Griffin, offered this assessment in 2008, when Mr. Olbermann was being heavily criticized by supporters ofHillary Rodham Clinton because he was urging her to drop out of the race to become the Democratic presidential candidate.
Still, the news of his abrupt departure from “Countdown” — delivered by Mr. Olbermann on Friday night — came as a shock to his many fans, some of whom accused Comcast, the incoming owner of MSNBC’s parent, NBC Universal, of forcing out the host for political reasons.
Many people inside the television industry are astonished that a cable network’s highest-rated host, whose forceful personality and liberal advocacy had lifted MSNBC from irrelevance to competitiveness and profitability, would be ushered out the door with no fanfare, no promoted farewell show and only a perfunctory thanks for his efforts.
But underlying the decision, which one executive involved said was not a termination but a “negotiated separation,” were years of behind-the-scenes tension, conflicts and near terminations.
Very funny clip from Stephen Colbert where he absorbs Olbermann's "essence", or tries to.....5 minutes......
6/ Since the Black Eyed Peas will be singing at the Superbowl half time concert, you may be amused by this dissection of one of their most popular hits which they will probably be doing for the show....with the delicious Fergie, will.i.am and the boys......very clever......
Here's the full video "I've Got a feeling"....5 minutes of coolness, but if you watch the dissection above maybe a little less cool than before.......note - 62 million hits on this video.....
7/ Ah Florida.....49th out of 50 states in education.......and governed by crooks.....
So Big Rick, our Guv, has vetoed the septic tank bill because the Tea Partiers in North Florida think it's the Gumment interfering in their business....but it's the entirely reasonable requirement all septic tanks need to be inspected and/or pumped every 5 years to protect the water supply.....words fail me here....since when is poop a political issue?
...tea party groups and homeowners in North Florida, where much of the state’s 2.6 million septic tanks are located, have fought against the inspections as costly and unnecessary. The inspections would have included evaluations and pump-outs, with the costs borne by the owner. Septic tank owners who purchased their tank or had it serviced in the last five years would have been exempt from the inspections.
Regular MoJo readers will recognize this refrain. As Stephanie Mencimer recently reported, there's a nationwide upswell of conservative and tea party activists coming after even the most innocuous of environmental or sustainable-development measures, with many of them convinced that a fertilizer restriction or public-transit program is the slippery slope to one-world government. One planning consultant reported that a tea party activist in the South told him, "We don't need none of that smart growth communism."
Rarely the sort lobbying that gets you very far in community-board meetings. But the rules are different in bright-red Florida, where Republicans now hold every statewide office and a whopping 72 percent of seats in the state Senate. (They occupy a mere 68 percent in the House.)
Rickey boy, our Governor, from his behavior over the last few weeks is a micro-manager of the worst kind.....but when he was at HCA defrauding the government out of billions he didn't know what his executives were doing? Yeah, right.....
The notion that government should run more like a business is a tried and true message on the campaign trail, but is impossible to enact in real life for a number of practical and political reasons. The most obvious example in Florida is that the balance must be budgeted every year, whereas private companies interested in doing something bold will dip into debt to make a big move. Interestingly, eliminating debt is also something those pro-business conservatives also say government should do better. Of course, any leader who put the entire state budget at risk in a make-it-or-break-it venture would likely be punished at the polls regardless of outcome, hence the political problems of running like a business.
The other big issue, though, is corruption. A governor given free reign over the state budget can to easily take an undue share of tax dollars and direct it to certain private interests who lack scruples about stealing from taxpayers.
In other words, how Rick Scott ran HCA.
Or at least how the Feds said he ran HCA. Which brings up the funniest part of this, because if we are to believe Rick Scott's sworn testimony in various court encounters, he actually delegated a lot of decision-making when he actually was a CEO. This was a man who didn't always recall signing paperwork, and simply wasn't paying enough attention to his own employees as they committed fraud. At least, that was his story before.
The other big issue, though, is corruption. A governor given free reign over the state budget can to easily take an undue share of tax dollars and direct it to certain private interests who lack scruples about stealing from taxpayers.
In other words, how Rick Scott ran HCA.
Or at least how the Feds said he ran HCA. Which brings up the funniest part of this, because if we are to believe Rick Scott's sworn testimony in various court encounters, he actually delegated a lot of decision-making when he actually was a CEO. This was a man who didn't always recall signing paperwork, and simply wasn't paying enough attention to his own employees as they committed fraud. At least, that was his story before.
Yup....goodbye to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.......they're in the process of gutting it......hello to corporate polluters, dubious water, more development......
Meanwhile, Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, told the Northwest Florida Daily News last week that he favors getting rid of, or at least gutting, the Department of Environmental Protection, according to a report.
Gaetz on Monday told the Florida Tribune that he didn't say he wanted to "gut" DEP. "I think we have to look at the functions of DEP and find out where we can combine those with job-creation functions," Gaetz said.
Gaetz also said he is working on a bill to eliminate the Florida Department of Community Affairs and move its emergency management functions under the governor's office. Scott's transition team in December proposed merging DCA, DEP and the Florida Department of Transportation, but the governor said last week he had not made such a proposal.
Gaetz on Monday told the Florida Tribune that he didn't say he wanted to "gut" DEP. "I think we have to look at the functions of DEP and find out where we can combine those with job-creation functions," Gaetz said.
Gaetz also said he is working on a bill to eliminate the Florida Department of Community Affairs and move its emergency management functions under the governor's office. Scott's transition team in December proposed merging DCA, DEP and the Florida Department of Transportation, but the governor said last week he had not made such a proposal.
8/ I wouldn't think too many readers of DDD watch MTV, unless you sneak a look at Jersey Shore every now and then, but MTV seems to have gone over the edge with "Skins".
Last week, my colleague Brian Stelter reported that on Tuesday, the day after the pilot episode of “Skins” was shown on MTV, executives at the cable channel were frantically meeting to discuss whether the salacious teenage drama starring actors as young as 15 might violate federal child pornography statutes.
Senior executives are now considering additional editing for coming episodes, but that’s a little like trying to lock the door after a naked 17-year-old has already busted out and gone running down the street, which is precisely what one of the characters does in Episode 3 — with a pill-enhanced erection, no less.
No one at MTV, which is owned by Viacom, set out to make child pornography, but make no mistake: the series is meant to provoke. “Skins” — a title that derives from the rolling papers that are used to make the blunts that go with the vodka that washes down the pills that accompany the hookups — is mostly about explicitly teenage characters doing explicit things. In a cluttered programming era, controversy is oxygen, so MTV was undoubtedly happy with the tsk-tsking the show incited in advance.
But objectifying teenage pathology, along with teenage bodies, is a complicated business — and the business that MTV is in.
I’ve watched the first three episodes of “Skins,” and I have no idea if the show is “sufficiently sexually suggestive,” as the law reads, to run afoul of the authorities. What “Skins” does clearly suggest is that MTV and its corporate parent erred when they decided that conjuring a show out of piles of semi-nude teenagers would be lucrative, harmless fun.
9/ This is a new one - there's a parking garage on Miami Beach that doubles as a venue for weddings and events on the top floor.....wow, sounds amazingly cool.....have a look at the pictures in the article....
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — For her wedding over the weekend, Nina Johnson had worked through a predictable checklist of locations in town: hotel ballrooms, restaurant halls and catering outfits.
In the end, though, she opted for the most glamorous, upscale and stylish setting she could find — a parking garage.
“When we saw it, we were in total awe,” said Ms. Johnson, 26, an art gallery director. “It’s breathtaking.”
Parking garages, the grim afterthought of American design, call to mind many words. (Rats. Beer cans. Unidentifiable smells.) Breathtaking is not usually among them.
Yet here in Miami Beach, whose aesthetic is equal parts bulging biceps and fluorescent pink, bridal couples, bar mitzvah boys and charity-event hosts are flocking to what seems like the unimaginable marriage of high-end architecture and car storage: a $65 million parking garage in the center of the city.
They are clamoring to use it for wine tastings, dinner parties and even yoga classes. Or taking self-guided tours, snapping photographs and, at times, just gawking.
10/ Bad news guys....the tech guy from the Times has tested the universal remotes on the market, and has found them all flawed. This is one of the most frustrating things about modern entertainment systems, which is none of them work together....and they are not intuitive.....we have four, one for the cable system, one for the TV, one for the DVD player and one for the sound system.....and if something goes wrong or you press the wrong button by accident it can be a while before you figure it out.....awful.....we need to get Apple working on it....
Indeed, the vision is so irresistible that since the invention of the universal remote back in 1985, it has popped up everywhere. There’s a good chance that your television, home theater system, cable box and every other device in your living room includes some kind of “universal” remote. There’s an even better chance, though, that you’ve never used any of those universal functions. Each remote stands alone — you reach for one to control the channels, another for volume, another for the DVD player and so on, your coffee table and your brain more crowded than a Tokyo train at rush hour.
I wish I could tell you that there is a better way. But after testing many different universal remotes — cheap remotes, expensive remotes, smartphone remotes, and a few about which the less said, the better — I don’t have much good news to report. Sure, some universal remotes are more useful than others, and one of them is almost pretty good, but in general these devices remain more appealing in theory than in practice. That’s because they all suffer from an inherent, usually fatal flaw: universal remotes cannot possibly offer enough buttons to mimic all functions of all devices, so they usually have to make compromises, cutting out buttons here and there. The trouble is, some of those buttons are important.
11/ Nasty story about Filipinos forced to work in South Florida under slave conditions.....what makes this ironic is that the article mentions Miami Shores County Club, where I used to play golf on a regular basis for years......wow.....
For up to 16 hours daily, they worked at posh country clubs across South Florida, then returned to deceptively quiet houses in Boca Raton where they were captives -- and in the most dreadful cases, fed rotten chicken and vegetables, forced to drink muriatic acid and repeatedly denied medical help.
The 39 servers, lured to the United States by the cliché of a decent dollar and a promising next chapter, instead became imported modern-day slaves two continents away from their homeland. Their story repeats in plain sight most every day in South Florida: barely paid -- or unpaid -- people forced to toil in fields, work as domestics in hotels and restaurants or in the sex industry, an outsized regional problem authorities are emphasizing in January, Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
``This is organized crime where humans are used as products. We are talking about selling a person over and over and making large sums of money,'' says Carmen Pino, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations Assistant Special Agent in Charge. ``What people need to realize is that human trafficking is happening here, it's a big problem. It could be happening in the restaurant where you eat, at your nail salon, in your neighborhood. It's not just something that happens in foreign countries.''
While difficult to pluck the numbers from a landscape of silence and fear, federal, state and local authorities know South Florida is among the nation's three top capitals of human trafficking, a $36 billion industry defined as the recruitment and harboring of a person for labor or services through force, fraud or coercion.
Todays video - banned and very funny Mastercard commercial.....
Today's nasty feminist joke....
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Todays North Dakota joke.....
Subject: Can't beat a good neighbor!
Tom had been in Police work for 25 years. Finally sick of the stress, he quits his job and buys 50 acres of land in North Dakota as far from humanity as possible. He sees the postman once a week and gets groceries once a month. Otherwise it's total peace and quiet.
After six months or so of almost total isolation, someone knocks on his door. He opens it and a huge, bearded man is standing there. 'My name is Jim, your neighbor from forty miles up the road. I’m having a Christmas party Friday night. I thought you might like to come at about 5:00...'
'Great', says Tom, 'after six months out here I'm ready to meet some local folks. Thank you.'
As Jim is leaving, he stops. 'I gotta warn you there be some drinking.'
'Not a problem' says Tom. 'After 25 years in the business, I can drink with the best of 'em'.
Again, the big man starts to leave and stops. 'More 'n' likely gonna be some fighting' too.'
'Well, I get along with people, I'll be all right! I'll be there. Thanks again.'
'More'n likely be some wild sex, too,'
'Now that's really not a problem' says Tom, warming to the idea. 'I've been all alone for six months! I'll definitely be there... by the way, what should I wear?'
'Don't much matter; they’ll just be the two of us.’
Todays blonde jokes....blonde inventions....
Left handed pencil
Clear correction fluid
Black highlighter
Waterproof tea bags
Braille driving manual
Dehydrated water
Screen door on a submarine
Helicopter ejection seat
Air conditioning for motorcycle
Wooden barbecue
Glow-in-the-dark sun dial
Gasoline fire extinguisher
Battery-powered battery charger
Fake rhinestones
Fireproof matches
Glow-in-the-dark sunglasses
Mesh umbrella
Solar-powered flashlight
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