This column is worth your allocation of Times stories - Paul Krugman on the new
Republican long term budget proposals from Congressman Ryan. The quote is "ludicrous and cruel", which seems to describe a lot of the Republican proposals.
I am not actually anti Republican. I am anti stupidity and corruption, and there is a lot more of that on the right than the left.....
This column is worth reading......
Many commentators swooned earlier this week after House Republicans, led by the Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan, unveiled their budget proposals. They lavished praise on Mr. Ryan, asserting that his plan set a new standard of fiscal seriousness.
Well, they should have waited until people who know how to read budget numbers had a chance to study the proposal. For the G.O.P. plan turns out not to be serious at all. Instead, it’s simultaneously ridiculous and heartless.
How ridiculous is it? Let me count the ways — or rather a few of the ways, because there are more howlers in the plan than I can cover in one column.
First, Republicans have once again gone all in for voodoo economics — the claim, refuted by experience, that tax cuts pay for themselves.
Since the tide is running against environmental groups, this article suggests a different tactic - demonstrations and citizen actions, since the green movement can never even come close to the money the energy oligarchs have to defeat any sensible environmental legislation.....
This week in the Senate, the biggest environmental groups were reduced to a noble, bare-knuckles fight merely to keep the body from gutting the Clean Air Act, the proudest achievement of the green movement. The outcome is still unclear; even several prominent Democrats are trying to keep the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.
And at the White House? The president who boasted that his election marked the moment when 'the oceans begin to recede' instead introduced an energy plan heavy on precisely the carbon fuels driving global warming. He focused on 'energy independence,' a theme underscored by his decision to open 750 million tons of Wyoming coal to new mining leases. That's the equivalent of running 3,000 new power plants for a year.
..............................
And so the full power of the fossil fuel industry--the most profitable business in the planet's history--has been brought to bear on the fight, and they play hard and dirty. The Koch Brothers spend huge sums to underwrite the network of global warming skeptics; the US Chamber of Commerce emerged as the biggest campaign funder of them all, shuttling 94% of its donations to climate deniers. This kind of clout carried the day: the biggest dream of DC Washington groups was the so-called 'cap-and-trade' bill, behind which they mustered every insider technique they'd spent the last four decades perfecting. But in the end they didn't come close: Harry Reid refused to even schedule a floor vote, knowing that he was far short of the votes needed to pass the bill. The White House stayed on the sidelines.
To us, the lesson is pretty clear. Since we're never going to have as much money as the fossil fuel industry, we need to rebuild the kind of mass movement that marked 1970: bodies, passion, and creativity are the currencies we can compete in.
Jon Stewart says goodbye to Glenn Beck....I suppose to really appreciate the true genius of Jon's impression you have had to have watched at least part of a Glenn Beck show, which I haven't....but here it is.....
For the entirety of the episode (minus the Jamie Oliver interview even Stewart said you'd probably fast-forward through) Stewart did his beloved Glenn Beck impression while at the same time commenting on Beck's departure and what it means. Donning his signature glasses, he forewent his usual opening segment and re-enacted Beck's melodramatic sign off to a tee before moving on to three more hilarious segments dissecting all his quirks.
Citing Beck having the third-highest rated show in cable news as proof, Stewart broke out the chalkboard to reveal the real underlying reason Beck is leaving the network. After comparing Nielsen families to the Manson family and making a number of other ridiculous comparisons a la Beck, Stewart broke it down with hilarious clarity: Fox wanted him on to inject ultra conservative opinions into the news cycle and make the rest of their programming seem moderate by comparison. But then things went aw
What technology do you really need in your life? The Times tech guy gives you the answer......what to keep and what to get rid of.......
The common rap against technology is that it leads to an accumulation of devices. But the nature of technology is changing. Fewer products are doing more tasks — all accomplished by countless lines of massless software code.
And so we no longer need to accumulate products. If anything, we can cut down. The question is, Which can be replaced and which are fine, or even preferable, to keep? It is plain as day that paper maps and Rolodexes have given way to their digital counterparts. But what else can you get rid of? Here is a list of common consumer technologies and products and a somewhat opinionated judgment on whether to keep or pitch it.
Bill Maher's new rule - for pro life and abortion loonies....which means at this point the entire Republican "War on Women" Party......very clever, funny....40 seconds.
Diane Rehm on NPR occasionally has some fascinating programs, and one of these I caught was her interview with Frank Luntz, the Republican wordsmith and now author. Amazing stuff - he tells Diane what he does, how he does it and why the Republicans are way ahead in setting the political agenda.
I recommend this for anyone interested in politics, intelligent discussion and officials of the Democratic Party [you might learn something].....just under an hour of wonderful radio......
The full list of the proposed Florida budget cuts, and these are only the main points.....it truly is worse than you think.....
TALLAHASSEE — Florida lawmakers approved austere, competing budget cuts for public schools, health care and public workers Thursday as hundreds of protesters crowded the Capitol building, decrying Gov. Rick Scott's fiscal prescription for the state.
Both the Republican-led House and Senate budgets make about $4 billion in spending cuts by slashing funding for classrooms, raising tuition at state colleges and reshaping the $21 billion Medicaid health-care program for the poor.
"This budget will undoubtedly help Florida's economy," said House budget chief Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring.
The Senate's roughly $70 billion budget passed 33-6, with a handful of Democrats crossing the aisle to support it. The House's $66.5 billion spending plan passed 78-39, over the objections of Democrats who called it an assault on the middle-clas
"This budget is an outright ideological war," said Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton.
Remember the movie "Deliverance" from the 80's with Burt Reynolds? I know all of you guys out there do for reasons we won't get into........but here is the famous banjo scene......really good.....
Cute dog video....funny....one minute....
Movie Time
"Hanna" - out this weekend........of three reviews, two said it was very good and one liked it.....so it's a B+......which is certainly enough for me.....
Part of the Times review below, and the cool 2 minute trailer.....
Part of what makes “Hanna” weird and entertaining as well as food if not nourishment for thought, is that the body looks so young: Not 12, but not 16, either, which adds an outré touch to the sight of Hanna taking down a deer and soon after, a human being.
“Hanna,” energetically and at times hyperactively directed by Joe Wright, is about a girl raised not by wolves but the next best thing: a bearded and muscled Eric Bana draped in animal skins. He’s the resident mystery man, Erik, a warrior of some type who for initially unknown reasons lives with his daughter, Hanna, in rugged isolation in northern Finland. She’s the bigger puzzle. When the movie opens Hanna is tracking a deer through the snow, running fast, then faster with a quiver and bow. “I just missed your heart,” she tells the deer after downing it with an arrow. She then takes a gun from beneath her crazy-quilt furs and shoots it dead, putting an end to its misery and setting the plot in strange motion.
It gets self-consciously odder, agreeably and divertingly so. The screenplay by Seth Lochhead and David Farr is itself a patchwork of action-movie themes — including storm-trooping soldiers in black helicopters and an intelligence agency with a covert program — that have been recombined along Grimm Brothers story lines. And so, after the once upon a Finland time, Hanna and Erik part ways, embarking on an intrigue involving a C.I.A.operative named Marissa Wiegler and played with witty menace by Cate Blanchett. She isn’t the fairest in the land, but she seems the maddest and like the queen in “Snow White” sets her huntsmen (two skinheads and their requisite mincing boss) on Hanna, who pursues Marissa in turn. Round and round they go and where they stop, well, you probably know.
In familiar stories getting there is all or much of the fun. To those action-movie ends, Mr. Wright keeps the narrative in overdrive — the gangbuster opening sets the bar almost too high — even as he makes room for quieter times, as when Hanna meets a clan of nondwarfs.
"Arthur" starring Russell Brand and some other stars, a remake of the Dudley Moore classic of the 80's.....review says "don't bother".....
It would be conventional to describe “Arthur” as a vehicle for the talents of Russell Brand, who plays the boozy billionaire of the title, but that would be to get it backward. Mr. Brand, with his stringy hair, stretched-out body and nutty British demeanor, is more like the beast of burden, charged with hauling this grim load of mediocrity to the box office. The film, directed by Jason Winer and based on a fondly recalled 1981 comedy of the same name starring Dudley Moore, has been made according to a lazy and cynical commercial blueprint. You’ve seen it in the lesser work of Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler and most other male comedians who walk the line between popularity and overexposure. The star does his patented shtick, supported by a handful of blue-chip supporting performers, as the story lurches through contrived, seminaughty comic set pieces toward a sentimental ending.
Good TV - there is a continuation of the hugely successful "Upstairs, Downstairs" starting this Sunday on PBS.....a three part series, so it won't strain your TIVO....and the British do these period dramas so well....
Now there is a new, three-part “Upstairs Downstairs” set in 1936, six fictional years after the old one ended (the first is scheduled to be broadcast on PBS next Sunday). It features the old house but a new family, Lady Agnes and Sir Hallam Holland, a handsome young diplomatic couple just returned from Washington. As they enter the dusty, neglected front hall for the first time, Lady Agnes delivers her verdict: “What a ghastly mausoleum.”
It is a witty acknowledgment of what the makers of the new “Upstairs Downstairs” hope to do: satisfy the passionate viewers from long ago while acknowledging that much of the modern audience, too young to have seen the original, may regard even beloved 1970s costume dramas as relics from another age.
Todays video - a European IKEA commercial.....
Todays cowboy joke
A cowboy sitting in a saloon one Saturday night, recognized an elderly man standing at the bar who, in his day, had the reputation of being the fastest gun in the West
The young cowboy took a place next to the old-timer, bought him a drink and told him the story of his great ambition.
'Do you think you could give me some tips?' he asked.
The old man looked him up and down and said, 'Well, for one thing, you're wearing your gun too high, tie the holster a little lower down on your leg.'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?' asked the young ma'Sure will,' replied the old-timer.
The young man did as he was told, stood up, whipped out his 44 and shot the bow tie off the piano player.
'That's terrific!' said the hot shot. 'Got any more tips for me?'
'Yep,' said the old man. 'Cut a notch out of your holster where the hammer hits it, that'll give you a smoother draw.'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?' asked the younger man.
'You bet it will,' said the old-timer.
The young man took out his knife, cut the notch, stood up, drew his gun in a blur, and then shot a cufflink off the piano player.'Wow!' exclaimed the cowboy 'I'm learnin' somethin' here. Got any more tips?'
The old man pointed to a large can in a corner of the saloon. 'See that axle grease over there? Coat your gun with it.' The young man went over to the can and smeared some of the grease on the barrel of his gun.
'No,' said the old-timer, 'I mean smear it all over the gun, handle and all.'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?' asked the young man.
'No,' said the old-timer, 'but when Wyatt Earp gets done playing the piano, he's gonna shove that gun up your ass, and it won't hurt as much.
No comments:
Post a Comment