Try to watch #5 - very good commentary from Rachael.....
1/ Osama Bin Laden is dead, but even so he achieved what the set out to do - cripple this country economically and change the Middle East.
We already know about the economics - we have wasted trillions on Iraq, Afghanistan, the bloated Pentagon budget and our Homeland Security apparatus, all of which was done in the name of 9/11.
But in addition Bin Laden changed the dynamic of all of the Arab countries, and in a very good column Thomas Friedman tells us how.....
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Bin Laden Decade
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: May 31, 2011
Visiting the Middle East last week, and then coming back to Washington, I am left with one overriding impression: Bin Laden really did a number on all of us.
Josh Haner/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
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I am talking in particular about the Arab states, America and Israel — all of whom have deeper holes than ever to dig out of thanks to the Bin Laden decade, 2001 to 2011, and all of whom have less political authority than ever to make the hard decisions needed to get out of the holes.
Let’s start with the Arabs. In 2001, Osama bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Just a few months later, in 2002, the U.N. issued the “Arab Human Development Report,” which described the very pathologies that produced Al Qaeda and prescribed remedies for overcoming them. The report, written by Arab experts, said the Arab states suffered from three huge deficits: a deficit of freedom and respect for human rights as the bases of good governance, a deficit of knowledge in the form of decent schooling and a deficit of women’s empowerment.
2/ The Democratic party is undergoing counseling - Brooke Alvarez from Onion News has the story....2 minutes....
3/ Really good essay on how the right wing is waging a class war on behalf of billionaires, and winning. The article is well written, persuasive and has real life examples like the NFL strike and how the owners will probably win against the players.
This is your "we are so screwed" segment for today, but if you don't know what they are doing and how they are getting away with it you can't defend yourself.....so read it - no weeping.....
Siding With the Billionaires: How the Right Is Waging a Class War Against All But the Wealthiest Americans
America's Right -- from the NFL lockout to Rep. Paul Ryan's budget to climate change -- side with the billionaires in what amounts to an escalating class war.
4/ "Weinergate"
Interesting article in the Guardian UK which suggests the media in this country has fallen for, yet again, another Breitbart smear campaign, this time of Congressman Anthony Weiner.
Breitbart is the nasty right wingnut behind the phony expose of ACORN, and the Shirley Sherrod false video, among others. And of course our corporate media loves sex scandals, even it they are untrue, so this one was even better because of the Congressman's name.....
Over the weekend, a would-be sex scandal erupted when the rightwing website Big Government started claiming to have evidence thatRepresentative Anthony Weiner of New York had tweeted a picture of his penis to a young woman living in Seattle. After the initial buzz of excitement at the potential of a paper-selling sex scandal, the story started to die from lack of evidence. There was no physical evidence of the picture or the tweet, only an alleged screenshot of the photo that could have easily been photoshopped and a retweet of the alleged tweet. Both were courtesy of the single known witness to the tweet, a conservative who tweets constantly about his hatred of Congressman Weiner. While there's no solid evidence whether this is or isn't a hoax conducted by the sole witness to the tweet, the preponderance of evidence points in that direction, and media outlets new and old, such asGawker and the New York Times, are leaning towards the view that it is a hoax. Other outlets are avoiding weighing in either way on whether or not Weiner sent the picture.
5/ Brilliant 12 minute clip from the Rachael Maddow show on how the right wing dominates the media by demonising anyone who disagrees with them. She lays out the case steadily and explains how Fox News basically brainwashes their viewers.....gives you a bit of a chill to see what you are up against and why you cannot get through to 40% of the popuation - they are conditioned not to believe you......
Excellent journalism......and after you watch this you will have a script of sorts if you ever get into a discussion with a Foxian....
6/ You will NEVER guess what this ad is about......1 minute.....
7/ Although this story confirms what we already know, it's still a bummer to see it in print. I'm sure this also applies to Central Florida......
By KIMBERLY MILLER
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 10:34 p.m. Tuesday, May 31,
Posted: 4:27 p.m. Tuesday, May 31,
South Florida home prices in March hit their lowest level since the real estate crash, a crushing drop that reflected the nationwide trend and one that had economists declaring recent market gains artificial.
Prices for Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties were down 6 percent from the previous year and a staggering 51 percent from their peak in December 2006, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller price index, which was released Tuesday.
Of 20 areas the index surveyed, only Washington, D.C., had an annual gain in prices, while 12 regions, including South Florida, posted new lows since the housing bubble burst.
8/ An excellent Jon Stewart where he takes the Donald to task for his pizza consumption habits......very New York and non-political....just funny......7 minutes....
9/ Brandi Carlile with "Dreams", a country rocker with a very good song, decent video and a nice voice. I found my foot tapping unconsciously listening to this one.....
10/ Expect to pay more for your property insurance.....
Good story from the St. Pete Times which gives the five main reasons why your insurance rates will be climbing 15% or more this year.....
I found two especially interesting - insurance companies are paying our big losses due to tornadoes and flooding in the Midwest, so Florida has to bail out Missouri.....and the Rickster has blessed rate hikes.....
Florida's annual, high-stakes game of hurricane lotto — will we be hit by a major storm this year or not? — kicks off with the start of hurricane season today.
Florida has been spared a significant hurricane hit for five seasons, but that means little to the industry and regulatory forces that set property insurance rates.
Experts predict an active season of three to six intense storms in the Atlantic, with a 72 percent probability of at least one major hurricane making landfall on the U.S. coastline. Regardless of whether that happens, homeowners may still wind up paying more out of their pockets.
Here are five reasons to expect property insurance rates to continue trending up:
11/ For all of you geeks out there, a new technique for measuring groundwater depletion from space.....fascinating......
IRVINE, Calif. — Scientists have been using small variations in the Earth’s gravity to identify trouble spots around the globe where people are making unsustainable demands on groundwater, one of the planet’s main sources of fresh water.
Ann Johansson for The New York Times
MONITOR Jay S. Famiglietti of the University of California Center for Hydrologic Modeling found that from October 2003 to March 2010, aquifers under the state's Central Valley were drawn down by 25 million acre-feet.
Get Science News From The New York Times »
They found problems in places as disparate as North Africa, northern India, northeastern China and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley in California, heartland of that state’s $30 billion agricultural industry.
Jay S. Famiglietti, director of the University of California’s Center for Hydrologic Modeling here, said the center’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, known as Grace, relies on the interplay of two nine-year-old twin satellites that monitor each other while orbiting the Earth, thereby producing some of the most precise data ever on the planet’s gravitational variations. The results are redefining the field of hydrology, which itself has grown more critical as climate change and population growth draw down the world’s fresh water supplies.
Grace sees “all of the change in ice, all of the change in snow and water storage, all of the surface water, all of the soil moisture, all of the groundwater,” Dr. Famiglietti explained.
Yet even as the data signals looming shortages, policy makers have been relatively wary of embracing the findings. California water managers, for example, have been somewhat skeptical of a recent finding by Dr. Famiglietti that from October 2003 to March 2010, aquifers under the state’s Central Valley were drawn down by 25 million acre-feet — almost enough to fill Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.
Greg Zlotnick, a board member of the Association of California Water Agencies, said that the managers feared that the data could be marshaled to someone else’s advantage in California’s tug of war over scarce water supplies.
“There’s a lot of paranoia about policy wonks saying, ‘We’ve got to regulate the heck out of you,’ ” he said.
There are other sensitivities in arid regions around the world where groundwater basins are often shared by unfriendly neighbors — India and Pakistan, Tunisia and Libya or Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and thePalestinian territories — that are prone to suspecting one another of excessive use of this shared resource.
Todays video - Don't mess with old golfers
Todays drunk joke.....
A man and his wife were awakened at 3:00 am by a loud pounding on the door.
The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.
"Not a chance," says the husband, "it is 3:00 in the morning!" He slams the door and returns to bed.
"Who was that?" asked his wife..
"Just some drunk guy asking for a push," he answers.
"Did you help him?" she asks.
"No, I did not. It's 3am in the morning and it's bloody-well pouring down out there!"
"Well, you have a short memory," says his wife. "Can't you remember about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself! God loves drunk people too you know."
Obedient husband that he is, the man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain. He calls out into the dark, "Hello, are you still there?"
"Yes," comes back the answer.
"Do you still need a push?" calls out the husband.
"Yes, please!" comes the reply from the dark.
"Where are you?" asks the husband.
"Over here on the swing," replied the drunk.
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