Sunday, July 31, 2011

Davids Daily Dose - Sunday July 31st


1/  Breaking News

Here we are early Sunday morning, and our economy is going to begin to implode on Tuesday, but the business community is quiet, the oligarchs are quiet, media is full of trivia. 

Is this story from the Daily Beast the reason? Did all the insiders know the President would cave again? Is this the real, hidden plan to smash the American middle class once and for all?

I hope this isn't true......

The GOP Gets Its Way

As reports of a possible deal leaked out late Saturday night, it appears that Obama is meeting the Republicans—on their terms. Michael Tomasky on what to watch today.

Jul 31, 2011 12:52 AM EDT
Lots of smoke Saturday, let’s cut right through it: In a phrase, President Obama appears to have cut a deal with the Republicans, on their terms, or about 98 percent of them. Democratic congressional leaders are trying to push back, but are up against it, with Harry Reid having pushed the cloture vote on his plan back from 1 a.m. Sunday to 12 hours later as he scrambles to try to find the votes to pass his version of a compromise. Jonathan Karl of ABC News is the first to report the Obama-GOP deal as fact, in this short piece that was posted at 10:39 pm Saturday night. If he’s right—and it smells like he is—it’s a bleak day for this presidency, and really in American history, as we’ve now embarked on a path that’s very likely to lead to huge cuts in entitlement programs, the domestic budget, and more or less everything every Democrat in Washington (except, apparently, one) wakes up to fight for every day.
Click here to find out more!















2/ There are no indications that Obama will invoke the 14th Amendment to solve this crisis because he insists on being the centrist in all things. 

Here Paul Krugman argues his centricity is dangerous in this political environment, faced with a Republican party in extremist mode.

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Centrist Cop-Out

By 
Published: July 28, 2011
The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation. And Democrats — who would have been justified in rejecting this extortion altogether — have, in fact, gone a long way toward meeting those Republican demands.

Readers’ Comments

Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
As I said, it’s not complicated. Yet many people in the news media apparently can’t bring themselves to acknowledge this simple reality. News reports portray the parties as equally intransigent; pundits fantasize about some kind of “centrist” uprising, as if the problem was too much partisanship on both sides.
Some of us have long complained about the cult of “balance,” the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts. I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.” But would that cult still rule in a situation as stark as the one we now face, in which one party is clearly engaged in blackmail and the other is dickering over the size of the ransom?
The answer, it turns out, is yes. And this is no laughing matter: The cult of balance has played an important role in bringing us to the edge of disaster. For when reporting on political disputes always implies that both sides are to blame, there is no penalty for extremism. Voters won’t punish you for outrageous behavior if all they ever hear is that both sides are at fault.
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. As you may know, President Obama initially tried to strike a “Grand Bargain” with Republicans over taxes and spending. To do so, he not only chose not to make an issue of G.O.P. extortion, he offered extraordinary concessions on Democratic priorities: an increase in the age of Medicare eligibility, sharp spending cuts and only small revenue increases. As The Times’s Nate Silver pointed out, Mr. Obama effectively staked out a position that was not only far to the right of the average voter’s preferences, it was if anything a bit to the right of the average Republican voter’s preferences.
But Republicans rejected the deal. So what was the headline on an Associated Press analysis of that breakdown in negotiations? “Obama, Republicans Trapped by Inflexible Rhetoric.” A Democratic president who bends over backward to accommodate the other side — or, if you prefer, who leans so far to the right that he’s in danger of falling over — is treated as being just the same as his utterly intransigent opponents. Balance!
Which brings me to those “centrist” fantasies.
Many pundits view taking a position in the middle of the political spectrum as a virtue in itself. I don’t. Wisdom doesn’t necessarily reside in the middle of the road, and I want leaders who do the right thing, not the centrist thing.
But for those who insist that the center is always the place to be, I have an important piece of information: We already have a centrist president. Indeed, Bruce Bartlett, who served as a policy analyst in the Reagan administration, argues that Mr. Obama is in practice a moderate conservative.
Mr. Bartlett has a point. The president, as we’ve seen, was willing, even eager, to strike a budget deal that strongly favored conservative priorities. His health reform was very similar to the reform Mitt Romney installed in Massachusetts. Romneycare, in turn, closely followed the outlines of a plan originally proposed by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. And returning tax rates on high-income Americans to their level during the Roaring Nineties is hardly a socialist proposal.
True, Republicans insist that Mr. Obama is a leftist seeking a government takeover of the economy, but they would, wouldn’t they? The facts, should anyone choose to report them, say otherwise.
So what’s with the buzz about a centrist uprising? As I see it, it’s coming from people who recognize the dysfunctional nature of modern American politics, but refuse, for whatever reason, to acknowledge the one-sided role of Republican extremists in making our system dysfunctional. And it’s not hard to guess at their motivation. After all, pointing out the obvious truth gets you labeled as a shrill partisan, not just from the right, but from the ranks of self-proclaimed centrists.
But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse.














3/  Bloody scientists - always coming up with these silly doomsday predictions.....now they are saying the oceans are in big trouble and within a generation could collapse......nonsense....

And you wonder how a serious British newspaper  "The Independent" can print this garbage.....and I know it's garbage because Sean Hannity said so.....


Oceans on brink of catastrophe

Marine life facing mass extinction 'within one human generation' / State of seas 'much worse than we thought', says global panel of scientists
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
The world's oceans are faced with an unprecedented loss of species comparable to the great mass extinctions of prehistory, a major report suggests today. The seas are degenerating far faster than anyone has predicted, the report says, because of the cumulative impact of a number of severe individual stresses, ranging from climate warming and sea-water acidification, to widespread chemical pollution and gross overfishing.
The coming together of these factors is now threatening the marine environment with a catastrophe "unprecedented in human history", according to the report, from a panel of leading marine scientists brought together in Oxford earlier this year by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The stark suggestion made by the panel is that the potential extinction of species, from large fish at one end of the scale to tiny corals at the other, is directly comparable to the five great mass extinctions in the geological record.



See how stupid these scientists are - they forgot about the plastics and plastic particles in the ocean.........7 minute scientific video.....


















4/  Good grief - they have built a robot bird that can fly, which it duly does around the auditorium the lecture is being given in.....oh by the way it's a German company that made it. We don't make anything in the US any more.....however there is some good news - it's not Chinese.....

Plenty of robots can fly -- but none can fly like a real bird. That is, until Markus Fischer and his team at Festo built SmartBird, a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull, that flies by flapping its wings. A soaring demo fresh from TEDGlobal 2011.
















5/  A fascinating, heartbreaking story about a son looking at his parents coping with the fathers final years. It illustrates what's wrong with our medical system and the incentives to overtreat old people who should be left to pass away peacefully. 
If you read this, at least you will be more informed about the dangers of a pacemaker......which is it "keeps on ticking"....

Excellent, thought provoking article.......

When My Father's Heart Outlived His Brain: Are We Keeping People Alive Longer Than We Should?

With new financial incentives, many patients are prematurely promoted to maximum treatment and patients and families are becoming victims of the war on sudden death.













6/  A real life "person of Wal-Mart" complains she was asked to leave a store......

Two things about this 3 minute video - it's a local news clip, and this was their "Top Story Tonight". Think about that....

The second is what is wrong about asking an obese, tattooed, ugly bald slut to leave your premises? She scares small children.....even Wal-Mart brats......

Sandy McMillin decided to take her bikini body to Eugene, Oregon's big box store to pick up some sour cream, chips and coffee creamer in 90-degree heat. And she told KVAL News that a Walmart employee approached her only several minutes into her shopping trip and gave her two options: put on a shirt or get out.
McMillin said, "I was horrified. I am embarrassed....It's wrong. If you don't like the way someone looks, don't look at them....I hadn't done anything obnoxious or outlandish."















7/  A retrospective by the Times movie critic on "This Is Spinal Tap", one of the most influential mockumentaries ever made......if you saw this movie, you'll love this 3 minute clip....

















8/  You may remember a Rachael Maddow segment on DDD a few weeks ago about a school in Detroit for teenage mothers that was going to be closed down due to "budget cuts" by the new Republican administration. The storm of outrage saved the school, and here is a story about their graduation ceremonies.....

We watched "Waiting for Superman" this week, a documentary on the US school system, and it was excellent.....Netflix it....

Teen Moms’ Graduation Triumph

A revolutionary school in Detroit that lets young mothers bring their kids was almost closed despite its outstanding graduation rate. Jesse Ellison on an education worth fighting for.

Jul 29, 2011 6:16 PM EDT
The scene on Wednesday morning in midtown Detroit bore all the hallmarks of an American rite of passage. To the sound of "Pomp and Circumstance," young men and women in jewel-colored caps and gowns marched proudly down the aisles of the Max M. Fisher Music Center. The girls teetered in their too-high heels and tittered with excitement, while the boys feigned a cool nonchalance. As they streamed into the theater, their families called out from the upper balconies. By the time the seats were filled, their cheers were deafening.














9/  Tom Tomorrow has a look at the Murdoch scandal, as reported on Fox News.......


















10/  A complete nightmare for the state of Alabama is Jefferson County [Birmingham is the county seat] that has $3.1 billion in bonds for a sewer system that was sold to them by Wall Street, and they cannot default on the bonds. 

Read this amazing story - a total financial disaster.......and don't, under any circumstances, buy a property there...... 

Debt Crisis? Bankruptcy Fears? See Jefferson County, Ala.

By  and 
Published: July 29, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A few hundred miles north of here, politicians are fighting over debt. It is a spirited debate, full of discussions about what kind of country will be left for future generations and pledges not to kick the can down the road.
Rob Culpepper for The New York Times
Tasos Touloupis, owner of Ted's Restaurant, talked with customers about the county's problems.
But one does not have to go far to see that possible future. Welcome to Jefferson County. This is the end of the road, where the can cannot be kicked any farther.
There are lessons for everyone here, and they are all painful: lessons for those who are not concerned about the prospect of mounting debt, for those who insist that steep cuts can be relatively painless, for those who think the bill for big spending can safely be put off into the future, for those who have blind faith in the market and for those who think the government can always be relied upon to protect the interests of the people.
All of these beliefs have led to a place where the government can no longer borrow and the little cash on hand is being demanded by creditors, where the Sheriff’s Department cannot afford to respond to traffic accidents and hundreds of county workers are sitting at home, temporarily or possibly permanently out of work. They have also led to a widely held conclusion among residents that no one is on their side.
“I get tired of them dumping on the little people,” said Deb Passmore, 58, who had to shut down her Laundromat several years ago when the sewer and water bills reached $500 a month.














11/  Stephen Colbert video where he compares the characters from the Lord of the Rings to the debt crisis in Washington......

Boy is he funny.....5 minutes......

Stephen Colbert has never hidden his intense fandom of the "Lord of the Rings" series of books and movies. He famously has adorned his office with memorabilia and decorations from the movies, and even convinced Viggo Mortensen to reprise his role of Aragorn on "The Colbert Report" once.
So when John McCain made an extended metaphor comparing the Tea Party to Hobbits obsessed with defeating Mordor, Colbert was practically giddy with excitement at the prospect of extending this metaphor. Be warned: If you aren't familiar with "The Lord of the Rings," Colbert will sound like he's speaking Elvish.

















12/  Book review - "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.......

I know, I know, you wanted zombies, but here's the next best thing......sounds like an interesting book.....

A Melancholy Werewolf’s Existential Howl

By JUSTIN CRONIN
Published: July 15, 2011
It’s easy to see why werewolves might feel under-celebrated these days. While vampires and zombies have stormed the multiplexes and best- seller lists, and Dr. Frankenstein’s monster has completed its cultural infiltration by transforming into the ubiquitous information appliances of daily life (if my smartphone doesn’t count as artificial life run amok I don’t know what does), werewolves have been largely left to idle at the side of the literary road. Where are these Freudian howlers of the night? Theirs has been rather a raw deal.
Illustration by George Bates

THE LAST WEREWOLF

By Glen Duncan
293 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $25.95.

Related

No longer. For now we have Jake Marlowe — the centerpiece of Glen Duncan’s playfully brainy new novel, “The Last Werewolf” — a 200-year-old, Kant- reading, chain-smoking aesthete whom one could easily imagine curling up with a bottle of single-malt Scotch and a copy of The New York Review of Books. He is prone to mordant observation, as in: “The point of civilization is so that one can check in to a quality hotel.”
He also happens to eat people, one for every full moon.
The challenge for any writer working within an established genre, especially a genre with a reputation for high camp, is to bring something new to the table while adhering to tradition. On both points, Duncan, the author of seven previous novels, scores high marks. No Gothic convention is left unacknowledged. Here are the silver bullets. Here is the forest’s “massy green consciousness” and the thrill of the moonlit hunt. Here are the heirs of Van Helsing, tirelessly pursuing their prey to the ends of the earth. (Here too is a great deal of heroically athletic sex — a werewolf should deliver nothing less — reminding the reader that the transports of the body aren’t all bad.)
None of which would carry the day were it not for Marlowe himself. Some characters are destined for labor, others management. Not every fictional creation is up to the demands of narration, but Marlowe proves himself more than capable, delivering his lengthy confession — the novel is, ostensibly, a diary — with the pounding energy of water shot from a fire hose. Two centuries of undead living have endowed him with a vast pile of cultural capital and a linguistic style that swings gleefully between the wisecracking cynicism of his noir namesake and the syntactical curlicues of Humbert Humbert













Todays video - Russian Beer ad #2......














Todays beverage-related joke

Two men are sitting at the bar at the top of the Empire State Building drinking, when the first man turns to the other one and says: "You know, last week I discovered that if you jump from the top of this building, by the time you fall to the 10th floor, the wind around the building is so intense that it carries you around the building and back into the window."
The bartender just shakes his head in disapproval while wiping the bar, but says nothing.
The second guy says, "What? Are you insane? There's no way in heck that could happen!"  "No, no... it's true..." said the first man, "let me prove it to you."
He gets up from the bar, jumps over the balcony and plummets toward the street below. When he passes the 10th floor, the high wind whips him around the building and back into the 10th floor window. He takes the elevator back up to the bar.
He meets the second man, who is astonished. "Oh my God, I saw that with my own eyes! But that must've been a one-time fluke. That was scientifically impossible!"
"No, I'll prove it again," says the first man as he jumps.
Again, just as his body hurtles towards the street, the 10th floor wind gently carries him around the building and into the window. He takes the elevator ! back to the bar. Once upstairs, he successfully convinces his dubious fellow drinker to try it.
"Well, what the heck," the second guy says, "I've seen that it works, so I'll try it!"
He immediately jumps over the balcony - plunges downward - rapidly passes the 11th, 10th, 9th, 8th floors... His body hits the
sidewalk...Splat !!!!
Back upstairs, the bartender who had been silent the whole time turns to the first drinker, and shakes his head "You know, Superman, you're a real asshole when you're drunk."










Today's philosophical sort-of-joke


   We didn't have the green thing back in my day.

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should
bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the
environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing
back in my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today.  Your generation did not
care enough to save our environment."

He was right - our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the
store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and
refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.  So they really
were recycled.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and
office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a
300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the
throw-away kind.  We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling
machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry the
clothes.  Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not
always brand-new clothing. 

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room.
And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?),
not a screen the size of the state of Montana .

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have
electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old
newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the
...
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