1/ "Obama should stop being reasonable" is the title of this thoughtful article on the President, and Michael Tomasky makes a lot of sense.
As of this [Friday] morning the House bill has collapsed, with the Tea Party wing of the Republicans determined to crash the economy, so if there was ever a time to stand up and make a fxxking decision it's now.
This article, with the author's guesses of what is in Obama's head, sounds true and it will be interesting to see how this debt ceiling non-crisis plays out.
A "must read" for all of you politically aware folks....
Obama Should Stop Being Reasonable
With the U.S. government on the edge of default, Michael Tomasky asks why President Obama won’t do what he needs to do and raise the debt ceiling unilaterally.
Jul 27, 2011 6:41 PM EDTAt this desperate hour, Barack Obama surely has to be thinking hard about invoking Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, unilaterally raising the debt ceiling, and getting on with it. With the House Republicans now rejecting a proposal (Harry Reid’s) that is 100 percent cuts and no revenues, there can be little question in the minds of most non-Kool-Aid-swilling Americans about the identity of the unreasonable party. Indeed it could be argued that acting unilaterally now is the only responsible move. Bill Clinton, well-versed in dealing with Republican implacability, told Joe Conason’s National Memo that he would pursue this course. And yet one senses the president is highly reluctant to do it. Why?
Three explanations strike me as plausible, although none of them is particularly defensible at this point, with public opinion now clearly persuaded that this really is a crisis and that politicians should compromise to address it. That is to say: the president has a majority on his side now. If there is no deal by close of business Friday or sometime Saturday, surely Obama will have to go it alone by the time the Asian markets open on Sunday afternoon East Coast time, and surely a majority will either approve or come along reluctantly once the president makes the case for his actions.
Why wouldn’t he? The first reason would be the straightforward and obvious one that he and his handlers fear the political repercussions. Some Republicans, and certainly the right-wing noise machine, will crow for impeachment. Obama and his White House are not exactly a group that itches for a fight. They would be dragged perforce into a partisan mud-wrestling match, which Obama has proved time and again he doesn’t want.
2/ Climate change is on us, with extreme weather events going to be part of our lives for the forseeable future. But what will happen when a world in economic crisis can't afford to deal with the financial consequences of floods, tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes etc.? Boggles the mind, doesn't it?
(NaturalNews) Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former international correspondent for theNew York Times writes, "What we are seeing is the beginning of a catastrophic breakdown of globalization. The world as we know it is coming to an end. Most of us are reacting to the great unraveling by pretending it is not happening but events will implode right in our faces whether we like it or not. The deadly convergence of environmental and economic catastrophe is not coincidental. Corporations turn everything, from human beings to the naturalworld, into commodities they ruthlessly exploit until exhaustion or death. The race of doom is now between environmental collapse and global economic collapse. Which will get us first? Or will they get us at the same time?"
I'm not sure of the timeline here as it's not clear in the article, but the premise is sound.
Extreme weather costs money. It costs huge amounts to rebuild, restore and get
whatever has been affected back to "normal". But the "normal" has changed, and these
weather disasters are going to keep coming so in a time of financial stress are we going
to abandon whole areas of the country to their fate? Sounds very Republican.......
Something has provoked a profound alteration toconditionson our planet driving the atmosphere and earth into convulsion. Theweathercontinues to be beyond worst-case-scenario expectations of weathermen everywhere. Epic floods, massive wildfires,droughtand the deadliest tornado season in 60 years are ravaging theUnited States, with scientists warning that even more extreme weather is on the way. From all points on the compass come reports ofnatural disasters.Life is getting extremely uncomfortable for earth's populations as record heat, cold, rain and drought conditions are recorded.
There is also a video in the article about the Inuit [Eskimos] in the far north sensing the earth has changed....tribal elders are worried......this footage is from the CBC in Canada....
But in this country of illiterates and crazy Republicans, where climate change is denied and laughed at, what do these old people know......3 minutes......
3/ Melissa Harris-Perry is guest hosting Rachael's show, and here she gives a most interesting analysis on the wealth distribution in the US, with the expected result but it's also worse than you might expect......
Minorities [blacks and hispanics] are huge losers in our society, with really bad implications for the future.....
She's good.....13 minutes......
4/ An 8 year old girl is murdered by a pedophile in Britain - the Murdoch [Fox News] paper News of the World leads a campaign to pass legislation and champions the mother of the dead girl. The paper [editor Rebekah Brooks] gives her a cell phone as a present to use in her grief that is already pre-hacked. They listen to her calls for eight years......
New Hacking Case Outrages Britain
By Ravi Somaiya and Sarah Lyall, The New York Times
28 July 11
ritain was awash in a new surge of outrage over the phone hacking scandal on Thursday, as news emerged that Scotland Yard had added to the list of probable victims a woman whose 8-year-old daughter was murdered by a repeat sex offender in 2000.The tabloid at the center of the scandal, The News of the World, had championed the campaign of the grieving mother, Sara Payne, for a law warning parents if child sex offenders lived nearby. Mrs. Payne, who was paralyzed by a stroke in recent years, had written warmly of the paper in its final edition, calling it "an old friend."
A statement released on behalf of Mrs. Payne by the Phoenix Foundation, a children's charity she founded, described her as devastated and disappointed. "Today is a very sad dark day for us," the charity added in a posting on Facebook. "Our faith in good people has taken a real battering." The page noted that she was struggling in the wake of the July 1 anniversary of her daughter's abduction.
British news channels, which had been growing weary of the scandal - into a fourth week of cascading revelations that have shaken the media, political elite and police - broke into their scheduled reports to report the allegations that Ms. Payne had been hacked.
5/ This video, with a happy ending, about a young whale in the Sea of Cortez is terrific to watch. Listen to the comment from the child near the end...he or she clearly understands the whale's behavior and sums it up. Great clip.....7 minutes....... http://www.youtube.com/watch? |
6/ Matt Taibbi hears the drumbeats out of Washington supporting the repatriation tax holiday for corporations.....meaning the lobbyists have started to pay off politicians in a big way......and not just the Republicans......
The madness that is the proposed tax repatriation holiday is continuing and gathering steam. More and more members of congress are coming out of the woodwork, scratching their chins in contemplative consideration as it were, pretending that they’ve just realized what a great day a corporate tax holiday would be – not that they’ve taken gazillions of dollars from the firms lobbying for it or anything.
The latest convert seems to be Nevada Democrat Shelley Berkley. Berkley’s plan is to offer a pseudo-holiday – not the full-fledged happy-ending massage the companies wanted (i.e. a reduction from 35 percent+ to 5.25 percent) but a mere ten-point shave:
Representative Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democrat, is the latest lawmaker to consider legislation allowing multinational companies to send offshore profits to the U.S. at a reduced tax rate.Her proposal, which was confirmed yesterday by Berkley’s communications director,David Cherry, would allow companies to return profits to the U.S. at a 25 percent tax rate, 10 percentage points below the maximum statutory rate. Most companies publicly supporting a holiday, such as Duke Energy Corp., have spoken favorably of the 5.25 percent rate that is being offered by Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican.
One thing that people must understand about this tax repatriation business is that it’s a wholly bipartisan affair. It’s not solely the work of evil Republicans. This is a scheme that requires heavies in both parties to help ram the knotty, hard-to-sell legislation through. On the Democratic side, unsurprisingly, the main actor is going to be Chuck Schumer. John Kerry is also involved with this nastiness. Barbara Boxer led the 2004 effort and the failed 2009 campaign to get a holiday, and is rumored to be lurking somewhere in this business.
7/ Sorry to keep adding Jon Stewart clips, but this one is wonderful - his favourite target Fox News, and their bleating about Christians being victimised....
On a scale of 1-10 for Daily Shows, this is a 9.5........nine minutes.....
8/ Mountaintop removal in the Appalachian states is causing cancer.....about 60,000 cases.......but will anything be done? Nope - the energy oligarchs will see to that so they can preserve their easy profits and to hell with the environment.
But it's also cost shifting - think how much 60,000 cases of cancer cost.....oh wait a minute - these are poor people so most of them don't have insurance? Well that's all right then, I guess they just "die quickly"......
Mountaintop Removal Linked to 60,000 Additional Cancer Cases
By Jeff Biggers, Reader Supported News
27 July 11
mong the 1.2 million American citizens living in mountaintop removal mining counties in central Appalachia, an additional 60,000 cases of cancer are directly linked to the federally sanctioned strip-mining practice.That is the damning conclusion in a breakthrough study, released last night in the peer-reviewed Journal of Community Health: The Publication for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. Led by West Virginia University researcher Dr. Michael Hendryx, among others, the study entitled "Self-Reported Cancer Rates in Two Rural Areas of West Virginia with and Without Mountaintop Coal Mining" drew from a groundbreaking community-based participatory research survey conducted in Boone County, West Virginia in the spring of 2011, which gathered person-level health data from communities directly impacted by mountaintop mining, and compared to communities without mining.
9/ Great video about a young Italian group that sing opera, similar to the "Three Tenors" but about 25 years younger.
Il Volo.....these lads are superstars of the future......excellent video, about 4 minutes......
10/ Wow - Goldman Sachs has been quiet lately, but this is one of the scams they are quietly hosing all of society with. They have a huge warehouse where they buy and store 25% of the worlds scrap aluminum - having cornered a bit of the market in this metal, they buy futures and make billions.
(Pratima Desai, Clare Baldwin, Susan Thomas and Melanie Burton) - In a rundown patch of Detroit, enclosed by a cyclone fence and barbed wire, stands an unremarkable warehouse that investment bank Goldman Sachs has transformed into a money-making machine.
The derelict neighborhood off Michigan Avenue is a sharp contrast to Goldman's bustling skyscraper headquarters near Wall Street, but the two operations share one important element: management by the bank's savvy financial professionals.
A string of warehouses in Detroit, most of them operated by Goldman, has stockpiled more than a million tonnes of the industrial metal aluminum, about a quarter of global reported inventories.
Simply storing all that metal generates tens of millions of dollars in rental revenues for Goldman every year.
There's just one problem: only a trickle of the aluminum is leaving the depots, creating a supply pinch for manufacturers of everything from soft drink cans to aircraft.
The resulting spike in prices has sparked a clash between companies forced to pay more for their aluminum and wait months for it to be delivered, Goldman, which is keen to keep its cash machines humming and the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world's benchmark industrial metals market, which critics accuse of lax oversight.
11/ Music video - time for this one again - Katy Perry with "Last Friday Night", her 8 minute story/musical production.....clever, funny, great song.....and guest appearances from Kenny G., the Hanson Brothers, Debbie Gibson and more.....
12/ Very cool 2 minute trailer for the new Batman movie coming in 2012...."The Dark Knight Rises"......very dark, moody.....
13/ A number of firsts here - Rick Scott implodes on CNN, watch his stupid face and his blank, mindless responses.....and the anchor keeps going after him.....actually two anchors...."Answer the question Governor".....good to see a "lamestream media" anchor getting tough.....
Three minutes of sad, pathetic footage of our Florida moron you elected.....
When not looking for national security news, I like to check in on Florida politics, which are a great bellwether for the nation at large. Specifically, I like to track tea party Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who lives just a couple blocks from me, and who'ssetting records for unpopularity, just months into his tenure.
Scott's latest crusade is to argue against any rise in the federal debt ceiling—an issue in which he has no official say, and whose basic economic consequences he seems to grasp not one jot. (This week, Scott said Florida would see no effects from a US default; his opponent in last year's gubernatorial race, former state CFO Alex Sink, called his statement "clueless...That's Florida Budgeting 101.") The beleaguered guv took his case to CNN today, and managed to get himself yelled at by two anchors. At one point, Ali Velshi gave up. "Why is this difficult for you to understand, governor?"
14/ Damn - I was so looking forward to "Cowboys and Aliens" with Daniel Craig, and really hoping it was excellent.....but the review is only decent, i.e. "B"......oh well, going to see it anyway.....
Galloping across the desert, his inscrutable baby blues fixed on the horizon, Daniel Craig makes for a surprisingly convincing cowboy. Some actors, including a few in his new movie, “Cowboys & Aliens,” look too modern for old-timey roles. There isn’t enough grit, suffering and poor nutrition in their faces, and their gestures and gaits are timed to the impatient rhythms of the information age. But Mr. Craig, with his brutally handsome face and coiled physicality, looks like a rawhide whip that’s just itching to get cracking.
He does, eventually, though it takes the director,Jon Favreau, a long time to wake up his movie, giving it a good kick about a half-hour in. Maybe it’s all the western clichés he had to line up, including the dusty town, the gun-toting preacher, the mild-mannered doctor, the trigger-happy scion of a powerful cattleman adored by the American Indian orphan who would make him a better son. Don’t forget the surrogate for this PG-13 picture’s presumptive audience, a wide-eyed boy whom you half expect to cry out for Shane. And then there’s the faithful pooch that in one scene yelps when (finally!) he encounters a genre-hopping extraterrestrial with razored lobster claws that looks like a cousin of the monsters from the “Alien” films.
That these new beasties even evoke the nightmarish creatures originally created by the artist H. R. Gigeris a testament to his genius and to this movie’s lack of imagination. It’s too bad. Mr. Favreau, who directed the “Iron Man” films, isn’t an innovator, but he can have a nice, light touch, and his actors always seem as if they were happy to be there, which is true here too. Here, though, he wavers uncertainly between goofy pastiche and seriousness in a movie that wastes its title and misses the opportunity to play with, you know, ideas about the western and science-fiction horror.
Two minute trailer......
Todays video - dogs and fishing......what's not to like.......
Todays really funny redneck joke.......
REDNECK FARM KIDin the Marine Corps
Dear Ma and Pa,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.
I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay.
Practically nothing.
Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.
We go on 'route marches,' which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A 'route march' is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.
The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.
This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why... The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.
Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake....I only beat him once...He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6' and 130 pounds and he's 6'8' and near 300 pounds dry.
Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.
Your loving daughter ,
Alice
Todays bonus joke
"Fine," I said, "then I want to die after Congress gets their heads out of their asses." "You crafty bastard," said the fairy. |
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