1/ Leading today with a video - a wonderful Bill Maher, saying if you are a Republican don't complain about the Casey Anthony verdict. This is Maher in rare form, extremely funny, passionate and very convincing.....5 minutes of excellent TV......
2/ All the polls confirm it. The number one issue in this country is jobs, yet the political class are going in exactly the wrong direction [Republicans] or nowhere [Democrats].
This most interesting article takes a look at the underlying reasons for the lack of job creation, and how we are in denial about the real causes of our unemployment crisis, which are complex and defy an easy solution.
Jobs Aren’t Coming Back
Another dismal report confirms it: Washington has no idea how to fix this mess. Zachary Karabell on the global economic shift that has everyone in denial—and how we can change course.
Jul 9, 2011 12:01 AM EDTSo yesterday’s monthly employment report, which showed a net gain of merely 18,000 jobs, once again confounded the expectations of economists—and sorely disappointed those in Washington by showing precious little job creation in the United States.
Nonetheless, Americans remain in denial. Economists rely on models that correlate GDP growth and other indicators with past patterns of employment and assume that because GDP is expanding 2 to 3 percent this year, job creation will follow. The political class continues to treat employment as a product of the recession and sees government policy as either helpful to future job growth (Democrats) or harmful (Republicans). We are stuck in a framework that treats unemployment today as a cyclical phenomenon, and assumes that employment will return as the overall economy recovers. The truth, it is becoming clear, is that unemployment is a structural issue, and that the tools being used are based on the wrong analysis and will therefore continue to fall short.
3/ On the same subject, this Times Business report explains the lack of urgency to help the unemployed - they are completely off the radar......
Somehow, the Unemployed Became Invisible
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
Published: July 9, 2011
GRIM number of the week: 14,087,000.
Minh Uong/The New York Times
Multimedia
Weekend BusinessRelated
Job Growth Falters Badly, Clouding Hope for Recovery(July 9, 2011)
Fourteen million, in round numbers — that is how many Americans are now officially out of work.
Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the optimistic talk of an economic recovery, unemployment is going up, not down. The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June.
What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?
The United States is in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one. That is off the charts. Many Americans have simply given up.
But unless you’re one of those unhappy 14 million, you might not even notice the problem. The budget deficit, not jobs, has been dominating the conversation in Washington. Unlike the hard-pressed in, say, Greece or Spain, the jobless in America seem, well, subdued. The old fire has gone out.
In some ways, this boils down to math, both economic and political. Yes, 9.2 percent of the American work force is unemployed — but 90.8 percent of it is working. To elected officials, the unemployed are a relatively small constituency. And with apologies to Karl Marx, the workers of the world, particularly the unemployed, are also no longer uniting.
Nor are they voting — or at least not as much as people with jobs. In 2010, some 46 percent of working Americans who were eligible to vote did so, compared with 35 percent of the unemployed, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at George Mason University. There was a similar turnout gap in the 2008 election.
No wonder policy makers don’t fear unemployed Americans. The jobless are, politically speaking, more or less invisible.
4/ Did you hear Los Angeles airport was attacked and severely damaged? Allegedly Michael Bey, the director of the "Transformers" series was responsible - Brooke Alvarez of Onion News has the story.......2 minutes.....
5/ As of today [Monday the 11th] the talks on raising the debt ceiling have broken down again, and the fear is that Obama will cave yet again to the intransigence of the Republicans in the House and Senate to give away Medicare and Social Security.
Why? Read this article that argues Obama's entire focus is intellectual, and his drive is to prove he is the most unflappable guy in the room.....
Fascinating story, and even if it's half true we are in trouble.
The Untransformational President
Liberals thought they were getting a transformational president. Instead, they’re saddled with someone who cares far more about being the most reasonable guy in the room, says Michael Tomasky.
Jul 8, 2011 11:10 AM EDTRemember back when Barack Obama talked about being a transformational president? You know, how Reagan was one, Clinton wasn’t, and Obama himself would be? Whatever happens in the ongoing debt negotiations, whatever happens in the next election, we already know that this is a fantasy. The news that Obama is willing to place Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid on the poker table reveals yet again, and more starkly than ever before, what’s most important to him. It’s not to lead. It’s not to fight. It’s not even to win. It’s to be the most reasonable and unflappable person in the room. Obama will not be a transformational president unless the transformation starts in his own DNA.
I don’t want to psychoanalyze the president too much. I’m familiar with the theory that emanates from Janny Scott’s book about his mother—how the important thing in Indonesia, where Obama spent crucial socializing years of his childhood, is show that your small-minded foes haven’t rattled you. I’m deeply sympathetic with the mental and emotional armature that must be donned by a young black man growing up in a white household and mostly white world—the need to prove that one is superior, and the need to do so quietly, in a way others have no choice but to respect.
In many walks of life, these would be outstanding qualities. Obama would, like his brother-in-law, make a good college basketball coach. But in this White House at this point in history with this much at stake and facing this perfervid opposition, these qualities are serving him and the Americans who want to believe in him very poorly.
They certainly aren’t the qualities of a transformational leader.Transformational leaders fight and draw lines in the sand. I’ve been stunned, both in the spring during the government shutdown negotiations and now, that Obama has hardly ever gone to the American people to insist firmly that there are some things he would never abide. (He did so once, back in April, when he said that he would never again extend lower tax rates for upper-income Americans.) In these recent crucial weeks, the president has hardly said a word about what is sacred or inviolate.
6/ Fascinating underwater video of deep sea creatures and also some reef dwellers.......really, really good.....5 minutes....
7/ Rupert Murdoch - two stories for you........
This is breaking news from today - the phone hacking scandal has expanded to some of Murdoch's other newspapers, and include illegally investigating the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's private life and details. It is also looking less likely that News Corp will be able to do a "Fox News" on BSkyB, a British TV company......
Personally I like Rupert Murdoch even less that our asshole Governor Rick Scott, so this is good news.....
he phone hacking scandal widened on Monday, as new reports emerged that papers beyond the News of the World were also involved in criminal behavior. In addition, Rupert Murdoch's bid to take over BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster, looked to be in serious peril.
Multiple outlets reported that former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to claim that several News International papers illegally obtained his personal details.
According to The Guardian, The Independent and the BBC, investigators working for the News of the World, The Sun and The Sunday Times obtained information about Brown's family, his legal, his financial and his medical records. This marks the first time that any allegations about News International have targeted papers outside the News of the World.
Among the details that were illegally obtained:
—The Sun allegedly received details about Brown's son, Fraser, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, when he was an infant, and wrote exclusive stories about his then-unknown illness.
8/ Carl Bernstein [of Watergate fame] writes in Newsweek on how and why the Murdoch news empire engages in such sleazy practices....
Murdoch’s Watergate?
His anything-goes approach has spread through journalism like a contagion. Now it threatens to undermine the influence he so covets.
The hacking scandal currently shaking Rupert Murdoch’s empire will surprise only those who have willfully blinded themselves to that empire’s pernicious influence on journalism in the English-speaking world. Too many of us have winked in amusement at the salaciousness without considering the larger corruption of journalism and politics promulgated by Murdoch Culture on both sides of the Atlantic.
The facts of the case are astonishing in their scope. Thousands of private phone messages hacked, presumably by people affiliated with the Murdoch-owned News of the Worldnewspaper, with the violated parties ranging from Prince William and actor Hugh Grant to murder victims and families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The arrest of Andy Coulson, former press chief to Prime Minister David Cameron, for his role in the scandal during his tenure as the paper’s editor. The arrest (for the second time) of Clive Goodman, the paper’s former royals editor. The shocking July 7 announcement that the paper would cease publication three days later, putting hundreds of employees out of work. Murdoch’s bid to acquire full control of cable-news company BSkyB placed in jeopardy. Allegations of bribery, wiretapping, and other forms of lawbreaking—not to mention the charge that emails were deleted by the millions in order to thwart Scotland Yard’s investigation.
All of this surrounding a man and a media empire with no serious rivals for political influence in Britain—especially, but not exclusively, among the conservative Tories who currently run the country. Almost every prime minister since the Harold Wilson era of the 1960s and ’70s has paid obeisance to Murdoch and his unmatched power.
9/ Beyonce in expensive lingerie. Beyonce in a wedding dress. Great production values. A heartbreaking backstory. Her great voice, and a decent song.....
What's not to like!
"The Best Thing You Never Had", music video from Beyonce....4 minutes....
10/ Cute animal video of the day - a large dog being beaten up by a kitten.....sort of......2 minutes.......
11/ Casey Anthony - for any of you that followed the trial, and even if you didn't, this story should be very interesting reading.....
A serious look at this media circus of a trial [and non-punishment].......
OP-ED COLUMNIST
A Sordid Cast Around Casey Anthony
By FRANK BRUNI
Published: July 9, 2011
AS a reflection of the criminal justice system, the not guilty verdict for Casey Anthony — who in all likelihood bore responsibility for her 2-year-old daughter’s death, but will never pay for that particular crime — was reassuring. Juries are supposed to presume the innocence of even the vilest defendants. Evidence must outweigh emotion. And in the end there simply wasn’t enough lucid, specific proof that Anthony had murdered her little girl.
Matt Dorfman
Related
Anthony Verdict Sets Off Spate of New Legislation (July 9, 2011)
Times Topic: Casey Anthony
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
But as a mirror of people’s opportunism, avarice, hypocrisy and hysterics, the case was galling. In the Anthony trial a system that worked almost too well met a cast of characters almost too bad to be believed, and that’s true not merely, or even mainly, of the Anthonys. It applies just as much to the rogues’ gallery around them.
Take Cheney Mason, the avuncular defense lawyer with the Southern drawl and Santa beard. After the verdict, he decided to express his displeasure with reporters and spectators by giving them the finger.
He also berated reporters for their character assassination of Anthony, a harangue that disregarded her conclusively proved absence of character and ignored a distinction that he, as a lawyer, surely recognizes: not guilty doesn’t equal innocent. The verdict spoke to the quality of the forensics, not the culpability of the defendant, and certainly didn’t transform her into a blameless, persecuted saint. She was not randomly singled out by the news media — not even by Nancy Grace, HLN’s virago of vengeance.
To top it all off, Mason lashed out at lawyers who go on TV to prattle authoritatively about cases they are merely observing from afar. This was especially rich, because as ABC News illustrated in a delicious littlemontage, he had done precisely that, in regard to the Anthony trial, before he joined her defense team.
That team was led by Jose Baez, an even less savory character. Although he may have a lucrative legal future, he does not have a lucrative legal past.
After graduating from law school in 1997, he couldn’t practice law for eight years because, as The Orlando Sentinel detailed in several articles about him, the Florida bar deemed him unfit. He was a deadbeat dad who, by 2004, owed $12,000 in child support. He also defaulted on a student loan and declared bankruptcy at one point.
Justices of the Florida Supreme Court, in a ruling backing the bar’s refusal to admit him, noted that he had exhibited “a total lack of respect for the rights of others and a total lack of respect for the legal system.” Expensive dating services using elaborate algorithms haven’t produced pairings as apt as his with Anthony.
Movie Review - "Horrible Bosses".....it is what it is, a great guy movie.......directed by Seth Gordon, starring Jason Bateman.....
It requires no great critical insight to figure out what’s wrong with “Horrible Bosses,” a foul-mouthed new comedy of male resentment directed by Seth Gordon. The problems can be enumerated with a prim scowl and a wagging finger. The movie, in addition to being expectedly vulgar, is noisy and preposterous, and its humor flirts with racism, goes steady with misogyny and pretty much marries homophobia. There are guns, drugs, several references to sex acts involving urine, and gross insults — unless they are extravagant compliments; I’ll get back to you — to the respected profession of dentistry.
So here is the evident puzzle: “Horrible Bosses” is also frequently very funny. One reason is that it does not bother to cut its coarseness with a hypocritical dose of sweetness or respectability. Nor, however, does it make a big show of being provocative, of pretending that its forays into offensiveness are acts of bravery. It takes the ordinary human traits of stupidity, selfishness, lust and greed (and also stupidity), embeds them in a human condition that is confusing, unfair and also stupid, and turns the whole sorry spectacle into a carnival. The laughter is mean but also oddly pure: it expels shame and leaves you feeling dizzy, a little embarrassed and also exhilarated, kind of like the cocaine that two of the main characters consume by accident.
The scene of their hapless nose-candy binge exemplifies this movie’s spirit. On the one hand, the guys — Dale (Charlie Day) and Nick (Jason Bateman), along with their friend Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) — have broken into a house to do a little recon for one of three murders they plan to commit. This is a bad thing to do. On the other hand, there is something endearing about their utter hysterical ineptness, and their excursion into vice and criminality seems as innocent as it is desperate.
Todays video - "The Mom Song"......funny, and an amazing performance.....
Todays dentistry joke
The female dentist pulls out a numbing needle to give the man a shot.
"No way! No needles. I hate needles" the patient said.
The dentist starts to hook up the nitrous oxide and the man objects.
"I can't do the gas thing. The thought of having the gas mask on suffocates me!"
The dentist then asks the patient if he has any objection to taking a pill.
"No objection," the patient says. "'I'm fine with pills."
The dentist then returns and says, "Here's a Viagra."
The patient says, "Wow! I didn't know Viagra worked as a painkiller!"
"It doesn't" said the dentist, "but it's going to give you something to hold on to
when I pull your tooth."
"No way! No needles. I hate needles" the patient said.
The dentist starts to hook up the nitrous oxide and the man objects.
"I can't do the gas thing. The thought of having the gas mask on suffocates me!"
The dentist then asks the patient if he has any objection to taking a pill.
"No objection," the patient says. "'I'm fine with pills."
The dentist then returns and says, "Here's a Viagra."
The patient says, "Wow! I didn't know Viagra worked as a painkiller!"
"It doesn't" said the dentist, "but it's going to give you something to hold on to
when I pull your tooth."
Todays bonus joke
HEALTH MESSAGE:
1. If walking/cycling is good for your health, the postman would be
immortal.
2. A whale swims all day, only eats fish, drinks water and is fat.
3. A rabbit runs and hops and only lives 15 years.
4. A tortoise doesn't run, does nothing ..yet lives for 450 years.
AND YOU TELL ME TO EXERCISE!
I'm retired, go around me!!
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