1/ A most interesting story from the UK Guardian, saying Obama's secret weapon in the 2012 election, the one thing that will give him victory, is the power of Fox News. This is obviously counter-intuitive, but the author builds this case logically and persuasively and at the very least makes one think.....
Excellent article, and highly recommended for anyone with even a smidgin of interest in politics..........
Whoever wrote the political rulebook needs to start rewriting it. It used to be an iron maxim that voters' most vital organ was neither their head nor their heart, but their wallet. If they were suffering economically, they'd throw the incumbents out. Yet in Britain a coalition presiding over barely-there growth, rising unemployment and forecasts of gloom stretching to the horizon is holding steady in the opinion polls, while in the US Barack Obama is mired in horrible numbers – except for the ones showing him beating all-comers in the election now less than 11 months away. Even though the US economy is slumped in the doldrums, some of the country's shrewdest commentators make a serious case that Obama could be heading for a landslide victory in 2012.
How to explain such a turnaround? In the United States, at least, there is one compellingly simple, two-word answer: Fox News.
By any normal standards, Obama should be extremely vulnerable. Not only is the economy in bad shape, he has proved to be a much more hesitant, less commanding White House presence than his supporters longed for. And yet, most surveys put him comfortably ahead of his would-be rivals.
2/ I'm a real sucker for seeing these two talk - Rachael Maddow and Frank Rich, the most intelligent people in the media today. Here they take a look at the Republican field of Presidential candidates and their reactions to the official end to the Iraq war, which is to invade Iran.
Amazing.......a very good 6 minutes.......
Rachel Maddow hosted New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich on her show Thursday night, to discuss what she called "the American lessons learned" during the U.S. war in Iraq. The war came to its official end on Thursday.
Maddow wondered specifically what the Republican candidates learned from waging what she called "preemptive war." Maddow played clips of the various candidates responding to questions posed to them about a nuclear Iran. Maddow said by exception of Ron Paul, "every single Republican running for president says that he or she would gladly consider starting a preemptive war in the Middle East. No problemo."
Rich said that "half of [the candidates] don't know where Iran is," and described the candidates' responses as "empty posturing." He added that "they've learned nothing, they don't even care if they've learned anything," from the war in Iraq.
3/ Did you watch the 139th Republican debate Thursday night? No?
Well here it is compressed into two amusing minutes.......
4/ Obama caved again? Political pressure got too much for him so he just crumbled? Naaa, I don't believe it..........not..
This is the bill that allows martial law on demand.......Obama said he would veto it, but caved again......
The measures, contained in the annual military budget bill, will strip the F.B.I., federal prosecutors and federal courts of all or most of their power to arrest and prosecute terrorists and hand it off to the military, which has made clear that it doesn’t want the job. The legislation could also give future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial.
As Matt Taibbi has pointed out if a bomb went off at an Occupy site, or a shooting happened at any protest the authorities could say it was a terrorist act, arrest everyone and jail them without a trial.....
It's not necessarily Obama we should be worried about, it's the future successor to Dick Cheney, or a President Perry.....
Nearly every top American official with knowledge and experience spoke out against the provisions, including the attorney general, the defense secretary, the chief of the F.B.I., the secretary of state, and the leaders of intelligence agencies. And, for weeks, the White House vowed that Mr. Obama would veto the military budget if the provisions were left in. On Wednesday, the White House reversed field, declaring that the bill had been improved enough for the president to sign it now that it had passed the Senate.
This is a complete political cave-in, one that reinforces the impression of a fumbling presidency. To start with, this bill was utterly unnecessary. Civilian prosecutors and federal courts have jailed hundreds of convicted terrorists, while the tribunals have convicted a half-dozen.
And the modifications are nowhere near enough. Mr. Obama, his spokesman said, is prepared to sign this law because it allows the executive to grant a waiver for a particular prisoner to be brought to trial in a civilian court. But the legislation’s ban on spending any money for civilian trials for any accused terrorist would make that waiver largely meaningless.
The bill has so many other objectionable aspects that we can’t go into them all. Among the worst: It leaves open the possibility of subjecting American citizens to military detention and trial by a military court. It will make it impossible to shut the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. And it includes an unneeded expansion of the authorization for the use of military force in Afghanistan to include indefinite detention of anyone suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda or an amorphous group of “associated forces” that could cover just about anyone arrested anywhere in the world.
There is no doubt. This bill will make it harder to fight terrorism and do more harm to the country’s international reputation. The White House said that if implementing it jeopardizes the rule of law, it expects Congress to work “quickly and tirelessly” to undo the damage. The White House will have to make that happen. After it abdicated its responsibility this week, we’re not convinced it will.
5/ Megyn Kelly from Fox News made a flub last week, and Steven Colbert is quick to point out the error....amusingly.....a funny four minutes......
6/ This is a column from Charles Blow that I find difficult to believe - it says that Americans don't think income inequality is a problem.....this is a week when the last Census revealed almost half the country is living in poverty or close to it.
Have a look at the charts [on the left in the article] and you will see what I mean - about the time the Occupy movement started public opinion went wonky.....which was also the time the media and especially Fox hammered the "unruly guitar playing kids"......
So does this story show the country is in decline because of the stupidity and gullibility of the American public? The visible proof of the dumbing down process? Dunno......
Is income inequality becoming the new global warming? In other words, is this another case where the facts of an existential threat lose traction among a weary American public as deniers attempt to reduce them to partisan opinions?
It’s beginning to seem so.
A Gallup poll released on Thursday found that, after rising rather steadily for the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who said that the country is divided into “haves” and “have-nots” took the largest drop since the question was asked.
This happened even as the percentage of Americans who grouped themselves under either label stayed relatively constant. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans still see themselves as the haves, while only about a third see themselves as the have-nots. The numbers have been in that range for a decade.
This is the new American delusion. The facts point to a very different reality.
An Associated Press report this week on census data found that “a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.” The report said that the data “depict a middle class that’s shrinking.”
An October report from the Congressional Budget Office found that, from 1979 to 2007, the average real after-tax household income for the 1 percent of the population with the highest incomes rose 275 percent. For the rest of the top 20 percent of earners, it rose 65 percent. But it rose just 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.
And a report released in May by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that “the gap between rich and poor in O.E.C.D. countries has reached its highest level for over 30 years.” In the United States, the average income of the richest 10 percent of the population had risen to around 14 times that of the poorest 10 percent.
Our growing income inequality is a fact. So is the possibility that it could prove economically disastrous.
7/ I really admired Christopher Hitchins.....irreverent, funny, laconic and oh so British - he was excellent on his many appearances on Bill Maher and TV...........but he passed away this week from cancer.
The religious right hated him....and here's a couple of reasons taken from this eulogy....
As a cultural pundit, Hitchens loved picking fights. He offered unsparing insight on a wide range of subjects, from politics to religion to his own his mortality, but was perhaps best known for his criticism of Mother Teresa, both in his 1994 documentary "Hell's Angel," and in Vanity Fair.
"[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor," Hitchens said. "She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."
..............................
Even after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in 2010, Hitchens refused to turn to a deity or organized religion for comfort. He made it clear that if anyone ever claimed he had converted at the end of his life, it would be either a lie propagated by the religious community or an effect of the cancer and treatment that made him no longer himself.
"The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain. I can't guarantee that such an entity wouldn't make such a ridiculous remark, but no one recognizable as myself would ever make such a remark," he said
And this is a classic 8 minute video, where Hitchins appeared on the Sean Hannity show, with Ralph Reed, to discuss the death of Jerry Falwell the evangelical businessman. I'm sure they expected some commentary on the scumbag Falwell, but they got a lot more than they wanted.......his opening comments are amazing, and it gets better......
Go Christopher go!
8/ One of our favourite sites is "Awkward Family Photos", and the French seem to like it too.....a compilation of Awkward Christmas pictures.......
9/ This is a textbook example on how to deal with bigots - the Mayor of a Michigan city posted a homophobic remark on Facebook, and a gay mother of two came to the city council meeting to politely deal with it.....excellent......3 minutes......
10/ I know it's bad because this story isn't good for American farmers or our food supply, but I was gratified to read this item about the nasty Monsanto and how "superweeds" are now resistant to their GM [genetically modified] products.......the most evil corporation in America.....
Now that 94 percent of the soy and 70 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, Monsanto -- one of the companies that dominates the GMO seed market -- might look to some like it's winning. But if we look a little closer, I'd say they're holding on by a thread.
Their current success is due in large part to brilliant marketing. The company's approach was both compelling -- their products were sold as the key to making large-scale farming far simpler and more predictable -- and aggressive: Monsanto made it virtually impossible for most farmers to find conventional seeds for sale in most parts of the country.
Despite promises of improved productivity, enhanced nutritional content, or extreme weather tolerance -- none of which has ever come to market -- Monsanto has only ever produced seeds with two genetically modified traits: either herbicide tolerance or pesticide production. And even those traits never lived up to the marketing hype.
But it now appears that the core traits themselves are failing. Over the last several years, so-called "superweeds" have grown resistant to the herbicide RoundUp, the companion product that's made Monsanto's herbicide-tolerant (aka RoundUp-Ready) corn, soy, and alfalfa so popular. Those crops were supposed to be the only plants that could withstand being sprayed by the chemical. Oops.
The superweed problem is so bad that farmers in some parts of the country are abandoning thousands of acres because the weeds are so out of control, or dousing the crops with ever more toxic (and expensive) combinations of other herbicides. Thankfully,it's an issue that's getting more and more media attention.
And now Monsanto's other flagship product line, the pesticide-producing "Bt crops," named for the pesticide they are genetically modified to emit, is in trouble.
11/ Remember Godley and Creme from the 80s with their hit "Cry"? Never mind - it'll surface once it starts, but this video is really advanced for it's time.....
12/ A couple of stories that make me glad I'm over 50 [OK OK over 55] - [Ow that hurt....all right over 58 then....]
First the Times with a long front page story about how the permafrost layer is becoming unstable in Alaska and releasing methane, which is much worse than CO2. An excellent article, with interviews with scientists and as many facts as there are about this relatively new phenomenon.....not alarmist, but a worried tone in the story......
When you read this note the map, and the relative size of the permafrost in Alaska vs Siberia.
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — A bubble rose through a hole in the surface of a frozen lake. It popped, followed by another, and another, as if a pot were somehow boiling in the icy depths.
Every bursting bubble sent up a puff of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas generated beneath the lake from the decay of plant debris. These plants last saw the light of day 30,000 years ago and have been locked in a deep freeze — until now.
“That’s a hot spot,” declared Katey M. Walter Anthony, a leading scientist in studying the escape of methane. A few minutes later, she leaned perilously over the edge of the ice, plunging a bottle into the water to grab a gas sample.
It was another small clue for scientists struggling to understand one of the biggest looming mysteries about the future of the earth.
Experts have long known that northern lands were a storehouse of frozen carbon, locked up in the form of leaves, roots and other organic matter trapped in icy soil — a mix that, when thawed, can produce methane and carbon dioxide, gases that trap heat and warm the planet. But they have been stunned in recent years to realize just how much organic debris is there.
A recent estimate suggests that the perennially frozen ground known as permafrost, which underlies nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, contains twice as much carbon as the entire atmosphere.
13/ The second and more worrisome story is from the UK Independent newspaper, with an interview of a Russian scientist who works on permafrost research in Siberia.
As stated, this is new - so to climate deniers, by the time scientists can prove conclusively this is happening it will be far too late to do anything about it.
Dramatic and unprecedented plumes of methane - a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide - have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.
The scale and volume of the methane release has astonished the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.
In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Igor Semiletov of the International Arctic Research Centre at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who led the 8th joint US-Russia cruise of the East Siberian Arctic seas, said that he has never before witnessed the scale and force of the methane being released from beneath the Arctic seabed.
"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said.
"I was most impressed by the shear scale and the high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them," he said.
Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of millions of tons of methane gas locked away beneath the Arctic permafrost, which extends from the mainland into the seabed of the relatively shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
One of the greatest fears is that with the disappearance of the Arctic sea ice in summer, and rapidly rising temperatures across the entire Arctic region, which are already melting the Siberian permafrost, the trapped methane could be suddenly released into the atmosphere leading to rapid and severe climate change.
14/ In previous DDD's we have alluded to the fact that Jeb Bush, our former Governor, has been the standard bearer for online education and is using his clout to change the public school system across the country......so it was gratifying to come across this story in Mother Jones giving the details of what the Jebster has been up to.
Just think - if he had stayed on as Governor the schools would be better off, and we wouldn't have had the lunatic asshole we have now - Big Rick.......
IN JUNE 2010, FORMER FLORIDAGov. Jeb Bush traveled to Columbus, Ohio, to give the commencement speechfor the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, the state's largest virtual charter school. ECOT, which provides K-12 online education for kids who never set foot inside a classroom, was celebrating its 10th anniversary and its largest graduating class—nearly 2,000 kids. Naturally, the event, held on the campus of Ohio State University, was webcast for those who couldn't make it.
Bush served up the usual graduation platitudes about the future. Then he hit on the reason he was saluting this particular school: digital learning. It was, he said, nothing short of a revolutionary approach, a way to meet "the unique needs of each student so that their God-given abilities are maximized, so they can pursue their dreams armed with the power of knowledge."
It wasn't the first time Bush had praised the wonders of online education. Over the past year, he's emerged as one of the nation's most prominent boosters of virtual schools, touring the country to promote technology as an instrument of creative destruction against the public school system. Last December, he teamed up with former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, a Democrat, to launch a new initiative calledDigital Learning Now, which is aimed at tearing down legal barriers to public funding for virtual classrooms.
15/ David Pogue, the Tech guy for the Times, lists 12 of the best presents for the digital side of your life - there are at least two of this list I am going to get [Mary!]....cool stuff......
No 7-year-old ever said, “The holidays are so stressful!” When you’re young, the end of the year is always thrilling.
That’s partly because you’re young, of course. But it’s also because you’re responsible only for opening the presents, not shopping for them.
This year, there will be a lot of the usual under the tree: iPodTouches, iPads, phones. Kindles and Nooks. Cameras.
But if you look hard enough, you can find less predictable tech gifts — things they certainly don’t own already. Here are some high-tech suggestions. Call it the 12 Gifts of Christmas.
16/ "Mission Impossible 4 - Ghost Protocol" opening this weekend. You know what you're getting - Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, stuff blowing up, stunts, action, thrills, guns, mayhem, babes. As this Times review says - if you like the franchise you'll like this one......if you don't, you won't....
What makes Tom Cruise run — run harder and run faster, leaping from one building and dangling off another, the world’s tallest — as he does to exhausting, unnerving effect in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” his latest exercise in extreme performance? The fourth in the franchise, this“Mission” has a solid cast, including a notable new co-star inJeremy Renner; a new director, Brad Bird; and a story that’s as nonsensical as any in the series. Mostly, though, it has Mr. Cruise hurtling through the movie as if his life depended on it, which, to judge by the hard line of his jaw, his punishingly fit body and the will etched into his every movement, may be what’s at stake.
MI 4 - Ghost Protocol trailer......intense stream of images, which [I would guess] is the point.....lots of action, minimal plot, no thinking needed....
Todays heartwarming Christmas video - Train Set.....
Todays sentimental joke
A couple was Holiday shopping at the mall and the mall was packed.
Walking through the mall the surprised wife look up and noticed her
husband was no where around and she was very upset because they had a lot to do.
She used her cell phone to call her husband because she was so upset, to ask him where he was.
The husband in a calm voice said, honey remember the jewelry store we went into
5 years ago where you fell in love with that diamond necklace that we
could not afford and I told you that I would get it for you one day.
His wife said crying, yes I remember that jewelry store.
He said, well I'm in the bar next to it.
Walking through the mall the surprised wife look up and noticed her
husband was no where around and she was very upset because they had a lot to do.
She used her cell phone to call her husband because she was so upset, to ask him where he was.
The husband in a calm voice said, honey remember the jewelry store we went into
5 years ago where you fell in love with that diamond necklace that we
could not afford and I told you that I would get it for you one day.
His wife said crying, yes I remember that jewelry store.
He said, well I'm in the bar next to it.
Todays "out of the mouths of babes" joke
A group of seven to ten year old kids were asked questions on marriage and love. Here are some of their best answers......
1. HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?
You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports,
You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports,
she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.
-- Alan, age 10
No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. -- Kristen, age 10
2. WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?
Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.
-- Camille, age 10
3. HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.
-- Derrick, age 8
4. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?
Both don't want any more kids.
-- Lori, age 8
5. WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
-Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.
-- Lynnette, age 8 (isn't she a treasure)
-On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date.
-- Martin, age 10
6.. WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?
-When they're rich.
-- Pam, age 7
-The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that.
- - Curt, age 7
-The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do.
- - Howard, age 8
7. IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?
It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them.
-- Anita, age 9 (bless you child )
8. HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?
There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?
-- Kelvin, age 8
And the #1 Favorite is ....... 9. HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck.-- Ricky, age 10
-- Alan, age 10
No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. -- Kristen, age 10
2. WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?
Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.
-- Camille, age 10
3. HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.
-- Derrick, age 8
4. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?
Both don't want any more kids.
-- Lori, age 8
5. WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
-Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.
-- Lynnette, age 8 (isn't she a treasure)
-On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date.
-- Martin, age 10
6.. WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?
-When they're rich.
-- Pam, age 7
-The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that.
- - Curt, age 7
-The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do.
- - Howard, age 8
7. IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?
It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them.
-- Anita, age 9 (bless you child )
8. HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?
There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?
-- Kelvin, age 8
And the #1 Favorite is ....... 9. HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck.-- Ricky, age 10
Todays seniors joke
To help save the economy, the Government will announce next month that the Immigration Department will start deporting seniors (instead of illegals) in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs.
Older people are easier to catch and will not remember how to get back home. I started to cry when I thought of you...
Then it dawned on me ... oh, crap ... I'll see you on the bus!
Then it dawned on me ... oh, crap ... I'll see you on the bus!
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