A quick note on Stephen Colbert - he was in fifth place in the South Carolina primary, ahead of Rick Perry, but there wasn't a major amount of votes for him - just over 6000, so he has officially ended his race for president ......oh well.....
But I leave you with a quote from an article, which I thought was telling....
"The pundits have asked, is this all some joke?" Colbert said. "And I say, if they are calling being allowed to form a super PAC and collecting unlimited, untraceable amounts of money from individuals, unions, and corporations, and spending that money on political ads and for personal enrichment, and then surrendering that super PAC to one of my closest friends while I explore a run for office -- if that is a joke, then they are saying our entire campaign finance system is a joke!"
1/ OMG - a glimmer, a small beacon of light at the end of the economic tunnel - Paul Krugman senses some signs of optimism......
How goes the state of the union? Well, the state of the economy remains terrible. Three years after President Obama’s inauguration and two and a half years since the official end of the recession, unemployment remains painfully high.
But there are reasons to think that we’re finally on the (slow) road to better times. And we wouldn’t be on that road if Mr. Obama had given in to Republican demands that he slash spending, or the Federal Reserve had given in to Republican demands that it tighten money.
Why am I letting a bit of optimism break through the clouds? Recent economic data have been a bit better, but we’ve already had several false dawns on that front. More important, there’s evidence that the two great problems at the root of our slump — the housing bust and excessive private debt — are finally easing.
On housing: as everyone now knows (but oh, the abuse heaped on anyone pointing it out while it was happening!), we had a monstrous housing bubble between 2000 and 2006. Home prices soared, and there was clearly a lot of overbuilding. When the bubble burst, construction — which had been the economy’s main driver during the alleged “Bush boom” — plunged.
But the bubble began deflating almost six years ago; house prices are back to 2003 levels. And after a protracted slump in housing starts, America now looks seriously underprovided with houses, at least by historical standards.
So why aren’t people going out and buying? Because the depressed state of the economy leaves many people who would normally be buying homes either unable to afford them or too worried about job prospects to take the risk.
But the economy is depressed, in large part, because of the housing bust, which immediately suggests the possibility of a virtuous circle: an improving economy leads to a surge in home purchases, which leads to more construction, which strengthens the economy further, and so on. And if you squint hard at recent data, it looks as if something like that may be starting: home sales are up, unemployment claims are down, and builders’ confidence is rising.
Furthermore, the chances for a virtuous circle have been rising, because we’ve made significant progress on the debt front.
That’s not what you hear in public debate, of course, where all the focus is on rising government debt. But anyone who has looked seriously at how we got into this slump knows that private debt, especially household debt, was the real culprit: it was the explosion of household debt during the Bush years that set the stage for the crisis. And the good news is that this private debt has declined in dollar terms, and declined substantially as a percentage of G.D.P., since the end of 2008.
2/ Jon Stewart on the Newtster's version of marriage......and how he won the South Carolina primary with the "John King" moment. This is as close as I have ever seen Jon Stewart losing it with his disgust at Gingrich's assholeness [?]......
Very funny, very insightful.......8 great minutes.....
3/ I found this long article in the Times to be interesting, realistic and quite depressing. It looks at why the Apple products are all made abroad - designed here, but put together in factories in China. It also delves into what has really happened over the last decade with outsourcing, and explains in simple terms why corporations have closed manufacturing plants in the US and shipped most of it overseas....
And these jobs aren't coming back - what you see now is the future, we are a service economy and are likely to stay that way unless there are major changes in our systems....
A very good article indeed....this story has been quoted many times on the radio.....
When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminariesfor dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.
But as Steven P. Jobs of Applespoke, President Obamainterrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?
Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.
Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.
Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.
The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.
Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.
However, what has vexed Mr. Obama as well as economists and policy makers is that Apple — and many of its high-technology peers — are not nearly as avid in creating American jobs as other famous companies were in their heydays.
Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.
“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.
“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match tha
4/ Billy Connolly, the Scottish comedian who isn't shy with his swear words, on religion......and 53 virgins......a good 4 minutes......
Note - lots of bad language......
5/ Here is a concrete example of how the superwealthy buy influence over the political process. Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Sands Casino Group and The Venetian Las Vegas, gave Newt Gingrich's SuperPac $5 million to start it off, and is giving another $5 million to help him get him the Republican nomination. Since Adelson's fortune is estimated at about $26 billion this is literally pocket change to him, and if Gingrich is actually elected President he will own him.....
Think there isn't an oligarchy? Still living in the fantasy that this is a democracy? Dream on........this is how the boys do it, and the Koch Brothers are more dangerous than this turkey.......
And by the way, next time you are in Las Vegas make sure you support the Newtster and lose your money at the Venetian......
A wealthy backer of Newt Gingrich will inject $5 million into a “super PAC” supporting his presidential bid, two people with knowledge of the contribution said on Monday, providing a major boost to Mr. Gingrich as he seeks to fend off aggressive attacks from Mitt Romney, his main Republican rival.
The supporter, Dr. Miriam Adelson, is the wife of Sheldon Adelson, a longtime Gingrich friend and a patron who this month contributed $5 million to the super PAC, Winning Our Future. Dr. Adelson’s check will bring the couple’s total contributions to Winning Our Future to $10 million, a figure that could substantially neutralize the millions of dollars already being spent in Florida by Mr. Romney andRestore Our Future, a super PAC supporting him.
Mr. Adelson’s initial check financed a barrage of negative ads against Mr. Romney in South Carolina, helping Mr. Gingrich to an upset victory in Saturday’s Republican primary there. But those attacks, which focused on Mr. Romney’s wealth andprivate equity career, also drew condemnation from many conservatives, who said Mr. Gingrich’s allies were undercutting free-market capitalism and amplifying class-warfare arguments being made by Democrats and Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.
In making the couple’s second $5 million contribution, Dr. Adelson expressed a wish to Winning Our Future officials that the money be used “to continue the pro-Newt message,” one of the people familiar with the contribution said, rather than attack Mr. Romney.
The Adelsons’ contributions on Mr. Gingrich’s behalf illustrate how rapidly a new era of unlimited political money is reshaping the rules of presidential politics and empowering individual donors to a degree unseen since before the Watergate scandals.
The wealth of a single couple has now leveled the playing field in two critical primary states for Mr. Gingrich, a candidate who ended September more than $1 million in debt, finished out of the running in Iowa and New Hampshire and, unlike Mr. Romney, has yet to attract the broad network of hard-money donors and bundlers that traditionally propel presidential campaigns.
6/ Excellent Bill Maher segment where he contrasts Mitt Romney with a rapper....."Straight Outta Salt Lake"......quite good.....3 minutes....
Mitt Romney's riches and venture capitalist past have already come back to bite him in the presidential race. Late night hosts have made their fair share of rich guy jokes, but we've never heard it put quite they way we did on "Real Time" Friday.
On this week's episode, Bill Maher offered up an interesting analogy: that people like Mitt Romney for the same reasons they like rappers. They like a rich person because they want to be rich themselves, but fail to see the huge wealth inequality chasm that separates them.
7/ A challenging story by Sarah Van Gelder - her premise is that corporate rule [oligarchy] has already started to crumble because we the people have woken up......
In the same way, the legitimacy of rule by giant corporations and Wall Street banks is crumbling. This system of corporate rule also benefits few and harms many, affecting nearly every major issue in public life. Some examples:
- Powerful corporations socialize their risks and costs, but privatize profits. That means we, the 99 percent, pick up the tab for environmental clean ups, for helping workers who aren’t paid enough to afford food or health care, for bailouts when risky speculation goes wrong. Meanwhile, profits go straight into the pockets of top executives and others in the 1 percent.
- The financial collapse threw millions of Americans into poverty. 25 million are unemployed, under-employed, or have given up looking for work; four million have been unemployed for more than 12 months. Poverty increased 27 percent between 2006 and 2010. And students who graduated with student loans in 2010 had borrowed 5 percent more than the previous year’s graduating class—owing more than $25,000. Meanwhile, those who caused the collapse continue the same practices. And the unwillingness of the 1 percent to pay their fair share of taxes means the the public services we rely on are fraying.
- Scientists say that we are on the brink of runaway climate change; we only have a few years to make the needed investments in clean power and energy efficiency. This transition could be a huge job creator—on the order of the investments made during World War II, which got us out of the Depression. But fossil fuel industries don’t want to see their investment in dirty energy undermined by the switch to clean energy and conservation. So far, by paying millions to climate deniers, lobbyists, and political campaigns, they’ve succeeded in stymieing change.
- Agribusiness get taxpayer subsidies for foods that make us sick; for farming practices that destroy rivers, soils, the climate, and the oceans; and for trade practices that cause hunger at home and abroad.
- Through ALEC, the private prison industry crafts state laws that boost the numbers behind bars, lengthen sentences, and privatize prisons.
- Big Pharma jacks up prices; insurance companies raise premiums and delivers fewer benefits; the burden of inflated care drags down the economy and bankrupts families. But only a very few politicians stand up to the health care industry's war chests and advocate for Canadian-style single-payer health care, which would go a long way toward solving the cost problem.
- Corporations and wealthy executives fund an army of lobbyists and election campaigns, spreading untruths and self-serving policy prescriptions.
It’s not that we, the people, haven’t noticed all this.
In a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of Americans said too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations. In a poll by Time Magazine, 86 percent of Americans said Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington.
And 80 percent of Americans oppose Citizens United, the pro-corporate Supreme Court ruling that turns two years old today. Eighty percent—that’s among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.
Some say corporations have such a strong grip on politicians and big media that it is impossible to challenge them, no matter how many of us there are.
But I believe we can do it. In the past few months, YES! Magazine has been researching ways that ordinary people can challenge corporate power (look for strategies in our spring issue, out in February). And we found that there are actually a lot of tools at our disposal:
8/ The Golden Globe awards were last week, and Ricky Gervais did the opening monologue despite the fact that last year there was a controversy because he was too rude.....well this year he doubled down!!
Quite funny, with lots of shots of celebrities trying hard to force smiles while he insults them.....about 6 minutes.....
Ricky Gervais returned to the stage for the third time to host the Golden Globes on Sunday, January 15.
After last year's performance, many felt that the British comedian had gone too far with some of his jokes. So what would the actor bring to the podium this year?
9/ US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had some comments to people complaining about the Citizens United ruling that has unleashed unlimited corporate money on to the airwaves...."change the channel".
In pithier words "fxxk off and don't bother me".....
Corrupt, evil and completely out of touch with reality, that's our Republican Supreme Court......
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia has a simple solution for people who don't like all the political advertisements unleashed by the court's decision two years ago that ended limits on corporate contributions in political campaigns – change the channel or turn off the TV.
Scalia was asked about the decision during a presentation before the South Carolina Bar on Saturday, exactly two years after the court handed down the 5-4 decision in the case that led to the rise of Super PACs. They are outside groups affiliated with candidates that can take in unlimited contributions as long as they don't directly coordinate with the candidate.
"I don't care who is doing the speech – the more the merrier," Scalia said. "People are not stupid. If they don't like it, they'll shut it off."
10/ An excellent article from Al Jazeera English on what has happened to our once vaunted higher education in this country.......the quick answer is that it has been corporatized and is now purely of commercial value.....a degree will get you a job, and education in the sense of improving your life is passe....
Most interesting......
New York, NY - It seems fitting that some of the activity inaugurated by the Occupy Wall Street movement migrated from city squares to college campuses, where students, from Berkeley to the City University of New York (CUNY), are protesting against the rising cost of their educations. Undeterred by pepper spray or police batons, they struggle to preserve the evanescent American dream of a top-flight affordable college education available to all. But, unless there are major transformations within academe and the rest of society, they may be fighting a losing battle.Just as the frontier once allowed an enterprising individual to get ahead (or so the story went), by the middle of the 20th century, higher education had become the main engine of social mobility in the United States. A college degree, it was believed, would boost its holders into the middle class and then keep them and their children there. Recently, however, as the US economy turned sour, that promise no longer holds. Not only have rising tuitions and unmanageable student debt threatened to put a first-rate higher education out of reach for many of the 99 per cent, but it has also become harder for graduates to enter the well-paying careers they went to college for.
The economic insecurities that have blasted so many students' hopes did not originate on campus. They stem in large part from the ascendance of a neoliberal polity that worships the corporate sector and seeks to shrink the state. Businesses pursue the bottom line by shedding jobs, while demanding lower taxes and fewer regulations. The very concept of a common good, of a system that nurtures citizenship and offers all in the US the benefits the market does not provide, has lost its meaning.
In response, higher education has also abandoned the common good. Most in the US now view it solely from a narrowly economic perspective. Vocational training has replaced the liberal arts, while administrators strive to make their campuses engines of economic growth, rather than sites for intellectual experimentation and meaningful cultural encounters. Of course, graduates need to earn a living, but they also need to have a life worth living. And adapting colleges and universities to today's profit-driven environment imposes financial and educational costs that may simply be too high - for students, for the academy and for that elusive common good.
11/ Prince with "Purple Rain", from the 1980's movie.
I haven't seen this for years, but watching it again brought back how "the artist formerly known as Prince" started while he was just Prince......he's great! Such passion....
He also plays an amazing guitar solo......a classic.......
12/ "It's Climate Change Stupid" is the title of this story, and it's from the reality that even though the Republican primaries has spawned over 30 debates, the subject of climate change has never come up......
I watched the two Republican presidential candidate debates in South Carolina last week, and although the contenders spent quite a bit of time bickering over economic issues (as well as bashing each other), they ignored the elephant in the room. The biggest long-term threat to the U.S. economy isn't government over-regulation, high taxes, or even the deficit. It's climate change.
I work for a nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization that can't endorse candidates. We do, however, educate the public and promote government policies based on science. So I can't get into the Republican or Democratic presidential candidates' positions on climate, which you can easily find with a quick Internet search. But I can tell you how battered their respective states' economies will be if we don't dramatically reduce carbon emissions, and do it soon.
The snapshot projections below are what scientists expect the climate in each state to look like over the next three decades and beyond under a business-as-usual scenario where we continue to burn fossil fuels and destroy tropical forests at today's rates. It's not a pretty picture. In general, Americans should expectmore smog, more heat, more droughts, and more flooding.
13/ OK - time for a silly one - this is one of those candid camera setups, with a blonde, a changing room and lipstick.......3 minutes.....
14/ Great Scott Maxwell column on how in spite of our overwhelming vote in 2010 for "Fair Districts", the scum in Tallahassee have done more of the same, and screw you [the voters].
This, my friends, is what redistricting looks like in Florida now that "Fair Districts" is law.
In other words, Florida legislators have responded to the voter mandate for compact, sensible districts with two simple words:
Forget you.
(Around the newsroom, I used two other words — one of which was still "you." But this is a family newspaper.)
The politicians have continued gerrymandering districts just the way they wanted: stacking districts to keep themselves and their buddies elected and denying the voters true choice.
One for black Democrats.
One for Hispanics.
Two for white Republicans.
Zero for common sense or competition.
We've demonstrated this ad nauseam with congressional districts. But, as you can see, the Legislature is doing it again with legislative districts.
These state Senate districts, approved by the Senate last week, are just as bad. They divide neighborhoods. They connect distant communities that have nothing in common. And they make no geographic sense.
15/ Carl Hiaasen on the infestation of pythons and boa constrictors in South Florida, and how the recent ban on the importation of these huge pests is too little, too late.
He also details why it took so long to act.....lobbyists......
Now that federal regulators have outlawed the importation of humongous, gator-eating pythons, all Floridians can breathe a grateful sigh of relief. Finally we are saved from this insidious reptilian plague!
Sorry, but no. We might as well try to ban fleas.
As anybody who knows anything about the Everglades will tell you, the giant Burmese python is here to stay. If last year’s hard freeze didn’t kill off the tropical snakes, nothing short of a nuclear disaster will do it.
The import ban on the Burmese and three other species of constrictors — which was announced last week — is being hailed by the Obama administration as a victory for Florida’s native environment. In reality, it’s just a classic lesson of how Washington mulls and stalls until things are out of hand.
That there was an actual debate about the invasive snake crisis is incredible to the point of satire. Some reptile dealers and breeders, joined by a few clueless Republican lawmakers (none of whom had experienced a 15-foot python in their swimming pool), claimed that a ban on imports and interstate sales would be “job killing.”
As one who once collected and bred snakes, I cannot overstate how laughably bogus that position was. The realm of commercial reptile dealing, which has always had a sketchy element, is full of clever folks who always find ways to market different exotic species when one becomes unavailable. Not one real job would have been lost.
Still, the “herp” industry — wholesale and retail herpetology enthusiasts — hired lobbyists to fight the proposed ban, and the big-snake argument dragged on for six ridiculous years. During that period, untold thousands of baby pythons were hatched in the wilds of South Florida and dutifully commenced to devour the local fauna.
16/ For movie buffs [and watchers of "Fringe"] - movie posters from an alternate universe......very clever......
Todays video - a classic, "Centrum Silver".......
Todays retired's joke
Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting.
Well, for example, the other day, Kate, my wife and I went into town and visited a shop.
When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. We went up to him and
When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. We went up to him and
said, 'Come on, man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?'
He ignored us and continued writing the ticket.
I called him an asshole . He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn-out tires.
So Kate called him a shit head. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first.
So Kate called him a shit head. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first.
Then he started writing more tickets. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him,
the more tickets he wrote.
Just then our bus arrived, and we got on it and went home.
Just then our bus arrived, and we got on it and went home.
We always look for cars with "OBAMA 2012 stickers.
We try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired. It's important at our age.
Todays short joke
I asked a pretty, young homeless woman if I could take her home, and she said "yes" with a big smile.
The look on her face soon changed when I walked off with her cardboard box......
Todays hunter joke
The guys were all at a deer camp. No one wanted to room with Bob, because he snored so badly. They decided it wasn't fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns.
The first guy slept with Bob and comes to breakfast the next morning with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot.
They said, "Man, what happened to you?
He said, "Bob snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night."
The next night it was a different guy's turn. In the morning, same thing, hair all standing up, eyes all bloodshot.
They said, "Man, what happened to you? You look awful!
He said, 'Man, that Bob shakes the roof with his snoring. I watched him all night."
The third night was Fred's turn. Fred was a tanned, older cowboy, a man's man.
The next morning he came to breakfast bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. "Good morning!" he said. They couldn't believe it. They said, "Man, what happened?"
He said, "Well, we got ready for bed. I went and tucked Bob into bed, patted him on the butt, and kissed him good night. Bob sat up and watched me all night."
With age comes wisdom.
A short prayer joke
Dear God,
My prayer for 2012 is for a fat bank account and a thin body.
Please don't mix these up like you did last year.
AMEN!
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