1/ When the oligarchy imposes it's will, they affect entire countries and indeed continents. Paul Krugman argues, and I can't see that he's wrong, that the European Central Banks and the EU commission have prescribed exactly the wrong medicine for Greece, Portugal and even Ireland - and Britain is doing the same.
Austerity. Cut and slash your way out of recession.
Doesn't work. Time to rethink boys......
Last week the European Commission confirmed what everyone suspected: the economies it surveys are shrinking, not growing. It’s not an official recession yet, but the only real question is how deep the downturn will be.
And this downturn is hitting nations that have never recovered from the last recession. For all America’s troubles, its gross domestic product has finally surpassed its pre-crisis peak; Europe’s has not. And some nations are suffering Great Depression-level pain: Greece and Ireland have had double-digit declines in output, Spain has 23 percent unemployment, Britain’s slump has now gone on longer than its slump in the 1930s.
Worse yet, European leaders — and quite a few influential players here — are still wedded to the economic doctrine responsible for this disaster.
For things didn’t have to be this bad. Greece would have been in deep trouble no matter what policy decisions were taken, and the same is true, to a lesser extent, of other nations around Europe’s periphery. But matters were made far worse than necessary by the way Europe’s leaders, and more broadly its policy elite, substituted moralizing for analysis, fantasies for the lessons of history.
Specifically, in early 2010 austerity economics — the insistence that governments should slash spending even in the face of high unemployment — became all the rage in European capitals. The doctrine asserted that the direct negative effects of spending cuts on employment would be offset by changes in “confidence,” that savage spending cuts would lead to a surge in consumer and business spending, while nations failing to make such cuts would see capital flight and soaring interest rates. If this sounds to you like something Herbert Hoover might have said, you’re right: It does and he did.
Now the results are in — and they’re exactly what three generations’ worth of economic analysis and all the lessons of history should have told you would happen. The confidence fairy has failed to show up: none of the countries slashing spending have seen the predicted private-sector surge. Instead, the depressing effects of fiscal austerity have been reinforced by falling private spending.
2/ And this is the real world effect of British Prime Minister David Cameron's austerity program and cuts to youth services - an alarming unemployment rate and social unrest.
LONDON — For almost two years, Nicki Edwards has been looking for work — any type of work.
She is 19 years old, well-spoken and self-possessed. But like many young people in Britain, she could not afford to remain at her university, making it impossible to find a job. London’s youth riots last summer have closed even more doors to people like her.
“If you are not working, in training or in college, you might as well be a thief — employers just do not take you seriously,” Ms. Edwards said. “At some point, you just say, ‘I’m stuck and I will never find a job.’ ”
Perhaps the most debilitating consequence of the euro zone’s economic downturn and its debt-driven austerity crusade has been the soaring rate of youth unemployment. Spain’s jobless rate for people ages 16 to 24 is approaching 50 percent. Greece’s is 48 percent, and Portugal’s and Italy’s, 30 percent. Here in Britain, the rate is 22.3 percent, the highest since such data began being collected in 1992. (The comparable rate for Americans is 18 percent.)
The lack of opportunity is feeding a mounting alienation and anger among young people across Europe — animus that threatens to poison the aspirations of a generation and has already served as a wellspring for a number of violent protests in European cities from Athens to London. And new economic data on Wednesday, showing much of Europe in the doldrums or recession, does little to bolster hopes for a better jobs picture anytime soon.
Experts say that the majority of those who took to the streets in London last summer were young people who were unemployed, out of school and not participating in a job training program.
Classified by statisticians as NEETs (not in education, employment or training), they number about 1.3 million, or one of every five 16-to-24-year-olds in the country.
While youth unemployment has long been a chronic issue here, experts say the British government’s debt-reduction commitment to rein in social spending appears to be making the problem worse. Insufficient job training and apprenticeship programs, they argue, contribute to the large pool of permanently unemployed young people in Britain.
“It is patently wrong for young people to have such a poor start in life, when there is so much more we could be doing,” said Hilary Steedman, an economist at the London School of Economics. “Just because they did not go to university does not mean they don’t want to work.”
3/ One of the funniest videos ever......a ventriloquist without a dummy......if you don't laugh out loud at this one you must be a Tea Party idiot......4 minutes.......
4/ Great title - "Is the GOP Having a Terry Schiavo Moment?" A reasoned article about the insane debate we are currently having about contraception, and the war on women's health by the religious loonies in the Republican party.....
I don't know about you but I look at the comments from Santorum and the others and start thinking about how this country has truly moved into the stupid zone......the national IQ is dropping way below 100.....
Some conservatives, watching their party consumed by a nationwide debate over birth control, have started to suspect a liberal plot.
“They desperately want people’s attention off of the economy and Obamacare,” said Rush Limbaugh. “And the culture war, they think they can go back to their archive pages and bring that issue back.” On the Legal Insurrection blog, William Jacobson, an associate professor of law at Cornell, recalled George Stephanopoulos’s question about contraception at the January 7 Republican debate, which many on the right considered absurd. “Well what do you know, about a month later the Obama administration proposes administrative rules … which would require free contraception be provided even by religious institutions which oppose contraception on religious grounds,” he writes. “It’s almost as if Stephanopoulos got the memo first. Unless, of course, you believe in coincidences.”
If only Democrats were so clever. Yet even though at least a few right-wingers seem to recognize the dangers in a drawn-out battle over family planning, the GOP just can’t stop itself. And so, increasingly, the question of women’s access to birth control, one largely considered settled for the past few decades, has now moved to the center of our political debate. Conspiracy-minded conservatives are wrong that Obama orchestrated this. But they’re right that it will likely help him.
5/ An excellent short essay by Bill Moyers on the purchasing of our government by the billionaire oligarchs, and the wholesale corruption of our democratic system......he has a wonderful flow to his writing......
Watching what's happening to our democracy is like watching the cruise ship Costa Concordia founder and sink slowly into the sea off the coast of Italy, as the passengers, shorn of life vests, scramble for safety as best they can, while the captain trips and falls conveniently into a waiting life boat.
We are drowning here, with gaping holes torn into the hull of the ship of state from charges detonated by the owners and manipulators of capital. Their wealth has become a demonic force in politics. Nothing can stop them. Not the law, which has been written to accommodate them. Not scrutiny -- they have no shame. Not a decent respect for the welfare of others -- the people without means, their safety net shredded, left helpless before events beyond their control.
The obstacles facing the millennial generation didn't just happen. Take an economy skewed to the top, low wages and missing jobs, predatory interest rates on college loans: these are politically engineered consequences of government of, by, and for the one percent. So, too, is our tax code the product of money and politics, influence and favoritism, lobbyists and the laws they draft for rented politicians to enact.
Here's what we're up against. Read it and weep: "America's Plutocrats Play the Political Ponies." That's a headline in "Too Much," an Internet publication from the Institute for Policy Studies that describes itself as "an online weekly on excess and inequality."
Yes, the results are in and our elections have replaced horse racing as the sport of kings. Only these kings aren't your everyday poobahs and potentates. These kings are multi-billionaire, corporate moguls who by the divine right, not of God, but the United States Supreme Court and its Citizens United decision, are now buying politicians like so much pricey horseflesh. All that money pouring into super PACs, much of it from secret sources: merely an investment, should their horse pay off in November, in the best government money can buy.
6/ Great segment from SNL, with Amy Poehler returning to join Seth Myers on "Really?".......when they're on form, there's no better comedy.....3 very funny minutes.....
7/ Hear that high pitched whining sound? It's the noise defense lobbyists make whenever anyone talks about reducing the bloated military spending budget.....we have a monster at the heart of the Government - the military-industrial complex.....
During his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned the American people that one of the greatest threats to freedom came not from enemies abroad but from “the conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry,” which over time would lose sight of defending the United States and become devoted only to its own perpetuation. “In the councils of government,” said the man who had commanded the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Today we are living Ike’s nightmare. Defense spending is not just one of the most sacrosanct parts of thebudget but also one of the largest and most inscrutable. Adjusting for inflation, military spending has grown for an unprecedented 13 consecutive years and is now higher than at any time since World War II. Even excluding war costs, the military baseline budget has grown by about 50 percent during the last decade.
Yet the faintest suggestion of a plan to reduce the rate of the defense budget’s growth inevitably triggers dire warnings that Americans will soon be speaking Russian, Chinese, Arabic, or the mother tongue of whoever is deemed the most powerful adversary of the moment.
8/ These are clips of athletes, dumb jocks, clever ideas and vehicles in trouble......a compilation of cool stuff.....3 minutes....
9/ This is a puzzling story - why is the Obama administration going after medical marijuana growers and generally taking a hard line stance on this issue?
Interesting article from Rolling Stone that says a couple of individuals inside the government are driving it - hardliner holdovers from the Bush years laying low for the first couple of years of Obama, then suddenly creating policy and Obama won't stop them......
Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. "I'm not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue," he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration's high-profile raids on providers of medical pot, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.
But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multiagency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana. With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush's record for medical-marijuana busts. "There's no question that Obama's the worst president on medical marijuana," says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. "He's gone from first to worst."
The federal crackdown imperils the medical care of the estimated 730,000 patients nationwide – many of them seriously ill or dying – who rely on state-sanctioned marijuana recommended by their doctors. In addition, drug experts warn, the White House's war on law-abiding providers of medical marijuana will only drum up business for real criminals. "The administration is going after legal dispensaries and state and local authorities in ways that are going to push this stuff back underground again," says Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, a former Republican senator who has urged the DEA to legalize medical marijuana, pulls no punches in describing the state of affairs produced by Obama's efforts to circumvent state law: "Utter chaos."
In its first two years, the Obama administration took a refreshingly sane approach to medical marijuana. Shortly after Obama took office, a senior drug-enforcement official pledged to Rolling Stone that the question of whether marijuana is medicine would now be determined by science, "not ideology." In March 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder emphasized that the Justice Department would only target medical-marijuana providers "who violate both federal and state law." The next morning, a headline in The New York Times read OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO STOP RAIDS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSERS. While all forms of marijuana would remain strictly illegal under federal law – the DEA ranks cannabis as a Schedule I drug, on par with heroin – the feds would respect state protections for providers of medical pot. Framing the Obama administration's new approach, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske famously declared, "We're not at war with people in this country."
10/ Remember "The 40 Year Old Virgin" with Steve Carrell? Here is the chest waxing scene, which guys will find hysterically funny and women will say is disgusting......but anyway, one for the guys - "The Man-O-Lantern - 3 minutes of laughter......
Ladies - no watchee......
11/ Romney has his billionaires as well as Santorum and Gingrich, and one of Romney's is as nasty and dangerous as a Koch.....a Mormon who hates gays......
Frank VanderSloot is an Idaho billionaire and the CEO ofMelaleuca, Inc., a controversial billion-dollar-a-year company which peddles dietary supplements and cleaning products; back in 2004,Forbes, echoing complaints to government agencies, described the company as “a pyramid selling organization, built along the lines of Herbalife and Amway.” VanderSloot has long used his wealth to advance numerous right-wing political causes. Currently, he is the national finance co-chair of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, and his company has become one of the largest donors ($1 million) to the ostensibly “independent” pro-Romney SuperPAC, Restore Our Future. Melaleuca’s get-rich pitches have in the past caused Michigan regulators to take action, resulting in the company’s entering into a voluntary agreement to “not engage in the marketing and promotion of an illegal pyramid”‘; it entered into a separate voluntary agreement with the Idaho attorney general’s office, which found that “certain independent marketing executives of Melaleuca” had violated Idaho law; and the Food and Drug Administration previously accused Melaleuca of deceiving consumers about some of its supplements.
But it is VanderSloot’s chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuits against his political critics — magazines, journalists, and bloggers — that makes him particularly pernicious and worthy of more attention. In the last month alone, VanderSloot, using threats of expensive defamation actions, has successfully forced Forbes, Mother Jones and at least one local gay blogger in Idaho to remove articles that critically focused on his political and business practices (Mother Jones subsequently re-posted the article with revisions a week after first removing it). He has been using this abusive tactic in Idaho for years: suppressing legitimate political speech by threatening or even commencing lawsuits against even the most obscure critics (he has even sued local bloggers for “copyright infringement” after they published a threatening letter sent by his lawyers). This tactic almost always succeeds in silencing its targets, because even journalists and their employers who have done nothing wrong are afraid of the potentially ruinous costs they will incur when sued by a litigious billionaire.
12/ Rachael Maddow picked up on the Salon story above and devoted an 8 segment to VanderSloot, Romney's billionaire......a great 8 minute segment.......so take your pick, print or video.......
13/ Surreal 2 minute video of a snowboarder wearing an LED light suit at night.....in a way reminded me of a scene from a really underrated movie "Runaway Train", with Jon Voight.......where the train is barreling through the Alaska landscape with the snow falling.....very cool......
14/ Here's a story that will shock you....or maybe not......over half the babies born in the US to women under 30 are out of wedlock......and yes, it's also a class issue.....
LORAIN, Ohio — It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.
Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.
Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.
One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.
“Marriage has become a luxury good,” said Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
The shift is affecting children’s lives. Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems.
The forces rearranging the family are as diverse as globalization and the pill. Liberal analysts argue that shrinking paychecks have thinned the ranks of marriageable men, while conservatives often say that the sexual revolution reduced the incentive to wed and that safety net programs discourage marriage.
15/ Even if you don't follow basketball you may have heard of Jeremy Lin, the superstar player for the Knicks.....there has been some controversy over racial remarks made by sportscasters......so of course the boys at SNL went after this with the predictable very amusing result.....4 minutes......
It has been a pretty good season for Saturday Night Live and their sports-themed skits. There was Shaq getting roasted by Charles Barkley. There was Jesus asking Tim Tebow to tone things down a bit. And there was the SNL skit mocking the Penn State sex abuse scandal.
Well, last night SNL tackled Jeremy Lin and Linsanity and they did not disappoint.
Here's the video...
com/watch-saturday-night-16/ What are comedians going to do when this Republican primary is over? There's so much rich material here, as Jon Stewart finds out when he looks at the Romney/Santorum political ads......4 minutes......
Remember - the Michigan primary is Tuesday Feb. 28......woop woop.......
On Thursday night's "Daily Show" Jon Stewart caught up with the GOP primary race in a special "It's Still Only February" edition of Indecision 2012, this time focusing on frontrunners (we think -- we can't keep up anymore) Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum's latest political ads.
First, Stewart pointed out some pretty funny inaccuracies in Romney's latest ad aimed at connecting with Michigan voters, which shouldn't be too hard since he grew up there. But in his attempt to not look like an out-of-touch billionaire whosuggested we let Detroit to go bankrupt, Romney accidentally showed a photo of himself and his father in New York City (instead of Michigan). The fact that the car he drives in the ad is made in Canada was just a bonus.
But on to the good stuff: Rick Santorum's "Rombo" ad that had Jimmy Kimmel cracking up on his show the other night. A while back, Jon Stewart put a moratorium on jokes about Santorum's other meaning. So when he saw the ad -- which features a cardboard cut-out of Santorum being hit with big globs of "mud" -- you can just imagine how hard it was for him to resist.
And just in case you forgot the #1 Google search for Santorum is this "other meaning" of Santorum.......
17/ The always excellent Carl Hiaasen muses on the GOP shooting itself in the foot by embracing the contraception issue......informative and amusing....one of the best columnists out there....
On birth control GOP takes on losing issue
BY CARL HIAASEN
CHIAASEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
In their unflagging efforts to distance themselves from mainstream America, Republican leaders have gleefully seized upon a social issue that’s guaranteed to backfire in November:
Birth control.
If you’re mystified, you’re not alone. Ignoring years of public-opinion polls, the GOP is boldly marching backwards into the 1960s to question whether contraception is a legitimate health-care benefit.
The target, as always, is President Obama. He issued an executive mandate requiring that free birth control be included in health plans provided to employees of schools, charities and hospitals connected to religiously affiliated institutions.
Although the mandate excludes churches, Roman Catholic bishops are in a huff, saying the contraception provision violates the First Amendment and “freedom of religion.”
Never mind that Obama softened the rule so that the insurance companies, not the employers, will pay for the coverage. Never mind that many employees served by these healthcare plans don’t share the same religion as the institute for whom they work.
Republican strategists see the controversy as another opportunity to bash Obama’s healthcare reforms, and also to rile up white Christian evangelicals who don’t like the president anyway.
As political miscalculations go, this one could be epic. If you’re looking for a sure way to galvanize female voters against your own party, attack birth control.
Whom does the administration’s mandate help? Teachers, secretaries, nurses, lab techs — working women who can’t afford, or don’t choose, to get pregnant.
Yet to hear the yowls of outrage, you’d think these hospitals and schools were being ordered to round up their workers and force-feed them birth-control pills against their will.
Leading the opposition are Catholic bishops, whose archaic dictums against contraception are widely disregarded by their own flock. According to most surveys, about 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use some type of birth control.
It’s safe to assume that rather large segment includes employees of, say, the University of Notre Dame.
Todays video - Ping Pong.....great beer ad......
Todays religious joke
A priest and a rabbi were sitting next to each other on an airplane.
After a while, the priest turned to the rabbi and asked, 'Is it still a requirement of your faith that you not eat pork?'
The rabbi responded, 'Yes, that is still one of our laws.'
The priest then asked, 'Have you ever eaten pork?'
To which the rabbi replied, 'Yes, on one occasion I did succumb to temptation and tasted a ham sandwich.'
The priest nodded in understanding and went on with his reading.
A while later, the rabbi spoke up and asked the priest, 'Father, is it still a requirement of your church that you remain celibate?'
The priest replied, 'Yes, that is still very much a part of our faith.'
The rabbi then asked him, 'Father, have you ever fallen to the temptations of the flesh?'
The priest replied, 'Yes, rabbi, on one occasion I was weak and broke with my faith.'
The rabbi nodded understandingly and remained silent, thinking, for about five minutes.
Finally, the rabbi said, 'Beats the shit out of a ham sandwich, doesn't it?
Todays married man joke
Fresh from my shower, I stand in front of the mirror complaining to my
husband that my breasts are too small.
"If you want your breasts to grow, then every day take a piece of toilet
paper and rub it between them for a few seconds" he said.
Willing to try anything, I fetch a piece of toilet paper and stand in
front of the mirror, rubbing it between my breasts.
"How long will this take?", I ask.....
"They will grow larger over a period of years", my husband replies.
I stopped. "Do you really think rubbing a piece of toilet paper between
my breasts every day will make my breasts larger over the years?"
Without missing a beat he says, "Worked for your bottom, didn't it?"
He's still alive, and with a great deal of therapy he may even walk
again, although he will probably continue to take his meals through a straw.
Todays second religious joke
There was a knock on the door this last Saturday morning.
I opened it to find a young, well-dressed man standing there who said: "Hello sir, I'm a Jehovah's Witness."
So I said "Come in and sit down."
I offered him a fresh cup of coffee and asked "What do you want to talk about?"
He said, "Beats the shit out of me, nobody ever let me in before."
I opened it to find a young, well-dressed man standing there who said: "Hello sir, I'm a Jehovah's Witness."
So I said "Come in and sit down."
I offered him a fresh cup of coffee and asked "What do you want to talk about?"
He said, "Beats the shit out of me, nobody ever let me in before."
Todays racist jokes
Q. What's the Cuban National Anthem?
A. Row, Row, Row Your Boat
Q. Where does an Irish family go on vacation?
A. To a different bar.
Q. What do you call it when an Italian has one arm shorter than the other?
A. A speech impediment.
Q. Why aren't there any Puerto Ricans on Star Trek?
A. Because they're not going to work in the future either.
Q. Why do Driver Education classes in redneck schools use the car only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?
A. Because on Tuesday and Thursday, the Sex Education class uses it.
Q. What's the difference between a southern zoo and a northern zoo?
A. The southern zoo has a description of the animals along with a recipe.
Q. How do you get a sweet little 80-year-old lady to say the 'F' word?
A. Get another sweet little 80-year-old lady to yell 'BINGO!'
Q. What's the difference between a northern fairytale and a southern fairytale???
A. A northern fairytale begins ....'Once upon a time...'
A southern fairytale begins .... 'Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit.'
Q. Why doesn't Mexico have an Olympic team?
A. Because all the Mexicans who can run, jump, or swim are already in the United States
Q. Why does the Polish Navy have glass bottom boats?
A. So they can see the old Polish Navy.
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