1/ If you want the truth about the financial sector and what they are up to, Matt Taibbi is your man....
Instinctively we all know a bill from the Republicans in Congress like the "JOBS" Act had to be bad, but it couldn't be too awful if President Obama signed it, could it? But he did and we are now on a path to the next bubble....
It shows, yet again, that Wall Street and the financial oligarchs own Washington, both parties.
Boy, do I feel like an idiot. I've been out there on radio and TV in the last few months saying that I thought there was a chance Barack Obama was listening to the popular anger against Wall Street that drove the Occupy movement, that decisions like putting a for-real law enforcement guy like New York AG Eric Schneiderman in charge of a mortgage fraud task force meant he was at least willing to pay lip service to public outrage against the banks.
Then the JOBS Act happened.
The "Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act" (in addition to everything else, the Act has an annoying, redundant title) will very nearly legalize fraud in the stock market.
In fact, one could say this law is not just a sweeping piece of deregulation that will have an increase in securities fraud as an accidental, ancillary consequence. No, this law actually appears to have been specifically written to encourage fraud in the stock markets.
Ostensibly, the law makes it easier for startup companies (particularly tech companies, whose lobbyists were a driving force behind its passage) to attract capital by, among other things, exempting them from independent accounting requirements for up to five years after they first begin selling shares in the stock market.
The law also rolls back rules designed to prevent bank analysts from talking up a stock just to win business, a practice that was so pervasive in the tech-boom years as to be almost industry standard.
Even worse, the JOBS Act, incredibly, will allow executives to give "pre-prospectus" presentations to investors using PowerPoint and other tools in which they will not be held liable for misrepresentations. These firms will still be obligated to submit prospectuses before their IPOs, and they'll still be held liable for what's in those. But it'll be up to the investor to check and make sure that the prospectus matches the "pre-presentation."
The JOBS Act also loosens a whole range of other reporting requirements, and expands stock investment beyond "accredited investors," giving official sanction to the internet-based fundraising activity known as "crowdfunding."
But the big one, to me, is the bit about exempting firms from real independent tests of internal controls for five years.
When I first read this, I asked myself: how does a law exempting a Silicon Valley startup from independent accounting actually encourage investment?
http://www.rollingstone.com/2/ Naomi Wolf in the Guardian on how a state determined to subdue it's citizens will use sexual domination to intimidate citizens......which is what is happening here, thanks to the Supreme Court......
In a five-four ruling this week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the "trespass bill", which gives you a 10-year sentence for protestinganywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement.
Is American strip-searching benign? The man who had brought the initial suit, Albert Florence, described having been told to "turn around. Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks." He said he felt humiliated: "It made me feel like less of a man."
In surreal reasoning, justice Anthony Kennedy explained that this ruling is necessary because the 9/11 bomber could have been stopped for speeding. How would strip searching him have prevented the attack? Did justice Kennedy imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body cavity? In still more bizarre non-logic, his and the other justices' decision rests on concerns about weapons and contraband in prison systems. But people under arrest – that is, who are not yet convicted – haven't been introduced into a prison population.
Our surveillance state shown considerable determination to intrude on citizens sexually. There's the sexual abuse of prisoners at Bagram – der Spiegel reports that "former inmates report incidents of … various forms of sexual humiliation. In some cases, an interrogator would place his penis along the face of the detainee while he was being questioned. Other inmates were raped with sticks or threatened with anal sex". There was the stripping of Bradley Manning is solitary confinement. And there's the policy set up after the story of the "underwear bomber" to grope US travelers genitally or else force them to go through a machine – made by a company, Rapiscan, owned by terror profiteer and former DHA czar Michael Chertoff – with images so vivid that it has been called the "pornoscanner".
Believe me: you don't want the state having the power to strip your clothes off. History shows that the use of forced nudity by a state that is descending into fascism is powerfully effective in controlling and subduing populations.
3/ Although the Chinese video of the fliers jumping off the mountain was really exciting, it was still "made in China".......so here is a great video by Jeff Corliss of him leaping off a mountain....with hi-def cameras attached.....cool music as well as a very close shave [did he hit those balloons?].....4 minutes......
4/ Reince Priebus, who has the weirdest name in politics by far, compared womens health to caterpillars health.....a very strange analogy.
Rachael Maddow nails him in a wonderful segment on the Republican war on women and how it is being waged all across the country......
Eleven excellent minutes.....she is so logical......
[Hope you get the Virgin America ad before this clip....very funny.....]
Rachel Maddow tore into Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on her show Thursday night forcomparing what Democrats charged as the GOP's "war on women" to an imaginary war on caterpillars.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Priebus said, "If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars. The fact of the matter is, it’s a fiction."
Critics attacked Priebus for comparing women and women's health to caterpillars and caterpillars' health. President Obama's Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter said, "Reince Priebus' comparison of Republican attempts to limit women's access to mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, and contraception to a 'war on caterpillars' shows how little regard leading Republicans, including Mitt Romney, have for women's health."
Maddow piled on the criticism during her MSNBC show.
5/ SNL had a great 5 minute skit of Mitt Romney giving speeches across the states, pandering all the while.....very amusing.....Kristen Wiig as Ann Romney....
Though Mitt Romney appears to be the obvious frontrunner in the GOP 2012 race, he still hasn't managed to win over a sizable portion of his party. But it isn't for lack of trying.
'SNL' mocked the presidential candidate's desperation to connect with voters in this week's cold open. Jason Sudeikis reprised his role as the former Massachusetts Governor, who just can't convince people he's one of them.
6/ This is one of the funniest Steven Colbert segments I can remember....at least three LOL moments.....excellent and really funny.....4 minutes....
It's about Mitt Romney's latino problem, and the Colbert SuperPac has produced a video to help the Mittster appeal to hispanics.....
7/ The justice system has been exposed by the Trayvon Martin case as dysfunctional at best, but illustrates a spirit in the police and prosecutors of vigilante justice, especially with minorities and blacks. Tamp down the poor at all costs.......
Note - as of tonight [Wednesday] Zimmerman has been charged with murder.......
First enacted in Florida and now adopted by at least 21 states, the law is promoted by the powerful National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council, or Alec. Alec is a Koch brothers-funded organisation of rightwing legislators throughout the country, responsible for anti-union, voter suppression and forced transvaginal ultrasound legislation in various states. Alec is supported by corporations
As the "stand your ground" law enables vigilantes and lynch mobs who operate outside the justice system, the system also provides cover to insiders, including renegade prosecutors who stand in the way of justice. With broad discretion but little accountability, prosecutors at their worst become vigilantes.
8/ Tom Tomorrow and his take on our gun laws........
9/ Most unusual music video - Gotye [he's Belgian, lives in Australia] with "Somebody I used to know"......Gotye is bodypainted in time with the song, as is his girlfriend Kimbra......PG 13......
It starts slowly, but gets better........quite powerful......
10/ An erudite and fascinating essay from "The Atlantic" on the merits and drawbacks of our market economy where literally everything is for sale at the right price......
An intelligent discussion, non-partisan, on life as we live it today........
THERE ARE SOME THINGS money can’t buy—but these days, not many. Almost everything is up for sale. For example:
• A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. In Santa Ana, California, and some other cities, nonviolent offenders can pay for a clean, quiet jail cell, without any non-paying prisoners to disturb them.
• Access to the carpool lane while driving solo: $8. Minneapolis, San Diego, Houston, Seattle, and other cities have sought to ease traffic congestion by letting solo drivers pay to drive in carpool lanes, at rates that vary according to traffic.
• The services of an Indian surrogate mother: $8,000. Western couples seeking surrogates increasingly outsource the job to India, and the price is less than one-third the going rate in the United States.
• The right to shoot an endangered black rhino: $250,000. South Africa has begun letting some ranchers sell hunters the right to kill a limited number of rhinos, to give the ranchers an incentive to raise and protect the endangered species.
• Your doctor’s cellphone number: $1,500 and up per year. A growing number of “concierge” doctors offer cellphone access and same-day appointments for patients willing to pay annual fees ranging from $1,500 to $25,000.
• The right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: $10.50. The European Union runs a carbon-dioxide-emissions market that enables companies to buy and sell the right to pollute.
• The right to immigrate to the United States: $500,000. Foreigners who invest $500,000 and create at least 10 full-time jobs in an area of high unemployment are eligible for a green card that entitles them to permanent residency.
11/ One of our alert readers sent this back to me, and even though it was in DDD last month it's worth another look - it's the "Britains Got Talent" segment when a very unlikely duo stuns the judges [including Simon Cowell] with their voices.......standing O all around..... truly a Susan Boyle moment.......
If you haven't watched this, do so. Wow, that final note......
12/ There is a new candidate for the stupidest state in the union, and it's Tennessee......they have just passed a law allowing teachers [who want to] to challenge climate change and evolution in the classrooms......so any kids in Baptist or extreme religious schools may be taught science fantasy......not science fact......
WASHINGTON — Tennessee is poised to adopt a law that would allow public schoolteachers to challenge climate change and evolution in their classrooms without fear of sanction, according to educators and civil libertarians in the state.
Passed by the state Legislature and awaiting Republican Gov.Bill Haslam's signature, the measure is likely to stoke growing concerns among science teachers around the country that teaching climate science is becoming the same kind of classroom and community flash point as evolution. If it becomes law, Tennessee will become the second state, after Louisiana, to allow the teaching of alternatives to accepted science on climate change.
The Tennessee measure does not require the teaching of alternatives to scientific theories of evolution, climate change, human cloning and "the chemical origins of life." Instead, the legislation would prevent school administrators from reining in teachers who expound on alternative hypotheses to those topics.
The measure's primary sponsor, Republican state Sen. Bo Watson, said it was meant to give teachers the clarity and security to discuss alternative ideas to evolution and climate change that students may have picked up at home and want to explore in class.
"There appear to be questions from teachers like, 'What can we discuss and not discuss that won't get us in trouble as far as nonconventional, nonscientific ideas, things that student may see videos about on YouTube?'" Watson said. "It doesn't allow for religious or nonreligious ideology to be introduced."
The bill's critics, which include the Tennessee Science Teachers Assn. and the state chapter of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union, counter that teachers currently have no problem addressing unconventional ideas and challenges students bring up. They argue, instead, that the measure gives legal cover to teachers to introduce pseudoscientific ideas to students, and they have asked the governor to veto it.
Passed by the state Legislature and awaiting Republican Gov.Bill Haslam's signature, the measure is likely to stoke growing concerns among science teachers around the country that teaching climate science is becoming the same kind of classroom and community flash point as evolution. If it becomes law, Tennessee will become the second state, after Louisiana, to allow the teaching of alternatives to accepted science on climate change.
The Tennessee measure does not require the teaching of alternatives to scientific theories of evolution, climate change, human cloning and "the chemical origins of life." Instead, the legislation would prevent school administrators from reining in teachers who expound on alternative hypotheses to those topics.
The measure's primary sponsor, Republican state Sen. Bo Watson, said it was meant to give teachers the clarity and security to discuss alternative ideas to evolution and climate change that students may have picked up at home and want to explore in class.
"There appear to be questions from teachers like, 'What can we discuss and not discuss that won't get us in trouble as far as nonconventional, nonscientific ideas, things that student may see videos about on YouTube?'" Watson said. "It doesn't allow for religious or nonreligious ideology to be introduced."
The bill's critics, which include the Tennessee Science Teachers Assn. and the state chapter of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union, counter that teachers currently have no problem addressing unconventional ideas and challenges students bring up. They argue, instead, that the measure gives legal cover to teachers to introduce pseudoscientific ideas to students, and they have asked the governor to veto it.
13/ Remember the Honey Badger video, narrated by Randall? Here is the "Stiffy Goat " video......45 seconds....
OK, OK.....here's the crazy ass Honey Badger again......
14/ Most interesting article, primarily about the calories in movie popcorn, but also about the FDA, common meals and how much fat and carbs there are in them, and general philosophy about food......
Nothing too heavy, just some food reality.......
Back in a very different era, my dad drove a 1974 Chrysler Imperial. An insane artifact by today’s standards, it featured a 7.2-liter engine and had an interior that was larger in footprint terms than many New York City kitchens.
Today, that Imperial—in the new, post-OPEC crisis world, Chrysler started making them smaller the very next year—is a symbol of an age that’s unthinkable to most of us today. I’ve long thought that today’s equivalent of the Imperial is that massive tub of movie popcorn, large enough that an infant could be bathed in it. One of these days, after we’ve quit worrying about labels like “nanny state” and sorted out the difference between “freedom” and mere selfishness or stupidity, we’ll look back on it as madness. Until then, we’ll have Democratic White Houses overruling the FDA out of fear of Fox News.
This was the story in The New York Times this week, and it centered specifically on movie popcorn. As part of the health-care law, new rules would require restaurants and other food-serving establishments to post nutritional information. Movie theaters were on the original list sent out by the FDA. But, the Timesreports, after some White House intercessions, cinemas were dropped from the list.
In a nation up to its eyeballs in fat, nothing is more symbolic of it all than movie popcorn. A tub of the stuff, a recent study found, is the equivalent of eating, according to a WebMD reporter, “a pound of baby back ribs and a scoop of Häagen-Dazs.” We’re talking about 1,100 to 1,400 calories and maybe 60 grams of fat. If you don’t follow these things, a person is supposed to take in maybe 2,000 calories a day, and 60 or 70 fat grams. It’s always been a mystery to me why movie popcorn is so off the charts, since microwave popcorn has about half the calories and fat, or a third even. There must be something about the stuff they inject into the movie version that … I don’t even want to finish writing that sentence.
Todays video - "The Funeral", homage by a widow to her departed husband......really moving.....and nice......yes, nice.......
Todays cowboy joke
A young cowboy sitting in a saloon one Saturday night recognized an elderly man
standing at the bar who, in his day, had been the fastest gun in the West.
The cowboy took a place next to the old-timer, bought him a drink
and told him of his great ambition to be a great shot . . .
standing at the bar who, in his day, had been the fastest gun in the West.
The cowboy took a place next to the old-timer, bought him a drink
and told him of his great ambition to be a great shot . . .
‘Could you give me some tips?' he asked.
The old man said, 'Well, for one thing, you're wearing your gun too high
tie the holster a little lower down on your leg.'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?'
'Sure will '
The young man did as he was told, stood up,
whipped out his .44 and shot the bow tie off the piano player.
The old man said, 'Well, for one thing, you're wearing your gun too high
tie the holster a little lower down on your leg.'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?'
'Sure will '
The young man did as he was told, stood up,
whipped out his .44 and shot the bow tie off the piano player.
'That's terrific!' said the cowboy . 'Got any more tips?'
'Yep,' said the old man. 'Cut a notch out of your holster where the hammer hits it
and that’ll give you a smoother draw'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?' asked the young man.
'You bet it will,' said the old-timer.
The young man took out his knife, cut the notch, stood up, drew his gun in a blur,
'Yep,' said the old man. 'Cut a notch out of your holster where the hammer hits it
and that’ll give you a smoother draw'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?' asked the young man.
'You bet it will,' said the old-timer.
The young man took out his knife, cut the notch, stood up, drew his gun in a blur,
and then shot a cufflink off the piano player.
'Wow!' exclaimed the cowboy 'I'm learnin' somethin' here. Got any more tips?'
The old man pointed to a large can in a corner of the saloon.
'See that axle grease over there? Coat your gun with it.'
'Wow!' exclaimed the cowboy 'I'm learnin' somethin' here. Got any more tips?'
The old man pointed to a large can in a corner of the saloon.
'See that axle grease over there? Coat your gun with it.'
The young man smeared some of the grease on the barrel of his gun.
'No,' said the old-timer, 'I mean smear it all over the gun, handle and all.'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?' asked the young man.
'No,' said the old-timer, 'but when Wyatt Earp gets done playing the piano,
he's gonna shove that gun up your ass, and it won't hurt as much.
'No,' said the old-timer, 'I mean smear it all over the gun, handle and all.'
'Will that make me a better gunfighter?' asked the young man.
'No,' said the old-timer, 'but when Wyatt Earp gets done playing the piano,
he's gonna shove that gun up your ass, and it won't hurt as much.
Todays golfer joke
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Todays really bad, offensive and rude British jokes