1/ This election in November is all about the [Citizens United] billionaire's war on Obama and the Democrats in the Senate and House, and this is the latest militant billionaire - Joe Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who was going to bankroll a campaign focussing on race......he had an ad that started with 'Barack Hussein Obama".....note that as of today after all of the publicity about this blatantly racist campaign this asshole has backed down.....
Joe Ricketts, an up-by-the-bootstraps billionaire whose varied holdings include a name-brand brokerage firm in Omaha, a baseball team in Chicago, herds of bison in Wyoming and a start-up news Web site in New York, wanted to be a player in the 2012 election. On Thursday he was, though not in the way he had intended
Word that Mr. Ricketts had considered bankrolling a $10 million advertising campaign linking President Obama to the incendiary race-infused statements of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., brought waves of denunciation from Mitt Romney, the Obama campaign and much of the rest of the political world.
Highlighting the perils of mixing partisan politics and corporate citizenship, the reverberations also swept through the Ricketts family’s business empire.
Liberal groups encouraged like-minded investors to drop their accounts with TD Ameritrade, the brokerage firm Mr. Ricketts founded. His family’s plan to seek public financing for improvements to Wrigley Field, home of their baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, ran into new political opposition. And he was forced to write a letter to reporters at his New York news organization, DNAinfo.com, assuring them he believed that “my personal politics should have absolutely no impact on your work.”
By early afternoon, Mr. Ricketts had announced that he had rejected the ad campaign as out of keeping with his own political style, a day after his aides indicated that it was still under consideration.
One race to focus on coming up is the June 5th recall of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin......this is the test of whether billionaire money can beat "boots on the ground"....the anti-union forces are outspending the Dems by 20-1........
2/ Ashleigh and Pudsey, winner of this years "Britain's Got Talent".....an excellent girl/dog combo that beat out the opera singing duo [remember the fat guy?].........2 minutes......and actually very good.......
3/ For a look at the raw corruption in our politics today - savour this story about a billionaire backer of the Keystone pipeline who is heavily backing Romney. This is another example of the big oil money dominating Republican politics today.........
The article illustrates a blatant quid pro pro - I give you campaign money, you approve the pipeline, I make billions.......
Mitt Romney’s fundraiser on Wednesday night in Oklahoma City was not just another chance for wealthy donors to fill the candidate’s campaign coffers, but reveals the GOP presidential candidate’s special relationship with oil tycoon Harold Hamm, chairman of Romney’s Energy Policy Advisory Council and host of the quiet soirée. What Hamm and Romney share, aside from great wealth, is a powerful desire to complete the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Hamm is the chairman and CEO of Continental Resources, one of the nation’s largest independent energy companies and leading developer and owner of more than 600,000 acres in the Bakken Oil Field in North Dakota. If the northern section of the pipeline were complete, it would connect to Hamm’s oil field, giving him a 1,700-mile conduit to the Gulf of Mexico. Hamm ranks 33rd on the Forbes’ wealth list and is worth around $12 billion. He estimates 24 billion barrels of crude at Bakken, mostly still underground, so Keystone XL — which would run down from Canada — would expedite his ascent up the billionaire ladder.
4/ More video of people doing dumb stuff.....this time at the seaside.........2 minutes......
5/ A fascinating article on how it is entirely possible the personality traits necessary to succeed in business at the highest levels are found most often in sociopaths.......
If you have ever worked for a large corporation you will have seen quite a few examples of this kind of behaviour....I did.
THERE is an ongoing debate in this country about the rich: who they are, what their social role may be, whether they are good or bad. Well, consider the following. A 2010 study found that 4 percent of a sample of corporate managers met a clinical threshold for being labeled psychopaths, compared with 1 percent for the population at large. (However, the sample was not representative, as the study’s authors have noted.) Another study concluded that the rich are more likely to lie, cheat and break the law.
The only thing that puzzles me about these claims is that anyone would find them surprising. Wall Street is capitalism in its purest form, and capitalism is predicated on bad behavior. This should hardly be news. The English writer Bernard Mandeville asserted as much nearly three centuries ago in a satirical-poem-cum-
“Private Vices, Publick Benefits” read the book’s subtitle. A Machiavelli of the economic realm — a man who showed us as we are, not as we like to think we are — Mandeville argued that commercial society creates prosperity by harnessing our natural impulses: fraud, luxury and pride. By “pride” Mandeville meant vanity; by “luxury” he meant the desire for sensuous indulgence. These create demand, as every ad man knows. On the supply side, as we’d say, was fraud: “All Trades and Places knew some Cheat, / No Calling was without Deceit.”
In other words, Enron, BP, Goldman, Philip Morris, G.E., Merck, etc., etc. Accounting fraud, tax evasion, toxic dumping, product safety violations, bid rigging, overbilling, perjury. The Walmart bribery scandal, the News Corp. hacking scandal — just open up the business section on an average day. Shafting your workers, hurting your customers, destroying the land. Leaving the public to pick up the tab. These aren’t anomalies; this is how the system works: you get away with what you can and try to weasel out when you get caught.
I always found the notion of a business school amusing. What kinds of courses do they offer? Robbing Widows and Orphans? Grinding the Faces of the Poor? Having It Both Ways? Feeding at the Public Trough? There was a documentary several years ago called “The Corporation” that accepted the premise that corporations are persons and then asked what kind of people they are. The answer was, precisely, psychopaths: indifferent to others, incapable of guilt, exclusively devoted to their own interests.
6/ A wonderful 16 minute segment where Rachael Maddow nails Fox News for not just lying, but actually creating a false news story......it involves Frank Vandersloot, the Idaho billionaire who is anti-gay and hates the President.......
This is even more interesting because I have received two emails from some right wing friends quoting versions of this story, which is complete bullshit........but the Fox attack machine works.......
7/ A great 2 minute "Really?" clip from SNL with Seth Myers on the Time Magazine breast feeding cover.....very funny....
8/ This caught my attention - a "TED" talk that the well respected site would not post as it was too controversial........it's a 5 minute lecture by a very rich guy explaining the reality of the "trickle down wealth" effect, and how tax cuts for the rich don't work. Period.
Good, and really interesting graphics too.....
9/ This is a story that's wrong on multiple levels........It's a story of a black lady in Jacksonville who fired a warning shot at her abusive husband after he threatened her........and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. A warning shot. Noone was hurt. It shows:
War on women.....and specifically poor minority women.
Racial and class discrimination.......a black female being charged with a crime no white housewife would ever be accused of......
Florida's criminal justice system........they don't want trials - there was a three year plea bargain offer, but she went to trial and was punished with 20 years......note the jury deliberated for about 15 minutes.....
Selective use of the "stand your ground" rule.....if you're black and trying to warn an abusive spouse "stand your ground" doesn't apply.......but if you are a neighborhood vigilante in Sanford, no problem.......
Marissa Alexander the 31-year-old Florida woman who fired what her family calls a warning shot at her abusive husband, was sentenced Friday morning to 20 years in prison.
Alexander was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for firing into a wall near her husband and his two young children at their Jacksonville home in 2010. Alexander has maintained that she wasn't trying to hurt anyone and that she was standing her ground against a man who had over the course of nearly a year punched and choked her on several different occasions. Alexander says that she believed she was protected that day under the state's Stand Your Ground Law, which gives people wide discretion in using deadly force to defend themselves.
A judge and a jury disagreed.
The State Attorney's Office offered a plea bargain that would have sent Alexander to prison for three years, but she rejected it, hoping to convince a jury that she had been defending herself when she fired the weapon.
This is where if you are on a jury and get a case like this, consider telling your fellow jurors about "Jury Nullification".......these minimum mandatory sentences are ridiculous........
Jury nullification is a constitutional doctrine which allows juries to acquit criminal defendants who are technically guilty, but who do not deserve punishment. It occurs in atrial when a jury reaches a verdict contrary to the judge's instructions as to the law.
A jury verdict contrary to the letter of the law pertains only to the particular case before it. If a pattern of acquittals develops, however, in response to repeated attempts to prosecute a statutory offence, this can have the de facto effect of invalidating the statute. A pattern of jury nullification may indicate public opposition to an unwanted legislative enactment.
In the past, it was feared that a single judge or panel of government officials may be unduly influenced to follow established legal practice, even when that practice had drifted from its origins. In most modern Western legal systems, however, juries are often instructed to serve only as "finders of facts", whose role it is to determine the veracity of the evidence presented, and the weight accorded to the evidence,[1] to apply that evidence to the law and reach a verdict, but not to decide what the law is. Similarly, juries are routinely cautioned by courts and some attorneys to not allow sympathy for a party or other affected persons to compromise the fair and dispassionate evaluation of evidence during the guilt phase of a trial. These instructions are criticized by advocates of jury nullification. Some commonly cited historical examples of jury nullification involve the refusal of American colonial juries to convict a defendant under English law.[2]
Juries have also refused to convict due to the perceived injustice of a law in general,[3] or the perceived injustice of the way the law is applied in particular cases.[4] There have also been cases where the juries have refused to convict due to their own prejudices such as the race of one of the parties in the case.[5]
10/ Surprisingly nice rendition of "My Way" by world class violinist Andre Rieu and the full Radio City Music Hall orchestra.......teary video clips as well.......about 6 minutes......
11/ The "debate" about our national debt won't go away - most economists know it's a complete distraction from our real structural problems, but the Republicans keep at it and are winning the media war......interesting article........and Democrats need to let this sink in, and fight back.......
It seems as if the Republicans, meaning both John Boehner and Mitt Romney, are trying to turn the national debt back into a major political issue. Now, a visitor from Mars might wonder how this is possible. How could a party that (a) passed the massive tax cuts that were the single largest legislative contributor to today’s record deficits, (b) increased spending rapidly the last time it controlled the federal government, and (c) cannot talk in detail about anything except deficit-increasing tax cuts possibly think that calling attention to deficits could be a political winner?
Well, despite the Republican Party’s abysmal record when it comes to fiscal responsibility, it could still turn out to be smart politics, for a few reasons. One is that many Americans reflexively associate large deficits with excessive spending, even though reductions in tax revenues have played just as big a role since George W. Bush became president. (Compare, for example, receipts and outlays in 2000 and 2011 as a percentage of GDP.) Then they associate excessive spending with Democrats, although the only president to reduce spending significantly in the past forty years was Bill Clinton. It turns out that if you repeat the same tired attack lines year after year—Democrats are all tax and spend liberals, for example—people believe them.
The other, more important reason why Republicans like talking about the national debt is that Democrats don’t have a good response. Sure, Democrats have lots of policy proposals, and theirs make a good deal more sense than the Republicans’; it was President Obama who proposed trillions of dollars in spending cuts and tax increases, which is what people supposedly want (according to opinion surveys, at least).
But most Democrats just don’t like talking about deficits and the national debt. They think it’s a distraction from talking about jobs and unemployment, or they think simply broaching the subject is succumbing to a vast right-wing conspiracy to slash entitlements, or both. The result is that there is no liberal progressive position on the national debt. There’s the Republican one (Romney, Boehner, Ryan), which is to cut taxes (boggle); and there’s the Obama one, which is basically the Republican-Lite position of George H. W. Bush, and which many liberal Democrats run away from. On the left, all there is is a vague belief that you can balance the budget by increasing taxes on the rich, but no one really wants to come out and say it. (Also, the numbers don’t add up unless you’re willing to boost the tax rates on millionaires to very high levels; just, say, repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich won’t cut it.) Instead, the strategy is to demonize RyanCare, which is effective as a short-term tactic, but doesn’t really amount to a coherent message on the national debt.
12/ A pretty good Bill Maher "New Rules" segment....not his finest, but even an average Maher is very funny.....6 minutes.......
13/ More and more households are watching TV differently, and it's screwing up the whole basis of network television......this is you folks....and me too.....we rarely watch any live TV because we TIVO everything.....
The world is changing, especially the media landscape.......most interesting story......
This week, when they ring the bell on the television upfronts, the annual orgy of advertising buying, I hope the industry isn’t counting on my house to lift ratings.
So far in the month of May, our household has watched exactly two minutes and one second of live television. NBC’s broadcast of “the most exciting two minutes in sports,” as the Kentucky Derby is described, was epic, unfurling on the big flat panel we finally bought. But I doubt our spasm of live viewing is enough to keep the television business in business.
And it wasn’t an anomaly. In April, our sum total of live viewing — the building block of the upfront — came during CBS’s broadcast of the Masters. Even then, I was more riveted by the iPad app in my lap, selecting players and holes to follow.
It’s an apt metaphor. When it comes to the traditional screen that families gather around, live television is competing against a growing array of self-selected content. Given the amount of high-quality shows idling in my DVR and on-demand queue, channel surfing for live television seems very last century. And our television is Web-enabled, so a vast treasure of other goodies awaits from Netflix, Hulu Plus and Apple TV.
(Our house is part of a rapidly growing trend: online viewing is up more than 46 percent in just the last year, according to the media buying firm Horizon Media. And as my colleague Bill Carter noted, live ratings for network programs have declined for 14 consecutive quarters, with audiences bolting in record numbers this spring.)
Outside of the professional football season or some breaking national news event, the television at our house has become uncoupled from the commercial-driven environment that drives the broadcast and cable business. We haven’t cut the cord so much as kinked it in a way that commercials rarely sneak through.
I continue to be a fan of (some) network television products; I just don’t consume them as they’re broadcast.
14/ Our Congressman here in Lake County [and Mount Dora], Daniel Webster, introduced a bill to abolish the census bureau, one of the many government agencies that do something useful. Our Dan is symptomatic of the Republican war on facts, on information......
Just for your info he also a complete abortion loonie, anti-women and a religious nut job.
Central Florida U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster in recent days has been taking heavy criticism for a push to end a key demographic survey that proponents say is an indispensable tool for tracking the nation's economic social and economic tides.
Enlarge
U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Orlando, is shown in this March 23, 2011 photo from his congressional website.
The Orlando Republican tacked an amendment onto the Commerce Department's annual budget bill ending the American Community Survey, or ACS — a 28-page questionnaire submitted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau to some 3 million randomly chosen American homes.
The survey in its present form has been in use since 2005. But the roots of some of its questions, and the nature of the information sought, stretches back to at least 1850, according to the Census Bureau.
Webster's measure would have eliminated funding for the ACS, saving, according to the congressman, $2.4 billion over the next decade.
It passed 232-190 along party lines, with four Democrats supporting Webster and 10 of his fellow Republicans dissenting.
A vote on the overall budget bill also killed the nation's economic census, which every five years gathers information from millions of businesses.
Since then critics on the left and right have assailed the House's decision, suggesting that dropping the ACS would be a public disservice.
During last week's floor debate, Webster characterized the ACS as “intrusive” and “unconstitutional.”
“As a citizen who has normal expectations about what is private and what is not private, I share that criticism,” Webster said.
15/ Good review of the Ford Focus EV.......it's a normal Focus, just with an 80 mile range........
CRITICS of electric vehicles say they are too expensive and lack sufficient driving range. But I wonder if those gripes would disappear if the E.V.’s on sale weren’t so — let’s not mince words — homely. I adore my all-electric Nissan Leaf, but its wide rear end, bulging headlights and odd proportions evoke a Japanese gizmo aesthetic that doesn’t necessarily appeal to mainstream American car buyers.
Enter the handsome 2012 Ford Focus Electric, the first all-electric car from a Detroit automaker in the 21st century. Ford will begin selling the electric version of the new Focus in the next few weeks in California, New York and New Jersey, followed by 19 additional markets in the fall.
The Focus Electric looks nearly identical to the gas version, a small “Electric” badge the only clue that internal combustion has been supplanted by swift and silent electric propulsion. Sit in the low-slung, well-conforming seats and you feel oh-so normal. There are no circuit-board motifs, techno start-up sounds, weird shifter knobs or special Eco modes. The driver chooses among standard gear selections: park, reverse, neutral, drive and low.
Todays safety tips.........not jokes, useful information........I have Snoped both of them, and they are true.....
SAFE-DRIVING TIPS WHEN IT IS RAINING!
How to achieve good vision while driving during a heavy downpour. We are not sure why it is so effective; just try this method when it rains heavily. This method was told by a Police friend who had experienced and confirmed it.
Most motorists turn on HIGH or FASTEST SPEED of the wipers during heavy downpour, yet the visibility in front of the windshield is still bad.......
In the event you face such a situation, just put on your SUNGLASSES (polarised only], and miracles! All of a sudden, your visibility in front of your windshield is perfectly clear, as if there is no rain.
Amazingly, you still see the drops on the windshield, but not the sheet of rain falling. You can see where the rain bounces off the road. It works to eliminate the "blindness" from passing cars. Or the "kickup" if you are following a car in the rain.
They ought to teach this little tip in driver's training.. It really does work.
Another good tip:
A 36 year old female had an accident several weeks ago. It was raining, though not excessively when her car suddenly began to hydro-plane and literally flew through the air. She was not seriously injured but very stunned at the sudden occurrence! When she explained to the Police Officer what had happened, he told her something that every driver should know -
NEVER DRIVE IN THE RAIN WITH YOUR CRUISE CONTROL ON.
She thought she was being cautious by setting the cruise control and maintaining a safe consistent speed in the rain...
But the Police Officer told her that if the cruise control is on, your car will begin to hydro-plane when the tyres lose contact with the road, and your car will accelerate to a higher rate of speed making you take off like an aeroplane. She told the Officer that was exactly what had occurred. The Officer said this warning should be listed, on the driver's seat sun-visor - NEVER USETHE CRUISE CONTROL WHEN THE ROAD IS WET OR ICY, along with the airbag warning. We tell our teenagers to set the cruise control and drive a safe speed - but we don't tell them to use the cruise control only when the road is dry.
NOTE: Some vehicles (like the Toyota Sienna Limited XLE) will not allow you to set the cruise control when the windshield wipers are on.
Todays video - a Penguin Takes His Car to the Mechanic.......
Todays Jewish joke
A widowed Jewish lady, still in good shape, was sunbathing on a totally deserted beach at Ft. Myers. She looked up and noticed that a man her age, also in good shape, had walked up, placed his blanket on the sand near hers and began reading a book. Smiling, she attempted to strike up a conversation with him. "How are you today?" "Fine, thank you," he responded, and turned back to his book. "I love the beach. Do you come here often?" she asked. "First time since my wife passed away 2 years ago," he replied and turned back to his book. "I'm sorry to hear that. My husband passed away three years ago and it is very lonely," she countered. "Do you live around here?" She asked. Yes, I live over in Cape Coral ", he answered, and again he resumed reading. Trying to find a topic of common interest, she persisted, "Do you like pussy cats?" With that, the man dropped his book, came over to her blanket, tore off her swimsuit and gave her the most passionate lovemaking of her life. When the cloud of sand began to settle, she gasped and asked the man, "How did you know that was what I wanted?" The man replied, "How did you know my name was Katz?" |
Todays drunk joke
A guy was in a bar about as drunk as its possible to get.
A group of guys notice his condition and decide to be good Samaritans and take him home.
First they stand him up to get to his wallet so they can find out where he lives, but he keeps falling down.
He fell down eight more times on the way to the car, each time with a real thud.
After they get to his house, he falls down another four times getting him to the door.
His wife comes to the door, and one guy says, "We brought your husband home."
The wife asks, "Where's his wheelchair?"
Todays British joke
I was in a Pub on Saturday night. Had a few drinks.
I noticed two very large women by the bar.
Both had strong accents, so I asked "Hey, are you two ladies from
Scotland?"
One of them screamed, "It's Wales you friggin Idiot!"
So I immediately apologized and said, "Sorry, are you 2 whales from
Scotland?"
That's all I remember
Todays bonus married life joke
What is Celibacy?
Celibacy can be a choice in life, or a condition imposed by circumstances.
While attending a Marriage Weekend, Frank and his wife Ann listened to the instructor declare, "It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other. "
He then addressed the men.
"Can you name and describe your wife's favorite flower?"
Frank leaned over, touched Ann’s arm gently, and whispered,
"Gold Medal-All-Purpose, Isn't it?"
And thus began Frank's life of celibacy.
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