Don't forget - it's the first Presidential debate tonight.....9-10.30.......woop woop......
1/ Matt Taibbi with some sobering thoughts on the upcoming Presidential election, and in his inimitable style wonder how a douche like Romney is even close to being competitive in this race.....the answer - the corrupt establishment wants it this way......
If you want the truth - Taibbi is your journalist.......
The press everywhere is buzzing this week with premature obituaries of the Romney campaign. New polls are out suggesting that Mitt Romney's electoral path to the presidency is all but blocked. Unless someone snags an iPhone video of Obama taking a leak on Ohio State mascot Brutus Buckeye, or stealing pain meds from a Tampa retiree and sharing them with a bunch of Japanese carmakers, the game looks pretty much up – Obama's widening leads in three battleground states, Virginia, Ohio and Florida, seem to have sealed the deal.
That's left the media to speculate, with a palpable air of sadness, over where the system went wrong. Whatever you believe, many of these articles say, wherever you rest on the ideological spectrum, you should be disappointed that Obama ultimately had to run against such an incompetent challenger. Weirdly, there seems to be an expectation that presidential races should be closer, and that if one doesn't come down to the wire in an exciting photo finish, we've all missed out somehow.
Frank Bruni of The New York Times wrote a thoughtful, insightful editorial today that blames the painful, repetitive and vacuous campaign process for thinning the electoral herd and leaving us with only automatons and demented narcissists willing to climb the mountain:
Romney's bleeding has plenty to do with his intrinsic shortcomings and his shortsightedness: how does a man who has harbored presidential ambitions almost since he was a zygote create a paper trail of offshore accounts and tax returns like his?But I wonder if we're not seeing the worst possible version of him, and if it isn't the ugly flower of the process itself. I wonder, too, what the politicians mulling 2016 make of it, and whether, God help us, we'll be looking at an even worse crop of candidates then.
The Times, meanwhile, ran a house editorial blaming Romney's general obliqueness, his willingness to stretch the truth and his inability to connect with ordinary people for his fall. David Brooks ran a column suggesting that Romney's overreliance on a message of strict market conservatism, ignoring the values message of "traditional" conservatism, was what killed him in the end.
All of these points of view have merit, I guess, but to me they're mostly irrelevant. The mere fact that Mitt Romney is even within striking distance of winning this election is an incredible testament to two things: a) the rank incompetence of the Democratic Party, which would have this and every other election for the next half century sewn up if they were a little less money-hungry and tried just a little harder to represent their ostensible constituents, and b) the power of our propaganda machine, which has conditioned all of us to accept the idea that the American population, ideologically speaking, is naturally split down the middle, whereas the real fault lines are a lot closer to the 99-1 ratio the Occupy movement has been talking about since last year.
2/ The internet is full of goofy animal videos which I avoid, but every now and then Mary forces me to look at one..... I have to say this is a cutie.....
The owner of this dog is a concert pianist, and plays every day for hours, with his dog watching. Watch what happens when he leaves the house.....one minute.....
3/ Rick Scott is making headlines with his efforts to get illegal aliens [so far about 65] off the rolls to prevent voter fraud, while the Republican National Committee was using a consultant to actually commit voter fraud in Florida.....
This criminal case is under investigation by "Florida", but as we all know since this firm was doing Republican bidding under our intrepid Governor we all know this case is going nowhere......
It's just blatant.....corruption everywhere.......anything connected with our Republican Governor and House.....the Senate, although solidly right wing, is a little more sensible....
The Republican National Committee is cutting ties to Strategic Allied Consulting, a voter registration firm under investigation for turning in fraudulent voter registration forms in Florida. The RNC hired the firm to do voter registration drives for $3.1 million this year.
The firm’s founder, Nathan Sproul, is a longtime Republican strategist whose reputation was tarred by widespread accusationsof voter registration fraud and attempts to suppress Democratic voter turnout. George W. Bush’s campaign reportedly paid Sproul over $8 million for his work in the 2004 election. Sproul, now under new scrutiny, claims he started Strategic Allied Consulting because the RNC wanted to hide his past:
Sproul said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the RNC’s request because the party wanted to avoid being publicly linked to the past allegations. The firm was set up at a Virginia address, and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork.“In order to be able to do the job that the state parties were hiring us to do, the [RNC] asked us to do it with a different company’s name, so as to not be a distraction from the false information put out in the Internet,” Sproul said.
Republicans have launched relentless efforts to prevent in-person voter fraud, which is exceptionally rare, yet seem to have ignored the real threat of voter registration fraud by their own consultant. In a twist one Florida Supervisor of Elections called “ironic,” Sproul’s organization was in fact registering dead voters as Republicans, even as Republican lawmakers all over the country justified discriminatory voter purges with the threat of dead votersshowing up to the polls.
4/ Good grief! What did Mitt Romney do to piss off Samuel L. Jackson? Scary stuff, great message and a charming little girl......about 4 minutes.....you get the idea after the first two......
5/ You don't see stories about the drought any more, but it's still with us, and getting worse. But who gives a shit......football's on, the world isn't at war anywhere important, TV is great again so Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma can suck it up......
Pray for rain dudes......
KANSAS CITY, Sept 27 (Reuters) - The worst drought in more than half a century baked more than two thirds of the continental United States this summer and its harsh effects continue to plague the parched cities and towns of the Great Plains.
Ask the 94,000 people of San Angelo, Texas who are running out of water. Fast.
The city -- once known as "the oasis" of dry west Texas -- now says it only has enough water supplies to last one more year. On Oct. 16, it will enforce its highest level of emergency measures to save its water supply.
That first-ever "Drought Level III" declaration will ban any watering of lawns, golf courses and gardens, forbid fresh water use for swimming pools and close commercial car washes.
The city will also push up usage fees aiming to cut water use by at least 30 percent as it awaits a new water pipeline now under construction. The pipeline will not be available for use until mid-2013 or later.
Protests from local businesses has prompted the city to consider some exceptions but those may be temporary, officials say.
"We need to get back to meeting just basic needs," said Will Wilde, water utilities director for San Angelo. "We don't want to put people out of business. It may come to that if conditions get extreme in the future. Do you want to keep a green lawn or do you want water to drink?"
Despite recent rains the drought continues to expand, with severe or worse drought affecting 83.80 percent of the High Plains region, up from 82.81 percent the prior week, according to the weekly Drought Monitor on Thursday.
More than half of Texas is having a drought that is rated severe or worse, and more than 95 percent of Oklahoma is rated as experiencing the more serieous category of extreme drought.
The entire state of Kansas is rated in severe drought, with 88 percent of the state falling into the more serious "extreme" drought category. The designation comes as farmers struggle to plant winter wheat.
Ask the 94,000 people of San Angelo, Texas who are running out of water. Fast.
The city -- once known as "the oasis" of dry west Texas -- now says it only has enough water supplies to last one more year. On Oct. 16, it will enforce its highest level of emergency measures to save its water supply.
That first-ever "Drought Level III" declaration will ban any watering of lawns, golf courses and gardens, forbid fresh water use for swimming pools and close commercial car washes.
The city will also push up usage fees aiming to cut water use by at least 30 percent as it awaits a new water pipeline now under construction. The pipeline will not be available for use until mid-2013 or later.
Protests from local businesses has prompted the city to consider some exceptions but those may be temporary, officials say.
"We need to get back to meeting just basic needs," said Will Wilde, water utilities director for San Angelo. "We don't want to put people out of business. It may come to that if conditions get extreme in the future. Do you want to keep a green lawn or do you want water to drink?"
Despite recent rains the drought continues to expand, with severe or worse drought affecting 83.80 percent of the High Plains region, up from 82.81 percent the prior week, according to the weekly Drought Monitor on Thursday.
More than half of Texas is having a drought that is rated severe or worse, and more than 95 percent of Oklahoma is rated as experiencing the more serieous category of extreme drought.
The entire state of Kansas is rated in severe drought, with 88 percent of the state falling into the more serious "extreme" drought category. The designation comes as farmers struggle to plant winter wheat.
6/ Mitt Romney's campaign and Fox News are going through the five stages of grief......very clever and quite funny clip from Stephen Colbert......two minutes......
F
Fox News and Stephen Colbert aren't paying attention to the polls, because if they did they would have to start "mourning the death of the Romney campaign."
http://www.gotchamediablog.
7/ I love to read smart people's writing.....your eyes are opened anew to things you already think you have a handle on. Consider the recent referees strike/lockout and the NFL - here is an essay on the real issues behind the dispute......
Excellent stuff......
IT was a thoroughly modern economic game, this three-way tiff between N.F.L. owners, players and referees. The N.F.L.’s unionized officials asked for significant wage and pension changes from America’s leading sporting league. In response, the N.F.L. locked out the unionized refs and brought in replacements. The replacement refs struggled. In turn, players spoke out against the replacement refs — especially after an egregious error that ended a marquee game between Green Bay and Seattle. Players, fans and members of the media demanded that the N.F.L. capitulate and pay whatever it took to bring back the regular refs. Finally, a deal was done.
But why the lockout, and why did the N.F.L. fight so hard? Because the league was fighting a bigger fight, one that is representative of a war beneath the surface of the modern economy — the war between capital and talent.
Since the Industrial Revolution, two groups have fought for the spoils of their joint production. On one side is capital — the owners and investors who provide the means of production. On the other side is labor — the workers who turn invested capital into profits. Traditionally, capital wielded disproportionate power.
As late as the early 20th century, capital brutally suppressed labor and ground down wages to subsistence levels. But labor fought back, aided by Congress, which passed the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. The act paved the way for big increases in unionized labor wages, and union participation tripled.
Inevitably, capital fought back. Through the 1970s, owners moved jobs to Sun Belt right-to-work states. They automated, outsourced and worked to diminish the power of unions. When Ronald Reagan crushed the air traffic controllers’ union in 1981, it was a clear signal: labor had finally been forced to capitulate entirely.
But around this time, a dangerous new adversary to capital emerged: talent. Talent, in contrast to the more generic labor, is highly skilled and portable. And in the 1970s, talent began to flex its muscles. In Hollywood, artists demanded “percentage deals” rather than straight compensation (see George Lucas’s profit share on the “Star Wars” films). On Wall Street, investment managers demanded 20 percent of the upside on top of the traditional 2 percent of assets under management. In executive suites, C.E.O.’s accrued stock-based compensation so that they could share the upside with the capitalists. And, in 1975, baseball players won free agency, which led to the explosion of athlete salaries across professional sports.
Generally, capital was not amused. Yet capital capitulated because this was a different kind of labor, with unique, specialized skills that consumers want and need. Replacement air traffic controllers were O.K.; but not replacement N.F.L. players, or a replacement Harrison Ford.
The war between capital and labor became a three-way battle, with talent wedging its way onto the proverbial playing field. The biggest loser has been labor. Capital has given so much to talent — because it has no choice — that capital is even less inclined to give any quarter to labor. Capital is outraged because it is being beaten up by talent — whether C.E.O.’s, investment bankers, consultants, movie stars, players — and it takes out its anger on the easiest target: labor.
This is why income inequality is increasing. There are two kinds of inequality: the gap between the 99th percentile and the 50th percentile, and the gap between the 1st percentile and the 50th percentile. America’s increase is primarily the former — hence the “99 percent” movement. Talent is extracting more of the pie and getting richer. The gulf grows between talent — the high-earning, differentiated workers — and labor, those widget makers who support them. No surprise that owners have attempted to dissemble on this front, creating definitions of labor and talent that work to owners’ advantage.
8/ Regular readers of DDD know how great it is when Fox News gets nailed for lying, or idiotic BS..... here are a couple of delightful examples of this genre....which also happen to be funny........
The first is Jon Stewart nailing the network for inventing a story.....that just happens to feature negativity about Michelle Obama.....4 minutes.....
On Thursday night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart did not hold back his feelings about Fox News' vilification of Michelle Obama for -- dun dun dun -- encouraging children to eat healthier.
The First Lady has made curbing childhood obesity her pet cause during her time in the White House, and part of that agenda included the USDA updating public school cafeteria recommendations to include (slightly) healthier options. Cue the Fox News outrage, because, why not attack each and every thing the Obamas do?
Jon wasn't about to let Fox's pundits off the hook. "Why is this news?!" he rhetorically asked. "If [Michelle Obama] said we needed clean air, half the country would demand gills, because, freedom!" Stewart said.
The issue became a hot topic after a video went viral of public school students singing about the changes, which Fox offered a different level of sympathy than, say, a video of children praising the President after he took office.
9/ The second is a very amusing chiding of Fox News about their reactions to the news that the President is ahead of Romney on the polls, by Stephen Colbert.....four minutes.....
Polls can't be trusted, Stephen Colbert joked on Thursday night, and Fox News knows just what he's talking about!
The host mocked the network's reporting of its own polls, which put President Obama ahead of Mitt Romney. He played a clip of a Fox News saying that Obama is up among "likely voters" in three swing states, but loses some of his edge with voters "extremely interested" in the election.
10/ The efforts by right wing media to vilify our public schools and teachers has be gaining momentum, and ordinary people are likely to have a more negative view than they used to.....but it's all lies that are repeated over and over and over....
Here are the five biggest lies about America's schools......read this so you can fight back against Fox News viewers...........
Just weeks into the 2012-2013 school year education issues are already playing a starring role in the national conversation about America’s future. Because it’s an election year, the presidential candidates have been busy pretending there are manysubstantial distinctions
Since pundits and politicians often engage in education rhetoric that obscures what’s really going on, here are five corrections to some of the more egregious claims you may have recently heard.
Lie #1: Unions are undermining the quality of education in America.
Teachers unions have gotten a bad rap in recent years, but as education professor Paul Thomas of Furman University tells AlterNet, “The anti-union message…has no basis in evidence.” In fact, Furman points out, “Union states tend to correlate with higher test scores.” As a 2010 study conducted by Albert Shanker Fellow Matthew Di Carlo found, “[T]he states in which there are no teachers covered under binding agreements score lower [on standardized assessment tests] than the states that have them… If anything, it seems that the presence of teacher contracts in a state has a positive effect on achievement” – by as much as three to five points in reading and math at varying grade levels.
11/ Hilarious clip from SNL - "Girl you wish you hadn't started a conversation with at a Party"........very good......I've met ditzes like this......
12/ It's self evident that eating junk food with all of the chemicals in it is cumulatively bad for you, and eventually wrecks your body. But new studies show junk food destroys your mind as well......Alzheimers anyone? Off you go to Hardees.....
Just in case you need another reason to cut back on junk food, it now turns out that Alzheimer’s could well be a form of diet-induced diabetes. That’s the bad news. The good news is that laying off soda, doughnuts, processed meats and fries could allow you to keep your mind intact until your body fails you.
We used to think there were two types of diabetes: the type you’re born with (Type 1) and the type you “get.” That’s called Type 2, and was called “adult onset” until it started ravaging kids. Type 2 is brought about by a combination of factors, including overeating, American-style.
The idea that Alzheimer’s might be Type 3 diabetes has been around since 2005, but the connection between poor diet and Alzheimer’s is becoming more convincing, as summarized in a cover story in New Scientist entitled “Food for Thought: What You Eat May Be Killing Your Brain.” (The graphic — a chocolate brain with a huge piece missing — is creepy. But for the record: chocolate is not the enemy.)
The studies [1] are increasingly persuasive, and unsurprising when you understand the role of insulin in the body. So, a brief lesson.
We all need insulin: in non-diabetics, it’s released to help cells take in the blood sugar (glucose) they need for energy. But the cells can hold only so much; excess sugar is first stored as glycogen, and — when there’s enough of that — as fat. (Blood sugar doesn’t come only from sugar, but from carbohydrates of all kinds; easily digested carbohydrates flood the bloodstream with sugar.) Insulin not only keeps the blood vessels that supply the brain healthy, it also encourages the brain’s neurons to absorb glucose, and allows those neurons to change and become stronger. Low insulin levels in the brain mean reduced brain function.
We all need insulin: in non-diabetics, it’s released to help cells take in the blood sugar (glucose) they need for energy. But the cells can hold only so much; excess sugar is first stored as glycogen, and — when there’s enough of that — as fat. (Blood sugar doesn’t come only from sugar, but from carbohydrates of all kinds; easily digested carbohydrates flood the bloodstream with sugar.) Insulin not only keeps the blood vessels that supply the brain healthy, it also encourages the brain’s neurons to absorb glucose, and allows those neurons to change and become stronger. Low insulin levels in the brain mean reduced brain function.
Type 1 diabetes, in which the immune system destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, accounts for about 10 percent of all cases. Type 2 diabetes is chronic or environmental, and it’s especially prevalent in populations that overconsume hyperprocessed foods, like ours. It’s tragically, increasingly common — about a third of Americans have diabetes or pre-diabetes — and treatable but incurable. It causes your cells to fail to retrieve glucose from the blood, either because your pancreas isn’t producing enough insulin or the body’s cells ignore that insulin. (That’s “insulin resistance”; stand by.)
Put as simply as possible (in case your eyes glaze over as quickly as mine when it comes to high school biology), insulin “calls” your cells, asking them to take glucose from the bloodstream: “Yoo-hoo. Pick this stuff up!”
When the insulin calls altogether too often — as it does when you drink sugar-sweetened beverages and repeatedly eat junk food — the cells are overwhelmed, and say, “Leave me alone.” They become resistant. This makes the insulin even more insistent and, to make matters worse, all those elevated insulin levels are bad for your blood vessels.
Diabetes causes complications too numerous to mention, but they include heart disease, which remains our No. 1 killer. And when the cells in your brain become insulin-resistant, you start to lose memory and become disoriented. You even might lose aspects of your personality.
In short, it appears, you develop Alzheimer’s.
13/ Any of you frequent Disney World? Nice of you to contribute to their political funds.......almost all of which go to Republican candidates.....I hear Universal has some good rides......
Good column from Scott Maxwell......
Years ago, Orlando was pretty much a one-mouse town.
Disney pulled the strings, and the politicians were puppets.
Whatever Disney wanted, it got — from roads to special legislation granting the company governmentlike powers.
The allegiance helped Orlando emerge as one of the world's leading vacation destinations.
But somewhere along the way, Orlando grew up.
Tired of being viewed as local yokels beholden to the only game in town, leaders developed spines.
They knew tourism alone wouldn't provide a sustainable economy. So, occasionally, the politicians told Disney no. Sometimes they even got in Mickey Mouse's face.
Once, former Mayor Bill Frederick grew so tired of Disney taking more than it gave that he flew to Disney's headquarters in California, threatening to tell the world that the Happiest Place on Earth was also the stingiest when it came to helping the community it called home.
Suddenly, Disney was overwhelmed with a desire to give back … and the Walt Disney Amphitheatre at Lake Eola was born.
What evolved through the years was more of a partnership, where Disney and its executives ventured beyond the gates of Cinderella Castle to become involved in the community.
Yet it appears Disney is regressing.
In recent weeks, we have seen Disney try to bully, muscle and buy the public policy it wants.
We've seen the company pour unprecedented amounts of money into politics — $2.5 million in this cycle alone, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in what are essentially political slush funds for state legislators.
http://www.orlandosentinel.
14/ Rush with a classic video from 1982......."Subdivisions".....
15/ Want Rick Scott to choose Florida's Supreme Court? Yes, our asshole Governor.....choosing judges....thought not.
Interesting story from Carl Hiaasen on how the Koch brothers are trying to buy our judicial system......
Remember - vote NO on all 12 amendments in November.......
Billionaire Koch brothers try to buy state’s court
BY CARL HIAASEN
CHIAASEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
The new stealth campaign against three Florida Supreme Court justices is being backed by those meddling right-wing billionaires from Wichita, Charles and David Koch.
They couldn’t care less about Florida, but they love to throw their money around.
Last week they uncorked the first of a series of commercials from their political action committee, Americans for Prosperity. The targets are Justices R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince.
They were three of the five-vote majority that in 2010 knocked down a half-baked amendment slapped together by state lawmakers seeking to nullify the federal Affordable Health Care Act.
The Florida Supreme Court upheld lower court decisions in finding that the proposed amendment contained “misleading and ambiguous language,” the hallmark of practically everything produced by this Legislature. Stoned chimpanzees have a keener grasp of constitutional law.
Conservative groups have gone after local justices before. In Iowa, a place which has nothing but vowels in common with Florida, three state justices were fired by voters after being vilified for ruling against a ban on gay marriage.
On the November ballot, Lewis, Pariente and Quince are up for merit retention, meaning voters can choose to retain them or not. This simple system was put in place to keep the state’s high court above the sleaze of political races.
The mission of the Kochs, hiding as always behind their super PAC, is to get the three justices dumped at the polls so that Gov. Rick Scott can appoint replacements.
This is worth repeating: If the Kochs have their way, Rick Scott — yes, that Rick Scott — gets to pack the Supreme Court with his own hand-picked crew.
Yikes is right.
16/ Out in theaters now is "Looper", a smart sci-fi actioner starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis.....
Good review from Entertainment Weekly.......trailer is in the beginning of the article......
The smart time-traveling sci-fi thriller Looperimagines a world just near enough to look familiar, and just futuristic enough to be chillingly askew. The year is 2074 — when, come to think of it, today's college freshmen will still be roaming the earth. Yet time travel is already possible, if illegal, given the havoc such historical leapfrogging could wreak. The situation is good business, though, for a ring of gangsters led by a mysterious boss called the Rainmaker, who, with his henchmen, runs a lucrative assassination business in the shadows: They ship designated victims back in time 30 years and employ Mob foot soldiers, called ''loopers,'' stationed in 2044 to take care of business — no muss, no fuss, no evidence. The bound and hooded victim arrives zzzzpthrough a wormhole in time and space, and the looper shoots the vic kablooey dead (a clunky blunderbuss is the firearm of choice). Then the assassin collects his pay, parties hard (numbed by recreational drugs in the form of eyedrops), and waits for his next job.
In the worst-case scenario, the assignment requires ''closing the loop.'' That's when the unfortunate schmo scheduled for termination turns out to be the looper's future self — and when life starts resembling an existential Möbius strip.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays one such unfortunate schmo, a soul-deadened, blunderbuss-toting, drug-numbed, time-traveling employee named Joe. When this average Joe balks at closing his own loop, he messes with the laws of the universe. Gordon-Levitt also messes with our heads, because he appears both familiar and not so. The always compelling, ever more impressive actor is seven years older than he was when he first worked with Looper writer-director Rian Johnson on the filmmaker's first feature, Brick. But with the help of subtle prosthetic work, Gordon-Levitt not only looks older and more mature in Looper; around the nose, lip, and eyebrow he also looks a little like someone else. Like Bruce Willis, in fact.
Todays video - the great Dyson commercial......
Todays Irish joke
In an art gallery in Dublin hung a painting.
The painting depicted three black men totally naked sitting on a park bench. Two of the figures had black penises, but the one in the middle had a pink penis.The curator of the gallery realized that they were having trouble
interpreting the painting and offered his assessment.He went on for over half an hour explaining how it depicted the sexual emasculation of black men in a predominately white, patriarchal society. 'In fact,' he pointed out, 'some serious critics believe that the pink penis also reflects the cultural and sociological oppression experienced by gay men in contemporary society.'After the curator left, an Irishman approached the couple and said,'Would you like to know what the painting is really about?''Now why would you claim to be more of an expert than the curator of the gallery?' asked the couple'Because I'm the guy who painted it,' he replied. 'In fact, there are no black men depicted at all.
They're just three Irish coal miners. The guy in the middle went home for lunch...
Todays airline jokes
Kulula is an Airline with head office situated in Johannesburg, South Africa . Kulula airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight "safety lecture" and announcements a bit more entertaining.
Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported: On a Kulula flight, (there is no assigned seating, you just sit where you want) passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight attendant announced, "People, people we're not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!"
---o0o---
On another flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."
----o0o---
On landing, the stewardess said, "Please be sure to take all of your belongings.. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's something we'd like to have.."
----o0o---
"There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane."
---o0o---
"Thank you for flying Kulula. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."
---o0o---
As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Durban Airport , a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"
---o0o--
After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in the Karoo , a flight attendant on a flight announced, "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."
---o0o---
From a Kulula employee: "Welcome aboard Kulula 271 to Port Elizabeth . To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."
---o0o---
"In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travelling with more than one small child, pick your favorite."
---o0o---
"Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Kulula Airlines."
----o0o---
"Your seats cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments."
---o0o---
"As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses.."
---o0o---
And from the pilot during his welcome message: "Kulula Airlines is pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"
---o0o—
Heard on Kulula 255 just after a very hard landing in Cape Town : The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a bump and I know what y'all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault, it was the asphalt."
---o0o—
Overheard on a Kulula flight into Cape Town , on a particularly windy and bumpy day: During the final approach, the Captain really had to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Mother City. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"
---o0o—
Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."
---o0o—
An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying our airline". He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?" "Why, no Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?" The little old lady said,
But she did. |
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