1/ Looking at the reactions from the right to the elections on Tuesday was a little unsettling.....ranging from rage to complete denial and many emotions in between, none of them friendly towards the President or Democrats in general. This posting is a typical on on Facebook from a liberal, who is getting postings from conservative friends.
Okay - I can understand being bitterly disappointed. I can understand overwhelming frustration. I can even understand teeth-grinding anger. I totally sympathize. But I will not, cannot understand some of this venomous Armageddon attitude on FB this morning. I especially have a hard time reconciling it with some of the religious talk and symbolism that accompanies it...what the hell people? Have you lost your minds?
Maybe Rachel Maddow's show opener on Thursday will explain some of the emotions on the right. She recaps the more contentious races and summarises some of the issues....but it's her closing last four minutes that resonate with me. It's a wonderful 16 minutes, but if you don't have that time open it and forward to the 12 minute mark.....powerful, truthful TV.....
2/ Bill Maher's "New Rules" from Friday night, recapping the election in his own unique style.....check out Samuel L. Jackson's reactions......4 minutes......
3/ Coming down the pike at high speed is the so-called "fiscal cliff", which is actually more like a fiscal curb in reality......but as Paul Krugman states it's important for the country that the President stand firm and not make a deal.......
To say the obvious: Democrats won an amazing victory. Not only did they hold the White House despite a still-troubled economy, in a year when their Senate majority was supposed to be doomed, they actually added seats.
Nor was that all: They scored major gains in the states. Most notably, California — long a poster child for the political dysfunction that comes when nothing can get done without a legislative supermajority — not only voted for much-needed tax increases, but elected, you guessed it, a Democratic supermajority.
But one goal eluded the victors. Even though preliminary estimates suggest that Democrats received somewhat more votes than Republicans in Congressional elections, the G.O.P. retains solid control of the House thanks to extreme gerrymandering by courts and Republican-controlled state governments. And Representative John Boehner, the speaker of the House, wasted no time in declaring that his party remains as intransigent as ever, utterly opposed to any rise in tax rates even as it whines about the size of the deficit.
So President Obama has to make a decision, almost immediately, about how to deal with continuing Republican obstruction. How far should he go in accommodating the G.O.P.’s demands?
My answer is, not far at all. Mr. Obama should hang tough, declaring himself willing, if necessary, to hold his ground even at the cost of letting his opponents inflict damage on a still-shaky economy. And this is definitely no time to negotiate a “grand bargain” on the budget that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
4/ There is a tough little railway bridge in Britain that only has clearance of 11ft. 8 inches, which isn't enough for many trucks to pass under it.......hence this video from what I assume is surveillance footage.....3 minutes of "oh shit" moments......
5/ Naomi Klein, author of the "Shock Doctrine" with a column in the Guardian UK detailing the ways corporations are trying to turn natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy into opportunities to use the chaos to bend the rules and make piles of money.....
A thoughtful story.....
Less than three days after Sandy made landfall on the east coast of theUnited States, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute blamed New Yorkers' resistance to Big Box stores for the misery they were about to endure. Writing on Forbes.com, he explained that the city's refusal to embrace Walmart will likely make the recovery much harder: "Mom-and-pop stores simply can't do what big stores can in these circumstances," he wrote. He also warned that if the pace of reconstruction turned out to be sluggish (as it so often is) then "pro-union rules such as the Davis-Bacon Act" would be to blame, a reference to the statute that requires workers on public works projects to be paid not the minimum wage, but the prevailing wage in the region.
The same day, Frank Rapoport, a lawyer representing several billion-dollar construction and real estate contractors, jumped in to suggest that many of those public works projects shouldn't be public at all. Instead, cash-strapped governments should turn to public private partnerships, known as "P3s" in the US. That means roads, bridges and tunnels being rebuilt by private companies, which, for instance, could install tolls and keep the profits. These deals aren't legal in New York or New Jersey, but Rapoport believes that can change. "There were some bridges that were washed out in New Jersey that need structural replacement, and it's going to be very expensive," he told the Nation. "And so the government may well not have the money to build it the right way. And that's when you turn to a P3."
The prize for shameless disaster capitalism, however, surely goes to rightwing economist Russell S Sobel, writing in a New York Times online forum. Sobel suggested that, in hard-hit areas, Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) should create "free-trade zones – in which all normal regulations, licensing and taxes [are] suspended". This corporate free-for-all would, apparently, "better provide the goods and services victims need".
Yes, that's right: this catastrophe, very likely created by climate change – a crisis born of the colossal regulatory failure to prevent corporations from treating the atmosphere as their open sewer – is just one more opportunity for further deregulation. And the fact that this storm has demonstrated that poor and working-class people are far more vulnerable to the climate crisis shows that this is clearly the right moment to strip those people of what few labour protections they have left, as well as to privatise the meagre public services available to them. Most of all, when faced with an extraordinarily costly crisis born of corporate greed, hand out tax holidays to corporations.
The flurry of attempts to use Sandy's destructive power as a cash grab is just the latest chapter in the very long story I have called the The Shock Doctrine. And it is but the tiniest glimpse into the ways large corporations are seeking to reap enormous profits from climate chaos.
6/ "If Obama wins I'm moving to Australia" was the mantra for some on the right.......but be careful what you wish for......
7/ We all have passwords, but as this article says be very careful........
Not long after I began writing about cybersecurity, I became a paranoid caricature of my former self. It’s hard to maintain peace of mind when hackers remind me every day, all day, just how easy it is to steal my personal data.
Within weeks, I set up unique, complex passwords for every Web site, enabled two-step authentication for my e-mail accounts, and even covered up my computer’s Web camera with a piece of masking tape — a precaution that invited ridicule from friends and co-workers who suggested it was time to get my head checked.
But recent episodes offered vindication. I removed the webcam tape — after a friend convinced me that it was a little much — only to see its light turn green a few days later, suggesting someone was in my computer and watching. More recently, I received a text message from Google with the two-step verification code for my Gmail account. That’s the string of numbers Google sends after you correctly enter the password to your Gmail account, and it serves as a second password. (Do sign up for it.) The only problem was that I was not trying to get into my Gmail account. I was nowhere near a computer. Apparently, somebody else was.
It is absurdly easy to get hacked. All it takes is clicking on one malicious link or attachment. Companies’ computer systems are attacked every day by hackers looking for passwords to sell on auctionlike black market sites where a single password can fetch $20. Hackers regularly exploit tools like John the Ripper, a free password-cracking program that use lists of commonly used passwords from breached sites and can test millions of passwords per second.
Chances are, most people will get hacked at some point in their lifetime. The best they can do is delay the inevitable by avoiding suspicious links, even from friends, and manage their passwords. Unfortunately, good password hygiene is like flossing — you know it’s important, but it takes effort. How do you possibly come up with different, hard-to-crack passwords for every single news, social network, e-commerce, banking, corporate and e-mail account and still remember them all?
8/ A beautiful gallery of 15 photos of icebergs and glaciers, most in Greenland and some showing how the ice is melting......from a new book coming out this month.....
In an effort to provide concrete visual proof of climate change and its devastating effects, photographer James Balog embarked on a years-long project that spanned the northern reaches of the globe. He set up cameras from Greenland to Alaska in order to capture horrifying—yet undeniably beautiful—time-lapse photos that reveal the unprecedented rate at which glaciers are receding. As the award-winning Chasing Ice, which chronicles Balog’s monumental endeavor with his Extreme Ice Survey, hits New York on November 9, VF.com showcases breathtaking photographs from Balog’s Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers, published by Rizzoli.
9/ An excellent Jon Stewart from his Wednesday night show titled "Avalanche on Bullshit Mountain", detailing the meltdown over the Ohio results by Karl Rove......wow.....Part 1 is 5 minutes of vicarious pleasure, Part 2 is three minutes of blame allocation by Fox......
Even days before the election, no one at Fox seemed to think that Mitt Romney losing was a possibility, and on election night, Karl Rove proved just how in denial he was by refusing to believe that Ohio would go to Obama (after 74% of the votes were in). Later, a stunned Sarah Palin and Bill O'Reilly played a little game Jon Stewart likes to call, "White People Judo."
10/ Wonderful, wonderful video of a whale caught in a fishing net and the attempts by a whale watcher group to free it........8 minutes......
Warning - moist eye alert - warning.....
11/ Whatever your affiliation you may agree it wasn't healthy for any of us in Florida for the Republican party to have supermajorities in the House and Senate......the Democrats have made gains in both and are now a viable opposition party.....
Democrats chip away at GOP power in Tallahassee
Democrats breached the supermajorities of Republicans in the Florida Legislature, notching gains in a House and Senate that has grown considerably more conservative in recent years.
BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA AND BRITTANY ALANA DAVIS
HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU
TALLAHASSEE -- Before Tuesday, Florida Republicans had the wind at their back — record amounts of special interest money, a veto-proof majority in the Legislature and unbridled power all over the state.
But the party’s muscle flexing appeared to backfire and the special interest money, this time, did not translate into landslide victories. Voters delivered a series of election night losses for Florida’s power party. President Barack Obama was running ahead of Mitt Romney in Florida. Legislature-backed amendments were mostly defeated. The GOP drive to remake the Supreme Court failed and the Republicans lost their supermajority in the House and Senate.
Even the projected future speaker of the House — one of the most moneyed and powerful Republicans in the state — is in danger of losing his seat to an underfunded political neophyte.
“Florida sent a clear message to us as legislators that they are not pleased with the direction we’re taking them,” said former Senator and Representative-elect Mike Fasano, a New Port Richey Republican. “I think a message was sent [Tuesday] night to the Legislature, and to Gov. [Rick] Scott.”
Led by Scott, the Legislature has tacked sharply to the right in the past two years, passing or pursuing measures backed by the tea party and the business lobby, while slashing funding for schools and social programs.
Voters, in turn, moved the opposite direction Tuesday, throwing out as many as five GOP incumbents from the Legislature, and swinging several open seats to Democrats. Projected future House Speaker Chris Dorworth, R-Lake Mary, appears to have lost a razor-thin race despite outspending his little-known opponent more than 7-to-1. The race is likely headed for a recount, but Democratic challenger Mike Clelland led by 37 votes as of Wednesday.
Republicans still came out far ahead, with more than 100 of the 160 legislative seats.
12/ Katy Perry really wants to be an actress.......this clip is her as an older rich woman looking back at her life with an artist, "The One That Got Away"......a moving video......song a little thin, but what the hell - she's gorgeous.....
13/ An interesting story in HuffPo about "The Villages" and how the developer likes to keep an iron hand on all political activity in the city.......and make life very difficult for Democrats.
We are planning a trip up to the Villages one Friday in the future, on the lines of an anthropological expedition to look at the habits of the natives.....their exotic costumes, transportation devices, communication techniques etc. etc.......should be fun.....
THE VILLAGES, Fla. -- When Francis and Frances Durr returned home from a trip to Disney World with their grandchildren in mid-October, they found a pile of mail waiting for them. The Durrs live in a sprawling retirement community in Central Florida that's often called its own kind of Disney World -- one for retirees, a magic kingdom of pristine golf courses, perennial softball games and daily two-for-one happy hours.
The Villages, as the 80,000-strong community is called, also happens to be a tightly controlled universe, and one of the letters awaiting the Durrs came from a representative of the developer. The letter dealt with a sign sitting in the Durrs' front window -- specifically, a sign advocating for the reelection of President Barack Obama.
In part, it said: "The Villages has received complaints stating that you have a political sign in the window of your home. This is in violation of the Restrictions, Section 2.15 ... 'No sign of any kind shall be displayed to public view on a Homesite or any dedicated or reserved area without the prior written consent of the Developer.'"
Francis Durr was taken aback. As in other communities with covenants, residents of The Villages agree to adhere to many restrictions when they buy their homes. Some neighborhoods have banned lawn ornaments, window air-conditioning units are not allowed and certain signage is prohibited, all in the name of maintaining high "aesthetic qualities." But several of Durr's neighbors had placed political signs in their windows ahead of the election, and his seemed no larger than theirs. The only difference was that most of his neighbors' signs supported Obama's Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Reading on, Durr was stunned when he came to this:
"The purpose of this letter is to notify you of the complaints and that you immediately remove the signs. Should you fail to comply with the terms of the Restrictions, The Villages, and each homeowner within your neighborhood, will be entitled to file suit."
Durr checked around to see if the Romney signs were still posted in other homes, and indeed they were. He asked his neighbors if they'd needed special permits to hang them. They hadn't. Several of them seemed upset by the letter. One Republican asked Durr if the Democrat was now going to turn him in because of his Romney sign.
14/ Some great movies in the theaters now......"Flight" with Denzel Washington is an A-rated movie, and two excellent films have just opened......
"Skyfall" with Daniel Craig as Bond, James Bond just opened and the review in the Times is glowing......the incredible Javier Bardem is the villian......
It’s the human factor, to borrow somewhat perversely a phrase from Graham Greene, who worked for Britain’s foreign intelligence agency MI6. In his novel “The Human Factor,” about a double agent, Greene sought, he said, to portray the British secret service unromantically, with “men going daily to their office to earn their pensions.” Bond is wearing a silver-gray suit when he powers into “Skyfall,” the latest 007 escapade, but it isn’t cut for office work. The suit is seductively tight, for starters, and moves like a second skin when Daniel Craig in his third stint as Bond races through an atavistic opener that — with bullets buzzing and M (Judi Dench) whispering orders in his ear — puts him back on mortal, yet recognizably Bondian, ground.
And just in time too, given that he looked as if he were on the Bataan Death March in his last film,“Quantum of Solace.” Directed by a surprisingly well-equipped Sam Mendes, “Skyfall” is, in every way, a superior follow-up to “Casino Royale,” the 2006 reboot that introduced Mr. Craig as Bond. “Skyfall” even plays like something of a franchise rethink, partly because it brings in new faces and implies that Bond, like Jason Bourne, needed to be reborn. The tone is again playful and the stakes feel serious if not punishingly so. This is a Bond who, after vaulting into a moving train car, pauses to adjust a shirt cuff, a gesture that eases the scene’s momentum without putting the brakes on it.
That “Skyfall” includes a sequence on a train — a passenger one, no less — suggests that this may be very much like your granddaddy’s Bond, even without the bikinied backdrop. From the initial sequence, one of those characteristic supersize set pieces that precede the opening credits, Mr. Mendes shows that he’s having his fun with 007. The opening doesn’t just take place in Turkey, one of those putatively exotic locales adorned with woven carpets and dark-complexioned extras, it also includes smoothly choreographed mayhem in both a crowded bazaar and outdoor market. There, amid these familiar action-cinema signposts, Bond and another agency operative, the suitably named Eve (Naomie Harris), chase down a baddie as locals and oranges scatter.
Wow.....what a trailer!!!! Whew....I'm exhausted.....
"Lincoln", with Daniel Day-Lewis is the other excellent movie out now, and there is Oscar buzz already for his portrayal of the our greatest President.....sounds like a thinking persons movie....
Directed by Steven Spielberg.......
It is something of a paradox that American movies — a great democratic art form, if ever there was one — have not done a very good job of representing American democracy. Make-believe movie presidents are usually square-jawed action heroes, stoical Solons or ineffectual eggheads, blander and more generically appealing than their complicated real-life counterparts, who tend to be treated deferentially or ignored entirely unless they are named Richard Nixon.
The legislative process — the linchpin of our system of checks and balances — is often treated with lofty contempt masquerading as populist indignation, an attitude typified by the aw-shucks antipolitics of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Hollywood dreams of consensus, of happy endings and box office unity, but democratic government can present an interminable tale of gridlock, compromise and division. The squalor and vigor, the glory and corruption of the Republic in action have all too rarely made it onto the big screen.
There are exceptions, of course, and one of them isSteven Spielberg’s splendid “Lincoln,” which is, strictly speaking, about a president trying to scare up votes to get a bill passed in Congress. It is of course about a lot more than that, but let’s stick to the basics for now. To say that this is among the finest films ever made about American politics may be to congratulate it for clearing a fairly low bar. Some of the movie’s virtues are, at first glance, modest ones, like those of its hero, who is pleased to present himself as a simple backwoods lawyer, even as his folksy mannerisms mask a formidable and cunning political mind.
After a brutal, kinetic beginning — a scene of muddy, hand-to-hand combat that evokes the opening of “Saving Private Ryan”— “Lincoln” settles down into what looks like the familiar pageantry and speechifying of costume drama. A flock of first-rate character actors parades by in the heavy woolen plumage of the past. The smaller, plainer America of the mid-19th century is evoked by the brownish chiaroscuro of Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography, by the mud, brick and wood of Rick Carter’s production design and by enough important facial hair to make the young beard farmers of 21st-century Brooklyn weep tears of envy.
The most famous and challenging beard of them all sits on the chin of Daniel Day-Lewis, who eases into a role of epic difficulty as if it were a coat he had been wearing for years. It is both a curiosity and a marvel of modern cinema that this son of an Anglo-Irish poet should have become our leading portrayer of archaic Americans. Hawkeye (in “Last of the Mohicans”), Bill the Butcher (“Gangs of New York”), Daniel Plainview (“There Will Be Blood”) — all are figures who live in the dim borderlands of memory and myth, but with his angular frame and craggy features, Mr. Day-Lewis turns them into flesh and blood.
Above all, he gives them voice. His Lincoln speaks in a reedy drawl that provides a notable counterpoint to the bombastic bellowing of some of his allies and adversaries. (John Williams’s score echoes this contrast by punctuating passages of orchestral grandeur with homey scraps of fiddle, banjo and parlor piano.)
The script, by Tony Kushner, is attentive to the idioms of the time without being too showy about it.
Powerful trailer, gets you in the mood for some serious history.....
Todays video - Do you feel lucky punk? Well do ya?
One of the younger Clint Eastwood's famous scenes....from "Dirty Harry"......
Todays political joke, and maybe our last Romney joke
Todays youth joke
Todays Beer joke
After the 4th beer the waiter asks him why after every glass of beer he pulls the picture out and looks at it.
The man says: "It's a picture of my wife. When she looks good to me I'm going home "
Todays interactive joke
That was an example of "The Power of Beer" - here is another
Then push the beer glass to the right. |
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