Happy Thanksgiving everyone.......the nicest holiday we have......
Take the time to watch #1......absolutely fascinating for anyone who followed the politics of the endless campaign, and should be required viewing for everyone so you are aware what could happen.....
1/ Thom Hartmann is a radio/TV host, and here he has a logical explanation for Karl Rove's meltdown on election night, and Mitt Romney's confidence he would win, to the point Romney only had an acceptance speech......Rove and Romney thought the voting machines in Ohio would be flipped as they were in 2004........
Watch this, and then think.....Republicans were stunned the President won reelection, didn't believe the polls showing Obama was ahead.... was this all prep work for the votes being flipped so they could say "we told you so"? Billionaires and corporations were donating even in the final weeks of the campaign - were they assured "don't worry, it's covered".....
Thank you, white knights......
I watched this 9 minute video with Mary, and we both agree this has to be what happened.....
This truly is a "wow".....and I hope the FBI is on this case......
2/ Michael Moore has been vilified by the right as everything that's wrong with liberals, but consider his movies - "Capitalism - A love Story" about the excesses of Wall Street, and "Sicko" about our broken health care system. Both movies were spot on.....so it's really "blame the messenger", and don't discuss or argue with the message.....
Here he writes an open letter to the President about what to try to accomplish in his second term.....
Read this and tell me if any of this advice is wrong....
Dear President Obama:
Good luck on your journeys overseas this week, and congratulations on decisively winning your second term as our president! The first time you won four years ago, most of us couldn't contain our joy and found ourselves literally in tears over your victory.
This time, it was more like breathing a huge sigh of relief. But, like the smooth guy you are, you scored the highest percentage of the vote of any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson, and you racked up the most votes for a Democratic president in the history of the United States (the only one to receive more votes than you was ... you, in '08!). You are the first Democrat to get more than 50% of the vote twice in a row since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
This was truly another historic election and I would like to take a few minutes of your time to respectfully ask that your second term not resemble your first term.
It's not that you didn't get anything done. You got A LOT done. But there are some very huge issues that have been left unresolved and, dammit, we need you to get some fight in you. Wall Street and the uber-rich have been conducting a bloody class war for over 30 years and it's about time they were stopped.
I know it is not in your nature to be aggressive or confrontational. But, please, Barack – DO NOT listen to the pundits who are telling you to make the "grand compromise" or move to the "center" (FYI – you're already there). Your fellow citizens have spoken and we have rejected the crazed ideology of this Republican Party and we insist that you forcefully proceed in bringing about profound change that will improve the lives of the 99%. We're done hoping. We want real change. And, if we can't get it in the second term of a great and good man like you, then really – what's the use? Why are we even bothering? Yes, we're that discouraged and disenchanted.
3/ This has been all over the news as it's irresistible to the media - Hostess Foods [Twinkies, Wonder Bread] is going bankrupt and the CEO is blaming it all on the unions, but paying themselves bonuses for staying through the winding down process.
Our corporate media has of course lapped this story up, but it's a lie. Hostess has been brought to it's knees by a combination of incompetent management and vulture capital funds [pump and dump].....read the real story.....
As the final Twinkies, Sno-Balls and those glowing orange cupcakes were stuffed with cream and wrapped in cellophane on Friday, the business world and much of the news media knew who was to blame for this dying American icon. It was the unions.
The Wall Street Journal described the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union as “The union that brought the 85-year-old baker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread to its knees.” Over at RedState, a headline tried to mix anti-union sentiment with conservative humor: “The Demise of Twinkies? Yes, It’s True. Parasitic Unions Kill Their Hosts (or, in this case, Hostess).”
As Hostess moved to end its operations last week — a bankruptcy judge asked the company Monday to try mediation with its unions; those talks are scheduled to begin today — commentators were eager to blame the rigidity of unions.
But the story is far more complicated than that — and in some ways, the exact opposite of the tale pushed by those on the right. It’s the story of two bankruptcies, hundreds of millions of givebacks from Hostess unions and hundreds of millions of debt piled onto the company by venture capitalists. It’s a story of management that boosted its own salaries, while failing to make agreed payments into workers’ pension funds. And it’s a story of changing tastes and diets.
To begin with, when was the last time you ate a Twinkie or chose spongy Wonder Bread over an artisanal or organic load? The company simply hasn’t been able to adequately compete due to a stodgy, moribund management that did not act to diversify a product base that hasn’t changed with the times (unless you count 100-calorie Twinkies packs). As the New York Times reported way back on Sept. 23, 2004, “People are still eating Hostess Twinkies and Wonder Bread, but the problem for Interstate Bakeries is that they are eating less of them.”
For all these reasons, Hostess (then known as Interstate) initially entered bankruptcy in 2004, with uncomfortably close to half a billion dollars in debt. Sixty percent of the debt was owned by hedge funds Silver Point Capital and Monarch Alternative Capital, the rest by an assortment of other lenders. No one who was paying attention to the company’s fortunes was surprised by the move. During the nearly five years of its initial bankruptcy, the companyaccrued even more debt.
4/ A DDD favourite music video.....
BT - "The Emergency"....I love this one for a number of reasons....
- You can choose 1080p HD
- It's ultra widescreen
- The girl's face has the most stunning profile
- The setting sun scene towards the end had to be shot in about 5 minutes - the sun goes down fast over Lake Dora!
- It's a really, really good song......
5/ You may have noted John McCain ranting on about Susan Rice, the UN Ambassador, and how she lied about Benghazi.....after General Petraeus testified last Friday to a Senate Committee McCain finally shut up.
McCain has been playing the role of an old, angry and really cranky white guy quite well for the last four years......but let it go, old timer......
On Friday the Republican politicians who had so angrily demanded the testimony of David Petraeus about Benghazi got what they wanted—and what they deserved—when the former CIA director set forth the facts proving that their conspiracy theories and witch-hunts are dead wrong.
Appearing behind closed doors on Capitol Hill, Gen. Petraeus, recently resigned from the spy agency over his illicit affair with biographer Paula Broadwell, answered questions from legislators concerning the tragic Sept. 11 assault that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other diplomatic personnel dead.
When the session concluded, Petraeus was spirited away. And Senator John McCain (R-AZ), whose criticism of the Obama administration over Benghazi has verged on hysterical, emerged from the hearing room with very little to say to the reporters waiting outside.
“General Petraeus’ briefing was comprehensive. I think it was important; it added to our ability to make judgments about what was clearly a failure of intelligence, and described his actions and that of his agency and their interactions with other agencies,” said McCain, adding, “I appreciate his service and his candor” before abruptly fleeing as reporters tried to question him.
6/ The Best Fails of 2010 - from TwisterNederland......drunks, misspent youth, idiots and just plain unlucky ones being punished.....this is one of their early collections and some of these people were definitely going to the hospital.....10 minutes of mayhem......
7/ An excellent summary of the Petraeus scandal....who, what and why.......and some implications about the government's ability to look at any citizens private correspondence.....
Very good column from Joe Nocera.......
This is not going to end well for the F.B.I.
We are now entering the second phase of the David Petraeus scandal. The first phase began on Nov. 9 when Petraeus revealed that he had had an affair and resigned as C.I.A. director. For the next week, the press scrambled to keep abreast of every head-spinning new plot twist. General Petraeus slept withwhom? Jill Kelley did what? Petraeus’s biographer/mistress titled her bookwhat? Phase 1 of any big national scandal ends when the New York tabloids stop writing their laugh-out-loud cover headlines (“Cloak and Shag Her” screamed The New York Post) and relegate the story to the inside pages. That happened on Friday.
In Phase 2, people begin to grapple with the scandal’s larger meaning, assuming, of course, that it has some larger meaning. The sordid John Edwards affair, for instance, showed that he had never been fit for public office, much less the vice presidency. The Bernie Madoff scandal showed that investors will happily suspend disbelief when their fund manager’s returns are too good to be true.
But the Petraeus scandal could well end up teaching some very different lessons. If the most admired military man in a generation can have his e-mail hacked by F.B.I. agents, then none of us are safe from the post-9/11 surveillance machine. And if an affair is all it takes to force such a man from office, then we truly have lost all sense of proportion.
Let’s go back to the scene of the so-called crime, to Tampa, Fla., where Kelley, an attractive wannabe socialite, gets some unsettling e-mails from an anonymous sender. If she had any sense, she would block the e-mail address and be done with it. But because she knows that men will bend the rules for her — after all, high-ranking military officers granted her unfettered access toMacDill Air Force Base — she goes to her (male) F.B.I. friend, who advocates with his superiors for an investigation. They agree.
But on what grounds? I looked up the cyber-stalking statute. It says that a crime has been committed when e-mail “causes substantial emotion distress” or places the victim in “reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury.”
8/ Incredibly funny Steven Colbert where he treats the Petraeus controversy as a soap - an episode of "General's Hospital"......
Great surprise guest at the end......5 very good minutes.....
9/ President Obama has a test coming up - he needs to appoint a new head of the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] that polices Wall Street and the big banks, and the President has two choices......someone who is a creature of the banks, or someone who will do the job properly.
Simon Johnson with a good article.......
There are two fundamentally different views regarding modern Wall Street. The first is that the financial sector has been terribly and unjustly put upon in recent years – regulated into the ground and treated with repeated disrespect, including by the White House.
There was, for example, an impressive amount of whining this week when no one from a big bank was invited to a high-profile meeting with the president on fiscal issues. As the people holding strongly to this view run large financial institutions and have effective public relations teams, this has become an important part of the conventional or establishment wisdom, repeated without question in some parts of the media.
The second view is that the powerful people who run global megabanks have lost all sense of perspective – including failing to realize that they have more access to people at the top of our political power structures than any other sector has ever had. Anyone who doubts this view – or wonders exactly how the revolving door among politics, lobbying and banking works – should read Jeff Connaughton’s account, “The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins” (which I have written aboutin more detail before). Mr. Connaughton is most gripping when he describes the failure of law enforcement around securities issues, including issues with both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Which of these views is correct? We will soon know, because there is a simple and direct test that is fast approaching: Whom will President Obama nominate as the new chair of the S.E.C.? (Mary Schapiro, the current chairwoman, is widely reported to be stepping down soon.)
There are only two possible outcomes. The president could pick someone who is very close to the securities industry, for example a senior financial services executive or one of their favorite lawyers or someone who already works in their “self-regulatory” apparatus. Any former politician who has taken large donations from Wall Street or an academic who sits on the board of a large financial company would also fit into this category. There is no shortage of candidates from this side of the contest.
Alternatively, the president could choose someone who is not only willing to enforce the law and regulation but who would actively seek to change the conventional wisdom around finance. For example, all too often we hear – including from some top officials – that if we relax the capital requirements, the economy will grow faster in a sustainable manner.
10/ Chooka Parker is a 16 year old Australian son of a sheep farmer that taught himself to play the piano, and went on "Australia's Got Talent".....and wow....
When you watch this you have to ask "how does this happen? How does genius flower from nothing in the middle of nowhere?" Three minutes of performance.....and the judges' BS......
11/ I don't care who you are.....if you are reading this [meaning you probably own a house and a computer] you have a problem!
Yup, you have more "Stuff" than you need. There is help out there.....a pretty good book review....
It often takes a crisis, major or minor, to prompt people to change bad habits, especially when the change is time-consuming and anxiety-provoking.
The other day, the drawer in which I store my swimming stuff jammed. When I finally got it open and dumped out its contents, I counted more than a dozen bathing suits (several with their store tags intact), 12 bathing caps, 10 pairs of goggles and countless nose clips and earplugs.
Then I recalled the same thing had happened a week earlier with my drawer of pens and pencils, literally hundreds of them, half of which were dried out or otherwise useless.
..............................
I would say that Dr. Zasio’s book is about the best self-help work I’ve read in my 46 years as a health and science writer. She seems to know all the excuses and impediments to coping effectively with a cluttering problem, and she offers practical, clinically proven antidotes to them.
12/ Great standup from 1980 - remember Father Guido Sarducci? This is a comic vignette called "Vita Est Lavorum", and he explains how death and the afterlife works......the routine builds nicely....several LOL moments....5 very amusing minutes.....
13/ They are building a barrage system to protect Venice but it won't be ready for another few years.....but in the meantime Venice has suffered some serious flooding.....
I'll bet Venetians believe in global warming.....
People sit at a table in flooded St Mark's Square in Venice, Italy Photograph: Luigi Costantini/AP
Tourists attached plastic bags to their legs or stripped off to take a dip in St Mark's Square in Venice on Sunday as rising sea waters surged through the lagoon city. High water measuring 1.49 metres (5ft) above the normal level of the Adriatic sea came with bad weather that sweptItaly at the weekend, causing floods in historic cities including Vicenza as well in the region of Tuscany 250 miles further south.
Venice's high water, or "acqua alta", said to be the sixth highest since 1872, flooded 70% of the city and was high enough to make raised wooden platforms for pedestrians float away. The record high water in Venice – 1.94 metres in 1966 – prompted many residents to abandon the city for new lives on the mainland.
Venetians bombarded Facebook with moans about the city's weather forecasters, who had predicted just 1.2 metres of water on Saturday, before correcting their forecast at dawn on Sunday.
14/ One for the guys - have a look at this German technology in action in.....a mower! You've never seen a mower like this one........four minutes of guy stuff.....
Todays video - Road Rage Karma.......
Todays religious joke
A Catholic nun was sitting on a train opposite a Muslim man who was wearing a turban, eating fresh shrimp.
Every time he ate one he spat the tail in her direction, requiring her
to deflect it.
Eventually she had enough and pulled the Emergency Cord.
The Muslim looked at her and said, "You'll get fined $250 for doing
that, you stupid Catholic bitch."
She laughed and said, "When I cry 'rape' and they smell your fingers, you'll get 10 years, you towel-headed Camel-fxxker."
Todays Polish joke
Roger Przbezenscki (a customer) asked, "In what aisle might I find Polish sausage?"The clerk asks, "Are you Polish?"Przbezenscki, clearly offended, says, "Yes I am. But let me ask you something: If I had asked for Italian sausage, would you ask me if I was Italian? Or if I had asked for German Bratwurst, would you ask me if I was German? Or if I asked for a kosher hot dog would you ask me if I was Jewish? Or, if I had asked for a Taco, would you ask if I was Mexican? Or if I asked for some Irish whiskey, would you ask if I was Irish?"The clerk says, "No, I probably wouldn't."The guy says, "Because I asked for Polish sausage, why did you ask me if I'm Polish?""The clerk replied, "Because you're in Home Depot."
Todays Wal-Mart joke.......
really tidy, clean-shaven, sharp-minded and a real credit to the company and
obviously demonstrating their "Older Person Friendly" policies.
One day the boss called him into the office for a talk.
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"Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a bang-up job when
you finally get here; but your being late so often is quite bothersome."
"Yes, I know boss, and I am working on it."
"Well good, you are a team player. That's what I like to hear.
"Yes sir, I understand your concern and I will try harder."
Seeming puzzled, the manager went on to comment, "I know you're retired from
the Armed Forces. What did they say to you there if you showed up in the
morning late so often?"
The old man looked down at the floor, then smiled.
He chuckled quietly, then said with a grin,
They usually saluted and said,
"Good morning, Admiral, can I get your coffee, sir?"
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