Make sure you watch #10, an excellent George Carlin clip......
1/ Frank Rich makes sense of the weeks news.....
You see the headlines and the TV talking heads babble....but if you want the "why", read the best political commentator we have.....
Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with contributor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: SCOTUS defeats DOMA, the Voting Rights Act suffers a mortal wound, and Obama fights back on climate change.
The Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act this morning, while dismissing the case over California's Prop 8. The result is that same-sex marriages will now resume in California and married gay couples everywhere can receive federal marriage benefits. How important are these decisions? And what lies ahead for the gay-rights movement?
The DOMA decision is momentous, broad, and moving, sending to a just oblivion one of the most bigoted laws in the country’s history, one that Bill Clinton never should have signed in the first place. President Obama’s legal decision to halt the Justice Department’s defense of DOMA will prove an important historical marker for him and the country. The narrow Prop 8 decision was largely viewed as inevitable, but the resumption of same-sex marriage in California, the biggest state, will have a snowball effect elsewhere, politically and with time legally, and I have little doubt that marriage will continue on a generally fast track as a national proposition. Though most Republicans and most Republican politicians still oppose gay marriage (among other gay rights), the conservative commentatorsDoug Mataconis and Josh Barro both noted last week that the right has increasingly grown silent on the issue; everyone knows it’s a loser for the GOP if it wants voters under Social Security age. But let us not forget that were it not for the expected swing vote of Anthony Kennedy, the court’s conservative contingent would have upheld DOMA. I had thought Roberts might be movable, too, if only because he seems to care about being on the right side of history (e.g., his Obamacare decision), but I was wrong. The Roberts Court continues doing everything it can to permit the abridgment of the rights of minorities even as it strengthens the rights of corporations.
The DOMA decision is momentous, broad, and moving, sending to a just oblivion one of the most bigoted laws in the country’s history, one that Bill Clinton never should have signed in the first place. President Obama’s legal decision to halt the Justice Department’s defense of DOMA will prove an important historical marker for him and the country. The narrow Prop 8 decision was largely viewed as inevitable, but the resumption of same-sex marriage in California, the biggest state, will have a snowball effect elsewhere, politically and with time legally, and I have little doubt that marriage will continue on a generally fast track as a national proposition. Though most Republicans and most Republican politicians still oppose gay marriage (among other gay rights), the conservative commentatorsDoug Mataconis and Josh Barro both noted last week that the right has increasingly grown silent on the issue; everyone knows it’s a loser for the GOP if it wants voters under Social Security age. But let us not forget that were it not for the expected swing vote of Anthony Kennedy, the court’s conservative contingent would have upheld DOMA. I had thought Roberts might be movable, too, if only because he seems to care about being on the right side of history (e.g., his Obamacare decision), but I was wrong. The Roberts Court continues doing everything it can to permit the abridgment of the rights of minorities even as it strengthens the rights of corporations.
2/ If you are interested in how the financial markets work, or in this instance failed to, you will be interested to read this story from Matt Taibbi about how the ratings agencies,[Moodys, S&P] completely failed in their duty to police the toxic offerings of the big banks in the run up to the financial crisis......
For economy wonks only......background to the financial meltdown of 08......
The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis
It's long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it
By Matt Taibbi
June 19, 2013 9:00 AM ET
What about the ratings agencies?
That's what "they" always say about the financial crisis and the teeming rat's nest of corruption it left behind. Everybody else got plenty of blame: the greed-fattened banks, the sleeping regulators, the unscrupulous mortgage hucksters like spray-tanned Countrywide ex-CEO Angelo Mozilo.
But what about the ratings agencies? Isn't it true that almost none of the fraud that's swallowed Wall Street in the past decade could have taken place without companies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's rubber-stamping it? Aren't they guilty, too?
Man, are they ever. And a lot more than even the least generous of us suspected.
Thanks to a mountain of evidence gathered for a pair of major lawsuits by the San Diego-based law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, documents that for the most part have never been seen by the general public, we now know that the nation's two top ratings companies, Moody's and S&P, have for many years been shameless tools for the banks, willing to give just about anything a high rating in exchange for cash.
In incriminating e-mail after incriminating e-mail, executives and analysts from these companies are caught admitting their entire business model is crooked.
"Lord help our fucking scam . . . this has to be the stupidest place I have worked at," writes one Standard & Poor's executive. "As you know, I had difficulties explaining 'HOW' we got to those numbers since there is no science behind it," confesses a high-ranking S&P analyst. "If we are just going to make it up in order to rate deals, then quants [quantitative analysts] are of precious little value," complains another senior S&P man. "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of card[s] falters," ruminates one more.
Ratings agencies are the glue that ostensibly holds the entire financial industry together. These gigantic companies – also known as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations, or NRSROs – have teams of examiners who analyze companies, cities, towns, countries, mortgage borrowers, anybody or anything that takes on debt or creates an investment vehicle.
3/ Every now and then a gooey video - here Ralph, an abused street dog, has his heart mended.....snuffle......eight minutes of a heartwarming rescue of a pet..... pass the tissues Mary.....
4/ In case the "Goodbye Miami" article made you uneasy, but then you say that's OK, I live in San Francisco or New York so it's NIMBY, read the follow up to cities vulnerable to the rising seas.....oops......
5/ A LOL Colbert, and he riffs on the Zimmerman trial and the disasterous "knock knock" joke.......very funny indeed......three minutes.....
Stephen Colbert took on the beginning of theGeorge Zimmerman murder trial last night, particularly aiming his focus at the questionable knock-knock joke defense attorney Don Westchose to kick off his opening statement. Rather the condemn the possibly inappropriate move, Colbert praised West’s “shrewd move” as just another example in America’s “long history of murder humor.”
Catching his audience up on the case, Colbert described the alleged murder as “either a senseless tragedy or a sensible response to aggravated hoodie.” The host lauded West for his bold decision to start the healing process on this controversial case “with humor.”
6/ Do you take a vitamin supplement? You are wasting your money, and possibly damaging your health......
Billion-Dollar Scam In a Bottle: Why Vitamins Could Be Useless—or Even Shorten Your Lifespan
The latest advice from the medical community? Don't take your vitamins.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
June 20, 2013 |
If you're like roughly half of your fellow Americans, you probably popped a multi this morning. As the slightly acrid taste lingered on your tongue, you felt good knowing that something so quick and easy would help safeguard your health.
Multivitamins are the most popular dietary supplement on Earth. But here’s the sobering reality: They may be simply useless—or worse.
For the last several years, a Mount Fuji of evidence has piled up to show that multivitamins don’t do much of anything for the health of the average person. Though less conclusive, a growing body of evidence suggests that they may even shorten your life. Unless you are taking vitamins to address a specific deficiency, malnutrition or illness, gulping down a multivitamin in hopes of preventing disease or cheating the Grim Reaper may be one of the most prevalent medical myths of our time.
Yet Americans aren’t getting the message. In fact, as the economy remains stagnant, we are taking more vitamins than ever in the hopes that we can avoid a costly doctor’s visit. However misguided our thinking, there’s one sure bet on vitamins: With annual sales of more than $20 billion, there are pots of money to be made for an industry that operates in the shadows —money so big that hedge funds are tripping over themselves to get in on the action.
The victim is not just your wallet. It might be your health.
7/ One of the most difficult things to do in comedy is unscripted improv, and Robin Williams proves again he is the master of spontaneous humour....three minutes of the master at work.....
8/ Rachel Maddow with a shocking look at the lunacy of the Republican party and their completely out there positions on abortion, but also climate change and womens rights.....she quotes actual members of Congress, yes the same ones voting for laws that affect us all. If these idiots have these insane views on some things, how can you possibly trust their judgement on anything?
They keep getting elected though, mainly from the stupid states......
Check out Congressman Burgess, and his theory on fetal masturbation.......an excellent and sometimes jaw dropping 13 minutes.......
9/ As Bill Maher says, the Republicans are a gift that keeps on giving to comedians......a good four minute discussion.....
Bill Maher has heard and mocked a lot of controversial Republican statements over the years, and yet he found this week’s remarks by a Republican congressman that fetuses can masturbate to be more ridiculous than anything The Onion could ever come up with. Maher asked that given Republicans trying to one-up each other with shockingly ridiculous comments about rape and abortion and fetuses masturbating, what does it take in this day and age to actually embarrass Republicans?
Julia Reed said that 30 years ago, Republicans didn’t get as riled up about things like this, as much as they opposed abortion. Joshua Green explained that Republicans say all this because they’ve gotten a lot more hardline on abortion. Worst of all, the congressman who made the remark is an OB/GYN. Maher said, “Explain the cognitive dissonance.”
Panelist Bob Herbert replied, “He’s a Republican!
10/ And for the final, definitive word on the abortion issue watch George Carlin destroy the logic and arguments of these wackos in 30 seconds, and then be amazed at how he, in 1996 [17 years ago] brings up all of the issues that conservatives harp on to this day, over and over and over......
An incredible 9 minutes.....we lost a great comedian and a wise man when he passed......
11/ The media is constantly telling us the housing market is recovering, but for the average person, it isn't. More media bullshit, because most of the activity is on foreclosures and distressed properties, and a lot of that is corporate bottom feeding........
As this Guardian article says, they are pressing the "confidence" button and hope you react.......
The housing 'recovery' is built on false confidence
The housing numbers seem encouraging, until you look a little closer and see investment firms are doing much of the buying
In finance, people like to dub the services that banks provide "products". For instance, advice on your 401k is a "retirement product". Mortgages are another product. Checking and savings accounts are also products.
But the most popular product that Wall Street sells – and the most profitable – is one you'll never actually find on any brochure. That product is confidence. Right now, confidence is the backbone of the housing recovery.
Confidence is the best product of all because it's self-replicating. It's time-consuming and expensive to find brokers to sell stocks or loan officers to sell mortgages. All you need to sell confidence, however, is evidence of previous confidence. The housing market is a perfect example of this. Today, the National Association of Realtors released its numbers on existing home sales, which are a monthly indication of the health of the housing market.
Like most housing indicators over the past year, the news looks good at first glance. The annualized home sale rate was 5.18m in May, compared to 4.97m in April. The annual rate of sales is at the highest since November 2009. Prices are up; the median price of a home or condo in the US is now $208,000, which is up one-sixth from the same time last year. For six months, housing prices have risen 10% or more.
The fastest home prices rose this much before was in October 2005, at the height of the housing bubble. Taken at face value – and that's a risky proposition – these numbers appear to tell us that enough people have the ability and desire to buy homes that they're driving up the prices.
12/ Snow Patrol "Chasing Cars".....one of the most beautiful songs of the last decade......you'll remember it after the first few chords.....
The video involves lots of "laying here", but it's visually quite striking.....
13/ And of course leading the housing "recovery" is Florida, where we have more houses in trouble than the rest of the country.....
Florida leads nation in vacated foreclosures -- and it's not even close
Gray Rohrer, 06/20/2013 - 12:00 PM
Vacated properties add to the state’s shadow inventory of buildings, parcels and homes that have yet to hit the market. File photo by Ana Goni-Lessan.
There are 55,503 housing units in foreclosure in Florida that are vacant. That’s 33 percent of the 167,680 vacated foreclosures in the country. Florida’s vacated foreclosures are more than the next five highest states combined -- Illinois, California, Ohio, New York and New Jersey.
The vacated properties are a drag on property values because many are left neglected, although some cities in Florida have passed ordinances requiring banks to pay for the upkeep of foreclosed homes.
Combined with Florida’s lengthy foreclosure process, the vacated properties add to the state’s “shadow inventory” of homes that have yet to hit the market. Since foreclosed homes typically sell for much lower than market value, new foreclosed properties steadily being dumped on the market will dampen home values.
The average foreclosure takes 893 days in Florida -- nearly two and a half years, according to a report released Wednesday by state economists. There are also 22 percent of mortgages in Florida that are either delinquent or behind on payments as of April, in addition to the 10.5 percent in foreclosure.
The potential for more distressed properties to enter into foreclosure and the lag time for them to re-enter the market has led state economists to temper their projections for the housing recovery, which has been steadily improving in recent months. Numbers released Thursday by Florida Realtors show existing single family home sales jumped 18.7 percent last month in the year-over-year comparison, and the median sales price rose 15.9 percent to $171,000. The housing market is being heavily boosted by cash sales, however, an indicator of investor participation. Cash sales made up 46 percent of all completed sales of single family homes in May and 73 percent of all completed condo sales.
14/ And Florida leads the nation in "zombie" houses......yeay Florida, we're #1!!! Yeay.....
Abandoned Homes Plague Florida, Even In Midst Of Housing Boom
FOLLOW:
As Kevin Clark figures it, the feral cats that stalk the thick bamboo jungle in the backyard of the abandoned home next door should at least keep the huge rats in check. That, unfortunately, hasn't proved to be the case.
The rats and the cats scurry in and out of the yard of the Tampa, Fla., property seemingly unconcerned by the others' presence. Other varmints, such as opossums and raccoons, also take advantage of the cover provided by the towering woody stalks, which grow more than 20 feet high. The worst might be the insects: Every evening, a veritable attack squadron of mosquitoes buzzes out of the growth, as if taking their cue from the jets that take off and land at the nearby Air Force base.
The infestation is so severe that Clark refuses to allow his 5-year-old grandson, who lives with him, to venture outside alone. "I'm afraid of what will come creeping out of there," he said.
After the housing market collapsed in spectacular fashion six years ago, Florida became known as much for its abandoned houses as its white sand beaches and palm trees. Many homes fell into disrepair and became the target of looters and vagrants.
In some respects, the situation in the state is much improved. Foreclosures are down and home prices are up, especially in the cities where values fell the most. In Florida's biggest cities, investors backed by Wall Street cash and local speculators are scooping up homes practically as soon as they hit the market. In Tampa, one of the hardest-hit cities, residential property prices increased 12 percent in April, according to a report released this week. Many housing experts even caution that prices are going up too fast
15/ Good TV
"Ray Donovan" starts tomorrow on Showtime, and this review is enthusiastic and speculates this show could be the next Sopranos.....
The trailer, embedded in the story, is pretty good......
‘Ray Donovan’: Is the Liev Schreiber–Led Showtime Drama The Next ‘Sopranos’?
by Jace Lacob Jun 28, 2013 4:46 AM EDT
Jace Lacob reviews Showtime’s fixer drama Ray Donovan, which begins Sunday night and stars Liev Schreiber as a Hollywood fixer whose South Boston past creates present-day troubles.
The specter of HBO’s still-mourned organized crime family drama The Sopranos, which arguably kicked off the latest golden age of television, can be glimpsed in the foundations of nearly every cable drama that has come since, ushering in an era of the male antihero that has permeated the popular culture.
Liev Schreiber stars as Hollywood fixer Ray Donovan on Showtime. (Suzanne Tenner/Showtime)
The Sopranos’s mischievous, malevolent spirit flits through Showtime’s outstanding new drama Ray Donovan, which premieres Sunday night at 10 p.m. Starring Liev Schreiber as the titular character, the show—created by Ann Biderman, who also created the gripping, gritty cop drama Southland—deftly balances matters of crime and punishment, love and enmity, savagery and civility. It’s a drama that’s about the push and pull of the domestic and the professional spheres. And it must be said thatRay Donovan is also about the battle between good and evil, often within the same man.
Schreiber’s Ray is a Hollywood fixer, the sort of hard-boiled figure that you might have to call when you’re a celeb being blackmailed by a transgendered hooker or a basketball star waking up in bed next to a dead woman after a night of heavy drug use. Escaping his rough-and-tumble Irish Catholic past in South Boston, Ray has established himself as an imposing if shady figure in the boardrooms and back lots of Los Angeles, equal parts deterrent and enforcer. The rich and famous—portrayed largely as venal, vapid parasites—pay him handsomely to deal with the messes in which they find themselves. And Ray deals with everything with vicious panache, imposing whether he’s wielding a baseball bat or an unspoken threat.
16/ Book Review
This Times review says this Carl Hiaasen book is his best in ages, which means it's wonderfully funny.....
A Barrel of Trouble
Carl Hiaasen’s ‘Bad Monkey’ Features a Cast of Oddballs
By JANET MASLIN
Published: June 17, 2013
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At the start of Carl Hiaasen’s latest comedic marvel, a visitor fishing near Key West hooks a severed human arm. There is no time for this to register as grisly. A page later the captain of the fishing boat tells the freaked-out tourist reassuringly, “Well, son, we’re in the memory-making business.” You can’t argue with that.
BAD MONKEY
By Carl Hiaasen
317 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95.
Mr. Hiaasen is in the memory-making business himself. But he hasn’t written a novel this funny since “Skinny Dip” in 2004, with which his new one, “Bad Monkey,” shares some common ground. Both books begin with signs of lethal violence. (In “Skinny Dip,” a man throws his wife off a cruise ship.) Both involve scabby, furry creatures. And both touch lightly on Mr. Hiaasen’s serious concern with toxic pollution. The main character in “Bad Monkey” is Andrew Yancy, a defrocked cop who is forced to turn restaurant inspector and learn more about bugs and toxins than he ever wished to know.
“Try the chowder,” Yancy is urged at one eatery.
“Not until they find a vaccine,” he replies.
Yancy winds up embroiled in the severed-arm investigation after his boss, the sheriff, “who won office because he was the only candidate not in federal custody,” wants the limb transported from the Keys to Miami-Dade. Love blooms at the Miami morgue after Yancy meets Dr. Rosa Campesino, a beautiful coroner who coaxes him into hot sex on a cold slab. This helps Yancy get over his ex, Bonnie, a Texas teacher who seduced an underage student, Cody, who may just publish his diary about her.
“I should never have turned him on to Philip Roth,” Bonnie rues, but she’s safe from literary embarrassment. When Bonnie last asked him what he liked to read, Cody wrote in the diary, “I told her I’ve sort of gotten away from books and more into Xbox.”
All that, and we’re not even up to the monkey. If Mr. Hiaasen has one failing, it’s the habit of delivering an oversupply of plot threads, too much of too many good things. But who’s going to mind an ancillary story line about Yancy’s efforts to keep a developer from selling the tall, new, half-built house that blocks his ocean view? Yancy’s stunts to scare off buyers include installing a beehive in the house (“later, after the Spillwrights had been stabilized at the emergency room ...”) and creating a nonsensically scary Santeria shrine made up of some of the Occult’s Greatest Hits. A pentagram and a bowl of cat blood may have nothing to do with the warrior god Changó, but that’s not the point.
“Yancy believed that maintaining cultural authenticity was less important than creating a vivid first impression for potential home buyers,” Mr. Hiaasen writes.
The calm, quasi-reasonable tone of that line is what sustains Mr. Hiaasen’s wall-to-wall hilarity. When Rosa tells Yancy about one of her post-mortems, on a man with a clarinet wedged up his colon — though he was killed by an oboist who shot him in the head — Yancy’s rejoinder is a model of understatement: “Shakespeare was born too soon.” On the restaurant inspection job, when a woman is grievously injured by her dinner, Yancy explains: “She got a fishhook stuck in her uvula. I’m betting she ordered the Cuban yellowtail.”
Todays video - the dance scene from what is widely acknowledged to be one of the best film ever made - "Pulp Fiction". Here Uma Thurman and John Travolta dance the twist in a 50's themed nightclub......
Todays oldies jokes
An elderly married couple was at home watching TV.
The husband had the remote and was switching back and forth between a fishing channel and the porn channel.
The wife became more and more annoyed and finally said:
"For god's sake! Leave it on the porn channel. You already know how to fish!"
The husband had the remote and was switching back and forth between a fishing channel and the porn channel.
The wife became more and more annoyed and finally said:
"For god's sake! Leave it on the porn channel. You already know how to fish!"
Todays lawyer jokes
The physicist was next interviewed, and was asked the same questions. Before answering the last question, he excused himself, made for the library, and did a great deal of research. After a consultation with the United States Bureau of Standards and many calculations, he also announced "Four."
The lawyer was interviewed last, and was asked the same questions. At the end of his interview, before answering the last question, he drew all the shades in the room, looked outside the door to see if anyone was there, checked the telephone for listening devices, and asked "How much do you want it to be?"
Todays Osama joke
Following a distinguished legal career, a man arrived at the Gates of Heaven, accompanied by the Pope, who had the misfortune to expire on the same day.
The Pope was greeted first by St. Peter, who escorted him to his quarters. The room was somewhat shabby and small, similar to that found in a low-grade Motel 6-type establishment.
The lawyer was then taken to his room, which was a palatial suite including a private swimming pool, a garden, and a terrace overlooking the Gates. The attorney was somewhat taken aback, and told St. Peter, "I'm really quite surprised at these rooms, seeing as how the Pope was given such small accommodations."
St. Peter replied, "We have over a hundred Popes here, and we're really very bored with them. We've never had a lawyer."
Question: Do you know how to save five drowning lawyers?
Answer: No.
Reply: Good.
Answer: No.
Reply: Good.
Question: How can you tell the difference between an attorney lying dead in the road and a coyote lying dead in the road?
Answer: With the coyote, you usually see skid marks.
Question: How many lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: How many can you afford?
Answer: How many can you afford?
An attorney passed on and found himself in Heaven, but not at all happy with his accommodations. He complained to St. Peter, who told him that his only recourse was to appeal his assignment.
The attorney immediately advised that he intended to appeal, but was then told that he would be waiting at least three years before his appeal could be heard. The attorney protested that a three-year wait was unconscionable, but his words fell on deaf ears.
The lawyer was then approached by the devil, who told him that he would be able to arrange an appeal to be heard in a few days, if the attorney was willing to change venue to Hell. When the attorney asked why appeals could be heard so much sooner in Hell, he was told, "We have all of the judges."
As Mr. Smith was on his death bed, he attempted to formulate a plan that would allow him to take at least some of his considerable wealth with him. He called for the three men he trusted most - his lawyer, his doctor, and his clergyman. He told them, "I'm going to give you each $30,000 in cash before I die. At my funeral, I want you to place the money in my coffin so that I can try to take it with me."
All three agreed to do this and were given the money. At the funeral, each approached the coffin in turn and placed an envelope inside.
While riding in the limousine to the cemetery, the clergyman said "I have to confess something to you fellows. Brother Smith was a good churchman all his life, and I know he would have wanted me to do this. The church needed a new baptistery very badly, and I took $10,000 of the money he gave me and bought one. I only put $20,000 in the coffin."
The physician then said, "Well, since we're confiding in one another, I might as well tell you that I didn't put the full $30,000 in the coffin either. Smith had a disease that could have been diagnosed sooner if I had this very new machine, but the machine cost $20,000 and I couldn't afford it then. I used $20,000 of the money to buy the machine so that I might be able to save another patient. I know that Smith would have wanted me to do that."
The lawyer then said, "I'm ashamed of both of you. When I put my envelope into that coffin, it held my personal check for the full $30,000."
The National Institutes of Health have announced that they will no longer be using rats for medical experimentation. In their place, they will use attorneys. They have given three reasons for this decision:
1. There are now more attorneys than there are rats.
2. The medical researchers don't become as emotionally attached to the attorneys as they did to the rats.
3. No matter how hard you try, there are some things that rats won't do.
2. The medical researchers don't become as emotionally attached to the attorneys as they did to the rats.
3. No matter how hard you try, there are some things that rats won't do.
Osama Bin Laden was living with 3 wives in one compound,
and never left the house for 5 years.
It is now believed that he called the US Navy Seals himself.
and never left the house for 5 years.
It is now believed that he called the US Navy Seals himself.
