On a scale of 1-10 this issue of DDD is a 9, we have some very good stories and humour for you....we are back from France, and it's nice to have decent broadband again.......but we will miss the French lunches!
1/ Paul Krugman with another great column - the Republicans are in a tizz because Obamacare may be working........
Republican Health Care Panic
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 25, 2013 1146 Comments
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Leading Republicans appear to be nerving themselves up for another round of attempted fiscal blackmail. With the end of the fiscal year looming, they aren’t offering the kinds of compromises that might produce a deal and avoid a government shutdown; instead, they’re drafting extremist legislation — bills that would, for example, cut clean-water grants by 83 percent — that has no chance of becoming law. Furthermore, they’re threatening, once again, to block any rise in the debt ceiling, a move that would damage the U.S. economy and possibly provoke a world financial crisis.
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House G.O.P. Sets New Offensive on Obama Goals(July 24, 2013)
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Yet even as Republican politicians seem ready to go on the offensive, there’s a palpable sense of anxiety, even despair, among conservative pundits and analysts. Better-informed people on the right seem, finally, to be facing up to a horrible truth: Health care reform, President Obama’s signature policy achievement, is probably going to work.
And the good news about Obamacare is, I’d argue, what’s driving the Republican Party’s intensified extremism. Successful health reform wouldn’t just be a victory for a president conservatives loathe, it would be an object demonstration of the falseness of right-wing ideology. So Republicans are being driven into a last, desperate effort to head this thing off at the pass.
Some background: Although you’d never know it from all the fulminations, with prominent Republicans routinely comparing Obamacare to slavery, the Affordable Care Act is based on three simple ideas. First, all Americans should have access to affordable insurance, even if they have pre-existing medical problems. Second, people should be induced or required to buy insurance even if they’re currently healthy, so that the risk pool remains reasonably favorable. Third, to prevent the insurance “mandate” from being too onerous, there should be subsidies to hold premiums down as a share of income.
Is such a system workable? For a while, Republicans convinced themselves that it was doomed to failure, and that they could profit politically from the inevitable “train wreck.” But a system along exactly these lines has been operating in Massachusetts since 2006, where it was introduced by a Republican governor. What was his name? Mitt Somethingorother? And no trains have been wrecked so far.
The question is whether the Massachusetts success story can be replicated in other states, especially big states like California and New York with large numbers of uninsured residents. The answer to this question depends, in the first place, on whether insurance companies are willing to offer coverage at reasonable rates. And the answer, so far, is a clear “yes.” In California, insurers came in with bids running significantly below expectations; in New York, it appears that premiums will be cut roughly in half.
2/ Bill Maher's panel discussions are sometimes excellent, and this seven minute clip is about immigration and racism......it's nice to watch an intelligent political discussion without right wingnuts shouting, and the jokes are a bonus......
In a discussion that ranged from Steve King's laughable "cantaloupe"
Of course, Maher had his own sardonic way of putting a point on the matter. Comparing similar statements from both Obama and Bill O'Reilly about the crime rate among young African-American men, Maher blasted O'Reilly and the GOP for not listening to what Obama actually says. "They're saying the same thing. As if they don't hear what Obama says because they know what he's thinking. They know he'sthinking 'kill whitey.'"
3/ On the same subject, Steven Colbert with a very funny three minute segment calling out the idiot Congressman Steve King......
On Thursday's "Report," Stephen Colbert took a moment to talk about Congressman Steve King of Iowa, who seems to keep making headlines for his tone-deaf comments on immigrants.
Case in point, last year he took a lot of heat for comparing immigrants to dogs. Of course, King didn't understand what all the hubbub was about, he meant it as a compliment.
Looks like the GOP's outreach to Latino voters is going just great.
4/ Challenging story that asks whether the Prosecution in the Zimmerman case threw the case and deliberately lost.
Interesting premise.....and as it says in the article the lead prosecutor was Angela Corey, appointed by Rick Scott, so there is every possibility to assume the case was mishandled for political reasons to reinforce the legality of the "Stand Your Ground" law, a favourite of our Florida Republican politicians. So theory of the Prosecutors deliberately sabotaging the case isn't farfetched.....
We report, you decide.....
Listening to the lead prosecutor’s final argument in the Zimmerman case, it’s hard to believe he really wanted a conviction.
Lead prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda lost focus from the moment he opened his mouth and began: “A teenager is dead. He is dead through no fault of his own.
He is dead because another man made assumptions….”
Not only is de la Rionda’s voice flat, his tone subdued and resigned, he begins by presenting the victim as an abstraction, characterizing him in a neutral, almost dismissive way as “a teenager,” who also happens to be dead, which everyone knew before the trial started. As narrative hooks go, this one is barbless.
The prosecutor adds that this teenager “is dead through no fault of his own,” as if the question before the jury was what did Trayvon do to deserve killing? Why even address the question of Trayvon’s fault when you’re supposedly trying to convict Zimmerman? Even if there’s good reason to expect the defense to try to put Trayvon on trial, why put it at the top of your summation as if it’s a credible question?
And then he says Trayvon is dead “because another man made assumptions”? Really? Isn’t Trayvon dead because another man shot him? Doesn’t that other man have a name? Isn’t Zimmerman the one on trial here? Isn’t that him over there, 27 years-old, 5 feet 7.5 inches tall, 204 pounds?
They Pay TV Anchors Millions a Year to Ratify the People in Power
Despite de la Rionda’s passionless prose and torpid performance, some have praised his work. On ABC News Diane Sawyer said that “prosecutors gave it all they had.” If that was all they had, they didn’t have much.
5/ Coming on August 9th is what looks like an amazingly good sci-fi movie - "Elysium", starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, directed by Neil Blomkamp who also made the excellent "District 9".
The premise of the movie is that in 2051 the Earth has been abandoned by the rich, who live in a space station [Elysium] in a life of luxury, plenty, health and technology. We can see signs of this happening today.......
Great trailer......
6/ We are so screwed - Part 362......
It seems impossible to get any action on the CO2 issue because of the huge energy corporations protecting their profits, and the hope of wind, geothermal and solar is fading fast as the old industries with vested interests resist with all they've got.
You would think solar panels are a nobrainer - prices of the panels are falling, it's an energy saver and every house in the sunny states like Florida and California should have them. But that's not what the utility companies are saying - they're whining who's going to pay for our grid?
On Rooftops, a Rival for Utilities
Monica Almeida/The New York Times
Solar panels north of Los Angeles. According to the Energy Information Administration, rooftop solar electricity accounts for less than a quarter of 1 percent of the nation’s power generation.
By DIANE CARDWELL
Published: July 26, 2013
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For years, power companies have watched warily as solar panels have sprouted across the nation’s rooftops. Now, in almost panicked tones, they are fighting hard to slow the spread.
Related in Opinion
Wealth Matters: Seeking Light in the Heat of Energy Investing (July 27, 2013)
Joshua Lott for The New York Times
Panels in the Deer Valley section of Phoenix. Utilities say the subsidies given to solar-minded homeowners are too generous.
Alarmed by what they say has become an existential threat to their business, utility companies are moving to roll back government incentives aimed at promoting solar energy and other renewable sources of power. At stake, the companies say, is nothing less than the future of the American electricity industry.
According to the Energy Information Administration, rooftop solar electricity — the economics of which often depend on government incentives and mandates — accounts for less than a quarter of 1 percent of the nation’s power generation.
And yet, to hear executives tell it, such power sources could ultimately threaten traditional utilities’ ability to maintain the nation’s grid.
“We did not get in front of this disruption,” Clark Gellings, a fellow at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit arm of the industry, said during a panel discussion at the annual utility convention last month. “It may be too late.”
Advocates of renewable energy — not least solar industry executives who stand to get rich from the transformation — say such statements are wildly overblown. For now, they say, the government needs to help make the economics of renewable power work for ordinary Americans. Without incentives, the young industry might wither — and with it, their own potential profits.
The battle is playing out among energy executives, lawmakers and regulators across the country.
7/ If Comcast and the other cable companies ever made an honest commercial it would look like this.....
It's funny, but painfully funny because it's all true.....one minute.....
8/ This cartoon says it all about the Obama administration........and President Pussy......
9/ Interesting blog story with 'Gimleteye" visiting the Greenland ice sheets, with photos, to look at the rise in sea levels........
As residents of Miami may realise the Rolling Stone article "Goodbye Miami" got a little local attention, but not much. It faded away very quickly because the power structure in South Florida wanted it to.
Why do they downplay the sea rising issue? Just to keep the status quo going a few more years so they can build and sell the thousands of condo units being planned or constructed, and the Argentinians and Brazilians who buy them will have to deal with any problems - "the boys" will be long gone.....
Just business amigos.....
Read the comments underneath the post.......
I understand that Miami readers ... the principal source of readership for this blog ... find it difficult to comment on the impact of climate change. We established the blog for the purpose of calling attention to local issues and politics that the mainstream media refuse to touch.
We narrow-cast and the comments we receive are a good indicator that an important slice of Miami and of Florida congregate around our blog. We also know our blog is read by those involved in the judiciary at the federal and state level, and know that those special interests who control Florida politics through conservative legislatures at the city and county level and through the state legislature employ people to track the blogs.
Talking about climate change and its impacts needs to be an incessant, constant drum beat. I don't have any expectation that it is possible to divert attention to a long-term crisis affecting Miami any more than it is possible it is to change the media message machinery of the radical right. What I call, the Fox News politburo.
Fox News will change its tune on climate change when it pays them to.
People pay attention to their insurance rates, and eventually -- whether through storms here or nearby -- it will be even more difficult than it is today to obtain insurance. Only those who self insure will be able to live in Florida, or those who accept the kinds of marginal insurance offered by Citizens. That population will also dwindle is a prediction.
What is NOT a prediction is the fact of what is happening today on Greenland's ice sheets: they are melting rapidly because the planet is heating up quickly. We are experiencing sea level rise, now, because of global warming, but it is only the leading edge. The melting of Greenland's ice cap is the leading edge.
We narrow-cast and the comments we receive are a good indicator that an important slice of Miami and of Florida congregate around our blog. We also know our blog is read by those involved in the judiciary at the federal and state level, and know that those special interests who control Florida politics through conservative legislatures at the city and county level and through the state legislature employ people to track the blogs.
Talking about climate change and its impacts needs to be an incessant, constant drum beat. I don't have any expectation that it is possible to divert attention to a long-term crisis affecting Miami any more than it is possible it is to change the media message machinery of the radical right. What I call, the Fox News politburo.
Fox News will change its tune on climate change when it pays them to.
People pay attention to their insurance rates, and eventually -- whether through storms here or nearby -- it will be even more difficult than it is today to obtain insurance. Only those who self insure will be able to live in Florida, or those who accept the kinds of marginal insurance offered by Citizens. That population will also dwindle is a prediction.
What is NOT a prediction is the fact of what is happening today on Greenland's ice sheets: they are melting rapidly because the planet is heating up quickly. We are experiencing sea level rise, now, because of global warming, but it is only the leading edge. The melting of Greenland's ice cap is the leading edge.
10/ One of Colbert's funnier schticks is his series "The Word", and on this four minute clip he calls out Fox News for racism.......
Clever humour.......
Ah, there's nothing quite like a good old-fashioned takedown of Fox News for its obvious racism. Stephen Colbert devoted some time to knocking down Bill O'Reilly and Bernard Goldberg for their crazed report that Obama's well-received speech about race relations is unnecessary, because black people commit the most crimes.
11/ And speaking of Miami, it's official - Miami has the country's most dangerous drivers........
Miami Has Country's Worst Drivers: Report
FOLLOW:
Florida Highway Patrol Public Affairs Officer Joe Sanchez, second from right, shows Gov. Rick Scott a car that was recently involved in a fatal accident that is now being displayed in front of the Alonzo and Tracy Mourning Senior High School on Tuesday in North Miami.
A writer for Slate has crunched the numbers and uncovered something that many of us already know: Miami has the worst drivers in the country.
Brian Palmer, Slate's "chief explainer" who has cleared up other issues like "Why Do We Drink Lemonade When It's Hot Out," examined insurance, mileage and accident reports and found that the 305 ranks "first in automotive fatalities, first in pedestrian strikes, first in the obscenity-laced tirades of their fellow drivers."
And worse yet, drivers in runner-up Philadelphia were "not even close" to the epic badness of Miami's, according to Slate.
Drivers in the Miami suburb of Hialeah came in third worst, having what Palmer describes as "a terrifying tendency to hit pedestrians."
Here are the pedestrian deaths in Hialeah from 2001-2009, according to Transportation For America:
A 2012 study by Allstate, one of Palmer's key metrics, found that Hialeah drivers have a 77 percent greater chance of getting into an accident -- over the national average of one "auto collision" every 10 years -- while Miami drivers have a 58.4 percent greater chance.
Yet another Florida city ranks in next in fourth place in Palmer's report with Tampa drivers just being generally lousy with no particular vice to note. Read the full story here.
12/ Anthony Weiner is a gift to comedians, and John Oliver on the Daily Show take full advantage of the hapless Mayoral candidate.......a very funny two part segment, four and six minutes......with penis props no less.....
It's actually beyond belief this asshole is tied in the polls for the New York Mayor's race.....New Yawkers must be a forgiving bunch......
While the insatiable coverage of Weinergate Part 2 has been pretty damning for the NYC mayoral hopeful, comedian John Oliver may have delivered the most withering commentary on Anthony Weiner's compulsive sexting during last night's "Daily Show."
Equal parts juvenile glee and razor-sharp criticism, Oliver spent most of his first segment (above) focused on the epic ridiculousness of this "deja ewwww" scenario. "Anthony Weiner's alter ego is a Bolivian action hero slash porn star," he explained.
13/ Wow - Kevin James - what a magician......the first illusion is pretty simple, but the second one....HUH?
America's Got Talent clip - 5 minutes......
14/ I am really conflicted by this story.
As you know Florida's orange industry has a major problem with a blight that is killing orange trees, with no cure in sight. The only solution is to genetically modify the gene of the orange trees with genes from a type of spinach to produce a strain of oranges that are immune to the blight, and as this excellent in depth story in the Times says the alternative is the elimination of Florida's citrus industry.
So what to do? Do we want GM orange juice? Or do we watch the state's groves be destroyed and just move on and develop a taste for Brazilian oranges? The only consolation is that this process has nothing connected to Monsanto......
Dunno.......
A Race to Save the Orange by Altering Its DNA
Trees that are infected by disease are cut down and burned in Clewiston, Fla., at groves owned by Southern Gardens Citrus. Richard Perry/The New York Times
By AMY HARMON
JULY 27, 2013 416 COMMENTS
CLEWISTON, Fla. — The call Ricke Kress and every other citrus grower in Florida dreaded came while he was driving.
“It’s here” was all his grove manager needed to say to force him over to the side of the road.
The disease that sours oranges and leaves them half green, already ravaging citrus crops across the world, had reached the state’s storied groves. Mr. Kress, the president of Southern Gardens Citrus, in charge of two and a half million orange trees and a factory that squeezes juice for Tropicana and Florida’s Natural, sat in silence for several long moments.
“O.K.,” he said finally on that fall day in 2005, “let’s make a plan.”
In the years that followed, he and the 8,000 other Florida growers who supply most of the nation’s orange juice poured everything they had into fighting the disease they call citrus greening.
To slow the spread of the bacterium that causes the scourge, they chopped down hundreds of thousands of infected trees and sprayed an expanding array of pesticideson the winged insect that carries it. But the contagion could not be contained.
They scoured Central Florida’s half-million acres of emerald groves and sent search parties around the world to find a naturally immune tree that could serve as a new progenitor for a crop that has thrived in the state since its arrival, it is said, with Ponce de León. But such a tree did not exist.
15/ Fishing boats crossing the Columbia Bar, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. Yes these trawlers are specially built, but being in these 30 foot waves with cross currents is pretty hairy....as you can see in this 7 minute video........
This is a rerun, but it's still hypnotic......
These fishermen are manly men!!!
16/ Useful tech stuff
One of the consumer items I buy that I should take a blood pressure pill before venturing into Office Depot are printer cartridges - the printer is cheap, but the ink is more that outrageously priced.
Here is the solution - a laser printer at a reasonable cost.....
July 25, 2013, 12:58 pm 169 Comments
In the Universe of Printers, One Worth Talking About
Say what you want about the evil of printer companies.
“Why, the ink costs more than the printer!” Yes, we know. “They give away the razor, and sell you expensive blades!” Correct. “They say we have to use their own brand of ink! That’s just to stop us from using other companies’ cheaper ink!” Bingo.
But that’s inkjet printers.
In the black-and-white, personal laser-printer realm, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. The one I bought in 2003, an H.P. LaserJet 1300, was cheap, compact and networkable; it served me flawlessly for a decade.
A couple of months ago, it finally gave up the ghost — or, rather, started printing lighter and lighter pages, even with fresh cartridges. I considered getting it repaired, but when I saw that I could get a much faster, much better, brand-new laser printer for around $100, I decided to leap into the future. ($100. Man. My first laser printer was an NEC SilentWriter for which a buddy and I paid $6,000 in the late ’80s.)
Now, I generally don’t review printers. The reason is simple: I’m a one-man operation, and there are hundreds of printer models to review. I’d lose that war fast.
The one I actually bought, though, deserves a special mention. It’s the Hewlett-Packard Pro P1606dn ($150 online). Fortunately, whoever names these things doesn’t design them. This is one rockin’ printer.
Todays video - remember Archie Bunker? Way before it's time, this segment is Archie having to have his pubic hair shaved by a female, and black doctor.....
Todays British jokes
Drive By
A guy broke into my apartment last week. He didn’t take my TV, just the remote. Now he drives by and changes the channels. Sick bastard!
SEX
Condoms don’t guarantee safe sex anymore ….. A friend of mine was wearing one when he was shot by the woman’s husband.
Lance Armstrong
I think it is just terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance Armstrong, especially after what he achieved, winning 7 Tour de France races, whilst on drugs. When I was on drugs, I couldn't even find my frig’n bike.
The Agony of Aging
On the morning that Daylight Savings Time ended I stopped in to visit my aging friend He was busy covering his penis with black shoe polish. I said to him, "You better get your hearing checked - You're supposed to turn your clock back".
SCAM
Just got scammed out of $25. Bought Tiger Woods DVD entitled "My Favorite 18 Holes". Turns out it's about golf. Absolute waste of money! Pass this on so others don't get scammed.
Pregnant Prostitute
Doctor asks pregnant prostitute, "do you know who the father is?" The prostitute said, "if you ate a tin of beans would you know which one made you fart?"
Easy Jet
Paddy calls Easy Jet to book a flight. The operator asks, "How many people are flying with you?" Paddy replies "How do I know! It's your plane!"
Todays teacher joke
The candy-store owner's daughter gave the teacher a pretty box of candy.On the first day of school, the children brought gifts for their teacher. The supermarket manager's daughter brought the teacher a basket of assorted fruit.The florist's son brought the teacher a bouquet of flowers.Then the liquor-store owner's son brought up a big, heavy box. The teacher lifted it up and noticed that it was leaking a little bit…she touched a drop of the liquid with her finger and tasted it."Is it wine?" she guessed."No," the boy replied. She tasted another drop and asked, " Champagne ?""No," said the little boy............."It's a puppy!"
Todays joke selection
I just took a leaflet out of my mailbox, informing me that I can have sex at 79.
I'm so happy, because I live at number 71.So it's not too far to walk home afterwards.And it's the same side of the street.
I don't even have to cross the road!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Answering machine message, "I am not available right now,
but thank you for caring enough to call. I am making some changes in my life.
Please leave a message after the beep. If I do not return your call,
you are one of the changes."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My wife and I had words, but I didn't get to use mine.
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Frustration is trying to find your glasses without your glasses.
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God made man before woman so as to give him time
to think of an answer for her first question.
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I was always taught to respect my elders,
but it keeps getting harder to find one.
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Every morning is the dawn of a new error.
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