1/ The excellent Frank Rich with a major article, the subject and tone of which may surprise you. He looks at the Rand Paul phenomenon, the junior Senator from Kentucky and how he has become the Republican Party's de facto spokesman on foreign affairs. And what's more interesting is that Rich respects him - disagrees with most of his Libertarian policies, but still his style is new for Washington - minimal BS.
Great political article.....and not too long either.....
It’s Hard to Hate Rand Paul
The junior senator from Kentucky would be an appalling right-wing president, and yet he is a valuable politician: a man of conviction, and a visitation from a post-Obama political future.
- By Frank Rich
- Published Sep 22, 2013
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(Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)
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In the Labor Day weekend scramble set off by President Obama’s zero-hour about-face on Syria, the only visible politician in Washington who knew just what he wanted to say and said it was the junior senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul. Appearing after John Kerry on Meet the Press that Sunday, Paul reminded viewers of Kerry’s famous Vietnam-era locution, then said he would like to ask him a question of his own: “How can you ask a man to be the firstone to die for a mistake?”
2/ It's become the media narrative that the extreme right-winers in the Republican Party are an aberration, and expression of the anger that has created the Tea Party. But what if it's on purpose? What if the plan is to actually destroy the middle class, and most Republican politicians are just following a script written by their masters?
Read this provocative article from Salon......
The GOP’s “Hunger Games” vision of America
Cutting food stamps and sabotaging Obamacare aren't irrational – they're part of the 1 percent's all-out class war
BY ANDREW O'HEHIR
Jennifer Lawrence in "The Hunger Games" (Credit: Lionsgate/Murray Close)
American conservatives love to attack anyone who raises the issue of worsening economic inequality for waging “class war.” Their compulsion to keep repeating that phrase is revealing in itself; it’s like the serial killer in a movie who can’t help returning to the scene of the crime. Because the only class war being waged in 21st-century America is the relentless, all-fronts struggle conducted by the rich against the poor.
Within the last week, we have learned that poverty remains at near-record levels in our supposedly affluent nation. Even amid a so-called economic recovery, nearly 22 percent of the nation’s children live in poverty, and the overall number of poor people reached an all-time high, at 46.5 million. Income inequality, meanwhile, is roughly twice as bad as it was in the 1970s, reaching a level never seen before in this country or any other industrialized nation. The top 1 percent of Americans now bring home almost 20 percent of the country’s annual income, and have seen their tax bills decline by almost half. Britain, which has pursued similar tax-cutting policies over the last 30-odd years, finds itself a distant second in inequality, with its top 1 percent of earners commanding about 10 percent of total income. So while we may be behind the Brits in public health, life expectancy and almost every other quality-of-life indicator, we still totally kick their asses when it comes to disgusting rich people.
3/ "People Are Awesome" are some clips of young people doing amazingly visual things......some of the photography is quite beautiful, especially the group skydive......seven minutes of stuff you will never be able to do again even if you could have when we were younger.......
4/ Something new - a photoessay of seven pictures of homeless people......disturbingly real photography......
Seven Gripping Photos Of Homeless Los Angelenos Will Change The Way You Look At A Stranger
Photographer Michael Pharaoh is only 22 years old. Yet already, he possesses the uncanny ability to capture the story written on a stranger's face.
New Zealand-based Pharaoh created the gripping series "The Homeless of L.A." while on vacation in California. The photographs evoke, in tremendous detail, the identity of Hollywood's homeless population in a series of muted yet stylistically gorgeous up-close portraits.
5/ Most interesting story about the Joint Strike Fighter - the F-35.....how it doesn't work, probably never will work but yet it's impossible to kill. And how it will cost upwards of a trillion dollars before it's done.....
Fascinating example of how the military-indistrial complex really functions - a combination of corruption, lobbying, farming the work across as many states as possible so politicians won't vote to kill jobs in their area and plain old fashioned incompetence.
It's also sobering how some of the best journalism in the country is published in magazines like Vanity Fair - excellent story....a long read, but well worth the time.....and if you do, think about this - which Air Force is this cyberplane supposed to fight?
The F-35A at Eglin Air Force Base.
I. Situational Awareness
At nearly 500,000 acres, Eglin Air Force Base is not the most unobtrusive piece of real estate along Florida’s Emerald Coast. It is, however, among the best guarded. The base is home to top-secret weapons laboratories, swamp-training facilities for U.S. Special Forces, and the only supersonic range east of the Mississippi. Even from a great distance, bands of quivering heat can be seen rising from the miles of tarmac. At the end of May, I flew into Fort Walton Beach, a civilian airfield that shares a runway with Eglin, a fact that was driven home when the regional jet I was on ran over an arresting wire, a landing aid for fast-moving fighters, while taxiing to the gate.
6/ If you like Rowan Atkinson, famous for his "Mr Bean" series, you will enjoy this seven minute skit "Elementary Dating".
One of the most gifted physical comedians in the world.....very funny.....
7/ It's hard to specifically identify the most evil global corporation......Koch Industries, Exxon-Mobil, BP, Pfizer, Bayer, Wal-Mart and even McDonalds [make the world obese]....
But definitely on the list is Monsanto.....not just their poisonous products, but their tactics at intimidation and corruption. The head of the FDA is an ex Monsanto lobbyist, and they specialise in suing farmers for stray seeds that stray on to their fields.
Aasif Manvi for the Daily Show interviews some farmers and a really creepy lawyer.......four minutes with some amusing moments but mostly just [sarcastic] reporting that makes you realise how evil these bastards really are...........
8/ Democrats should read this interesting column from Maureen Dowd, a very sharp lady. She looks at how the President is coping with all of the crisies de jour, and it's not good. She says he's lost touch.....read this, and you decide.
WASHINGTON — On the most deadly day here since Sept. 11, 2001, with the capital reeling over the sadly familiar scene of a mass shooting by a madman, the chief executive stepped to the microphones and captured the heartbreak.
It wasn’t the chief executive of the nation. It was Dr. Janis Orlowski, the chief operating officer of MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where three of those injured were being treated.
“There’s something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate,” she said, her voice stoic but laced with emotion. On the day when she announced only hours earlier that she had submitted her resignation to take another job, she continued: “There’s something wrong here when we have these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries. There is something wrong, and the only thing that I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it. I would like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots.”
Calling it “a challenge to all of us,” she concluded: “This is not America.”
President Obama also gave a speech Monday, talking at the White House while the drama unfolded at the supposedly secure Navy Yard nearby. He could have posted his original remarks on the White House Web site and replaced them with a cri de coeur on gun control, or comfort for the shaken city. The 12 who died were, after all, under his aegis as workers in a federal building.
But, jarringly, the president went ahead with his political attack, briefly addressing the slaughter before moving on to jab Republicans over the corporate tax rate and resistance to Obamacare.
9/ Bill Maher laments the rise of hatred in social media, with many examples of sickening tweets that would be funny if they weren't so nasty. OK, OK - they're funny......
Note - really bad language .........really really bad......four minutes.....
10/ The Republican House cut $40 billion from the food stamp program last week..........this story tells us why.....and if you guessed it's because they hate and despise the poor for being losers, you're right......
Republicans: We Were Too Nice to the Hungry, But We’ve Fixed That
Republicans hate domestic spending, but their hatred is not completely indiscriminate. Some programs offend them more, and others less. The general pattern is that social programs offend Republicans to the degree that they benefit the poor, sick, or otherwise unfortunate. The struggle over the farm bill is not the biggest policy dispute in American politics, but it is the one that most clearly reveals the priorities and ideological identity of the contemporary GOP.
The farm bill traditionally combines agriculture subsidies (which hands out subsidies to people on the arbitrary basis that the business they own produces food as opposed to some other goods or services) with food stamps (which hands out subsidies to people on the highly nonarbitrary basis that they’re poor enough to likely have trouble scraping together regular meals). Conservative Republicans revolted against the normally automatic passage, insisting that the cuts to food stamps — $20 billion — did not slice deeply enough. Last night the House rectified its failure by cutting food stamps by $40 billion.
The putative rationale for the food-stamp cuts is that eligibility standards have loosened, or that it encourages sloth. Jonathan Cohnmakes quick work of these claims, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities makes long, detailed work of them. Click on those links if you want a blow-by-blow refutation. The upshot is that food stamps are a meager subsidy, of less than $1.40 per meal, for people either stuck in very low paid jobs or unable to find work at all. Their cost has increased because the recession has increased the supply of poor, desperate people. Republicans have offered specious comparisons to welfare reform, but that law both offered funds for job training and was passed in a full-employment economy. Neither of these conditions holds true of the GOP’s food-stamp cuts, whose only significant result would be the first-order effect of making very poor people hungrier.
11/ Some of you know we have a Belgian Shepherd called Maggie, who is an escape artist and wants to get out when we go out so she can find us.......she hates being confined to the house and yard.
This is her brother. A guy was baffled how his dog was getting out of a locked room, so he set up a nannycam.....one minute....
12/ I'm touching wood as I type this, but if you are diagnosed with cancer it is highly likely as a follow-up to the operation if you have one, or as a course of treatment the medical "cure" will be chemotherapy. No other alternatives are considered.
But there are alternatives - in Europe only a few cases of cancer use chemo....many use diet solutions and they ALL cut you off completely from sugar, which feeds the cancer cells.
Remember - the medical system in the US channels you into the most expensive treatments, as long as you have insurance.
Have you ever wondered why pharmaceutical cancer treatments cost so much when cancer-fighting foods like cannabis oil, sour sop fruit, turmeric, and dandelion greens have been shown to be inexpensive and effective solutions for all kinds of cancers? The Big Pharma companies will seemingly stop at nothing to keep your money while keeping you sick, only to undergo rounds of expensive chemo or radiation along with single doses of cancer drugs that cost upwards of $30,000. It’s unfortunate.
Many people have figured out that pharmaceutical companies are not looking out after people’s health at all, but rather their own inflated wallets. But what about organizations like the American Cancer Society (ACS)? A nation can rely on long-standing institutions like this one for good advice concerning one of the top three killers in the US, right?
Think again.
AstraZeneca, a Big Pharma giant, has made multimillion dollar contributions to ACS, influencing just about everything that the ACS does – every poster, leaflet or commercial product about Breast Cancer Awareness you can think of. These publications focus almost exclusively on mammography and don’t mention a word about carcinogenic foods, chemtrails, aluminum in deodorants, antiperspirants, as well as vaccines. There is no spoken word of breast cancer prevention via natural, inexpensive means, while touting the ‘cure’ of mammography and cancer drugs.
Furthermore, AstraZeneca (formerly known as Zeneca before it merged with the Swedish pharmaceutical company Astra) was owned by Imperial Chemical Industries, a leading international manufacturer of industrial chemicals and carcinogenic pesticides. The multi-million dollar supporter of a leading breast cancer awareness institution is causing cancer! Why is no one teaching us that beating cancer with nutrition is not only possible, but often safer?
13/ Arcade Fire is an excellent band so I was excited to see they have a new single and video, but not this one - "Reflektor". It's set in France [?] because part of the song is in French, the era is WW2 [trucks] and the band are all wearing bighead masks. They are trying to be surreal, but it comes across as self-indulgent and just strange. You could forgive the video if the song were good, but it isn't.....
Oh well.....we report, you decide.....maybe they have become too famous.....
This is what I was hoping for, something as good as this - Arcade Fire with "Ready to Start", one of the best live performances ever.....great song.....I'd forgotten how exciting this was........
14/ Louis C. K. is a funny man - here he visits with Conan O'Brien and explains why he won't be letting his kids have a smartphone.
Five minutes of amusement.....but with a serious message - after watching this you might not compulsively reach for your phone every time you have a spare minute....
15/ If there was ever a "Floriduh" story, this is it........
It would have been even more perfect if it had happened in the Villages......
Florida Man Shoots Himself While Bowling
In what might be the most American way to accidentally shoot oneself, a Florida man shot himself while bowling last night, after his bowling ball came into contact with the loaded gun in his pocket.
"The guy just stepped up to bowl," fellow-bowler Jim Miller told WPBF . "I think he hit his leg on his back swing."
The man shot himself around 7:30 last night while bowling at Jupiter Lanes. Another bowler reported that "The ball hit him in the leg, which triggered the revolver."
Witnesses originally thought the gunshot was a firecracker, but after watching the bowler limp back to his seat, holding his leg, they knew it was a gun.
He was taken to a hospital shortly after, but the man's injuries are not considered to be life-threatening.
Todays video - the chase scene from "Bullitt" with the wonderfully laconic Steve McQueen......9 minutes with no dialogue, just the cars.....
Todays shark joke
Two great white sharks swimming in the ocean spied survivors of a sunken ship.
"Follow me son," the father shark said to the son shark, and they swam to the mass of people.
"Follow me son," the father shark said to the son shark, and they swam to the mass of people.
"First we swim around them a few times with just the tip of our fins showing."
And they did.
"Well done, son! Now we swim around them a few times with ALL of our fins showing."
And they did.
"Now we eat everybody."
And they did.
When they were both gorged, the son asked, "Dad, why didn't we just eat them all at first? Why did we swim around and around them?"
His wise father replied, "Because they taste better after you scare the shxt out of them…!
His wise father replied, "Because they taste better after you scare the shxt out of them…!
Todays Catholic joke
The new priest is nervous about hearing confessions, so he asks the older priest to sit in on his sessions.
The new priest hears a couple of confessions, then the old priest asks him to step out of the confessional for a few suggestions.
The old priest suggests, "Cross you arms over your chest, and rub your chin with one hand."
The old priest suggests, "Cross you arms over your chest, and rub your chin with one hand."
The new priest tries this.
The old priest suggests, "Try saying things like, 'I see, yes, go on', and "I understand. How did you feel about that?"
The old priest suggests, "Try saying things like, 'I see, yes, go on', and "I understand. How did you feel about that?"
The new priest says those things.
The old priest says, "Now, don't you think that's a little better than slapping your knee and saying 'No shxt?!? What happened next?"
The old priest says, "Now, don't you think that's a little better than slapping your knee and saying 'No shxt?!? What happened next?"
Todays one-liner jokes
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