1/ Our best commentator on politics, Frank Rich, with his observations on the news of the week........excellent stuff......
The true background behind the corporate media BS they feed us......
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: Congress shrugs off a murderous rampage in D.C., Larry Summers proves he can count, and the GOP out-mavericks James Garner.
After Monday's slaughter at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard, members of Congress made it very clear that they had no desire to touch the new third-rail of American politics, gun control. Since that's off the table at a federal level, is there any political step that can be taken — even a small, imperfect one — to stop mass shootings?
Essentially, no. Perhaps the best thing we can do is at least call out the problem for what it is: state-sponsored terrorism. The American people and their elected representatives allow our own homegrown equivalent of suicide bombers — suicide shooters — legal access to weapons with which they can mow down innocents almost anywhere they please. Bloomberg’s money can’t solve this (indeed his political contributions on behalf of gun-law reformers may have backfired) and neither can the blather of a thousand moralizing talking heads. So now, as always happens after these bloodbaths, the real problem is put on hold again and we are back to talking about side issues. Many are calling for keeping a closer watch on government contractors, for instance, but where were they when government contractors at Blackwater, et al, were wreaking havoc on civiliansduring the Iraq War? That horse is long out of the barn; we have an increasingly privatized government, cheered on by the same anti-government political party that is most in thrall to the NRA.
Essentially, no. Perhaps the best thing we can do is at least call out the problem for what it is: state-sponsored terrorism. The American people and their elected representatives allow our own homegrown equivalent of suicide bombers — suicide shooters — legal access to weapons with which they can mow down innocents almost anywhere they please. Bloomberg’s money can’t solve this (indeed his political contributions on behalf of gun-law reformers may have backfired) and neither can the blather of a thousand moralizing talking heads. So now, as always happens after these bloodbaths, the real problem is put on hold again and we are back to talking about side issues. Many are calling for keeping a closer watch on government contractors, for instance, but where were they when government contractors at Blackwater, et al, were wreaking havoc on civiliansduring the Iraq War? That horse is long out of the barn; we have an increasingly privatized government, cheered on by the same anti-government political party that is most in thrall to the NRA.
2/ A good Colbert - here he looks at the Fox News coverage of Syria, and it's biblical folks......
A funny five minutes.......
No, Neil Cavuto, you can't go on TV and announce that the Syrian conflict is a harbinger of the end of times and expect anyone to take you seriously. Cue Stephen Colbert poking fun at him for espousing that kind of doomsday theory on Fox News.
3/ An excellent column from Gail Collins.... amusing [and true!] commentary on the Republicans' obsession with Obamacare......
World War O
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: September 18, 2013 509 Comments
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The war against Obamacare: All the rationality of a Justin Bieber fan riot, and all the restraint of “Saw VI.”
Earl Wilson/The New York Times
Gail Collins
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For Op-Ed, follow@nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.
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On Wednesday, leaders of the House of Representatives announced their plans for a 42nd and 43rd vote to thwart the new health care reform law. If they don’t get their way, they’re threatening to defund the government and crack the debt ceiling.
“The law is a train wreck,” said Speaker John Boehner. The majority leader, Eric Cantor, said someone had to protect middle-class families from “its horrific effects.”
The arrival of Obamacare is worse than an invasion of giant zombies swinging nuclear-tipped crocodiles! Yet it lives! If only we lived in a country where citizens had the power to turn things around by voting lawmakers out of office. Like Uruguay or Latvia.
Seriously, people, why do you think the Republicans have gone so completely lunatic when it comes to this issue? Why do they behave as if, once the health law begins to roll out, it will be cemented in place like an amendment to the Constitution?
True, it would be a pain to repeal the whole thing if it doesn’t work out. But not a pain sufficient to wreak havoc on the global economy like, say, refusing to raise the debt ceiling. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has been leading the push to shut down the government unless Congress repeals Obamacare. But have you ever heard him vow that if Congress doesn’t repeal Obamacare there will be ... elections and then a new Congress that will repeal Obamacare?
Actually, Ted Cruz has an answer for this. Once the law goes into effect, he told the Web site The Daily Caller, the public will be overwhelmed by its sugary sweetness — “hooked on the subsidies.” It’s the duty of Congress to take it back before people can taste it, just the way New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to whisk away high-calorie Big Gulps.
So, the message is clear. The new health care law is going to be terrible, wreaking havoc on American families, ruining their lives. And they are going to love it so much they will never have the self-control necessary to give it up.
So the war goes on. No issue is too big to ignore in the name of Obamacare repeal. None is too small. None is too unrelated. In the Senate, the latest victim was a popular, useful bill on energy efficiency, whose happy march toward passage came screeching to a halt when a handful of Republicans tried to make it a vehicle for votes on you-know-what.
4/ This 30 second Bill de Blasio commercial may have had a huge influence on De Blasio winning the [D] nomination for Mayor of New York City......it's brilliant........and relevant to the story in the last DDD which I have repeated below in case you didn't read it............
Anyway, great commercial.......
Political Junkie story.
Fascinating article about how the selection of Bill De Blasio as the [D] candidate for New York Mayor may be a sign of the future - the rise of a new generation's rejection of the two mainstream parties.....
It's a long read, but if you are interested in politics it's very good.....
The Rise of the New New Left
by Peter Beinart Sep 12, 2013 4:45 AM EDTBill de Blasio’s win in New York’s Democratic primary isn’t a local story. It’s part of a vast shift that could upend three decades of American political thinking. By Peter Beinart
5/ General Keith Alexander is head of the NSA, and as this excellent profile in "Foreign Policy" says he seems to be a honourable man, but blinded by the power of his agency, which has been collecting metadata on all Americans and also globally.
The question is - do we trust this agency with this data? The answer, by a large majority, is no.....
Interesting and thoughtful article......
The Cowboy of the NSA
Inside Gen. Keith Alexander's all-out, barely-legal drive to build the ultimate spy machine.
BY SHANE HARRIS | SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
On Aug. 1, 2005, Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander reported for duty as the 16th director of the National Security Agency, the United States' largest intelligence organization. He seemed perfect for the job. Alexander was a decorated Army intelligence officer and a West Point graduate with master's degrees in systems technology and physics. He had run intelligence operations in combat and had held successive senior-level positions, most recently as the director of an Army intelligence organization and then as the service's overall chief of intelligence. He was both a soldier and a spy, and he had the heart of a tech geek. Many of his peers thought Alexander would make a perfect NSA director. But one prominent person thought otherwise: the prior occupant of that office.
More...
Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden had been running the NSA since 1999, through the 9/11 terrorist attacks and into a new era that found the global eavesdropping agency increasingly focused on Americans' communications inside the United States. At times, Hayden had found himself swimming in the murkiest depths of the law, overseeing programs that other senior officials in government thought violated the Constitution. Now Hayden of all people was worried that Alexander didn't understand the legal sensitivities of that new mission.
"Alexander tended to be a bit of a cowboy: 'Let's not worry about the law. Let's just figure out how to get the job done,'" says a former intelligence official who has worked with both men. "That caused General Hayden some heartburn."
6/ The wonderful George Carlin with "We Like War".....just when I thought I had seen all the great Carlin clips, another one pops up. When you watch this wonderful riff on war, just think Syria.....
An excellent three minutes.....
7/ We were in the car on Monday and listened to this interview on NPR's "On Point" with Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University on his new book "The End Of Average".
It's chilling - he describes a future that sounds like "Hunger Games", or "Elysium", with the top 20% doing just fine, and the bottom 80% in near poverty. What is most disturbing is the matter-of-fact way he describes this bleak future, his lack of emotion or apparently any moral judgement.
"Just the facts m'am" is his technique.....he brings up some valid points like if a computer enhances your job you'll be fine. If you are competing with a computer [like a factory job], you're in trouble. He also skated around the issue of who is in the top 20%.......this will consist of 18% of the 20% servicing a fabulously wealthy 2%.
I of course looked him up, and his University is regarded as right wing, and he has worked at the Mercatus Institute which is partly funded by the Koch Brothers, but the disturbing thing is this may be how the oligarchy sees the future, and are actively working towards this goal - to create a nation of serfs with an overclass using the peasant labour.
8/ Good to see Jon Stewart back on form.....here in a two part segment [four minutes each[ he skewers cable news for their coverage of the Washington mass shooting.......
In the wake of another senseless mass shooting, Jon Stewart posed a question: why are conservatives so eager to throw away all the amendments to keep the country safe… except the second one.
Stewart found it odd how someone with mental health and legal issues was able to legally own a gun and even pass a background check “with flying crazy.”
But more importantly, Stewart wanted to know why no form of gun control whatsoever seems to be acceptable. He called out conservatives from SenatorJohn Cornyn to Fox News’ Eric Bolling for seemingly having no issue being lenient when it comes to most of the Constitution but being very gung-ho about guns. Stewart could only conclude, “With guns, the Constitution is ironclad, but with terrorism, it’s a list of suggestions.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/
9/ And on the same subject as the NPR podcast is this story in the Business section of the Times - "America's sinking middle class".
America’s Sinking Middle Class
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: September 18, 2013
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In some respects, 1988 has the feel of an alien, distant era. There was no such thing as the World Wide Web then. The Soviet Union was still around; the Berlin Wall still standing. Americans elected a Republican president who would raise taxes to help tame the budget deficit.
Multimedia
On Tuesday, however, the Census Bureau reminded me how for most Americans 1988 still looks a lot like yesterday: last year, the typical household made $51,017, roughly the same as the typical household made a quarter of a century ago.
The statistic is staggering — hardly what one would expect from one of the richest and most technologically advanced nations on the planet.
I have written several times before about howmeasures of social and economic well-being in the United States have slipped compared to other advanced countries. But it is even more poignant to recognize that, in many ways, America has been standing still for a full generation.
It made me wonder what happened to progress.
Consider: 36 years ago this month, when NASA launched the Voyager 1 probe into space, 11.6 percent of Americans were officially considered poor. The other day Voyager sailed clear out of the solar system into interstellar space — the first man-made object to do so — recording its environment on an 8-track deck.
Using the same official metric — which actually undercounts the poor compared to new methods used by the Census today — the poverty rate is 15 percent.
To be sure, we have made progress over the last 25 years. The nation’s gross domestic product per person has increased 40 percent since 1988. We’ve gained four years’ worth of life expectancy at birth. The infant mortality rate has plummeted by 50 percent. More women and more men are entering and graduating from college.
We also have access to far more sophisticated consumer goods, from the iPhone to cars packed with digital devices. And the cost of many basic staples, notably food, has fallen significantly.
Carl Shapiro, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley and an expert on technology and innovation who stepped down from President Obama’s Council on Economic Advisors last year, calls the progress in information technology and biotechnology over the last 25 years “breathtaking.”
“Most Americans partake in the benefits offered by these new technologies, from smartphones to better dental care,” Professor Shapiro said. Still, he acknowledged, “somehow this impressive progress has not translated into greater economic security for the American middle class.”
In key respects, in fact, the standard of living of most Americans has fallen decidedly behind. Just take the cost of medical services. Health care spending per person, adjusted for inflation, has roughly doubled since 1988, to about $8,500 — pushing up health insurance premiums and eating into workers’ wages.
The cost of going to college has been rising faster than inflation as well. About two-thirds of people with bachelor’s degrees relied on loans to get through college, up from 45 percent two decades ago. Average student debt in 2011 was $23,300.
In contrast to people in other developed nations, who have devoted more time to leisure as they have gotten richer, Americans work about as much as they did a quarter-century ago. Despite all this toil, the net worth of the typical American family in the middle of the income distribution fell to $66,000 in 2010 — 6 percent less than in 1989 after inflation
10/ Kings of Leon with "Sentimental Girls", shot in a 50's style with mood setpieces like bored sexy girls, old cars, diners etc.......
Good old fashioned rock, and a pretty good song too......
11/ If you ever had even a lingering doubt, a smidgin of hope that the Republicans in charge of the Governership, the Florida Senate and the House care one iota about Floridians read this....it's like they have declared war on the poor, unemployed and the sick.
Great story from the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.......
War on Obamacare leaves Floridians as casualties
September 14, 2013|Douglas C. Lyons, Sun Sentinel Senior Editorial Writer
There was the lawsuit, a legal pursuit led by two Florida attorneys general that made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before the justices certified Obamacare as the law of the land.
Undaunted, the state of Florida went on a tear. It turned down federal funding to help set up those marketplace/exchange websites, where the uninsured will find, evaluate and ultimately sign up for health insurance policies. As time passed, state leaders decided not to bother with the websites, threw up their hands and punted the task over to the federal government.
"The state didn't have a choice," state Sen. Eleanor Sobel, D.Hollywood, said this week at a Sun Sentinel forum on the Affordable Care Act. "Florida didn't know how to set up its own exchanges. That's the real story."
There's more. The state declined Washington's offer of $51 billion over ten years to expand Medicaid and allow more of the state's 3.8 million uninsured a chance to obtain health insurance. The move prompted acrimony, but failed to produce any new money.
Gov. Rick Scott didn't help matters. He initially said he wanted Washington's money and supported Medicaid expansion to get it. Those comments, however, didn't go over well with the governor's tea party backers, and Scott hasn't said or done anything else since.
To its credit, the Florida Senate came up with an alternative, a public-private partnership that would use federal funds to expand coverage. The Florida House rejected the Senate plan. So, all that tax money our state sends to Washington for Obamacare will go elsewhere.
The fact that Obamacare still exists, and is scheduled to rollout websites to provide health coverage next month is simply painful for those who want to wipe the program off the face of the Earth. Some states are seeing benefits, but Republicans who control state government continue to throw everything at the Affordable Care Act.
How else to explain the new law that prohibits Florida's top insurance regulator from making sure Floridians aren't paying too much for health-care coverage? The restrictions are good for two years, about the time it'll take to get Obamacare up and running. Talk about coincidence.
12/ A very funny six minutes - British comedian Peter Kay with a wonderful act called misheard lyrics......
It's excellent folks.....
13/ Here is another "Floriduh" story that I am baffled over.....Florida has just turned down $2.6 million in federal funds for bike paths and "rails to trails".....
They say they are going to allocate equivalent Florida funding, but if you believe one bloody word the Scott administration says you're crazy......
Florida opts out of federal rule to spend $2.6M on bike, walking paths
5:34 p.m. EST, August 31, 2012|By Dan Tracy, Orlando Sentinel
Florida opted out Friday of a federal requirement to spend $2.6 million next year building recreational paths where people can bike and walk without having to share the space with cars and trucks
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Despite the decision, the state still intends to spend the money on the program, said Ananth Prasad, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation.
on the program, said Ananth Prasad, secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation.
The reason for the switch, he said, is to give local governments more "flexibility" in their ability to spend the federal money that is first sent to Florida, then allocated to cities and counties.
more "flexibility" in their ability to spend the federal money that is first sent to Florida, then allocated to cities and counties.
Tim Bustos, director of the Florida Bicycle Association, said he is "cautiously optimistic" that Prasad will do as he says.
"It's really going to play out over the next few years," said Bustos, whose nonprofit organization is based in Longwood.
Prasad said the problem with sticking with the federal rule is that the state already has $6 million waiting to spent on recreational trails, but has no projects ready to go.
"If you don't have projects you are just setting aside money. You aren't doing anything," he said.
By opting out, he said, local government can take money that officials there would have been forced to spend on trail projects and use it for sidewalks or landscaping.
can take money that officials there would have been forced to spend on trail projects and use it for sidewalks or landscaping.
The federal money comes from the transportation bill passed earlier this year by Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Florida gets more than $1.8 billion from the federal government for roads and other transportation ventures. Included in that amount is the $2.6 million for rails to trails.
for roads and other transportation ventures. Included in that amount is the $2.6 million for rails to trails.
Movie reviews - not just one good movie in theaters this week, but three, all different.......
14/ "Enough Said", with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini in his last movie....a little "chick flicky", but also very funny......
“I’m tired of being funny,” says Eva, the Los Angeles massage therapist whose midlife travails are the subject of “Enough Said,” a small miracle of a movie written and directed by Nicole Holofcener. It is possible to sympathize with Eva and also to marvel at her curious sense of timing. Happily — or at least not miserably — divorced, with nice friends and a gratifyingly nondysfunctional teenage daughter, Eva, played by the reliably hilarious Julia Louis-Dreyfus, uses her sense of humor as a social tool and an emotional defense. She’s a good sport, a designated joker, which is fine except that it means that she never has to be taken seriously, even by herself.
But as she rolls over in the bed she has just shared, for the first time, with Albert (James Gandolfini) — also the divorced parent of a girl soon to leave for college — Eva senses another possibility. This guy, whom she met at a party and recently started dating, might actually get her, not just her jokes. He agreeably and gallantly says that he’s also tired of being funny. “But you’re not funny,” she says as they snuggle against each other, laughing at her own quick wit and also paying him a sincere, if somewhat backhanded, compliment.
Now is the time to state that “Enough Said” is very funny indeed. Line for line, scene for scene, it is one of the best-written American film comedies in recent memory and an implicit rebuke to the raunchy, sloppy spectacles of immaturity that have dominated the genre in recent years.
This is not to say that Ms. Holofcener, an acute observer of the manners and morals of the self-satisfied metropolitan middle class, West Coast division, is decorous or genteel. She is, rather, almost ruthless in her attention to the petty vanities and hypocrisies of her characters, and the ways their relatively privileged circumstances lead them to weave webs of guilt, complacency and stifled aggression.
And yet it is also clear that Ms. Holofcener likes them, even — or especially — when they are ridiculous, myopic or mean. This has been apparent in all of her features so far, from “Walking and Talking” (1996) through “Lovely and Amazing” (2002), “Friends With Money” (2006) and “Please Give” (2010). Their only real flaw is scarcity. Ideally, Ms. Holofcener would be able to work at a Woody Allen pace, issuing annual bulletins from the lives of people who, after 15 or 20 minutes, already seem like your friends.
In other words, they are exasperating and difficult as well as lovable. Ms. Louis-Dreyfus was memorably described (in her “Seinfeld” persona) as a pretty woman with “a face like a frying pan.” That face has matured into a remarkably expressive instrument. Eva is like no other movie character I have ever seen, and uncannily like a lot of real women I know. Motherhood on the big screen is typically viewed with pity, sentimentality or resentment, and romantic love tends to be treated in a similarly reductive manner, as an impossible dream or a state of earthly bliss. Ms. Louis-Dreyfus and Ms. Holofcener know better, and they approach Eva’s emotional adventures, as mother, lover and friend, as a series of practical and ethical challenges.
Funny trailer....lots of zingers, and it looks like a god movie.....
15/ "Prisoners", with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal is about a man who's kids are missing, and who takes things into his own hands because the law can't.......
Violence against children strikes most people as a uniquely terrible phenomenon, which may be why filmmakers are so fond of it. Nothing sparks a revenge plot, or allows a director to trade intellectual nuance for visceral feeling, quite as efficiently as a child in peril. When dealing with people who gratuitously cause the innocent to suffer, no retribution seems too extreme, and the history of movies is full of good men (and a few women) driven to righteous brutality against predators, kidnappers and abusers.
Keller Dover, the enraged, grief-addled father played by Hugh Jackman in Denis Villeneuve’s “Prisoners,” seems like such a character. “He’s not a person,” Keller says of the man he believes is responsible for the abduction of his young daughter and her friend. And this conviction, that the apparent perpetrator has forfeited his humanity, allows an honorable family man to contemplate torture and murder. He beats his captive bloody and locks him in a makeshift cell in an abandoned building, hoping to extract the truth and perhaps also a measure of rough justice. When the other girl’s parents (Viola Davis and Terrence Howard) express doubts about what Keller is doing, their qualms strike him as evidence of weakness and irrationality.
But if “Prisoners,” written by Aaron Guzikowski, upholds some of the conventions of the angry-dad revenge drama, it also subverts them in surprising, at times devastating ways. The easy catharsis of righteous payback is complicated at every turn, and pain and uncertainty spread like spilled oil on an asphalt road.
When the girls, Anna and Joy, go missing late on Thanksgiving afternoon, suspicion focuses on the driver of a camper that had been parked in their small-town Pennsylvania neighborhood. An arrest is made of a young man (Paul Dano) who seems mentally disabled and shares no information about the girls’ whereabouts. Then a dead body is found in an elderly priest’s basement, and a second young man, with a nervous manner and a haunted look, shows up at a vigil for the missing children and runs away into the night. False leads and shadowy connections proliferate, and nobody knows if Anna and Joy are dead or alive.
It’s all very creepy and mysterious, and “Prisoners” is, among other things, a satisfying whodunit, with artfully deposited clues and twists that are surprising without entirely undermining the film’s naturalistic credibility.
But Mr. Villeneuve, a French Canadian director whose previous movies include “Incendies” and“
Like “Zodiac,” “Mystic River” and “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Prisoners” suggests that evil is not confined to a single person or set of actions. Crimes are specified, and criminals are discovered, but empirical solutions are not enough to dispel the feeling that an uncontained atmospheric menace broods over this wintry landscape. (Roger A. Deakins’s somber cinematography turns the Keystone State into a study of grays and browns, dead leaves and bare trees, under a sky like wet metal.)
Keller, a survivalist with a basement full of canned goods and batteries, seems to have been infected by it even before the disappearance of his daughter. His wife (Maria Bello) tips into a pool of despair. Other people, like the aunt of one of the suspects (Melissa Leo), are weighed down by bad luck and weary dread.
Oooohhh....what an intense trailer.......
16/ "Rush", a story about Formula ! racing is based on a true rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt in the 70's, and it's directed by the brilliant Ron Howard.......
Ladies - it stars the very handsome Chris Hemsworth.......check out the trailer......
Several times in “Rush,” Ron Howard’s excitingly torqued movie set in the Formula One race world, the camera gets so close to a driver’s eye that you can see each trembling lash. It’s a startlingly beautiful but also naked image, partly because there’s no hiding for an actor when the camera gets that close. In moments like these, you’re no longer watching a performance with its layers of art and technique: you’ve crossed the border between fiction and documentary to go eye to eye with another person’s nervous system. Mr. Howard doesn’t just want you to crawl inside a Formula One racecar, he also wants you to crawl inside its driver’s head.
Specifically, he wants to get inside those of James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), Formula One titans and rivals, who, in 1976, helped push the sport into mainstream consciousness. (Well, at least in much of the rest of the world: Formula One has long struggled in the United States.) In 1976, when both men were in their late 20s, they raced after each other while chasing the world championship over wet, dry and terrifyingly gnarly tracks. Tucked, very much alone, into open-wheel machines that could easily have become coffins, Hunt and Lauda cut corners and grazed death lap after lap — whooshing over racetracks, city streets and deceptively pastoral roads into the sort of sports legend that translates only occasionally into good cinema.
Built for speed on and off the track, Hunt was the pretty one, a tall, blond, British playboy who transcended his middle-class background to become racing royalty, the King James of newspaper headlines. Born into a wealthy Austrian family, the shorter, slighter and darker Lauda was, by contrast, cruelly nicknamed the Rat because of his pronounced overbite. (The Beaver would have been a more apt handle.) Hunt partied hard — archival photographs inevitably show him bookended by women, his gaze nestled in their décolletage — while Lauda assumed the role of the frosty, teetotaling tactician. They were an ideally matched, telegenic, salable pair — the heartthrob and the master gearhead — whose differences in and out of their cars put a playful, at times anguished human face onto a sports story.
It’s one that the screenwriter Peter Morgan strips down to its satisfying, straightforward core. There are all sorts of narratives that could be spun out of Formula One, including how lives were sacrificed for profit. (In 1994, Ayrton Senna became the last driver to die in a Grand Prix.) It’s hard to believe, though, that even a down-and-dirty exposé would be a fraction as entertaining as “Rush,” which distills the thrill of racing into a clash of personalities, one nail-biting face-off, a catastrophic accident and a wild comeback. Enzo Ferrari, the Ferrari founder (who was called the Saturn, or devourer of his children, because of the fatalities during his tenure), might have been more important to Formula One than any driver, but romances like “Rush” don’t belong to the owners: they belong to the workers, the grim ones and the smiling ones, the ones with the death wish and the ones with the gushers of Champagne.
Shortly after the movie opens, Hunt is walking barefoot into a hospital, bleeding from the nose while still in his racing suit. He’s a ravishing mess, and his effect on the room, which goes immediately silent, is unmistakably erotic. “Hunt, James Hunt,” he announces, echoing a familiar line. Before long, a nurse is at once dressing his wound and undressing the rest of him, a seduction that’s as much about the audience’s pleasure as that of the characters on screen. Best known for playing the comic-book hero Thor, Mr. Hemsworth is prettier than the all-too-real man he plays in “Rush.” Yet this surplus of beauty works for the role because the actor, who holds the screen with the unconscious physical confidence of the truly lovely, looks like the star that James Hunt became.
Great trailer, probably should see this in the cinema with a widescreen.......wow.......
Todays video - Do you feel lucky punk? Well do ya?
One of the younger Clint Eastwood's famous scenes....from "Dirty Harry"......
Todays hospital joke
A recent article in the Kentucky Post reported that a woman, one Anne Maynard, has sued St Luke's hospital, saying that after her husband had surgery there, he lost all interest in sex.
A hospital spokesman replied " Mr. Maynard was admitted in Ophthalmology – all we did was correct his eyesight."
Todays husbands joke
NINE WORDS WOMEN USE
(1) Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.
(2) Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.
(3) Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in fine.
(4) Go Ahead: This is a dare, not permission. Don't Do It!
(5) Loud Sigh: This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to # 3 for the meaning of nothing.)
(6) That's Okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.
(7) Thanks: A woman is thanking you, do not question, or faint. Just say you're welcome. (I want to add in a clause here - This is true, unless she says 'Thanks a lot' - that is PURE sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say 'you're welcome' . that will bring on a 'whatever').
(8) Whatever: Is a woman's way of saying F-- YOU!
(9) Don't worry about it, I got it: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking 'What's wrong?' For the woman's response refer to # 3.
* Send this to the men you know, to warn them about arguments they can avoid if they remember the terminology.
Todays teachers jokes
The following questions were set in last year's GED examination. These are genuine answers (from 16 year olds).
Q. Name the four seasons?
A.. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar
Q. Name the four seasons?
A.. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar
Q. How is dew formed?
A.. The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire
A.. The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire
Q. What guarantees may a mortgage company insist on?
A.. If you are buying a house they will insist that you are well endowed
A.. If you are buying a house they will insist that you are well endowed
Q. In a democratic society, how important are elections?
A.. Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election
A.. Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election
Q. What are steroids?
A. Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs (Shoot yourself now, there is little hope)
A. Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs (Shoot yourself now, there is little hope)
Q... What happens to your body as you age?
A.. When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental
A.. When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental
Q. What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty?
A.. He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery (So true)
A.. He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery (So true)
Q. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes?
A.. Premature death
A.. Premature death
Q. What is artificial insemination?
A... When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow
A... When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow
Q. How can you delay milk turning sour?
A.. Keep it in the cow (Simple, but brilliant)
A.. Keep it in the cow (Simple, but brilliant)
Q. How are the main 20 parts of the body categorised (e.g. The abdomen)
A.. The body is consisted into 3 parts - the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity.
The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abdominal
cavity contains the five bowels: A, E, I,O,U.. (wtf!)
A.. The body is consisted into 3 parts - the brainium, the borax and the abdominal cavity.
The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs and the abdominal
cavity contains the five bowels: A, E, I,O,U.. (wtf!)
Q. What is the fibula?
A.. A small lie
A.. A small lie
Q. What does 'varicose' mean?
A.. Nearby
A.. Nearby
Q. What is the most common form of birth control?
A.. Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium (That would work)
A.. Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium (That would work)
Q. Give the meaning of the term 'Caesarean section'
A.. The caesarean section is a district in Rome
A.. The caesarean section is a district in Rome
Q. What is a seizure?
A.. A Roman Emperor. (Julius Seizure, I came, I saw, I had a fit)
A.. A Roman Emperor. (Julius Seizure, I came, I saw, I had a fit)
Q. What is a terminal illness?
A. When you are sick at the airport. (Irrefutable)
A. When you are sick at the airport. (Irrefutable)
Q. What does the word 'benign' mean?
A.. Benign is what you will be after you be eight (brilliant)
A.. Benign is what you will be after you be eight (brilliant)
Q. What is a turbine?
A.. Something an Arab or Shreik wears on his head
A.. Something an Arab or Shreik wears on his head
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