We wait for Thursday, and hope the cretins in the Tea Party Caucus come to their senses.........
Recommend you read #2.......very insightful......
1/ Excellent story from Tim Dickinson in Rolling Stone on the warfare inside the Republican Party........as we careen towards default on Thursday.....
Inside the Republican Suicide Machine
It's open warfare within the GOP – and all of America is caught in the crossfire
Senator Ted Cruz
Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images
October 9, 2013 11:45 AM ET
The day before Congress broke for its August recess, on an afternoon when most of official Washington was tying up loose ends and racing to get out of town, Sen. Ted Cruz was setting the stage for the chaos that has consumed the nation's capital in recent weeks.
The tall Tea Party-backed Texan – the state's junior senator, with less than a year in office – worked his mischief in a windowless Capitol basement, where dozens of the most radical members of the House had gathered for a meeting of the Republican Study Committee. Once a marginal group known for elevating anti-government dogma above party loyalty, the RSC now counts among its members 174 of the 232 House Republicans.
"Father, we thank you," says Rep. Michele Bachmann, opening the meeting. "You are the most important presence in this room." In a pinstriped suit and yellow tie, Cruz sits at the center of a long conference table, flanked by RSC chair Steve Scalise and by the group's most powerful member, former chair Jim Jordan of Ohio – who has routinely marshaled House rebels into battle against leadership. Jordan flashes the visiting senator a conspiratorial smile.
Soft-spoken but passionate, Cruz derides the work of House leadership, who this same week have scheduled a 40th, futile bill to roll back Obamacare. Instead of "symbolic statements" that "won't become law," Cruz says, the time has come to force a real fight – one that Republicans can "actually win." It's imperative to act now, Cruz warns, before the full benefits of Obamacare kick in and Americans get "hooked on the sugar, hooked on the subsidies." His plan: Yoke the defunding of Obamacare to the must-pass budget bill the House will take up in September. The endgame? To force a government shutdown so painful and protracted that Barack Obama would have no choice but to surrender the crown jewel of his presidency. "As scary as a shutdown fight is," Cruz insists, "if we don't stand and defund Obamacare now, we never will."
With those words, Cruz fired the first shot in a civil war that has cleaved Republicans in both chambers of Congress – a struggle that threatens the legitimacy of the Grand Old Party and the stability of the global economy. The fight has little to do with policy, or even ideology. It pits the party's conservative establishment against an extremist insurgency in a battle over strategy, tactics and, ultimately, control of the party. Each side surveys the other with distrust, even contempt. The establishment believes the insurgents' tactics are suicidal; the insurgents believe the establishment lacks the courage of its alleged convictions – while its own members are so convinced of their righteousness that they compare themselves to civil rights heroes like Rosa Parks. The establishment is backed by powerful business concerns with a vested interest in a functioning government. The insurgents are championed by wealthy ideologues who simply seek to tear down government. Both sides are steeled by millions in unregulated, untraceable "dark money."
2/ This is an excellent look at conservatives, how they think and who they are. It's a better version of the story in last week's DDD, and just as fascinating. If you want to understand what is happening to our society, read this.......
It May Be Hard to Believe, But GOP Will Become Even More Extreme, Respected Political Forecasters Say
Focus groups find the GOP in a battle for its political survival.
October 8, 2013 |
The Republican factions leading the war on Obamacare, the federal government shutdown—and attacking other Democratic priorities such as preserving safety nets, expanding civil rights and regulating big business—are going to become more extreme and intransigent, top Democratic pollsters have concluded.
“Understand that the base thinks they are losing politically and losing control of the country… and [feel] a little powerless to change course,” the analysis by Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Erica Seifert found after a series of focus groups in three red states this summer. “They think Obama has imposed his agenda, while Republicans in DC let him get away with it.”
Their Democracy Corps report is an illuminating profile of the GOP’s three main factions: the Tea Partiers leading today’s brinkmanship, the evangelicals lining up behind them, and overlooked but still significant moderates. At the front of this stampede are right-wingers who believe they are fighting for political survival in an era where white-run America is vanishing and they’ve lost the culture war.
In this paranoid world, Obamacare is Armageddon, the setting for the final battle between good and evil, and the rallying cry that unites the party’s factions.
“Republicans shut down the government to defund or delay Obamacare,” the report said. “This goes to the heart of Republican base thinking about the essential political battle. They think they face a victorious Democratic Party that is intent on expanding government to increase dependency and therefore electoral support. It starts with food stamps and unemployent benefits; expands further if you legitimize the illegals; but insuring the uninsured dramatically grows those dependant on government. They believe this is an electoral strategy—not just a political ideology or economic philosophy. If Obamacare happens, the Republican Party may be lost, in their view.”
The pollsters describe the beliefs of three distinct GOP factions whose passions and thinking are critical to understanding what’s happening in the shutdown and what may ensue in its aftermath. For example, should the White House invoke emergency powers to avoid a federal debt default—as some legal scholars and historians have suggested—their analysis portends that the Tea Partiers and Evangelicals, comprising more than half of the party, will ramp up the rhetoric, accuse Obama of tyranny and possibly even pursue impeachment.
3/ To continue the theme of who are these conservatives, Kay and Peele with a four minute look at Florida's Black Republicans.....quite amusing, and note the dress code!
4/ Bill Maher with a "New Rules" that's more serious than usual - five amusing minutes, with some excellent Michelle Bachmann zingers but he also looks at Justice Scalia's beliefs from a recent interview......and wow.....this is one strange Supreme Court Justice.....
Bill Maher ended his show Friday night going after both Michele Bachmann and Antonin Scalia for being so open about their religious beliefs, saying even though Scalia’s viewed as more serious than Bachmann, “they’re the exact same idiot.” Maher argued that anyone who honestly believes in things like the end times or Satan cannot be allowed to make decisions for the rest of the country.
Maher said, “If you believe we’re living in the end times, like Michele Bachmann does, we get to take away the car keys.” He brought up her comments about said end times for America, as well as Justice Scalia’s references to Satan as a real entity in a lengthy New York magazine interview.
5/ A serious piece of investigative journalism in the Times Sunday - how pharmaceutical companies continue to rip us off and make our medicines the most expensive in the world. They focus on one of the most common ailments - asthma........
A long, and frankly infuriating article....
PAYING TILL IT HURTS
No Room to Negotiate
Part 4: Prescriptions
PAYING TILL IT HURTS
No Room to Negotiate
Part 4: Prescriptions
YOUR PERSPECTIVE
Has buying a prescription drug strained your budget or have you used a medicine more sparingly than prescribed because of cost? Tell us which drug was involved.
Robin Levi's two daughters both have asthma, but they are able to control it thanks to good insurance coverage. Some students Ms. Levi tutors also suffer from asthma but lack the same insurance and medical care. Sean Patrick Farrell/The New York Times; photo by Max Whittaker for The New York Times
- MORE
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
OCTOBER 12, 2013
Readers have shared their experiences by responding to questions about prescriptions and health care in this article. Comments are now closed, but you may explore the responses received. I will write a follow-up article about your comments on Tuesday, Oct. 15.
— ELISABETH ROSENTHAL, REPORTER
OAKLAND, Calif. — The kitchen counter in the home of the Hayes family is scattered with the inhalers, sprays and bottles of pills that have allowed Hannah, 13, and her sister, Abby, 10, to excel at dance and gymnastics despite a horrific pollen season that has set off asthma attacks, leaving the girls struggling to breathe.
Asthma — the most common chronic disease that affects Americans of all ages, about 40 million people — can usually be well controlled with drugs. But being able to afford prescription medications in the United States often requires top-notch insurance or plenty of disposable income, and time to hunt for deals and bargains.
The arsenal of medicines in the Hayeses’ kitchen helps explain why. Pulmicort, asteroid inhaler, generally retails for over $175 in the United States, while pharmacists in Britain buy the identical product for about $20 and dispense it free of charge to asthma patients. Albuterol, one of the oldest asthma medicines, typically costs $50 to $100 per inhaler in the United States, but it was less than $15 a decade ago, before it was repatented.
“The one that really blew my mind was the nasal spray,” said Robin Levi, Hannah and Abby’s mother, referring to her $80 co-payment for Rhinocort Aqua, a prescription drug that was selling for more than $250 a month in Oakland pharmacies last year but costs under $7 in Europe, where it is available over the counter.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the annual cost of asthma in the United States at more than $56 billion, including millions of potentially avoidable hospital visits and more than 3,300 deaths, many involving patients who skimped on medicines or did without.
6/ South Park is irreverent, envelope-pushing but above all funny - in this 2 minute clip they take on Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law,, and Cartman tries to kill George Zimmerman.....
There is a link to the full 22 minute episode if you have the time.........
7/ One of the most unlikely hit music videos is this one - "What Does The Fox Say", by Ylviss, a Norwegian duo. Their video has about 122 million hits, and yes it's really dumb but visually quite interesting, and the song is catchy too.
I know, I know, why do I put this garbage in? We report, you decide and this has got 122 million hits! Ylviss has their own New York Times article on this phenomenal hit.......
So watch the video, and read the Times story to find out what it means!
The Fox Says, ‘I Can Make You Famous’
Ylvis’s Unlikely Hit Started as a Joke
Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Bard and Vegard Ylvisaker in Manhattan.
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Published: October 11, 2013
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Studio 6A, the Rockefeller Plaza home of NBC’s “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” was filled with artificial smoke and laser lights when Bard and Vegard Ylvisaker arrived. These Norwegian brothers, who had spent the previous days traveling from Oslo to London to New York, did not seem to be particularly fazed as they surveyed their surroundings, which included a squad of dancers in fox masks and makeup, two long rows of full-length mirrors and a man dressed in a head-to-toe horse costume.
8/ Ho hum - more climate change warnings from scientists.......and it will affect the tropics even faster.......
Florida is in the tropics folks........
The report also says the rate of change will slow if world governments act now to cut emissions....but the chances of that are close to zero thanks to our spineless politicians paid by the rapacious energy corporations, so off we go into the hotter future........
By 2047, Coldest Years May Be Warmer Than Hottest in Past, Scientists Say
Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times
Rising global temperatures would put more stress on the tropics, including on coral reefs like this one in the Red Sea near Egypt.
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Published: October 9, 2013
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If greenhouse emissions continue their steady escalation, temperatures across most of the earth will rise to levels with no recorded precedent by the middle of this century, researchers said Wednesday.
Related Series
Temperature Rising
Articles in this series focus on the central arguments in the climate debate and examine the evidence for global warming and its consequences.
Scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa calculated that by 2047, plus or minus five years, the average temperatures in each year will be hotter across most parts of the planet than they had been at those locations in any year between 1860 and 2005.
To put it another way, for a given geographic area, “the coldest year in the future will be warmer than the hottest year in the past,” saidCamilo Mora, the lead scientist on a paper published in the journal Nature.
Unprecedented climates will arrive even sooner in the tropics, Dr. Mora’s group predicts, putting increasing stress on human societies there, on the coral reefs that supply millions of people with fish, and on the world’s greatest forests.
“Go back in your life to think about the hottest, most traumatic event you have experienced,” Dr. Mora said in an interview. “What we’re saying is that very soon, that event is going to become the norm.”
The research comes with caveats. It is based on climate models, huge computer programs that attempt to reproduce the physics of the climate system and forecast the future response to greenhouse gases. Though they are the best tools available, these models contain acknowledged problems, and no one is sure how accurate they will prove to be at peering many decades ahead.
The models show that unprecedented temperatures could be delayed by 20 to 25 years if there is a vigorous global effort to bring emissions under control. While that may not sound like many years, the scientists said the emissions cuts would buy critical time for nature and for human society to adapt, as well as for development of technologies that might help further reduce emissions.
9/ Our comedians have an edge this week - Jon Stewart takes on Republican Governors [like our own unspeakably awful Rick Skeletor] who refuse to expand Medicaid......out of spite.......and condemming millions of the working poor to a life without health insurance.......
Two four minute segments........very good......
10/ If you are a Tea Partier or an extreme Christian, here is a 10 minute movie full of lies.........
For the rest of you, a possible if a little pessimistic science based look at the future of humanity.....and it's not good news unless we act quickly.
It's narrated by Thom Hartmann, who we used to listen to on the radio. He had a very good show, and was a reasonableprogressive..........
“Consider this: nearly all life on Earth could go extinct because of manmade climate change.”
Internationally syndicated talk show host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann released a devastatingly powerful new film, LAST HOURS. A jolting wake-up call for humanity, this 10-minute film describes a terrifying science-based scenario where runaway climate change is triggered by massive releases of frozen methane. Here’s the devastating part: the melting of these trillions of tons of carbon is already underway.
11/ A depressing study of Americans workplace skills, but not especially surprising if you accept the premise of the dumbing down of America.......
This lack of basic skills shows everywhere in the US, from the polarisation of our politics to the lack of jobs at the bottom of society.......and it shows the rise of the top 20% and the slow decline in living standards of the bottom 80%......
Read the last paragraph in this excerpt.....
U.S. Adults Fare Poorly in a Study of Skills
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: October 8, 2013 456 Comments
The study, perhaps the most detailed of its kind, shows that the well-documented pattern of several other countries surging past the United States instudents’ test scores and young people’s college graduation ratescorresponds to a skills gap, extending far beyond school. In the United States, young adults in particular fare poorly compared with their international competitors of the same ages — not just in math and technology, but also in literacy.
More surprisingly, even middle-aged Americans — who, on paper, are among the best-educated people of their generation anywhere in the world — are barely better than middle of the pack in skills.
Arne Duncan, the education secretary, released a statement saying that the findings “show our education system hasn’t done enough to help Americans compete — or position our country to lead — in a global economy that demands increasingly higher skills.”
The study is the first based on new tests developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a coalition of mostly developed nations, and administered in 2011 and 2012 to thousands of people, ages 16 to 65, by 23 countries. Previous international skills studies have generally looked only at literacy, and in fewer countries.
The organizers assessed skills in literacy and facility with basic math, or numeracy, in all 23 countries. In 19 countries, there was a third assessment, called “problem-solving in technology-rich environments,” on using digital devices to find and evaluate information, communicate, and perform common tasks.
In all three fields, Japan ranked first and Finland second in average scores, with the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway near the top. Spain, Italy and France were at or near the bottom in literacy and numeracy, and were not included in the technology assessment.
The United States ranked near the middle in literacy and near the bottom in skill with numbers and technology. In number skills, just 9 percent of Americans scored in the top two of five proficiency levels, compared with a 23-country average of 12 percent, and 19 percent in Finland, Japan and Sweden.
“The first question these kinds of studies raise is, ‘If we’re so dumb, why are we so rich?’ ” said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “Our economic advantage has been having high skill levels at the top, being big, being more flexible than the other economies, and being able to attract other countries’ most skilled labor. But that advantage is slipping.”
In several ways, the American results were among the most polarized between high achievement and low. Compared with other countries with similar average scores, the United States, in all three assessments, usually had more people in the highest proficiency levels, and more in the lowest. The country also had an unusually wide gap in skills between the employed and the unemployed.
In the most highly educated population, people with graduate and professional degrees, Americans lagged slightly behind the international averages in skills. But the gap was widest at the bottom; among those who did not finish high school, Americans had significantly worse skills than their counterparts abroad.
“These kinds of differences in skill sets matter a lot more than they used to, at every level of the economy,” Dr. Carnevale said. “Americans were always willing to accept a much higher level of inequality than other developed countries because there was upward mobility, but we’ve lost a lot of ground to other countries on mobility because people don’t have these skills.”
Among 55- to 65-year-olds, the United States fared better, on the whole, than its counterparts. But in the 45-to-54 age group, American performance was average, and among younger people, it was behind.
12/ The fall compilation of fails from TwisterNederland.....mostly European, and some nasty accidents too. Not too many drunks in this one, but a lot of Russian crashes as a lot of cars in Russia have dashboard cams.....
Ten minutes of mayhem.......
13/ Oddly melodic and beautiful rendition of "We Can't Stop", sung a cappella by Jimmy Fallon, Miley Cyrus and Roots.....quite different, and lovely.....
14/ Oops. Tesla make some pretty incredible cars.....there are two here in Mount Dora, and they are exceptionally nice. But Tesla Motors stock took a hit when one of their all electric's caught fire, and the video went viral.......
The video link is in the third paragraph......
Car Fire a Test for High-Flying Tesla
By BILL VLASIC
Published: October 3, 2013
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DETROIT — It’s an automaker’s worst nightmare: graphic video footage of one of its cars engulfed in flames after an accident.
The driver told the police that he hit metal debris on the freeway before the Tesla Model S caught fire.
In the case of Tesla Motors, the fire that destroyed a Model Selectric car on Tuesday is a stunning reality check for a company that has garnered almost unanimous praise for its battery-powered vehicles.
The fire, on a highway exit in Kent, Wash., poses a serious challenge for Tesla and, at the same time, prompts new questions about the safety of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars.
Investors have already punished Tesla’s high-flying stock. The company’s shares fell sharply for a second straight day on Thursday after video of the Model S fire was featured prominently on Web sites. The shares, which have soared in the past year, closed at $173.31, about 10 percent off the high it reached earlier in the week.
But the larger issue will be how Tesla handles the intense scrutiny from the fire, including a likely investigation by federal regulators.
“Tesla was a success story where everything was going their way,” said Karl Brauer, an analyst with the auto-research firm Kelley Blue Book. “The question now is, how do they deal with this adversity?”
So far, Tesla has said that the Model S in Washington hit a “large metallic object” that damaged one of the modules in its liquid-cooled battery pack, which is situated on the underside of the vehicle.
The company has yet to say whether it is considering changes to the car to prevent similar accidents.
15/ If you have ever lived in Miami-Dade County, you know this story is true........
Miami Speaks Completely Differently From The Rest Of The Country
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For decades, Florida's most well-known dialect was the one made famous by author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Called "Florida Cracker" by white natives, it's now spoken mostly in the Panhandle and a few other shrinking spots throughout the rest of the state. But it turns out that at the very same time the cracker dialect was declining (thanks largely to in-migration from other parts of the country), Miami was developing a dialect so distinct from the rest of the state that residents of Broward County (only one county north of Miami-Dade) are capable of noticing the difference.
The Miami Herald explains how five decades of migration from Cuba, the Caribbean, and Central America makes the city's dialect unique:
The difference in the Miami sound lies primarily in the vowels, which have a certain affinity with Spanish pronunciation. English has 11 different vowel sounds, while Spanish only has five. English words like “man” and “hand” include a long nasal “A” sound that doesn’t exist in Spanish. Miamians now pronounce these words with a subtly Spanish shading a bit more like “mahn” and “hahnd.”
Miami’s “L” is a bit different from the rest of the country’s, too. Miamians tend to have a slightly heavier “L” — a bit more like the Spanish “L” — than most Americans. It can be heard in the way they drag the “Ls” in “Lauderdale” or “literally.”
Rhythm is also a factor. In Spanish words, all syllables are equally long, while English syllables fluctuate in length. The difference is only milliseconds, but it’s enough to be noticeable.
Florida International University sociolinguist Phillip Carter emphasized to the Herald that the Miami dialect isn't an accent, because the people who speak the dialect are second, third and fourth generation Miami natives. "These are native speakers of English who have learned a variety influenced historically by Spanish," Carter told the paper. Increasingly, literature about the way Miamians speak also makes the case that it's a dialect, and not an accent. The distinction is technical as well as political: Immigrants have accents, natives have dialects; an accent is something you try to lose, a dialect is something you use to define your cultural and geographical heritage.
Todays video - the song of the Colorectal Surgeon, by Bowser and Blue.......
Todays British Travel Industry jokes
THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY “THOMAS COOK VACATIONS FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS”:
1. “I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”
2. “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ‘siesta’ time — this should be banned.”
3. “On my holiday to Goa in India , I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”
4. “We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price.”
5. “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”
6. “We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow.”
7. “They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax.”
8. “No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”
9. “Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers.”
10. “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”
11. “The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun.”
12. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”
13. “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends’ three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller.”
14. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort’. We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”
15. “There were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”
16. “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning.”
17. “It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel.”
18. “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”
19. “My fiance and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”
Todays Catholic jokeA young Catholic girl went to confession and said to the priest, "I'm pregnant."
He asked, "How did this happen, my child?"
She said, "I think it must be the second coming."
The priest, shocked by this reply asked, "What makes you think this has anything to do with the Second Coming?"
She replied, "Because I swallowed the first one..."
Todays pet store joke
A woman went into a store to buy her husband a pet for his birthday. After looking around, she found that all the pets were very expensive. She told the clerk she wanted to buy a pet, but she didn't want to spend a fortune."Well," said the clerk, "I have a very large bullfrog. They say it's been trained to give blowjobs!""Blowjobs!" the woman replied."It hasn't been proven but we've sold 30 of them this month," he said.The woman thought it would be a great gag gift, and what if it's true...no more blowjobs for her! She bought the frog.When she explained froggy's ability to her husband, he was extremely skeptical and laughed it off. The woman went to bed happy, thinking she may never need to perform this less than riveting act again.In the middle of the night, she was awakened by the noise of pots and pans flying everywhere, making hellacious banging and crashing sounds. She ran downstairs to the kitchen, only to find her husband and the frog reading cookbooks."What are you two doing at this hour?" she asked.The husband replied, "If I can teach this frog to cook, your ass is gone."
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