1/ A thoughtful Frank Rich story on how the Iraq war has poisoned our culture and especially the media, including the so-called liberal elite press. Very few journalists questioned the run up to the war, and most just signed on to whatever the men in power wanted. It's a chilling explanation of why we have the spineless, compliant, corporate media we have now. If you want any other perspective [especially on foreign policy] other than what the oligarchs want you to think, you have to read or watch the few independent journalists out there......
Good news - Frank Rich is one of them.....
Bill Maher ended his show tonight by going after the “nitwits” of the Open Carry movement and their belief that bringing a gun to a public place with “sane people’ who might freak out about seeing those guns is just a reasonable show of support for their Second Amendment rights.
Bill Maher took on the Bowe Bergdahlcontroversy and mocked the conservative outrage over the deal that got him free, wondering how five Taliban commanders returning to be among “thousands and thousands of other bearded assholes” will make such a huge difference. Because, as Maher put it, Republicans would normally love the return of an American soldier, but now that Obama did it, they’re “blacktracking.”
The Heart Association’s Junk Science Diet
Todays golf joke
middle of the fairway. Upon reaching the ball, the husband said to his wife, "Just hit it
The wife proceeded to shank the ball deep into the woods.
Undaunted, the husband said "That's OK, sweetheart" and spent the full five minutes looking for the ball. He found it just in time, but in a horrible position. He played the shot of his life to get the ball within two feet of the hole. He told his wife to knock the ball in.
His wife then proceeded to knock the ball off the green and into a bunker.
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(Photo: Michael Kamber)
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When Michael Hastings was killed in a single-car crash in Los Angeles at age 33 last June, journalism lost a rare specimen of the breed it needs most: a reporter who doesn’t care whom he pisses off. Hastings was the hothead whose 2010 Rolling Stone article “The Runaway General” led to the dismissal of the Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, for the infraction of trash-talking his civilian bosses. Hastings, too, was pilloried after the piece—by his own journalistic peers, in a manner that would prefigure some of the profession’s more recent hostility toward Glenn Greenwald. “Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has,” said Lara Logan of CBS News.
We now know that Hastings served both his country and profession with more honor than Logan, who later maimed her own career and 60 Minutes by perpetrating a Benghazi hoax. And his service isn’t done yet. After Hastings died, a former colleague at Newsweek, where he worked as an intern and war correspondent from 2002 to 2008, sent his widow, Elise Jordan, the draft of a novel he had finished just before his 2010 embed with McChrystal. Titled The Last Magazine, it is being published this month on the anniversary of his passing.
We’ll never know how Hastings might have revised this scrappy debut effort or whether it would have led to a career as a novelist. But as a provocative piece of thinly fictionalized nonfiction, it’s a posthumous mission accomplished. The Last Magazine—set at a fictional newsweekly called The Magazine that might as well go by Newsweek—tells the story of the run-up to the Iraq War from a perspective that many of his colleagues would like to forget or suppress: as an embed deep inside the so-called liberal media, much of which cheered on the war with a self-righteous gravity second only to Dick Cheney’s. Hastings’s book is a message in a bottle that has belatedly washed up on shore to force us to remember how we landed where we are now.
2/ Wow - a brilliant Bill Maher, with some laugh out loud moments....his subject is the Texas right to carry group of gun nuts, fertile ground for any comedian but wonderful for Maher.
A great five minutes.....and some classic zingers, including "ammosexuals" [love the picture]!
Bill Maher ended his show tonight by going after the “nitwits” of the Open Carry movement and their belief that bringing a gun to a public place with “sane people’ who might freak out about seeing those guns is just a reasonable show of support for their Second Amendment rights.
Maher said that these “playdates with other gun owners” might sound nice to gun lovers, but it might make the world a little nicer to live in if they aren’t walking around trying to “scare the bejeezus out of everybody.”
In fact, Maher said these people are so obsessed with their firearms, there is only one real takeaway here: “You’re ammosexuals!” And there’s something weird about observing a gun owner harboring an “unnatural romantic relationship” with their guns…
3/ Another fascinating story from the Times on how large corporations treat their staff, and how some simple changes can truly make their staff be happier and more productive. But this is a pipe dream, because the average large corporation treats it's employees like worker bees, using pressure and fear tactics to get the work done.
This article is on the Times's most emailed list, so it resonated with office staff everywhere....see if you agree with it.
THE way we’re working isn’t working. Even if you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’re probably not very excited to get to the office in the morning, you don’t feel much appreciated while you’re there, you find it difficult to get your most important work accomplished, amid all the distractions, and you don’t believe that what you’re doing makes much of a difference anyway. By the time you get home, you’re pretty much running on empty, and yet still answering emails until you fall asleep.
Increasingly, this experience is common not just to middle managers, but also to top executives.
Our company, The Energy Project, works with organizations and their leaders to improve employee engagement and more sustainable performance. A little over a year ago, Luke Kissam, the chief executive of Albemarle, a multibillion-dollar chemical company, sought out one of us, Tony, as a coach to help him deal with the sense that his life was increasingly overwhelming. “I just felt that no matter what I was doing, I was always getting pulled somewhere else,” he explained. “It seemed like I was always cheating someone — my company, my family, myself. I couldn’t truly focus on anything.”
4/ On the same subject, the workplace, a very interesting story which explains part of the above, which is why many people don't like their jobs....it also ties back to the last DDD, the lead story on "bullshit jobs" and the lack of meaningful work for many people.....
The essence is that with the change in the global economy a degree is no guarantee of getting an interesting career, and many graduates are doing less than their potential, and it flows downhill.
Scary stuff.....excellent column from Thomas Edsall in the Times....
With the bursting of the tech bubble at the start of the 21st century, two decades of growth at the high end of the job market — once the province of college graduates with strong cognitive abilities — came to an abrupt halt, according to detailed studies of employment and investment patterns by three Canadian economists. We are still feeling the ramifications.
New evidence produced by Paul Beaudry and David A. Green of the University of British Columbia, and Ben Sand of York University, demonstrates that the collapse, between 1980 and 2000, of mid-level, mid-pay jobs — gutted by automation or foreign competition (and often both) — has now spread to the high-skill labor market.
The U-shaped pattern of job growth characteristic of recent decades – strong at the top and bottom, but weak throughout the middle — has now become “a bit more like a downward ramp,” according to David Autor, an economist at M.I.T. who documented the decline in mid-level jobs in the 1980s and 1990s.
Preliminary findings suggest that this trend is alarming in almost every respect. Just one example: the drying up of cognitively demanding jobs is having a cascade effect. College graduates are forced to take jobs beneath their level of educational training, moving into clerical and service positions instead of into finance and high tech.
This cascade eliminates opportunities for those without college degrees who would otherwise fill those service and clerical jobs. These displaced workers are then forced to take even less demanding, less well-paying jobs, in a process that pushes everyone down. At the bottom, the unskilled are pushed out of the job market altogether.
“Many higher skilled workers have moved down the occupation ladder and accepted less challenging employment,” Beaudry wrote in an emailed response to my inquiry about this development. “This movement down has been very detrimental to the low skilled, as higher skilled workers have taken many of ‘their’ jobs.”
5/ A bit of fun for three minutes - Jimmy Fallon and Ricky Gervais break each other up with a game of Word Sneak.....two funny men having a great time.....
Warning: You will not be able to keep a straight face.
With the second season of his hit show "Derek" recently premiering on Netflix, Ricky Gervais stopped by "The Tonight Show" and joined Jimmy Fallon for a game of "Word Sneak." In the game, Fallon and Gervais try to casually work random words into normal conversation, but that is not even close to what actually happens.
Right from the start, no one can keep it together.
Make sure to watch until the end. The whole segment builds to one final moment that is so funny it leaves Gervais in tears and has Fallon literally falling out of his chair.
6/ Another Policymic story on El Nino, and this time it's clearly and simply explained what scientists believe is going to happen this summer.....and the good news is there's going to be more rain in the US, but there's really bad news for some of the rest of the world.....
The news: It was only a few months ago that the polar vortex froze over the country and people were clamoring for sunshine and warmth. But soon enough, they might be wishing things were less Rio and more Frozen.
Last month, the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center estimated a 65% chance of an El Niño this summer. The weather phenomenon last took place in 2010, leading to the world's hottest year on record. But according to scientists' predictions, this year's occurrence could be the worst since the infamous 1997 El Niño. Because of that, people are understandably freaking out. But what does this actually mean?
Image Credit: NOAA
Here's what it means. This climate event has occurred for thousands of years and is a natural part of the atmospheric system. Some scientists believe that there is a link between climate change and El Niño, namely that greenhouse gases boost El Niño's frequency and severity.
7/ Boy he's clever - Stephen Colbert does a four minute piece on a [right wing] Drudge Report that Hillary is using a walker........very funny indeed....
When Karl Rove suggested Hillary Clinton might have brain damage, Stephen Colbert wondered whether Rove may have a “serious brain injury” of his own. But now that Matt Drudge is asking whether Clinton was leaning on a walker in her new People magazine cover, Colbert think he just may have a point.
“That’s a fair and reasonable question,” Colbert said of Walker-gate. “I do not doubt for a second that if Hillary Clinton used a walker, she would insist on appearing with it on the cover of Peoplemagazine.” Even after People clarified that Clinton was standing next a patio chair, Colbert said that was just a euphemism for “stationary poolside Jazzy.”
Naturally, Colbert took Drudge’s conspiracy theory a few steps further, wondering whether Hillary Clinton in fact beat The Brady Bunch’s Ann B. Davis to death with her walker.
8/ And if you can stand it, here is three minutes of Republican politicians pontificating on climate change.....which isn't happening, or if it is it's not our fault.....
The video was made to show support for President Obama’s new climate change initiative. The clip is called “Not a Scientist” and it shows Republicans, using these words, as they explain why they don’t believe in global warming. It really would be kind of funny, if it weren’t so pitiful, how so many of these members of Congress admit that they are not scientists, and yet they proudly repeat the Conservative talking points as they deny the existence of man-made climate change.
The director of Americans United For Change makes the point perfectly when he says,
“The GOP’s new talking point when challenged on climate change is ‘I’m no scientist’, and yet they remain 100% certain as that 97% of the scientific community is pulling a fast one on us all for no explicable reason
9/ One of the all time greatest pure guitar songs was "Bridge Of Sighs", with Robin Trower from 1974....it still holds up today as an excellent song....
Not a good looking man.....but a great geetar player....
10/ Thomas Frank, author of "What's The Matter With Kansas?" looks back on what happened after he wrote the book, and how the Democrats squandered any opportunity to appeal to the white middle and working class. It's written with sadness, and also anger.....he doesn't like the death spiral we are in.....
If you are interested in politics, this will be an eye opener - it's a long read, but worthwhile. It continues the theme of the first story from DDD last week, which is what's happening to the soul of America - the screwing of the middle class and working poor by the oligarchy, and how they are getting away with it....
It is a strange thing to say in the year 2014, as the political battle-lines grow harder and our bitter-enders ever more bitter, but there was a time when I didn’t think of my home state of Kansas as a particularly right-wing place.
It is true that the Kansas City suburb where I grew up teemed with standard-issue business-class Republicans back in the ’70s and ’80s; I had been one myself once upon a time. But I also knew that Kansas was the kind of place that valued education, that built big boring suburbs, that never did anything risky or exciting. Its politics in those days were utterly forgettable, dominated by a succession of bland Republican moderates and unambitious Democrats. We were the epitome of unremarkableness. When the notorious “Summer of Mercy” took place in 1991 — the event that marked the beginning of the state’s long march to the right — I remember reading about it from graduate school in Chicago and thinking how strange it was that Operation Rescue had chosen Wichita as the place to make its stand. After all, Kansas wasn’t in the South.
It wasn’t until several years later that I began to understand what a fascinating, upside-down extravaganza it was to see the right eat its way through the good sense of the nation. Of course, many others had written about the movement by then, largely in the key of horror and tearful deploring. But relatively few seemed to get the sheer literary potential of the nation’s big right turn, and as I surveyed the political headlines day after day, I grew more and more amazed at what was going on.
Here was a faction that had made the folkways of ordinary Americans into a kind of a cult — and yet its signature economic policies had brought catastrophic harm down on those same ordinary Americans. Here was a ruling philosophy that, thanks to its sacrosanct conception of itself as the foe of the state, could never acknowledge that it actually ruled. Here was a form of common-man-hailing populism that had raised up an economic elite the likes of which we hadn’t seen since the nineteenth century. What a spectacle it was! What a circus of delusion, deceit, devotion and disaster! Best of all, it was a movement in whose ranks I had once marched myself, which meant I had a certain innate understanding of it.
11/ Of all of the coverage I have seen of the Bergdhal case, this is the six minutes that made the most sense - Bill Maher has a round table discussion with two right wingers and Anthony Weiner, and as well as some great one liners Maher has some sage advice.....
Bill Maher took on the Bowe Bergdahlcontroversy and mocked the conservative outrage over the deal that got him free, wondering how five Taliban commanders returning to be among “thousands and thousands of other bearded assholes” will make such a huge difference. Because, as Maher put it, Republicans would normally love the return of an American soldier, but now that Obama did it, they’re “blacktracking.”
Jim Geraghty argued there are plenty of legitimate questions about Bergdahl’s motivations and the deal itself. Anthony Weiner said it’s okay to have a “celebration” in honor of a soldier returning home while waiting for an investigation into whether he’s a “nutjob” and those two thoughts are not exclusive.
Maher mocked all the hysteria over the five released Taliban commanders, remarking how they must be “talented in the ways of terrorism like no other” for Republicans to be so worked up about it. He also went off on the fact that Guantanamo Bay is still open to begin with, and called it “such bullshit” that it’s Obama’s fault.
12/ Costco is the store of choice for middle class people who hate Walmart and the destruction they have done to American society, and the good news is it's going to stay in business because it's revenues are up. It's like, at last, one of the good guys is winning.....
Apparently the weather is nicer at Costco than it is at Walmart.
Costco on Thursday reported a $473 million profit for its fiscal first quarter, which ended in April, up slightly from the same period last year. The warehouse giant also reported sales at its U.S. stores rose 6 percent from a year ago.
What Costco did not do was spend any time moaning and groaning about the terrible weather in the quarter, setting itself apart from Walmart and many other retail peers.
Companies ranging from Macy’s to Home Depot have blamed the weather for poor performance in recent months. Walmart executives said the word “weather” at least 20 times in their conference call discussing the company’s first-quarter results, by Fortune's recent count.
"Like other retailers in the United States, the unseasonably cold and disruptive weather negatively impacted U.S. sales and drove operating expenses higher than expected," Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon said in Walmart’s earnings release.
It’s true that the weather was particularly unbearable this past winter (polar vortex anyone?), and many economists have said the super-cold and snow was the main reason the economy shrank in the first quarter for the first time in three years.
But a handful of popular outlets, like Costco and Chipotle, managed to handle the winter pretty well. That suggests there's more going on here than meteorology.
Costco's winter survival is a hint that maybe the company’s no-frills model -- which includes almost no advertising, paying workers decently and courting customer loyalty -- may just be a better way to get customers to buy stuff. Costcos generate about $1,100 in sales per square foot, on average, while Walmart and Sam’s Club generate $400 and $680 per square foot, respectively, according to an analysis from Morningstar, an investment research firm.
Some of Costco's competitors also have other issues than the weather, including inventory problems and Internet competition.
Costco also has the advantage of catering to slightly higher-income customers than many of its competitors.
13/ Some people you might see in your local Walmart.......and although it's perhaps a little cruel and classless to pass on these pictures of obviously demented idiots, if by doing so I can make just one reader so disgusted with this evil corporation that that person will stop shopping there, it's worth it.
So suppress your gag reflex, and open this link......
14/ This is a two minute French video called "Le Serveur", and it's very good indeed. Just for once trust your scribe, ladies will love this one.....very funny!
So will the guys, almost till the end....
15/ The American Heart Association is an official spokesman for how to eat properly, and they are also firmly in the grasp of Big Food, recommending the shit that will make you obese and sick as well.
If you see the "AHA tick", avoid this junk......the AHA is just another institution corrupted by big money.....
The Heart Association’s Junk Science Diet
T
The dogma that saturated fat causes heart disease is crumbling.
A recent Cambridge University analysis of 76 studies involving more than 650,000 people concluded, “The current evidence does not clearly support guidelines that [recommend]… low consumption of total saturated fats.”
Yet the American Heart Association (AHA), in its most recent dietary guidelines, held fast to the idea that we must all eat low-fat diets for optimal heart health. It’s a stance that—at the very best—is controversial, and at worst is dead wrong. As a practicing cardiologist for more than three decades, I agree with the latter—it’s dead wrong.
Why does the AHA cling to recommendations that fly in the face of scientific evidence?
What I discovered was both eye-opening and disturbing. The AHA not only ignored all the other risk factors for heart disease, but it appointed someone with ties to Big Food and bizarre scientific beliefs to lead the guideline-writing panel—just the type of thing that undermines the public’s confidence in the medical community.
16/ Yeay - a decent sci-fi thriller is out this week - "Edge Of Tomorrow" starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.......as the review says it's got action galore, special effects and nasty aliens, but it's also got an intelligent plot and Tom Cruise back on form.....if you want a good "blowed up good, real good" movie this week, you could do a lot worse than this.
The plot for “Edge of Tomorrow,” which was directed by Doug Liman, has largely been gleaned from “All You Need Is Kill,” a splatter-heavy combat novel by the Japanese writer Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Mr. Sakurazaka doesn’t acknowledge “Groundhog Day,” but he names his heroine Rita — the name of the romantic foil played by Andie MacDowell in that film — suggesting that he is obliquely paying a debt. The debt is more pronounced in the movie, in which Mr. Liman leavens Mr. Sakurazaka’s mordant, too-cool-for-school humor with some wit and a touch of romance with another lovely Rita, this one played by Emily Blunt. Mr. Liman ’s track record with strong female characters, like Angelina Jolie’s in his bullet-ridden comedy of remarriage, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” bodes well for Rita.
This song-and-dance rapidly shifts your understanding of whom Mr. Cruise is playing and how. He’s funny! And watching him glide through the opening of “Edge of Tomorrow” — a suggestion of “Jerry Maguire” edging his smile — it’s hard not to think, Where has this guy been? It’s been years since Mr. Cruise felt this light on screen. His smile might have helped make him a star but, like Julia Roberts’s megawatt grin, it rarely beams as brightly as it once did. Part of this is due to his status as an action star. Yet it’s also traceable to a dearth of decent male-female romances and the ascension of mostly male yuk-fests like the gross-out burlesque “Tropic Thunder,” in which he dances in a fat suit.
“Edge of Tomorrow,” which has a script credited to Christopher McQuarrie and Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, opens with lock-jawed earnestness and news reports of a global calamity. Extraterrestrials, kinetic creatures called Mimics that look like somersaulting metal octopuses, have conquered most of Europe with their lashing tentacles and are poised to take over the rest of the world. On the eve of a coordinated human assault on the aliens, Cage, a flack for the American military, is called into the office of a general, Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), and told that he’ll be covering D-Day from the front. Cage demurs, raising his brow and breaking out a small, disbelieving smile before beginning a soft-shoe shuffle toward the door.
Edge of Tomorrow trailer....low key, but gives you the idea.....
Todays video - the BBC's David Attenborough singing "It's A Wonderful World", advertising his nature series.....one of the nicest commercials ever.....
Todays guy jokes
Men Are Just Happier People --
What do you expect from such simple creatures?
Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack...
You can never be pregnant.
You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.
You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Wrinkles add character.
Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
New shoes don't cut, blister,
or mangle your feet.
or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time.
Phone conversations are over
in 30 seconds flat.
in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.
A five-day vacation requires
only one suitcase.
only one suitcase.
You can open all your own jars.
If someone forgets to invite you,
He or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
Everything on your face stays
its original color.
its original color.
The same hairstyle lasts for years,
even decades.
even decades.
You only have to shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life.
One wallet and one pair of shoes --
one color for all seasons.
one color for all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter
how your legs look.
how your legs look.
You can 'do' your nails with a pocket knife.
You have freedom of choice
concerning growing a mustache.
concerning growing a mustache.
You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives
On December 24 in 25 minutes.
Todays female driver joke
Todays golf joke
A husband reluctantly agreed to play in the couples' alternate shot at his club.
He teed off on the first hole, a par four, and blistered a drive 300 yards down the
to the green, anywhere around there will be fine."
The wife proceeded to shank the ball deep into the woods.
Undaunted, the husband said "That's OK, sweetheart" and spent the full five minutes looking for the ball. He found it just in time, but in a horrible position. He played the shot of his life to get the ball within two feet of the hole. He told his wife to knock the ball in.
Still maintaining composure, the husband summoned all of his skill and holed the shot from the bunker. He took the ball out of the hole and while walking off the green, put his arm around his wife and calmly said, "Honey, that was a bogey five and that's OK, but I think we can do better on the next hole".
To which she replied, "Listen, pal, don't bitch at me, only 2 of those 5 shots were mine."
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