1/ The wonderful Frank Rich with another excellent column, mainly on the ISIS issue where he expounds on the fact the vast majority of Americans don't want another war, but like the idea of air strikes. He does not mention that a recent poll says 91% of the country think ISIS is a direct threat to the US, which is nonsense but a tribute to how uneducated the American public is, and also the power of video to generate fear.
The leadership of ISIS knows how to make the American public dance to their tune and their use of the beheadings to make us afraid was brilliant, aided and abetted by the media. The more frightened the American public is, the less we will notice all of the corruption and inequality in our system and will quietly allow us to go to a full scale war again, which is what the oligarchs want because everybody makes money......
Anyway, read Frank Rich.....
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: Obama prepares to expand strikes against ISIS, what the new enemy means for the GOP's isolationist wing, and Andrew Cuomo limps to a win in the New York Democratic primary.
President Obama will address the nation tonight on his plan to "degrade and destroy" ISIS, a plan that will likely include air strikes in Syria. A new Wall Street Journal-NBC poll published today shows that a large and increasing majority of the public supports such action, a complete turnaround from a year ago when only 21 percent of Americans supported Obama's aborted plan to bomb Syria. What's changed?What’s changed as far as the broad public is concerned is simple: The horrific ISIS beheading videos we’ve seen this year show Americans being slaughtered, not the Syrians we saw in last year’s equally horrific images. And the instant viral clout of powerful video shows no signs of lessening. So much so that even as the president prepares to address the nation about war on the eve of 9/11, the ISIS horrors have already been knocked from the top of the nation’s television news playlist by a new video — TMZ’s of Ray Rice. Though no poll has been taken on the subject, it’s possible that a majority of the public would endorse an air strike on Rice and possibly NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, as well.
When you look deeper in the latest poll numbers, you find that while the public supports action against ISIS (and I am part of that public), only 34 percent want to send in ground troops. This is not a country that wants to go to war; it remains a country that wants to take out the bad guys from the air, preferably with drones.
2/ And for a nuanced look at the President's address to the nation, we have Jon Stewart who makes more sense than any of the "punditocracy" in the media.....an excellent seven minutes.....
Jon Stewart tonight took on President Obama‘s speech, saying the president “went full ‘America, fuck yeah!’” and that he’s embraced the idea of a “weird, all-powerful Tarantino America.”
But that didn’t mean the speech didn’t have its problems. For a start, Obama invoking previous campaigns in Yemen and Somalia didn’t help. And the fact that the coalition “looks awful Christiany [and] has a little bit of a Crusade-y vibe.”
Oh, and that Americans forces will be training Syrian rebels in the latest attempt to “export American boomocracy” abroad.
3/ A new Nina Conti video, showing she is one of the best ventriloquists out there.....four minutes of "laugh out loud" funny......
Nina Conti adds an original touch to her ventriloquist performance that has her audience cracking up on all sides. Watch as the selected candidate from the crowd shows his other side with a mask.
4/ A most interesting trial took place recently in California - the US Justice Department took some low level mortgage defaulters to trial, and lost.......and they never lose these cases! They only prosecute the people who fraudulently took out a mortgage, never the criminal bankers that gave it to them.
In this case the defendants used the banks fraudulent loan policies against them. A wonderful story from Thomas Frank.....
Jamie Dimon (Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas/AP/Eric Risberg)
The Tea Party regards Barack Obama as a kind of devil figure, but when it comes to hunting down the fraudsters responsible for the economic disaster of the last six years, his administration has stuck pretty close to the Tea Party script. The initial conservative reaction to the disaster, you will recall, was to blame the crisis on the people at the bottom, onminorities and proletarians
But high-ranking financiers? Obama’s Department of Justice has thus far shown virtually no interest in holding leading bankers criminally accountable for what went on in the last decade. That is ruled out not only by the Too Big to Jail doctrine that top-ranking Obama officials have hinted at, but also by the same logic that inspires certain conservative thinkers—that financiers simply could not have committed fraud, since you would expect fraud to result in riches and instead so many banks went out of business.
“Benjamin Wagner, a U.S. Attorney who is actively prosecuting mortgage fraud cases in Sacramento, Calif., points out that banks lose money when a loan turns out to be fraudulent,” reported a now-famous 2010 story in the Huffington Post. “But convincing a jury that executives intended to make fraudulent loans, and thus should be held criminally responsible, may be too difficult of a hurdle for prosecutors. ‘It doesn’t make any sense to me that they would be deliberately defrauding themselves,’ Wagner said.”
So forget those thousands of hours of Congressional investigation and those thousands of pages of journalism on the crisis. It doesn’t make any sense to the man in charge. No jury would be convinced. Case closed.
As it happens, a trial just ended in Sacramento in which a jury was convinced that “executives intended to make fraudulent loans.” Here’s the thing, though: It wasn’t the government that made the case against the financiers; it was the defendants
5/ Another excellent John Oliver segment, this time on student loans and how students, especially at the for profit universities, are screwed royally. This show combines comedy and investigative reporting in a unique way......a great 16 minutes for you to see what's in store for your kids and grandkids.......
A 16-minute clip on John Oliver’s essential program “Last Week Tonight” serves as an incredible PSA for aspiring college graduates who are looking into for-profit college programs. The message from Oliver: Don’t do it!
On Sunday night’s program, the comedian pulled back the curtain of successful marketing and advertising campaigns from schools like DeVry University and Corinthian College to reveal how these schools prey on low-income and disenfranchised communities.
If you feel impassioned after Oliver’s segment (and it’s hard not to), you can write to the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities to let them know how you feel. Oliver made it pretty easy, even supplying a letter. It’s perfect:
6/ Wow. A passionate story about the illusion we have that everything is "normal", but it isn't. It's crumbling around the edges, but you aren't hearing about it from the corporate media. This story was an eye opener for me, as we try to look for articles for DDD that give you the truth on topics like climate change, Big Ag, Wall Street etc, and the author of this piece puts complex strands of our economic and political lives together.
Don't read this if you are prone to depression, but do if you are interested in financial survival.....
Have you noticed how people seem to use the words really and honestly a lot? As when one person says, “Honestly, I didn’t like that movie.” And the listener responds, “Really?” But why? I hope people are honest about everything they say and the listeners don’t have to keep questioning the veracity of the speaker. I am half joking, but this made me wonder if it is because people realize, maybe subconsciously, that there is so much fakeness around us. I have ranted about fake food before, but the more I thought about what’s around us, the more I saw the presence of deception and duplicity. Based on the altered title of a funny movie, this is a not-so-funny series on some of the major fake institutions and concepts that have been foisted on us. In this article, we start with Fake Economy and Fake Capitalism.
Fake Economy
I have already written an article (Zombie Economy - Living Bubble) that shows how the middle class is crumbling and Americans are becoming poorer in spite of the booming stock market and real estate that are bound to come down soon. To summarize, the Federal Reserve Bank has created a massive bubble by printing/creating trillions of dollars, buying mortgages, and keeping the interest rates close to zero. Thus, the S&P 500 stock index has tripled since 2009, not because the corporate revenues or profits have tripled, but simply because corporations have borrowed trillions of dollars to buy back their own shares. However, the corporate media claps and cheers this amazing fake performance of the stock market when the fact is that the net worth of the average American household has gone down 36% since 2003. How can the stock market be a reflection of the health of the economy when the top 1% gets 75% of the capital gainsfrom stocks?
But if you read the mainstream media, their favorite word is Recovery, and they tout all kinds of numbers to show what an amazing comeback we are experiencing.
The truth is that almost every statistics you hear about the health of a corporation or our economy is either partially or outright fake.
7/ This is amusing, and while I was looking at this video Mary wanted to know if someone was taping us......three minutes, and how many of these do YOU fight about?
Weird Things All Couples Fight About
It’s the little things that totally get on your nerves.
8/ A fascinating political story from the very sharp Steve Kornacki, and should be read by every moderate Republican - you have no idea what your party has become.......
Tea Party’s secret advantage: Why the far right is stronger than everyone thinks
The Tea Party is a mind-set, not a literal movement. Here's how it's quietly bending the establishment to its will
William Temple, Thad Cochran (Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing/AP/Rogelio V. Solis/Photo collage by Salon)
It’s become a running joke this spring: A major Republican primary takes place and the media struggles to fit the results into a neat, tidy narrative about the war between the Tea Party and the GOP establishment – with comically erratic results.
So when the establishment’s choice, state House Speaker Thom Tillis, fought off a Rand Paul-backed candidate to win the Republican Senate nod in North Carolina back in early May, the headlines touted the waning clout of the Tea Party.
But then Thad Cochran finished behind Chris McDaniel in the preliminary round of voting in Mississippi and Eric Cantor fell in one of the biggest political upsets of all-time and the narrative shifted: Forget what we said a few days ago – the Tea Party is stronger than ever! Except it turned out the familiar national Tea Party groups had nothing to do with the Cantor race, and now Cochran has gone and turned the tables on the Tea Party, winning the runoff over McDaniel.
So now we’re back to talking about the resurgent establishment and the fading Tea Party. Of course, Tennessee and Kansas are still on the board, so this is all subject to further, sudden revision.
But while it’s easy to mock the headlines and some of the punditry that have accompanied all of this, this spring’s results really aren’t inconsistent with each other at all. There actually is a narrative that unites all of these seemingly contradictory results – a narrative about the power of the Tea Party and its grip on today’s Republican Party.
The key here is to understand the Tea Party as a mind-set, and not a literal movement.
9/ Ahoooooooghah.......every man needs one of these for his yard maintenance, tree trimming and stump grinding.......guy video of the week!
10/ Louis CK is a great comedian, and here he is on the Tonight show with Jay Leno talking about white people in America.......look at Leno when Louis swears, and see Leno unsuccessfully try to change the subject.....
Three excellent and very funny minutes......
Hilarious, and so worth your next 3 minutes as Louis CK gives us an outstanding lesson in the relevance of historical context in this must-see clip from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
11/ Gisele Bundschen is a supermodel but in this one minute ad for a deodorant she is a hot and sweaty fighter......powerful!
The news: Gisele Bündchen isn't just a supermodel.
She's also a mother, wife, philanthropist, athlete and role model. And her latest gig, as the face of Under Armour's "I Will What I Want" campaign, reinforces the last two roles more than ever before.
Background: The ad, released Thursday, doesn't feature Bündchen perfectly coiffed but rather as a sweaty, fierce and tough athlete who is ready to kick some serious butt – especially those of her critics. The video was released in conjunction with UA's live stream of comments about the campaign on their site.
In the clip, Bündchen "looks like she's training for the UFC, not Fashion Week," AdWeek reported.
12/ A fascinating story about Finland and how the Finns have created an intelligent country with smart policies that benefit every citizen. I have some experience with Finland as I spent months there off and on building the new RCCL ships, and it's a great description of a country where a civilised person might want to live, just not in the winter!
It's a good read, not only for what's right about Finland but also what's wrong with our society......
Finland can be a shock to a visitor from America. The cities are clean, the highways and byways are smoothly paved and pothole-free despite the punishing winter climate faced by a country that straddles the Arctic Circle, schools look shiny and new, and it’s hard to see anyone who looks destitute.
It’s also incredibly hard to spot a police car or a police officer. Indeed, despite my spending two weeks in Finland earlier this month, including driving over 2000 miles from the city of Kuopio to the upper reaches of Lapland and back, I never saw one law enforcement officer, except at the Helsinki airport on my way home, when an elderly tourist from Turkey insisted that an airport cop accompany him to the tax rebate desk so he could file a complaint about the alleged misconduct of a woman behind the counter (the officer gently explained to the man that the law only provided for rebates of the value added tax to tourists for their purchases of goods valued at over 100 Euros, not for services).
It’s not that Finland doesn’t have its share of crimes, including violent crimes, but police are not swarming the streets, they don’t carry semi-automatic rifles on patrol, and they are even polite when they make arrests. When the teenage son of a friend of ours in Finland was caught with friends one evening a year or so ago smoking marijuana in a playground, the police simply called his parents, who came in and were advised to reprimand him and talk with him about the seriousness of taking drugs. There was no arrest or appearance before a judge, no fine, and no handcuffing.
One evening in Rovaniemi, a city in the south of Lapland, I found myself in a kabob joint, watching a Finnish TV reality cop show while I ate. Man, was it boring! Two cops joked in their patrol van. Eventually they happened on what appeared to be a young prostitute being propositioned by a young man. They pulled over and got out, not even putting their flashing lights on. Strolling up to the pair, they were all smiles. They questioned the two, informed them that they were engaging in an activity that was illegal, and told them to move along. Nobody was arrested. Nobody was yelled at. Then, still joking, they went back on patrol.
13/ Tom Tomorrow with a cartoon on how conservatives have trouble with facts, and reality.....and end up living in bubbleworld.....
14/ Time for some EDM - Zedd with "Find You", an interesting song with a great video featuring lesbians, motorcycle action, angry birds and giant redwoods......it's not supposed to make sense, so just enjoy!
15/ An excellent column from Carl Hiaasen on the Skeletor, our Florida Governor Voldemort and his penchant for secrecy. Mostly illegal secrecy, because we have Sunshine laws which this piece of cockroach filth is ignoring.
Carl Hiaasen: If you don’t ask, Rick Scott won’t tell
BY CARL HIAASEN
CHIAASEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Rick Scott is our own man of mystery, Austin Powers without the hair mop and dance moves.
No Florida governor has ever operated with such jet-setting stealth, concealing so many details of his daily travels and contacts. He says he’s out working nonstop for the citizens of his adopted state, yet his official schedule is full of more gaps than the Nixon transcripts.
Occasionally, Floridians catch an intriguing glimpse of Scott’s shadow life. His secret hunting trip to a Texas game ranch courtesy of U.S. Sugar had been kept under wraps for more than a year before it was sniffed out by reporters from the Tampa Bay Times.
The governor still refuses to divulge who went with him, or whom he met. One known fact is that U.S. Sugar, an epic polluter of the Everglades, has donated more than $534,000 to Scott’s reelection campaign so far.
His recent predecessors regularly made public their detailed travel and work records, including political fund-raising trips. Up until Scott took office, it was generally accepted that Floridians have a right to know where their governor is going, and why.
Whenever Lawton Chiles took a private plane to a campaign stop, his office released not only the names but also the phone numbers of other passengers on the aircraft. Both Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, who’s running against Scott this year, often provided lists of who attended private meetings with them, and what subjects were discussed.
Since his arrival in Tallahassee, Scott has promised “transparency,” and on his first day signed an executive order restarting the Office of Open Government, which is supposed to help Floridians gain easier access to public records.
Todays video - not quite a video but a slideshow of how to become an expert in identifying the old art masters.....amusing...
Todays dating joke
I met an older woman at a bar last night. She looked pretty good for a 60+ year-old.
In fact, she wasn't too bad at all, and I found myself thinking she probably had a really hot
daughter.
We drank a couple of beers, and she
asked if I'd ever had a Sportsman's Double?
'What's that? I asked.
daughter.
We drank a couple of beers, and she
asked if I'd ever had a Sportsman's Double?
'What's that? I asked.
'It's a mother and daughter threesome,' she said.
As my mind began to embrace the idea, and I
wondered what her daughter might look like, I said,
wondered what her daughter might look like, I said,
'No, I haven't.'
We drank a bit more, then she said with a wink, 'tonight's your lucky night.'
We went back to her place.
We walked in. She put on the hall light and shouted
upstairs: 'Mom...you still awake?'
upstairs: 'Mom...you still awake?'
Todays retiree jokes
Now that I'm older here's what I've discovered:1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.2. My wild oats are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.3. I finally got my head together, and now my body is falling apart.4. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.5. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.6. If all is not lost, then where the heck is it?7. It was a whole lot easier to get older, than to get wiser.8. Some days, you're the top dog, some days you're the hydrant.9. I wish the buck really did stop here, I sure could use a few of them.10. Kids in the back seat cause accidents.11. Accidents in the back seat cause kids.12. It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.13. The world only beats a path to your door when you're in the bathroom.14. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he'd have put them on my knees.15. When I'm finally holding all the right cards, everyone wants to play chess.16. It's not hard to meet expenses . . .they're everywhere.17. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.18. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter . . .I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I'm "here after".19. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.20. HAVE I SENT THIS MESSAGE TO YOU BEFORE
Todays dying man joke
Doug Smith is on his deathbed and knows the end is near.
His nurse, his wife, his daughter and 2 sons, are with him.
He asks for a camcorder to record his last wishes,
He begins to speak:
"My son Bernie, I want you to take the Mayfair houses."
His nurse, his wife, his daughter and 2 sons, are with him.
He asks for a camcorder to record his last wishes,
He begins to speak:
"My son Bernie, I want you to take the Mayfair houses."
"My daughter Sybil, you take the apartments over in the east end."
"My son Jamie, I want you to take the offices over in City Centre."
"Sarah, my dear wife, please take all the residential buildings on the banks of the river."
The nurse and witnesses are blown away, and as Doug slips away, the nurse says, "Mrs. Smith, your husband must have been such a hard-working man to have accumulated all this property".
Sarah replies, "Property? The asshole had a paper route!"
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