1/ I have huge respect for Paul Krugman, so this article in Rolling Stone was very interesting - he writes defending the President's record and accomplishments.....
Obama-bashing can be divided into three types. One, a constant of his time in office, is the onslaught from the right, which has never stopped portraying him as an Islamic atheist Marxist Kenyan. Nothing has changed on that front, and nothing will.
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty
There's a different story on the left, where you now find a significant number of critics decrying Obama as, to quote Cornel West, someone who ''posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit.'' They're outraged that Wall Street hasn't been punished, that income inequality remains so high, that ''neoliberal'' economic policies are still in place. All of this seems to rest on the belief that if only Obama had put his eloquence behind a radical economic agenda, he could somehow have gotten that agenda past all the political barriers that have con- strained even his much more modest efforts. It's hard to take such claims seriously.
Finally, there's the constant belittling of Obama from mainstream pundits and talking heads. Turn on cable news (although I wouldn't advise it) and you'll hear endless talk about a rudderless, stalled administration, maybe even about a failed presidency. Such talk is often buttressed by polls showing that Obama does, indeed, have an approval rating that is very low by historical standards.
But this bashing is misguided even in its own terms – and in any case, it's focused on the wrong thing.
2/ Jon Stewart with some pithy and most amusing comments on the suit by former AIG owner Hank Greenberg against the government.....if you haven't heard about this case, watch our leading comedian for some good reporting......and you can tell he had a good time with this one......a funny four minutes......
With the news that AIG executive Hank Greenberg is suing the U.S. government over the massive bailout given to the insurance giant in 2008, Jon Stewart used the first segment of Thursday’s Daily Show to chronicle the absurdities of such legal action.
The lawsuit alleges the government’s $184.6 billion bailout was an illegal “taking” of sorts, exceeding the government’s authority. Greenberg believes that bailout money, which bought 92% of the company, was an unfairly low valuation. Even though Stewart pointed out that, at the time of the bailout, AIG was only valued at $15.4 billion, the CEO’s lawyer alleged that the government’s actions were tantamount to “extortion.”
“As a general rule, your better extortionists, your better kidnappers extract money from their victim,” Stewart mocked. “You never hear this — ‘Hey, listen, if you ever want to see your precious little doggy again, you’re going to take the $184 billion and once you get the money, we will also give you your dog back!”
Stewart also noted that AIG seems to think Citigroup and Morgan Stanley got better deals out of the bailout, leading him to boil down the company’s argument to: “Wah! It’s not fair. Following the precedent set by the famous Supreme Court case I only got one cookie. My sister got two cookies!”
After all, the Daily Show host continued, “putting the screws to people in their lowest moments is what you do.” Just to hammer home his point, Stewart played the role of a local loan officer, asked to evaluate Hank Greenberg’s desire for more than $184.6 billion in exchange for 90% of a company worth only $15 billion, as if it were a normal person asking for such money.
3/ The excellent Frank Rich with his look at the weeks news, including the ebola scare, same sex marriage and the role of comedians in reporting the news.
Note - he has some good things to say about John Oliver......#7.......
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: The Ebola crisis gets politicized, the Supreme Court hands same-sex marriage a big victory, and playing "what if" with Jon Stewart andMeet the Press.
The death of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, in a Dallas hospital is furthering fears of a larger outbreak. Republicans — particularly 2016 presidential hopefuls Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee — have criticized President Obama for his handling of the crisis and called on the White House to consider travel bans. Has Obama's response to Ebola been sufficient? And does it make any sense for the Republicans to attack him for a domestic outbreak that has so far claimed a single victim?
I am waiting for Donald Trump to weigh in so we can have the definitive explanation of how President Obama has masterminded the spread of Ebola. True, his birthplace of Kenya is in East, not West, Africa, but I imagine Trump’s investigators will discover some heretofore unknown Obamas in Liberia, including those who infected Duncan prior to dispatching him to the red state of Texas to target Ted Cruz.
I am waiting for Donald Trump to weigh in so we can have the definitive explanation of how President Obama has masterminded the spread of Ebola. True, his birthplace of Kenya is in East, not West, Africa, but I imagine Trump’s investigators will discover some heretofore unknown Obamas in Liberia, including those who infected Duncan prior to dispatching him to the red state of Texas to target Ted Cruz.
While we wait for Trump’s Tweets on all this, let’s step back one moment and marvel at the way anything and everything can be politicized in America. A new Pew survey finds that only 48 percent of Republicans (as opposed to 69 percent of Democrats) have confidence in the ability of government to deal with Ebola. You’d think this might be because Republicans intrinsically are suspicious of big government, but Pew helpfully points out that when it asked the same question in 2005 during an outbreak of bird flu, 74 percent of Republicans had confidence in the government (as opposed to 35 percent of Democrats).
4/ You probably don't know Twitter is suing the US government over the use of NSL's [National Security Letters], but the Guardian, being British, is allowed to write about it. The gist of the case is that the FBI can secretly ask for anyone's records and the companies are not allowed to tell you, or mention that you've been investigated.
Couple this with the story that the gub'mint is upset that the new I-Phone 6 encrypts your emails....
The most important national-security secrets case you've never heard of
Your phone records, your credit-card bills, your internet trail – the government has the power to summon it all on-demand, without telling you. Until now
Twitter is suing the government for banning the company from publishing the number of National Security Letters and court orders it receives from the FBI and the US justice department. Illustration: EFF / Flickr
The most consequential civil liberties case in years is being argued before three judges in California on Wednesday, and it has little to do with the NSA but everything to do with taking away your privacy in the name of vague and unsubstantiated “national security” claims.
The landmark case revolves around National Security Letters (NSLs), the pernicious tool for surveillance-on-demand that the FBI has used with reckless abandon since 9/11 – almost completely hidden from public view, even though they’re used to view the public’s private information. To wit, NSLs allow the FBI to demand all sorts of your stuff from internet, telephone, banking and credit-card companies without anyprior sign-off from a judge or their unwitting customers. Worse, companies are served a gag order, making it illegal for them not only to tell you which of your info is being pulled – but to tell the public they’ve received such a request at all.
Which is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is in court on Wednesday, why Twitter is now suing the US government, and the reason that anyone who cares about his or her privacy should be just as aware of the three letters “NSL” as everyone has no doubt already become with the acronym NSA.
5/ Every now and then we will give you a funny animal clip - this is the "talking dog" who wants a cat for a friend.....an amusing and quite clever one minute.....
6/ "60 Minutes" and Lesley Stahl had a very interesting segment on cancer drugs and their cost last week, with commentary on the drugs efficacy and how Medicare is forbidden to negotiate prices with Big Pharma.
It was a good piece, professionally done and quite revealing, but we already know our medical system is corrupt - what was missing is was any discussion of what the drug achieves at a cost of about $60,000 per patient. "Zaltrap" gives colon cancer patients with stage 4 [spread to other parts of the body] an average of another 42 days of life, with horribly toxic side effects because its administered with the chemo regimen.
When will the media or indeed anyone in public life have a rational discussion of whether this is a good way to spend our medical dollars, to give terminal cancer patients another 42 days of pain-filled existence, and whether given a choice people would take this option.......
Cancer is so pervasive that it touches virtually every family in this country. More than one out of three Americans will be diagnosed with some form of it in their lifetime. And as anyone who's been through it knows, the shock and anxiety of the diagnosis is followed by a second jolt: the high price of cancer drugs.
They are so astronomical that a growing number of patients can't afford their co-pay, the percentage of their drug bill they have to pay out-of-pocket. This has led to a revolt against the drug companies led by some of the most prominent cancer doctors in the country.
Dr. Leonard Saltz: We're in a situation where a cancer diagnosis is one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy.
Dr. Leonard Saltz is chief of gastrointestinal oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the nation's premier cancer centers, and he's a leading expert on colon cancer.
Lesley Stahl: So, are you saying in effect, that we have to start treating the cost of these drugs almost like a side effect from cancer?
Dr. Leonard Saltz: I think that's a fair way of looking at it. We're starting to see the term "financial toxicity" being used in the literature. Individual patients are going into bankruptcy trying to deal with these prices.
7/ A 15 minute piece from John Oliver on how police seizures are out of control, thanks to an obscure law that lets the cops override people's basic rights - it's excellent comedic journalism, and well worth your time.......
Most shows, including the Daily Show and Colbert, are blacked out in the UK.......but this one finally got through and it's very good indeed.......
On HBO’s Last Week Tonight Sunday, show hostJohn Oliver mocked a little-known law that grants police the right to seize private property and assets based on a mere suspicion that any of it is being used for illegal activity.
The ACLU argues that the law acts as an incentive for officers to seize property, especially cash, as it can be used for police office salaries and “perks.”
Last Week Tonight aired a clip from a 2012 citizen police review board hearing in Columbia, Mo., wherein a police officer testified that money seized under the civil forfeiture law is often viewed as “pennies from heaven” and is used to buy “toys” for the police department.
“That’s right, they buy ‘toys’ with ‘pennies from heaven,’” said Oliver. “But they should know those pennies may not be falling from heaven, so much as from the pockets of the people they’re holding upside down and shaking.”
8/ I look at the media frenzy over the ISIS potential "invasion" of the US fueled by Fox but aided and abetted by the lamestream media, and despair at how gullible and frightened the US public is. Collectively we seem to be 315 million complete wimps, wanting daddy to keep us safe from the troll under the bed.
Grow up America, stop being such a wanker.......
(Credit: Fox News)
It happened so fast that, at first, I didn’t even take it in.
Two Saturdays ago, a friend and I were heading into the Phillips Museum in Washington, D.C., to catch a show of neo-Impressionist art when we ran into someone he knew, heading out. I was introduced and the usual chitchat ensued. At some point, she asked me, “Do you live here?”
“No,” I replied, “I’m from New York.”
She smiled, responded that it, too, was a fine place to live, then hesitated just a beat before adding in a quiet, friendly voice: “Given ISIS, maybe neither city is such a great place to be right now.” Goodbyes were promptly said and we entered the museum.
All of this passed so quickly that I didn’t begin rolling her comment around in my head until we were looking at the sublime pointillist paintings of Georges Seurat and his associates. Only then did I think: ISIS, a danger in New York? ISIS, a danger in Washington? And I had the urge to bolt down the stairs, catch up to her, and say: whatever you do, don’t step off the curb. That’s where danger lies in American life. ISIS, not so much.
The Terrorists Have Our Number
I have no idea what provoked her comment. Maybe she was thinking about a story that hadbroken just two days earlier, topping the primetime TV news and hitting the front pages of newspapers.
9/ Leading on from #8, here is another media terror story that actually aired on Fox News - "ISIS terrorists with Ebola are coming across the Mexican border. Be afraid. Be very afraid."
Luckily we have the Guardian to put the outbreak in perspective.
Ebola is highly contagious … plus seven other myths about the virus
The Ebola outbreak is serious, but the nature of the epidemic is often misunderstood – and inappropriate measures suggested
A volunteer doctor travelling to west Africa to help care for Ebola patients takes off an isolation suit during during training offered by the German Red Cross. Photograph: Timm Schamberger/Getty Images
The Ebola outbreak has been claiming lives in Africa for many months now, but following the first Ebola death from a case diagnosed outside the continent, coverage – and concern – in the west has stepped up yet another notch.
The outbreak is certainly a grave issue for west Africa, a public health priority, and has been exacerbated by a slow response from international bodies and rich nations. It has already claimed more than 3,800 lives, and could claim far more without an appropriate international response.
But it is also not the species-ending disaster some fear it could be. Below are eight Ebola myths, and an attempt to set out the real position.
1. Ebola is highly contagious
Compared with most common diseases, Ebola is not particularly infectious. The primary risk of catching Ebola comes from the bodily fluids of people who are visibly infected – primarily their blood, saliva, vomit and (possibly) sweat. These can transmit the disease if they make contact with the mucus membranes (lining of your nose, mouth, and similar areas).
Each patient in the current Ebola outbreak is infecting on average two healthy people (this figure, known as the R0 value, can be reduced with appropriate precautions). The Sars outbreak of 2002-03 had an R0 of five, mumps 10 and measles a huge 18. Ebola could be much more infectious than it is.
10/ A very interesting Bill Maher panel discussion about Islam, focusing on Maher's assertion that Islam is inherently violent.....the media has played up the heated discussion between Maher and Ben Affleck, but the really interesting bit was from Sam Harris, who explains why up to half of all Muslims are hostile to Christianity......
Keep an open mind, and watch this lively 9 minute segment......pretty good.......and ignore the fact that none of the panelists or participants are Muslim.......
Ben Affleck, Bill Maher, Nicholas Kristol,Michael Steele, and author Sam Harris got into what could only be described as a tumultuous continuation of Maher’s comments on Islam from last week, with Maher and Affleck tearing into each other over the influence of fundamentalists in the Muslim community.
“We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where criticism of the religion gets conflated with bigotry towards muslims as people,” Harris began. “It’s intellectually ridiculous.”
“Hold on — are you the person who officially understands the codified doctrine of Islam?” Affleck, on the show to promote his movie Gone Girl, interrupted, and argued that criticizing Islam, as Maher and Harris were doing it, was “gross and racist. It’s like saying, ‘Oh, you shifty Jew!’”
What follows is a few minutes of Affleck and Maher going at each other and yelling over each other, with the occasional interjection from Kristol and Steele providing intelligent perspective on reformers in the Muslim world, smart statistical analysis from Harris about the spectrum of fundamentalism, and then another few minutes of Affleck and Maher yelling at each other.
“Your argument is, ‘You know, black people, they shoot each other,’” said Affleck.
“No it’s not! It’s based on facts!” Maher retorted.
11/ Jerry Seinfeld won a CLIO [an Advertising Business award] for something, and they may have regretted it because his 4 minute acceptance speech evicerates the ad industry, whose shallow, cynical executives laughed at most of Seinfeld's "jokes"........a most interesting clip, slightly amusing but also brutally truthful......
A minute later, he really hit hard: “I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy,” Seinfeld said.
When winning an honorary Clio award recently (an award for … advertising), Jerry Seinfeld totally eviscerated the advertising industry when accepting it. He set the tone early-on with, “I love advertising because I love lying.”
12/ Tom Tomorrow on the war we are going to get into.......and how the process works.....on YOU!
Propaganda, relentlessly dripping into your brain......
Cartoonists get "it".......
13/ Haven't watched this 4 minute clip, but any Colbert segment [not shown in the UK] that highlights the stupidity of Fox news sounds good to me......
Stephen Colbert opened up his Monday night show with an apology that we are all not dead yet from the feared Ebola outbreak. It seems that last week, Colbert had informed his viewers that they were going to “soon be dead”.
“Turns out that you are not, and for that, I apologize.”
Thus, the tone was set for Colbert to hit back at the sensationalist reporting being done by Fox News and other conservative media outlets on the Ebola virus. Of course, these “news” outlets have been simultaneously scaring the hell out of their viewers while blaming President Obama and his administration for the outbreak, and for not doing enough to eradicate it.
Colbert played clip after clip of right-wing pundits histrionically discussing Ebola, from Joe Scarborough suggesting that the U.S. government is lying to us about the disease, to Fox News host Jeanine Pirro hysterically exclaiming, “you don’t want us to panic? Well, I don’t want us to die.”
Colbert had a field day hilariously mocking Pirro’s irrational tirade, suggesting that she was hearing voices in her head from a mental disorder.
14/ Ho hum.....Roundup, the herbicide from Monsanto probably gives you cancer if you are exposed to it enough, but the medical evidence for this link is from peasants in Latin America whose fields and homes are sprayed with it, so it's ignored.......just Messicans.....
Make sure you wear plastic gloves when using Roundup.......
A brilliant and celebrated inventor, John Franz, gave us an herbicide, Roundup, which has changed the face of agriculture. This herbicide has become the foundation for an entirely novel approach to farming - biotech agriculture - that has expanded rapidly throughout the globe.
Monsanto makes seeds for soy, corn, canola, cotton, alfalfa and sugar beets that are genetically engineered to be tolerant to Roundup. The seeds are marketed in 120 countries. Throughout the world, Roundup is sprayed heavily as a weed killer without fear of damaging the cash crops, which have been engineered to survive the herbicide's effects.
"The change in how agriculture is produced has brought, frankly, a change in the profile of diseases. We've gone from a pretty healthy population to one with a high rate of cancer, birth defects and illnesses seldom seen before."
Roundup seemed, at first, to be the perfect herbicide. It blocks the ESPS synthaseenzyme, which prevents the synthesis of amino acids that plants need for growth. Since animals don't have this enzyme, it was initially hypothesized that they would be safe from Roundup's effects.
Unfortunately, Roundup has now been shown to affect much more than the EPSP synthase enzyme. The herbicide has been proven to cause birth defects in vertebrates, including in humans, and it may also be the cause of a fatal kidney disease epidemic.
An increasing number of studies are now linking the herbicide to cancer.
15/ Holy shit - an astonishing four minute segment documenting the largest glacier calving ever recorded in Greenland.....remember if all of the ice in Greenland melts, the seas will rise 7 meters [23 feet].....just Greenland, then there's the Antarctic ice sheets......
Amazing images......four incredible minutes......
16/ We are in the UK, so this story was interesting, but not enough to get us into a McDonalds.....NFW.......
All it takes for our fast food to become healthier is action by the US gub'ment, which ain't gonna happen in our corrupt, stupid country.......
McDonald’s serves WHAT in London?! The outrageous double standard in fast food.
If you’ve ever been to the U.K., you might notice that the fast food restaurants over there are a little bit different, and slightly healthier than they are here. In the past, I wrote about how it’s a common practice for food companies (everyone from Betty Crocker to Pringles to Quaker Oats) toreformulate their products with safer ingredients overseas, while they continue to sell us inferior products with unhealthy ingredients here in the States. If you walk into any McDonald’s in the U.K. you’ll find organic milk available for children in their Happy Meals, and no chocolate milk. Just think about that for a minute…
McDonald’s serves organic milk to children in the U.K.? But not here in the U.S.?
McDonald’s also serves organic milk with their porridge (oatmeal), coffee and tea! You’ll also find healthier items, like pineapple and carrot sticks that you won’t find at any McDonald’s in the U.S. – also without preservatives. Their fries aren’t cooked in oil that contains TBHQ (a derivative of butane) or the anti-foaming agent dimethylpolysiloxane (an ingredient in silly putty) like they are here. Isn’t it funny that the oil in the U.K. seems to work just fine without these ingredients?
Todays video - three reasons to quit drinking......great commercials for root beer.......
Todays British jokes
A link to 30 "Britishisms".......
Todays Irish joke
Irish Birth Control
Mrs. Donovan was walking down
O'Connell Street in Dublin when
She met up with Father Flaherty.
Mrs. Donovan was walking down
O'Connell Street in Dublin when
She met up with Father Flaherty.
The Father said, 'Top o' the mornin'
To ye! Aren't ye Mrs. Donovan
And didn't I marry ye and yer
Hoosband two years ago?'
She replied, 'Aye, that ye did, Father.'
The Father asked, 'And be there
Any wee little ones yet?'
She replied, 'No, not yet, Father.'
The Father said, 'Well now,
I'm going to Rome next week
And I'll light a fertility candle for ye
and yer hoosband.'
She replied, 'Oh, thank ye, Father...'
They then parted ways..
Some years later they met again.
The Father asked, 'Well now,
Mrs. Donovan, how are ye these days?'
She replied, 'Oh, very well, Father!'
The Father asked, 'And tell me ,
Have ye any wee ones yet?'
She replied, 'Oh yes, Father!
Two sets of twins and six singles,
Ten in all!'
The Father said, 'That's wonderful!
And how is yer loving hoosband doing?'
She replied, 'E's gone to Rome
To blow out yer fookin' candle.
Todays sensitive husband joke
I came home from the golf course today.
The wife had left a note on the fridge:
"IT'S NOT WORKING, I can't take it anymore!!
Gone to stay with my Mother."
I opened the fridge, the light came on, and the beer was cold...
What the hell is she talking about?
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