We've had a busy couple of weeks, and also it's been a slow news fortnight so here is what you could deem a fairly lightweight DDD.......some classic videos and jokes from the last year with a few stories.....
And Happy New Year!
1/ One of the treats we used to have when we lived in Miami was to read Dave Barry's "Year In Review" in the Miami Herald.....it was always funny, and surprisingly informative too. I was delighted to find he is still doing it, and here is his look at the events of 2014....
2/ We are all abused by corporate America, but here are five of the worst offenders......and I'm sure you can think of dozens more, which is a pretty sad state of affairs if you think about it.....
(Credit: Shutterstock)
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
It’s that time of year, when we look back over the past 12 months to remember America’s most offensive and irresponsible corporate actions against citizens. The field is crowded, ladies and gentlemen, but five companies stand out for achieving new and spectacular heights in making a mockery of decent human values. From the cowardly to the stupid to the dangerous, here are some of the worst of the worst of 2014.
3/ You of course have read about the NYPD and the abuse that Mayor De Blasio is getting from the police union.....Matt Taibbi is on it with a reality check on the childish way the New York cops are behaving - and the benefits to the people of NYC........
Of course the vitriol De Blasio is getting has nothing whatever to do with the fact he is married to a black lady, and has a black son....nope, nothing at all......
Brace yourselves for a weird night. There might be a little extra drama when the ball drops in Times Square, thanks to one of the more confusing political protests in recent memory.
On a night when more than a million potentially lawbreaking, probably tipsy revelers will be crowding the most densely-populated city blocks in America, all eyes will be on the city cops stuck with holiday duty.
Why? Because the New York City Police are in the middle of a slowdown. The New York Post is going so far as to call it a "virtual work stoppage."
Furious at embattled mayor Bill de Blasio, and at what Police Benevolent Association chief Patrick Lynch calls a "hostile anti-police environment in the city," the local officers are simply refusing to arrest or ticket people for minor offenses – such arrests have dropped off a staggering 94 percent, with overall arrests plunging 66 percent.
If you're wondering exactly what that means, the Post is reporting that the protesting police have decided to make arrests "only when they have to." (Let that sink in for a moment. Seriously, take 10 or 15 seconds).
Substantively that mostly means a steep drop-off in parking tickets, but also a major drop in tickets for quality-of-life offenses like carrying open containers of alcohol or public urination.
My first response to this news was confusion. I get why the police are protesting – they're pissed at Mayor de Blasio, and more on that in a minute – but this sort of "protest" pulls this story out of the standard left-right culture war script it had been following and into surreal territory.
4/ A two minute video synopsis of the most important climate stories of 2014........if you have ADD or watch Fox News, this will be a good primer for you. For the rest of you, a good reminder of how important this issue is......
This was a big year for climate news, good and bad. In June, the Obama administration took its biggest step yet in the fight against global warming by introducing regulations to limit greenhouse gases from existing power plants. And while there was plenty of anti-science rhetoricand opposition to climate action (no, the polar vortex does not disprove climate change), the year came to a dramatic end with at least three landmark climate-related stories: In September, hundreds of thousands of protesters around the world marched to demand climate action. November’s historic deal between the U.S. and China to curb greenhouse emissions breathed new life into international climate negotiations. And finally, after a series of last-minute compromises, leaders from nearly 200 countries produced the Lima accord, which, for the first time, calls on all nations to develop plans to limit their emissions. All eyes are now on Paris, where next year world leaders will meet in an attempt to work out a major global warming deal.
5/ The Colbert Report ended this month, and Stephen is moving to late night TV without his character....he'll just be a host, which will be fascinating to see.
But here is a compilation of some of his best moments........the interview with Maurice Sendak is a classic, and the piece on Planned Parenthood is a wonderful example of clever writing. The field piece with the gay Mayor is
But in my opinion they left out the best one......Esteban Colberto's interview with Lou Dobbs, in Spanish! It's below.....
Tonight marks the final episode of “The Colbert Report.” If you’re anything like us, you’re finding this to be a difficult pill to swallow.
Sure, Colbert isn’t leaving TV altogether — he will, of course, be taking over “The Late Show” in 2015 — but his satirical news program was something special. Irreplaceable, even. And that ends tonight. While the Colbert Nation lives on, this remains the end of an era.
“The Colbert Report” was a comedy show that defied all expectations from its very first episode. It cast a harsh (and hilarious) light on places as far removed as Washington and Iraq; and translated even the most ludicrous and labyrinthine political concepts into comedy gold. (See: super PACs.) Colbert has been so good, and so often, that trying to identify the best from a nine-year body of exceptional work is basically impossible. Of course, that didn’t stop us from trying.
From 2008, so you will appreciate the intro.....Lou Dobbs.....
6/ Joe Nocera with a thoughtful column, with four questions that may be answered in 2015. Or not.
Will President Obama approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline? Up until recently, I always assumed that Obama would, sooner or later, despite the protests of the environmental community. In March 2012, for instance, he spoke positively about the proposed pipeline, which would bring oil mined from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, approval of the pipeline is important to the government of Canada, our neighbor and ally.
But several things happened in 2014 that now make me think he will turn it down. The first is that the glut of oil — largely because of the increase in production in the United States — has made the oil from the tar sands unnecessary, at least for now. Second, as the president moves into legacy mode, saying no to Keystone could firm up his credentials as a leader who tried to do something about climate change. And, finally, Republicans, who will control both the House and the Senate in January, have vowed to send the president a bill approving construction of the pipeline. Vetoing that bill would be very much in keeping with the bolder, more confrontational persona Obama has displayed since the midterm elections.
Will insider-trading prosecutions disappear? Thanks to a recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, they just might. The ruling overturned the convictions of two hedge fund managers who had made stock trades based on information they received, third- or fourth-hand, from corporate insiders. Because they didn’t know the identity of the insiders — or whether those insiders were receiving any tangible benefit for leaking information — the court ruled that the fund managers had not committed a crime. Thus did the appeals court define insider trading narrowly, making it difficult to charge anybody who did not directly pay off a source for information.
7/ An excellent Jon Stewart on his favourite subject - nailing the evil bastards at Fox News for their lies and deceit......he really gets into it too......
Two parts - he has seven minutes, and Jessica Williams with four minutes.
Jon Stewart (Credit: Comedy Central)
On Wednesday night’s “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart and Jessica Williams took aim at Fox News’ hypocritical coverage of police brutality protests. Stewart pointed out the ridiculous complaints that protests were blocking holiday shopping, and mocked the outrageousness of criticizing professional athletes’ decision to wear shirts saying “I Can’t Breathe” or “Justice for Tamir Rice.”
Jessica Williams then stepped in to completely skewer Fox News host Sean Hannity’s description of Jay Z as a crack dealer. “The only thing I can imagine is that Fox has a new rule where they can only describe people according to the worst thing they’ve ever done,” Williams said. “So if that’s the case, we’re going to have to fix some chyrons on Fox News.” (Spoiler: Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh and others didn’t fare so well.)
8/ Andrew Hawkins is a wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, and wore a T-shirt on the field to protest the shooting of 12 year old Tamir Rice......he of course got the right wing media outraged, so he gave a live interview explaining why he did it.
He is articulate, logical and passionate about why he made the gesture of support, and it's five minutes we should all watch......
The day after Cleveland Browns player Andrew Hawkins wore a T-shirt supporting the families of Tamir Rice and John Crawford in his pre-game warmup, he made this courageous statement to the media. The statement was responding to the criticism levied against him by the Cleveland Police Union in which he was called "pathetic" and demanded to apologize.
9/ "Corporations are people my friend" was a famous quote from the Mittster, so like people who are truly annoying you might want to read this list of 10 businesses to avoid if you don't like their policies and support for causes.....vote with your $$$ - it's the only thing that will get their attention......
Now that the mid-term elections are over we will have to wait another couple years to make our voices heard through the ballot box. But in the meantime there is actually a lot that we can still do to fight right wing extremism in our every day lives. One of the best ways to do that is by going after major right wing donors and their businesses and hitting them where it hurts….in their wallets.
You can actually use your hard earned dollars to send a message that reflects OUR values and priorities. I’ve listed a few of the right wing companies that have historically been either major donors to extreme Conservative causes and candidates or that run their operations directly against core Progressive values. Now this is certainly not an exhaustive list, sadly there are many more, but this list of very common brands is certainly a good place to start. And of course another great thing you can do is to patronize Liberal businesses. But here’s some that you should definitely avoid….
10/ We have had this hilarious video of a Southwest Airlines safety briefing before, but this is with subtitles so you can follow her dialogue.....a VERY funny three minutes.....
11/ OK - you read #9 above about 10 right wing corporations to avoid - this created a shitstorm in conservative media, and these are some of the things they were saying......it's all negative, all hate.....
So earlier this month I wrote an article called 10 Right Wing Companies That Every Progressive Should Boycott. In the article I listed a few of the right wing companies that have historically been either major donors to extreme Conservative causes and candidates or that run their operations directly against core Progressive values.
Now maybe I should first say that I am a proud Liberal who writes for a Liberal website. And honestly when I published this piece I had no intention of stirring any nut-job Conservative hornets nests. But for some reason this little article made the right-wingers absolutely lose their minds. The article has been posted and shared on more Conservative pages than Liberal ones. And so, of course, they quickly hijacked the comment section following the article.
12/ I have searched in vain for a Kay and Peele skit that is as funny as "Substitute Teacher",
but this one [although totally different] has a real bite to it - "Alien Imposters".....an amusing three minutes......
13/ Tech stuff
If you read the few lines below it could save you having cookies embedded in your system that track you without your knowledge. DO NOT open messages, click on links or email if it looks at all suspicious.
Good advice from the Times......
By now you probably know that browsing the web leaves you open to tracking by Internet service providers, website operators and advertisers. But less well known is that you can be tracked simply by opening an email. Merely clicking or tapping to open a message can transmit to the sender not only that you opened it, but also where you were when you did so and on what device, among other things.
The technology has been used by email marketers and Nigerian fraudsters for more than a decade. But more recently, it has become a tool used by employers, sales people, bill collectors, lawyers, political candidates, nonprofit fund-raisers and maybe also that guy you met at a bar and regrettably gave your contact information to.
Here’s how it works: The sender of the email embeds a so-called web bug or pixel tracker into the content of the message or possibly inside an attached PDF, Word or PowerPoint. These bugs are 1-by-1 pixel images (tinier than tiny), which are invisible to the recipient. When the email or document is opened, the bug triggers your device to contact the sender’s server and convey all sorts of information.
“What it does is lure you into an online environment and the collection that goes on there without alerting you that it’s happening,” said Ryan Calo, a professor of law at the University of Washington Law School in Seattle who specializes in privacy issues.
There are some things you can do to avoid having your email activity monitored. Perhaps the easiest defense is to adjust the settings of your email program so there is no image rendering.
14/ The Miami Herald's Carl Hiaasen with a great column on the President's new Cuba policy....
Finally, a breeze of sanity.
After 54 futile years of hard-line hostility, the United States will begin normalizing diplomatic ties with Cuba.
This unexpected outbreak of common sense and humanity was initiated by none other than Pope Francis, who privately reached out to President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro. He even let the negotiators use space in the Vatican.
As soon as the agreement was announced last week by Obama and Castro, the pontiff sent “warm congratulations for the historic decision.”
Politicians who are riled by the new diplomacy with Cuba wouldn’t dare trash the pope. It’s much safer to trash Obama, who at this point shouldn’t care what Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz has to say.
The key to the breakthrough was the return of ailing American contractor Alan Gross, who’d been imprisoned for five years. Cuba agreed to free Gross, 53 political prisoners and an agent for U.S. intelligence who’d been locked up for more than two decades.
In exchange, the United States released three Cuban nationals who had been convicted of spying here in 2001. Those on Capitol Hill who are criticizing the swap need to brush up on their math — Cuba freed a total of 55 prisoners and our government freed only three. How is that a bad deal?
More important, it opens the door to ending a festering standoff that has punished Cuban families on both sides of the Florida Straits, while diminishing U.S. influence in the Caribbean and the Americas.
15/ A funny collection of local news bloopers from 2014.....quite an amusing 14 minutes......
Chances are, the only moment you actually laughed probably came from your local news network, like one news crew's terrified reaction to an earthquake to a failed iPhone unboxing to, er, an unexpected dildo.
16/ If you missed them in the theaters, you were probably waiting for some of the years best movies to arrive on Netflix or Amazon Video.....here's a guide to where to find them....
I've seen "Edge of Tomorrow" [very good +] and "Snowpiercer" [very good + and very unusual]. On the list the reviews for "Babadook" were extraordinarily good....horror!
- 12/24/2014 at 12:45 PM
- 3 Comments
How to Stream the Best Movies of 2014 on Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes
- By Matt Patches
As the end of the year rapidly approaches, you are likely reading many top-ten movie lists (or top-11, like David Edelstein's) that feature many movies that are just being released in theaters (Birdman, The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher) or that won't even make it into wide release until January 2014 (Selma, A Most Violent Year, American Sniper). But we're here to remind you that there were 11 other months in 2014, and many of the year's best films came out in that period and are now available for streaming or rental on a streaming service. If you're not planning on hitting a multiplex this holiday weekend, here's a rundown of what you can watch from the comfort of your own sofa.
Todays video - a collection of funny and rude commercials
Todays Christmas joke [actually a story]
This is an article submitted to a 1999 Louisville Sentinel contest to find out who had the wildest Christmas dinners. It won first prize.
Christmas With Louise
As a joke, my brother Jay used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them. What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jay's kids' stockings overflowed, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty.
One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things at Wal-Mart. I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown. If you've never been in an X-rated store, don't go. You'll only confuse yourself. I was there an hour saying things like, "What does this do?" "You're kidding me!" "Who would buy that?" Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section. I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane during rush hour. Finding what I wanted was difficult. "Love Dolls" come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I'd never heard of. I settled for "Lovable Louise." She was at the bottom of the price scale.
To call Louise a "doll" took a huge leap of imagination.
On Christmas Eve and with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came to life.
My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours. Long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the dangling pantyhose with Louise's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray. I went home, and giggled for a couple of hours.
The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his house and left a present that had made him VERY happy but had left the dog confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more.
We all agreed that Louise should remain in her panty hose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner. My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. "What in the hell is that?" she asked. My brother quickly explained, "It's a doll." "Who would play with something like that?" Granny snapped.
I kept my mouth shut. "Where are her clothes?" Granny continued. "Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran," Jay said, to steer her into dining room. But Granny was relentless. "Why doesn't she have any teeth?"
Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the ambulance saying, "Hang on Granny, hang on!" My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, " Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?" I told him she was Jay's friend.
A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home. The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the mantel, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa. The cat screamed. I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. My brother fell back over his chair and wet his pants. Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car.
It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember. Later in my brother's garage, we conducted a thorough examination to decide the cause of Louise's collapse. We discovered that Louise had suffered from a hot ember to the back of her right thigh. Fortunately, thanks to a wonder drug called duct tape, we restored her to perfect health.
I can't wait until next Christmas.
Todays nasty golf joke
*Verne was teeing off from the men's tee. On his downswing, he realized
that his wife, Joy, was teeing up on the woman's tee directly in front of
him.
Unable to stop his swing, he nailed it, and hit her directly in the
temple, killing her instantly.
A few days later, Verne got a call from the coroner regarding her autopsy.
Coroner: "Verne, your wife seemed to have died from blunt force trauma to the head. You said you hit a golf ball and hit her in the temple, is that correct?"
Verne: "Yes, sir, that's correct."
Coroner: "Well, inexplicably I found a golf ball wedged up her butt."
Verne: "Was it a Titleist 3?"
Coroner: "Yes, it was."
Verne: "That was my mulligan."*
Todays sex joke
Japanese Sex Argument
A Japanese couple is having an argument over ways of performing highly
erotic sex:
Husband: Sukitaki. mojitaka
Wife replies: Kowanini! mowi janakpa
Wife on her knees literally begging: Mimi nakoundinda tinkouji!
Husband replies angrily: Na miaou kina Tim kouji!
I can't believe you just sat and tried to read this -- as if you
understand Japanese!!!!!!!!!
You'll read anything as long as it is about sex.
You need serious help!!
Sometimes I worry about you, my friend!
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