1/ Very enlightening story about how people who are listed "moderate" by pollsters are anything but....
It's also a view on why our politics is so broken - some of the electorate have no idea, no clue what politics means....
If you are at all interested in current events, this is for you.
Elizabeth Warren, Ted Cruz (Credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts/AP)
If there’s one article of faith in the political establishment it’s that being a political “moderate” is the only appropriate philosophy for people of good sense and mature disposition. No one possessed of even a modicum of rationality and logic could possibly hold a set of values or political positions that fall entirely on one side of the political divide or the other because that would mark him as a fanatic of some sort. And that would be very bad indeed. It might even be considered (shudder) partisan.
And if one is wise enough to be such a moderate, one naturally believes that negotiation and bipartisan agreement are achievable by people of good faith by simply sitting down and hammering out a reasonable compromise. After all, moderates have the kind of even temperament that naturally seeks comity and common ground. The problems in our politics are due entirely to the hot-headed partisans at both ends of the political spectrum who refuse to behave like adults.
Imagine how surprised the establishment wags must have been to see this Vox story by Ezra Klein reporting that political scientists have determined the vaunted moderate voter is actually an incoherent extremist who cannot possibly be appeased because her views are irrational. Seriously.
Klein writes that a new study reveals:
[S]urveys mistake people with diverse political opinions for people with moderate political opinions. The way it works is that a pollster will ask people for their position on a wide range of issues: marijuana legalization, the war in Iraq, universal health care, gay marriage, taxes, climate change, and so on. The answers will then be coded as to whether they’re left or right. People who have a mix of answers on the left and the right average out to the middle — and so they’re labeled as moderate. But when you drill down into those individual answers you find a lot of opinions that are well out of the political mainstream. “A lot of people say we should have a universal health-care system run by the state like the British,” Broockman said in July 2014. “A lot of people say we should deport all undocumented immigrants immediately with no due process. You’ll often see really draconian measures towards gays and lesbians get 16 to 20 percent support. These people look like moderates but they’re actually quite extreme.”
2/ Great Bill Maher "New Rules" segment....he relates Republican obsession with eliminating inheritance taxes with their drive to cut or abolish "handouts", and uses Nicky Hilton as an example.....what a sheathed....
Good one.....five minutes....
After calling the Hillary Clinton email story “stupid infantile bullshit” and denouncing “politically correct assholes” with Sean Penn, Bill Maher closed out Real Time Friday night with a look at the lives of “fuckface” rich kids.
“Someone has to explain to me why Republicans believe that not working and getting free money — you know, like the ‘takers’ — is the worst most corrupting thing that could ever happen to a person, except if you’re rich,” Maher said at the top of his final “New Rule” of the night. He went on to highlight one of the first actions taken by the new Republican Congress this year: trying to eliminate the tax on inherited wealth, or as they call it, the “death tax.”
“There’s only one thing conservatives believe in more than work and that’s the God-given right of rich people to leave all their money to their kids so they never have to work a day in their lives,” Maher said. He suggested they inflict some of the “tough love” they use against poor people on their own children.
3/ Paul Krugman on the big money in politics, and how pizza! has become politicised. It's a great example of trying to change something everyone knows is wrong, but coming up against huge corporations who like things just the way they are, thank you very much.
If you want to know what a political party really stands for, follow the money. Pundits and the public are often deceived; remember when George W. Bush was a moderate, and Chris Christie a reasonable guy who could reach out to Democrats? Major donors, however, generally have a very good idea of what they are buying, so tracking their spending tells you a lot.
So what do contributions in the last election cycle say? The Democrats are, not too surprisingly, the party of Big Labor (or what’s left of it) and Big Law: unions and lawyers are the most pro-Democratic major interest groups. Republicans are the party of Big Energy and Big Food: they dominate contributions from extractive industries and agribusiness. And they are, in particular, the party of Big Pizza.
No, really. A recent Bloomberg report noted that major pizza companies have become intensely, aggressively partisan. Pizza Hut gives a remarkable 99 percent of its money to Republicans. Other industry players serve Democrats a somewhat larger slice of the pie (sorry, couldn’t help myself), but, over all, the politics of pizza these days resemble those of, say, coal or tobacco. And pizza partisanship tells you a lot about what is happening to American politics as a whole.
4/ The President went on Jimmy Kimmel this week, and participated in his "Mean Tweets" skit.....an amusing two minutes, and the President is a natural....
“Mean Tweets” is a regular “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” segment in which celebrities read unkind Twitter comments about themselves.
Kimmel told the crowd that Obama’s staff reviewed the tweets in advance but that the president didn’t go through them until just before the show. The Obama segment took place Thursday night.
5/ Not sure I totally agree with this article, but it's sobering nonetheless and the author makes some great points. Without fanfare, nice and quietly, China is extending it's economic power all over the globe while the US seems to have lost it's way, stuck in the last century - the world's bully.
American exceptionalism, a phrase we hear from our politicians constantly, is becoming a hollow boast.....
A role reversal has occurred in this world as China is quickly surpassing the US in the innovative and economic world. With its increasing wealth, China is expanding its existence throughout the world.
Published: March 1, 2015 | Authors: Michael Payne | NationofChange | Op-Ed
6/ The cold seems to be over this year, but last year SNL had a wonderful skit on "Weekend Update"......Buford Calloway tells of his Atlanta nightmare, when two inches of snow fell.....
Love the OTT southern accent! Three minutes....
Buford Calloway (Taran Killam) reveals how he survived the snowstorm that crippled Atlanta with a whole two inches of snow: preemptively killing his neighbor, drinking Coke and holing up in his white Escalade until the sun came out.
7/ One of the problems you never hear about is overpopulation....this world has 7.3 billion people in it, and about 5 billion humans live on less than $5 a day.....
But for some religions every foetus is precious, and every life a miracle, and these crazy Christians have successfully blocked efforts to spread simple contraception to people who really need it, because 7 billion people is a lot of demand for food, water, products, seafood, etc. etc and it's killing us....
This isn't just a story about overpopulation, there is also a slide show of tough, beautiful photographs illustrating our crowded world....14 wonderful photos....
The more than 7 billion humans alive right now are, by virtue of our very existence, contributing to a problem of a planetary scale — and we could number as many as 5 billion more by this century’s end. We’re taking up so much space, and so quickly, that the planet lost half of its total population of wildlife in just four decades. Climate change, spurred on by our voracious appetite for fossil fuels, is threatening Earth’s very future.
The logical arguments for getting population under control are compelling, says Tom Butler, editorial director at the Foundation for Deep Ecology. Yet somehow, they just aren’t working.
So, Butler tried a picture book — a large-format coffee-table book, more like, featuring images of a world overrun by human activity, produced as part of the Global Population Speak Out Campaign. (You can read it online, for free, here.)
“We wanted to jump over those old and rational arguments and try to go straight to the emotional center of a viewer, someone who has never thought about the population question, and say: Here is how the earth has been transformed,” Butler explained. “Take a look: 7.3 billion people on the planet, trying to get by, living as they do, have profoundly altered the planet and here’s what it looks like.”
8/ Todays guy video - four minutes of awesome machines, from farm equipment to machine lathes.....ahooooogah!
9/ Yet another article in the endless stream of stories about our horrible food supply, this one about food additives that are commonly used in the US that are banned in other countries, whose regulatory agencies haven't yet been purchased by Big Food.
Folks....again.....if your grandmother didn't serve it, it's probably going to be bad for you....and whatever you buy, even if it's fresh, wash it thoroughly. When Publix has vegetables that say "pre-washed" on the package, they mean "pre-washed" in chemicals.
If you think everything in the cupboard is safe to eat, you might want to think again. Some additives approved by the FDA have been banned in other parts of the world. Here are six common food additives found in U.S. food, yet banned elsewhere.
Published: March 10, 2015 | Authors: Katie Levans | EcoWatch | News Report
So if you think everything in your pantry is safe to eat, think again. Here are 6 common food additives found in the U.S. that are banned in other countries.
10/ An excellent Jon Stewart clip where he dissects the recent settlement of the State of New jersey's suit against Exxon Mobil, which Chris Christie settled for pennies on the dollar.....Stewart at his best.....angry and funny political reporter!.....
Good one....about seven minutes....
Jon Stewart (Credit: Comedy Central)
Last night Jon Stewart slammed Governor Chris Christie for the favorable-to-Exxon settlement his lawyers cut with Exxon over environmental damage to New Jersey. “The Daily Show” host also ripped into the governor for using the bulk of the money to fill in budget gaps not for environmental cleanup.
Stewart was bipartisan in his calling out shady political deals; he also ripped into New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, who was indicted on corruption charges. And he didn’t stop there, Stewart railed against the entrenched power of PACs and lobby groups for trading money for influence.
11/ Saw this in the Times, and it's just a great story about an up and coming female runner that is being trained properly so she doesn't peak until she is ready.....
Fascinating, because you so rarely see a long term strategy for athletes - in this society their bodies are disposable. But I think we will be hearing about this young lady in the future....
Mary Cain stood near the starting line with 31 other high-school girls at a track in Greensboro, N.C., in June 2011, waiting to run in the national championships of the 4 x 800 meter relay. With their long ponytails and soft bodies, racing numbers pinned to their hips, none of the girls looked like much — but Cain, a freshman, looked like less. She wore hot pink shorts and a black sports bra, and her shoulders slumped with the impatient awkwardness of being 15. The first two runners from Bronxville, N.Y., Cain’s hometown, ran their 800-meter splits (a little less than half a mile) in 2 minutes 13 seconds and 2 minutes 14 seconds. The two runners each from the Bishop Guertin track club in New Hampshire and the Achilles track club in North Carolina logged times within a second of that, because 2:13 is about how long it takes a good female high-school athlete to complete two laps of the track. The third Bronxville runner faded slightly and ran her 800 meters in 2:18. That left Cain, the anchor, shaking out her legs and waiting on the matte black oval.
The 800 is a crushing race. Runners go out hard, then try to hang on to the pace in a showcase of will. Through the first six and a half laps of that eight-lap relay, the announcer called the event gamely, like a horse race — “Bishop Guertin! Bronxville! Achilles!” — playing up the tension, implying that anybody could win. But shortly after Cain took the baton, the race became disorienting.
12/ A good clip on net neutrality, explained to Republicans by John Oliver. He can probably take some credit for the recent decision of the FCC tin favor of net neutrality, with a rare defeat for Comcast and the other monopolies....
Three amusing minutes.....
Last season, John Oliver successfully got thousands of viewers to visit the FCC’s website and demand net neutrality protection, causing the comments section of the site to crash in the process. So he had reason to celebrate this week after the FCC finally voted to keep the internet open.
Oliver was not quite willing to take back his description of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler as a “dingo babysitter,” saying, “You are dingo. It’s just that in this one instance, you did not eat the baby.”
The host also took on the (mostly) Republican members of Congress who have opposed the FCC ruling, such as Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), who described net neutrality as the idea that “the latest cat video is of equal importance to a teleconference consultation to a heart patient.”
“You are misunderstanding what net neutrality is,” Oliver told the critics. “Cat videos are part of the point.” As he explained it, the policy is about keeping internet service providers from “picking a choosing whose voices get heard, ensuring that the internet remains a democratic space for all messages.” And that goes for cat videos, too.”
13/ Floriduh was again in the news this week because of the decision by the corrupt, venal and revolting piece of shit you elected Governor to ban the use of the words "climate change" in all official documents. This irony is incredible - the state that is #1 in risk from rising seas and changing weather patterns is in official denial that it's even happening.
But it'll all blow over. Floridians are used to being the butt of jokes about the "stupidest state", Rick Scott will ignore this tempest and carry on selling our state to his friends, and noone will hear about it because the TV media don't report this stuff. So the vast majority of residents, who get their news from television, will as usual have no clue what is happening.....
Rick Scott (Credit: AP/Chris O'meara)
Rick Scott has never made a secret of his distaste for talk of climate change. But the full extent of his willful denial was revealed earlier this week, when former employees of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection accused the governor of banning the terms “climate change” and “global warming.” While the waves of Twitter ridicule have come and mostly gone — how does Scott have the audacity to think he can wish a planet-size problem away? — the wide-ranging, terrifying implications of his alleged policy are still continuing to emerge.
Since the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting first published its exposé of the state’s unwritten policy, even more whistle-blowers have come forward, alleging that the ban extends beyond the DEP to the Departments of Health and Transportation. Some saythey were told flat-out never to use the words in official communications; others that they were forced to delete them from their scientific research articles.
The extreme, Orwellian nature of the ban certainly struck a nerve. It’s rare, after all, to see climate denial take such a literal form. The news also reveals just how thoroughly Florida’s leader has rejected science — and how far the state is falling behind in preparing for the threats already lapping at its shores
14/ I'm including this because the commentary says the video is a "masterpiece".....it's the new release from Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine. "What Kind Of Man". The video is certainly different, with a car ride, lovey dovey stuff, a nude scene, what appears to be gang molestation and excellent, passionate singing from the redheaded beauty....
We report, you decide.....
"What Kind of Man" taps into the same indie-rock firepower that put "Dog Days Are Over" on the charts for 20 weeks. And the video is a masterpiece; it's directed by Vincent Haycock, the man behind Lana Del Rey's "West Coast" and Paul McCartney's "Early Days." "What Kind of Man" is undeniably one of the best new songs of the year.
In a press release accompanying Friday morning's announcement, Welch said that the new album would feature more vulnerability than her past work. "I guess although I've always dealt in fantasy and metaphor when I came to writing, that meant the songs this time were dealing much more in reality," she said, according to Consequence of Sound. "But the new album became about trying to learn how live, and how to love in the world rather than trying to escape from it. Which is frightening because I'm not hiding behind anything but it felt like something I had to do."
15/ What could be a worse story about Floriduh than Voldemort denying the seas are rising? Nothing really, but this blog about how Big Sugar owns all of the corrupt bastards from dickweed on down, and is just poisoning our water supply and the Everglades with impunity.....but they may have a problem, that the blogger calls "Angry Bees".......naaaa......
At the Governing Board of the South Florida Water Management District today, Republican proxies of Big Sugar -- that would be the board appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to fulfill his mission -- will be facing the Angry Bees: citizens and activists demanding that the State of Florida buy out the properties of US Sugar in the Everglades Agricultural Area before the expiration of an option next October.
Protesters picket outside South Fla. Water Management District - NBC-2.com WBBH News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral & Naples, Florida
US Sugar entered into the option after a daring offer by then Gov. Charlie Crist in 2010. Subsequent to the election of Gov. Scott, the deal was whittled down from 130,000 acres to a nub and then withered, leaving unanswered questions -- for instance, if US Sugar opposes selling its 48,000 acres now, why do the deal in the first place?
Big Sugar's lies are customary to environmentalists, beaten down by industry tactics to the point of Stockholm Syndrome.
The lies' purpose: to cover up the costs of Big Sugar's pollution or shift those costs to taxpayers, because otherwise -- if the costs were fully factored into the price of sugar -- it could not be grown in Florida.
Protesters picket outside South Fla. Water Management District - NBC-2.com WBBH News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral & Naples, Florida
US Sugar entered into the option after a daring offer by then Gov. Charlie Crist in 2010. Subsequent to the election of Gov. Scott, the deal was whittled down from 130,000 acres to a nub and then withered, leaving unanswered questions -- for instance, if US Sugar opposes selling its 48,000 acres now, why do the deal in the first place?
Big Sugar's lies are customary to environmentalists, beaten down by industry tactics to the point of Stockholm Syndrome.
The lies' purpose: to cover up the costs of Big Sugar's pollution or shift those costs to taxpayers, because otherwise -- if the costs were fully factored into the price of sugar -- it could not be grown in Florida.
Todays video - a Formula 1 race car pit stop from 1950, compared to today.....fascinating.......I slo-mo'd the present day one.....wow....about two minutes
Todays love story joke
A man and a woman who had never met before, but who were both married to other people,
found themselves assigned to the same sleeping room on a transcontinental train.
Though initially embarrassed and uneasy over sharing a room, they were both
very tired and fell asleep quickly, he in the upper berth and she in the lower.
At 1:00 AM, the man leaned down and gently woke the woman saying, 'Ma'am,
I'm sorry to bother you, but would you be willing to reach into the closet to get me a second
found themselves assigned to the same sleeping room on a transcontinental train.
Though initially embarrassed and uneasy over sharing a room, they were both
very tired and fell asleep quickly, he in the upper berth and she in the lower.
At 1:00 AM, the man leaned down and gently woke the woman saying, 'Ma'am,
I'm sorry to bother you, but would you be willing to reach into the closet to get me a second
blanket? I'm awfully cold.'
'I have a better idea,' she replied, 'Just for tonight, let's pretend that we're married.'
'Wow! That's a great idea!' he exclaimed.
'Good,' she replied, 'Get your own fucking blanket.'
After a moment of silence, he farted.
The End.
'I have a better idea,' she replied, 'Just for tonight, let's pretend that we're married.'
'Wow! That's a great idea!' he exclaimed.
'Good,' she replied, 'Get your own fucking blanket.'
After a moment of silence, he farted.
The End.
Todays oldie joke
Morris and his wife Esther went to the state fair every year,
And every year Morris would say, "Esther, I'd like to ride in that helicopter."
And every year Morris would say, "Esther, I'd like to ride in that helicopter."
Esther always replied, "I know Morris, but that helicopter ride is fifty dollars, And fifty dollars is fifty dollars."
One year Esther and Morris went to the fair, and Morris said, "Esther, I'm 85 years old. If I don't ride that helicopter, I might never get another chance."
One year Esther and Morris went to the fair, and Morris said, "Esther, I'm 85 years old. If I don't ride that helicopter, I might never get another chance."
To this, Esther replied, "Morris that helicopter ride is fifty dollars, and fifty dollars is fifty dollars."
The pilot overheard the couple and said, "Folks I'll make you a deal. I'll take the both of you for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride and don't say a word
I won't charge you a penny!
The pilot overheard the couple and said, "Folks I'll make you a deal. I'll take the both of you for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride and don't say a word
I won't charge you a penny!
But if you say one word it's fifty dollars."
Morris and Esther agreed and up they went. The pilot did all kinds of fancy maneuvers, but not a word was heard. He did his daredevil tricks over and over again, but still not a word.
Morris and Esther agreed and up they went. The pilot did all kinds of fancy maneuvers, but not a word was heard. He did his daredevil tricks over and over again, but still not a word.
When they landed, the pilot turned to Morris and said, "By golly, I did everything I
could to get you to yell out so I'd get paid, but you didn't. I'm impressed!'
Morris replied, "Well, to tell you the truth, I almost said something when Esther fell out, but you know, fifty dollars is fifty dollars!"
Todays redneck joke
An extraordinarily handsome man decided he had the responsibility to marry the perfect woman so they could produce beautiful children beyond compare.
With that as his mission he began to search for the perfect woman.
Shortly thereafter he met a Redneck who had three stunning, gorgeous daughters that positively took his breath away. So he explained his mission to the Redneck and asked for permission to marry one of them.
The Redneck simply replied, " They're lookin' to getmarried, so you came to the right place. Look 'emover and pick the one you want."
The man dated the first daughter. The next day theRedneck asked for the man's opinion.
"Well," said the man, "she's just a weeeeee bit, notthat you can hardly notice ... pigeon-toed."
The Redneck nodded and suggested the man date one of the other girls; so the man went out with the second daughter.
The next day, the Redneck again asked how things went.
"Well, "the man replied, "she's just a weeeee bit, not that you can hardly tell,...... cross-eyed."
The Redneck nodded and suggested he date the third girl to see if things might be better. So he did.
The next morning the man rushed in exclaiming,
"She's perfect, just perfect. She's the one I want to marry."
So they were wed right away.Months later the baby was born.When the man visited the nursery he was horrified: the baby was the ugliest, most pathetic human you can imagine.He rushed to his father-in-law and asked how such a thing could happen considering the beauty of the parents.
"Well," explained the Redneck, "she was just a weeeee bit, not that you could hardly tella weeeeeee bit......pregnant when you met her."
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