1/ You will be hearing more of the TPP this week - it stands for Trans Pacific Partnership, and it's a trade agreement that's been secretly negotiated with 11 Asian nations.....the only problem is the secrecy, and the fact that apart from corporations noone officially knows whats in it.
The President is trying to ram this through Congress without any changes, and he has the overwhelming support of Republicans which should give you a clue it's terrible for the middle class, and wonderful for the oligarchs....
If you believe as I do we are living in a plutocracy, this is no surprise. The question is how did they get to the President and why is he pushing this?....what have they promised him, or even threatened him with?
This is an excellent column from the Times by Mark Bittman.....
There’s an important issue out there you may never have heard of, which is just what its proponents would like. That’s the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), currently being pushed by the Obama administration and its corporate (and mostly Republican!) allies. It’s a blatant attack on labor, farmers, food safety, public health and even national sovereignty.
And the details of the deal are largely secret. Other than what’s been leaked, the public has no access to its contents, and even members of Congress don’t know much. (On the other hand, “cleared advisers,” mostly corporate lawyers, have full access.) That’s because the TPP is way too important to its sponsors to allow little details like congressional or public input to get in its way, even though constitutional authority over trade is granted to the legislative, not the executive, branch.
2/ As always, sometimes cartoonists nail it better that anyone.....this is the TPP summarized by Brian McFadden, who writes "The Strip" in the Times .....
3/ Contrast the "TPP Obama" with the relaxed, very funny President at the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday......his timing is excellent, and he has some great political jokes.....it's 22 minutes, but full of zingers and some genuine laughs.
He also brought in Key of "Key and Peele" as his "anger translator"......
To that end, if you watched the WHCD last night or wish to in our video embed below, what you’ll see and hear is some truly hilarious, biting stuff from the president that can’t be considered nasty or too partisan to those owning any semblance of objectivity. Given this is the president’s sixth Correspondents Dinner, here’s his Top Six lines of the night, which were delivered with the just the right pace and precision:
- Mr. Obama said he’s asked, ” ‘Do you have a bucket list?’ I say, well I have something that rhymes with bucket. Immigration executive action? ‘Bucket!’ Stricter climate rules. ‘Bucket!‘”
- “I look so old…John Boehner’s already invited Netanyahu to speak at my funeral.”
- “Michele Bachmann predicted I would bring about the Biblical end of days. Now that’s big. … Lincoln, Washington — they didn’t do that.”
- The economy’s gotten so bad for some people that…”I had a friend, just a few weeks ago, she was making millions of dollars a year, and now she’s living out of a van in Iowa.”
- Speaking about his fondness for Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who could run for the Democratic nomination: “Apparently people really want to see a pot-smoking socialist in the White House. We could get a third Obama term after all.”
Rest assured, these lines (along with a tremendous performance by Keegan-Michael Key as “Luther the Angry Translator”) will be played all morning on the Sunday talk shows (with anchors/hosts/moderators all laughing/grinning/chuckling out of the bites and acting as if it’s the first time they’re hearing it). You’ll hear a majority of them on Monday as well. If a poll is done on the president’s likability this week, it’s almost a guarantee that number ticks up…all thanks to the convenience of online consumption, millions will see these clips who otherwise wouldn’t have at the beginning of Mr. Obama’s tenure.
4/ A rerun of the hilarious three minute clip of a Southwest flight attendant giving a "safety" briefing......it's got subtitles so you can read the jokes....she talks VERY fast.....
How come I never get these fun flights? Waaaa.....
5/ The always excellent Frank Rich on the issues of the week....this one is about Hillary and Scientology.....
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week, the magazine asked him about various presidential announcements and whether Scientology will lose its tax-exempt status.
ith Sunday’s announcement video and her Iowa campaign tour, Hillary Clinton is officially in it to win it again. She faces no Democratic challengers who might pose a serious threat to her securing her party’s nomination. It’s 9 months until anyone votes in Iowa or New Hampshire, 15 months until the Democratic convention. What will or can she accomplish?
On the basis of what little we’ve seen thus far, Hillary Clinton’s opening gambit is to persuade voters that a candidate of wealth and privilege, who has received fat checks for speaking to Goldman Sachs and will have a projected $2.5 billion campaign war chest, is as simple and down-home and as jus’ folks as the Iowa farmers in Grant Wood’s American Gothic. It is truly delicious to watch. There’s a kind of Thelma and Louise vibe to the stills from the security video showing Clinton and Huma Abedin in shades placing their order incognito at a Chipotle. The shots of Clinton holding court around a table with a few “everyday Americans” — as she has decided to call them — while dozens of reporters eavesdrop on the periphery are worthy of a Christopher Guest parody.
6/ Todays irresponsible guy video - here's seven minutes of some asshole in a Mercedes AMG C63 taunting and outrunning the Swedish police.....he has this beast set up with front, side and rear cameras......it's a complete waste of seven minutes, but worth it for the adrenaline rush.....
7/ In some ways being in your 60's and retired is a bit of a relief, and one of the benefits is not having to work in todays business world - insecure, pensionless, and always looking over your shoulder to see if you've been "outsourced".....
But there's a new wrinkle - your job could be automated to an AI [Artificial Intelligence] machine........it doesn't have to do your job better - just adequate is fine, as it's much cheaper for a corporation to use a robot than have an employee......
It's coming folks, a nation of serfs and drones......a very good story from the Times....
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — THE machine hums along, quietly scanning the slides, generating Pap smear diagnostics, just the way a college-educated, well-compensated lab technician might.
A robot with emotion-detection software interviews visitors to the United States at the border. In field tests, this eerily named “embodied avatar kiosk” does much better than humans in catching those with invalid documentation. Emotional-
Yes, the machines are getting smarter, and they’re coming for more and more jobs.
Not just low-wage jobs, either.
Today, machines can process regular spoken language and not only recognize human faces, but also read their expressions. They can classify personality types, and have started being able to carry out conversations with appropriate emotional tenor.
8/ Amy Schumer is a funny lady.....some of her humour is a little crude, but still amusing.....like this skit with three powerhouse co-stars. I would hesitate to say this is one for the ladies, as some of you might be a little ticked at this video.....
But we report, you decide.....four minutes.....
“The media decides when you’re no longer believably f**kable”: Amy Schumer tears into industry sexism
She enlists the help of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette to drive the point home VIDEO
(Credit: Comedy Central)
The Season 3 premiere of Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer” was full of methodically precise sketches that tackled hot button cultural issues. Perhaps most memorable of the bunch: “Last F**kable Day,” the star-studded sketch featuring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette that shames the media for its perpetuation of industry sexism. While on a jog, Schumer stumbles upon the gang having a picnic in the forest and quickly learns that they’ve convened to celebrate Louis-Dreyfus’ “last fuckable day.” That is, the day the media decides you are no longer “believably fuckable.” They take Schumer — “that girl from the television who talks about her pussy all the time” — under their wing and prepare her for the cruel world of middle-aged acting as a female: Disney stars replace you in the sequel to your Oscar-winning film and you only get signed on to movies with “uplifting yet vague” titles like “Whatever it Takes” or “She Means Well.” Then, you’re pushed off to sea … so you can go home and do laundry.
9/ The worst Governor in the country [yes, our very own Voldemort] won't let Florida use the $52 billion from the federal government to expand Medicaid......it's has put Scott and Florida House crazies against the Florida Senate, which seems to be relatively sane for once.
But as this good story from MSN says, there is no logic to this - it's the outpouring of pure hatred for Obama and Obamacare combined with contempt for the poor that's driving this behavior......and they call themselves Christians.....
Rick Scott And Florida Republicans Are Throwing An Anti-Obamacare Tantrum
An unusual and revealing political fight over health care has been unfolding in Florida.
It's unusual because it pits Rick Scott, the Republican governor, against some members of his own party. I's revealing because it lays bare the motives of the Affordable Care Act's most determined detractors.
Conservatives have plenty of genuine, intellectually honest reservations about the changes that came with Obamacare. They don't like the new government spending and regulation, for example. In some cases, conservatives object to the whole notion of government-sponsored insurance.
But the Florida dispute demonstrates that differences over policy can't, on their own, explain the fervor now on display. The law and its enactment have tapped into something deeper and more primal -- about what the law represents, or, perhaps, the president who signed it.
It's unusual because it pits Rick Scott, the Republican governor, against some members of his own party. I's revealing because it lays bare the motives of the Affordable Care Act's most determined detractors.
Conservatives have plenty of genuine, intellectually honest reservations about the changes that came with Obamacare. They don't like the new government spending and regulation, for example. In some cases, conservatives object to the whole notion of government-sponsored insurance.
But the Florida dispute demonstrates that differences over policy can't, on their own, explain the fervor now on display. The law and its enactment have tapped into something deeper and more primal -- about what the law represents, or, perhaps, the president who signed it.
Those feelings are so strong that, in Washington, Republicans have tried dramatic and unprecedented measures, such as shutting down the government. And from the looks of things, the anger is not going away anytime soon, particularly with a Republican presidential campaign underway and a potentially devastating Supreme Court decision looming.
10/ A second look at the same story from Scott Maxwell in the Orlando Sentinel from a political perspective.......very insightful......
Tallahassee melted down last week.
I know it's hard to tell in a town that suffers from daily dysfunction.
But last week, absurdity went on steroids when Republicans realized that all their screaming about how they don't want no stinkin' federal money might end up with them getting their wish.
This was something they never really expected.
Yes, they want to rant about Obamacare. But they also wanted to keep sucking up federal health-care dollars.
11/ A very good Bill Maher on the whores in the Republican party who deny climate change so they can get the Koch Brothers money......funny, and with an edge that's palpable.....well worth five minutes of your time......
Bill Maher ended his show tonight by going after Republican “zombie lies” on the environment and basically calling them “prostitutes” for denying climate change just to satisfy donors.
He ripped into candidates like Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz for raising serious questions about established science on climate change, before saying the whole thing was “never about facts to begin with.”
Maher said the donors are “making their money killing the planet” and as long as people like the Kochs continue to give Republicans tons and tons of money, nothing’s going to change.
12/ Looks like an interesting movie - "Ex Machina" in theaters right now.....reviews are decent....interesting segue from story #7 about AI machines taking our jobs.....
Ex Machina is memorable and downright challenging, full of sharp performances that blur the lines between humanity and programming.
In the near-future, young computer coder Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), working for the world’s most powerful tech company, is selected to assist in an unorthodox experiment. Caleb travels far from his office job to an isolated homestead, and research facility, of the company’s reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) for a weeklong visit. However, when the eager employee actually meets his employer, Caleb finds that, in his isolation, Nathan has become unhinged and obsessive – rarely seen without an alcoholic drink in hand.
Nevertheless, when Nathan reveals to Caleb the purpose of his visit, the coder dismisses his initial discomfort (and fear) in favor of jumping head-long into scientific discovery. Hidden away in his compound, Nathan has been working on an advanced artificial intelligence named Ava (Alicia Vikander) – and has brought Caleb in as a consultant, hoping the programmer can successfully administer a Turing Test: intended to determine if an A.I.’s personality and self-awareness is equal or greater than a flesh-and-blood human (meaning the A.I.’s “artificial” intelligence is imperceptible to “normal” people).
13/ You have to wonder about the frenzy we as a country get into about recreational drugs - it's the nanny state telling you what you can ingest and what's good for you, and the problem with their propaganda about [for example] weed is that what they are telling you is patently BS......which then opens the door for using drugs that are truly nasty and addictive like heroin and meth.....
But anyway, I found this story fascinating because a Mexican cartel has been smart, and decentralized their heroin distribution networks using good old fashioned American business acumen........and if what they are doing sounds like WalMart did, it is exactly that model.
The irony is they aren't even close to doing the damage that WalMart has done to this country.....
FATAL heroin overdoses in America have almost tripled in three years. More than 8,250 people a year now die from heroin. At the same time, roughly double that number are dying from prescription opioid painkillers, which are molecularly similar. Heroin has become the fallback dope when an addict can’t afford, or find, pills. Total overdose deaths, most often from pills and heroin, now surpass traffic fatalities.
If these deaths are the measure, we are arguably in the middle of our worst drug plague ever, apart from cigarettes and alcohol.
And yet this is also our quietest drug plague. Strikingly little public violence accompanies it. This has muted public outrage. Meanwhile, the victims — mostly white, well-off and often young — are mourned in silence, because their parents are loath to talk publicly about how a cheerleader daughter hooked for dope, or their once-star athlete son overdosed in a fast-food restaurant bathroom.
The problem “is worse than it’s ever been, and young people are dying,” an addiction doctor in Columbus, Ohio — one of our many new heroin hot spots — wrote me last month. “This past Friday I saw 23 patients, all heroin addicts recently diagnosed.”
14/ David Hasselhoff is a character......his latest music video is truly amazing.....amazingly bad, that is. Just look at it with a clinical eye, and it's deliciously OTT in every way.....
This video is everything that was awful about the 80's.....but "The Hoff" rocks.......
It's got dinosaur attacks, kung fu Nazis, robotic transforming arcade cabinets, primitive video games, and beautiful women dressed in animal skins. Therefore it is perfect.
David Hasselhoff's new music video "True Survivor" takes the form of an action movie in which our hero confidently takes on the world. The special effects and combat scenes are gloriously over-the-top. It's precisely what you would hope for from The Hoff--the man who made the 1980s so 1980s-ish.
Summer TV #1
15/ Mary and I have watched "The Americans" from the beginning, and we can say this show is up there in quality, drama and character development with "The Wire", "Sopranos" and "The Fall".....incredibly good......
Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys in "The Americans" (Credit: FX/Patrick Harbron)
For its fans, “The Americans” is not just a beloved show, it’s a mission. The FX show, which concludes its third season tomorrow evening, is talked about almost exclusively in terms of how not enough people are watching it—critics and viewers who love the show are often stumping for it as much as they’re analyzing it. At Vox, Todd VanDerWerff calls it “the best show on TV”; Emily Nussbaum at the New Yorker finds it to be “possibly the best current drama out there (at least of the ones I’ve been able to keep up with!),” and Matt Zoller Seitz at Vulture titled his review in January, “For the Love of God, Watch ‘The Americans’ Tonight.” These are rave reviews from respected critics, in an era when TV criticism is read more than ever. And yet the praise doesn’t seem to stick.
Which is perplexing, because “The Americans” is an empirically letter-perfect prestige drama. It’s moody, it’s violent, it’s sexy, and it’s even period—set in the very early ‘80s, a period ripe for nostalgia. The show is about two Soviet sleeper agents who have lived undercover in Washington, DC for so long that everything about them—their marriage, their children, their names—smacks of good old-fashioned middle America. Except that then they wear wigs and costumes and sleep with strangers, to advance the cause of Mother Russia.
It’s worth observing, briefly, that a major reason “The Americans” doesn’t have more viewers is because the show is streaming online exclusively with Amazon Prime. Though Amazon is the second-most popular streaming service, it is still leaps and bounds behind Netflix, the most popular.
Summer TV #2
16/ We missed this show "American Crime", but will definitely be streaming it this summer based on this story in Salon......intelligent TV indeed.....
Felicity Huffman in "American Crime" (Credit: ABC)
“People see me how they see me and that’s all they see,” says Hector Tontz (Richard Cabral) in the eighth episode of “American Crime,” the ABC series that is quietly and brilliantly taking apart the prime-time crime drama. Too quietly, it seems; with the show’s ratings sinking every week, some voices in the entertainment press are already describing the cancellation of “American Crime” as inevitable. That would be a dismaying end for one of the few truly ambitious, innovative and grown-up dramas on network or cable TV.
The story begins with the eponymous crime in Modesto, California: A home invasion that leaves Matt Skokie, a young veteran, dead and his wife, Gwen, barely alive. Matt’s long-divorced parents, Barb and Russ, arrive in town. Gwen’s parents, devout Christians, haunt the hospital. The rebellious teenage son of a widowed Latino auto shop owner admits that he rented the family car — spotted fleeing the scene — to Hector, who (we will later learn), is on the lam from a murder charge in Mexico. Hector fingers a black man named Carter Nix as the shooter, so the cops arrest him, separating Carter from Aubrey, his white addict girlfriend.
That’s a lot of story lines to keep in play, and I know a few people who bailed on “American Crime” a couple of episodes in because the characters seemed too broadly sketched and the structure too reminiscent of pompous prestige-cinema offerings like “Traffic.” But “American Crime” show runner John Ridley — he won an Oscar for his screenplay for “12 Years a Slave” — has an aversion to moral preaching and a lot more than just two hours to spin out this yarn. To paraphrase Hector, if stereotypes are all you see, you’re missing a lot.
The most original thing about “American Crime” is that not one bit of the story is told from the perspective of a cop, a lawyer, a private detective or a sleuth of any kind. Every major character has a personal rather than a professional connection to the crime. Each is someone whose life has been wrecked by the murder and its aftermath. These people know next to nothing about the investigation, and whatever their role in the case, they all find the legal system to be a baffling and indifferent labyrinth full of booby traps and stone walls.
Todays video - is Russian, and it will take you a while to see how it works visually......and if you've had some wine you'll be totally baffled.....
Todays Ukranian joke
Vladimir Putin, wanting to get on the good side of voters, goes to visit a school in Moscow to have a chat with the kids.He talks to them about how Russia is a powerful nation and how he wants the best for the people.At the end of the talk, there is a section for questions.Little Sasha puts her hand up and says "I have two questions.Why did the Russians take Crimea ?And why are we sending troops to Ukraine ?"Putin says "Good questions..."But just as he is about to answer, the bell goes, and the kids go to lunch.When they come back, they sit back down and there is room for some more questions.Another girl, Misha, puts her hand up and says"I have four questions.My questions are -Why did the Russians invade Crimea?Why are we sending troops to Ukraine ?Why did the bell go 20 minutes early?And where is Sasha?"
Todays Australian guy joke
The Husband Store
A store that sells new husbands has opened in Melbourne, where a woman may go to choose a husband.
A store that sells new husbands has opened in Melbourne, where a woman may go to choose a husband.
Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:
You may visit this store ONLY ONCE
You may visit this store ONLY ONCE
There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights.
The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor,
but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!
but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband.
On the first floor the sign on the door reads:Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs
She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
'That's nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.'
So she continues upward.
She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
'That's nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.'
So she continues upward.
The third floor sign reads:
Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.
'Wow,' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.
'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!'
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor , where the sign reads:
Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor.
Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.
'Wow,' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.
'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!'
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor , where the sign reads:
Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor.
There are no men on this floor.
This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.
Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store
PLEASE NOTE:
To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just across the street.
PLEASE NOTE:
To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just across the street.
The first floor has wives that love sex.
The second floor has wives that love sex and have money and like beer.
The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floor
The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floor
have never been visited!
Todays golf joke
Todays golf joke
A man had two of the best tickets for the Masters tournament in Augusta, Ga.
As he sits down, another man comes along and asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next to him.
"No", he says, "the seat is empty."
"This is incredible!" said the man,"who in their right mind would have a seat like this, the biggest golfing event of the whole world, and not use it?"
He says, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. My wife always would come with me, but she passed away.This is the first Masters we haven't been to together since we got married.”
"Oh ... I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. I guess you couldn't find someone else? A friend or relative or even a neighbor to take the seat?"
The man shakes his head, "No. They're all at the funeral."
