Two essential reads this week.....#1 and #11.....exceptionally good articles....
The Hillary train started moving this week, and here are some interesting articles to think about......
1/ Matt Taibbi is one of our most astute political reporters, and nails it again - the theme of the Clinton message is populism, and the media are reacting as predicted, but it won't last.
If you are are a little indifferent or suspicious of this "New Hillary" message, there's a good reason for that - you have become "aware" and are seeing through the hype. If you are going to read one political story this week, read this one. Taibbi says it like it is and gives you the reality behind the posturing....
Hillary Clinton ran onto the playing field this week, Rock and Roll Part 2 blaring in the background, and started lying within minutes of announcing her entry into the presidential election campaign.
"There's something wrong," she told a crowd of Iowans, "when hedge fund managers pay lower taxes than nurses or the truckers I saw on I-80 when I was driving here over the last two days."
Oh, right, that. The infamous carried interest tax break, the one that allows private equity vampires like Mitt Romney and Stephen Schwartzman to pay a top tax rate of 15 percent while all of the rest of us (including the truckers Hillary "saw" – note she didn't say "hung out with Bill and me over chilled shrimp at the Water Club") pay income taxes.
The carried interest loophole is an absurd, completely unjustifiable handout to the not merely well-off but filthy rich, and it's been law in this country for about three decades.
Raise your hand if you really think that Hillary Clinton is going to repeal the carried interest tax break.
We'll come back to that in a minute. In the meantime, the reaction to Hillary's campaign announcement went exactly according to script. Newspapers and news sites ever-so-slightly raised figurative eyebrows at the tone of Hillary's announcement, remarking upon its "populist" flair.
2/ This is a fairly jaundiced view of Hillary's campaign from Bill Curry in Salon, and his main points are politics have fundamentally changed, but the Democratic techniques of running a tough campaign haven't. What's new is widespread anger and disillusionment, and voters are hungry for more idealism and less bullshit......
I don't completely agree with his conclusions, but he makes some compelling arguments......good story if you're interested in politics....
Hillary Clinton (Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster)
Hillary Clinton joins the race for president today. If you believe the leaks from her staff, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t, she’ll do it in a video released at noon as she herself flies high above the nation in a chartered plane. She and her top advisors, all smart people, must think it’s a good idea. It doesn’t feel like one.
For months Clinton has run a front-porch campaign — if by porch you mean Boo Radley’s. Getting her outdoors is hard enough; when she does get out it’s often to give paid speeches to people who look just like her: educated, prosperous and privileged. Needing desperately to connect with the broader public, she opts for the virtual reality of a pre-taped video delivered via social media. Go figure.
Her leakers say she’ll head out on a listening tour like the one that kicked off her first Senate race. They say listening to real people talk about real stuff will make her seem more real. This too may be a good idea, but it made more sense when she was a rookie candidate seeking a lesser office in a state she barely knew. Running for president is different. So are the times. Voters are more desperate now, and in a far worse mood. If you invite their questions, you’d better have some answers. I’ll return to this point shortly.
Her leakers say she’ll avoid big events, rallies, stadiums, that sort of thing. This is about 2008, when she and her tone-deaf team seemed to be planning a coronation. This time they say she doesn’t want to come off as quite so presumptuous. Yet next week she keynotes a ‘Global Women’s Summit’ cohosted by Tina Brown and the New York Times, at which “world leaders, industry icons, movie stars and CEOs convene with artists, rebels, peacemakers and activists to tell their stories and share their plans of action.” Orchestra seats go for $300.
Clinton personifies the meritocracy that to an angry middle class looks increasingly like just another privileged caste. It’s the anger captured best by the old ‘Die Yuppie Scum’ posters and in case you haven’t noticed, it’s on the rise.
3/ Paul Krugman in the Times with a column that sounds like the kind of puff piece Matt Taibbi mentions in #1, but isn't. Krugman makes the point that the ideological differences between the two parties are real, and significant, which will transcend party messages. The Republicans unashamedly represent the billionaire class, and the Democrats do too, but not as blatantly. At least the Dems pretend to care about the middle class.....
So Hillary Clinton is officially running, to nobody’s surprise. And you know what’s coming: endless attempts to psychoanalyze the candidate, endless attempts to read significance into what she says or doesn’t say about President Obama, endless thumb-sucking about her “positioning” on this or that issue.
Please pay no attention. Personality-based political analysis is always a dubious venture — in my experience, pundits are terrible judges of character. Those old enough to remember the 2000 election may also remember how we were assured that George W. Bush was a nice, affable fellow who would pursue moderate, bipartisan policies.
In any case, there has never been a time in American history when the alleged personal traits of candidates mattered less. As we head into 2016, each party is quite unified on major policy issues — and these unified positions are very far from each other. The huge, substantive gulf between the parties will be reflected in the policy positions of whomever they nominate, and will almost surely be reflected in the actual policies adopted by whoever wins.
For example, any Democrat would, if elected, seek to maintain the basic U.S. social insurance programs — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — in essentially their current form, while also preserving and extending the Affordable Care Act. Any Republican would seek to destroy Obamacare, make deep cuts in Medicaid, and probably try to convert Medicare into a voucher system.
4/ OK, time for some light relief - SNL has a hilarious five minute skit on the Hillary announcement, with an appearance from the "big dog" himself, Bill Clinton played by Darrell Hammond.........
Get used to Kate McKinnon as Hillary....there's two years of this to go, and she's wonderful.....like Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin, she's more real than the lady herself.....
(At long last, Hillary Clinton is making her 2016 candidacy official today. For those who miss Darrell Hammond on “Saturday Night Live,” this is delightful news for a very different reason: More Bill!
On last night’s “SNL” cold open, the imminent Hillary announcement yielded the perfect excuse for Hammond to reprise his role as Bill Clinton. This time, though, as the unhinged “First Dude” (FDOTUS?) dropping Lewinsky references while Hillary (Kate McKinnon) is trying her darndest to record the perfect video announcement for Twitter. “Isn’t it crazy that phones can take video now?” Bill (Hammond) says. “I mean, if they could have done that in the ’90s, I’d be in jail.”
5/ "People Are Awesome" is a series of short movies showing sports, stunts and just plain amazing feats of derring-doo......and as a bonus noone gets hurt in these videos! Seven minutes of very cool stuff, set to new-age music.....
I want to do the flying suit thing.....
6/ A reasonably good Bill Maher "New Rules".....nothing too heavy, just funny......five minutes....
Bill Maher ended his show tonight by putting America’s religious freedom debate in some context: at least U.S. fundamentalists have been reined in, but Muslim nations need to do the same. (This came at the end of a show where Maher and Fareed Zakaria argued about Maher’s critiques of Islam.)
Maher found it hilarious that the culture wars have progressed to the point where conservatives are fighting for the right not to serve wedding cakes to gay people. After all, he said, the Bible dictates “being gay is an abomination and we must destroy it by denying it pastry.”
But as nutty as America’s fundamentalists are, Maher said that Islam has “crazy scripture” too, and moderates need to “hijack it,” take the “crazy parts” out, and hope for a more peaceful time when, just like the U.S., their biggest fights are over gay cake.
7/ Zach King's best vines of 2014....and for you untutored, a vine is a six second video clip. Zack seems to be a magician and/or stuntman, and this is three minutes of his best vines of 2014. He's quite clever......
Zach King is an American Vine star, film-maker and YouTube personality based in Los Angeles. He is most known for his "magic vines" - six-second videos digitally edited to show as if he is doing magic. He calls his videos "digital sleight of hand".
8/ For regular readers of DDD this story won't be a surprise - the inequality of wealth in this country is much worse that people realize.......but as the title says, most people are clueless, and it's the fault of the corporate media, which ignores these facts because the oligarchs don't want the stupids to know how badly they are being screwed. But DDD readers know, don't you.....
This piece is from Scientific American, so it's been fact checked....
The American people are clueless: Why income inequality is so much worse than we realize
A wealth of new research confirms the rich and the poor have no idea how good and how bad the other have it
NICHOLAS FITZ, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
(Credit: Shutterstock/zstock)
This article was originally published by Scientific American.
In a candid conversation with Frank Rich last fall, Chris Rock said, “Oh, people don’t even know. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.” The findings of three studies, published over the last several years inPerspectives on Psychological Science, suggest that Rock is right. We have no idea how unequal our society has become.
In their 2011 paper, Michael Norton and Dan Ariely analyzed beliefs about wealth inequality. They asked more than 5,000 Americans to guess the percentage of wealth (i.e., savings, property, stocks, etc., minus debts) owned by each fifth of the population. Next, they asked people to construct their ideal distributions. Imagine a pizza of all the wealth in the United States. What percentage of that pizza belongs to the top 20% of Americans? How big of a slice does the bottom 40% have? In an ideal world, how much should they have?
The average American believes that the richest fifth own 59% of the wealth and that the bottom 40% own 9%. The reality is strikingly different. The top 20% of US households own more than 84% of the wealth, and the bottom 40% combine for a paltry 0.3%. The Walton family, for example, has more wealth than 42% of American families combined.
9/ Ever heard of Maroon 5? Me neither, but in their new video they crash weddings all over Los Angeles and play their new song as a surprise.....quite a funny premise, and an amusing video.....the song "Sugar" is pleasant but forgettable....
Everybody knows that Adam Levine is a douchebag. Even though he explicitly told GQ that he's not a douchebag, everyone knows he is. They know this because of his creepy music videos. They know this because his new year's resolution was once "be more awesome."
And yet even the staunchest Adam Levine haters will have to admit that Maroon 5's video for "Sugar," directed by the man behind Wedding Crashers, is insanely charming. They will have to admit that "Sugar" is one of the catchiest songs of the year. They will have to like Adam Levine, because this music video is an undeniably good time.
10/ Tom Tomorrow with a look at the Republican alternatives to Obamacare......
Sometimes cartoonists just nail it, like none else can.......
11/ You should know by now that the average American diet is really unhealthy, and we as a country eat all of the wrong things and way too much of them too......but as this fascinating story details the reason your diet is so bad, and the government guidelines so flawed is because of Big Ag and their role in setting the diet given to all Americans. It's all about the money folks.....
If you want to eat healthily and you haven't taken much interest in this before, just followed the herd, please read this - it's an excellent article.
I see this when we go to buy yoghurt in Publix - 90% of the yoghurt sold is 0% fat or 2% reduced fat, or with sugar added, and the only healthy choice is the plain yoghurt.....you need good fats, and a plain yoghurt is one of these.....
We try, but there's a shitload of money and ads telling you you need low fat everything and as this story says this is bad for you.....
The choice is yours - do as Big Ag and the gub'ment recommends, or think for yourself and be healthier....
Michelle Obama has lunch with students at Parklawn Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia January 25, 2012. (Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
Excerpted from "Sugar Crush: How to Reduce Inflammation, Reverse Nerve Damage and Reclaim Good Health"
Lie: The U.S. Department of Agriculture Knows What Should Be on Your Plate
You know by now that sugar has been pumped into the food chain over the last fifty years, especially in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). As a result, there has been a dramatic increase in a whole range of illnesses that manifest in different parts of your bodies, depending on your own genetic profile. All are caused by the same underlying impact of inflammation from sugar, and the resulting nerve damage and compression. Medical professionals can be blinded by the bias of their specialties and miss the important connections linking these seemingly unrelated conditions. But like us, they’re hampered by information linked to the partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Big Agra complex.
When the Government Took an Interest in What You Eat
In 1916, the USDA began a well-intended nutrition education program consisting of two publications, “Food for Young Children” and “How to Select Food.” These plans established guidelines for groups and households to provide “protective foods.” Then, in 1992, after several successive programs, the USDA established the familiar Food Guide Pyramid, with its six basic food groups. The base of the pyramid, as we all recall, consisted of the Bread, Cereal, Rice & Pasta Group. Americans were advised that in order to be healthy, they needed to consume 6–11 servings of these foods per day! The pyramid then stacked foods in descending importance: fruits and vegetables, meats and dairy products, and finally, fats and sweets to be used sparingly. A modified MyPyramid Food Guidance System was initiated in 2005; it added the concept of exercise and stressed moderation in food choices rather than specific daily servings.
The latest incarnation, established in 2011, is a dinner plate icon called MyPlate, which advises us on the percentages of foods we should consume daily: 30 percent grains, 40 percent vegetables, 10 percent fruits, and 20 percent protein, with a small, side portion of dairy.
12/ "The Guitar Man's" version of the Tea Party anthem "I Want My Country Back"......three minutes....
What do you get when you cross regressive Tea Party politics and the achingly woeful “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables? A new anthem for the party of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, of course, courtesy of New York City singer-songwriter David Ippolito, otherwise known as That Guitar Man from Central Park.
Ippolito’s song, titled “I Want My Country Back,” takes a satirical stab at the Tea Party’s insistence that America should return to the days “when hardly anyone was gay” and the poor had no access to insurance.
13/ We lose track of some of the awful things our scumbag of a Governor does because he is so incredibly corrupt and evil, but the refusal to take the $52 billion for Medicaid for low income Floridians is criminal.....the Florida Senate is for it, but the House [full of crazies] and the piece of wolverine shit we have as Governor won't......
Now he's suing the Federal Government......
Greg Sargent in the Washington Post.....
Florida Gov. Rick Scott . (AP Photo/John Raoux)
I hope you’ll indulge this blog for writing about the bruising, high-stakes fight over the Medicaid expansion in Florida for a second day in a row. But now things have taken a turn towards the truly surreal.
As you may recall, Governor Rick Scott recently reversed himself on the Medicaid expansion, digging in against it so hard that his fellow Republicans warned that he was putting the push for tax cuts, a major GOP priority, in serious peril. (This is because the Obama administration is considering phasing out funding for another Medicaid program — the Low Income Pool, or LIP, which provides money to hospitals that treat the uninsured — and without that money, or the Medicaid expansion money, the budget is in trouble. State Senate Republicans want him to take the expansion money; he, and state House Republicans, are saying No, and conservative groups such as the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity are demanding no surrender.)
Now Scott is taking a new step: He is suing the Obama administration as part of that dispute. Basically, Scott’s lawsuit is designed to get the administration to fork over federal money for health care — but only if it is not part of Obamacare.
14/ A powerful and actually quite emotionally disturbing one minute car safety video from New Zealand......for all you speeders, and also drivers that pull out without looking.....
15/ Carl Hiaasen with a discussion of the crime of DWB......he makes the excellent and not immediately obvious point that the main reason whites are pulled over by the cops is driving infractions, like speeding. Blacks are lit up by police for many other reasons....
The shooting of Walter L. Scott in South Carolina prompts the question:
When is the last time you heard of a white man in a Mercedes-Benz being pulled over for driving with a broken taillight?
It has probably happened somewhere, some time, but there’s a better chance of your car being hit by a meteor.
Getting shot dead during a minor traffic stop also isn’t a prevailing fear among white males in America, no matter what type of vehicle they own.
Todays video - "The Spanish Inquisition" from Monty Python.....two segments.....both good, but the second one is a little better......four minutes each....
Todays religious joke
RESURRECTION?
While the priest was presenting a children's sermon, he asked the
While the priest was presenting a children's sermon, he asked the
children if they knew what the Resurrection was.
Now, asking questions during children's sermons is crucial, but at the same time,
Now, asking questions during children's sermons is crucial, but at the same time,
asking children questions in front of a congregation can also be very dangerous.
In response to the question, a little boy raised his hand.
Little Bob Smith
Little Bob Smith
The priest called on Little Bob and the boy said, "I know that if you have a
resurrection that lasts more than four hours you are supposed to call the doctor."
It took ten minutes for the congregation to settle down enough for the service to continue
Another religious joke
HELL EXPLAINED - BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT
The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry mid term, and an actual answer turned in by a student.
The answer was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct..... ...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.
A sort of religious-ish joke
SEX AFTER DEATHA couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and inform the other if there is sex after death. Their biggest fear was that there was no after life at all.After a long life together, the husband was the first to die. True to his word, he made the first contact:"Marion, Marion .""Is that you, Bob?""Yes, I've come back like we agreed.""That's wonderful! What's it like?""Well, I get up in the morning, I have sex. I have breakfast and then it's off to the golf course. I have sex again, bathe in the warm sun and then have sex a couple of more times.. Then I have lunch (you'd be proud -- lots of greens).Another romp around the golf course, then pretty much have sex the rest of the afternoon. After supper, it's back to golf course again. Then it's more sex until late at night. I catch some much needed sleep and then the next day it starts all over again"."Oh, Bob! Are you in Heaven?""No. I'm a rabbit somewhere in Arizona."
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