1/ The Democrats have a problem that has been created by the righties on the Supreme Court in their Citizens United case - in order to compete with the Republicans in fundraising the Dems have to cozy up to corporations and billionaires, and in some cases abandon their base in order to get the money. The problem is the [D] base is much smarter and more politically aware than the other base....
Republicans have a much easier time - their base [evangelicals, old angry white people] is much more easily manipulated with fear and anger so they can be the oligarchs party completely.
An example of the Democrats quandary is the TPP [Trans Pacific Partnership] trade bill - our [D] President is pushing this on behalf of the giant corporations perhaps to get Super PAC money for the 2016 election, or maybe he thinks this horrid bill will be his legacy. Who knows.....
Anyway there was a revolt by the Senate Democrats, who voted it down early this week. I don't pretend to understand Senate rules but although the TPP bill was opposed by almost all Democrats, by Friday thirteen Senators had caved and the Bill is now going forward.....the TPP is a corporate giveaway, and a disaster for American workers. It is, of course, supported by all Republicans because this trade deal is exactly what the oligarchs want......
But I digress......Matt Taibbi makes sense of the spineless Dems collapse, and the BS you are reading in the so-called media.....
Barack Obama made headlines this week by taking on Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a dispute over our latest labor-crushing free trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The president's anger over Warren's decision to lead the Senate in blocking his authority to fast-track the TPP was heavily covered by the Beltway media, which loves a good intramural food fightIt was quite a show, which was the first clue that something wasn't quite right in this picture. The Beltway press made a huge spectacle out of how the "long-simmering" Obama-Warren "feud" had turned "personal."And there were lots of suggestions that the president, in his anger toward Warren, simply let his emotions get the best of him – that he let slip impolitic and perhaps sexist words in his attacks on Warren, whom he described as "absolutely wrong" and "a politician like everyone else."Reuters, taking the cheese all the way with this "it just got personal" storyline that people on both sides of the Warren-Obama spat have been pimping to us reporters all week, quoted observers who put it like this:
2/ Conservative media went bullshit after this Jon Stewart aired Wednesday night......Fox has been smearing the President for his jab at the "network of lies", and after Jon calls them on their attacks they went after him......
You can see Stewart passionate in this seven minute clip, because he truly despises the disgusting way they slime everything that's decent and good for ordinary people. You wonder why there's so much anger in this country, so much polarization? It's Fox, preaching to the stupids and they are very good at it.....and the stupids are very stupid......one of his best!
Boy we're going to miss him....who is going to expose these bastards after he goes?
Jon Stewart tonight could barely process Fox News’ “rich buffet of bullshit” taking offense at President Obama scolding them on their coverage of the poor as “leeches” and such. Over the past day, lots of Fox shows took serious umbrage at Obama swiping at them in the middle of a big forum on poverty, proving to Stewart that Fox “basically pays no attention until they hear their own names.”
Stewart said Obama’s absolutely correct on the issue, telling Fox that they really do have “contempt for those in poverty” and contrasted clips of Fox Newsers denying ever saying mean things about the poor with… well, Fox Newsers saying mean things about the poor.
He asked, “How fucking removed from reality is Fox’s perception of their own coverage on poverty?” Stewart even ripped into Joe Scarborough for defending Fox without doing a lick of research on the matter first.
3/ Interesting column from Paul Krugman about how the Dodd-Frank legislation is actually doing something to reign in the monster banks, and of course because it's working the banksters want to quietly emasculate the Bill. But there's a small group of politicians determined not to let that happen....
Love the title - "Wall Street Vampires"......
Last year the vampires of finance bought themselves a Congress. I know it’s not nice to call them that, but I have my reasons, which I’ll explain in a bit. For now, however, let’s just note that these days Wall Street, which used to split its support between the parties, overwhelmingly favors the G.O.P. And the Republicans who came to power this year are returning the favor by trying to kill Dodd-Frank, the financial reform enacted in 2010.
And why must Dodd-Frank die? Because it’s working.
This statement may surprise progressives who believe that nothing significant has been done to rein in runaway bankers. And it’s true both that reform fell well short of what we really should have done and that it hasn’t yielded obvious, measurable triumphs like the gains in insurance thanks to Obamacare.
4/ A little piece of news slipped by most people this week - Shell Oil is going to be allowed to drill in the Arctic, and Bill McKibben in the Times spells out what a disaster this is. The President is trying to have it both ways.....he has taken some action on climate change by executive order, but then approves this expansion of oil drilling in the most dangerous and unforgiving environment in the world.
What could go wrong? Read the first line below.....
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — THE Obama administration’s decision to give Shell Oil the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic shows why we may never win the fight against climate change. Even in this most extreme circumstance, no one seems able to stand up to the power of the fossil fuel industry. No one ever says no.
By “extreme” I don’t just mean that Shell will be drilling for oil in places where there’s no hope of cleaning up the inevitable spills (remember the ineptness of BP in the balmy, accessible Gulf of Mexico, and now transpose it 40 degrees of latitude north, into some of the harshest seas on the planet).
No, what’s most extreme here is the irresponsibility of Shell, now abetted by the White House. A quarter century ago, scientists warned that if we kept burning fossil fuel at current rates we’d melt the Arctic. The fossil fuel industry (and most everyone else in power) ignored those warnings, and what do you know: The Arctic is melting, to the extent that people now are planning to race yachts through the Northwest Passage, which until very recently required an icebreaker to navigate.
5/ Guy video - the Isle of Skye in Scotland is one of the most rugged places on earth, and this mountain biker has an incredible ride through the mountains and lakes.....beautiful scenery, and some testosterone filled moments.....
Seven excellent minutes of "I remember when I could do that!" Sure....
Danny Macaskill is a Scottish trials cyclist with a serious flair for extreme mountain biking.
“The Ridge,” by Macaskill’s Cut Media, is a brand new film featuring this Scottish daredevil as he hops on his mountain bike and returns to the Isle of Skye, Scotland – his native home.
Watch as he takes on the death-defying Cuillin Ridgeline:
6/ An amusing [and a tad snarky] guide to what's happening in Yemen......I know it's on the list of vital things you need to know [not!], but if you are even a little curious about how the Middle East is such a disastrous mess, this will give you a clue....
“What the hell is happening in Yemen?” is now one of the most urgent geopolitical questions in the Middle East. Sadly, few people are qualified or knowledgeable enough to answer this pressing question. Most experts agree that most experts can’t give you a straight answer. The reality is Yemen is a complex place that is very hard to understand for outsiders, and even more so for insiders. Indeed, most of the people asking what is happening in Yemen are Yemenis themselves.
Now I am not an expert on Yemen. But being Lebanese, I am an expert on not knowing what is happening in my country, which gives me valuable insight into the situation in Yemen. I have therefore compiled this essential primer for understanding the current conflict in Yemen and what will happen there next. (Experts also agree that anything is possible there next, which narrows things down.)
The first thing to understand is that Yemen is an ancient land, as Yemenis themselves always remind you. It is thought that Yemen’s existence can be traced back to the Earth’s creation, and there’s strong evidence to suggest that it was the location of the Garden of Eden because Eden and Aden, Yemen’s port city, sound a bit similar, especially in English.
7/ A 90 second video of what happens when a Swedish family goes totally organic. It's quite fascinating - they test the whole family for pesticide chemicals before, and two weeks after they change their foods to organic......
But the scary thing is they were eating European food, which is less intensively sprayed than US crops, and American Big Ag farms use chemicals banned in Europe. I would like to find the equivalent experiment over here.....
Bottom line - if you aren't eating organic, you are storing lots of pesticide chemicals in your body and tissues.....
8/ So you go out for a meal - how do you eat healthily? This is a very good article on what to order in restaurants.....and unusually for the Times it's nicely laid out, clear and easy to read......
Most meals at American restaurants aren’t healthy. They’re packed with processed food and enough calories to cover two or three sensible meals.
Yet it’s entirely possible to eat both healthy and tasty restaurant meals. And because eating out is one of life’s great pleasures, we’ve put together this guide to smart restaurant eating. It ranges from undeniably healthy meals — with a rich variety of foods, heavy on fruits and vegetables, light on sugar — to fast-food meals that are at least better than the alternatives if you find yourself eating at McDonald's.
Every lunch or dinner here stays under 750 calories — about one-third the number many adults should eat in a day — and many meals are well under; the breakfasts are under 500 calories. We’ll start with some good news: The restaurant scene has never been better.
Signs of progress
Healthy fast food is no longer an oxymoron.
Don’t be confused by Chipotle, Five Guys and other hot chains, which serve tastier food than McDonald’s but still don’t focus on health. There’s another, albeit smaller, rising group of restaurants with menus that are both tasty and healthy.
These chains include Chop’t, Lyfe Kitchen, Maoz Vegetarian, Modmarket and Native Foods Cafe. At these, you can often eat a meal that has a reasonable number of calories, and a nice array of nutrients, without thinking too hard. Sweetgreen, which makes the grain bowl you see above, got its start in Washington, from three Georgetown students frustrated by the existing restaurant scene.
9/ In 1993 David Letterman had comedian Bill Hicks on his show, but the spot never aired because it was too edgy and controversial.....
Hicks died of cancer soon after this clip was made, so Letterman had Hick's mother on last week to finally show the six minute spot......interesting.....
The comedy is indeed edgy, and surprisingly holds up well considering it was over 20 years ago.....
Bill Hicks
As David Letterman prepares to host his final show on May 20th, we are taking the time to reflect on essential moments from his thirty-plus years on air, from his flirtations with guests to his nastiest feuds. And today, we turn to a notable but lesser-known bit of late night lore: The famous ‘lost’ Bill Hicks routine.
In October 1993, comedian Bill Hicks became the first comedian to be censored from “The Late Show With David Letterman,” after CBS deemed his six-minute stand-up set too risqué (later, Letterman would take full responsibility for the ban). The ‘lost’ set instantly became legendary and was a boon for Hicks’ career, resulting in “more attention than my other eleven appearances on Letterman times one hundred,” according to Hicks, as well as a famous New Yorker profile by John Lahr, which included excerpts from a heated 39-page letter Hicks wrote about the routine and its banning.
Lahr’s piece beautifully summed up Hicks’ fearless, take-no-prisoners brand of comedy, lauding him for exactly that which made him unpalatable to CBS. As Hicks is quoted saying in the piece: “The comic is a flame—like Shiva the Destroyer, toppling idols no matter what they are. He keeps cutting everything back to the moment.” Yet in hindsight, the whole Hicks/Letterman saga is shot through with tragedy; unbeknownst to Letterman, Hicks had been diagnosed with terminal cancer prior to the appearance, and passed away four months later at the age of 32.
10/ A female Canadian reporter outside a soccer game is verbally assaulted by a couple of idiots, but she stands her ground wonderfully and turns the tables on these wankers.....just over one minute....
CityNews reporter Shauna Hunt confronted a group of men in Toronto and scolded them for using the vulgarity FHRITP. One of the men was fired from his job, but the TV station reports that he has apologized to Hunt. (CityNews)
As an update, the guy in the above picture was fired from his $100,000 a year job after this went viral on social media.....the other one is in deep shit with his company....
11/ Your finances - If you are retired you may have heard of the 4% rule, which is whatever capital you have you shouldn't take more than 4% of it to live on in your retirement in order to make it last 30 years. However..... low rates for savers is creating a new kind of math for people retiring and approaching stopping work......
If this applies to you, it's very interesting!
More than two decades ago, Bill Bengen, then a financial planner in Southern California, said he had several anxious clients with the same question: How much can I spend in retirementwithout running out of money?
Being relatively new to the profession, he dived back into his finance textbooks for answers, but said he couldn’t find any guidelines rooted in facts. “I decided to get down to business with my computer,” said Mr. Bengen, 67, who retired in 2013 and now lives with his wife in La Quinta, a resort town in California’s Coachella Valley.
What he and his computer produced, in 1994, became part of the financial vernacular and is still the most widely referenced rule of thumb. Known as the 4 percent rule, it found that retirees who withdrew 4 percent of their initial retirement portfolio balance, and then adjusted that dollar amount for inflation each year thereafter, would have created a paycheck that lasted for 30 years.
The concept has been both celebrated and criticized, and it has recently come under scrutiny yet again, particularly as the current crop of retirees are entering retirement during a period of historically low interest rates. But the question of how much they can safely spend each year may be more important than ever: Roughly 11,000 people, on average, are expected to turn 65 every day for the next 15 years, according to the Social Security Administration.
“I always warned people that the 4 percent rule is not a law of nature like Newton’s laws of motion,” said Mr. Bengen, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s in aeronautics and astronautics in 1969. “It is entirely possible that at some time in the future there could be a worse case.”
12/ Good rerun - not just a music video, more like an art film with ballet, music and incredible photography.....and this Russian lad is sexy.....so Mary tells me!
The song is "Take Me To Church" by Hozier.....lovely....
What happens when you combine the talents of Russian ballet bad boy Sergei Polunin, Irish gospel luminary Hozier and photography pop wizard David LaChapelle? Apparently, a whole lot of angsty, sexy, beautiful dancing ensues.
13/ In the world of Twitter @Florida Man is a very popular and funny feed, because of the weirdness......read on, quite amusing....
Actually shouldn't it be @Floriduh Man?
MIAMI — Dangling into the sea like America’s last-ditch lifeline, the state of Florida beckons. Hustlers and fugitives, million-dollar hucksters and harebrained thieves, Armani-wearing drug traffickers and hapless dope dealers all congregate, scheme and revel in the Sunshine State. It’s easy to get in, get out or get lost.
For decades, this cast of characters provided a diffuse, luckless counternarrative to the salt-and-sun-kissed Florida that tourists spy from their beach towels. But recently there arrived a digital-era prototype, @_FloridaMan, a composite of Florida’s nuttiness unspooled, tweet by tweet, to the world at large. With pithy headlines and links to real news stories, @_FloridaMan offers up the “real-life stories of the world’s worst super hero,” as his Twitter bio proclaims.
His more than 1,600 tweets — equal parts ode and derision — are a favorite for weird-news aficionados.
Yet, two years since his 2013 debut, the man behind the Twitter feed remains beguilingly anonymous, a Wizard of LOLZ. (The one false note is his zombielike avatar: The mug shot belongs to an Indiana Man.)
His style is deceptively simple. Nearly every Twitter message begins “Florida Man.” What follows, though, is almost always a pile of trouble. Some examples:
“Now I think there are people who actually aspire to Florida Man-ness,” said Dave Barry, who celebrates Florida’s brand of madness in his popular columns and best-selling books. “It’s like the big leagues. It’s the Broadway for idiots.”
14/ We are so screwed in Florida. Our state government is the stupidest and most corrupt in the nation and noone cares.....the morons we have in the statehouse keep getting reelected.....
Excellent story from the Orlando Sentinel.....
America's oldest city is slowly drowning.
St. Augustine's centuries-old Spanish fortress sits feet from the encroaching Atlantic, whose waters already flood the city's narrow streets about 10 times a year — a problem worsening as sea levels rise. The city relies on tourism, but visitors might someday have to wear waders at high tide.
"If you want to benefit from the fact we've been here for 450 years, you have the responsibility to look forward to the next 450," said Bill Hamilton, whose family has lived in the city since the 1950s. "Is St. Augustine even going to be here? We owe it to the people coming after us to leave the city in good shape."
St. Augustine is one of many chronically flooded communities along Florida's coast, and officials in these diverse places share a concern: They're afraid their buildings and economies will be further inundated by rising seas in just a couple of decades. The effects are a daily reality in much of Florida. Drinking water wells are fouled by seawater. Higher tides and storm surges make for more frequent road flooding from Jacksonville to Key West, and they're overburdening aging flood-control systems.
15/ Fourteen movies to see this summer from the Times......I didn't watch all of the trailers, but "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" looks really good, and the Man From U.N.C.L.E. remake was interesting....
Watch the Trailers: 14
Movies to See This Summer
Larger-than-life superheroes and tiny servants of evil. Hip-hop pioneers and surf music stars. They will all be muscling their way into a multiplex or arthouse. So are indie coming-of-age tales and serious explorations of justice and grace. Here's a quick guide to standouts of the season.
16/ Good TV - "Wolf Hall"
The summer is here, so what to watch? This review of the six episode BBC series "Wolf Hall" looks excellent.....it's on Netflix [DVD only] or
Amazon {$15 for the series in HD]
Mark Rylance in "Wolf Hall" (Credit: PBS)
“Wolf Hall” is a rare adaptation from book to screen that makes the most of what the visual medium can provide—an extra layer of aural and visual storytelling—without sacrificing the complexity of its narrative. Hilary Mantel’s novels on Henry VIII’s adviser Thomas Cromwell, “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies,” are exquisite literary masterpieces, requiring little to no improvement whatsoever. “Wolf Hall” is astonishing for bringing the story—which is also, at least in part, history—to unbelievably pitch-perfect life. It’s not without flaw—Mike Hale at the New York Times has a fascinating take on the limited series, arguing that there’s a hollowness at its core due to the overall opacity of Cromwell’s motivations, even as he seems horrified by the blood on his hands spilled in the name of king and country. It’s a critique that could be leveled at the books, too: Cromwell is a brilliant man, but he makes his fortune and reputation through enforcing the desires of the men he serves. It’s not always clear why he doesn’t pack it in and shift to private practice—except for a lost sense of what it means to have a monarch and dedicate your life to serving them, as well as, you know, historical fact. In some ways, the books serve as a fact-finding mission for Mantel, an attempt to understand the inner workings of a man who we know to have done certain things and lived a certain way. The series cannot possibly be as illustrative of his psychology.
It makes up for it by offering other details. They’re not all historically accurate—in fact, the coronation I described above differs quite a bit from this purportedly first-person account by Edward Hall. For all I know, the ubiquitous hats and trailing veils might be a convenient affectation (though I don’t think so). Mantel took liberties with Cromwell’s life, and the series has to follow suit.
But what makes “Wolf Hall”—both the Booker Prize-winning book and the current miniseries—so indelible and lovely is that it feels real. Hale took umbrage with the series’ “prosaic” quality, but to my mind that lent an intimate credence to a world that otherwise is almost completely unrecognizable. The color palette of the series is a period-appropriate chiaroscuro, delivered by Gavin Finney, and the careful bounds of the production make every moment feel not like the 21st century looking back at the 16th but the 16th, itself. The extraordinary privilege of the royal family is illustrated in both grand details and slight ones: They have palaces and wear jewels, but they also have fresh fruit on the table every morning. They do not look out at slops or mud, but impossibly lush meadows. Musicians play lutes, softly, in a corner; in one of the finer subtleties of the show, the music transitions from diegetic to non-diegetic, allowing the lovely original score by Debbie Wiseman to seep into both the characters’ lives and our own.
Todays video - the Ameriquest Mortgage "Don't Judge Too Quickly" commercials.......very amusing, and most are new.....
Todays golf groaner
"What's your excuse for coming home at this time of night?" a wife said to her husband.
"Dear," he answered, "I was golfing with friends."
"What?" she countered. "Until two in the morning?"
"Yes," he said. "We used night clubs."
Todays codger joke
Larry and Bob, two friends, met in the park every day to feed the pigeons, watch the squirrels and discuss world problems.
One day Larry didn't show up. Bob didn't think much about it and figured maybe he had a cold or something.. But after Larry hadn't shown up for a week or so, Bob really got worried. However, since the only time they ever got together was at the park, Bob didn't know where Larry lived, so he was unable to find out what had happened to him.
A month had passed, and Bob figured he had seen the last of Larry, but one day, Bob approached the park and -- lo and behold -- there sat Larry! Bob was very excited and happy to see him and told him so. Then he said, ‘For crying out loud Larry, what in the world happened to you?
Larry replied, 'I have been in jail.'
'Jail!' cried Bob. What in the world for?'
'Well,' Larry said, 'you know Jane, that cute little blonde waitress at the coffee shop where I sometimes go?'
'Yeah,' said Bob, 'I remember her. What about her?
'Well, one day she filed rape charges against me; and at 95 years old, I was so proud that when I got into court, I pleaded 'guilty'.
'The damn judge gave me 30 days for perjury’.
Todays oldies but goodies
"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL." Lynn Lavner
"Sex at age 70 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope." Camille Paglia
"Sex is one of the nine reasons for incarnation. The other eight are unimportant." George Burns
"Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship." Sharon Stone
"Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps." Tiger Woods
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." Jack Nicholson
" Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is." Barbara Bush (Former US First Lady)
"Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet." Robin Williams
"Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place" Billy Crystal
"According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful." Robert De Niro
"There's a new medical crisis. Doctors are reporting that many men are having allergic reactions to latex condoms. They say they cause severe swelling. So what's the problem?" Dustin Hoffman
"There's very little advice in men's magazines, because men think, 'I know what I'm doing. Just show me somebody naked !" Jerry Seinfeld
"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time." Robin Williams
"It's been so long since I've had sex, I've forgotten who ties up whom." Joan Rivers
"Sex is one of the most wholesome, beautiful and natural experiences money can buy." Steve Martin
" You don't appreciate a lot of stuff in school until you get older. Little things like being spanked every day by a middle-..aged woman. Stuff you pay good money for in later life." Elmo Phillips
" Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same." Oscar Wilde
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