Davids Daily Dose - Sunday September 20th

The whole Pacific Coast seems to be on fire, with blazes over hundreds of square miles out of control.....Rolling Stone with a serious story on why this is happening and what we can expect in the future.....

Wildfires destroyed 70,000 acres near Clear Lake, causing thousands to be evacuated. Our overheated world is amplifying drought and making megafire commonplace.

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n May this year, the nearly unthinkable happened in the Pacific Northwest: The rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula, one of the wettest places on the continent, caught fire. By August, an inferno was stirring in the forests east of the Cascades. A wind-whipped blaze near the mountain town of Twisp, Washington — a "hell storm," to quote a local sheriff — claimed the lives of three Forest Service fire scouts. That blaze soon exploded into the worst wildfire in state history, charring more than 300,000 acres and destroying dozens of homes.

As they raged, the wildfires in eastern Oregon and Washington devoured an area nearly the size of Delaware. The states called up more than 1,000 members of their National Guards, and the Army mobilized 200 active-duty troops to the fire lines. Ten Blackhawk helicopters and four C-130 Hercules aircraft deployed to help fight fire from the skies. With Gov. Jay Inslee calling the blazes an "unprecedented cataclysm," Washington even deputized citizen volunteers to fight the fires, where they joined professional crews from as far away as Australia and New Zealand.

This is the present, and the future, of climate change. Our overheated world is amplifying drought and making megafire commonplace

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/what-megablazes-tell-us-about-the-fiery-future-of-climate-change-20150915?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=091515_16&utm_medium=email

This 90 second video captures the horror of being in a forest fire - a motorist films his escape from an explosive wildfire in Anderson Springs, California. The footage, said to be filmed on 12 September, shows the driver navigating a treacherous road, trees ablaze all around him. The so-called Valley fire in Lake County continued to rage untamed on Monday after incinerating 61,000 acres, or 95 square miles, in just two days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtMOp0bCpkM

I know the second Republican debate still has your attention, but whether or not you watched this on DDD a few weeks ago it's worth another look because it's so bizarrely funny - Bad Lip Reading looks at the first debate with Fox News......Dr. Ben Carson is the best.....four really, really strange but hypnotic minutes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufGlBv8Z3NU

Russell Brand is brilliant. He is also, being polite, eccentric but tries and succeeds in speaking the truth in his own unique way. He puts out a vlog [video blog] called "Trews" which is filmed in his bedroom, with him in bed. But don't be put off - he makes a lot of sense.

In this episode he makes the point that Fox News is causing mental illness, and gives concrete examples of the ways they do it......

Give this a chance - it's nine minutes, and very insightful - reminds me in some ways of the master - George Carlin.....

In one of my favorite episodes of The Trews this season, our favorite Brit takes on Fox News’ coverage of the Germanwings plane crash. Russell Brand’s target in this episode was Fox’s Neil Cavuto. Brand plays clips of the Fox host trying to figure out why the pilot chose to crash the plane. And he interjects his funny common sense assessment of Cavuto’s awkward monologue in the way that only Russell Brand can.

Brand says,

“In a way this is the perfect Fox News story, because there’s no way of knowing for certain what were the motivations…and in that gap of ignorance, there’s room for tremendous fear and great propaganda.”

Brand also discusses the very serious epidemic of mental illness. And in typical Russell Brand style, he combines humor with some very insightful observations. He also makes a link between mental illness in this country and Fox News and explains why it best serves the Conservative propaganda machine to keep things this way.

Brand continues,

“Why are we living in a time of a mental illness plague? ….The reason Fox News can’t be honest about what causes mental illness is because Fox News is what causes mental illness.”

http://mindy-fischer-writer.com/2015/09/russell-brand-on-fox-video/

A new music video from Lady Gaga is an event, but this one "Til It Happens To You" has caused a lot of controversy - it's about rape on college campuses, and it's graphic and very disturbing but exposes the understated and hidden problems of school life....

A screenshot of "Til It Happens to You" by Lady Gaga.Credit Vevo

Lady Gaga is addressing campus rape in a raw new music video for “Til It Happens to You,” a song from the documentary “The Hunting Ground,” which examines the issue of sexual assault among college students.

The singer said Thursday night on Twitter that “Til It Happens to You,” which she wrote with Diane Warren, was “for people all over the world who suffer from painful life experiences.”

The video was directed by Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight,” “Thirteen”) and begins with a disclaimer: “The following contains graphic content that may be emotionally unsettling but reflects the reality of what is happening daily on college campuses.” It depicts incidents of sexual violence amid dorm room and college party scenes.

Ms. Hardwicke said in a statement, “I hope that this PSA, with its raw and truthful portrayals, will send a clear message that we need to support these courageous survivors and end this epidemic plaguing our college campuses.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmWBrN7QV6Y

A High School joke

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN GUILTY OF LOOKING AT OTHERS YOUR OWN AGE AND THINKING, SURELY I CAN'T LOOK THAT OLD?

WELL .. . . YOU'LL LOVE THIS ONE........ 

MY NAME IS JANE, AND I WAS SITTING IN THE WAITING ROOM FOR MY FIRST APPOINTMENT WITH A NEW DENTIST. I NOTICED HIS DDS DIPLOMA ON THE WALL, WHICH BORE HIS FULL NAME. SUDDENLY, I REMEMBERED A TALL, HANDSOME, DARK-HAIRED BOY WITH THE SAME NAME HAD BEEN IN MY HIGH SCHOOL CLASS SOME 30-ODD YEARS AGO. COULD HE BE THE SAME GUY THAT I HAD A SECRET CRUSH ON, WAY BACK THEN?

UPON SEEING HIM, HOWEVER, I QUICKLY DISCARDED ANY SUCH THOUGHT. THIS BALDING, GRAY-HAIRED MAN WITH THE DEEPLY LINED FACE WAS WAY TOO OLD TO HAVE BEEN MY CLASSMATE. AFTER HE EXAMINED MY TEETH, I ASKED HIM IF HE HAD ATTENDED MORGAN PARK HIGH SCHOOL .

YES. YES, I DID. I'M A MUSTANG,' HE GLEAMED WITH PRIDE.

WHEN DID YOU GRADUATE?' I ASKED.

HE ANSWERED, 'IN 1975. WHY DO YOU ASK?'

YOU WERE IN MY CLASS!', I EXCLAIMED.

HE LOOKED AT ME CLOSELY.

THEN, THAT UGLY, OLD, BALDING, WRINKLED FACED, FAT-ASSED, GRAY-HAIRED, DECREPIT, MISERABLE,
SON-OF-A-BITCH ASKED ME ...

"WHAT DID YOU TEACH ??????"