1/ When serious magazines like Vanity Fair [two weeks ago] and now the New Yorker are publishing stories about Miami and the rise in sea levels it may start sinking in to South Floridians that they'd better not count on leaving their property to their grandkids.....
An excellent, informative and well written story called "The Siege Of Miami"......not alarmist, just the facts.....
The city of Miami Beach floods on such a predictable basis that if, out of curiosity or sheer perversity, a person wants to she can plan a visit to coincide with an inundation. Knowing the tides would be high around the time of the “super blood moon,” in late September, I arranged to meet up with Hal Wanless, the chairman of the University of Miami’s geological-sciences department. Wanless, who is seventy-three, has spent nearly half a century studying how South Florida came into being. From this, he’s concluded that much of the region may have less than half a century more to go.
We had breakfast at a greasy spoon not far from Wanless’s office, then set off across the MacArthur Causeway. (Out-of-towners often assume that Miami Beach is part of Miami, but it’s situated on a separate island, a few miles off the coast.) It was a hot, breathless day, with a brilliant blue sky. Wanless turned onto a side street, and soon we were confronting a pond-sized puddle. Water gushed down the road and into an underground garage. We stopped in front of a four-story apartment building, which was surrounded by a groomed lawn. Water seemed to be bubbling out of the turf. Wanless took off his shoes and socks and pulled on a pair of polypropylene booties. As he stepped out of the car, a woman rushed over. She asked if he worked for the city. He said he did not, an answer that seemed to disappoint but not deter her. She gestured at a palm tree that was sticking out of the drowned grass.
“Look at our yard, at the landscaping,” she said. “That palm tree was super-expensive.” She went on, “It’s crazy—this is saltwater.”
“Welcome to rising sea levels,” Wanless told her.
2/ The fifth Republican debate was last week, and Mary and I managed only the first half before we became disgusted with the complete and absolute bullshit coming out of all of their mouths - fear, more fear, be afraid, kill Muslims......just amazing.
Anyway here is Frank Rich with a look at the debate.....
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 fifth GOP debate, Ted Cruz's rise in the polls, and how the media covers the Donald — and the rest of the 2016 field.
Last night's debate was the first time the GOP field has been on the same stage since the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. How did those events change the way the candidates tried to distinguish themselves from each other?
The debate was almost solely focused on fear, and the main way the candidates tried to distinguish themselves from each other could be found in their race to determine who could best exploit and ramp up the audience’s worst nightmares of imminent Armageddon. (The exception was Rand Paul, the only candidate whose foreign policy is neocon-averse and not contrived to pander to the likes of the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the party’s Las Vegas host.) The problem with this focus is that you can’t out-Trump Trump, who runs the table when it comes to sowing fear, preaching xenophobia, and projecting bellicosity. You can’t beat a platform that consists of (a) promising to “bomb the shit out of them” and (b) barring all Muslims from entering the U.S. This is why Trump’s lead (among Republicans) has been growing in national polls, and why it is likely to continue to grow after last night, no matter how many observers ritualistically say he’s a terrible debater (true) and that surely by now he must have peaked. http://nymag.com/
3/ George W. [played by Will Ferrell] was on SNL to announce he's running for a third term.....starts slow, but stick with it as it's really funny.....five minutes....
This week’s Saturday Night Live opened in high style with alum-turned-film star Will Ferrell playing former President George W. Bush in the cold open. The momentous occasion? An announcement that the term-limited Dubya will seek the 2016 Republican nomination for president.
4/ Trump is dangerous because he has given permission to the bigots and haters to vent their spleens at Muslims, Mexicans and blacks......an excellent column from Timothy Egan in the Times.....
Trump has no solutions for the desperate angst of his followers. Tearing up trade agreements is not going to happen. Deporting workers who pick our fruit and hang sheetrock is not going to lift the fortunes of those who will no longer do those jobs. Barring all Muslims will not make us safer.
What he’s done is to give marginalized Americans permission to hate. He doesn’t use dog whistles or code. His bigotry is overt. But the table was set by years of dog whistles and code. The very “un-American” sentiment that Republican elders now claim to despise has been a mainstay of conservative media for at least a decade.
5/ A really incredible "People Are Awesome".....some feats of strength it's difficult to believe......two minutes which will make you feel inadequate.....
Nice song too.....
6/ A similar message from Paul Krugman on Mr. Trump, but with the take that he represents the fact the elites have unleashed forces they can't control......
We live in an era of political news that is, all too often, shocking but not surprising. The rise of Donald Trump definitely falls into that category. And so does the electoral earthquake that struck France in Sunday’s regional elections, with the right-wing National Front winning more votes than either of the major mainstream parties.
What do these events have in common? Both involved political figures tapping into the resentments of a bloc of xenophobic and/or racist voters who have been there all along. The good news is that such voters are a minority; the bad news is that it’s a pretty big minority, on both sides of the Atlantic. If you are wondering where the support for Mr. Trump or Marine Le Pen, the head of the National Front, is coming from, you just haven’t been paying attention.
7/ John Oliver with three minutes on "regifting".....only fair, but there's not a lot of comedy around this week!
8/ An intelligent article on the full implications of having our college graduates enter the workplace with major student debt - it's crippling some professions and public service, and businesses are waking up to the fact that something needs to change.
This really is an interesting discussion, and will open your eyes to the law of unintended consequences that our corrupt university system has produced.....
Student loans present a barrier for entering a number of professional fields.The discussion over the student-loan crisis has become much more sophisticated of late. Instead of sneering coverage of people with expensive basket-weaving degrees, or anomic millennials too entitled and disaffected to get a job and pay off their debts, there's increasing focus on places where student loans are genuinely an emergency. Predatory for-profit schools have left people far in debt with worthless degrees, while students who didn't graduate are hit with a double whammy of carrying debts without an income boost from a college degree to show for it.
We know this is a crisis because we can measure it. We can see delinquencies using data from the Treasury Department. We can see where people have far too high debt-to-income ratios from academic surveys of incomes or from for-profit credit reporting agencies; they are concentrated in poor areas. And we can see the way for-profit schools implode like a fly-by-night racket the moment they encounter any formal accountability measure for their practices and actions. This all tells a story of a student-loan crisis that's real, but one that's limited to the world in which the system didn't work for students.
While these arguments are being led by academics and activists, there's another group of interested parties: Professional business groups, representing members of their occupation, are also telling a story about student loans.
9/ Star Wars came out yesterday, so of course "Bad Lip Reading" had to do a Star Wars episode......seven hilarious minutes.....
Resisting Star Wars is futile. There are Star Wars oranges. There is Star Warsmakeup. There is even Star Wars coffee creamer. And now there is a Star Warsedition of Bad Lip Reading.
Because the release of Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens is such a special occasion, the team at BLR assembled an all-star cast to give the franchise the Bad Lip Reading treatment it deserves. Jack Black, Maya Rudolph, and Bill Hader all lend their voices to the cause.
The clip reveals what Darth Vader texts to Leia, where R2D2 gets his fear of Luke, and that Han Solo apparently likes to hoard fireworks, grilled meat, and monkeys in bottles. It isn't supposed to make sense, but somehow it sort of does. Although that could just be the Star Wars overload talking.
10/ The Paris talks on climate change are over, and the world now has a new agreement to reduce CO2....and by the way it's worthless, no teeth and all voluntary.....
But even if it was implemented, already built into the climate is a rise to 2 degrees C by 2100 [but possible long before then]....and according to this story from Newsweek by then a lot of the damage will have been done so our oceans, soil, fresh water, vegetation, flooding and much more extreme weather will change our civilization irrevocably......
Most Climate Change Damage Will Happen Before the Two-Degrees Warming Threshold
BY ZOË SCHLANGER 12/12/15 AT 9:49 AM
Coral reefs are highly sensitive to climate change, and may experience most damage at relatively low warming thresholds. “Once you've killed off the coral reefs you are no longer at risk of killing off the coral reefs,” explains Ken Caldeira, an environmental scientist at Stanford University
Most discourse regarding climate change is based around a simple premise: The more the Earth warms, the greater the damage done to the planet. But in new paper published in Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers found that presupposition is fundamentally flawed. The reality, they write, is more ominous.
Almost all the damage from climate change to vulnerable categories like coral reefs, freshwater availability and plantlife could happen before two degrees Celsius warming, the internationally recognized “do not cross” danger threshold. Beyond that point, further warming might have a relatively small impact. That’s because, as Ken Caldeira, an environmental scientist at Stanford University and an author of the paper, put it, there won’t be much left to ruin.
“Once you've killed off the coral reefs you are no longer at risk of killing off the coral reefs,” he said.
Some climate change impacts rise fast with little warming, and then taper off, write a team of researchers in a paper published during the 2015 Paris climate talks
11/ The country, neighborhoods, states, and even subdivisions are becoming enclaves for either Republicans or Democrats, and we are choosing our friends as well according to their political beliefs....
Really insightful.....
In 1960, Americans were asked whether they would be pleased, displeased, or unmoved if their son or daughter married a member of the other political party.
Respondents reacted with a shrug. Only 5 percent of Republicans, and only 4 percent of Democrats, said they would be upset by the cross-party union. On the list of things you might care about in child's partner — are they kind, smart, successful, supportive? — which political party they voted for just didn't rate.
Fast forward to 2008. The polling firm YouGov asked Democrats and Republicans the same question — and got very different results. This time, 27 percent of Republicans, and 20 percent of Democrats, said they would be upset if their son or daughter married a member of the opposite party. In 2010, YouGov asked the question again; this time, 49 percent of Republicans, and 33 percent of Democrats, professed concern at interparty marriage.
12/ This is a depressing story, an analysis of why the poor states stay red - it's because the poor who would vote Democratic have lost hope and don't bother to vote.........
AP Photo/The Advocate Messenger, Clay Jackson
Voting precinct booths are empty early Tuesday, May 17, 2011, in Danville, Kentucky.
This is an updated version of an article that ran in The Huffington Post.
There’s a must-read article if you want to understand why Democrats are losing the support of low income people who benefit from government programs like Medicaid and food stamps and logically should vote for Democrats based on pocketbook interests.
Alec MacGillis of ProPublica, writing in The New York Times Sunday Review, observes that for the most part, the poor aren’t defecting to Republicans—they are not voting at all.
His exhibit A is eastern Kentucky, one of America’s poorest and most government-dependent regions. But the poor are so marginalized and disaffected that they are disconnected from civic life entirely.
Looking more broadly, MacGillis reports that non-voters are far more likely than voters to have incomes under $30,000, not to have health insurance, not to have bank accounts, to have received government aid such as food stamps, and to have borrowed money from relatives.
As if to confirm MacGillis’s point, consider Saturday’s Louisiana gubernatorial election. Remarkably, the Democrat actually won. All it took was a thoroughly disgraced and corrupt Republican opponent in David Vitter, who consorted with prostitutes, and an outgoing incumbent Republican incumbent, Bobby Jindal, who was a national joke.
13/ As a follow-on the the excellent story above: "The Siege Of Miami", is a place we don't often think about - The Florida Keys.....they are in trouble too......some good pictures of the flooded streets....
Key Largo (United States) (AFP) - Extreme high tides have turned streets into canal-like swamps in the Florida Keys, with armies of mosquitoes and the stench of stagnating water filling the air, and residents worried rising sea levels will put a damper on property values in the island chain.
On Key Largo, a tropical isle famous for snorkeling and fishing, the floods began in late September.
While people expected high tides due to the season and the influence of a super moon, they were taken by surprise when a handful of streets in the lowest-lying neighborhoods stayed inundated for nearly a month with 16-inches (40-centimeters) of saltwater.
By early November, the roads finally dried up. But unusually heavy rains in December brought it all back again.
"Like a sewer," said Narelle Prew, 49, who has lived for the past 20 years in her four-bedroom home on Adams Drive, a waterfront lane lined by boat docks.
14/ Out last week, "The Big Short" has an rave review from the Times.....note all of the right wing press HATE this movie....
A true crime story and a madcap comedy, a heist movie and a scalding polemic, “The Big Short” will affirm your deepest cynicism about Wall Street while simultaneously restoring your faith in Hollywood.
Written by Adam McKay (“Anchorman,” “Anchorman 2”) and Charles Randolph, and directed by Mr. McKay and released in the midst of “Star Wars” advent season, the film sets itself a very tall order. It wants not only to explain the financial crisis of 2008 — following the outline of Michael Lewis’s best-selling nonfiction book — but also to make the dry, complex abstractions of high finance exciting and fun. Celebrity cameos (from Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain and Selena Gomez, among others) are turned into miniseminars on the finer points of credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. The story swerves and swings from executive suites and conference rooms to hectic Manhattan streets and desolate Florida subdivisions. The performances, the script and the camera itself seem to be running on a cocktail of Red Bull, Adderall and mescaline.
"The Big Short" trailer.....
Todays slideshow - "Walmart called - your Christmas photos are ready".....
Todays Dave joke
Dave was bragging to his boss one day, “You know, I know everyone there is to know. Just name someone, anyone, and I know them.” Tired of his boasting, his boss called his bluff, “OK, Dave, how about Tom Cruise?” “No drama boss, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it.”
So Dave and his boss fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise’s door and sure enough, Tom Cruise shouts, “Dave! What’s happenin?!? Great to see you! Come on in for a beer!”
Although impressed, Dave’s boss is still sceptical. After they leave Cruise’s house, he tells Dave that he thinks his knowing Cruise was just lucky. “No, no, just name anyone else,” Dave says. “President Obama”, his boss quickly retorts. “Yup,” Dave says, “Old buddies, let’s fly out to Washington.”
And off they go. At the White House, Obama spots Dave on the tour and motions him and his boss over, saying “Dave, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let’s have a cup of coffee first and catch up.” Well, the boss is very shaken by now but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds he expresses his doubts to Dave, who again implores him to name anyone else.
“The Pope,” his boss replies. “Sure!” says Dave. “My folks are from Poland, and I’ve known the Pope long time.” So off they fly to Rome. Dave and his boss are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Dave says “This will never work. I can’t catch the Pope’s eye among all these people. Tell you what, I now all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I’ll come out on the balcony with the Pope.”
And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican. Sure enough, half an hour later Dave emerges with the Pope on the balcony but by the time Dave returns he finds that his boss has fainted and is surrounded by paramedics. Working his way to his boss’ side, Dave asks him “What happened?”
His boss looks up and says “I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the man next to me said, “Who the hell’s that on the balcony with Dave?”
So Dave and his boss fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise’s door and sure enough, Tom Cruise shouts, “Dave! What’s happenin?!? Great to see you! Come on in for a beer!”
Although impressed, Dave’s boss is still sceptical. After they leave Cruise’s house, he tells Dave that he thinks his knowing Cruise was just lucky. “No, no, just name anyone else,” Dave says. “President Obama”, his boss quickly retorts. “Yup,” Dave says, “Old buddies, let’s fly out to Washington.”
And off they go. At the White House, Obama spots Dave on the tour and motions him and his boss over, saying “Dave, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let’s have a cup of coffee first and catch up.” Well, the boss is very shaken by now but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds he expresses his doubts to Dave, who again implores him to name anyone else.
“The Pope,” his boss replies. “Sure!” says Dave. “My folks are from Poland, and I’ve known the Pope long time.” So off they fly to Rome. Dave and his boss are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Dave says “This will never work. I can’t catch the Pope’s eye among all these people. Tell you what, I now all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I’ll come out on the balcony with the Pope.”
And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican. Sure enough, half an hour later Dave emerges with the Pope on the balcony but by the time Dave returns he finds that his boss has fainted and is surrounded by paramedics. Working his way to his boss’ side, Dave asks him “What happened?”
His boss looks up and says “I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the man next to me said, “Who the hell’s that on the balcony with Dave?”
Todays Barbie joke
One day a father, on his way home from work suddenly remembers that it's his daughter's birthday. He stops at a toy store and goes in and asks the sales person, 'How much for one of those Barbies in the display window?'
The salesperson answers, 'Which one do you mean, Sir?
We have: Work Out Barbie for $19.95, Shopping Barbie for $19.95, Beach Barbie for $19.95, Disco Barbie for $19.95, Astronaut Barbie for $19.95, Skater Barbie for $19.95, and Divorced Barbie for $265.95'.
The amazed father asks: 'It's what? Why is the Divorced Barbie $265.95 and the others only $19.95?'
The slightly miffed salesgirl rolls her eyes, sighs, and answers: 'Sir, Divorced Barbie comes with: Ken's Truck, Ken's House, Ken's Fishing Boat, Ken's Furniture, Ken's Dog, Ken's Computer, one of Ken's Friends, and a key chain made from Ken's testicles.'
Todays Viagra joke
An elderly gentleman went to the local drug store and asked the pharmacist
to fill his prescription for Viagra.
to fill his prescription for Viagra.
"How many do you want?" asked the pharmacist.
The man replied, "Just a few, maybe half a dozen. I cut each one into four
pieces."
Upon hearing that, the pharmacist said, "That's too small a dose. That won't
get you through sex."
The old fellow said, "Oh, I'm past ninety years old and I don't even think
about sex anymore. I just want it to stick out enough so I don't pee on my
shoes."
The man replied, "Just a few, maybe half a dozen. I cut each one into four
pieces."
Upon hearing that, the pharmacist said, "That's too small a dose. That won't
get you through sex."
The old fellow said, "Oh, I'm past ninety years old and I don't even think
about sex anymore. I just want it to stick out enough so I don't pee on my
shoes."
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