1/ Frank Rich with his take on the news of last week....wisdom indeed, and insider viewpoints.........
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. To kick off 2016: Obama's gun-control push, the Donald dredging up Bill and Hillary's past, and the simmering rage of white America.
“Once America decided killing children was bearable," one gun-control commentator memorably wrote when reforms failed after Sandy Hook, any effective debate on guns in the U.S. "was over." Does President Obama's emotional call for new measures this week create any political movement to change that?
Given the initial response by the GOP, a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA, you’d have to say no: The president’s move was greeted with the usual hysterical blather about how “The cruel despot Obama is coming to take your guns!” and the usual pooh-poohing about how “Nothing he’s proposing would have stopped the mass shootings of Sandy Hook, Charleston, San Bernardino … ” And in truth, the effect of his proposed executive actions will be small gruel indeed — enabling, perhaps, some thousands of additional background checks.
2/ For a summary of why Trump and other right wing populists are becoming so prominent, you can't do better than this 2 minute video from the Guardian......excellent, simple and powerful....
It might be tempting to view the political success of Donald J. Trump as something uniquely American. But, rightwing populism and scapegoating of society's vulnerable is cropping up all across the west. This is what happens when big business has more power than governments, explains Guardian writer Gary Younge
3/ Matt Taibbi is the one journalist in America that I have seen who is totally in tune with the absurdities of our so called media....here he dissects the Oregon standoff, with amusing commentary on this pathetic spectacle....
Ammon Bundy is leading a group of militants occupying the Malheur federal wildlife preserve in Oregon.
First of all, when did it become OK for cowboys to cry in public?
The coolest thing about the Gary Cooper-Clint Eastwood-James Coburn-Yul Brynner-style cowboys is that they never said a damned thing. They walked slow, asses sore from all that riding, and kept things to a syllable or two if they could manage it: "Whiskey." "Bath." "Draw."
Contrast that with Ammon Bundy, the man who recently led a small group of gun-wielding outpatients to occupy the Malheur federal wildlife preserve in Oregon.
Before the occupation, Bundy stood up at a town hall meeting in Harney County, Oregon, and fell to pieces as he described to the audience the revelation he had from God about the need to take action against the federal government. He was most put out about the five-year sentence for arson that the feds slapped on a father and son duo of ranchers named Dwight and Steven Hammond for setting fires on federal land.
http://www.rollingstone.com/
4/ Unique photos of historical events and people.....
Among the multitudes of photos of the past, there are some that show the history from a different perspective. The best of theses images can help you to imagine better than any book or movie what it was really like to live through that moment, now lost forever.
Bright Side has picked out 20 fascinating shots which fit this description perfectly. Take a look.
http://brightside.me/article/
5/ A very good segment from Larry Wilmore on the Fox News reaction to the President breaking up, discussing the dead children of gun violence.....
There have already been 170 deaths this year, as of January 6, due to gun violence, Larry Wilmore started off Wednesday’s “Nightly Show” saying. “It’s not even been a week!”
“Watching a sitting U.S. president tear up over the deaths of children as he tries to affect change in a seemingly intransigent system…. There’s got to be something really wrong with you if you find fault with that,” Wilmore said of Obama’s tearful momentduring Tuesday’s press conference on executive orders on guns.
Wilmore then ran a clip of the disgusting comments from Fox News co-hosts who questioned the authenticity of the president’s emotion. “The guy cries about dead children and you’ve got notes?!” Wilmore exclaimed. “Has mourning dead children really become a partisan issue?!”
6/ A fascinating story on the rise of the anti-intellectualism that is driving the Trump campaign......by the way another way to describe it is that the stupids have found a voice.....
A challenging, informative and chilling article.....
(Credit: maxim ibragimov via Shutterstock/
It’s a cliché to say that democratic states can’t function properly without an informed electorate. But it’s absolutely true. And this is why, heading into the 2016 election year, I’m nervous about the future. With Donald Trump leading the Republican presidential contenders, even many Republican die-hards are shaking in their boots.
But Trump isn’t the cause, just the symptom. The deeper cause is a strain of anti-intellectualism that runs through the roots of American culture. And while this strain is found on both sides of the political spectrum (see some liberals on vaccines and chemtrails), it’s mostly concentrated among religious conservatives on the political right. For those who espouse anti-intellectualism, conspiracy theories have the same clout as legitimate science, the opinions of non-experts are just as credible as those of the experts, and ideology takes precedence over the cold hard facts.
The US has fostered a culture of anti-intellectualism more than “most other Western countries.” While traveling through Europe and the UK for extended periods of time, I’ve often been quite envious of how respectful other countries are toward those with knowledge in the fields of science and the humanities. In the UK, for example, it’s generally not seen as “uncool” to have a higher degree from a good university. Often, it confers the degree-holder a certain social respect and admiration. Many of the top comedians in the UK have attended institutions like Oxford and Cambridge, including Michael Palin, Eric Idol, John Cleese, David Mitchell, Richard Ayoade and Stephen Fry. And shows such as “QI,” which combines academic discussions with uproarious, irreverent humor, are popular hits.
7/ An unusual "People Are Awesome", a little more surreal and less jumpy.....a pretty good five minutes....great music too....
8/ Do you have any faith in the integrity of our voting systems, with the electronic ballots that can be flipped by a 12 year old and [in red states] are totally controlled by right wing politicians.....thought not.....
Republican presidential candidates. (photo: NBC)
Will the GOP Strip & Flip the 2016 Election?
By Mimi Kennedy, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
08 January 16
t is midnight, Election Day, 2016.
The votes (80% of them electronic) have been cast all across the United States. Except in Hawaii, the voting stations are now closed.
By all credible calculations, the Democratic presidential candidate (Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton) has won a solid victory in the public vote. All polls have shown a strong national margin. A solid majority of the key swing states have gone to the Democrats, giving them an apparent victory in the Electoral College.
With that have come solid advances in the US Senate and House races, plus major gains in statehouses and local elections across the board....
9/ Seth Meyers is getting good - here he looks at the Oregon standoff, with most amusing results....six pretty decent minutes....
The siege of a federal facility in Oregon by an armed anti-government gang has now entered its sixth day, which prompted Late Night with Seth Meyers host and former SNL Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers to take “A Deeper Look” at the standoff.
“Now, there’s actually a conversation to be had here about the wisdom of mandatory minimums,” Meyers conceded, “but there is a lot more going on in this standoff then just the arrest of the ranchers.”
He then explained the ranchers’ grievances, and exposed the fake tweet from group leader Ammon Bundy comparing the group to Rosa Parks, before going to work on the giant human sad trombone that is the Oregon “militia” gang. In particular, Meyers took aim at LaVoy Finicum, who as of Tuesday night was holed up under a tarp, sitting in a ricking chair with a rifle across his lap.
10/ "Thanks Obama" is normally said in a sarcastic way, but in this case it should be real.....your phone contract!
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Next time you go shopping for a new cellphone plan, you're likely to find that the options are a lot better than they were a couple of years ago. Prices are lower. You don't have to sign up for one of those annoying two-year contracts. You'll probably get unlimited phone calls and text messages as a standard feature — and a lot more data than before.
If that happens to you, you should thank the Obama administration — specifically, the antitrust watchdogs at the Department of Justice.
Many of the positive developments of the past four years have been driven by T-Mobile, which until recently was the smallest of the nation's four national wireless providers. Back in 2011, AT&T was on the verge of gobbling up T-Mobile, which would have turned the industry's Big Four into the Big Three and eliminated the industry's most unpredictable company.
11/ As readers of DDD are aware Miami is at serious risk from rising sea levels, but so are other parts of South Florida......good story, unless you live in Hollywood or Hallandale....
Scientists concerned about global warming and sea-level rise often describe Miami as ground zero — the next Atlantis, even. Magazines such as Rolling Stone and the New Yorker have speculated that huge chunks of the city could go underwater and that people would flee in a mass exodus. (The symptoms are already happening, they say.) But what about Broward County? Florida’s second most populous city seems dramatically overshadowed, even though it’s perched just 20 miles north of downtown Miami.
North Broward resident and geoscientist Dr. Keren Bolter says residents here should be concerned. Published in 2014, Bolter’s doctoral dissertation examined Broward County’s risk of sea-level rise. Her findings were disturbing: Residents living in huge swaths of low-lying land in South Broward underestimated their vulnerability.
“Downtown Miami on the coast is really high up in comparison to Broward, where the whole southern part of the county is low,” says Bolter, who now works as science director at Coastal Risk Consulting, a firm that helps businesses and homeowners adapt to sea-level rise. “In terms of extent, spatially, there’s a lot larger area of low-lying land around the Fort Lauderdale area.”
12/ "Making A Murderer" is the new Netflix original, and is getting viral mentions in the media......another excellent story from Rolling Stone.....
Steven Avery is escorted to the Manitowoc County Courthouse for his sentencing Friday, June 1, 2007, in Manitowoc, Wis. Dan Powers/AP
For anyone connecting with Netflix over the holidays, it was anything but a merry Christmas. Premiering on Dec. 18, the streaming service's docu-series Making a Murderer plunged viewers deep into one of the strangest and most disturbing true-crime cases in recent memory. In 1985, Steven Avery, a 22-year-old whose family runs an auto salvage yard in Wisconsin, was found guilty of rape and sent to prison. Eighteen years later, he was released when DNA evidence proved he was innocent, as he'd asserted all along.
Todays video - Full Metal Jacket had some incredible scenes - here are some highlights with the Sergeant and Private Pyle ....note - very salty language! About 8 minutes.....
Todays Catholic joke
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Todays engineer joke
An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. Saint Peter checks his dossier and, not seeing his name there, accidentally sends him to Hell.
It doesn't take long before the engineer becomes rather dissatisfied with the level of comfort in Hell. He soon begins to design and build improvements. Shortly thereafter, Hell has air conditioning, flush toilets, escalators. Needless to say, the engineer is a pretty popular guy.
One day, God calls Satan and says: "So, how are things in Hell?"
Satan replies: "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning, flush toilets, and escalators. And there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."
"What!" God exclaims: "You've got an engineer? That's a mistake - he should never have been sent to Hell. Send him to me."
"Not a chance," Satan replies: "I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him!"
God insists: "Send him back or I'll sue."
Satan laughs uproariously and answers: "Yeah, right. And just where are you gonna get a lawyer?"
It doesn't take long before the engineer becomes rather dissatisfied with the level of comfort in Hell. He soon begins to design and build improvements. Shortly thereafter, Hell has air conditioning, flush toilets, escalators. Needless to say, the engineer is a pretty popular guy.
One day, God calls Satan and says: "So, how are things in Hell?"
Satan replies: "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning, flush toilets, and escalators. And there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."
"What!" God exclaims: "You've got an engineer? That's a mistake - he should never have been sent to Hell. Send him to me."
"Not a chance," Satan replies: "I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him!"
God insists: "Send him back or I'll sue."
Satan laughs uproariously and answers: "Yeah, right. And just where are you gonna get a lawyer?"
Todays blonde jokes
A brunette goes into a doctor's office and says that her body hurts wherever she touches it.
"Impossible," says the doctor. "Show me."
She takes her finger, presses on her elbow, and screams in agony.
She pushes her knee and screams, pushes her ankle and screams, and so it goes on; everywhere she touches makes her scream with pain.
The doctor says, "You're not really a brunette are you?"
She says, "No, I dyed my hair. I'm naturally blonde."
"I thought so," he says. "Your finger is broken."
A blonde, out of money, and down on her luck after buying air at a real bargain, needed money desperately. To raise cash, she decided to kidnap a child and hold him for ransom.
She went to the local playground, grabbed a kid randomly, took her behind a building, and told her, "I've kidnapped you."
She then wrote a big note saying, "I've kidnapped your kid. Tomorrow morning, put $10,000 in a paper bag and leave it under the apple tree next to the slides, on the south side of the playground. Signed, A blonde."
The blonde then pinned the note to the kid's shirt and sent him home to show it to his parents.
The next morning, the blonde checked, and sure enough, a paper bag was sitting beneath the apple tree.
The blonde looked in the bag and found the $10,000 with a note that said, "How could you do this to a fellow blonde?"
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