Before you do anything, click on this link which was put out by Netflix, then add it to your bookmark bar. It gives you an instant read on your internet speed.....really useful especially if you're travelling..
1/ A long but very insightful story from Frank Rich on the similarities between Saint Reagan and Trump....their rise to being the Republican nominee was very similar, and the party elites despised both of them.....
Politics from the Master....excellent article, and worth spending the time.....
In an election cycle that has brought unending surprises, let it be said that one time-honored tradition has been upheld: the Republican presidential contenders' quadrennial tug-of-war to seize the mantle of Ronald Reagan. John Kasich, gesturing toward the Air Force One on display at the Reagan-library debate, said, "I think I actually flew on this plane with Ronald Reagan when I was a congressman." Rand Paul claimed to have met Reagan as a child; Ben Carson said he switched parties because of Reagan; Chris Christie said he cast his first vote for Reagan; Ted Cruz cheered Reagan for having defeated Soviet Communism and vowed, for nonsensical good measure, to "do the same thing." And then there was Donald Trump, never one to be outdone by the nobodies in any competition. "I helped him," he said of Reagan on NBC last fall. "I knew him. He liked me and I liked him."
2/ A charming little cartoon called "Simon's Cat"......two minutes of pretty accurate cat behavior.......amusing.....
3/ The first Frank Rich story is a long analysis of Reagan and Trump - his second is his bi-weekly look at the politics of the day, and this one is unusually good......
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 Trump outrage train keeps chugging, National Review writer David French's potential third-party candidacy, and what Peter Thiel means for journalism.
Since Donald Trump lashed out at the press over questions about his fundraising for veterans, his week has only gotten worse, with former staffers at his Trump University calling the school a fraud and "a total lie." Do either of these criticisms have a chance of swaying Trump supporters?
By any civilized standard, Trump has had about the worst week a presidential candidate could have. He was caught trying to cheat America’s veterans out of the $6 million he had promised them. He nastily assailed the press for daring to question his bogus philanthropy. He not only attacked the legitimacy of the U.S. district judge presiding over the Trump University case, but tried to denigrate him as “Mexican.” (The judge, Gonzalo Curiel, was born in Indiana.)
By any civilized standard, Trump has had about the worst week a presidential candidate could have. He was caught trying to cheat America’s veterans out of the $6 million he had promised them. He nastily assailed the press for daring to question his bogus philanthropy. He not only attacked the legitimacy of the U.S. district judge presiding over the Trump University case, but tried to denigrate him as “Mexican.” (The judge, Gonzalo Curiel, was born in Indiana.)
4/ This cartoon from Tom Tomorrow dovetails perfectly with the Rich article.....I love this guy, he nails it every time.....
5/ Not only does this type of accident rarely happen, to my knowledge it's never been caught on video before. The Celebrity Infinity [90,000 tons], overwhelmed by Alaskan winds whacks the dock in Ketchikan with significant damage to both the ship and the dock.....one painful minute, truly a slow motion train wreck.....
Celebrity Cruises’ Infinity ship crashed into a dock at the Ketchikan Harbor Friday afternoon, according to assistant harbormaster Dan Berg. The ship was visibly damaged, as well as berth three — the dock it was pulling into.
According to Berg, the collision occurred between 2 and 2:30 p.m.
In the above footage, the ship can be seen moving in sideways to the dock, striking a set of pylons, or what Berg referred to as the “dolphin,” causing the catwalk to collapse into the water.
Celebrity Cruises couldn’t be reached for comment.
6/ Bill Maher got a little pissed in this panel discussion about the role of the media in politics....the sound bite from this 6 minute segment is about Megyn Kelly, but it included all the rest of our corporate media as well...
On a sidebar, MSNBC is all set to go full scale right wing folks.....
Bill Maher got a little teed off tonight after guest Matt Welch name-dropped Megyn Kelly as an example of one of the journalists who are best at nailing down people like Donald Trump.
Maher said the media love of Kelly was so overblown because all it took was “one tough question at the debate” to get the “stupid media” to deem her a genius.
He pointed out it was Kelly who was “begging him for an interview,” said nothing would be out of bounds, and then kept it mostly light (though she did confront him about his attacks on her). Maher said, “You know what was out of bounds? Journalism.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/
7/ Paul Krugman with an excellent column......how Donald Trump's personality threatens the planet.....
On Tuesday the political arm of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of America’s most influential environmentalist groups, made its first presidential endorsement ever, giving the nod to Hillary Clinton. This meant jumping the gun by a week on her inevitable designation as the presumptive Democratic nominee, but the NRDC Action Fund is obviously eager to get on with the general election.
And it’s not hard to see why: At this point Donald Trump’s personality endangers the whole planet.
We’re at a peculiar moment when it comes to the environment — a moment of both fear and hope. The outlook for climate change if current policies continue has never looked worse, but the prospects for turning away from the path of destruction have never looked better. Everything depends on who ends up sitting in the White House for the next few years.
8/ A truly distasteful but highly amusing ad from SNL......one "yuck" minute......
9/ Bernie and Bill Maher talk for a few minutes......I am not totally buying the mainstream media narrative that it's all over for Sanders, but enough people will be discouraged by the intense negativity that they won't show up in California and the other primary states left, so it's a reinforcing loop.
What a shame - you watch sensible, honest and articulate Bernie, and in four or eight years we will go "what if", just like we occasionally do thinking of the Al Gore stolen election in 2000.....eleven good minutes....
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders showed up to Real Time With Bill Maher tonight and talked about the forthcoming primary in California and other, smaller states. He told Bill Maherwhat the real endgame is when it comes to the Democratic National Convention and the race for the presidency, too.
Maher was quick to point out that the other two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, had been invited on the show but never came. Sanders later said he was sorry Trump had also declined to debate him as promised.
10/ As if we needed more billionaires in politics - this story from the Times is about how the new tech wealthy are making their mark.....relate this to Rich's comments above in #3....
Palo Alto, Calif. — IT did not take long for the tech industry to become the new establishment, and to assign itself the rights and responsibilities that come with such prosperity.
In 2010, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett unveiled the Giving Pledge, a take on the old industrialist Gospel of Wealth for a new era of the superrich. Since then, many of Silicon Valley’s most moneyed founders and chief executives, including Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg, have signed on to give most of their wealth to a vague “philanthropy.”
Peter Thiel, the serial tech-firm founder, entrepreneur, investor, libertarian and presumptive Donald J. Trump delegate, is not a signatory, but apparently feels no less passionately about using his wealth to make his world a better place.
Last week Mr. Thiel revealed that he had funneled “in the ballpark” of $10 million to legal support for plaintiffs suing Gawker Media, most notably Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan, who recently won a $140 million judgmentagainst the company in an invasion of privacy case.
11/ Imagine a commencement address to college students in 2041.....Bill Maher does, with funny results.....five pretty good minutes that will also make you think.....maybe.....
It’s mid-May, so graduation stories are abundant. Tonight on Real Time, Bill Maher wondered what the commencement speeches of the future will look like, since they are such a big deal at this particular moment
Instead of just wondering, Maher got busy illustrating his vision of commencement addresses in the year 2041.
Watch to see him make a few bold predictions about future humans resorting to eating jellyfish in an era where there have now been at least two Kardashians in the Oval Office, plus a President Gaga and President West.
12/ A psychologist looks at the Trump phenomenon......a long, scholarly look at the personality of this narcissist......from The Atlantic.....fascinating.....
In 2006 Donald Trump made plans to purchase the Menie Estate, near Aberdeen, Scotland, aiming to convert the dunes and grassland into a luxury golf resort. He and the estate’s owner, Tom Griffin, sat down to discuss the transaction at the Cock & Bull restaurant. Griffin recalls that Trump was a hard-nosed negotiator, reluctant to give in on even the tiniest details. But, as Michael D’Antonio writes in his recent biography of Trump, Never Enough, Griffin’s most vivid recollection of the evening pertains to the theatrics. It was as if the golden-haired guest sitting across the table were an actor playing a part on the London stage.
“It was Donald Trump playing Donald Trump,” Griffin observed. There was something unreal about it.
The same feeling perplexed Mark Singer in the late 1990s when he was working on a profile of Trump for The New Yorker. Singer wondered what went through his mind when he was not playing the public role of Donald Trump. What are you thinking about, Singer asked him, when you are shaving in front of the mirror in the morning? Trump, Singer writes, appeared baffled. Hoping to uncover the man behind the actor’s mask, Singer tried a different tack:
“O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”
“You really want to know what I consider ideal company?,” Trump replied. “A total piece of ass.”
I might have phrased Singer’s question this way: Who are you, Mr. Trump, when you are alone? Singer never got an answer, leaving him to conclude that the real-estate mogul who would become a reality-TV star and, after that, a leading candidate for president of the United States had managed to achieve something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.....
The same feeling perplexed Mark Singer in the late 1990s when he was working on a profile of Trump for The New Yorker. Singer wondered what went through his mind when he was not playing the public role of Donald Trump. What are you thinking about, Singer asked him, when you are shaving in front of the mirror in the morning? Trump, Singer writes, appeared baffled. Hoping to uncover the man behind the actor’s mask, Singer tried a different tack:
“You really want to know what I consider ideal company?,” Trump replied. “A total piece of ass.”
I might have phrased Singer’s question this way: Who are you, Mr. Trump, when you are alone? Singer never got an answer, leaving him to conclude that the real-estate mogul who would become a reality-TV star and, after that, a leading candidate for president of the United States had managed to achieve something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.....
http://www.theatlantic.com/
13/ Report from Onion News - most Americans get their exercise while drunk......
Doubtful? Hey - it's on the internet....two minutes of fact-based news reporting [similar to Fox].....
Study: Americans Get Majority Of Exercise While Drunk
Over 75% of an average American's exercise now comes from drunkenly dancing, stealing street signs, and carrying home passed-out friends.
14/ Is your neighbor a Muslim? Are you a bigot, and/or is there a Trump sign in your yard?
Maybe you need this new chewing gum.....
W
ithin five minutes of chewing the gum, it starts to relieve their bigotry and intolerance.
Users are warned of potential side effects, including “fondness, brotherhood, acceptance, loss of bigotry, increase in rationality and possible denouncement of superiority.”
FACEBOOK/CAIR
Islamophobin, a mock chewing gum, offers “multi-symptom relief for chronic Islamophobia,” according to a spoof commercial going viral.
“Islamophobin worked for me,” one man says after sampling the gum.
15/ Remember the picture of the Donald, on a plane eating a burger? The internet went crazy photoshopping this image, with great results.....
Here's a sample.....
16/ North Carolina is a lovely state, the second home of many Floridians......but it's politicians have been purchased by a homophobic billionaire named Art Pope......Seth Meyers tells us why the NC legislature passed the awful "Bathroom" bill.....
Six very good minutes of comedic reporting.....
“Late Night” host Seth Meyers last night took a “Closer Look” at so-called “bathroom bills.”
North Carolina’s bathroom bill, HB2, requiring transgender people use public restrooms corresponding to their birth gender, sparked partisan debate over whether the law is preventative or discriminatory.
“Fighting over bathrooms is the oldest move in the prejudice playbook,” Meyers said. “America has a long history of using bathrooms to scare people … and politicians are happy to exploit that fear.”
“Telling a minority group that they’re not allowed to use the same bathroom everyone else uses is a well-worn strategy,” he explained. “Proponents of the so-called bathroom bill don’t want you to see their bills as prejudice; they want you to think they’re trying to protect the children.”
17/ There is a lot of truth in the saying "you are what you eat", and if you are like most Americans your body is full of horrible chemicals, making you sicker than you should be. The only way to combat this is to eat smarter and wherever possible choose organics, but the "superfoods" listed in this article will also help.....
Remember - if it says "low fat, fat free or reduced fat" think "Chemical Shit Storm"......
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
By some estimates, the state of American health looks pretty grim. And much of it is directly tied to poor diets.
Based on current trends, one in three American adults—about 146 million people—will be suffering from type 2 diabetes by 2050, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That year, say researchers at Harvard University, 42 percent of Americans will be obese, up from the current figure of 35 percent.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that in 2000, partially because of a surge in meat consumption, the average American ate almost 20 percent more calories than he did in 1983.
The problem isn’t only that we’re eating too much, but that we’re eating a lot of bad stuff: According to the CDC, more than 11 percent of the American diet comes from fast food. Could the gloomy 2050 predictions be averted? A hopeful sign is the growing interest in healthy diets, and in particular, superfoods. New research by Mintel, a market research firm, has found that between 2011 and 2015, the number of new food and drink products to hit the marketplace containing the terms “superfood,” “superfruit” or “supergrain” increased more than 200 percentworldwide. Just a cursory glance at your local Whole Foods will give you a sense of how ubiquitous the word has become to sell various foods and drinks.
Todays video - the original "Bad Lip Reading" NFL.......they've never done it better than this one......
Todays wine taster joke
At a winery, the regular taster died and the director started looking for a new one to hire.
A drunkard with a ragged, dirty look came in to apply for the position.
The director of the winery wondered how to "nicely" send him away in this "all too Politically Correct" world. He gave him a glass of their low end wine to drink.
The drunk sipped it and without the traditional sniffing or swirling said, “It’s a Muscat, three years old, grown on a north slope, matured in steel containers. Low grade, but acceptable.”
“That’s correct”, said the boss.
Another glass…
“This is a Cabernet, eight years old, a south-western slope, oak barrels, matured at 8 degrees. Requires three more years for finest results.”
“Correct.”
A third glass…
“It’s a Pinot Blanc Champagne , high grade and exclusive,” the drunk said calmly.
The director was astonished. He winked at his secretary, secretly suggesting something. She left the room, and came back in with a glass of urine.
The alcoholic tried it.
“It’s a blonde, 26 years old, three months pregnant and if I don’t get the job I’ll name the father.”
Todays cowboy joke
In the old West, a young cowboy, sitting in a saloon one Saturday night, recognized an elderly man standing at the bar who, in his day, had been the fastest gun in the West.
The cowboy walked over to the old-timer, bought him a drink and told him of his great ambition to be a great gunfighter. "Could you give me some tips?" he asked.
The old man said, "Well, for one thing, you're wearing your gun too high -- tie the holster a little lower downon your leg."
"Will that make me a better gunfighter?"
"Sure will."
The young man did as he was told, then stood up, whipped out his .44, and shot the bow tie off the piano player.
"That's terrific!" exclaimed the cowboy. "Got any more tips?"
"Yep," said the old man. "Cut a notch out of your holster where the hammer hits it -- that'll give you a smoother draw."
"Will that make me a better gunfighter?" asked the young man.
"You bet it will,"said the old-timer.
The young man took out his knife, cut the notch, stood up, drew his gun in a blur, and then shot a cuff link off the piano player.
"Wow!" said the cowboy excitedly, "I'm learnin somethin here. Got any more tips?"
The old man pointed to a large can in a corner of the saloon. "See that can of axle grease over there? Coat your gun with it."
The young man smeared some of the grease on the barrel of his gun. "No," said the old-timer, "I mean smear it all over the gun, the handle, and all."
"Will that make me a better gunfighter?" asked the puzzled young man.
"No," said the old-timer, "but when Wyatt Earp gets done playing the piano, he's gonna shove that gun up your ass, and it won't hurt near as much."
"No," said the old-timer, "but when Wyatt Earp gets done playing the piano, he's gonna shove that gun up your ass, and it won't hurt near as much."
Todays protection tips [not a joke, just useful stuff!]
1. LONG - TERM PARKING
Some people left their car in the long-term parking at San Jose while away, and someone broke into the car. Using the information on the car's registration in the glove compartment, they drove the car to the people's home in Pebble Beach and robbed it. So I guess if we are going to leave the car in long-term parking, we should NOT leave the registration/insurance cards in it, nor your remote garage door opener. This gives us something to think about with all our new electronic technology.
2. GPS:
Someone had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked on the green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard. When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen. The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents. Something to consider if you have a GPS - don't put your home address in it. Put a nearby address (like a store or gas station) so you can still find your way home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if your GPS were stolen.
3. CELL PHONES:
I never thought of this! This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her cell phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet, etc., was stolen. Twenty minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says, "I received your text asking about our Pin number and I've replied a little while ago." When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text "hubby" in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.
Moral lesson:
a. Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc.
b. And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.
c. Also, when you're being texted by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet "family and friends" who text you.
a. Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc.
b. And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.
c. Also, when you're being texted by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet "family and friends" who text you.
4. PURSE IN THE GROCERY CART SCAM:
A lady went grocery-shopping at a local mall and left her purse sitting in the children's seat of the cart while she reached something off a shelf/ Wait till you read the WHOLE story!
A lady went grocery-shopping at a local mall and left her purse sitting in the children's seat of the cart while she reached something off a shelf/ Wait till you read the WHOLE story!
Her wallet was stolen, and she reported it to the store personnel. After returning home, she received a phone call from the Mall Security to say that they had her wallet and that although there was no money in it, it did still hold her personal papers. She immediately went to pick up her wallet, only to be told by Mall Security that they had not called her. By the time she returned home again, her house had been broken into and burglarized. The thieves knew that by calling and saying they were Mall Security, they could lure her out of her house long enough for them to burglarize it.
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