1/ Paul Krugman with an excellent column on climate change, and the intractable politics around it.....
A disaster area is no place for political theater. The governor of flood-ravaged Louisiana asked President Obama to postpone a personal visit while relief efforts were still underway. (Meanwhile, by all accounts, the substantive federal response has been infinitely superior to the Bush administration’s response to Katrina.) He made the same request to Donald Trump, declaring, reasonably, that while aid would be welcome, a visit for the sake of a photo op would not.
Sure enough, the G.O.P. candidate flew in, shook some hands, signed some autographs, and was filmed taking boxes of Play-Doh out of a truck. If he wrote a check, neither his campaign nor anyone else has mentioned it. Heckuva job, Donnie!
But boorish, self-centered behavior is the least of it. By far the bigger issue is that even as Mr. Trump made a ham-handed (and cheapskate) effort to exploit Louisiana’s latest disaster for political gain, he continued to stake out a policy position that will make such disasters increasingly frequent.
Let’s back up for a minute and talk about the real meaning of the Louisiana floods.
2/ Absolutely fascinating compilation of political clips of how attitudes from lawmakers of all stripes on climate change have evolvedover the last 16 years.......Republicans who were reasonable 10 years ago have become deniers even as the problem becomes critical....
It's about 10 minutes, but most interesting...
3/ The Trump kids made a campaign ad to appeal to millennials, and of course Twitterworld went to town on it.....some of these tweets are hilarious....
The new Children of the Corn movie looks terrifying.
4/ Spectacular photographs of the Alps with a great chill soundtrack....the scenery is wonderful, and look out for three sets of mountain climbers in this six minute film....
Quite beautiful.....
5/ The wonderful Garrison Keillor with an Op-Ed to Trump......amusing with splashes of wisdom....
The cap does not look good on you, it's a duffer's cap, and when you come to the microphone, you look like the warm-up guy, the guy who announces the license number of the car left in the parking lot, doors locked, lights on, motor running. The brim shadows your face, which gives a sinister look, as if you'd come to town to announce the closing of the pulp factory. Your eyes look dead and your scowl does not suggest American greatness so much as American indigestion. Your hair is the wrong color: People don't want a president to be that shade of blond. You know that now.
Why doesn't someone in your entourage dare to say these things? So sad. The fans in the arenas are wild about you, and Sean Hannity is as loyal as they come, but Rudy and Christie and Newt are reassuring in that stilted way of hospital visitors. And The New York Times treats you like the village idiot. This is painful for a Queens boy trying to win respect in Manhattan where the Times is the Supreme Liberal Jewish Anglican Arbiter of Who Has The Smarts and What Goes Where. When you came to Manhattan 40 years ago, you discovered that in entertainment, the press, politics, finance, everywhere you went, you ran into Jews, and they are not like you: Jews didn't go in for big yachts and a fleet of aircraft — they showed off by way of philanthropy or by raising brilliant offspring. They sympathized with the civil rights movement.
6/ One simple chart tells it all.....for about 10,000 years global temperatures have been stable, so we developed an agrarian society where primitive farmers could count on consistent weather to grow enough food to feed a community.....
It's widely recognized now that the global climate is increasingly a product of human activities. But less understood is how human activities are a product of the global climate.
The chart below shows what life was like for much of human history. Using data from ice cores, it indicates how temperatures varied over time. Notice the relatively flat line over the past 10,000 years — that's when agriculture began:
Modern humans appeared around 200,000 years ago. 188,000 years later, they started farming, independently in at least four different parts of the world. Civilization followed shortly thereafter.
Was the timing coincidental? Not likely. According to one analysis by researchers at the California Institute of Technology, it was climate change that prevented the development of agricultural societies up until around 12,000 years ago:
7/ Joe Scarborough has put our a video called "Amnesty Don"......quite good, and an amusing three minutes....
“Morning Joe” namesake Joe Scarborough on Wednesday put out a song called “Amnesty Don” mocking GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. The song makes light of Trump’s self-described “softening” on his primary promise to deport 11 million illegal immigrants.
The song and accompanying lyric video — on Scarborough’s Facebook page — conveniently dropped just hours before Trump is scheduled to meet with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City. And on Wednesday evening, Trump will further define his immigration policy during a rally in Phoenix.
8/ And here are some fascinating charts of projected temperatures across the country for the next 100 years...
Think It’s Hot Now? Just Wait
By HEIDI CULLEN
July wasn’t just hot — it was the hottest month ever recorded, according to NASA. And this year is likely to be the hottest year on record.
Fourteen of the 15 hottest years have occurred since 2000, as heat waves have become more frequent, more intense and longer lasting. A study in the journal Nature Climate Change last year found that three of every four daily heat extremes can be tied to global warming.
9/ Wow - George Lakoff looks at Trump's use of language, and concludes he is a master, a brilliant manipulator of language purposefully used to confuse and create anger.....brilliant story, almost scholarly - not sure who he is, but he's very smart....
The Responsible Reporter’s Problem
Responsible reporters in the media normally transcribe political speeches so that they can accurately report them. But Donald Trump’s discourse style has stumped a number of reporters. Dan Libit, CNBC’s excellent analyst is one of them. Libit writes:
His unscripted speaking style, with its spasmodic, self-interrupting sentence structure, has increasingly come to overwhelm the human brains and tape recorders attempting to quote him.
Trump is, simply put, a transcriptionist’s worst nightmare: severely unintelligible, and yet, incredibly important to understand.
Given how dramatically recent polls have turned on his controversial public utterances, it is not hyperbolic to say that the very fate of the nation, indeed human civilization, appears destined to come down to one man’s application of the English language — and the public’s comprehension of it. It has turned the rote job of transcribing into a high-stakes calling.
…
Trump’s crimes against clarity are multifarious: He often speaks in long, run-on sentences, with frequent asides. He pauses after subordinate clauses. He frequently quotes people saying things that aren’t actual quotes. And he repeats words and phrases, sometimes with slight variations, in the same sentence.
Trump is, simply put, a transcriptionist’s worst nightmare: severely unintelligible, and yet, incredibly important to understand.
Given how dramatically recent polls have turned on his controversial public utterances, it is not hyperbolic to say that the very fate of the nation, indeed human civilization, appears destined to come down to one man’s application of the English language — and the public’s comprehension of it. It has turned the rote job of transcribing into a high-stakes calling.
…
Trump’s crimes against clarity are multifarious: He often speaks in long, run-on sentences, with frequent asides. He pauses after subordinate clauses. He frequently quotes people saying things that aren’t actual quotes. And he repeats words and phrases, sometimes with slight variations, in the same sentence.
Some in the media (Washington Post, Salon, Slate, Think Progress, etc.) have called Trump’s speeches “word salad.” Some commentators have even attributed his language use to “early Alzheimer’s,” citing “erratic behavior” and “little regards for social conventions.” I don’t believe it.
10/ Everybody's favorite dog video.....one minute....
11/ Very good article by Gabriel Sherman in New York Magazine on how the ladies of Fox news got Roger Ailes fired......excellent story, lots of detail and quite fascinating.
Good journalism folks....
Photo: Wesley Mann/AUGUST
It took 15 days to end the mighty 20-year reign of Roger Ailes at Fox News, one of the most storied runs in media and political history. Ailes built not just a conservative cable news channel but something like a fourth branch of government; a propaganda arm for the GOP; an organization that determined Republican presidential candidates, sold wars, and decided the issues of the day for 2 million viewers. That the place turned out to be rife with grotesque abuses of power has left even its liberal critics stunned. More than two dozen women have come forward to accuse Ailes of sexual harassment, and what they have exposed is both a culture of misogyny and one of corruption and surveillance, smear campaigns and hush money, with implications reaching far wider than one disturbed man at the top.
It began, of course, with a lawsuit. Of all the people who might have brought down Ailes, the former Fox & Friends anchor Gretchen Carlsonwas among the least likely.
12/ And more good journalism - a long and revealing story in the Times on how we truly are splitting into two as a country - prison sentences are dropping in larger cities and blue states, but rising in rural areas and Republican states. For conservatives, the drug war is alive and kicking....
LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. — Donnie Gaddis picked the wrong county to sell 15 oxycodone pills to an undercover officer.
If Mr. Gaddis had been caught 20 miles to the east, in Cincinnati, he would have received a maximum of six months in prison, court records show. In San Francisco or Brooklyn, he would probably have received drug treatment or probation, lawyers say.
But Mr. Gaddis lived in Dearborn County, Ind., which sends more people to prison per capita than nearly any other county in the United States. After agreeing to a plea deal, he was sentenced to serve 12 years in prison.
“Years? Holy Toledo — I’ve settled murders for a lot less than that,” said Philip Stephens, a public defender in Cincinnati.
13/ Love this headline......written before the Aug. 30th primary, but still current......
Good story from Rolling Stone....
As Florida's Dumb Politics Go, So Go the Nation's
This year's Florida Senate primary has been a depressing small-scale version of the national general election
14/ Great tongue in cheek column from Carl Hiaasen on our corrupt, pus and slime filled Governor's attempt to seem statesmanlike in dealing with Zika....
Gov. Rick Scott’s War on Zika:
1. Whenever a new Zika case is confirmed in Florida, I will immediately rush to that county and stage a “round-table” discussion. This will calm fears in the local community, and lead tourists to believe that it’s still safe to visit.
Carl Hiaasen
2. If no actual round tables are available, I will settle for a rectangular one or (if absolutely necessary) a square one, although my staff is instructed never to refer to the meeting as a “square-table” discussion.
3. I’ll invite a sufficient number of local office-holders and health officials to fill all seats at the table. This will give the appearance of harmonious teamwork. It will also discourage Sen. Marco Rubio from showing up to steal the spotlight, because there won’t be any more chairs.
4. I will begin each round table discussion by thanking everybody there for all their hard work in the battle against Zika. They, in turn, will thank me.
5. Next I will talk briefly about the latest outbreak, where it occurred, and what actions are being taken to eliminate mosquitoes that are spreading the virus. Using Power Point, I’ll present a shaded-in street map meant to imply that the insects aren’t leaving that particular area, even though they can fly basically anywhere why want.
15/ Mary and I have just watched "Stranger Things" on Netflix, and folks - it is one of the best series we have ever watched - the eight episode series has got everything, but most of all it's depiction of kids and young adult's lives in the [unspoiled] 80's in small town Merika.......wonderful. Eight great episodes.....
This piece in Salon about the series contains spoilers.....but watch it people......excellent TV....
“Stranger Things” is hotter than Kayne’s Twitter feed right now and Netflix just announced that a second season is on its way. A trailer recently posted online reveals that when 2017 arrives, fans pining for more ’80s pop culture references will be returning to Hawkins, Indiana, in the fall of 1984 as the town faces the aftermath of its first contact with the alternate universe known as “the Upside Down” and the predatory “Demogorgons” that dwell therein. [Note: Spoilers ahead.]
Right now most reviews and discussions about “Stranger Things” focus on its aesthetics: how the Duffer brothers crafted such an eloquent piece of pastiche that takes the best elements of 1980s pop culture and reassembles them into something fresh and entertaining.
"Stranger Things" trailer.....
16/ Rolling Stone's list of upcoming movies this fall, with trailers....some good ones a'coming!
It's fall, the season when summer blockbusters and idiot comedies give way to movies that actually might be — wait for it — good enough to grab awards. Even the epics, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, lace escapism with smarts. It's a time when a remake of The Magnificent Seven might potentially equal its predecessor, and a bestselling mystery thriller, The Girl On the Train, can get us all on board for the film version.
But fall is mostly about Oscars and how to win them. Will The Birth of a Nation, about a slave rebellion, put an end to last year's wallow in #OscarsSoWhite? Will Manchester By the Sea, about inconsolable grief, remind us of the power of indie cinema to make us feel something again? There are over a 100 fall movies vying for our attention this autumn. Here's a guide to 20 that should be on your radar over the next few months
Todays video - an Audi R8 [600 hp] vs two superbikes on a Spanish[?] Interstate.....complete with audio and scared passengers......note the driver of the Audi is using the thumb shifts on the steering wheel.....
Todays parenting joke
As a woman passed her daughter's closed bedroom
door, she heard a strange buzzing noise coming from within. Opening the door, she observed her daughter with a vibrator.
door, she heard a strange buzzing noise coming from within. Opening the door, she observed her daughter with a vibrator.
Shocked, she asked: 'what in the world are you doing?'
The daughter replied: 'mom, I'm thirty-five years
Old, unmarried, and this thing is about as close as
I'll ever get to a husband. Please, go away and leave me alone.'
Old, unmarried, and this thing is about as close as
I'll ever get to a husband. Please, go away and leave me alone.'
The next day, the girl's father heard the same buzz
coming from the other side of the closed bedroom
door. Upon entering the room, he observed his
daughter making passionate love to her vibrator.
coming from the other side of the closed bedroom
door. Upon entering the room, he observed his
daughter making passionate love to her vibrator.
To his query as to what she was doing, the daughter said:
'Dad I'm thirty-five, unmarried, and this thing is about as close as I'll ever get to a
husband. Please, go away and leave me alone .'
husband. Please, go away and leave me alone .'
A couple days later, the wife came home from a shopping trip, placed the groceries on the kitchen counter, and heard that buzzing noise coming from, of all places, the living room. She entered that area and observed her husband sitting on the couch,
downing a cold beer, and staring at the TV.
downing a cold beer, and staring at the TV.
The vibrator was next to him on the couch, buzzing like crazy.
The wife asked: 'What the f@!* are you doing?'
The husband replied: 'I'm watching football with my son-in-law.'
Todays 22 truly awful puns.....
Todays Cliven Bundy joke
The Arrogance of Authority
A DEA officer stopped at a ranch in Texas , and
A DEA officer stopped at a ranch in Texas , and
talked with an old rancher.
He told the rancher, "I need to inspect your ranch
for illegally grown drugs."
The rancher said, "Okay, but don't go in that field
over there.....", as he pointed out a distant location.
The DEA officer verbally exploded, saying, " Mister,
The DEA officer verbally exploded, saying, " Mister,
I have the authority of the Federal Government with me!"
Reaching into his rear pants pocket, he removed his badge
and proudly displayed it to the rancher.
"See this badge?! This badge means I am allowed to go
wherever I wish.... on ANY land!! No questions asked
or answers given!! Have I made myself clear...... do you understand???"
The rancher nodded politely, apologized, and went about his chores.
A short time later, the old rancher heard loud screams, looked up
The rancher nodded politely, apologized, and went about his chores.
A short time later, the old rancher heard loud screams, looked up
and saw the DEA officer running for his life, being chased by
the rancher's enormous Santa Gertrudis bull......
With every step the bull was gaining ground on the officer,
and it seemed likely that the officer would be gruesomely gored
before he reached safety.
The man was clearly terrified.
The rancher threw down his tools, ran to the fence and
yelled at the top of his lungs.....
"Your badge........
show him your BADGE!!"
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