1/ Matt Taibbi on LIBOR.....before your eyes glaze over, read this article - it's important and shows yet again how the big banks have rigged the financial system....
It was easy to miss, with the impending end of civilization burning up the headlines, but a beyond-belief financial story recently crept into public view.
A Bloomberg headline on the story was a notable achievement in the history of understatement. It read:
LIBOR'S UNCERTAIN FUTURE TRIGGERS $350 TRILLION SUCCESSION HEADACHE
LIBOR'S UNCERTAIN FUTURE TRIGGERS $350 TRILLION SUCCESSION HEADACHE
The casual news reader will see the term "LIBOR" and assume this is just a postgame wrapup to the LIBOR scandal of a few years back, in which may of the world's biggest banks were caught manipulating interest rates.
It isn't. This is a new story, featuring twin bombshells from a leading British regulator – one about our past, the other our future. To wit - Going back twenty years or more, the framework for hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of financial transactions has been fictional.
2/ Bill Hader from SNL as "The Mooch".....a really, really good three minutes........
Bill Hader has impersonated former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci
“Saturday Night Live” may have found its Mooch.
Appearing on the summer edition of the show’s “Weekend Update” segment, “SNL” alum Bill Hader took on the role of Anthony Scaramucci, who is summoned “like a goomba Beetlejuice.”
“You know how you miss me. I’m like human cocaine,” he declared. ”You gotta little bump of me, I made you feel excited, but I was out of your system too quick. And now that I’m gone you’re all depressed and edgy, and you’re trying to figure out how to score some more Scaramucci.”
3/ Andrew Sullivan with this week's column......his lead is Trump and the nuclear threat, but he also has a very interesting take on the Google employee who was fired for a memo on diversity.....excellent insights, and I agree with him....
And then, in an instant, he ended America’s nuclear deterrence.
Isn’t that what happened this week? The president of the United States laid down an ultimatum that if the North Korean dictator issued any more threats to the U.S., there would be a response more ferocious than any military action in human history — i.e., presumably worse than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Within hours, Kim Jong-un issued a threat to Guam. And nothing has happened … or, we are told, will happen. (Friday morning, Trump came back with more bluster, this time warning that “military solutions are in place” should North Korea act “unwisely.”)
This was a nuclear threat that was exposed as a bluff on the same day it was made. Imagine what Reagan would say about that. Or Truman. Or Eisenhower. Or Nixon. Or Kennedy. For when a superpower makes such a threat and doesn’t follow through, its nuclear credibility — the cornerstone of our deterrence — is damaged well below the waterline. That credibility — sustained by successive presidents of both parties, for decades — is integral to our national security and to global stability and peace.
4/ Stephen Colbert with three minutes on Trump and the nukes.....amusing, especially his last joke!
Last night, “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert said he “does not want the Earth to blow up,” which is relatable. He also said that he’s getting nervous that it will due to the increasingly high tensions between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. This is also relatable.
Colbert argued that a “firm response” may be necessary but that Trump’s recent “fire and fury” comments won’t help matters.
“I get it, I totally get it you know I understand wanting to say that, but this is like a hostage situation, okay?” Colbert said. He added that if you’re in a hostage negotiation you don’t start with “go ahead, kill everybody, I’ll kill them dead-er, then who wins?”
5/ Paul Krugman with a powerful column on Republican climate deniers, and why this belief is so pervasive.....it's the tribal herd instinct that won't let them change their minds....
“It’s Not Your Imagination: Summers Are Getting Hotter.” So read a recent headline in The Times, highlighting a decade-by-decade statistical analysis by climate expert James Hansen. “Most summers,” the analysis concluded, “are now either hot or extremely hot compared with the mid-20th century.”
So what else is new? At this point the evidence for human-caused global warming just keeps getting more overwhelming, and the plausible scenariosfor the future — extreme weather events, rising sea levels, drought, and more — just keep getting scarier.
In a rational world urgent action to limit climate change would be the overwhelming policy priority for governments everywhere.
But the U.S. government is, of course, now controlled by a party within which climate denial — rejecting not just scientific evidence but also obvious lived experience, and fiercely opposing any effort to slow the trend — has become a defining marker of tribal identity.
6/ The Trump brothers on "Summer Weekend Update".....four very, very funny minutes.....
They’re back!
The “Saturday Night Live” version of the Trump brothers paid a visit to “Weekend Update: Summer Edition” to praise President Donald Trump and talk about the latest in the Russia investigation.
Watch as Eric Trump, played by Alex Moffatt, struggles to understand the difference between “some peanuts” and a “subpoena.” Meanwhile, Mikey Day’s Donald Trump Jr. tosses around the term “nothing burger,” which he calls “a cool new phrase everyone’s saying.”
Then he compares the whole investigation to an episode of “To Catch A Predator.”
7/ Next up for the Republicans is tax "reform" [tax cuts for the rich], but as Jonathan Chait writes it's doomed to fail, just like repealing Obamacare.....
It is slowly, very slowly, dawning on the majority party that its plan to pass a comprehensive reform of the tax code with only Republican votes is doomed to fail. The problem, which the GOP may or may not currently realize, is that a bill can be tax reform, or it can be passed exclusively with Republican votes. But it can’t be both.
Tax reform means broadening the tax base — by taxing income that is currently untaxed, through deductions — and reducing the rates. Broadening the base is politically hard. Every current tax deduction has beneficiaries and defenders.
Tax reform can work politically, the classic example being the 1986 Tax Reform Act. But that law was created with bipartisan support. Bipartisanship is a crucial element. It meant that every member of Congress could potentially support the bill, which meant no member had walk-away power.
Mitch McConnell wants to pass his plan through the Senate with 50 Republican votes, because Democrats oppose any plan that creates a net tax cut for the rich, and cutting taxes for the rich is McConnell’s overriding policy goal. His strategy reduces the universe of possible votes to the 52 Republican senators. You can see the problem this creates: Just like with health care, three defections kill any bill.
8/ Sam Bee on how Steve Bannon came to power.....interesting piece of comedic reporting, and also very amusing indeed....six good minutes.....
Usually late-night comedians ironically read books so that their audiences don’t have to. But on Wednesday, Samantha Bee reviewed one of the more important books about the 2016 election.
For her book club, “Ladies Who Book,” Bee took a deep dive into Joshua Green’s “Devil’s Bargain,” an account of presidential advisor Steve Bannon’s dirty, dirty path to the White House.
“Steve has been out of public view lately,” Bee said during one of her monologues Wednesday, “which makes sense because if I could suck my own cock I probably would never leave my bedroom either. But since I can’t, I spend my time reading.”
Bee explained that much of “Devil’s Bargain” traces Bannon’s affiliation with the alt-right to his involvement with a Hong-Kong-based internet gaming company that earned gold in the popular game “World of Warcraft” and sold it to players for real money.
Bannon soon learned, as Green shows, that there were a lot of angry white gamers out there who had “monster power” online — so much power, in fact, that they ruined his gaming company amidst a barrage of anti-Asian hatespeak.
“Unleashing monsters? That never goes wrong,” Bee joked.
9/ At last climate scientists are fighting back against the fossil fuel deniers, as this vital report was leaked to the Times because they feared the Trump Administration and Pruitt at the EPA would suppress the report....
10/ Oh Lordy - another video showing how dumb Americans are.....Jimmy Kimmel sent a crew to see if people knew where North Korea was.....four minutes of cringing from the ignorance........
Despite the fact that North Korea dominated headlines late Tuesday night, Jimmy Kimmel's amateur polling on Hollywood Boulevard yielded an embarrassing result: the average American has no idea where the Asian country is on a map.
"North Korea is the bigly story of the day, if not the year," the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host said to introduce the cringe-inducing clip. “But what I wonder is, how many Americans even know where North Korea is … and this is what we learned."
In the four-minute segment, Kimmel's crew asked various people on Hollywood Boulevard whether they thought the United States should take military action if North Korea becomes a real threat to its safety. Most said yes. Then, those same individuals were asked to locate North Korea on a map.
11/ Time for another look at this incredibly powerful music video - in our opinion one of the best of the decade.....Disturbed, with "The Sound Of Silence"....
12/ The only thing that kept the heat in the Pacific Northwest from setting new records was the smoke from the wildfires in British Columbia.....scary stuff....
Reuters / Ben Nelms
It’s feeling a little apocalypse-y in the Pacific Northwest this week.
With excessive heat warnings and temperatures reaching the triple digits from northern California through Washington state (places where air conditioning is far from a given), it’s a bit hard to fathom that this week should have been even hotter.
All-time records could have been set up and down the coast, if it hadn’t been for the thick smoke streaming down from more than 100 massive forest fires in British Columbia, about 500 miles north.
You heard that right — the smoke in places like Portland, Seattle, and Vancouverwas so thick it changed the weather. At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, smoke even kept flights from taking off. (From the air, you couldn’t even see the ground.) In Seattle on Thursday, the air quality was worse than in Beijing.
Welcome to climate change, 2017 edition.
13/ Excellent column from Fred Grimm in the Miami Herald, on the continuing denial of climate change driven sea level rise in South Florida by our Governor and Republican legislature......if they acknowledge it's happening that would have to do something, so they just deny, deny, deny when everyone not in the base Republican 30% knows it's clear and obvious Florida is in deep s*it.........
In this July 22, 2017, photo, Canadian Coast Guard Capt. Victor Gronmyr looks out over the ice covering the Victoria Strait as the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica traverses the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Nordica has set a new record for the earliest transit of the fabled Northwest Passage. The once-forbidding route through the Arctic, linking the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, has been opening up sooner and for a longer period each summer due to climate change
Denial begins to look like psychosis.
Just in the past week, a cascade of new findings and climate anomalies have added to the scientific consensus that we’re cooked. Miami in particular.
We’re seeing wildfires in Greenland, for heaven’s sake. Famously soggy Seattle has just gone through a record 54 consecutive days (and counting) without rain.
On Thursday, Arctic explorer Pen Hadow left Nome, Alaska, in a 50-foot sailboat intent on something unfathomable before the onset of global warming. He and his crew intend to sail through the melting ice pack to the very North Pole. “If we can produce a visual image of a sail boat at 90 degrees north I think that could become an iconic image of the challenge that the twenty-first century faces,” Hadow wrote in his blog.
14/ An interesting story [mostly for ladies] on how to protect yourself from predators......there is a three minute video and a written story.....good tips in both....
It can take a seasoned criminal less than seven seconds to size you up. To decide whether you would be easy to rob, assault, kidnap, or whatever else is on his mind. Count to seven now: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
In the time from when you started counting to when you finished, a predator would have given you the once-over and decided whether he was moving forward to attack or whether he would be looking at the person walking behind you as his potential target. Yup, that’s how quick it is.
His two biggest fears are getting hurt and getting caught. This knowledge empowers you in case you are picked. Fight back and cause a scene. The predator wants to commit the perfect crime and, in those few seconds, he assesses whether he runs an increased risk of getting hurt or caught by choosing you.
Todays ED joke.....
On his 70th birthday, a man was given a gift certificate from his wife. The certificate was for consultation with an Indian medicine man living on a nearby reservation who was rumored to have a simple cure for erectile dysfunction. The husband went to the reservation and saw the medicine man.
The old Indian gave him a potion and, with a grip on his shoulder, warned This is a powerful medicine. You take only a teaspoonful, and then say: 1,2,3. When you do you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life, and you can perform for as long as you want.
The man thanked the old Indian, and as he walked away, he turned and asked: How do I stop the medicine from working? The old man responded, Your partner must say 1,2,3,4, but when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon.
He was very eager to see if it worked, so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom. When she came in, he took off his clothes and said 1,2,3! Immediately, he was the manliest of men. His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes, and asked: What was the 1,2,3 for?
And that, folks, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle.
The old Indian gave him a potion and, with a grip on his shoulder, warned This is a powerful medicine. You take only a teaspoonful, and then say: 1,2,3. When you do you will become more manly than you have ever been in your life, and you can perform for as long as you want.
The man thanked the old Indian, and as he walked away, he turned and asked: How do I stop the medicine from working? The old man responded, Your partner must say 1,2,3,4, but when she does, the medicine will not work again until the next full moon.
He was very eager to see if it worked, so he went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited his wife to join him in the bedroom. When she came in, he took off his clothes and said 1,2,3! Immediately, he was the manliest of men. His wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes, and asked: What was the 1,2,3 for?
And that, folks, is why we should never end our sentences with a preposition, because we could end up with a dangling participle.
Todays marriage joke
Three friends married women from different parts of the country.
The first man married a woman from the Alabama. He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning.
It took a couple of days, but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away.
The second man married a woman from California.
He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking.
The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there was a huge dinner on the table.
The third man married a girl from New York.
He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot meals on the table for every meal.
He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything but by the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher.
He still has some difficulty when he pees.
Todays Rodney Dangerfield jokes
My wife only has sex with me for a purpose. Last night she used me to time an egg.
Last night my wife met me at the front door. She was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble was, she was coming home.
A girl phoned me and said, 'Come on over. There's nobody home.' I went over. Nobody was home!
A hooker once told me she had a headache.
If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all.
I was making love to this girl and she started crying I said, 'Are you going to hate yourself in the morning?' She said, 'No, I hate myself now.'
I knew a girl so ugly... they use her in prisons to cure sex offenders.
I'm so ugly I stuck my head out the window and got arrested for mooning.
The other day I came home and a guy was jogging, naked. I asked him, 'Why?' He said, 'Because you came home early.'
My wife likes to talk to me during sex; last night she called me from a hotel.
My family was so poor that if I hadn't been born a boy, I wouldn't have had anything to play with.
I was such an ugly kid! ...When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept covering me up.
I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and radio.
Last night my wife met me at the front door. She was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble was, she was coming home.
A girl phoned me and said, 'Come on over. There's nobody home.' I went over. Nobody was home!
A hooker once told me she had a headache.
If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all.
I was making love to this girl and she started crying I said, 'Are you going to hate yourself in the morning?' She said, 'No, I hate myself now.'
I knew a girl so ugly... they use her in prisons to cure sex offenders.
I'm so ugly I stuck my head out the window and got arrested for mooning.
The other day I came home and a guy was jogging, naked. I asked him, 'Why?' He said, 'Because you came home early.'
My wife likes to talk to me during sex; last night she called me from a hotel.
My family was so poor that if I hadn't been born a boy, I wouldn't have had anything to play with.
I was such an ugly kid! ...When I played in the sandbox, the cat kept covering me up.
I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and radio.
I was such an ugly baby that my mother never breast fed me. She told me that she only liked me as a friend.
I'm so ugly my father carried around a picture of the kid who came with his wallet.
When I was born, the doctor came into the waiting room and said to my father, "I'm sorry. We did everything we could, but he pulled through anyway."
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