1/ The Brits have the same climate change deniers as we do, but one of the Murdoch papers cracked last week and admitted climate change was the cause of the record planetary heatwave...this story from the Guardian wonders if the facade of denial is fading in the UK....
It’s not always easy to recognise a historical tipping point when you see one, but I believe I spotted one when I walked into my local newsagent last Wednesday and saw the front page of the Sun. Over a map of the world which was coloured bright scarlet, the splash headline screamed: “THE WORLD’S ON FIRE”.
Britain’s biggest-selling daily newspaper was not mincing its words. The subheading on the left-hand side proclaimed “PLANET GRIPPED BY KILLER HEATWAVE”, while the right-hand one announced: “HUNDREDS DIE IN EUROPE AND JAPAN”. And if you were wondering what the cause of all this might be, the accompanying news report carried a quote – just the one – from Len Shaffrey, professor of climate science at Reading University, who said: “Global temperatures are increasing due to climate change. The global rise in temperatures means the probability that an extreme heatwave will occur is also increasing.”
2/ Stephen Colbert with a great five minutes.....one of his better ones!
On Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert blasted President Donald Trumpover his “tweetnado” that took aim at the ongoing Mueller probe.
Colbert began by mocking Trump’s “smocking gun” tweet that was promptly deleted.
“‘Yes, we have found the smocking gun,” Colbert impersonated the president. “It was not the Trump champagne that was collaging with Russia, Crocket Hillary is the one guilty of that contusion.'”
3/ A painfully amusing ad for Australian Tourism.....1 1/2 minutes....
In Australia, it took one mass shooting in Port Arthur in 1996, where 35 people were killed, for the country to do something concrete about gun reform. The government adopted tighter gun control, banned semiautomatic weapons and started a mandatory gun buyback program.
The United States, meanwhile, has an average of nine mass shootings every 10 days, and 13,000 gun homicides a year. Gun violence is so rampant that China has warned its citizens about traveling here.
So if you’re interested in not getting shot to death and adorable koalas,
Australia might be the place for you.
4/ America as a pre-fascist state - a provocative and chilling article from Richard North Patterson as he describes the Trump era......an excellent read....
Given its terrible history, the term “fascist” is too often carelessly invoked. But fascism does not presuppose a holocaust. For Americans, the singular presidency of Donald Trump impels a measured consideration of what fascism truly is ― and how it grows. For fascism does not supplant democracy overnight. Rather it advances step-by-step, nourished by denial and disbelief, until it overruns the safeguards protecting decency and freedom.
Is Trump an agent of incipient fascism? Start with its historic cradle ― Europe in the 1920s and ’30s.
5/ John Oliver on the Michael Cohen case.....
HBO
After nearly a month off, John Oliver returned to the Last Week Tonight deskon Sunday night. And the Emmy-nominated comedian had quite a bit to catch his audience up on with “Stupid Watergate,” the Brit’s nickname for the ongoing Trump-Russia scandal.
“This week, it seemed like investigators started closing in on the Trump team—and not just metaphorically,” Oliver quipped, before throwing to an image of Donald Trump Jr. and Robert Mueller waiting for a flight at Reagan National Airport just outside Washington, D.C.
But then, on a more serious note, the funnyman addressed the “series of potentially damaging revelations this week courtesy of the president’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, whose very face now permanently asks the question: Is this the day I go to jail?”
6/ Really interesting article from the Times on the regions of America and how they voted in 2016.....he breaks down the 11 nations that compose the USA with their different cultures. Fascinating.....
North America at the time of the Declaration of Independence
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the most significant and abiding divide in American politics isn’t between city and countryside, but rather among regional cultures. Rural and urban places certainly have distinct interests and priorities, but in our awkward federation their differences have taken a back seat to the broader struggle between our constituent regions.
Sectionalism isn’t, and never has been, as simple as North versus South or an effete and domineering East against a rugged, freedom-minded West. Rather, our true regional fissures can be traced back to the contrasting ideals of the distinct European colonial cultures that first took root on the eastern and southern rims of what is now the United States, and then spread across much of the continent in mutually exclusive settlement bands, laying down the institutions, symbols and cultural norms later arrivals would encounter and, by and large, assimilate into.
Understanding this is essential to comprehending our political reality or
developing strategies to change it — especially as we approach a momentously
consequential midterm election.
7/ Trevor Noah evicerates the possible next Speaker of the House, Republican and sexual abuse enabler Jim Jordan....excellent reporting .....five minutes....
On Wednesday night, Trevor Noah weighed in on the recent allegations made against Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH).
Last month, Jordan was accused by several former Ohio State wrestlers of turning a blind eye on the sexual abuse committed by the team’s doctor while he served as assistant coach decades ago, something he has vehemently denied.
Noah began by mocking Jordan for wanting to impeach Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, insisting it was all because he “owned” the congressman during a hearing in late June when rebuking Jordan’s accusation that he threatened to “subpoena phone calls.”
8/ Have you heard of QAnon? They are now officially "out", and of course supporting Trump.....
Among the standard “Women For Trump,” “Blacks For Trump” and “Promises Made, Promises Kept” signs, the video shows a few others. They featured the letter “Q,” a reference to QAnon, a conspiracy theory gaining traction among some of Trump’s most ardent supporters. In a nutshell, followers of QAnon fashion themselves as detectives, or “bakers,” who try to make sense out of vague bits of information, or “bread crumbs,” left for them on the Internet by “Q,” a mysterious figure purporting to be a government official with high-level clearance. The clues left by “Q” have led his disciples to believe that Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation is a cover, and Mueller is actually working in tandem with Trump to take down a murderous cabal of liberal elites that includes everyone from Tom Hanks to Barack Obama. QAnon believes these elites have been running an elaborate child sex ring for years, and that there is a “storm” coming in which Trump will throw all of these pedophiles in jail once and for all. As NBC News reporter Ben Collins described it on Tuesday, QAnon is like “Pizzagate on bath salts.”
9/ Jimmy Kimmel with a funny two minute skit on Trump's spelling ability.....
Sure, it’s disappointing to realize the President of the United States can’t spell. And sure, it can be disheartening to realize the tweets the leader of the free world fires off on an almost daily basis undergo less proofreading than even this very post on this very entertainment website. But hey, there’s no reason why the end of absolutely everything that matters can’t be a little bit fun. Jimmy Kimmel Livecontributed to that cause by unveiling a new board game concept on Wednesday night: Scrabull. It’s like Scrabble, but the words are just things the president made up. Also, spell-checks are witch hunts, it’s possible to score “the most points in the history of points,” oh, and there’s even a travel version, for tiny hands.
10/ And this is what QAnon does effectively - smear people with the worst possible label - pedophile...
11/ Sacha Baron Cohen [remember Borat?] has a show "Who Is America" where he fools right wingers.....here he punks Roy Moore of Alabama with a pedophile detector.....clever, four minutes....
When former GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore sat down for an interview with a man who claimed to be a technology expert from Israel, he clearly had no idea he was actually talking to comedian Sacha Baron Cohen for the Showtime program, “Who Is America?”
After all, Moore said he was “honored” to meet Cohen, who was disguised as anti-terror expert Gen. Erran Morad.
12/ How Big Ag is destroying farmers all across the country, and in this story NBC News looks at dairy farms.....all we can do is support your local farmers market....
SMITHFIELD, Ky. — All Curtis Coombs wanted was to raise cows and run his family’s dairy farm in this slice of Kentucky hill country, less than 35 miles from Louisville. But a few weeks ago, he was forced to sell his milking herd of 82 cows, putting an end to his family’s nearly 70-year dairy business.
On a rain-drenched Monday, Coombs, his father and his uncle struggled to shove their last 13 cows into a trailer destined for auction and slaughter. As the earthy smell of manure filled the air, the men yelled for the Holsteins to move and urged them forward with the whack of a plastic stick.
The animals mooed their dissent but finally boarded the trailer. Coombs, 30, flung aside his stick and stormed a few yards away, breathing heavily. His family members wiped their brows and looked at Curtis and then the cows, which were sold for their meat at half their worth.
“It’s just hard to believe it’s over,” Coombs said later, choking up. “As long as you was milking cows, you always thought there was a hope you'd get back to it. At this point, even if there's a Hail Mary pass, we're done.”
Coombs is one of more than 100 dairy farmers across seven states who learned in March that they would lose their contract with Dean Foods, which runs a milk processing plant in Louisville that mainly served Walmart.
13/ Melania posed for a gardening picture, and the twitterverse had a lot of fun with it.....hilarious....about 9 memes....
This meme of Melania Trump poking around the White House garden has been 10 months in the making. But it’s well worth the wait.
For reasons unknown, a September 2017 snap of the first lady supposedly planting and harvesting vegetables with children from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America went viral all over again this week.
14/ Sam Bee with her opener from Wednesday night....a great five minutes.....she's on form for this one.....
In this week's roundup of headlines that barely register as language, Sam looks into Q Anon, printable guns, and Les Moonves.
15/ Rolling Stone with August's TV recommendations....
What to expect for August, streaming-wise: Netflix is pulling back the curtain on some major releases, including the latest cartoon from Simpsons mastermind Matt Groening and a half-hour comedy that’s already attracted controversy weeks ahead of its premiere; Amazon makes a bid for a blockbuster series with the launch of John Krasinski as stubble-faced man-of-action Jack Ryan; and Hulu puts their stamp on one of the year’s most socially resonant documentaries. Boom! Here’s your click-and-watch TV guide for the month.
Todays drunk joke....
Todays Alzheimers joke
CHECK FOR ALZHEIMER'S - PRETTY AMAZINGThe following was developed as a mental age assessment by theSchool of Psychiatry at Harvard University . Take your time and see ifyou can read each line aloud without a mistake.The average person over 60 years of age cannot do it!1. This is this cat.2. This is is cat.3. This is how cat.4. This is to cat.5. This is keep cat.6. This is an cat.7. This is old cat.8. This is fart cat.9. This is busy cat.10. This is for cat.11. This is forty cat.12. This is seconds cat.Now go back and read the third word in each line from the top downand I bet you can't resist passing it on.........
Todays missionary joke
Teaching English:A Priest was about to finish his tour of duty, and was leaving his Mission in the jungle where he has spent years teaching the natives when he realizes that the one thing he never taught them was how to speak English. ...
So he takes the chief for a walk in the forest.
He points to a tree and says to the chief, "This is a tree."
The chief looks at the tree and grunts, "Tree."
The Priest is pleased with the response.They walk a little further and he points to a rock and says, "This is a rock."
Hearing this, the chief looks and grunts, "Rock."
The Priest was really getting enthusiastic about the results when he
hears a rustling in the bushes. As they peek over the top, he sees a couple of natives in the midst of heavy sexual activity.
The Priest is really flustered and quickly responds, "Man riding a bike."
The chief looks at the couple briefly, pulls out his blowgun and kills them both...
The Priest goes ballistic and yells at the chief that he has spent years
teaching the tribe how to be civilized and be kind to each other, so how
could he kill these people in cold blood that way?
The chief replied,
"My bike."
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