1/ Most interesting Andrew Sullivan article about Trump's decisions to pull out of Afghanistan and Syria....his premise is that the deep state must have wars, so all of the elites and establishment politicians want these wars to continue so the size of the military is justifies and "the boys" make tons of money....
Not that this is a good decision by Trump for any logical reasons....
A U.S. Army convoy in northern Syria. Photo: Sebastian Backhaus/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The question before us is a relatively simple one: What would be the criteria for removing our remaining troops from the Iraqi, Syrian, and more general Middle Eastern conflicts? Or, for that matter, from Afghanistan, where we have been trapped for more than 17 long years of still open-ended occupation?
If the answer to that question is that only when each of these countries is a healthy pro-American democracy, and Islamist terrorism has ceased to be an “enduring” threat to the West, then the answer, as the old Bob Mankoff joke has it, is “How about never — is never good for you?”
http://nymag.com/
2/ Matt Taibbi on the same subject.....excellent perspective.....this is a more passionate article on our endless wars...
We Know How Trump’s War Game Ends
Nothing unites our political class like the threat of ending our never-ending war
So we’re withdrawing troops from the Middle East.
GOOD! What’s the War on Terror death count by now, a half-million? How much have we spent, $5 trillion? Five-and-a-half?
For that cost, we’ve destabilized the region to the point of abject chaos, inspired millions of Muslims to hate us, and torn up the Geneva Convention and half the Constitution in pursuit of policies like torture, kidnapping, assassination-by-robot and warrantless detention.
It will be difficult for each of us to even begin to part with our share of honor in those achievements. This must be why all those talking heads on TV are going crazy.
Unless Donald Trump decides to reverse his decision to begin withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, cable news for the next few weeks is going to be one long Scanners marathon of exploding heads.
“Today’s decision would cheer Moscow, ISIS, and Iran!” yelped Nicole Wallace, former George W. Bush communications director.
3/ Wonderful performance from Adam Lambert at an awards show honouring Cher......he sings "Believe", moves Cher to tears and get a standing ovation.....
A great singer....
4/ This is a letter to the Editor of the Times, under the heading of "Small Town America is Dying - How Can We Save It?"
Wow....
I’m from Appalachia, where getting into the working class was an aspiration. I was raised “up the holler” and know the culture intimately. You have no idea of the amount of anger, self-righteousness, bigotry and willful ignorance you’re dealing with. I have seen a blighted small town use a corrupt sheriff and judge to run off a business owned by a black man. I have been present when an entire community looked the other way when a gay couple was burned out of their home.
They support Trump and the reason is simple: He acts just like they would if they had money. There is no saving this culture, nor should you want to save it. The people who could have revitalized it have either left for better opportunities or been run off. It’s a breeding ground for hatred and despair, dying with a Bible in one arm and a heroin needle in the other. Let it die. — Peregrinus, Erehwon
5/ SNL's Oscar host auditions....a funny three minutes....
6/ An insightful article by David Wallace-Wells on the wisdom of having children in a world that will be radically different due to climate change....
he has a seven year old, so it's personal....
A family sits along the shore of Lake Elsinore as they watch the Holy Fire burn in the distance, in Lake Elsinore, Calif. More than a thousand firefighters battled to keep a raging Southern California forest fire from reaching foothill neighborhoods.Photo: Patrick Record/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Earlier this month during Art Basel Miami Beach, at a cocktail party held just inches above Biscayne Bay, an art collector was describing the ordeal of his year of house hunting. He was one half of a well-off, middle-aged gay couple raising two children and hoping to find a place calmer than New York for their kids’ adolescence and their own semi-retirement. Their first choice, he said, was Montecito, the richest part of Santa Barbara County, but then the broker who’d been helping them there died in last December’s mudslides. They decided they couldn’t go back. They looked at a few houses in Malibu — “but they all burned down.” In the end, they chose Miami. “You know climate change is coming for South Florida, too, right?” someone asked. “At least it’ll be slow,” the collector replied, clearly having thought about it. With a hurricane, you get at least a few days’ warning, he said, and with sea-level rise, years. “Then, it’ll just be like Venice.”
7/ Bad Lip Reading does Major League Baseball.....three wryly amusing minutes....
8/ Matt Taibbi on a scandal involving Goldman Sachs you have probably never heard of.....but it could be serious for the vulture bank.....
Naaaaah.....nothing will happen, "the boys" will see to that....
Goldman Sachs, which has survived and thrived despite countless scandals over the years, may have finally stepped in a pile of trouble too deep to escape.
There’s even a Donald Trump angle to this latest great financial mess, but the outlines of that subplot – in a case that has countless – remains vague. The bank itself is in the most immediate danger.
The company’s stock rallied Thursday to close at 165, stopping a five-day slide in which the firm lost almost 12 percent of its market value. The company is down 35 percent for the year, most of that coming in the past three months as Goldman has been battered by headlines about the infamous 1MDB scandal.
9/ Some say this is the funniest comedy sketch ever ....even now 50 years later it's still hysterically funny.....
Harvey Korman and the wonderful Tim Conway on the Carol Burnett show........
Note - this is the full length skit.....9 minutes of hilarity....
10/ And some millennials have a plan to stave off climate change - buy land in the mountains....
Climate Change Insurance: Buy Land Somewhere Else
In case global warming makes their homes uninhabitable, some millennials have a Plan B: investing in places like the Catskills, Oregon and Vermont.
11/ Tom Tomorrow on us, his readers....
12/ Jimmy Kimmel with "Lie Witness News"....it must be an LA thing, nobody can be this stupid....three minutes....
The intrepid reporters for “Lie Witness News” returned to the streets to find out what everyday Americans thought of the biggest events to definitely not happen in 2018 on Jimmy Kimmel LiveWednesday.
Perhaps because 2018 was so hectic, people were more than wiling to speak up on an array of outrageous non-events, whether it was scientists resurrecting the long-extinct saber-toothed tiger or the unfortunate passing of music legend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Elsewhere, a woman celebrated the shattering of another glass ceiling after being told the first woman astronaut had been sent to the sun this year, while a man offered his very woke take on the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize marriage between men and iPhones.
13/ Although there is zero chance I will ever read it, I have to say I found this story very interesting....a new version of the Bible....
One morning this fall, at his home high in the Berkeley hills, the literary critic and translator Robert Alter chatted with me about the dilemmas he faced while translating the Hebrew Bible. Alter, who is 83, sat on a sofa with a long-limbed, feline watchfulness. Behind him, a picture window looked out onto a blooming garden; now and then a hummingbird appeared over his left shoulder, punctuating his thoughts with winged flourishes. He occasionally cast a probing eye on his brand-new, complete translation of and commentary on the Hebrew Bible — from Genesis to Chronicles — which, at more than 3,000 pages, in three volumes, occupied most of an end table. Published this month, it represents the culmination of nearly two and a half decades of work.
Alter told me about his decision to reject one of the oldest traditions in English translation and remove the word “soul” from the text.
14/ "How The Trump Saved Christmas", a new book from Jimmy Kimmel....two amusing minutes....
It’s the spoof book that President Donald Trump would likely love all kids to have under their trees this festive season.
Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday joked that people weren’t fully appreciating Trump’s victory in the made-up “War on Christmas” ― so he unveiled a new book, titled How the Trump saved Christmas, to chronicle the triumph for years to come.
“If I’m powerful enough to stare at an eclipse, I can put ‘Merry Christmas’ on everyone’s lips,” read one page.
15/ We were just in Charleston for a wedding, love the city but there are still remnants of the old South alive and well in the elites who run the place.
Consider this story....
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Though the Charleston Rifle Club was founded in 1855 to promote good marksmanship, it is better known today for a more prosaic pastime, bowling. And though the sign out front, with its lion-flanked escutcheon and Gothic lettering, gives off a whiff of high society, the club’s membership spans classes, embracing socialites and police officers, lawyers and factory workers.
But it could find no place for Dr. W. Melvin Brown III.
On a Monday night in October, Dr. Brown, a respected emergency-room doctor and native Charlestonian, waited in a hallway of the private club with 13 other men who hoped to be voted in. One of the members who sponsored Dr. Brown’s application had introduced him at the club’s monthly meeting, emphasizing his good character, local roots and military service.
16/ Regular readers know how I feel about the American obsession with cholesterol and the consequent addiction to statins....
but this story is pretty interesting, gets the potential problems in perspective...
I used to be thrilled that my blood level of HDL cholesterol, the so-called good cholesterol, was high, the likely result of my devotion to daily physical activity. After all, HDL, for high-density lipoprotein, acts like an arterial cleanser, removing cholesterol from blood vessels and preparing it for removal outside the body.
An ample supply of HDL cholesterol in blood serum has long been linked to protection against coronary heart disease and stroke, so what could be bad?
I now know that, as with many other good things in life, there can be too much of this usually helpful protein. The best available evidence has shown that most of us would probably be best off aiming for moderation with regard to serum levels of HDL.
17/ Weezer makes some very cool and quite amusing videos....this is "Perfect Situation", great song too....
Todays Irish joke
A London lawyer runs a stop sign and gets pulled over by an Irish cop. He thinks that he is smarter than the cop because he is a lawyer from LONDON and is certain that he has a better education then any Irish cop. He decides to prove this to himself and have some fun at the Irish cop's expense!
Irish cop says,"License and registration, please."
London Lawyer says, "What for?"
Irish cop says,"Ye didnae come to a complete stop at the stop sign."
London Lawyer says, "I slowed down, and no one was coming."
Irish cop says,"Ye still didnae come to a complete stop. License and registration, please"
London Lawyer says, "What's the difference?"
Irish cop says, "The difference is, ye huvte come to complete stop, that's the law. License and registration,please!"
London Lawyer says, "If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I'll give you my license and registration and you give me the ticket. If not, you let me go and don't give me the ticket."
Irish cop says, "Sounds fair. Exit your vehicle, sir."
The London Lawyer exits his vehicle.
The Irish cop takes out his baton and starts beating the living s**t out of the lawyer and says, "Daeye want me to stop, or just slow down? "
Todays medical joke
Two medical students were walking along the street when they saw an old man
Walking with his legs spread apart. He was stiff-legged and walking slowly.One student said to his friend: "I'm sure that poor old man has Peltry Syndrome. Those people walk just like that."The other student says: "No, I don't think so. The old man surely has Zovitzki Syndrome. He walks slowly and his legs are apart, just as we learned in class."Since they couldn't agree they decided to ask the old man. They approached him And one of the students said to him, "We're medical students and couldn't help But notice the way you walk, but we couldn't agree on the syndrome you might have. Could you tell us what it is?"The old man said, "I'll tell you, but first you tell me what you two fine medical students think."The first student said, "I think it's Peltry Syndrome."The old man said, "You thought - but you are wrong."The other student said, "I think you have Zovitzki Syndrome."The old man said, "You thought - but you are wrong."So they asked him, "Well, old timer, what do you have?"The old man said, " Well, I thought it was GAS - but I was wrong, too!"
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