1/ Frank Rich on this weeks news.....excellent as always...
Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Most weeks, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich speaks with contributor Alex Carp about the biggest stories in politics and culture. Today, the threat of government shutdown following Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Democratic leaders, the president’s search for a new chief of staff, and thoughts on who should host the Oscars.
With funding for some federal agencies set to expire in less than two weeks, President Trump turned his Oval Office meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer into a reality-TV standoff over his border wall. Did their exchange increase or decrease the chance of a shutdown?
My profound hope is that Trump makes good on his threat and shuts down the government right before Christmas.
2/ Tracey Ullman is an excellent British comedian.....this two minute sketch is for millennials....
Comedian Tracey Ullman hosts a "support group" for people who are so "woke" that they are finding it impossible to have any fun at all.
(From her BBC program Tracey Breaks the News, the successor to Tracey Ullman'' Show.)
Birds flock over the River Thames as the sun sets behind Westminster Palace, where Parliament meets. The building, like Britain, is falling apart.
FIVE MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE...
3/ If you got all weepy over the funeral of George HW Bush, read this by Matt Taibbi, who has a special
knack of putting the famous firmly in their rightful place....
It’s become fashionable in some circles this week to denounce the newly buried George. H.W. Bush as a war criminal, but that seems gratuitous. After all, from a technical standpoint, what American president isn’t a war criminal? It’s probably a short list.
Thanks to the invasion(s) of Iraq, the bombing of civilians in places like Cambodia and Laos, Guantanamo Bay/torture, the overthrow of numerous democratically elected foreign regime, and support of repressive states like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, “war criminal” is kind of a weak accusation to throw at a commander-in-chief
We’ve had a few presidents that would have proudly tattooed the term on their pecs or had it emblazoned on their limo flags. In this sense, George H.W. “Poppy” Bush didn’t particularly stand out, compared to his son least of all.
4/ SNL's "Weekend Update".....four very good minutes....
5/ I hope the Democratic elites read this story and wake up to what is really happening to Republicans - they aren't playing by the rules any more,
the oligarchs want to keep their power and will do anything to hang on to it.
Excellent column from Paul Krugman.
Donald Trump, it turns out, may have been the best thing that could have happened to American democracy.
No, I haven’t lost my mind. Individual-1 is clearly a wannabe dictator who has contempt for the rule of law, not to mention being corrupt and probably in the pocket of foreign powers. But he’s also lazy, undisciplined, self-absorbed and inept. And since the threat to democracy is much broader and deeper than one man, we’re actually fortunate that the forces menacing America have such a ludicrous person as their public face.
Yet those forces may prevail all the same.
6/ Randy Rainbow with a funny take on "Trump's Favourite Things".....he's also got a great voice! Four minutes....
Randy Rainbow pays tribute to a few of President Donald Trump’s favorite things in his new parody video.
The YouTube comedian reworked the iconic “My Favorite Things” show tune from “The Sound Of Music” musical in the spoof clip he shared online Wednesday.
7/ Brexit - even though it's not clear on this side of the Atlantic what's going on in Britain, it certainly seems chaotic.
And according to this essay from the Times, it is!
LONDON — I wonder if this is what the Black Death was like. People wandering around with donkeys, crying, “Bring out your dead!” and painting crosses on walls, which was, I guess, like a medieval Twitter. #AllHopeIsLost.
Everyone I know is either a Brexit Denier — “It’s not happening,” they say. “We’ll have a People’s Vote! Another referendum! We’ll win this time!” — or a Brexit Apocalypticist — “It’s happening. We are doomed. Hold my hand and run toward the blast.” The only people who are hopeful are the far-right supporters of a “hard Brexit” who marched through the streets of London on Sunday protesting Prime Minister Theresa May’s “betrayal” and carrying her effigy. They didn’t hang it. Presumably, that can wait
8/ SNL with "What if Trump Were Black?" Two decent minutes....
Kenan Thompson plays Darius Trump in a sketch for "Saturday Night Live."
In a hilarious take on the show Empire, on Saturday Night Live this weekend the show re-imagined the Trump Presidency with Kenan Thompson in the golden hair.
For millions of young Americans who grew up knowing only a black president, Donald Trump‘s tenure has been a mystifying parade of largely consequence-free scandal. But this sketch took steps to remedy that disconnect by presenting a version of reality in which Trump is a black president mired in scandal.
“Them Trumps” tells the story of Darius Trump, who grouses in the Oval Office with family members like First Lady Malika Trump and their children, Darius Jr and L’evanka. For some reason, Eric Trump is still Eric, and still white. I guess some degrees of whiteness transcend satire.
9/ Another criminal in Trump's Cabinet - Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary who is trying to rig the census...
Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, is a liar. And according to lawsuits brought by former business partners, a thief. Now he’s attempting his biggest swindle yet: rigging the 2020 census to favor the Republican Party.
A vulture capitalist with no experience in government, whose private-equity firm was fined by the Securities and Exchange Commission for bilking investors out of millions, Ross was a tidy fit for Donald Trump’s Cabinet, which the president stocked with tycoons despite campaigning as a champion of the forgotten man. “I just don’t want a poor person,” Trump said of his top economic posts. He saw Ross — supposedly the richest of the lot — as a fellow traveler, a self-made billionaire with few scruples. Touting Ross at a rally in Cincinnati, Trump boasted, “I put on a killer.”
10/ Sam Bee on Fox's new streaming service "Fox Nation", seven very funny minutes.....
Fox News recently launched its very own streaming service called Fox Nation, and Samantha Bee and her Full Frontal staff checked it out so you don’t have to. After exploring some of the service’s many weird Fox News–adjacent offerings — including shows from Tomi Lahren, Laura Ingraham and some guy named Raymond, Diamond and Silk, and Ainsley Earhardt; a Steve Doocy cooking show; and Jeanine Pirro’s series 10 Minute Justice,which is actually only seven minutes long — Bee concludes that Fox Nation is both “like ASMR for sociopaths” and “like television, grandpa, but you get it on the smaller screen you use for writing racism on Facebook!”
11/ Jeff Goodell in Rolling Stone on the climate change numbers problem - while we dither politically, physics isn't
waiting....and we are quickly running out of time...
It’s often argued that climate change is not a technological or engineering problem, it is a political problem. And it’s true. We have all the technology we need to power the world with renewables and stave off the worst of climate chaos. What we lack is the political will to take the kind of moonshot-scale action necessary to accomplish it.
But climate change is also a numbers problem. Every ton of carbon that we dump into the atmosphere stays there for hundreds of years, warming the atmosphere and reshaping the future climate. As the recent IPCC report pointed out, to avoid the worst of climate chaos, the world needs to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Accomplishing that would require not just a remaking of our energy system, but profound changes in agriculture, the design of cities and transportation systems. It is possible to imagine how a revolution like this might happen, but it’s even easier to imagine how it would not.
12/ Occasionally we need to get the political paralysis and gross inequality of this country in perspective, and this article certainly does that....
and you won't be happy reading it....
America has its flaws. Countless books examine them, but they often conclude their grim analyses with a chapter on “how to make things better.” Rarely is the feasibility of these proposed solutions considered.
What if the flaws in our principal institutions, from Capitol Hill to the National Security apparatus to the Federal Reserve, are unfixable? What if they exacerbate one another, resulting in an unsolvable nightmare? Is the reality that America has already begun its irreversible decline, after only 250 years, staring us in the face?
All empires fall, after all. It’s just a matter of time before America goes the way of Rome.
13/ A clever prize winning short film about teaching titled 'Alternative Math"......a painfully amusing eight minutes because of the
skewering of our PC culture, but definitely worth watching.....the ending is excellent!
14/ The quiet disasters of the Trump mafia are the ways our public lands and environment have been opened to pillaging by the corporations....
this is what is happening at the Department Of The Interior, under Ryan Zinke...
This is a tough time to be a federal scientist—or any civil servant in the federal government. The Trump administration is clamping down on science, denying dangerous climate change and hollowing out the workforces of the agencies charged with protecting American health, safety and natural resources.
At the Department of the Interior (DOI), with its mission to conserve and manage America’s natural and cultural resources, the Trump administration’s political appointees are stumbling over one another to earn accolades for disabling agency operations. I should know; I was one of dozens of senior executives targeted by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for reassignment in a staff purge just six months into the new administration.
15/ Sometimes SNL sketches turn a little strange, and this is one of those.....four minutes....
A true ten-to-one sketch, this bizarre trip through a man’s attempt to impress his girlfriend’s parents still manages to keep one foot in reality. It does so by splitting the reaction to his plan down the middle: While the men are delighted, the women are horrified. Luckily, both sides get some comedic moments to shine.
Momoa’s middle-aged, pot-bellied patriarch revels in the game, mixing childlike wonder with increasing frustration. Beck Bennett’s audio tour through his hide-and-seek game invoked Paul Brittain’s Lord Wyndemere character, which was probably unintentional but still delightful. The final moments between the two–with Momoa’s awkward admiration for Beckett’s moxie and greased-covered torso–was too long, but in a good way. Every second it lasted made it that much more excruciatingly odd. Melissa Villaseñor and Heidi Gardner have the harder roles here, but their underplayed dismay grounds the insanity in a way that keeps it from flying off into the ether.
Todays Management Jokes
Lesson 1:A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.
The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.
When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor. Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.' After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.
The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.
When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?'
'It was Bob the next door neighbor she replies. 'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?'Moral of the story:If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.
Lesson 2:A priest offered a Nun a lift.
She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.
The priest nearly had an accident.
After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.
The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'
The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.
The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'
The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.'
Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily
and went on her way.
On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'Moral of the story:If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.LESSON 3Lesson 3: A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.They rub it and a Genie comes out..
The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.''Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk. 'I want to be in the Bahamas , driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.'
Puff! She's gone..
'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.' Puff! He's gone.
'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch.'Moral of the story:Always let your boss have the first say.
Lesson 4An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.
A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?' The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.' So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.Moral of the story:To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.
Lesson 5A turkey was chatting with a bull.
'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.''Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients.'
The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.
The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.
Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree.
He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.Moral of the story:Bull Shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there..
Lesson 6A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a
large field.
While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.
As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was.
The dung was actually thawing him out!
He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.
Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.Morals of the story:(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your
friend..(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep
your mouth shut!
THUS ENDS THE FIVE MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE
Todays blond joke
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