1/ This is the real reason Trump went after the Iranian General.....
Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images
Beginning in 2011, and continuing through the next year, Donald Trump began obsessively predicting that President Obama would start a war with Iran in order to be reelected. Trump stated it publicly, on at least a half-dozen occasions, explicitly positing that attacking Iran would help Obama win reelection.
2/ David Wallace-Wells is shocked how little the catastrophic Australian fires are being covered in the world's media......
Shocked but not surprised.....
A helicopter carries water as it flies near the town of Bilpin, located west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, on Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019. Photo: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Right now, on the outskirts of a hyper modern first world megapolis, at the end of a year in which the public seemed finally to wake up to the dramatic threat from global warming, a climate disaster of unimaginable horror has been unfolding for almost two full months, and the rest of the world is hardly paying attention.
The New South Wales fires have been burning since September, destroying fifteen million acres (or more than two thousand square miles) and remain almost entirely uncontrolled by the volunteer firefighting forces deployed to stop them; on November 12, greater Sydney declared an unprecedented “catastrophic” fire warning. That was six weeks ago, and the blazes are almost certain to continue burning through the end of next month, the soonest real rain might arrive.
3/ Soon!
4/ I assume you don't watch Fox News, so this 2 minute supercut of what they said in 2019 will be a shock.
We know they're crazy, but this crazy?
Watch and learn....
5/ A most insightful story from the Times, with a look back at the decade and concluding the 2010's were the end of normal. Well written, a sobering look at the last 10 years and ultimately really depressing how much has changed.....for the worse.
Essential reading, but yech.....
TWO OF THE MOST WIDELY QUOTED and shared poems in the closing years of this decade were William Butler Yeats’s “The Second Coming” (“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”), and W.H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939” (“Waves of anger and fear / Circulate over the bright / And darkened lands of the earth”). Yeats’s poem, written just after World War I, spoke of a time when “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” Auden’s poem, written in the wake of Germany’s invasion of Poland, described a world lying “in stupor,” as democracy was threatened and “the enlightenment driven away.”
Apocalypse is not yet upon our world as the 2010s draw to an end, but there are portents of disorder.
6/ At the end of the season the Weekend Update hosts write each other jokes.....three funny minutes where they
have to read jokes without screening them first....
7/ One of the things that drives me to distraction is the media's false equivalence of Democratic/Republican policies. This has permanently shifted the balance of our thinking rightward, and disguises the fact that Republicans hate the poor and minorities, and are literally the party of the 1%.
Have a look at this column from Paul Krugman, spelling out the cruelty of the Republicans....
By Trump-era standards, Ebenezer Scrooge was a nice guy.
It’s common, especially around this time of year, to describe conservative politicians who cut off aid to the poor as Scrooges; I’ve done it myself. But if you think about it, this is deeply unfair to Scrooge.
8/ SNL with a spoof of Cinderella set in the 50's with J. Lo. as the beautiful sister.....amusing, five minutes...
9/ What will 2030 be like? Thirteen smart people give us their [brief] ideas....some surprises too!
The reviews are in for the 2010s and they are at best mixed. For good reason: You can stroll down the street talking to your far-flung grandmother on FaceTime while corporations and governments use facial recognition technology to surveil you. There’s been a multicultural renaissance in arts and culture and a sluggish, unequal recovery from the Great Recession. Donald Trump was elected president and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez emerged as a potential new face of the Democratic Party. Depending on who you are, some trends of this decade have delighted you, others filled you with dread.
The 2020s will surely be characterized by the same subjective mix of terror and excitement. But over what?
The New York Times Opinion section asked politicians, writers, technologists, thinkers and others what most excites or terrifies them about what will come between now and 2030.
10/ The awful Fox News' Jeanine Pirro on Weekend Update.....three very amusing minutes....
11/ Umair summaries the decade, and concludes we are moving backwards....
Is he right? We report, you decide....
If you’d asked the average American on January 1, 2010 “do you think there will be concentration camps…and kids in cages…in them…who are demonized as animals and vermin…by the President…in America…exactly ten years from now?” — well, they’d have laughed you out of the bar. And yet that is exactly what happened.
If you asked the average Chinese on January 1 2010, “do you think there will be a million people in concentration camps on in exactly a decade”, they’d have looked at you like you were crazy. And yet…
12/ Stephen Colbert visits the set of Veep, with hilarious results....three minutes....
13/ Occasionally the Twitterverse is amusing, and this chain from a Hockey player to the lovely Anna Kendrick is worth a look....
Jimmy Kimmel with "Lie Witness News", where they make up news and ask passers by to comment....a depressingly funny two minutes...
14/ The best TV of the decade, from Rolling Stone.....see what you missed, and Netflix it....
Ranking the best television shows of any decade is a complicated task, but some decades are easier than others. At the end of the 1970s, for instance, you could easily assemble a sterling top 10 featuring Roots, the four sitcoms that aired together in CBS’ legendary 1973 Saturday night lineup (All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Bob Newhart Show), and a handful of the Seventies’ other great sitcoms. (Say, Taxi, Barney Miller, The Jeffersons, and Laverne & Shirley?)
Identifying the best series of the 2010s isn’t nearly as simple.
Todays video - the funniest hot dog commercial ever.......of course it's Australian, I don't think they could show it here......
Todays religious joke
The Pope just finished a tour of the East Coast and was taking a limousine to the airport. Since he'd never driven a limo, he asked the chauffeur if he could drive for a while. The reluctant chauffeur pulled over along the roadside, climbed into the back of the limo, and the Pope took the wheel.
The Pope then merged onto the highway and accelerated to over 90 mph to see what the limo could do. Suddenly, the Pope noticed the blue light of the State Patrol in his side mirror, so he pulled over.
The trooper approached the limo, peered in through the windows, then said, "Just a moment please, I need to call in." The trooper called in and explained to the chief that he had a very important person pulled over for speeding. "How do I handle this, chief?" asked the trooper.
"Is it the Governor?" questioned the chief.
"No! This guy is even more important!"
"Is it the President?" asked the chief.
"No! Even more important!"
"Well, who the heck is it?" screamed the chief.
"I don't know, sir," replied the trooper, "but he's got the Pope as his chauffeur."
Today's quickies
Which sexual position produces the ugliest children?
Ask your mother.
__________________________________________________________
How do you embarrass an archeologist?
Give him a tampon and ask him which period it came from.
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What's the difference between a bitch and a whore?
A whore sleeps with everybody at the party; A bitch sleeps with everybody at the party except you.
__________________________________________________________
What's the difference between a Catholic wife and a Jewish wife?
A Catholic wife has real orgasms and fake jewelry.
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What makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying?
The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving.
___________________________________________________________
What is the biggest problem for an atheist?
No one to talk to during orgasm.
___________________________________________________________
What do you call an Amish guy with his hand up a horse's ass?
A mechanic.
___________________________________________________________
Who is the most popular guy at the nudist colony?
The guy who can carry a cup of coffee in each hand and a dozen donuts.
___________________________________________________________
Who is the most popular girl at the nudist colony?
The one who can eat the last donut.
___________________________________________________________
Jewish dilemma:
Free PORK.
___________________________________________________________
The three words men hate to hear most during sex:
'Are you in?'
___________________________________________________________
The three words women hate to hear most during sex:
'Honey, I'm home!'
Todays bonus Polish joke
What do Polish brides get on their wedding day that's long and hard?
A new last name.
Todays Wal-Mart joke
Wal-Mart announced that sometime in 2013 it will begin offering customers a new discount item: Wal-Mart's own brand of wine.The world's largest retail chain is teaming up with Ernest & Julio Gallo Winery of California to produce the wines at affordable prices in the $2 to $5 range.Wine connoisseurs may not be inclined to put a bottle of the Wal-Mart brand into their shopping carts but, 'There is a market for inexpensive wine,' said Kathy Micken, professor of marketing at University of Arkansas, Bentonville. 'However, branding will be very important.'Customer surveys were conducted to determine the most attractive name for the Wal-Mart wine brands and varieties.The top surveyed names in order of popularity were:10. Chateau Traileur Parc9. White Trashfindel8. Big Red Gulp7. World Championship Riesling6. NASCARbernet5. Chef Boyardeaux4. Peanut Noir3. I Can't Believe it's not Vinegar2. Grape Expectations1. Nasti SpumanteThe beauty of Wal-Mart wine is that it can be served witheither white meat (Possum) or red meat (Squirrel).
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