1/ Frank Rich on the coronavirus.....excellent as always...
Trump at Wednesday’s press conference on the coronavirus. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/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, Trump’s coronavirus plan, the wake of the South Carolina Democratic debate, and a looming shake-up at MSNBC.
With the CDC now asking Americans to prepare for the possibility of a coronavirus outbreak, White House and Cabinet officials seem unprepared — when they aren’t spreading misinformation or addressing the virus in terms of the stock market. If the CDC’s warnings are correct, will a public-health emergency become a political one?
As far as the White House is concerned, the coronavirus epidemic is solely a political emergency, not a public-health crisis.
2/ John Oliver with a summary [as of Sunday night] where we were with the coronavirus - this 20 minutes is almost a definition of comedic reporting, giving us the facts about the virus and summarizing the response to it.....this segment is better than anything I have watched about this crisis, and it's funny too....recommended!
3/ Jimmy Kimmel interviews Trump supporters and challenges tham to name a country on a map....yes, any country...just one....
A sad, pathetic 3 minute video...
4/ Andrew Sullivan with his weekly commentary, this one on Bernie vs Jeremy Corbyn....i.e Sullivan doesn't like Bernie.
He has that in common with almost all the media who are relentlessly bashing Bernie's chances...
Same story or different story? Photo: Dan Kitwood/Scott Olson/Getty Images
With Bernie Sanders’s relentless rise, the specter of Jeremy Corbyn now hangs over the Democratic race. At times, it’s uncanny how similar the two left-populist leaders are. An outlier long at odds with his party’s establishment? Check. A legislator with decades of voting who has almost no legislation to call his own? Yep. A 70-something beloved by 20-somethings? Check. An insurgent movement with cultish overtones that took over the party from more moderate figures? Yes. A more left-wing platform than any in his party’s history? Uh-huh. A man with many, many embarrassing connections in the past with hard-left figures across the globe? Oh yeah. Someone who hasn’t changed his mind on almost anything since the 1970s? Pretty much. Some highly unsavory hangers-on and followers? To put it mildly.
https://nymag.com/
5/ The SNL cold open with Pence and the Democratic candidates on the coronavirus.....quite good, eight minutes....
6/ Paul Krugman with an excellent column....even though this crisis may be Trump's downfall [but don't hold your breath], it's no consolation that our government has been gutted to the point of being unable to cope with any disaster.
So, here’s the response of the Trump team and its allies to the coronavirus, at least so far: It’s actually good for America. Also, it’s a hoax perpetrated by the news media and the Democrats. Besides, it’s no big deal, and people should buy stocks. Anyway, we’ll get it all under control under the leadership of a man who doesn’t believe in science.
7/ Steven Colbert sat down with Elizabeth Warren for a lively discussion over Charleston food.....surprisingly good,
two intelligent people having fun....an amusing 8 minutes...
8/ Gaslighting.....what we are being subjected to in real time by Trump and his servants. Most interesting story....
Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn't realize how much they've been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind.
In my book Gaslighting: Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People - and Break Free I detail how gaslighters typically use the following techniques:
1. They tell blatant lies.
9/ A most unusual SNL piece called "Airport Sushi".....it's musical, very NewYorky, a little incomprehensible but amusing.....an entertaining 8 minutes....
10/ We are told AI will revolutionize the workplace [Andrew Yang], eliminating millions of jobs but as this story tells us AI is already here for many jobs monitoring "efficiency" in incredible detail.
Having read this article I'm going to keep this in mind the next time I need a call center....wow. Scary stuff....
On conference stages and at campaign rallies, tech executives and politicians warn of a looming automation crisis — one where workers are gradually, then all at once, replaced by intelligent machines. But their warnings mask the fact that an automation crisis has already arrived. The robots are here, they’re working in management, and they’re grinding workers into the ground.
The robots are watching over hotel housekeepers, telling them which room to clean and tracking how quickly they do it. They’re managing software developers, monitoring their clicks and scrolls and docking their pay if they work too slowly. They’re listening to call center workers, telling them what to say, how to say it, and keeping them constantly, maximally busy. While we’ve been watching the horizon for the self-driving trucks, perpetually five years away, the robots arrived in the form of the supervisor, the foreman, the middle manager.
11/ David Wallace-Wells on climate change and the coronavirus....
Photo: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
Earlier this month, the temperature on Antarctica’s Esperanza Peninsula reached 65 degrees Fahrenheit — the warmest ever, and hotter than it was, at the time, not just in New York but in San Diego. A few days later, the temperature on the continent’s Seymour Island hit 69 — hotter than it was in Delhi. The next day, Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier lost a chunk of ice 130 square miles in surface area. A few days after that, scientists working at Australia’s University of New South Wales published research showing that, about a hundred thousand years ago, the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet produced, all by itself, six feet of sea-level rise — and that it took less than two degrees Celsius of warming to melt it. We are currently at about 1.1 degrees of warming, but are heading almost inevitably for 2.
12/ A very good Steven Colbert segment on Pence and the coronavirus.....a funny 9 minutes....
13/ We've seen this article before, but it's sooooo true...why anyone with an ounce of class or brains hates Trump....
Someone on Quora asked “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:
A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
14/ "Weekend Update" with the lads having fun.....in Michael Che's case, a little too much fun!
15/ There's been a lot of buzz about the new Virgin ship "Scarlet Lady", with an attendant amount of hype about this being the new cruise for millennials....however this Cruise Critic person out of the UK was underwhelmed for some surprising reasons....
The video is worth watching if you know anything at all about cruising....10 minutes...
16/ This story highlights the exceptionally dangerous trend of right wing groups seizing on climate change to push their anti-immigrant and white supremacist policies....
Fertile ground indeed, wait till we get a Syria situation in the US!
As an environmental journalist, I’ve been covering the frightening acceleration of climate change for more than a decade. As a person who believes in the tenets of liberal democracy, I’ve watched the rise of white-supremacist, anti-immigrant and nationalistic ideologies with similar dread over the past few years.
But I always thought of those two trends — looming ecological dangers and the gathering strength of the far right — as unrelated, parallel crises in a turbulent time. Only recently have I begun to understand that they are deeply interconnected, an ugly pairing of forces drawing power from each other.
Todays videos - two classic funny ads.....
John West salmon......
Miller beer.....fox hat.
Todays Irish joke
MY FIRST DRINK WITH MY SON
I was reading an article last night about fathers and sons, and memories came flooding back of the time I took my son out for his first pint. Off we went to our local pub which is only two blocks from the house.I got him a Guinness. He didn't like it, so I drank it. Then I got him a Stroh‘s, he didn't like that either, so I drank it. It was the same with the Molson's and the Labatt's.I thought maybe he'd like whiskey better than beer so we tried a few of those. He didn't.By the time I decided he just didn't like to drink, I could hardly push the stroller back home
Todays lawyer joke
An old farmer named Clyde had a car accident. In court, the trucking company’s fancy lawyer was questioning Clyde.
“Didn’t you say at the scene of the accident, ‘I’m fine,’?” asked the lawyer.
Clyde responded, “Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule, Bessie, into the……”
“I didn’t ask for any details,” the lawyer interrupted. “Just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, “I’m fine!’?”
Clyde said, “Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer and was driving down the road….”
The lawyer interrupted again and said, “Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question.”
By this time, the Judge was fairly interested in Clyde’s answer and said to the lawyer, “I’d like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule, Bessie.”
Clyde thanked the Judge and proceeded, “Well… as I was sayin’, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was drivin’ her down the highway when this huge semi ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurtin’ real bad and didn’t want to move. However, I could hear ole Bessie moanin’ and groanin’. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans.
Real soon a Highway Patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moanin’ and groanin’, too. So, he went over to her. After he looked at her, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes. Then the Patrolman came across the road, gun in hand, looked at me, and said, ‘How are YOU feeling?’
Now what the hell would you say?”
Todays gay cowboy joke
wife. She was a very good-looking woman and determined to keep the
ranch, but knew very little about ranching, so she decided to place
an ad in the newspaper for a ranch hand.
Two cowboys applied for the job. One was gay and the other drunk.
She thought long and hard about it, and when no one else applied she
decided to hire the gay guy, figuring it would be safer to have him around the house
than the drunk.
He proved to be a hard worker who put in long hours every
day and knew a lot about ranching.
For weeks, the two of them worked, and the ranch was
doing very well.
Then one day, the rancher's widow said to the hired hand, "You have
done a really good job, and the ranch looks great. You should go into town and
kickup your heels."
The hired hand readily agreed and went into town one Saturday night.
One o'clock came, however, and he didn't return.
Two o'clock and no hired hand.
Finally he returned around two-thirty, and upon entering the room, he
found the rancher's widow sitting by the fireplace with a glass of wine, waiting
for him.
She quietly called him over to her.
"Unbutton my blouse and take it off," she said.
Trembling, he did as she directed. "Now take off my boots."
He did as she asked, ever so slowly.
"Now take off my socks."
He removed each gently and placed them neatly by her boots.
"Now take off my skirt."
He slowly unbuttoned it, constantly watching her eyes in the fire
light.
"Now take off my bra."Again, with trembling hands, he did
as he was told and dropped it to the floor.
Then she looked at him and said, "If you ever wearmy clothes into town again, you're fired."
Todays sexist joke
A store that sells new husbands has opened in Melbourne , where a woman may go to choose a husband.
Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:
You may visit this store ONLY ONCE!
There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights.
The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband.
On the first floor the sign on the door reads:
Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs
She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
'That's nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.'
So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:
Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.
'Wow,' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.
'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!'
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, Have a Strong Romantic Streak and a Good Sense of Humour.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor , where the sign reads:
Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor..
There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.
PLEASE NOTE:
To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just across the street.The first floor has wives that love sex.The second floor has wives that love sex, have money and like beer.The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited.
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