1/. Gaza is at war....Andrew Sullivan has his conservative perspective....
The last couple of weeks, I found myself engrossed in Band of Brothers, the newly re-released 2001 miniseries on the D-Day landings and the aftermath. In the penultimate episode, the Yanks stumble across their first Nazi death camp. Soldiers accustomed to the worst of the worst in wartime, men who’d already seen things that would traumatize anyone for life, were suddenly speechless. Nothing, even in wartime, prepared them for it. A new tear in the fabric of humanity’s moral order opened up in front of them: the sadistic capture, dehumanization and mass murder of women, men, children because they were Jews. “New” isn’t quite the word, of course. Pogroms already had a long-long lineage in Europe. But new in the sheer scale and nakedness of the barbarism.
While he was there, records show, DeSantis slipped into a private room at the Naples Grande Beach Resort to meet with a handful of VIP guests. Only a dozen or so people were invited into that room, according to planning emails sent to the Governor’s Office — and at least three of them worked for organizations associated with Dick Uihlein, the Midwestern billionaire and Republican megadonor who is the largest funder of the Foundation for Government Accountability.
Mr. President, as I see it, you have five jobs to accomplish in the few hours you are in Israel:
1. Comforter-in-Chief: Please let the Israeli people know that you and we grieve with them over those who were killed, that no Jew should ever have to fear for their lives anywhere on this planet — and that we promise them we will fight to make sure what happened to them at the hands of White Christian Fascists during the Holocaust shall never happen again. NEVER.
Otherwise you lose.
This is an axiom in sports, where defense scores no points, but it’s also a truism in music. Want to date yourself, want to stop having hit records? Keep on doing the same damn thing. It’s only when you change that you have longevity, but this is so risky most people just can’t do it.
Innovation, new, it’s anathema. That’s what’s wrong with America, no one can sacrifice, no one can lose their job. A bigwig told me file-trading had to end, not because of equity, not because of the artists, but because of what would happen to him! He needed his job running a label. That’s how myopic this person was.
Change is inevitable, and either you change or you die, you become irrelevant.
In March 2021, sheriffs in Etowah county, Alabama, arrested Ashley Caswell on accusations that she’d tested positive for methamphetamine while pregnant and was “endangering” her fetus.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse points out, in his book The Scheme and his YouTube series about same, that American oligarchs launched a campaign to seize control of the Supreme Court — and, thus, the American government — over 40 years ago and they’re now close to their goal of turning America back to the 1920s.
By many measures, the U.S. economy is thriving: Unemployment stands close to the 50-year low set in April, the fraction of people age 25 to 54 in work is at a two-decade high, gross domestic product is growing rapidly, inflation is falling, and the S&P 500 is a third higher than it was before the Covid pandemic.
While encouraging, economic statistics like these offer an incomplete picture of the state of the country. There is a deep and persistent national malcontent: In a recent NBC News poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans surveyed said the United States is on the wrong track, and Gallup reported that poor life ratings are at record highs.
We have become fluent in the new language of pharmacology, diabetes, and weight loss. Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro are part of our public lexicon. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists are lifesaving drugs, created to help the hundreds of millions of people with Type 2 diabetes and clinical obesity. They promise to rid the United States of obesity, if our country can figure out how to make the pricey fix affordable.
President George W. Bush and Republicans (and a handful of on-the-take Democrats) in Congress created today’s Medicare Advantage scam in 2003 as a way of routing hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of for-profit insurance companies. (The part C provision was created in 1997, but Bush turned it into a big thing with the “Advantage“ program in 2003.)
Those companies, and their executives, then recycle some of that profit back into politicians’ pockets via the Citizens United legalized bribery loophole created by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court.
Just the overcharges happening right now in that scam are costing Americans over $140 billion a year: more than the entire budget for the Medicare Part B or Part D programs. These ripoffs — that our federal government seems to have no interest in stopping — are draining the Medicare trust fund while ensnaring gullible seniors in private insurance programs where they’re often denied life-saving care.
The Morning Show (currently airing its third season on AppleTV+) might be the weirdest series on television. It’s an expensive, high-gloss show with two mega-stars as its leads—Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston—that has, since its beginning, seemed almost reverse engineered, as if Apple got Witherspoon and Aniston on board with a vague pitch and only then started figuring out the show that would surround them. The Morning Show is both topical and completely untethered from the real world, a workplace drama in which fantasy reigns.
- Ocala has the lowest risk of coastal flooding in Florida, analytics platform Climate Alpha found.
- One real-estate agent has seen an influx of people from South Florida seeking "peace and security."
- It's an emerging bright spot as the state undergoes an "insurance crisis."
I
What a movie! “Fair Play” is the kind of flick that used to play in the theatre, that opened to some intriguing reviews and then grew week by week by word of mouth until everybody you knew had seen it. And everybody you knew… Had been to college, wanted to make something of themselves, thought the world was their oyster until sometime in their life they realized they never reached the destination, or no longer believed in the destination, or accepted where they were, or ended up broken down on the side of the road and wondered what happened to them.
Now I seem to have established a dividing line, between the educated and the uneducated, between the hoi polloi and the elite. You’ve got it right there.
Used to be there was a continuum. The red state person might see an indie flick, might capture the Friedmans, but now everyone is on their own path, building their resumé, and they want to be damn sure they don’t look like the people they hate. This is the problem with DeSantis and Cruz and the rest of them who were educated at Ivy League institutions and now want you to believe they’ve rejected all they’ve learned, all the values of the elite, and are down in the pit with the great unwashed. What a bunch of b.s.
But “Fair Play” is on Netflix. Available to all. That’s one thing we can all afford, Netflix. So whatever end of the economic spectrum you are on you can press play and…
https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
After the grim social survey of Dopesick and the kicky sensationalism of Painkiller, we may not need another television mini-series about the Sackler family and the opioid plague they unleashed upon the world. (There is also, of course, a raft of documentaries about that crisis, perhaps most notably last year’s exquisite All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.) But Netflix has found a way to tweak that sorry, infuriating narrative into something new.
Drive ByA guy broke into my apartment last week.He didn’t take my TV, just the remote.Now he drives by and changes the channels. Sick bastard!
SEX
Condoms don’t guarantee safe sex anymore …..A friend of mine was wearing one when he was shot by the woman’s husband.
Lance Armstrong
I think it is just terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance Armstrong, especially after what he achieved,winning 7 Tour de France races, whilst on drugs.When I was on drugs, I couldn't even find my frig’n bike.
The Agony of Aging
On the morning that Daylight Savings Time ended I stopped in to visit my aging friend.He was busy covering his penis with black shoe polish.I said to him, "You better get your hearing checked - You're supposed to turn your clock back".
SCAM
Just got scammed out of $25.Bought Tiger Woods DVD entitled "My Favorite 18 Holes".Turns out it's about golf. Absolute waste of money!Pass this on so others don't get scammed.
Pregnant Prostitute
Doctor asks pregnant prostitute, "do you know who the father is?"The prostitute said, "if you ate a tin of beans would you know which one made you fart?"
Easy Jet
Paddy calls Easy Jet to book a flight.The operator asks, "How many people are flying with you?"Paddy replies "How do I know! It's your plane!"
The candy-store owner's daughter gave the teacher a pretty box of candy.On the first day of school, the children brought gifts for their teacher.The supermarket manager's daughter brought the teacher a basket of assorted fruit.The florist's son brought the teacher a bouquet of flowers.
Then the liquor-store owner's son brought up a big, heavy box.
The teacher lifted it up and noticed that it was leaking a little bit…she touched a drop of the liquid with her finger and tasted it.
"Is it wine?" she guessed.
"No," the boy replied. She tasted another drop and asked, " Champagne ?"
"No," said the little boy............."It's a puppy!"
I'm so happy, because I live at number 71.So it's not too far to walk home afterwards.And it's the same side of the street.
