1/. No surprise here - Trump Media was bailed out by a Russian oligarch, which may be why
the Truth Social stock is collapsing.....
Donald Trump’s social media company Trump Media managed to go public last week only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation.
The former US president stands to gain billions of dollars – his stake is currently valued at about $4bn – from the merger between Trump Media and Technology Group and the blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which took the parent company of Truth Social public.
But Trump Media almost did not make it to the merger after regulators opened a securities investigation into the merger in 2021 and caused the company to burn through cash at an extraordinary rate as it waited to get the green light for its stock market debu
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/03/trump-media-es-family-trust-2022-loans
2/. An incredibly good Jon Stewart......zingers galore, very funny and nails America's response to the atrocities in Gaza.
A must watch....
3/. Tom Tomorrow nails it - our spineless media.....
4/. Andrew Sullivan with a POV on the occupation of Gaza.....there are no good guys here.....
The atrocities of October 7 — like the 9/11 mass murder of Americans — were cunningly designed to provoke an over-reaction. That’s how asymmetric warfare works. The Al-Aqsa Flood consciously mimicked Nazi tactics to inflict a psychic wound on Israelis as traumatic as any since the Shoah. The goal? To prompt an over-the-top response that could then be leveraged into further international pressure on Israel. The key condition of the success of this strategy, of course, was Hamas’ despicable willingness to sacrifice tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children to undo the incipient Saudi-Israeli rapprochement and to provoke one more mass-casualty event which future Palestinians would be willing to avenge.
And so far … it’s worked out just as Hamas intended, hasn’t it? https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/bomb-first-ask-questions-later?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=61371&post_id=143182117&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=2cwgv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
5/. Victimless Crime a la Trump.....
6/. A Floridian writes a defense of our new Florida, saying our politicians are no who we are.....interesting.....
It wasn’t always like this. Even in the infamous 2000 Bush-Gore Electiondebacle, Florida wasn’t the political maelstrom it is now. We were just seen as a warm, low-cost state that you could retire to or use as an escape from the harsh winters. Between 2000 and today, our job market exploded, with thousands of jobs and paths of upward mobility made available to all walks of life. My spouse came here under that premise, with a job offer at a local university.
Yet over the past year, it has felt like every month was the harbinger of some new insane headline. Just two weeks ago, DeSantis was threatening to fly Haitian migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.
7/. If you appreciate strangeness, you will like this SNL piece "Retirement Party".....
8/. Thom Hartmann with a look at a new book "White Rural Rage"....very insightful....
One thing to mention - talk radio.....a lot of rural jobs are outdoors, and they always have the
radio on, and there is nothing to listen to but right wing loonies....and the lunacy sinks in!
Rural white voters have, in many cases, far more political power than suburban or urban voters, and they’re using that outsized power to push our nation toward disaster. While they’re only 20 percent of the country, for example, because of gerrymandering they control fully 42 percent of seats in the House of Representatives.
The authors of new book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracypoint out that rural whites are measurably more bigoted and xenophobic than suburban or urban voters, 13 points more likely to hate on queer people, 15 points more likely to support Trump’s Muslim ban.
https://hartmannreport.com/p/white-rural-rage-the-secret-political-3e8?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=302288&post_id=143368260&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2cwgv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
9/. Weekend Update
Weekend Update #1 with the lads - only fairly good.....
Weekend Update #2 - the second one with the lads.....a little better....
Weekend Update #3 - Earthquake and the Eclipse fight it out.....quite amusing....
Weekend Update #4 - Aunt Linda {one of Kristen Wiig's characters] gives her movie reviews.....I found it amusing.....
10/. There's a new category of obscene wealth - centabillionaires.....
There is a tiny new elite at the frontier of money-making and they are known as the centibillionaires. These titans of the universe have personal assets of at least $100bn, and there are now 14 of them in the world – up from six last year. You will find them listed, compared and celebrated by the Bloomberg billionaires index and the Forbes world’s billionaires list, which has just been published.
Thanks to these annual tallies of the superwealthy, we know that 2,781 people worldwide – 141 more than last year – have personal wealth of $1bn or more. And that Taylor Swift is now one of them. And that their collective wealth – about $14.2tn – is more than the GDP of any country except the US and China. But centibillionaires are this group’s porous top tier, described by Forbes as those who have “done much better than the average billionaire”, and their wealth is unimaginable to most of us.
11/. Here we are after billions of years of evolution....
12/. Bob lefsetz with one of his streams of consciousness rants......a lot of truth in this one.....
Title is "Vicious Society"...
You’ve got what I want and if I can’t have it too, I’m going to tear you down to the level I’m at. I’m entitled. You’re no better than me.
Or maybe you are. I see you on Instagram. God, I wasn’t born that beautiful. Forget what’s behind the facade, it’s amazing what makeup and Photoshop can do. I’m angry and depressed I lost the genetic lottery and someone has to pay for that.
As for your fabulous lifestyle… I’m at home on Saturday night with my fingers in my pants streaming “Friends.” No one invites me to a party where everybody wears white in the Hamptons. I live in America, where’s my opportunity?
Down the drain. Income inequality keeps growing and the myth keeps spreading that we can have it all, when in truth nobody can have it all. Hell, even Elon Musk complains.
But we didn’t used to be exposed to it all. Now we can see it, at our fingertips, it’s just a click away. How do we get there?
https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2024/03/31/vicious-society/
13/. Don't overthink this stuff......
14/. Exercise is sooooooo important.....and helps your brain!
Growing up in the Netherlands, Henriette van Praag had always been active, playing sports and riding her bike to school every day. Then, in the late-1990s, while working as a staff scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, she discovered that exercise can spur the growth of new brain cells in mature mice. After that, her approach to exercise changed.
“I started to take it more seriously,” said Dr. van Praag, now an associate professor of biomedical science at Florida Atlantic University. Today, that involves doing CrossFit and running five or six miles several days a week.
Whether exercise can cause new neurons to grow in adult humans — a feat previously thought impossible, and a tantalizing prospect to treat neurodegenerative diseases — is still up for debate. But even if it’s not possible, physical activity is excellent for your brain, improving mood and cognition through “a plethora” of cellular changes, Dr. van Praag said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/well/mind/exercise-mental-health-cognition.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
15/. The Guardian really likes Ripley - a new series on Netflix.....
The reviews for Netflix’s elegant new Patricia Highsmith adaptation, Ripley, have been mixed. While some critics have adored its moody black-and-white posturing and even labelled it a work of art, others have been less impressed. Is Andrew Scott a bit too old to be Tom Ripley, who is 25 in the first novel of the series? Does it compare unfavourably with the peerless Anthony Minghella version from 1999, or to 1960’s Plein Soleil, in which Alain Delon played the scheming sociopath? At eight episodes, with some pushing over the hour mark, is it stretching a relatively short novel beyond its limits?
These are all questions of taste, of course, but it is hard to deny that Ripley is slow. It takes its time, it builds its case, and it luxuriates in the beauty and/or grubbiness of its surroundings. There are lingering shots of staircases – so many staircases – and statues, skies and scenery. This is a highly aestheticised world, and the noir-ish palette works surprisingly well, considering that much of its early action is set on the Amalfi Coast. You might think that such sun-kissed luxury would disappear in monochrome, but it only makes it all the more eerie, and the sinister threat all the more pronounced.
Today's "Florida's not that bad" joke...
Senior Living In Florida
A Few years ago, my wife and I moved into a retirement development on Florida's southeast coast.
We are living in the "Delray/Boca/Boynton Golf, Spa, Bath and Tennis Club on Lake Fake-a-Hachee". There are 3,000 lakes in Florida; only three are real.
Our biggest retirement concern was time management. What were we going to do all day?
Let me assure you, passing the time is not a problem. Our days are eaten up by simple, daily activities. Just getting out of our car takes 15 minutes. Trying to find where we parked takes 20 minutes.
It takes a half-hour in the check-out line in Wal-Mart, and 1 hour to return the item the next day.
Let me take you through a typical day: We get up at 5:00 am, have a quick breakfast and join the early morning Walk-and-Fart Club.
There are about 30 of us, and rain or shine, we walk around the streets, all talking at once.
Every development has some late risers who stay in bed until 6:00 am.
After a nimble walk, avoiding irate drivers out to make us road kill, we go back home, shower and change for the next activity.
My wife goes directly to the pool for her underwater Pilates class, followed by gasping for breath and CPR.
I put on my 'Ask me about my Grandchildren' T-shirt, my plaid mid-calf shorts, my black socks and sandals and go to the clubhouse lobby for a nice nap.
Before we know it, it's time for lunch. We go to Costco to partake of the many tasty samples dispensed by ladies in white hair nets. All free!
After a filling lunch, if we don't have any doctor appointments, we might go to the flea market to see if any new white belts have come in or to buy a Rolex watch for $2.00.
We're usually back home by 2:00 pm to get ready for dinner. People start lining up for the early bird about 3:00 pm, but we get there by 3:45because we're late eaters.
The dinners are very popular because of the large portions they serve.
We can take home enough food for the next day's lunch and dinner, including extra bread, crackers, packets of mustard, relish, ketchup and Splenda, along with mints.
At 5:30 pm we're home, ready to watch the 6 o'clock news.
By 6:30 pm we're fast asleep. Then we get up and make five or six trips to the bathroom during the night, and it's time to get up and start a new day all over again.
Doctor-related activities eat up most of our retirement time.
I enjoy reading old magazines in sub-zero temperatures in the waiting room, so I don't mind.
Calling for test results also helps the days fly by. It takes at least a half-hour just getting through the doctor's phone menu.
Then there's the hold time until we're connected to the right party. Sometimes they forget we're holding, and the whole office goes off to lunch.
Should we find we still have time on our hands, volunteering provides a rewarding opportunity to help the less fortunate.
Florida has the largest concentration of seniors under five feet and they need our help.
I myself am a volunteer for 'The Vertically Challenged Over 80.' I coach their basketball team, The Arthritic Avengers.
The hoop is only 4-1/2 feet from the floor. You should see the look of confidence on their faces when they make a slam dunk.
Food shopping is a problem for short seniors, or 'bottom feeders' as we call them, because they can't reach the items on the upper shelves.
There are many foods they've never tasted. After shopping, most seniors can't remember where they parked their cars and wander the parking lot for hours while their food defrosts.
Lastly, it's important to choose a development with an impressive name. Italian names are very popular in Florida.
They convey world travelers, uppity sophistication and wealth. Where would you rather live: Murray's Condos or the Lakes of Venice?
There's no difference -- they're both owned by Murray, who happens to be a cheap bastard.
I hope this material has been of help to you future retirees. If I can be of any further assistance, please look me up when you're in Florida.
I live in the Leaning Condos of Pisa in Boynton Beach. .
The classic Texas Chili joke
For those of you who have lived in Texas , you know how true this is.
They actually have a Chili Cook-off about the time Halloween comes around. It takes up a major portion of a parking lot at the San Antonio City Park . Judge #3 was an inexperienced chili taster Frank, who was visiting from Springfield , IL .
Frank: "Recently, I was honored to be selected as a judge at a chili cook-off.
The original person called in sick at the last moment and I happened to be standing there at the judge's table, asking for directions to the Coors Light truck, when the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (Native Texans) that the chili wouldn't be all that spicy; and, besides, they told me I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted and became Judge 3."
Here are the scorecard notes from the event:
CHILI # 1 - MIKE'S MANIAC MONSTER CHILI
Judge # 1 -- A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.
Judge # 2 -- Nice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild.
Judge # 3 (Frank) -- Holy crap, what the heck is this stuff? You could remove dried paint from your driveway.
Took me two beers to put the flames out. I hope that's the worst one. These Texans are crazy.
CHILI # 2 - AUSTIN 'S AFTERBURNER CHILI
Judge # 1 -- Smoky, with a hint of pork. Slight jalapeno tang.
Judge # 2 -- Exciting BBQ flavor, needs more peppers to be taken seriously.
Judge # 3 -- Keep this out of the reach of children. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to taste besides pain.
I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.
CHILI # 3 - FRED'S FAMOUS BURN DOWN THE BARN CHILI
Judge # 1 -- Excellent firehouse chili. Great kick.
Judge # 2 -- A bit salty, good use of peppers.
Judge # 3 -- Call the EPA. I've located a uranium spill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drano.
Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite.
Barmaid pounded me on the back, now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I'm getting smashed from all of the beer.
CHILI # 4 - BUBBA'S BLACK MAGIC
Judge # 1 -- Black bean chili with almost no spice. Disappointing.
Judge # 2 -- Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish or other mild foods, not much of a chili.
Judge # 3 -- I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds?
Sally, the beer maid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. This 300 lb. woman is starting to look HOT ... just like this nuclear waste I'm eating! Is chili an aphrodisiac!
CHILI # 5 - LISA'S LEGAL LIP REMOVER
Judge # 1 -- Meaty, strong chili. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.
Judge # 2 -- Chili using shredded beef, could use more tomato. Must admit the cayenne peppers make a strong statement.
Judge # 3 -- My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead and I can no longer focus my eyes.
I farted, and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chili had given me brain damage.
Sally saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher.
I wonder if I'm burning my lips off. It really ticks me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming.
CHILI # 6 - VERA'S VERY VEGETARIAN VARIETY
Judge # 1 -- Thin yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of spices and peppers.
Judge # 2 -- The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, garlic. Superb.
Judge # 3 -- My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous, sulfuric flames.
No one seems inclined to stand behind me except that Sally. Can't feel my lips anymore. I feel like I need to wipe my butt with a snow cone.
CHILI # 7 -- SUSAN'S SCREAMING SENSATION CHILI
Judge # 1 -- A mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers.
Judge # 2 -- Ho hum, tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chili peppers at the last moment.
**I should take note that I am worried about Judge #3. He appears to be a bit distressed as he is cursing uncontrollably.
Judge # 3 -- You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn't feel a thing. I've lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water.
My shirt is covered with chili, which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of lava to match my shirt.
At least during the autopsy, they'll know what killed me. I've decided to stop breathing, it's too painful.
Who cares; I'm not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air, I'll just suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.
CHILI # 8 - BIG TOM'S TOENAIL CURLING CHILI
Judge # 1 -- The perfect ending, this is a nice blend chili. Not too bold but spicy enough to declare its existence.
Judge # 2 -- This final entry is a good, balanced chili. Neither mild nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge #3 farted, passed out, fell over and pulled the chili pot down on top of himself. Not sure if he's going to make it. Poor feller, wonder how he'd have reacted to really hot chili..
Judge # 3 - No report
Today's jokes for seniors...
01. The ability to speak several languages is an asset, but the ability to keep your mouth shut in any language is priceless!
02. Be decisive. Right or wrong, make a decision. The road is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.
03. When I get a headache, I take two aspirin and keep away from children just like the bottle says.
04. Just once, I want the prompt for username and password to say, “Close enough.”
05. Becoming an adult is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. 06. If you see me talking to myself, just move along. I’m self-employed. We’re having a meeting.
07. Does anyone else have a plastic bag full of plastic bags or is it just me.
08. I hate it when I can’t figure out how to operate the iPad and my tech support guy is asleep. He’s 5 and it’s past his bedtime
09. Today’s 3-year-olds can switch on laptops and open their favorite apps. When I was 3, I ate mud.
10. Tip for a successful marriage: Don’t ask your wife when dinner will be ready while she’s mowing the lawn.
11. So, you drive across town to a gym to walk on a treadmill?
12. Old age is coming at a really bad time.
13. If God wanted me to touch my toes, He would've put them on my knees.
14. Last year I joined a support group for procrastinators. We haven't met yet.
15. Why do I have to press one for English when you're just going to transfer me to someone I can't understand anyway?
16. I don't need anger management. I need people to stop irritating me.
17. My people skills are just fine. It's my tolerance for idiots that needs work.
18. "On time" is, when I get there.
19. Even duct tape can't fix stupid – but it sure does muffle the sound.
20. It would be wonderful if we could put ourselves in the dryer for ten minutes, then come out wrinkle-free...and three sizes smaller.
21. "One for the road" means peeing before you leave the house!
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