1/ All Egypt, all the time......it's amazing how the troubles in Cairo have taken over the airwaves.....but here's a reasoned discussion of how the troubles could affect Israel, and how as usual the Israelis have stuck their heads in the sand.....
That pretty much sums up the disorienting sense of shock and awe that the popular uprising in Egypt has inflicted on the psyche of Israel’s establishment. The peace treaty with a stable Egypt was the unspoken foundation for every geopolitical and economic policy in Israel for the last 35 years, and now it’s gone. It’s as if Americans suddenly woke up and found both Mexico and Canada plunged into turmoil on the same day.
“Everything that once anchored our world is now unmoored,” remarked Mark Heller, a Tel Aviv University strategist. “And it is happening right at a moment when nuclearization of the region hangs in the air.”
This is a perilous time for Israel, and its anxiety is understandable. But I fear Israel could make its situation even more perilous if it succumbs to the argument one hears from a number of senior Israeli officials today that the events in Egypt prove that Israel can’t make a lasting peace with the Palestinians. It’s wrong and dangerous.
2/ Ever catch a TV news anchor in a mistake? Don't ever try this with Brooke Alvarez of Onion News.....2 minutes....
3/ In the State of the Union the President vowed to do "something" about corporate taxes, but he may find it impossible to act....the corruption is too deep, the lobbyists too numerous....
Interestingly enough the example cited in the article of corporations not paying anything in taxes is Carnival Corp........
The Carnival Corporation wouldn’t have much of a business without help from various branches of the government. The United States Coast Guard keeps the seas safe for Carnival’s cruise ships. Customs officers make it possible for Carnival cruises to travel to other countries. State and local governments have built roads and bridges leading up to the ports where Carnival’s ships dock.
But Carnival’s biggest government benefit of all may be the price it pays for many of those services. Over the last five years, the company has paid total corporate taxes — federal, state, local and foreign — equal to only 1.1 percent of its cumulative $11.3 billion in profits. Thanks to an obscure loophole in the tax code, Carnival can legally avoid most taxes.
It is an extreme case, but it’s hardly the only company that pays far less than the much-quoted federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times byCapital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent.
Arguably, the United States now has a corporate tax code that’s the worst of all worlds. The official rate is higher than in almost any other country, which forces companies to devote enormous time and effort to finding loopholes. Yet the government raises less money in corporate taxes than it once did, because of all the loopholes that have been added in recent decades.
4/ Excellent column from Robyn Blumner in the St. Pete Times about how we are coming up against the limits of the planet to sustain 7 billion people, of which the neediest and greediest are us Americans.....she raises points you never hear discussed in a rational way - is economic growth always good? Should we at least try to control birth rates?
Both of these questions hit the hot buttons of every politician.......and every abortion loonie as well.....
I just finished Freedom, Jonathan Franzen's latest novel. This is not a review, though I thoroughly enjoyed the book and Franzen's extraordinary ability to describe the molten center of modern American life. But I mention it because the novel's good-hearted protagonist, Walter Berglund, shares my concern over the world's limits for population and human consumption.
At one point, the novel veers into Berglund's feelings toward Americans who go blithely about their over-consuming lives without the least prick of conscience about the planet.
"(I)t wasn't just the jumbo everything to which his fellow Americans seemed to feel uniquely entitled, it wasn't just the Walmarts and the buckets of corn syrup and the high-clearance monster trucks; it was the feeling that nobody else in the country was giving even five seconds' thought to what it meant to be packing another 13,000,000 large primates onto the world's limited surface every month. The unclouded serenity of his countrymen's indifference made him wild with anger," Franzen wrote.
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A hidden time bomb of our economy is that it must grow to succeed. A constant expansion is necessary to keep the system humming. It's always sold as a net good. But with growth comes higher levels of consumption, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. At some point, infinite expansion will be an unsustainable economic model. Whether we collectively prepare for that point before wrecking our environment is the ultimate dilemma of a selfish species. So far, it doesn't look good.
Population is a major factor in all this. Like a giant Ponzi scheme, people add to economic growth, while making it essential that the economy expand to make room for them. America had 152 million people in 1950, now nearly 312 million, with a net gain of one person every 15 seconds. How much more of this kind of growth is good for us or for America's natural resources?
5/ A classic SNL sketch with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin........and Sarah Palin..........very funny....... it takes you back two years to the Nov. 08 election [oh those innocent times].....5 minutes.....
6/ A 185 mph cyclone in Australia, record cold and snow in the midwest US......the weather is getting more extreme.....and it's just begun......
Welcome to our planet, circa 2011 -- a planet that, like some unruly adolescent, has decided to test the boundaries. For two centuries now we've been burning coal and oil and gas and thus pouring carbon into the atmosphere; for two decades now we've been ignoring the increasingly impassioned pleas of scientists that this is a Bad Idea. And now we're getting pinched.
Oh, there have been snowstorms before, and cyclones -- our planet has always produced extreme events. But by definition extreme events are supposed to be rare, and all of a sudden they're not. In 2010, 19 nations set new all-time temperature records (itself a record!), and when the mercury hit 128 in early June along the Indus, the entire continent of Asia set a new all-time temperature mark. Russia caught on fire; Pakistan drowned. Munich Re, the biggest insurance company on earth, summed up the annus horribilis last month with this clinical phrase: "The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change."
You don't need a PhD to understand what's happening. That carbon we've poured into the air traps more of the sun's heat near the planet. And that extra energy expresses itself in a thousand ways, from melting ice to powering storms. Since warm air can hold more water vapor than cold, it's not surprising that the atmosphere is 4 percent moister than it was 40 years ago. That "4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms," said Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the government's National Center for Atmospheric Research. It loads the dice for record rain and snow. Yesterday the Midwest and Queensland crapped out.
The point I'm trying to make is: chemistry and physics work. We don't just live in a suburb, or in a free-market democracy; we live on an earth that has certain rules. Physics and chemistry don't care what John Boehner thinks, they're unmoved by what will make Barack Obama's reelection easier. More carbon means more heat means more trouble -- and the trouble has barely begun.
Speaking of Australia, here is a video of a flash flood that bursts a river banks, with bad results for a bunch of cars......6 minutes.....
7/ Tabloid journalism in the UK is completely ruthless, with any and all public figures fair game for the press who routinely eviscerate celebs, politicians and businessmen.....but here's a story about one of the Rupert Murdoch [Fox News] tabloids crossing the line into criminal activity......an evil company indeed.....but we know that, don't we?
The details of how News of the World went about its operation are soon to be made public as part of the lawsuit, brought by Ms. Phillips against the newspaper and its parent company, News Group Newspapers, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News International.
Court papers in the case, as described by people familiar with the lawsuit, shed a stark and unflattering light on the newspaper’s reliance on phone hacking as a standard reporting method. This conduct is at the heart of a growing array of civil lawsuits and criminal inquiries against the paper and News Group.
8/ We know the Republicans oppose everything the Obama administration wants, but this is ridiculous....
WASHINGTON—In a strong rebuke of President Obama and his domestic agenda, all 242 House Republicans voted Wednesday to repeal the Asteroid Destruction and American Preservation Act, which was signed into law last year to destroy the immense asteroid currently hurtling toward Earth.
The $440 billion legislation, which would send a dozen high-thrust plasma impactor probes to shatter the massive asteroid before it strikes the planet, would affect more than 300 million Americans and is strongly opposed by the GOP.
9/ Regular readers of the Dose know how I fell about zombies [loveable little flesh eaters!], so although I don't play video games this Times review caught my eye.....hmmm..the Times has a video game review person - who knew?
The game is something to do with Space Zombies, and you're trapped on a spaceship with the carnivores coming after you....
Is there a place in mass entertainment for dismemberment, dementia, wails of anguish and the infernal corruption of children? Is there a place for a vision of future humanity in the grip of an eldritch religion that sees salvation in alien mutation? Is there a place for titillation in the form of gore, for human (and once-human) offal as an acceptable form of set decoration?
Sure there is. That place is Dead Space 2, the taut, chilling new action-horror game from Electronic Arts. You could even call it engrossing, just as long as you’re willing to put up with the gross part.
Which is, of course, the point. Dead Space 2 is not for the proverbial (and literal) women and children who are driving the overall evolution of the video game business. Dead Space 2 has nothing to do with families and social gatherings of fresh-faced young professionals pleasantly playing casual party games on the Wii or Xbox Kinect. Nope.
10/ Rush, with "Tom Sawyer".....a classic from arguably the best "two guitars and a drummer" band ever.....
11/ Ah, Florida..... are we getting the government we deserve? Probably not, but we're getting the one you voted for...........
Carl Hiaasen with an excellent column on the pill mills all over Florida, but mostly in the south, that pump out prescriptions for all kinds of goodies, like oxycontin, vikodin etc. There was a process in the works to tightly regulate this trade, but Governor Rick's freeze on regulations has put an end to any of these efforts. Meanwhile Pam Bondi, our perky Attorney General, is going after some minor street drug instead of the big boys in the pill mills.....so it continues - they get publicity with the small stuff, while the real money is made semi-legally, with a nod and a wink from our hopelessly corrupt government........
Interestingly, she [Bondi] didn’t mention having any nightmares about Florida’s storefront pain clinics, which are still handing out Vicodins like Tic-Tacs, and overdosing customers at the rate of seven fatalities per day — more than heroin, crystal meth and cocaine combined.
Florida has become one of the nation’s favored destinations for prescription-drug dealers, who travel here to load up their car trunks and head north with the pills, which are sold on the black market for up to $30 each.
More oxycodone is dispensed here than anywhere else in the country. During one especially bountiful six-month stretch of 2008, Broward doctors prescribed 6.5 million doses, almost four pills for every resident of the county.
Efforts to shut down the unscrupulous clinics have been stymied by Bondi’s Republican colleague, newly elected Gov. Rick Scott. One of his first acts was to eliminate the state Office of Drug Control, which had been coordinating the war on pill mills.
Scott’s executive order freezing all new regulations was another blessing for sleazy clinic owners, who’d been facing a slate of tough licensing standards from state medical officials. Now some of those restrictions will be delayed until the financial impact is assessed, in accordance with Scott’s “accountability” process.
Another story on Publix and their apparent contempt for the agricultural workers who pick the produce they sell - they won't recognise the settlement reached with the tomato pickers....so the UF student Senate has passed a resolution urging Publix to meet with the workers....
At last, some university students are reacting to corporate abuses.....in this case, Lakeland cracker abuse.....
The University of Florida Student Senate approved legislation last week calling on Publix to meet with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in an attempt to pressure the state’s largest supermarket chain to adhere to the labor demands many other national grocers and fast food chains have agreed to in recent years.
The resolution addresses a number of issues, including cases of modern day slavery in Florida’s fields, and notes UF Student Senate support for a previous successful Immokalee Workers campaign against campus food provider Aramark and the fact that students make up nearly half of the population of Gainesville, which currently boasts 12 Publix locations. #
The resolution addresses a number of issues, including cases of modern day slavery in Florida’s fields, and notes UF Student Senate support for a previous successful Immokalee Workers campaign against campus food provider Aramark and the fact that students make up nearly half of the population of Gainesville, which currently boasts 12 Publix locations. #
I have got some flak for referring to Florida voters as idiots, but here's a new poll that says voters approve of the performance of Governor Rick.....so yup, Florida voters are brain cell challenged....[idiots!].....
So far, Scott is doing relatively well, with voters favoring two of his major budget proposals by big margins: cutting taxes and making state workers contribute to their pensions for the first time ever.
But that's no guarantee of success.
Though the Legislature is likely to approve his plan to overhaul state workers' pensions, Republican leaders have reacted coolly to Scott's idea of making $2 billion in tax cuts at a time when the state faces a budget shortfall of up to $4 billion.
If you are really, really unlucky, you will buy a home in a nice neighborhood and one of the residents will be an asshole like this guy......good news, they took his boat away.....
The angler recognized the boat roaring past him in the manatee refuge. It belonged to one of his neighbors in Brevard County. It was going much too fast.
Then the boat slammed into a manatee, a collision so violent that the boat jumped out of the water. The manatee's fluke was still sticking up from behind the motor. The manatee thrashed wildly as blood spread across the rippling waves.
The boat sped away. The angler, horrified, called the authorities to report what his neighbor had done. It turned out this wasn't the first time he had violated the speed rules.
Now the boat owner, Joseph Miata Jr., has become only the second person in nearly 40 years to be successfully prosecuted for killing a manatee.
12/ Now the I-Phone is available on Verizon, a detailed discussion on the pros and cons of switching carriers by David Pogue, the tech guy for the Times.
......
And to answer everyone’s question, the Verizon iPhone is nearly the same as AT&T’s iPhone 4 — but it doesn’t drop calls. For several million Americans, that makes it the holy grail.
I took the Verizon iPhone to five cities, including the two Bermuda Triangles of AT&T reception: San Francisco and New York. Holding AT&T and Verizon iPhones side by side in the passenger seat of a car, I dialed 777-FILM simultaneously, and then rode around until a call dropped. (Why that number? Because I wanted to call a landline, eliminating the other person’s cell reception from the equation. Also, Mr. Moviefone can carry the entire conversation by himself, so I could concentrate on the testing.)
In San Francisco, the AT&T phone dropped the call four times in 30 minutes of driving; the Verizon phone never did. The Verizon iPhone also held its line in several Manhattan intersections where the AT&T call died. At a Kennedy airport gate, the AT&T phone couldn’t even find a signal; the Verizon dialed with a smug yawn.
But before the bliss of no dropped calls ensnares you, consider the corporate ethics of Verizon.....an awful company.....good article, and read it before you change carriers so you know what you're getting into.....[the devil you know...etc]
Even if Verizon’s network is the best in America, its policies and prices are still among the worst. This is the company, after all, that admitted to billing $2 every time you accidentally hit the up-arrow button. (Verizon refunded $52 million and paid the Federal Communications Commission a record $25 million fine.) This is the company that just eliminated its “new phone every two years” discount policy, that just cut its new-phone return policy to 14 days from 30, that doubled its early-termination fee (to $350 if you cancel your two-year contract before it’s up).
13/ Good documentary about the nuclear waste storage facility in Finland.....for all of you serious thinkers out there......[all three of you!]
I am tempted to call “Into Eternity” the most interesting documentary, and one of the most disturbing films, of the year so far, but such a pronouncement, always dubious in early February, seems especially absurd in this case. The film, directed by Michael Madsen — a Danish Conceptual artist, not the American tough-guy actor — takes an unusually longview. Mr. Madsen’s ruminative, even-toned narration is directed not at present-day critics but at viewers who may happen upon this visual artifact at some remote date in the future, as much as 100,000 years from now.
This almost unimaginable perspective is demanded by the subject of “Into Eternity,” a Finnish nuclear waste storage site called Onkalo. The name means “hiding place,” and it has been designed to keep hazardous radioactive material out of reach for as long as it remains dangerous. A series of tunnels and vaults deep in the northern forests, Onkalo, nowhere near completed, is a remarkable feat of engineering and also a daunting philosophical problem. Mr. Madsen’s camera captures the eerie grandeur of the physical structure as it is blasted and carved into the rock, and also the debates it has occasioned among a group of sober, thoughtful scientists, theologians and policy makers.
Today's video - the apology bot
Todays church joke
Toward the end of the Sunday service, the Minister asked, "How many of you have forgiven your enemies?"
80% held up their hands.
The Minister then repeated his question. All responded this time, except one man, an avid golfer named Walter Barnes, who attended church only when the weather was bad.
"Mr. Barnes, it's obviously not a good morning for golf. It's good to see you here today. Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?"
"I don't have any," he replied gruffly.
"Mr. Barnes, that is very unusual. How old are you?"
"Ninety-eight," he replied. The congregation stood up and clapped their hands.
"Oh, Mr. Barnes, would you please come down in front & tell us all how a person can live ninety-eight years & not have an enemy in the world?"
The old golfer tottered down the aisle, stopped in front of the pulpit, turned around, faced the congregation, and said simply, "I outlived all the sons of bitches."
80% held up their hands.
The Minister then repeated his question. All responded this time, except one man, an avid golfer named Walter Barnes, who attended church only when the weather was bad.
"Mr. Barnes, it's obviously not a good morning for golf. It's good to see you here today. Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?"
"I don't have any," he replied gruffly.
"Mr. Barnes, that is very unusual. How old are you?"
"Ninety-eight," he replied. The congregation stood up and clapped their hands.
"Oh, Mr. Barnes, would you please come down in front & tell us all how a person can live ninety-eight years & not have an enemy in the world?"
The old golfer tottered down the aisle, stopped in front of the pulpit, turned around, faced the congregation, and said simply, "I outlived all the sons of bitches."
Todays biker joke
A tough looking group of bikers were riding when they saw a girl about to jump off a bridge so they stop.
The leader, a big burly man, gets off his bike and says, "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to commit suicide," she says.
While he did not want to appear insensitive, he didn't want to miss an opportunity he asked "Well, before you jump, why don't you give me a kiss?"
So, she does and it was a long, deep lingering kiss.
After she's finished, the biker says, "Wow! That was the best Kiss I have ever had. That's a real talent you are wasting. You could be famous. Why are you committing suicide?"
"My parents don't like me dressing up like a girl......"
Todays historical snippets
Here are some interesting tidbits that just maybe you didn't know.In George Washington's days, there were no cameras. One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are 'limbs,' therefore painting them would cost the buyer more.. Hence the expression, 'Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg.' (Artists know hands and arms are more difficult to paint)
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As incredible as it sounds, men and women took baths only twice a year (May and October) Women kept their hair covered, while men shaved their heads (because of lice and bugs) and wore wigs. Wealthy men could afford good wigs made from wool. They couldn't wash the wigs, so to clean them they would carve out a loaf of bread, put the wig in the shell, and bake it for 30 minutes. The heat would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the term 'big wig.' Today we often use the term 'here comes the Big Wig' because someone appears to be or is powerful and wealthy.
*******In the late 1700's, many houses consisted of a large room with only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board folded down from the wall, and was used for dining. The 'head of the household' always sat in the chair while everyone else ate sitting on the floor. Occasionally a guest, who was usually a man, would be invited to sit in this chair during a meal. To sit in the chair meant you were important and in charge. They called the one sitting in the chair the 'chair man.' Today in business, we use the expression or title 'Chairman' or 'Chairman of the Board.'
*******Personal hygiene left much room for improvement. As a result, many women and men had developed acne scars by adulthood. The women would spread bee's wax over their facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another woman's face she was told, 'mind your own bee's wax.' Should the woman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term 'crack a smile'. In addition, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax would melt . . . Therefore, the expression 'losing face.'
*******Ladies wore corsets, which would lace up in the front. A proper and dignified woman, as in 'straight laced'. . Wore a tightly tied lace.
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Common entertainment included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards but only applicable to the 'Ace of Spades.' To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 cards instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren't 'playing with a full deck.'
*******
Early politicians required feedback from the public to determine what the people considered important. Since there were no telephones, TV's or radios, the politicians sent their assistants to local taverns, pubs, and bars. They were told to 'go sip some ale' and listen to people's conversations and political concerns. Many assistants were dispatched at different times. 'You go sip here' and 'You go sip there.' The two words 'go sip' were eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and, thus we have the term 'gossip.'
******* At local taverns, pubs, and bars, people drank from pint and quart-sized containers. A bar maid's job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in 'pints' and who was drinking in 'quarts,' hence the term 'minding your'P's and Q's '
******* One more and betting you didn't know this!
In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. However, how to prevent them from rolling about the deck? The best storage method devised was a square-based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem...how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate called a 'Monkey' with 16 round indentations.
However, if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make 'Brass Monkeys.' Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled.
Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannonballs would come right off the monkey.. Thus, it was quite literally, 'Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.' (All this time, you thought that was an improper expression, didn't you.)
If you don't send this fabulous bit of historic knowledge to any and all your unsuspecting friends, your floppy is going to fall off your hard drive and kill your mouse.
