Have a look at #5 - an excellent article for insights into why our politics is so toxic......strongly recommended.....
1/ A brilliant analogy of how our political system has evolved - we are all shareholders in Americorp, a large corrupt corporation......I've never seen our awful system summarised so well.....
For me personally this is how it feels, but it doesn't have to be this way if we wake up......
Highlights below......great article by Carl Gibson.....
e are no longer citizens participating in a democracy. We are shareholders attending a meeting of a large, corrupt corporation. Call it Americorp.As shareholders, we sit face-forward, quietly, while the CEO, or president, makes his presentation, glossing over balance sheets and quarterly earnings, assuring us that the company is moving in the right track. The board of directors, or Congress, sometimes keeps the CEO in check and overrules him, but, for the most part, their agenda is the same as the president's agenda - preserving the status quo.
The shareholders at the meeting get ballots, although each ballot item has the opinion of the CEO and board under it. They're told by the board to vote a certain way, based on the opinion of the executives. The shareholders have a voice at the end of the meeting, but, for the most part, the CEO and board will do whatever they want. If the shareholders should speak out of turn or protest inside of the shareholder meeting, the CEO will wait politely while dissidents are swiftly escorted out by police.
Citizens are told every day by the media, owned by the same corporations that own our politicians, that we are divided. Their goal is to segment us into walled-off demographics and pit us against each other - liberal vs. conservative, public sector vs. private sector, Tea Party vs. Occupy. If they can isolate us even further with individual labeling they will: college-educated female, Black male under 35, union worker, single parent, etc.
We're told by the politicians we elect to represent us, whose campaigns are financed by the same corporations that own the media, that the government we pay taxes to every year is not to be trusted. That only we know what's best for us, not the government. Such tactics are meant to turn engaged citizens into isolated, apathetic subjects. Democracy becomes a spectator sport, viewed through the lens of the corporate media. Citizens are persuaded to be apathetic, focusing only on their immediate needs and maintaining their income. This allows the board and the CEO of Americorp to continue their plundering free of scrutiny.
Instead of having a wide range of choices of whom we want to represent us we're only given two. They are presented as having differing philosophies and use different language to create the illusion of diversity, but their campaigns are financed by the same corporate backers that actively use their bottomless funds to practice "free speech." The only role of Americorp shareholders is to vote on which rich guy they'd like to continue the status quo for the next few years.
2/ Last week there was a media sensation over Hilary Rosen's comment that Ann Romney has"never worked a day in her life"........Jon Stewart looks at the right wing frenzy of commentary on Fox News, with some excellent zingers.....
Yes Ann Romney, bringing up five boys is a lot of work for normal people, but it's a little bit easier with a nanny, nurses, maids, a butler and a household staff of 20......
On Monday night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart seemed to think that the TV networks like FOX News would be all over a sex-related political scandal that humiliated the American president on foreign soil, but alas, they seem to have bigger fish to fry.
Namely, a fish named Hilary Rosen. Rosen, a Democratic strategist and HuffPost blogger, told CNN on Wednesday that Ann Romney has "actually never worked a day in her life" on air during a discussion of the so-called war on women, and a media firestorm has been taking place ever since.
3/ A major, serious piece of investigative journalism in the Times Sunday morning about how Wal-Mart Mexico used bribes and corrupt payments to expand their operation in Mexico, and when this surfaced internally senior management in Bentonville derailed any internal investigations......a fascinating look inside the most powerful corporation in the world and how they became the biggest retailer in Mexico by clearing the way with bribes.....
By the way what they did is against the "Foreign Corrupt Practices Act"....so let's see if a charter member of the corporate oligarchy can bury this very serious scandal........any bets?
MEXICO CITY — In September 2005, a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an alarming e-mail from a former executive at the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. In the e-mail and follow-up conversations, the former executive described how Wal-Mart de Mexico had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, he said, the company had paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country.
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The former executive gave names, dates and bribe amounts. He knew so much, he explained, because for years he had been the lawyer in charge of obtaining construction permits for Wal-Mart de Mexico.
Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. They also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico’s top executives not only knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. In a confidential report to his superiors, Wal-Mart’s lead investigator, a former F.B.I. special agent, summed up their initial findings this way: “There is reasonable suspicion to believe that Mexican and USA laws have been violated.”
The lead investigator recommended that Wal-Mart expand the investigation.
Instead, an examination by The New York Times found, Wal-Mart’s leaders shut it down.
4/ I love Johnny Depp - he brings a dark sense of humour to every role he plays, so this trailer for the remake of "Dark Shadows" directed by Tim Burton coming May 11 looks like an instant classic, on the same theme of Pirates of the Caribbean - tongue in cheek horror and mayhem.......with witches, vampires and jokes.....
5/ This is one of those epiphany articles, one that opens your eyes to something that was a source of puzzlement, in this case how rational and often intelligent people on the right believe in things that are patently false. It's nominally a discussion of a new book "The Republican Brain", the Science of Why They Don't Believe in Science, but the author goes on to discuss the psychology of why conservatives think the way they do.
Read it - it's important for liberals to understand why you cannot use facts with a hard line conservative......and if there are any conservatives reading this, unlikely but possible, you will get some insight into why you think the way you do......
An absolutely fascinating essay.....
You might be thinking that Conservapedia's unabashed denial of relativity is an extreme case, located in the same circle of intellectual hell as claims that HIV doesn't cause AIDS and 9-11 was an inside job. If so, I want to ask you to think again. Structurally, the denial of something so irrefutable, the elaborate rationalization of that denial, and above all the refusal to consider the overwhelming body of counterevidence and modify one's view, is something we find all around us today.
Every contentious fact- or science-based issue in American politics now plays out just like the conflict between Conservapedia and physicists over relativity. Again and again it's a fruitless battle between incompatible "truths," with no progress made and no retractions offered by those who are just plain wrong—and can be shown to be through simple fact checking mechanisms that all good journalists, not to mention open-minded and critically thinking citizens, can employ.What's more, no matter how much the fact-checkers strive to remain "bi-partisan," it is pretty hard to argue that, today, the distribution of falsehoods is politically equal or symmetrical. It's not that liberals are never wrong or biased; in my new book, The Republican Brain, The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality, from which this essay is excerpted, I go to great lengths to describe and debunk number of liberal errors. Nevertheless, politicized wrongness today is clustered among Republicans, conservatives, and especially Tea Partiers. (Indeed, a new study published in American Sociological Review finds that while overall trust in science has been relatively stable since 1974, among self-identified conservatives it is at an all-time low.)
Their willingness to deny what's true may seem especially outrageous when it infects scientific topics like evolution or climate change. But the same thing happens with economics, with American history, and with any other factual matter where there's something ideological—in other words, something emotional and personal—at stake.
As soon as that occurs, today's conservatives have their own "truth," their own experts to spout it, and their own communication channels—newspapers, cable networks, talk radio shows, blogs, encyclopedias, think tanks, even universities—to broad- and narrowcast it.
We've been trained to equivocate, to not to see this trend toward anti-factualism for what it is—sweeping, systemic. This is particularly true of reporters.
Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, and that's precisely where our country stands now with regard to the conservative denial of reality. For a long time, we've been trained to equivocate, to not to see it for what it is—sweeping, systemic. This is particularly true of reporters and others trained to think that objectivity will out. Yet the problem is gradually dawning on many of us, particularly as the 2012 election began to unfold and one maverick Republican, Jon Huntsman, put his party's anti-factual tendencies in focus with a Tweet heard round the world:
To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.
The cost of this assault on reality is dramatic. Many of these falsehoods affect lives and have had—or will have—world-changing consequences. And more dangerous than any of them is the utter erosion of a shared sense of what's true—which they both generate, and perpetuate.
Consider, just briefly, some of the wrong ideas that have taken hold of significant swaths of the conservative population in the U.S:
The Identity of the President of the United States:
6/ Paul McCartney's new song "My Valentine".....featuring the exquisitely beautiful Natalie Portman and guess who? Johnny Depp......who "sign" the lyrics to the song in a quiet, black and white and very tasteful clip.......nice music, Sir Paul still has "it".....
7/ Occasionally I like to throw in a nice article....you know, nice.......so here is a story that will make you feel better about the world......
LONDON — When she went blind as a result of diabetes, Trish Vickers set out to fill the void in her life by writing poetry. Then she turned to writing a novel, her pen guided by a system of elastic bands stretched across the paper. With 26 pages written, and a plot that turned on a woman whose life implodes, she began to dream of finding a publisher.
Then the dream imploded, too. When her son Simon visited her at her home, near the town of Lyme Regis in the Thomas Hardy country of Dorset, she showed him what she had written, and he gave her the bad news: Every page was blank. Her pen had run out of ink before she began, and what remained was an empty manuscript, void of all her imagination had captured.
8/ There have been some recent murmurings about the Gulf of Mexico, two years on from the BP disaster, but no serious media focus on the health of the waters. For the real news we have to go to Al Jazeera English TV....a two minute clip on the seafood in the Gulf, and it's not good news......
9/ Not every sketch done for SNL is aired even though it should have been - this is a funny reunion of all of the Republican Presidential primary candidates who meet in a bar for a drink......5 minutes, and quite amusing..........love the Herman Cain character.......
10/ Stephen Colbert with a combative interview with Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, who are promoting their new book. Their premise is that noone in this country cares or speaks up for the poor......West is quite a character......
Colbert came out swinging in his interview with Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, accusing the two of waging class warfare with their new book, The Rich and The Rest Of Us.
West & Smiley took Colbert's mock outrage in stride, sparring back with him while also making their case for the poor.
In a particularly inspired response to the host's suggestion that the book is a $12 guilt trip for the rich, West shot back, "You've got a whole lot of unemployed people, thank god, who are going to Bruce Springsteen's world tour, The Wrecking Ball... Why? Because he's a white blues brother and understands; he's concerned about the poor, too. If they can get a Bruce Springsteen ticket, they can buy this book."
11/ A "Floriduh" story about one of the many scams lobbied for by big business in our increasingly corrupt state, and put into law by the scum in Tallahassee.....this one is the "rent-a-cow" fraud that benefits property developers.....
State tax codes have a way of accumulating junk -- quirky breaks and carve-outs that grow increasingly odd as they linger on the books, like tacky old legislative souvenirs. In Alabama, you can still deduct $1,000 for building a radioactive fallout shelter. In Arkansas, blind combat veterans may buy a new car every two years tax free. In Hawaii, residents can claim a $3,000 deduction for taking care of "exceptional trees" on their property -- as long as an expert deems them "exceptional."
Often, these exemptions become the pet cause of some vocal interest group, making them near impossible to dislodge. Louisiana recently instituted an annual "second amendment weekend tax holiday," which lets shoppers buy guns, knives, blinds, and other hunting gear sans sales tax each September. You can be sure that one will be around as long as there are deer to shoot in Cajun country.
Some junk in the tax code, though, isn't merely odd. During a visit to Florida this month, I became acquainted with the state's own notoriously strange loophole which, unlike the basically benign examples above, costs untold millions of dollars every year.
***
"Oh look, there they are!" my mother said, swerving the car a bit as she pointed to the side of the road. "The rent-a-cows!"
And indeed, there they were, a tiny herd of cattle -- maybe a half-dozen of them, from what I could see -- marooned in a wide, fenced-in field of grass off the highway, like the last, cud-chewing remnants of a long-vanished family farm. Perhaps they would've seemed less out of place if we weren't just a few minutes away from Medical City, the University of Central Florida's sprawling new campus of hospitals and teaching facilities that's becoming a magnet for Orlando-area developers. Its gleaming new VA hospital loomed ahead.
12/ Quite a unique video - not quite a juggler, not an acrobat but still working with her body spinning hula hoops.....all the while in a micro minidress drinking a glass of wine.......
Give it time to build.....very amusing.......7 minutes.....
13/ Fox TV has had a history of innovation and stretching the envelope with it's original programming.....remember "Married, With Children?" "The X-Files?" "The Simpsons?" And even today with "Fringe" and "24"........
Good article in the Times going into the history of the network and how it has evolved.....note this is Fox TV, not evil Fox News.......
But I'm surprised he didn't mention one of the most original, subversive and smutty TV series ever made which was on Fox in the mid-90's - "Action", with Jay Mohr.....you can get all 14 episodes on CD on Amazon for under $10.....even if you just watch the pilot episode it will be worth it......
In April 1987 the Fox Broadcasting Company opened for business in prime time with two half-hour comedies, “Married ... With Children” and “The Tracey Ullman Show.
But Fox had already been on the air for six months, broadcasting“The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers,” a poorly rated talk show that would soon become just “The Late Show” when its host was fired.
Despite her pioneering role, Ms. Rivers is not listed among the guests for Fox’s 25th-anniversary specialon Sunday night, which follows repeats of the first episodes of “Married ... With Children” and “The Simpsons.” She would make a more than fitting mascot for the network, though: brassy, full of chutzpah, not afraid to take a risk.
Fox has been characterized by boldness from the start. Having decided to break up the cozy triopoly held by ABC, CBS and NBC by creating the first nationwide broadcast network in nearly 40 years, Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch stole one of NBC’s brightest young executives, Garth Ancier, then 28, to be their entertainment president. When the young Fox network was struggling to expand in the early 1990s, it established itself by taking the National Football Conference, and John Madden, away from CBS.
That gloves-off approach in business has been matched by a pragmatic, laissez-faire approach in programming that has yielded better results than generally acknowledged. Fox may not have had a very high percentage of the best shows of the last 25 years — probably only “The Simpsons” and “The X-Files” qualify — but it has had more than its share of adventurous and interesting ones, the kind that people talked about and that were quickly imitated, from those early sitcoms to “The Ben Stiller Show,” “Beverly Hills, 90210,” “Party of Five,” “Ally McBeal,” “24,” “Glee” and, yes, “American Idol.”
14/ Good article from Scott Maxwell in the Orlando Sentinel about how our political leaders in Florida are beavering away at our rights of free speech.....love the first few lines......
Politicians love to prattle on about their love for the U.S. Constitution. They think it makes them sound patriotic.
Unfortunately, in Florida, it's often just an act. Many of these guys would just as soon wipe their feet on this sacred document as they would honor it.
Todays video - a couple on their first date negotiating the rest of the evening.......this CANNOT be true.......
Note - quite rude.....but wryly amusing....
Todays ladies joke
Bitches to the End...
The doctor, after an examination, sighed and said, "I've got some bad news. You have cancer, and you'd best put your affairs in order."
The woman was shocked, but managed to compose herself and walk into the waiting room where her daughter had been waiting.
"Well, daughter, we women celebrate when things are good, and we celebrate when things don't go so well. In this case, things aren't well. I have cancer. So, let's head to the club and have a martini."
After 3 or 4 martinis, the two were feeling a little less somber. There were some laughs and more martinis. They were eventually approached by some of the woman's old friends, who were curious as to what the two were celebrating.
The woman told her friends they were drinking to her impending end. "I've been diagnosed with AIDS.."
The friends were aghast, gave the woman their condolences and beat a hasty retreat.
After the friends left, the woman's daughter leaned over and whispered, "Momma, I thought you said you were dying of cancer, and you just told your friends you were dying of AIDS! Why did you do that?"
"Because I don't want any of those bitches sleeping with your father after I'm gone."
And THAT, my friends, is what is called, "Putting Your Affairs In Order."
Todays Darwin awards
Here is the glorious winner:
1. When his .38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.
And now, the honorable mentions:
2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, expecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.
3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space.Understandably he shot her.
4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Notwanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offeredeveryone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to themental hospital telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone tobizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.
5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head woundsreceived from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuriesthe lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his headto a moving train before he was hit.
6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counterand asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer the man pulleda gun and asked for all the cash in the register which the clerk promptly provided.The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter.The total amount of cash he got from the drawer - $15.[If someone points a gun at you and gives you money is a crime committed?]
7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'djust throw a cinder block through a liquor store window,grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block andheaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced backand hit the would-be thief on the head knocking him unconscious.The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.
8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store a mangrabbed her purse and ran. The clerk immediately called 911and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher.Within minutes the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove backto the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID.To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."
9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash.The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash registerwithout a food order. When the man ordered onion rings,the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The frustrated man walked away.[A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]
10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parkedon a Seattle street by sucking on a hose, he got much more than he bargained for.Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor homenear spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to tryingto steal gasoline but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewagetank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges sayingthat it was the best laugh he'd ever had.
In the interest of bettering mankind, please share these with friends and familyunless of course one of these individuals by chance is a distant relative or long lost friend.In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.
*** Remember, they walk among us,reproduce, watch Fox News and vote.
Todays Alaskan joke
Mike had been in Police work for 25 years. Finally sick of the stress, he quits his job and buys 50 acres of land in Alaska as far from humanity as possible.
He sees the postman once a week and gets groceries once a month.
Otherwise it's total peace and quiet.
After six months or so of almost total isolation, someone knocks on his door. He opens it and a huge, bearded man is standing there.
'Name's Cliff, your neighbor from forty miles up the road. Having a Christmas party Friday night. Thought you might like to come at about 5:00....'
'Great', says Mike, 'after six months out here I'm ready to meet some local folks. Thank you.'
As Cliff is leaving, he stops. 'Gotta warn you. Be some drinking'.'
'Not a problem' says Mike.. 'After 25 years in the business, I can drink with the best of 'em'.
Again, the big man starts to leave and stops. ' More 'n' likely gonna be some fighting' too.'
'Well, I get along with people, I'll be all right! I'll be there. Thanks again.'
'More'n likely be some wild sex, too,'
'Now that's really not a problem' says Mike, warming to the idea. 'I've been all alone for six months! I'll definitely be there. By the way, what should I wear?'
'Don't much matter. Just gonna be the two of us.'
