Friday, October 31, 2014

Something to Know - Period !

This news is of no real significance to those who reside east of New Mexico or all along the eastern seaboard and the South:

IT IS RAINING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.  IT CAN ACTUALLY BE HEARD HITTING THE ROOF TOPS.
So, the economy is improving, the stock market is back up again, the price of gas is the cheapest it has been since 2008, and California unemployment is the lowest it has been in years.  Okay, blame it all on ObamaCare.  G'nite
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Juan
 
 You can never have enough garlic. With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times.
-- Morley Safer

Something to Know - 31 October

Tom Toles

1.  Tonight is Halloween.  To get you into the mood, here is a scary scenario of what may be in store for this country should the GeeOpie take control of the Senate.  Nothing but gridlock, and attempts to tear apart and dismantle anything that resembles progressive.  The Republicans have no agenda other than to dismantle:

2.  Timothy Egan has an excellent op-ed about the attempts by some, who forget about the genesis of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement 50 years ago.  By trying to shut down Bill Maher from speaking on the Berkeley campus, who is it that is attempting to subvert the meaning of "Free Speech"?:

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Juan
 
 When all else fails there's always delusion.
-- Conan O'Brien
 

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Andy Borowitz

Obama Urged to Apologize for Anti-Fear Remark



WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—President Obama is coming under increasing pressure to apologize for a controversial remark that he made on Tuesday, in which he said that the nation's Ebola policy should be based on facts rather than fear.

While the anti-fear tenor of Mr. Obama's comment was offensive enough to some, the President made matters worse by suggesting that science would play the leading role in guiding the nation's Ebola protocols—a role that many Americans believe should be played by fear.Across the country, Democratic candidates have sought to distance themselves from the President's incendiary statement, especially in states like North Carolina, where science and facts have record-low approval ratings.

Carol Foyler, a Democratic consultant in Colorado, said that she was "smacking my head" at the President's divisive comment.

"He's unpopular enough as it is," she said. "Aligning yourself with science and facts is a surefire way to alienate millions of Americans."


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Juan
 
 When all else fails there's always delusion.
-- Conan O'Brien
 

The Return of the NJ Bully

It really is hard to sugar-coat a turd.   He's lost some weight, using lap-band industrial-strength devices from Home Depot, and even visited some anger management instructions.  However, this presidential aspirant comes short when his public behavior returns to his ground zero:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvV2mOeLCas

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Juan
 
 If anything else, the government's job is to protect the safety and health of our citizens.  (so why is he so against Obama's Affordable Care Act?)
-- NJ Governor Christ Christie
 

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Andy Borowitz

Midterms Prediction: Billionaires to Retain Control of Government


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—With just one week to go until the midterm elections, a new poll indicates that billionaires are likely to retain control of the United States government.

The poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research Institute, shows that the proxy candidates of billionaires are likely to win ninety-eight per cent of next Tuesday's races, with the remaining two per cent leaning billionaire.Although the poll indicates that some races are still "too close to call," the fact that billionaires funded candidates on both sides puts the races safely in their column.

Davis Logsdon, who supervised the poll for the University of Minnesota, said that next Tuesday should be "a big night for oligarchs" and that both houses of Congress can be expected to grovel at the feet of their money-gushing paymasters for at least the next two years.

Calling the billionaires' upcoming electoral romp "historic," Logsdon said, "We have not seen the super-rich maintain such a vise-like grip on the government since the days immediately preceding the French Revolution."


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Juan
 
 If anything else, the government's job is to protect the safety and health of our citizens.  (so why is he so against Obama's Affordable Care Act?)
-- NJ Governor Christ Christie
 

Monday, October 27, 2014

Andy Borowitz



TRENTON (The Borowitz Report)—Saying that he was "sick and tired of having his medical credentials questioned," Governor Chris Christie (R-N.J.) had himself sworn in as a medical doctor on Sunday night.

Dr. Christie acknowledged that becoming a doctor generally requires pre-med classes, four years of medical school, plus additional years of residency, but he said that the Ebola epidemic compelled him to take "extraordinary measures, as we say in the medical profession." x Dr. Christie said that, beginning on Monday, he would begin a series of random "house calls" to check New Jersey residents for Ebola and assign them for quarantine. "I can usually diagnose someone with Ebola in under a minute," Dr. Christie said. "Even faster if I don't actually see them."

The doctor said that before moving forward with his plan to quarantine scores of New Jersey citizens he suspects of having Ebola, he consulted with other prominent epidemiologists, including Dr. Rick Perry, of Texas. "He concurs," he said.

Dr. Christie defended his quarantine plan against critics, noting that unorthodox procedures in medicine often face opposition at first. "We're used to hearing that the nurses and doctors who treat Ebola patients are heroes," he said. "But the real heroes are the people who lock up those heroes."



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Juan
 
 If anything else, the government's job is to protect the safety and health of our citizens.  (so why is he so against Obama's Affordable Care Act?)
-- NJ Governor Christ Christie
 

Something to Know - 27 October


Ben Sargent

Paul Krugman

Ideology and Investment

OCT. 26, 2014

America used to be a country that built for the future. Sometimes the government built directly: Public projects, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, provided the backbone for economic growth. Sometimes it provided incentives to the private sector, like land grants to spur railroad construction. Either way, there was broad support for spending that would make us richer.

But nowadays we simply won't invest, even when the need is obvious and the timing couldn't be better. And don't tell me that the problem is "political dysfunction" or some other weasel phrase that diffuses the blame. Our inability to invest doesn't reflect something wrong with "Washington"; it reflects the destructive ideology that has taken over the Republican Party.

Some background: More than seven years have passed since the housing bubble burst, and ever since, America has been awash in savings — or more accurately, desired savings — with nowhere to go. Borrowing to buy homes has recovered a bit, but remains low. Corporations are earning huge profits, but are reluctant to invest in the face of weak consumer demand, so they're accumulating cash or buying back their own stock. Banks are holding almost $2.7 trillion in excess reserves — funds they could lend out, but choose instead to leave idle.

And the mismatch between desired saving and the willingness to invest has kept the economy depressed. Remember, your spending is my income and my spending is your income, so if everyone tries to spend less at the same time, everyone's income falls.

There's an obvious policy response to this situation: public investment. We have huge infrastructure needs, especially in water and transportation, and the federal government can borrow incredibly cheaply — in fact, interest rates on inflation-protected bonds have been negative much of the time (they're currently just 0.4 percent). So borrowing to build roads, repair sewers and more seems like a no-brainer. But what has actually happened is the reverse. After briefly rising after the Obama stimulus went into effect,public construction spending has plunged. Why?

In a direct sense, much of the fall in public investment reflects the fiscal troubles of state and local governments, which account for the great bulk of public investment.

These governments generally must, by law, balance their budgets, but they saw revenues plunge and some expenses rise in a depressed economy. So they delayed or canceled a lot of construction to save cash.

Yet this didn't have to happen. The federal government could easily have provided aid to the states to help them spend — in fact, the stimulus bill included such aid, which was one main reason public investment briefly increased. But once the G.O.P. took control of the House, any chance of more money for infrastructure vanished. Once in a while Republicans would talk about wanting to spend more, but they blocked every Obama administration initiative.


And it's all about ideology, an overwhelming hostility to government spending of any kind. This hostility began as an attack on social programs, especially those that aid the poor, but over time it has broadened into opposition to any kind of spending, no matter how necessary and no matter what the state of the economy.


Never mind that the economic models underlying such assertions have failed dramatically in practice, that the people who say such things have been predicting runaway inflation and soaring interest rates year after year and keep being wrong; these aren't the kind of people who reconsider their views in the light of evidence. Never mind the obvious point that the private sector doesn't and won't supply most kinds of infrastructure, from local roads to sewer systems; such distinctions have been lost amid the chants of private sector good, government bad.
You can get a sense of this ideology at work in some of the documents produced by House Republicans under the leadership of Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Budget Committee. For example, a 2011 manifesto titled "Spend Less, Owe Less, Grow the Economy" called for sharp spending cuts even in the face of high unemployment, and dismissed as "Keynesian" the notion that "decreasing government outlays for infrastructure lessens government investment." (I thought that was just arithmetic, but what do I know?) Or take a Wall Street Journal editorial from the same year titled "The Great Misallocators," asserting that any money the government spends diverts resources away from the private sector, which would always make better use of those resources.

And the result, as I said, is that America has turned its back on its own history. We need public investment; at a time of very low interest rates, we could easily afford it. But build we won't.

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Juan
 
 If anything else, the government's job is to protect the safety and health of our citizens.  (so why is he and the GeeOpie so against Obama's Affordable Care Act?)
-- NJ Governor Christ Christie
 

Friday, October 24, 2014

Something to Know - 24 October

Jeff Danziger

This article from today's NY Times calls attention to our current system of medical care by which Big Pharma seems to respond to the research and creation of vaccines might be based on those which produce a favorable return on investment by the companies that make drugs.   Are opportunities squandered by this profit motive?  At what point does it become necessary to think about other factors in the development of vaccines, or must one wait until a scary epidemic develops that endangers people within our borders?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/health/without-lucrative-market-potential-ebola-vaccine-was-shelved-for-years.html?emc=eta1

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Juan
 
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
-- Henry David Thoreau
 

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Something to Know - 23 October

Jeff Danziger


Today, might as well give you something really ridiculous, since it can substitute for all the other distractions that are not noted for being ridiculous but are nonetheless sad and disturbing.  If you recall, Matt Taibbi wrote a book

about our dear Pastor John Hagee and his bolts of thunder and right-wing extremism from his pulpit at Cornterstone Church in San Antonio, Texas (just had to be Texas).  Here is his latest bombast on Ebola and Obama:




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Juan
 
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
-- Henry David Thoreau
 

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Something to Know - 21 October

Ted Rall

We (the USA) are in Afghanistan trying to hold on to the vestiges of something to stabilize the country and beat back the Taliban, or its morphed creation of whatever zealot group is creating havoc and destruction.  This article opens our eyes to the nasty economic development of the poppy growing, which is the raw product for Opium.   Think to how successful we are in beating back the Cocaine and drug trade in Mexico and parts farther on down to Colombia.  How are we doing in that effort?   Can we really exert any influence in cleaning up the agriculture that grows the stuff, and the resulting dark narco-traffic business that corrupts governments and destroys the fabric of social organizations?   We spend billions and billions on programs (government assistance and military operation), but is that money and human resources well spent?   How do we achieve our goals without bankrupting our own domestic programs?:

http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-fg-afghanistan-opium-20141021-story.html

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Juan
 
A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.
-- Albert Camus
 


New Texas Law Would Require Candidates for Governor to Show Proof of I.Q.

BY 


AUSTIN (The Borowitz Report) — A controversial new bill in the Texas House of Representatives would require those running for governor to show proof of the minimum I.Q. necessary to perform the duties of the office.

If the bill were to become law, every politician in Texas with gubernatorial ambitions would be issued an I.D. card featuring his or her photo, current address, and performance on a state-administered I.Q. test.  

Carol Foyler, one of the co-sponsors of the bill, acknowledged that the idea of a minimum I.Q. for candidates was viewed as incendiary in some circles, but insisted that the requirements of the I.D. card were not onerous. "All they have to do is show mastery of simple tasks, such as uttering complete sentences and things of that nature," she said.

But the bill faces an uphill fight in the House, where representatives like Harland Dorrinson, of Plano, have vowed to defeat it.

"I know that the folks behind this so-called bill are well meaning," Dorrinson said. "But if this had been enacted fifteen years ago, it would have choked off our supply of governors."

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Juan
 
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
-- Henry David Thoreau
 

Something for Toyota Owners to Know - 21 October

Finding out a handy list of which Toyota autos are affected by a defective air bag made by Takata is not easy.  This is for all of my friends to use:


Monday, October 20, 2014
Contact: Karen Aldana, 202-366-9550, Public.Affairs@dot.gov


WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration urges owners of certain Toyota, Honda, Mazda, BMW, Nissan, and General Motors vehicles to act immediately on recall notices to replace defective Takata airbags. The message comes with urgency, especially for owners of vehicles affected by the regional recalls in the following areas: Florida, Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, American Samoa, Virgin Islands and Hawaii.

Consumers that are uncertain whether their vehicle is impacted by the Takata recalls, or any other recall, can check onwww.safercar.gov/vinlookup. On the site, consumers can search by their vehicle identification number (VIN) to confirm whether their individual vehicle has an open recall that needs to be addressed. In addition, consumers can sign-up for NHTSA recall alerts, which go out before recall letters are mailed by the manufacturers to the affected owners.

Affected Vehicles, by Manufacturer, Impacted by CY 2013 and 2014 Recalls Involving Takata Airbags

Toyota: 778,177 total number of potentially affected vehicles
2002 – 2004 Lexus SC
2003 – 2004 Toyota Corolla
2003 – 2004 Toyota Corolla Matrix
2002 – 2004 Toyota Sequoia
2003 – 2004 Toyota Tundra
2003 – 2004 Pontiac Vibe

Honda: 2,803,214 total number of potentially affected vehicles
2001 – 2007 Honda Accord (4 cyl)
2001 – 2002 Honda Accord (6 cyl)
2001 – 2005 Honda Civic
2002 – 2006 Honda CR-V
2003 – 2011 Honda Element
2002 – 2004 Honda Odyssey
2003 – 2007 Honda Pilot
2006 – Honda Ridgeline
2003 – 2006 Acura MDX
2002 – 2003 Acura TL/CL

Nissan: 437,712 total number of potentially affected vehicles
2001 – 2003 Nissan Maxima
2001 – 2003 Nissan Pathfinder
2002 – 2003 Nissan Sentra
2001 – 2003 Infiniti I30/I35
2002 – 2003 Infiniti QX4
2003 – Infiniti FX

Mazda: 18,050 total number of potentially affected vehicles
2003 – 2004 Mazda6
2004 – Mazda RX-8

BMW: 573,935 total number of potentially affected vehicles
2000 – 2005 3 Series Sedan
2000 – 2006 3 Series Coupe
2000 – 2005 3 Series Sports Wagon
2000 – 2006 3 Series Convertible
2001 – 2006 M3 Coupe
2001 – 2006 M3 Convertible

General Motors: 133,221 total number potentially affected vehicles
2002 – 2003 Buick LeSabre
2002 – 2003 Buick Rendezvous
2002 – 2003 Cadillac DeVille
2002 – 2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer
2002 – 2003 Chevrolet Impala
2002 – 2003 Chevrolet Monte Carlo
2002 – 2003 Chevrolet Venture
2002 – 2003 GMC Envoy
2002 – 2003 GMC Envoy XL
2002 – 2003 Oldsmobile Aurora
2002 – 2003 Oldsmobile Bravada
2002 – 2003 Oldsmobile Silhouette
2002 – 2003 Pontiac Bonneville
2002 – 2003 Pontiac Montana


Stay connected with NHTSA via: Facebook.com/NHTSA | Twitter.com/NHTSAgov | YouTube.com/USDOTNHTSA | SaferCar.gov


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Juan
 
I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.
-- Henry David Thoreau
 

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Andy Borowitz


Man Infected with Ebola Misinformation Through Casual Contact With Cable News

CANTON, OH (The Borowitz Report)—An Ohio man has become infected with misinformation about the Ebola virus through casual contact with cable news, the Centers for Disease Control has confirmed.

Tracy Klugian, thirty-one, briefly came into contact with alarmist Ebola hearsay during a visit to the Akron-Canton airport, where a CNN report about Ebola was showing on one of the televisions in the airport bar. "Mr. Klugian is believed to have been exposed to cable news for no more than ten minutes, but long enough to become infected," a spokesman for the C.D.C. said. "Within an hour, he was showing signs of believing that an Ebola outbreak in the United States was inevitable and unstoppable."

Once Klugian's condition was apparent, the Ohio man was rushed to a public library and given a seventh-grade biology textbook, at which point he "started to stabilize," the spokesman said.

But others exposed to the widening epidemic of Ebola misinformation may not be so lucky. "A man in Oklahoma was exposed to Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Fox for over three minutes," the C.D.C. spokesman said gravely. "We hope we're not too late."

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Juan
 
I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super-idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food.
-- Alfred Nobel
 

Monday, October 6, 2014

Andy Borowitz


TODAY 10:38 AM

G.O.P. Leader: Five Million Forced Back to Work Under Obama

BY 

CREDITPHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX WONG/GETTY

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a blistering indictment of the Administration's economic policies, the chairman of the Republican National Committee has accused President Obama of forcing five million Americans back to work since he took office, in 2009.

"When President Obama took office, there were five million Americans at home all day who are now, sadly, not at home," said Reince Priebus, on Sunday's edition of "Meet the Press." "They have to go to work five days a week and they're mad as hell about it."

He said that he expected G.O.P. candidates in the midterm elections to hammer away at the President's greatest vulnerability, which he called "the ugly side of employment."

"You don't take five million Americans, uproot them from their families, and make them leave their homes for eight hours a day," Priebus said. "This isn't a dictatorship. This is America."

He added that the President's failure on this issue has helped sharpen the Republican Party's message to voters. "If you're sick and tired of employment, vote for us," he said.


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Juan
 
I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super-idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food.
-- Alfred Nobel
 

Something to Know - 6 October

Mike Luckovich

1.  This article highlights one of the most difficult aspects of international shipping - getting supplies and equipment into a country.  Armed with the pernicious tools of bureaucracy inherited from foreign colonialists or occupiers,  and then adding a generous layer of bribery and greed, the extraction of fees and commissions from the movement of goods can prevent even the noblest of transactions:

2.  Ever wonder about the source of armaments and continued supply of ammunition for ISIS (aka ISIL) ?   The USA, as well as other nations, provide the manufacturing process, and the politicians sell them or give them away, and pile of stuff ends up on the other side of the battle lines.  The only win is the military-industrial complex:


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Juan
 
I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super-idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food.
-- Alfred Nobel
 

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Something to Know - 4 September

It is around 3:15, and hot in Claremont.  We are melting.  It's around 105.  So, just staying close to a fan and thought I would send this out instead of frolicking outside:

Robert Ariail

1.  This one is hard to pass up.  I think you know my distaste for George W. Bush.  My reasons for disliking him is that he was actually President for 8 years.  So, when I come across an article that is written by someone who shares the same opinion, I smile a bit and pass it on:

2.  This will take your mind off of the troubles and news of the day.   Had enough of Ebola and ISIS?  Slide from "W" to slang:

3.  Time to get back on track.  At the present time, the debate, if you want to call it that, employs phrases like "boots on the ground" to the GOP wanting to talk about this later - after the midterms.  Have you seen the TV news videos of the debates in the British and Turkish Parliaments on entering into a war time engagement in the Middle East?   The elected body is actually debating and voting on committing their citizens and treasury to war.  What has our elected body (Congress? done?   NOTHING.  It's as if the agenda of business goes from memorializing a few bridges and ships with names to honor something, to House hearings on the Secret Service's problems, and passing up the BIG discussion about warring action with ISIS.  In our local LA paper, it seems as though there is more discussion about phasing our single-use plastic bags at grocery stores than talking about spending billions and billions more dollars and putting troops on battlefields.   Let's talk about this:

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Juan
 
The government is us; we are the government, you and I.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
 

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Something to Know - 1 October

Mike Luckovich

1.  This was "sneaked in, or was it just another event in the dry arroyo of Middle-East battle fatigue?   Yesterday, the United States entered into an agreement with Afghanistan that we would keep a presence of 10,000 military personnel through 2024 - TEN MORE YEARS.   Was this on the front page of news, or on the major news networks?  NO...nothing that I recall.   Does anyone care enough to register a peep of concern?   To me, it feels like it was as newsworthy an appendage to the weather report on page 18 of the LA Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/world/asia/afghanistan-and-us-sign-bilateral-security-agreement.html
 
2.  Roger Cohen of the NY Times attempts to explain why ISIS is what it is.  He finds no "Why" in his search, and compares the movement to other past examples:

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