MONEY DOES MAKE LIFE MORE ACCESSIBLE

Dubai Water Hotel

Poor people snorkel.  They buy some inexpensive flippers, and buy a tube that fits in their mouth and extends high enough out of the waster to let the swimmer breath through the tube and have their face submerged so they can see aquatic life.  It is not  an exorbitant expenditure and a good hobby.  However very soon, if you're rich, as in really rich, and you live in Dubai or can visit there, you can stay in a hotel that is built with several floors of rooms below water so your windows will allow you to look out at the ocean aquarium. 

In an article by Simeon Kerr, he describes that Dubai is coming out of their financial problems and back to building their wealthy tourist magnets.  Drydocks World, a ship-building company that has filed for bankruptcy protection, has signed an exclusive arrangement with BIG InvestConsult of Switzerland to build a “Water Discus hotel” in Dubai.

To read the article by Kerr, click here.

FEELING PITY FOR SCOTT BROWN

It must be difficult for Scott Brown right now, to be running as a Republican.  If he has much decency, he must realize he is on a losing side if he thinks that people can applaud him for his connection to the Conservative right, the Koch brothers, Grover Norquist, ALEC, NRA, and all the rest of the misogynists .

Senator Brown stooped really low and is challenging whether Professor Warren is qualified for her job because her great-great-great-grandmother is Cherokee.  Sorry, Mr. Brown but your fading good looks cannot compete with her brilliant brain and caring for people with less fortune than she.

Read more about this issue here.

GET INFORMED: THERE ARE GREAT NEW BOOKS OUT THERE

Just as I have developed a mild distortion in my eyesight which effects my reading (amild(retinal problem), the world has begun to publish a plethora of books recently that I want to read. Dylan Ratigan's "Greedy Bastards" wasn't consistent with my determination to read only books with happy endings,  In this world of ' you can't have it all', all of a sudden there are a number of non-fiction books that have cramped my usual light reading with only happy endings.

Robert G. Kaiser, Published: April 30 in an article you can read in full here,  He writes: "Reading this book is a little like quaffing a double espresso on an empty stomach — it’s a jolt. For this reader it was a welcome jolt. Others will find it less palatable."  He goes on to write:  "Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein have been Washington fixtures for three decades. They are two of the brightest, best informed and most scholarly students of our politics. They started out together as graduate students of political science at the University of Michigan, and decades ago took up residence at the Brookings Institution (Mann) and the American Enterprise Institute (Ornstein). Both have cultivated Democratic and Republican senators and House members to help them figure out the workings of the legislative branch. They acknowledge holding liberal views themselves, but throughout their careers they have tried to uphold a scholarly, non-partisan standard. Republicans once took them as seriously as Democrats did.

The4se books cover the old adage, :It never rains but it pours."  We either starve for information or get totally inundated by it. A third one to creep into my wish list and library is Drift by Rachel Maddow.   This was a pleasant surprise.  Rachel Maddow writes in the same clear, well-articulated style of her show on MSNBC.  It is titled Drift:  the Unmooring of American Military Power.  This is hardly within the genre of my usual reading, 'feel-good' books with happy endings with boy-meet- girl and they live 'happily ever after plots.' but well within my strong desire tpo understand the world around me and how things work, past and present.

 

 

THE MORE INTELLIGENT, POLISHED LIMBAUGH: GROVER NORQUIST

Grover Norquist was telling fellow Republicans that Mitt Romney will do as he is told.  In a recent speech, commented on by David Frum he said:  "The requirement for president.Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared."

His arrogance is shocking:   "All we have to do is replace Obama. ...  We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate."

To hear Norquist speak, you realize he does not see Obama as leading this country at all.  Indeed, he has all the Republicans attached to him bu oath and he and cohorts have had the country is a choke hold since Obama took office to whatever degree they could maintain.

His speech to CPAC, 2/1//12, can be heard here.

If Norquist and friends have their way for the next 20 years, there will not be an America as we used to know it.   Almost a year ago, I had written a blog as I realized just how dangerous Norquist is to our democracy.  Sadly, he and his followers are too entrenched to be moved easily from their sufficiently reaching power.  If only more voters cared to learn truths instead of the scam artist's lies.  We can only hope truth will win out over evil in the November elections.

THERE SEEM TO BE MORE LIES THAN TRUTH OUT THERE RIGHT NOW

I have no idea what the statistics are on how much time people spend on listening to news on radio, searching for it TV, or just where they may think they are getting news.  However, it is clear that not everyone is getting truth.  The most refreshing TV today is when a politician says something and, almost immediately, everything said previously on the subject is played from the great database from all the years Big Brother's camera has been storing all that stuff you have said that is stored in cyberspace.  It makes the saying, :you can run but you can't hide" most applicable.

picture by Associated Press

Paul Ryan has been caught lying about his awe of Ayn Rand and is now denying (after writing and speaking about how he thinks she has been a mentor and someone he has modeled himself after.  Greenspan was brought to his knees with apology for having followed her advice for so long at the destruction of our economy.  However, Ryan thinks he can avoid Greenspan's mistakes, apparently.  Not so, say the people who have studied his budget. Despite his denials there has been too much proof of his worship of her.
The article in Wire is titled: "Audio Surfaces of Paul Ryan's Effusive Love of Ayn Rand"

Santorum, Paul Ryan and others who profess to be so heavily influenced by their Catholicism are finding that the Catholic Church feels differently about how they are demonstrating it. Everyone is entitled to change their mind but they are not excused for denying it, or saying they have changed their mind when they, in fact, have not.


Politicians should not get elected by their talk.  They should take a test for the job and when those who are determined competent are found, the the public should vote on which is the most personable, creative, easy to work with, and truly invested in the country and not a re-election.

THE THREE STOOGES LIVE ON

My daughter and her family are addicted to the Three Stoo0ges, among others of old movie fame.  This weekend, she and her family attended the yearly get together of some family and friends of the Three Stooges.  A remarkable man who married someone related to Larry Fine, a Stooge from beginning to end, became the benefactor of this wonderful Museum in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.  To read a bit about the Stoogeum, click here.

The mission of the museum (which charges no fees) is:  "to preserve and interpret Historically or culturally significant pieces of Stoogeabilia in order to further the enjoyment and appreciation of the Three Stooges and to maintain the legacy of their comedy for future generations."

I've not seen a more tasteful and efficient display of this incredible collection of memorabilia in so many forms.  Original artwork in tribute by famous artists who are awe inspiring in their creativity.  

For a complete description of their exhibits,click here.

When the world is disintegrating before our very eyes, it is an Island of Sanity in a Sea of Insanity....just a lovely place to enjoy some of the films buy these great comics, and gain a better understanding of why it is important to maintain their gift to our world.

 

KARL ROVE ADMITS BEING WRONG ON CHENEY

In a Wall St Journal article on 4/26/12, Karl Rove wrote: 

I Was Wrong About Dick Cheney...

...and other lessons I learned from vetting vice-presidential candidates. 

Rove, essentially says the choice for V.P. should not be made on politics but for the person suited to do the job should anything happen to the President.  For the next three months the guesses will run wild   We would not want a repeat of a few president's ago when the general joke around town was, "If the President gets shot, quick! aim at *#!! (the VP)"

Stories have been written about understudies who pray for the star to be out just one night so they can prove they can do the job better.  Perhaps VPs do the same but, with the exception of Truman, that has not often happened.

If Sarah Palin had become President...I shudder just seeing these words.