Countering Russian Hostilities Act of 2017

On January 11, 2017January 10, 2017 By ls1228In Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, Pisses Me Off, politicsLeave a comment

To say Donald Trump brings out extreme emotions, anger, hostility, really bad language, and wildly differing opinions is a gross understatement. Because I know this, I am never this political on my blog. Alright, I’ll scale that back to, rarely. I’m rarely this political on my blog and most certainly not 3 days in a row. But into the muck I am going to slog because some of what I talked about and wished for yesterday (Cooler Heads May Still Prevail) started to happen today!

While old school (and by old, I mean those with an average age of 81) Republican Senators began the first day of confirmation hearings for Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, there was a very important piece of bi-partisan legislation introduced on the Hill: “Countering Russian Hostilities Act of 2017.”

russiasanctions

“We have been attacked by Russia. That’s no longer up to any debate,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.), one of the co-sponsors of the bill. “It cannot be business as usual.”

The measure would:

Impose Visa bans and freeze the assets of “those who undermine the cyber security of public or private infrastructure and democratic institutions”
Impose sanctions on transactions with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors, potentially making it harder for banks to do business with the Russian military and spy agencies
Solidify Obama-era sanctions on Russia, imposed in response to the country’s election meddling and its 2014 annexation of Crimea – meaning, no action could be taken that implies recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
Authorize $100 million for the State Department and other U.S. agencies to fight Russian propaganda, including by supporting programs to counter “fake news”

sanctions-1 Because all sanctions bills typically contain a “national security waiver,” even if the measure receives enough votes to become law, there is little Congress could do to force the Trump administration to implement the new sanctions.

According to the Legal Information Institute, in order for the President to enact a national security waiver of application of sanctions with respect to a foreign financial institution:

The President must declare that he has determined that the waiver is in the national security interest of the United States; and
He must submit to the appropriate Congressional Committees a report on the determination and the reasons for the determination.

What gives me hope is that, in a Senate comprised of 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats, 4 of the 5 Republican Senators I named yesterday, as imperative to keeping the GOP and Trump’s agenda in check:

Senator John McCain (R) Arizona
Senator Lindsey Graham (R) South Carolina
Senator Marco Rubio (R) Florida
Senator Ben Sasse (R) Nebraska

stepped across the aisle before the inauguration to serve notice that:

The laws of our country are to be followed by all, especially the President of the United States and those he appoints or nominates to serve in his administration;
That countries that act against the United States are going to be served with sanctions by Congress;
That the President of the United States is bound by honor and oath to uphold and enforce those sanctions.

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Cooler Heads May Still Prevail

On January 10, 2017January 9, 2017 By ls1228In Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, Pisses Me Off, politicsLeave a comment

us-capitol-east-front-sunny-day Yesterday Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made the same request of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that was made to Senator Harry Reid BY Mitch McConnell 8 years ago when their parties’ roles were reversed: The request is simply that President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees must meet the same traditional standards that were demanded of President Barack Obama’s nominees eight years ago.

Schumer even went so far as to use a copy of Mitch McConnell’s original document (lest he forget his own words) just marking up/overwriting the necessary areas to reflect the changed circumstances regarding the incoming administration:

shumerletter

Here’s why the request was made :

Republicans, who control the Senate, are starting to hold confirmation hearings but Nominees haven’t completed background checks & ethics clearances that are traditionally required of Cabinet appointees.
These were the first two standards that McConnell demanded of Obama’s Cabinet nominees eight years ago — and that the Obama administration met — when Democrats controlled the Senate.

That’s right, the same person who sent a letter to Senator Harry Reid, then Majority Leader, demanding that the Nominees presented by President Barack Obama first pass the required FBI background check AND the ethics clearance wants to rush through the confirmations for Trump’s nominees without those same checks being completed, even though there are lingering concerns about the Trump administration’s big conflicts of interest around the world. HELLO HYPOCRISY!

170102163512-democrats-targeting-trump-picks-congress-115th-confirmation-bash-lead-00011824-exlarge-169

Another giant problem looming over the confirmation process?

Per CNBC: Some Trump Cabinet Picks Have Given HUGE Cash Donations to the Senators Voting on Their Confirmations! UM, HELLO??? Anyone Listening?

ForeignPolicy.com shared, “OGE Director Walter Shaub wrote to Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, (D-Mass.), that he had “great concern” over confirmation hearings being scheduled for several nominees who hadn’t completed the ethics review process.

“I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee had completed the ethics review process,” Shaub wrote. As long as he remained director, the office “will not succumb to pressure to cut corners and ignore conflicts of interest.”

Because the Republicans now hold a simple majority in the Senate, which is all that is required for the nominees to gain confirmation, it will be a lot easier for Trump’s nominees to slide by without threat of filibuster holding any water.

Before you think all is lost for at least the next 2 years, there is some small, but lingering, hope for those who still believe that some in the senate, no matter what their party, still believe in doing what’s right and not just toeing the party line…

Senator John McCain (R) Arizona – He withdrew his endorsement of Trump over his lewd behavior and disagrees with the President-Elect’s positions on: Foreign Policy, Russian Election Interference, and does not approve of Trump’s nominee of Rex Tillerson (who has close ties to Russia) for Secretary of State;
Senator Rand Paul (R) Kentucky – He is a fringe Republican who doesn’t shy away from publicly disagreeing with his party. He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which means he will vote on Tillerson (who he is not supportive of) before he reaches a full Senate vote. He leans Libertarian and is likely to disagree with Trump’s plans for everything from new trade restrictions to immigration and law enforcement.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R) South Carolina – Graham warned that Trump would be unable to handle the challenges facing the next president and destroy the Republican Party in the process. He agrees with McCain that Trump’s foreign policy weaknesses are dangerous.
Senator Ben Nasse (R) Nebraska – Nasse is a harsh critic of Trump. He finds him dishonest and even suggested a third party candidate challenge Trump. He agrees with the weakness in foreign policy and also finds big problems in the nomination of Tillerson for Secretary of State. He is more in line with Rand Paul and will likely challenge any deviation from traditional GOP agenda items.
Senator Marco Rubio (R) Florida – He shares the skepticism over Trumps positions on foreign policy. Rubio also sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which means he will vote on Tillerson (Rubio distrusts his close Russia ties) before he reaches a full Senate vote.

It will only take 3 Senators crossing party lines on confirmation votes to bring it to Trump’s attention that he can’t run roughshod over Congress. At some point ethics and common sense have to come back into play. Senators are not deaf, dumb and blind. They read the newspapers (or the news online), see Trumps ridiculous behavior via Twitter and those same news sources, and they hear about it in the halls of Capital Hill.

At some point the electorate will come to their own conclusions regarding the occupant of the Oval Office, but for the security of our citizens at home and abroad, the stability and growth of our economy and our standing within the world, those who are elected to do the business of the United States FOR the citizens of the United States better reach their conclusions a hell of a lot faster! HMMM

Late addition to this post: Today it was confirmed by Ryan Mac and Matt Drange at Forbes that Donald Trump’s transition team has been receiving help vetting their cabinet nominees and political appointees from Chuck C. Johnson, infamous cyberstalker and overt white supremacist, banned for life from Twitter and suspended multiple times from Facebook for hate speech. NO WONDER THEY WANT TO PUSH THROUGH THE CONFIRMATIONS WITHOUT COMPLETED BACKGROUND CHECKS AND ETHICS REVIEWS!

Feminist Isn’t a Dirty Word

On January 8, 2017 By ls1228In Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, Pisses Me OffLeave a comment

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of feminism is:

: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
: organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests

feminist \-nist\ noun or adjective

feministic \fe-mə-ˈnis-tik\ adjective

Today a friend shared an article from March of last year where a woman was justifying why she isn’t a feminist in today’s society. She starts off by expressing that she believes in equal pay for equal work, a decidedly feminist thought, but in all other ways, she is a 1950’s traditionalist in the duties she believes are hers to fulfill as a woman. She aspires, in all ways, to be June Cleaver:

Have her boyfriend seek her father’s permission to marry her
Absolutely take her husband’s last name, no question
Women are fragile beings and must lean upon the man once she is no longer single
Submit to her husband in all ways: He is head of the household, the provider, protector and leader of the family.
Stay home and have her job be to take care of her husband
Stay home and perform all domestic tasks
Stay home and care for the children

I’m too Type A to be June Cleaver.

I like doing some of the domestic stuff but in no way do I believe that it’s my job, as a woman, to perform those tasks. My husband and I both live in the house and have always had an understanding that we should share the domestic responsibilities accordingly. We did not employ a full time maid, and raised our son to understand that it’s his responsibility to clean up after himself. If he dirties a dish he should rinse and either put it into the sink or the dishwasher. The same goes with straightening up after himself and keeping his clothes clean. When he was a child I, of course, helped him with those tasks, but he is a grown ass adult and it is his responsibility now, not some girlfriend’s, or later, his wife’s.

While the first few paragraphs of this article are fine, the author decides she wants to be June in the rest, submitting to her husband, as the Bible says, and that is fine with her. I can’t buy the rest of the Wilting Flower, I need a man to support and protect me, garbage.

Most of her ideals and role models are likely from the same region of the country that she is in: the South/Southeast. Living is slower there than where I grew up. Half of my family is from Alabama, and I love everything about their traditions and ability to carry on the traditional family roles, but I am in an entirely different style of society in Southern California.

While it’s not impossible to live those values in California, and I’m sure many do, it’s not the way I was raised. My grandmother would be considered a 1970’s feminist without the bra burning and protesting. All of her kids were out of the house by the mid-70’s and she enjoyed the freedom that allowed her:

She worked out of the house and earned her own money
She enjoyed independent leisure activities
She did not bow to the rule of my grandfather, in fact, he took more of the domestic role, he enjoyed cooking and their home was always neat as a pin because they were both quite tidy.

My Mom was definitely the one who wore the pants in my house. Dad was usually on the same page, but Mom made most of the decisions. I know that she got a lot of her confidence from seeing my grandma’s courage to step outside of what was expected of her and try new things.

womens-salaries-01-262x300 With the two of them, plus some mothers of friends and very strong coaches and teachers as role models, I was bound to be anything but a wallflower, so much so that my Mom used to tell me that she wanted to be like ME when she grew up, LOL.

I’ve had the word “Feminist” thrown at me like it’s a bad thing. That is a load of bullshit. As election day neared and friendships became strained with the realization of just how wrong I was about how some life long friends really felt about a woman’s place in society, I began to take stock of what being a feminist meant to me.

From the mid-1980’s on, most of us went to college and expected to have careers. We expected to contribute to our households in ways most of our grandmothers and some of our mothers hadn’t, and the men we were raised beside expected it too. With that in mind, the hurt I felt at the nasty tone taken when I was called a feminist, pissed me off even more.

Maybe I could understand how men might feel like that if it were the late 60’s and early 70’s when men were getting their egos bruised because their wives had to go to work to help make ends meet in the very tough economy, but THAT WAS MORE THAN 40 YEARS AGO. Times have changed but apparently women haven’t come as far as we thought we had. Some of my male peers, who are still under 50, think the little woman belongs at home having babies, cooking, cleaning and waiting to take care of her man. PUHLEEZE! HMMMM

Back to the topic at hand, Amanda Jayne Sankey’s article about not being a feminist. She says that she is content to let the man take charge, make all of the decisions and provide for the family so that she can concentrate on being, “a mom who takes care of her children and doesn’t miss out on their lives.” I am actually offended by that comment more than anything else in her brief post.

Stress Mother Running Late with Kids on White There is no part of being a powerful, strong, capable woman that automatically results in me being unable to also be a mother who can take care of my children and not miss out on their lives. It’s called multi-tasking. It’s what all women do, whether we are stay at home Moms who “do it all,” or Moms who really do “do it all” by leaving the home to work full or part time, sharing in the responsibilities at home, sharing in the responsibilities of caring for our children, and sharing with our spouses the joys of everything going on in our children’s lives.

Neither life choice is right or wrong. I believe that our lives are largely influenced by how much exposure we have to experiences outside of our community. If we never leave a small town atmosphere where everyone knows each other and no one ventures further than the next town over, then we are highly unlikely to buck tradition. Being from a faster paced part of the country, where women are much more independent, I’d never be able to live a life with someone who expected me to be June to his Ward Cleaver. If that makes me a nasty feminist, then sign me up.

The Road to Success is Always Under Construction

On January 7, 2017January 7, 2017 By ls1228In Extreme Blonde Moments, Helpful Tips1 Comment

The first week of 2017 is done. Did you accomplish what you set out to do this week?

I was hit with bronchitis on Christmas Eve and it is still hanging on 14 days later, so I did not accomplish all that I wanted toward my 2017 goals this week, but that didn’t mean I accomplished nothing. Baby steps. Hmmm

I love this advice from one of the world’s richest men, Warren Buffet. I like to read it as Warren Buffet’s Tips For Gaining the Financial Independence to Live Your Dreams:

To put myself closer to the position to do this, this year I’ll be reminding myself that I come first. I care about and for many people, but no longer will my needs come last.

In order to do that I need to remember who I am:

I am Smart
I am Ambitious
I am Strong
I am Practical
I am Organized
I am Focused

Hate or Fear the Dentist?

On January 5, 2017January 4, 2017 By ls1228In Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, healthLeave a comment

I can’t improve on this November post from Hannah Poindexter, Editor of dose.com (A.K.A. OMG Facts on Twitter), in any way, shape or form, so I am sharing it as I found it. It is fantastic news for those who hate or fear the dentist!

Electrical Currents Could Heal Cavities, No Drill Needed -Plus, they’re way more effective than traditional fillings.

Putting the recent clown scare aside, dentists may have the most feared profession out there. Not only do they stick their latex-y hands in your mouth while asking you complex questions; they also literally drill into your teeth on the regular. And while we can’t promise they’ll ever stop asking hard-to-answer questions, a new technology for healing cavities may soon make the drill obsolete.

The World Health Organization notes that nearly 100% of adults have dental cavities as a result of tooth decay. To some degree, your teeth naturally repair themselves through a remineralization process that rebuilds the barrier protecting teeth from bacteria. Your dentist’s drilling clears out the damaged area affected by bacteria buildup that’s broken down the tooth’s structure.

However, researchers at King’s College in London have been working on a process that uses low-frequency electrical currents to promote the self-healing process of damaged teeth.

This new technology, called “electrically accelerated and enhanced remineralization” aims to aid the process when the damage can’t be repaired naturally.

**A simulated image of a cavity (in red) shrinking during the new remineralization process. |** King’s College London

The British researchers say that dentists would hold a small device over the affected tooth that would emit electrical pulses, unnoticeable to the patient, that push minerals back into the tooth. The treatment is expected to take about the same amount of time as a traditional filling would, with similar costs. The no-drill treatment could be available in your dentist’s office in just three years.

The process should also be significantly more effective than traditional fillings, which eventually need to be replaced. The electrical pulses would heal the tooth itself, and do so quicker and more effectively than any other forms of remineralization.

Without a drill in hand, dentists may soon be a lot less scary, though I’m sure the clowns would be happy to step up their game. Thanks to Erin Klabunde.

Personally I have no issue with the dentist, but I know a lot of people who don’t go because they are scared to death for one reason or another. If this technology pans out, the only obstacle I could see is the inevitable refusal of insurance companies to cover the expense because that is what insurance companies see to really enjoy doing. HMMM

Trump Triumph or Twitter Smoke & Mirrors?

On January 4, 2017January 4, 2017 By ls1228In Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, Pisses Me Off, TechnologyLeave a comment

President Elect Donald Trump, who refuses to face the press for questions, announced via Twitter how pleased he was that Ford Motors was canceling their planned $1.6 billion dollar expansion of their manufacturing operations in Mexico and adding 700 jobs in Michigan instead.

“Trump has previously slammed the company for plans to move all small-car production to Mexico, and claimed that he helped stop Ford from shifting an entire factory from Kentucky to Mexico. Ford has repeatedly said it has no plans to close any U.S. plants.” – source CNBC HMMM.

In that same CNBC interview, The CEO of Ford, Mark Fields, was very quick to fire back that the change in plans was NOT at all to capitulate to Trumps threat of a 35% import tariff on Ford vehicles produced in Mexico for sale in the United States, but instead that the investment of $700 billion in expanding their Michigan manufacturing facilities was how they regularly do business, always first trying to keep business at home when it makes business sense, and that it was due to decrease in market demand for small gasoline powered cars and their planned move into the “electric car era.”

The Washington Post’s Danielle Paquette laid out in detail the actual reasons Ford canceled the Mexico small car plant:

Fields was blunt about why Ford changed its mind and canceled a $1.6 billion factory slated for San Luis Potosi. “The reason that we are not building the new plant,” he said, “the primary reason, is just demand has gone down for small cars.”
Ford wants to be the leader in Electric vehicles, so they are investing $4.5 billion in electric vehicle production by 2020

They need the electric cars to be assembled near the engineers
Ford currently employees 85,000 workers in the United States, but auto manufacturing at Ford from this point forward WILL become increasingly automated, resulting in FEWER jobs for line workers
“Each iteration of a facility becomes less like old school manufacturing and more high-tech,” Smith said. “THAT WILL ULTIMATELY MEAN FEWER JOBS.” Automation allows companies to produce more using fewer people.

“The Ford engineers, tasked with creating the Electric models, work in Dearborn, MI, 20 miles from the Flat Rock assembly plant. Moving production to Mexico would have made their jobs harder, said Brett Smith, an auto analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.”

For anyone still paying attention at this point, Ford isn’t abandoning production in Mexico.

They currently employ 8,800 employees in their Hermasillo, Mexico plant
They shipped 265,000 cars to the United States from that plant between January and August 2016
They intend to continue making gasoline-powered Ford Focus vehicles there.

The Nitty Gritty:

Mexico is the United States’ third largest trade partner
Imposing a 35% tariff on imports from Mexico would mean tearing up NAFTA, which he doesn’t need Congressional approval to do, but Mexico will fight any change to NAFTA via imposition of comparable tariffs on American imports
Trump would have to get Congressional approval to impose any new international tariffs
International tariffs, in the past, have cost Americans money and hurt our economy

I’m Tired of Bad News

On December 28, 2016 By ls1228In election, entertainment, Extreme Blonde Moments, headlinesLeave a comment

leia With all of the dirty politics, bad and false news along with the unexpected deaths of beloved entertainers and icons, #RIPCarrieFisher, we’ve been bombarded with in the last 3 months of 2016, I thought I’d pass along some funny and intriguing facts to leave us all something to giggle about and ponder as we enter the new year:

The Havasupai Tribe of Indians, who live deep in Arizona’s Grand Canyon, are visited by more than 20,000 visitors annually who come to hike, camp, ride horses and swim in beautiful turquoise waters. The public can reach them only via helicopters or by navigating primitive trails on horseback. Because of their remote location, the tribe is not serviced by FedEx or UPS and they can only receive their US mail via delivery by mule. They are the only place in the United States to receive their mail by mule.
A “butt” is an actual unit of measurement. The term butt or buttload was originally used as a medieval measurement for wine: a buttload = 475 liters or 126 gallons.
Tired of your glasses sliding down your nose? There’s a wax for that: NERDWAX™! The guys on Sharktank loved it! Rub on your glasses or nose like Chapstick™ and your glasses stay put for hours.
Harrison Ford is the only film icon who has a species of spiders (Calponia harrisonfordi) and ants (Pheidole harrisonfordi) named after him in honor of his dedicated conservation work.
Sorry to tell you this ladies, but here are a few new reasons for your guy to try and encourage you to perform oral sex on him: Oral sex boosts cardio health, lowers blood pressure, it burns calories, and it is believed that the more ejaculations a man has, the lower his risk of prostate cancer. In addition, a Dutch study showed that swallowing semen lowered a woman’s risk of pre-eclampsia (dangerously high blood pressure that can occur during pregnancy). And a North Carolina State University study showed that women who regularly preformed fellatio reduced their risk of breast cancer by as much as 40%.
Phil Knight paid Carol Davidson (a student at Portland State University) $35 in 1971
for designing the iconic NIKE Swoosh logo. 10 years later he gifted her with today’s equivalent of $643,000 worth of NIKE stock.
Only female ducks quack. The males grunt, hiss, moo, and make other similar noises.

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Home Depot LED Tree Lights

On December 22, 2016 By ls1228In Extreme Blonde Moments, Helpful Tips, holiday projects, Pisses Me Off, Product Endoresements, Safety, TechnologyLeave a comment

Word to the wise: when you smell something smoldering, the power goes out in the room you’re in (thank God for GFI), and it’s still there when you throw the breaker…UNPLUG THE CHRISTMAS TREE!

Had I not been home we’d have had a fire last night with a 5 day fresh tree, new double wire strand of 150 lights and water in the stand.

I’d noticed half the lights flickering occasionally while I was decorating the tree and wrapping gifts, but it had stopped. I thought I had a loose bulb and didn’t give it a second thought when the lights stayed on after tapping a light.

Hours later the entire wire fried, was sizzling hot and was starting to heat up the tree…keep a watch on your tree lights people!

Made for Home Depot in China. Home Depot might want to consider spending a bit more on having their branded lights manufactured to safer standards. Perhaps it would be wise to sell lights that don’t endanger people by burning up in 15 hours instead of lasting the “15 holiday seasons” advertised on the box. HMMM!

LED
Uses 80% less energy than incandescent bulbs
Energy Star Compliant
Supposed to last 15 years (not 15 hours)
Connect 30 strings on 1 outlet! I used 1 string 😳

Lighten Up People!

On December 9, 2016 By ls1228In election, entertainment, Extreme Blonde Moments, headlines, Pisses Me Off, TechnologyLeave a comment

blazingsaddles Before special interest groups began dictating the tenor of the news, the 24 hour cable news cycle, cell phones (with instant video to internet upload ability), and social media’s ability to take a story worldwide in milliseconds, things that weren’t politically correct were funny. It’s okay, you can admit that you laughed at the off-color humor of the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s everyone did.

Whose dad didn’t come home from a night out with the boys with a bad joke or two?
Who didn’t laugh at the dozens of “Revenge of the Nerds” type movies that filled the theaters?
“Blazing Saddles” and it’s blatantly racist humor?
What about the “Cheech and Chong” movies?
How about the very raunchy stand-up routines of Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Bobcat Goldthwait, Andrew Dice Clay, Richard Pryor and others of the era?
Who didn’t see (and die laughing at) the VERY R-rated Eddie Murphy “Delirious” and “Raw”?

Today if you admitted to laughing hysterically at any comedy of that type, at minimum, you’d be accused of being (depending which comic you were describing) any one of:

Racist
Sexist
Xenophobic
Anti-Establishment
Discriminatory (Against the disabled or intellectually “challenged”)
A Pedophile
Abusive (Spousal or otherwise)
Homophobic
Alcoholic
A Drug Addict (or finding the practice/behavior acceptable)

babes-of-the-sunset-strip Envision your 1980’s party-girl bestie, who years ago would have been laughing beside you. Now she’s among the modern-day helicopter parenting, wine drinking /judgment passing disguised as women’s bible study night, soccer-moms who, rather than just ignore jokes or delete things they’ve decided they “can’t” publicly find funny anymore:

Spread emails publicly shaming a person who shared an off-color joke or meme
Encourage mutual friends to cut a person from social circles for the same
No longer allow their children to associate with the person’s children at or after school
Have contacted Human Resources to report the “inappropriate” behavior at work as harassing, gotten them reprimanded, and even fired
Have spread the gossip to their places of worship, children’s sports teams and other participatory organizations, making the person and their family feel so unwelcome they leave and even more from their home.

All of this stemming from having the nerve to have a sense of humor and realizing that there is still a First Amendment. How one person’s right to share and enjoy humor has gone from people just deleting the offending or not funny email or just giving the person a courtesy laugh or politely asking not to hear that type of joke/language to the extremes above is everything that our society was never intended to be. Our Constitution and protections of the many rights allowed to us within the Bill of Rights is exactly why we have gone to war. #PeopleNeedToLightenUp

You might wonder what made me go Hmmm about this today. Well, it was seeing another stupid headline about Donald Trump’s Twitter war with the way that he is being characterized on Saturday Night Live. #SatireIsProtectedSpeech

snl

When Saturday Night Live was actually funny (from 1975 through the 1980’s) everyone tuned in to see the double entendres that Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radnor, John Belushi, Eddie Murphy, Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Tina Fey, and dozens of others over the ensuing decades tossed out that danced just below the censor line.

Based on the personal offense that the President-Elect is taking to the lampooning Alec Baldwin’s almost weekly Saturday Night Live performances are giving him, he must have forgotten the very nature of the show he admitted to enjoying before he actually won enough electoral college votes to earn the job he was seeking. Saturday Night Live has always made its laughs at the expense of the folly of politicians (including past Presidents), celebrities, sports figures and other notorious media personalities.

For a while (read that, when it served his benefit) Trump was in on the “joke.” Trump appeared as a host on SNL multiple times, largely to take the wind out of SNL’s anti-Trump sails. He refused to poke fun at himself and was only interested, when he hosted in 2015, in an appearance that was widely criticized, in downplaying his inflammatory campaign trail statements about Mexican and Muslim immigrants. Now he seems much more interested in wielding whatever power he retains at NBC by making veiled threats that SNL, which has survived 42 years and 7 Presidents, is on the way out.

This quote from the June 10, 2015 edition of Salon Magazine perfectly sums up my feelings on critical opinions of satire and comedy:

Know the performer you are watching on TV, listening to or seeing live
If you’re in the public eye and don’t like what’s being said about you, especially if the truth hurts, #ChangeTheChannel
If you don’t enjoy raw, politically honest, racial, sexual, vulgar and other taboo topics that might be in a show, DON’T GO SEE THAT COMEDIAN OR ANYTHING THEY ARE IN! #FreedomOfChoice
If people you know enjoy that type of comedy you don’t have to stop being their friend, but you don’t have any right to pass judgement on their taste in entertainment. They have no right to choose your shoes, your home, your car or your husband/wife – the same logic applies: #ToEachTheirOwn

Lisa Lampanelli, “The edgy comic wrote a piece in the Hollywood Reporter titled “How Political Correctness is Killing Comedy,” writing “Here’s the problem: Comedy, probably more than any other art form, is subjective. What jokes crack up your mom, your little brother, and your gay best friend will be completely different — unless it’s a video of a guy getting hit in the gonads with a piñata stick. That’s funny to everyone….If you like safe, generic comedy, that’s fine. Go on a cruise ship and crack up listening to the comedian point out the hilarious differences between loafers and shoes with laces. But don’t go to one of my shows and be outraged by what you hear. Going to my show and expecting me not to cross the line of good taste and social propriety is like going to a Rolling Stones concert and expecting not to hear ‘Satisfaction.’”

fpbaar Closing with a return to the theme of #PeopleNeedToLightenUp, if my kid were still small and asked for this toy, I would totally buy it if it was real! As kids we played house in a real playhouse. Mom and dad left for work during the day and went out on dates at night. Well, it’s 2016, dates are now happy hour after work and my girlfriend owns two of the bars I like: that’s real life small business ownership in today’s society people! I couldn’t care less if people agree with my humor or not. #IWouldBuyTheFisherPriceHappyHourPlaySet

Do You Work At A Desk All Day?

On December 7, 2016 By ls1228In Exercise, Extreme Blonde Moments, Fitness, health, Helpful TipsLeave a comment

duck-foot-mobile If you work at a desk all day do this quick test.

Stand up and look at your toes.

Are they pointed out like a ducks feet?

I probably don’t have to tell you this, but you have tight hip flexors, which is one way your body is harmed by sitting at a desk all day. It’s time for you to start stretching.

This October 24th article from Men’s Health Magazine is one you might want to take a look at or you can read on and watch the video below. I’d actually rather you read on 😉

In just a few one minute sessions throughout your day you an undo the tangle your muscles have become while sitting at your desk which will ease the pain in your knees, hips & back and improve your results at the gym.

The stretch is called the “elevated pigeon stretch.” The elevated pigeon stretch:

opens hips
helps get “duck feet” realigned when standing
reduces lower back pain
reduces knee pain
improves performance on squats and dead lifts
helps you run faster
helps you jump higher

If you are at all familiar with Yoga, then you recognize this as a variation of pigeon pose. Changing the height can alter how it feels in your hips.

You can do it during the day in minute breaks at your desk, before a lower body workout, or even during commercial breaks while you’re watching TV.

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