Mornin Joe reports Eunice Kennedy Shriver has passed away.

He also is noting that the health legislation in “far left”.

Good morning, Raven. I guess all the other pups are sleeping in? Bobo is still off, so today is starting off well. Mr. Herbert, in “A Scary Reality,” says you can put whatever kind of gloss you want on last week’s unemployment numbers, but the truth is that while they may have been a bit better than most economists were expecting, they were still bad, bad, bad.

Here he is.

The coffee and tea are ready, the cold drinks are in the fridge, and I’ve got a variety of bagels and cream cheese. I don’t know how you can tolerate Joe — he gives me indigestion and puts me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Have a great day.

Things Undone is normally all over it!

Gotta say this fast…I keep disconnecting from FDL and ’Gateway’ pops up. Anyone else?

IRT FoxNews viewership, it often happens in my travels that the hotel I stay in does not offer MSNBC. And aren’t there cable companies (Comcast, for one) that put MSNBC in a higher tier while FoxNews is more available. It’s a vast right-wing conspiracy and they’re winning.

The idiocy of the American people is astounding. This is not “native” intelligence as it is lack of and poor education, the influence of anti intellectual religion which has completely distorted the view of Americans about the world. They are now incapable of reason and use of logic and can easily be exploited by demagogues. And they are in church each Sunday and by their community affiliations such as the KKK, or the NRA etc. who understand and the leaders gleefully and skillfully exploit this.

The way forward to a better union means that massive education take place, and/ or that these people who are so childlike in their mentality be treated like children and taken along with the adults, perhaps even kicking and screaming.

The other alternative is to split the nation and let the ignorant live in probably a federation of red states – in Ignoramia – and the rest of rational people live in USA r2. A house divided cannot stand and that’s what we’ve got.

Been fine here, using Firefox.

You have to go to a higher tier in Dish TV to get almost any news other than Fox. The TVs in the hospital cafeteria and waiting rooms are almost all on Fox all the time… Gives me indigestion before I get to eat my lunch.

I succeeded in getting my favorite pizzaria to turn off Fox.

Last night while thinking about the disruptions at THM I thought the Dem Reps should start including huge charts in their presentations. A big sign outlining what the Public Health Option would do. A big sign saying “You can choose your doctor” or a sign countering the lies. The rep speaks while behind him are huge signs that can’t be silenced.

The indoctrination must continue hence Fox 24/7 in hotels, bars, hospitals, waiting rooms, restaurants etc.. It’s right out of Brave New World or The Prisoner. And I agree with SanderO about the dumbing down of a far too large segment of the American public by a poor educational system, bread and circus mentality and constant indoctrination by the corporate media led by Fox News.

The corporate media suffers from Stockholm Syndrome having been held captive by the right wing for the last 30+ years.

“…the dumbing down of a far too large segment of the American public by a poor educational system, bread and circus mentality and constant indoctrination by the corporate media led by Fox News”

Reply and quote buttons not functioning, to Bluetoe:

So you’ve been spending some time in Georgia, have you? I wish I had to close a snark tag, but alas…

Speakin’ of Art Garfunkel…………. Saw Paul Simon at the Yankees agme Sunday night. On TV. Wasn’t there. Jeez. Didn’t recognize him.

I’ve got Dish Network and part of the reason (besides the fact they were a little cheaper than DirectTV and not owned by Rupert Murdoch) was that Fox News wasn’t the only news network in the basic tier. Of course I don’t get MSNBC, but I’m not sure I even get Fox in my package — If I can get it, I have it blocked.

I make a point to complain whenever I see Fox News on a public TV. Hotel lobbies, restaurants, bars, etc. They try to force it on you, but I don’t stand for it.

Sufilizard – Reply no worky
I am on DirectTV never watch Faux news but I have MSNBC and Link tv.
Morning all

The influence of religion in the dumbing down of America cannot be underestimated. WAY WAY too many people accept the bible as the truth and the word of god and it’s clearly a fairly tale, albeit with some interesting moral lessons and lots of contradictory messages.

While some people can compartment their faith and their intellect, most cannot and the power and fear of and for religion has been cynically used by “leaders” since it was “discovered”.

Of the many factors impeding progress of humans is the existence of religion. That’s a fact.

I get MSNBC on Comcast expanded basic, but the only things I watch are KO and Rachel. Unfortunately we have the worst NPR station I’ve ever heard, so I stream it from Minnesota Public Radio. A bit disorienting when the weather forecast comes on! LOL.

On edit: reply is working for me, but apparently FDL has had some tech problems overnight.

TV is pretty empty if you are looking for truth and facts. You can only find a few hours or stations where this is true.

LinkTV, Frontline, Moyers, Broncaccio, perhaps Maddow and occasionally Oberman are exceptions.

Virtually all the rest is corporate influenced pap and propaganda.

TV and MEDIA in general is reinforcing the dumbing down of America. It worked!

Well, the only problem I see with signs is ya be able to read ‘em. I thought the teabaggers got the ones who could read to make all their signs, or most of them anyway. It’s obvious some of the less literate have tried to do their own.

“Less literate”? That’s very kind. Some of those people are friggin’ morans.

Continental drift has a well known liberal bias.

I’ve been pissed at Paul Simon ever since he married Edie Brickell and took her out of the spotlight. This young lady has a lot of talent and her shows were fun.

Looks like America definitely went to the left.

It is hard to fit continental drift in with creationism.

My family recently took in a border, a school administrator from China working on a graduate degree. She is focusing on educational policy and we talk regularly about education, state programs and the differences between our countries in general. During one of our conversations she made the statement “in China we believe in science.” as opposed to in the US many people believe in God. The scientific achievements in the US are too many to list, and this is only one person’s view of our country, but one has to wonder about the lingering historical impact of US missionaries attempts to “Christianize” China in the late 1800’s up through our current policies.

Or you don’t think about this kind of stuff and just turn on Faux.

Not at all. You need someplace to put the offshore drilling rigs, right?

Not to be nitpicking, but the song “wonderful world” was written by Sam Cooke, Herb Alpert (of the Tijuana Brass) and Lou Adler (who did more than possible for one human being – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Adler).

America does have many scientists who have made many discoveries. But these are a tiny tiny percentage of the population which is dominated by ignorant religious type thinking which is anti scientific.

There seem to be a segment which doesn’t get scientific thinking, has little scientific training, but does get the idea that religion is all hooey as far as rational thought is concerned and “defer” to the science based approach to the world. Perhaps the arts community falls into this group.

SanderO, some in the art community are doing a lot of work that is based in science, and I would generalize that the art community is politically radical and highly informed. At least I would say that about museum artists, craft/art show artists and the higher tier of gallery artists, most of whom have a political bent, even if it is not expressed in the art work. As a general rule, I’m saying.

That said, I would not really trust the opinion of the Sunday painters.

Willful idiocy? Intellect is a sin among Pastor Hagee’s followers.

Matt Taibbi “The Great Derangement” p. 178, etc.:
(Hagee)”But it’s all America’s fault, of course. If you ask anybody who knows whether America is a polluter, they’ll tell you, America is the cleanest country there is.” “Amen!” shouted the crowd. “Now,” he said, “why do they want you to believe this? Because, they want to control what you do. They want to control where you go, what countries you go to, what cars you drive. They want to use the environment as a way to control the world!” …”I’ll tell you what they want to do,” he said. “They want to use the environment to force America to reduce its population. And how do they want to do that? Through abortion.”

[The Genetic INformation Nondiscrimination Act] (Taibbi): Hagee didn’t have to misrepresent this bill-he could have said quite honestly what it was and still have been correct in saying that it encouraged abortions. But what’s interesting is that he didn’t do that; he just went the fictional route.
Next he went after global warming, denouncing it as a bunch of bosh. “These people, what they do is, they tell you that something is a problem when it isn’t,” he said. “That is how they control you. And who else does that?” “The Devil!” some voices shouted.
“The Devil, that’s right,” he said. “You know who else? Hitler did that. What did he say Europe’s problem was?” “Jews!” the voices cried out. ….”Of course not,” he said. “of course the Jews weren’t a problem. And that’s exactly the same thing they’re doing with global warming!” “They say we’re all going to die because the ice caps are going to melt,” he snorted. “No we’re not. We just gonna get wet-IF they melt.” The crowd roared.

Taibbi goes on to write that after the service he was unable to engage his church friends in any meaningful conversation about what Hagee said, not as if they didn’t care just, as I read it, that they were okay with Hagee doing the “thinking” for them. In an earlier account of a weekend retreat he writes at one point the speaker asks God to cast out the sin of “intellect.” Hagee tells them, Rush, Beck, and O’Reilly tell them what is “truth” and so it is. You don’t change minds so closed that easily.

As foothillsmike @26 wrote continental drift is about science, evolution is science, science attacks their beliefs. They only book they need is the Bible. Little has changed in the past 150 years, we are locked in a medieval time warp and the country’s held hostage by a small percentage of religious zealots and represented by a Congress held hostage by small state Senators.

I didn’t know Art Garfunkel had written that song. It was long, long ago.

As for whether or not Pres. Obama was born in the US, a cousin of mine in Hawaii tells me that there is a good case that Hawaii really isn’t legally part of the US because it was annexed at gunpoint. It seems that the original monarchy was overthrown by the US marines at the instigation of Dole, Inc., which means that it cannot be annexed under international law. Having said that, since Pres. Obama’s mother was a US citizen, where he was born is irrelevant when considering his citizenship. He could have been born in Alabama and he would still be a US citizen.

As for the Faux Gnus (FG) part, I’m sure people remember the annual current events survey that the U of Md did, maybe still do. They showed that there is a significant difference between FG viewers and everyone else as to their ability to answer correctly three questions on current events. Around half of FG viewers consistently got all three wrong. NPR listeners were the best, but that was before NPR sold out to the dark side.

Obviously, small-town red-state gun-and-religion-clingers are the best people to make our healthcare decisions for us.

After all, look what an intelligent and healthy attitude they have towards the HPV vaccine…