This Very Wasteful Republican Congress

Check this out.

According to PBS NewsHour this evening, there have been 22 individual hearings on Benghazi.

For a sharp comparison, there were 21 hearings on the 9/11 tragedy.

They also held more than 50 attempts to overturn Obamacare.

I'm glad this Republican Congress has its priorities straight and that they're not wasting time and tax money.

How long are we going to put up with this hugely wasteful, very political nonsense, America?

Links:  Where the Benghazi Committee Went Wrong

Republicans still trying and failing to break Hillary Clinton on Benghazi

Apparently we should have built the world's biggest water slide long ago

Who knew Schlietterbahn's "World's Biggest Water Slide" would get Kansas City so much national and international media coverage?  Now there's this from PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer:

Get in line if you dare — world’s tallest water slide opens Thursday

They had up the same Schlitterbahn YouTube promotional video I posted here earlier and then had this to say about it:

It’s named the Verrückt, which in German means “insane”.

At 168 feet tall, or 17 stories high, it has the seal of approval from Guinness World Records as the world’s tallest water slide. To be among the first to ride it, get in line on Thursday at the Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City, Kansas, but be forewarned: its opening has already been delayed twice for additional testing.

The first humans to take the test plunge were the slide’s engineer and the designer of the water park, seen in the video above. Those brave enough to try the slide will ride in four-person rafts at speeds of 60 to 70 per hour.

At least I learned a new German word.

I can hardly believe this

From the PBS "NewsHour" web page, check out their article "5 Things to Know About the G20 Summit": "The Europeans, particularly the Germans and French, like the idea of a financial transaction tax in order to have banks pay for their own bailouts rather than the taxpayers. But Britain and the United States are not keen on it. They feel their financial institutions, which are larger, would suffer more, and that the taxes themselves would be easy to evade." Get that. The Americans don't want to "have banks pay for their own bailouts..." if you can believe that. Astounding. Wouldn't you think that would be self-evident AND fair? Americans just aren't very bright. Or, in actuality, the American corporations can just buy our representatives easier. Link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/11/g20-primer.html

Oprah, by the numbers, to date

PBS showed this today.  I thought it interesting, at least:

48 million viewers 
The estimated number of viewers who watch her show every week in the U.S.

55 million 
Number of books sold since they were selected by Oprah and then discussed and promoted on Oprah's Book Club. That's according to a Fordham University marketing professor who has made an estimate. Of the 70 books she singled out, 59 made it to the USA Today bestseller list. But even the Oprah Effect has its limits: Charles Dickens' novels, "Great Expectations" and "A Tale of Two Cities" peaked at No. 52 on the USA Today bestseller list last year.

25,000 
Emails Oprah receives each week

$2.7 billion 
Her estimated net worth according to Forbes Magazine. She is also the only female African-American billionaire.

No. 3
Forbes ranks Oprah as the third-most-powerful woman in the world, behind only Michelle Obama and Irene Rosenfeld, the chief executive of Kraft.

283 
Types of products given away by Oprah during her "Favorite Things" episodes

276 
Pontiac G6 sedans she gave away to audience members during a September 2004 show, giving rise to the memorable moment: "You get a car! And you get a car! Everybody gets a car!"

$350 million
An estimate of the amount Oprah has reportedly given of her own money to charitable causes. Oprah has raised more than $51 million for charitable organizations through her show, including education. Her charitable organizations are said to be worth $200 million.

$1 million 
What advertisers are paying for a 30-second spot on Oprah finale, matching what a hot prime-time spot costs.

2 million 
Minimum estimated monthly circulation of "O, The Oprah Magazine," which usually features Oprah alone on the cover. She has shared covers twice, once with first lady Michelle Obama and with fellow talk show host Ellen Degeneres.

5 
Hosts of new shows that were propelled to fame in part by Oprah. That counts Suze Orman, Rachael Ray, Dr. Phil, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Nate Berkus.

150 
Countries where the Oprah Winfrey Show is seen.

80 million 
The number of homes that carry her new network, OWN.

300,000
Average number of prime-time viewers who watch OWN at night.

150,000 
Average number of viewers tuning into OWN during the day. This poses the next challenge for the Oprah Effect. Can she lift her fledgling network's numbers?

Link:  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/05/the-oprah-phenomenon---by-the-numbers.html

Quote of the day--on the Gulf oil spill

You really can't truly grasp the magnitude of it until you're out here. This thing has been gushing oil for over a month now. And it's been nonstop. I think that it's just beginning. This oil is starting to come ashore. And what you're seeing now, it is going to keep impacting for some time.

And it's got everyone on this coast frightened -- frightened and angry. One oyster fisherman I was out with, he said, you know, this is not just the fish and the fishermen. It's our whole culture. All of Southern Louisiana is affected by this. --Gerald Herbert, AP Photographer



Link to original post:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june10/oil3_05-26.html

Great Expectations (?)

The question keeps getting asked or proposed, lately, about President-elect Obama and that is, "Can he live up to our, literally, great expectations?"

And my answer is, yes--unequivocally, absolutely yes.

And here's why:

The conservative writer David Brooks, on PBS evening news last week, said he thought Obama was "non-partisan", in his words.

From a Conservative Republican, that's pretty extraordinary, for starters.

But more than that--much more--is that it seems that this new President is going to be, apparently and hopefully, a statesman, of all things.

We haven't seen one of those for a long time.

You may have already heard that the President-elect had dinner last week with a few very conservative columnists like William Kristol, for heavens sake, at George Will's home.

That's already very nearly unbelievable.

Can you remember the last time such a thing happened? I know I can't.

Another quote from last Friday evening's newscast was that Mr. Brooks found Mr. Obama to be much less of an "ideologue" and this, too, is so very welcome and now foreign to our politicians and politics.

It's generally agreed that the last 16 years have been tremendously ideological and divisive.

Far from being a "uniter", as President Bush promised he would be, years ago, he and his administration were loaded with ideologues and ideology, to the point of out-and-out dogma.

Right-wing, conservative, business-serving dogma and it's been very divisive and negative for the country.

When Republican Presidential administrations and campaigns started, years ago, clearing and denying attendees at what were supposed to be public speeches and presentations, so they could get audiences that were purely and completely acceptable to them and their ideas and directions, I was surprised--almost shocked--and disappointed, knowing we were going down a bad path.


I think President-elect Obama, as President, is going to bring statemanship, wisdom, calmness and intelligence back to the Presidency and so, the whole country.

Will Democrats and liberals get everything they want, always, from this new President?

No, certainly not. I'll say that right up front.

Barack Obama isn't perfect--he doesn't "walk on water", by any means.

But he's going to be what we need in this country, especially now, when we need to recover from the legal, internal and external, constitutional and financial issues, problems and messes we have now, due to the last 8 years of mismanagement, ineptitude and travesties.

This really is a new day.

A very welcome new day.