When trying to catch a cat, don't be gentle. Go for the head and if you're lucky you just might catch him by the tail.
There are some people doing some pretty entertaining but mostly just funny remixes of popular video/audio mostly using a backing beat and an autotuner but this guy made something that I find to be pretty awesome.
Here's his channel.
A while back I watched the old animated version of Horton Hears a Who with Laurel. I remember being particularly moved by the story and Laurel even cried a little. The Whos' struggle to be heard and Horton's efforts to save them from a doom brought on by their obscurity really highlighted a myriad of social injustices. Homosexual civil rights, class warfare, healthcare tragedies, etc. are often ignored by the good while the evil people of the world tramp all over them. We should all strive to "hear a Who."
Not long after watching it, though, I began to think that it could have been intended as an anti-abortion story especially with the oft-repeated line "A person is a person, no matter how small." I began to wonder if one of the beloved Dr. Seuss classics was actually just a pro-life whining session. The book was written in 1954 but the "abortion debate" is a lot older than some of us realize.
No worries though, a little internet research cleared that shit right up. It seems that Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) was inspired by the mistreatment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII and the post WWII US occupation of Japan. He even dedicated the book to a Japanese friend of his. Given the original sentiments of the story I'm sure he intended to highlight the abuse and exploitation of all the world's downtrodden minorities.
Of course, I wasn't the only one to notice the apparent apt-ness of this story in relation to the abortion debate and pro-lifers everywhere have taken up the mantra "A person is a person, no matter how small." to support their case. Even though I had settled the question of the original intention I still wondered how Seuss would react to this usage of his work. Alas, the internet has come to rescue once again. Philip Nel is a Seuss biographer and according to him Seuss threatened pro-life groups with a lawsuit for using his words on their stationery. Audrey Geisel, Seuss' widow, even said that the good doctor did not approve of these groups using his words to support their point of view.
Well there, it's ok with Dr. Seuss if you kill your fetus.
This is a little old as Rev. Manning makes references to Barack Obama's upcoming loss in the presidential election but you should totally watch this if you want a good laugh. It's a little long at almost 7 minutes but it seriously keeps getting better and better and better.
Hmm. I'm attempting to post from my phone but it won't recognize the box you type in marked "compose" but it will let type in it when I select "edit HTML" so we'll see what happens.
Ok I just previewed the post and it works. This means I can avoid writing in a blog even from my bed!!!
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Zombieland
Inception
The Wolfman
Capitalism - A Love Story
Bronson
Big Fan
Law Abiding Citizen
Where The Wild Things Are
Good Hair
A Serious Man
Thirst
...and some others but i got tired of making this retarded list.
This man raises some very good points and adds tremendously to the civil debate over God.
This video is cool in almost every way. The drummer supports the rest of the band very nicely, the trumpet is just superb and Marcus Miller, of course, is slapping that bass like a back talking bitch. I just can't stand saxophone music so the cool level of this piece (and any other I can think of) goes from sky high to a cheesy low whenever the saxophonist starts playing.
I don't understand it, I love horns. You put almost any kind of horn in anything and I'm moving, man. I dig it. I just feel exactly the opposite when that horn is the saxophone.
Anybody feel the same way?
Amazon.com : Entertainment : They Might Be Giants - "Science is Real"
Man, I wish I could embed the video for this great They Might Be Giants song so you wouldn't have to click a link and visit another page. I know, it's terribly bothersome to have to do something like that.
Regardless, DO IT!
GET SMART, PEOPLE!
A recent broadcast I just hear on NPR tells the story of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man who was executed for an arson that killed his family. The thing is, recent evidence shows that he was most probably innocent. In fact, he was convicted solely on the testimony of a forensic investigator which was shown to be full of junk science and false assumptions. This information was submitted to the governor while he was still on death row yet was not investigated.
At best this can be seen as an extremely unfortunate occurrence but one that cannot justify the abolition of capital punishment as an effective means of delivering justice and preventing future crimes. Or, one may say, that this is a horrible miscarriage of justice carried out by the Texas judicial system and a thorough investigation should take place on this isolated case and bring the negligible parties to justice.
But the thing is, this isn't a freak occurrence.
According to an article published by The American Bar Association states that in the past four years alone 17 death row inmates have been found innocent and released. If there are that many that are fortunate enough to have outside assistance in finding new evidence that vindicates their false convictions, exonerates them and saves their lives then how many more didn't get that treatment and ended up being executed for crimes they did not commit.
How many innocent people have to be murdered by the government in order to abolish capital punishment nationwide? In my opinion, the possibility of a single person suffering this fate is enough to ban this barbaric practice. I'm not saying that there aren't people who commit crimes great enough that I would want them dead. Surely if someone tortured and killed my family I would personally want them to suffer for a long time and know they they will be killed by my own hands. That being said, we cannot go through with these urges whether they be administered by vigilantes or state sanctioned executioners. There is just no way to know for sure that the people we are prosecuting, convicting and sentencing to death are actually guilty. Every American has the "right" to a "fair" trial but, there are no agents within the judicial system that actually try to find out the truth of what happened. There is the defense attorney who tries to get defendant off the hook and the prosecutor who tries to convict them. Neither of them is trying to find out what actually happened.
Fortunately for Cameron Todd Willingham, there were people outside the trial that tried to find out the truth but, unfortunately they were a little too late.
GET SMART, PEOPLE!
I found this little map that shows how states are graded according to the standards imposed on science education in our public schools. I am not surprised at all that my home state of Louisiana got an F. What really surprises me is when the same study was done back in 2000 we got a C!
We were about average in science education in 2000 which is still pretty piss-poor but now we've slipped all way down to an F! WTF is going on?!? 
I will start out by saying that this administration's proposed health-care reforms are NOT everything I want from our country. However, I am flabbergasted and enraged at the amount of bullshit that is coming from a lot of other people who are opposed. There are so many incredibly false and inflammatory claims about what this bill does that are easily refuted and clearly false. The outrageous thing is that when someone opposes this bill based on points that are irrefutably shown to be false, the opposition still stands. This makes me think that the opposition comes not from a disagreement about issues and methodology but, rather, from partisan differences and in some cases, possibly, racist motivations.
Try it yourself.
- Find someone who is opposed to the healthcare plan.
- Ask them WHY.
- If they answer with anything like "DEATH PANELS" or "The government will provide health coverage to illegal aliens." or "I don't want the government deciding what doctor I can see and what treatments I can have." or "I don't want government plans forced on me." simply show them the facts.
Be astonished when they still oppose the plan despite the fact that every reason they have to be against it is patently false.
You may find some people who oppose the plan because they favor something that is even more radical: Completely Universal Government Run Health Care.
Those are few and far between depending on your social circles.
I have often used the analogy of the fire department and the police force to illustrate why the current way of doing things is utterly ridiculous. Suppose your house has caught fire. The first thing you do is call 911 and get the fire department there to put the fire out. You would not worry if this particular fire is covered by your insurance or, worse yet, freak out because you don't have fire fighter insurance. Same goes for the police department. If you get attacked and harassed and you call the police and they swoop in like magic heroes and catch the bad guy, making you safe and sound once again, you do not expect to receive a bill in the mail for thousands of dollars because you don't have police insurance. This is because both of those vital services are provided by the government automatically, no questions asked. These services are expensive and they are paid for by the government using your tax dollars. The same should go for healthcare. Your body and well being are vastly more important than your home and all your precious stuff in it so, to not have that covered by the same provider that catches your bad guys and puts out your fires is freaking STUPID.
Then just this morning I find a video made by the guys at Earthly Comics that uses the exact same analogy but explains everything in video form so people don't have to use their looking balls to read stupid wordz, ugh! It's a pretty great video and here it is.
GET SMART PEOPLE.
Try it yourself.
- Find someone who is opposed to the healthcare plan.
- Ask them WHY.
- If they answer with anything like "DEATH PANELS" or "The government will provide health coverage to illegal aliens." or "I don't want the government deciding what doctor I can see and what treatments I can have." or "I don't want government plans forced on me." simply show them the facts.
Be astonished when they still oppose the plan despite the fact that every reason they have to be against it is patently false.
Those are few and far between depending on your social circles.
I have often used the analogy of the fire department and the police force to illustrate why the current way of doing things is utterly ridiculous. Suppose your house has caught fire. The first thing you do is call 911 and get the fire department there to put the fire out. You would not worry if this particular fire is covered by your insurance or, worse yet, freak out because you don't have fire fighter insurance. Same goes for the police department. If you get attacked and harassed and you call the police and they swoop in like magic heroes and catch the bad guy, making you safe and sound once again, you do not expect to receive a bill in the mail for thousands of dollars because you don't have police insurance. This is because both of those vital services are provided by the government automatically, no questions asked. These services are expensive and they are paid for by the government using your tax dollars. The same should go for healthcare. Your body and well being are vastly more important than your home and all your precious stuff in it so, to not have that covered by the same provider that catches your bad guys and puts out your fires is freaking STUPID.
Then just this morning I find a video made by the guys at Earthly Comics that uses the exact same analogy but explains everything in video form so people don't have to use their looking balls to read stupid wordz, ugh! It's a pretty great video and here it is.
GET SMART PEOPLE.
The Book of Genesis
Illustrated by R. Crumb
Book of Genesis illustrated by R. Crumb from Mark Frauenfelder on Vimeo.
I recently had someone try to get all smart on me by asking the old paradoxical question "What happens if an unstoppable force meets and immovable object."
My answer was rushed and not completely articulate but was as follows;
The real and practical answer is that there are no unstoppable forces OR immovable objects so it's obviously not a rumination on physical possibilities. It's just a logic exercise with no real answer. That's just a paradox. They're cool but it just shows our imaginations ability to create situations that could not possibly exist. Like, "Can God create a stone so heavy that not even He can lift it?" The paradox is a challenge to those who believe in god and that he is all powerful. He obviously can't be all powerful because he either can't make a stone that heavy or he can and therefore can't lift it.Any thoughts?
Back to the physical possibilities of the original paradox though. As I said there are no unstoppable forces or immovable objects. All objects with mass have inertia. An object at rest has inertia that keeps it at rest and will stay that way until acted upon by an outside force. It's "amount" of inertia comes from it's mass. So, if an object could not be moved that means it has infinite inertia and therefore infinite mass. We're not being crushed by it, therefore it doesn't exist.
Also, an unstoppable force would require infinite energy and we won't even go into the problems with that concept right now.
Now, assuming in some hypothetical universe that there were an immovable object and it was met with an unstoppable force. Energy cannot be created or destroyed it can only be transferred from one form to another, right? We all learned that one early on in high school at the latest. So if an unstoppable force with infinite energy were to meet and immovable object with infinite mass the energy would be transferred from kinetic energy that would normally move the object to other forms like heat, light and radiation. So, the immovable object would immediately begin to glow with infinite brightness and would create the most intense heat for infinity and this light and heat would radiate from everywhere since the object has infinite mass.
So, basically, hell would form. LOL
Don't you just miss Charlton Heston's paranoid rants about Big Government supposedly trying to take his precious rifle?
Well, fret no more. Enter Jon Voight. America has gained a new inflammatory right wing extremist in Hollywood to counter the "liberal elite." He's falsely claiming that the new health care reform will "force" government plans on the American people. At a recent GOP fundraiser he called the president a "false prophet" and called for an end to "Obama oppression."
This guy is a joke but the fact that he represents an alarmingly large portion of the American people is no joke at all.
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