From bisteinee (Youtube)
Papa, how do you like the iPad we got you?
So papa, how do you like the iPad we got you?
She: “Hey Dad, I didn’t ask you yet, but how do you like the new IPad we gave you yesterday as a birthday present?”
He: “I like.”
She: “You cool with handling the apps?”
He: “Hm…? What apps? Could you step aside, please?”
She: [Stares]
He: “What?”
The internet today is like looking something up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica used to be. You begin by searching for information on some obscure or famous battle or person or … something, and you end up browsing the thing like a catalog.
So it was when I was looking for information on foods dangerous to cats. I found a lot of information on that, but I also found these. They’re really funny and cute. By the way, the hard part was probably learning the lyric in Italian (“miau”).
There are more variations on the theme below the break, some quite creative. There is also a link to some background on the musical piece. Enjoy.
Grace S. Sun, my step-daughter, created this really lovely stop-action animated video to the song, “The Line”, by Noah and the Whale.
All the artwork is her original work, as is the animation itself.
Enjoy!
Republicans — i.e., Rightwingers, Conservatives, Tea Party-types, Libertarians/Anarchists, etc. — usually win on ‘framing’.
Progressives argue about why this is. The solution for Progressives seems simple (like tell the truth and use rational arguments), but implementation of a successful strategy has proven elusive.
What the Right does is frame issues in ways which bypass people’s normal higher intellectual faculties, and instead aim for the ‘gut’. Rightwing messengers strike fear into their listeners with words and phrases having visceral impact, like freedom, ‘loss of liberty’, taxes, ‘change’, Socialist, Fascist, Communist, Death Panels, appeasement, ‘gays’, and, weirdly, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, etc.
Some of these Rightwing political ‘hooks’ are lies, distortions, or simply make no real sense, but fear and anger are powerful motivators, and if there’s one thing the Right is great at, it’s instilling fear and anger; then these scared and angry people vote their fears.
So, how do Progressives harness this strategy? Lying and fear-mongering (not to mention staying ‘on message’) is something which are not usually part of the Progressive mind-set. Progressives just don’t do well at it.
Until now. Continue reading
12h 
Kitt Hodsden @kitt : She said yes! http://youtu.be/5_v7QrIW0zY /via @andrewhedges Retweeted by Estelle Weyl
He must be part of a group of theater people. – Mike
This video, uploaded to YouTube on February 26, 2012, is of a Russian ‘flash mob’ putting together a massive dance number on a Moscow street.
The song is Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ On The Ritz”, written in 1929 and intended to satirize the less well-off dressing-up ‘to the nines’.
So … You’ve got a Russian Flash mob dancing to a song written by a Russian-American Jewish Composer, originally observing the working class trying to emulate the rich.
As with so many things, the media (Russian media, in this case) are debating whether the performance had a deeper sociopolitical meaning: “Puttin'”? Putin? Good Putin policy? Bad Putin policy?
Or is a dance sometimes just a dance?
Watch it here.
PS: If someone could give me a good English translation of the original Russian title, I’d be much obliged.
If you love doggies, you’ll love these Subaru commercials. :)
Camping
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Jack-knife Continue reading
Top 10 Grammar Peeves
I don’t trust digital voting without a paper trail. I don’t trust touchscreens, having been frustrated by them too often.
With that advance disclaimer, I offer Homer Simpson’s argument against touchscreen voting:
“The Simpsons“: Where brilliant humor meets spot-on satire.
Found at CBS.com:
(CBS) – Just last week it was reported that a cellphone call led to the conductor of the New York Philharmonic halting a performance. So let’s see how this violinist responds when the same thing happens to him in the above video.
Clever, right? The violinist has a truly great sense of humor and a whole lot of class!
The video was actually posted back in July, but is just now getting some buzz online and allegedly took place during a classical performance at a synagogue in Presov, Slovakia.
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Originally uploaded to YouTube by GREATMILAN (Jakub Haškoon) Jul 30, 2011
“The Harvard iteration of the Occupy protests is ironically, appropriately, and unwillingly now the most exclusive Occupy protest in the country.” ~ Harvard Keeps Occupy Harvard Harvard-Only, by Adam Clark Estes, The Atlantic Wire
I have often discussed the Occupy Movement with my step-daughter, Grace (to whom I sometimes refer as my daughter, so don’t get confused). So you can imagine my interest and excitement (and I think hers, too) when she told me that there was going to be an #OccupyHarvard. Continue reading
TRIUMPH THE INSULT COMIC DOG at #OWS
When I was at ApolloCon XI in Houston this past summer, I attended a panel discussion(1) entitled “Zombies, Vampires and Werewolves, Oh my?” It posed an interesting question:
What the big deal? Why are we obsessed with part human monsters? Do we see a part of our own humanity in them? A discussion of the fascination with these myths, also why they aren’t new trends, just old ones revised. Do they take on different forms based on society’s current issues?
That last question was the one that got me curious (that, and an old Con friend, Derly Ramirez, was on the panel), so I dropped in. Continue reading
For those who maintain the occupation at night and all day: “They also serve who only stand and wait.” ~ John Milton (1608 – 1674) from Sonnet XIX.
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Is anything scarier than corporate over-reach and Koch-power? Maybe the CORPORATE HOUSE OF HORRORS! See details below!
It is my intention for all links from OccupyHouston.org to be live. If they don’t work, it’s my head-scratcher, and I apologize. Let me know.
This weekend’s OccupyHouston agenda is below the jump.
Fox *ahem* News Interview. “All the news that’s fit to agree with our bias.”
It speaks for itself. I say nothing. Nothingk!
For the record, I never said that. (The Twitter handles of those who sent it will go unmentioned in order to protect the guilty.) That’s a Tweet I saw, and to which I responded this way: “Obama wasn’t referring to greed. He was referencing FDR’s 4 Freedoms Speech. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms”
What upset me more than the sarcasm was the ignorance it showed. I couldn’t decide what surprised me most; that “freedom from want” could be so easily misinterpreted as ‘freedom from desire’, or that the phrase “freedom from want” didn’t immediately spark recognition of an allusion to one of Franklin Roosevelt’s most famous speeches?
The banner on my website, which I seem to quote with annoying frequency, is, “An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.” This is a prime example of why that’s so.
Continue reading
Every evening, the border is closed between India and Pakistan. I found this video through an email forward, and it’s really great stuff. You can see, hear and feel the hostility throughout the ceremony… but note the handshake at the end!
This video and the description below were originally uploaded to YouTube by utubekhiladion Feb 28, 2010
Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson made the mistake of having had Jon Stewart on as a guest on their show “Crossfire”. Apparently, Stewart had been satirizing their show, and they wanted a chance at the lion in their own den.
It may not have gone as planned. Watch here:
For most of us, this video speaks for itself.
Libertarian Vs. Tea Party
RD40 – Libertarian vs. Republican
Libertarian vs NeoConservative at a Tea Party Rally
Okay, granted the neo-conservative character is unfairly represented by a zombie avatar, but the arguments are interesting.
The Diffrence. Democrat vs. Republican [sic]
Forgive the typo in the title, and consider the context of the video itself. I think it accurately frames the difference between rightwing expression of views and leftwing expression of views, in spirit at least. Also, the stats in the map at the end, if accurate, are intriguing. (I have not done the research, but let me know if you do.)
Thanks to Don Millard (@OTOOLEFAN) for finding this. http://www.tweetdeck.com/twitter/OTOOLEFAN/~hYvxJ
Wouldn’t it be nice if this video was a metaphor, and the fly represented the GOP?
You may already have heard that an ESPN movie is in the works, based on “Those Guys Have All the Fun”, a book by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller.
Last night (July 28) on Keith’s new Countdown on CurrentTV, Keith and his old friend and former sidekick Dan Patrick discussed who might play the various persons depicted in the book. It quickly became apparent that there is only one person who can ever be properly cast as Keith Olbermann; particularly a young Keith Olbermann: Ben Affleck.
Click on the picture below to see why. Continue reading
