Test Your Powers of Observation

I got the count right, but I missed the thing I wasn't looking for. How about you?

The Colbert-Spitzer Connection

Stephen reveals his connection to the Spitzer scandal with an uncomfortable reference to something called a "Spitzer sandwich." Sound like something that could put you off your lunch.

Baby Diaper Mustache

Warning: Language and just plain foul unimaginable grossness.

Maybe I'm just too old to get this stuff. I can admit that. The whole Jackass genre of comedy. Ok, I admit the first time I saw it I was channel surfing, and came across it on MTV. I fell out of bed laughing. I can remember, I was in a hotel room with my girlfriend at the time, and we both bust a gut laughing. It was novel and we spent the whole time just trying to figure out what it was and why it was on TV. But it was funny. Now, several, and I couldn't tell you how many because I'm really not paying attention, Jackass movies later, after a huge website launch I'm trying to figure out why it's still funny.

Humor is obviously subjective. Well this humor is actually objective, and objectionable. And it's not that it bothers me. It doesn't. I don't care. I admit, I did laugh. I just can't figure out why people do it to themselves for a laugh. And then maybe I'm a hypocrite, because I did post it. I almost didn't. Actually I don't know why I'm posting it. Maybe for the same reason someone would do it.

Sir Charles Blasts "Fake" Christians

Love him or hate him, you have to give Sir Charles credit for always speaking his mind. It's not always a virtue, but you can't say that he ever lied about how he felt.

It's Torture Talk - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

This time Jon examine's Senator Arlen Specter's priorities.

Hehehe, She Said Vagina

Above is video of Jane Fonda letting the "C" word slip in an interview with Meredith Viera on the Today Show on NBC. Below is the entire interview with Eve Enslser, author of The Vagina Monologues, and Jane. More important than Jane's slip, although the slip was the reason it was posted on Huffington Post and how I found it, is the reason for the interview. To promote V Day, an organization that fights violence against women. The organization's web site is www.vday.org.

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act is being introduced in Congress by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA). You can help get your congresspersons to support it. Find out how at http://savetheinternet.com/.

Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

The trailer is hilarious, can't wait to see the movie. From the Youtube description:

New trailer for Morgan Spurlock's upcoming documentary 'Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?'

If Morgan Spurlock has learned anything from over 30 years of movie-watching, it's that if the world needs saving, it's best done by one lone man willing to face danger head on to take it down, action hero style. So, with no military experience, knowledge or expertise, he sets off to do what the CIA, FBI and countless bounty hunters have failed to do: find the world's most wanted man. Why take on such a seemingly impossible mission? Simple -- he wants to make the world safe for his soon to be born child. But before he finds Osama bin Laden, he first needs to learn where he came from, what makes him tick, and most importantly, what exactly created bin Laden to begin with.

The Weinstein Company
http://whereisobl.com/

Stephen Colber on Obama's Biggest Win

Colbert on Obama's Grammy win.

Maryland Primary Election Results

NBC and CNN project Barack Obama winner of the Maryland Democratic Primary by a substantial margin. Both networks also project John McCain the winner on the GOP side.

Washington DC Primary Election Results

NBC and CNN project Barack Obama winner of the Washington DC Democratic Primary. The Republican race is too early to call.

Update:
John McCain is the winner of the DC Primary.

Virginia Primary Election Results

NBC and CNN project Barack Obama winner of the Virginia Democratic Primary by a substantial margin. The Republican race is still too close to call.

Update:
Both NBC and CNN project John McCain the winner of Virginia's Republican Primary.

McCain Parody Video

This video is a parody of the Barack Obama campaign's Yes We Can video.

Colbert in the Garden of Good and Evil

A primer on good and evil with Stephen Colbert and band leader Guy Lombardo...wait a minute, sorry, it's professor and author Phillip Zimbardo. He's the author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Random House, 2007). About the book Dr. Zimbardo says on his web site, http://www.lucifereffect.org/:

In this book, I summarize more than 30 years of research on factors that can create a "perfect storm" which leads good people to engage in evil actions. This transformation of human character is what I call the "Lucifer Effect," named after God's favorite angel, Lucifer, who fell from grace and ultimately became Satan.

Rather than providing a religious analysis, however, I offer a psychological account of how ordinary people sometimes turn evil and commit unspeakable acts. As part of this account, The Lucifer Effect tells, for the first time, the full story behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, a now-classic study I conducted in 1971. In that study, normal college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison, yet the guards quickly became so brutal that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days.

It's from The Colbert Report, Monday February, 11, 2008.

The B Word

Recently the punditry and the Democratic leadership have been worrying their little heads off about the possibility of a brokered convention in August. According to them it would be bad. Real bad. There would be party bosses huddled in smoke-filled rooms, actually smoke-free rooms this time, but that spoils the imagery. And they'd be making deals. Back room deals. The kind of deals that would disaffect the party faithful and lead to disaster in November. As evidence that a brokered convention would be bad they cite the last two brokered conventions that happened way back in the olden days. I could provide a link, but hey, you got fingers, google it or look it up in Wikipedia. Trust me, it happened and it was bad.

With the momentum Barack Obama is gaining from this weekend's sweeps of primaries and caucuses in Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana, Maine and the Virgin Islands, talk of a long drawn out campaign could be moot. But if Hillary Clinton should make a comeback as expected in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, making it a horse race to the end, would that necessarily be all bad? It does mean that the candidates will spend time, energy and resources (read: money) fighting each other and not John McCain. And there is also the possibility that the dreaded superdelegates could pick the candidate least favored by the voting public and cause a rift in the party. On the other hand, there are some good things are happening now, and could happen as the result of a real fight to the end.

First, there's the excitement and the participation of Democratic voters in primaries and caucuses in record numbers. A percentage of participation much higher than Republican participation, which is waning. This race has people excited in a way they have not been in a long time. It's much more exciting and generates more news cycles than anything happening on the Republican side. And as Barack Obama frequently states in his stump speech, it's not all because of the candidates. Seven years of George Bush has something to do with it.

Secondly, it would be historic. It hasn't happened since...uhm...I thought I told you to google it. As long as the campaign doesn't turn nasty, which is a possibility as candidates get desperate, but not if they are thinking in the best interest of the party and the country (country should be first). And as long as the decision of the superdelegates does not disaffect the majority. As long as voters don't feel like they did in 2004 after Florida and hanging chads, I think we will be fine.

Polls indicate 84% of Democrats will support either candidate. And the idea of a dream ticket, whether it's Obama/Clinton, or Clinton/Obama, seems to excite Democrats even more. I wonder if there are any polls that pit a dream ticket against McCain and anybody else? It would probably be a landslide. And that possibility might force the candidates to consider it.

So I don't think the pundits, John Dean and Donna "I get two votes" Brazile need to worry their pretty little heads so much over a having brokered convention, as much as how we have one, should it come down to that.

From the "Judging a Book by Its Cover" Department

Researchers accurately predicted the results of Super Tuesday's elections in August of last year using Australian and New Zealand school girls' snap judgments of whether the candidates looked competent.

Researchers Scott Armstrong, Kesten Green, Randy Jones, and Malcolm Wright had their interest piqued by the work of Alexander Todorov.

“Todorov and co had found that snap judgments of competence based on color pictures of candidates’ faces did a good job of predicting congressional and senate races,” Prof Wright said.

“So the Wharton team decided to extend the test to the current US presidential election and from May through mid-August 2007 we worked with them to get ratings of competence, based on photos of the faces of the 24 potential contenders for their parties’ nomination as candidate for the 2008 presidential election.”

Only a little bit scary to think that the entire process of picking a president could boil down to who looks presidential. Australian and New Zealand school girls were picked precisely because they did not know the candidates. The results of those who recognized a candidate were discounted. The full article is here.

First Prediction of Winner of Maine Caucuses - Obama

Arevolutionofone Projects Obama Winner of Maine Caucuses. Based on 59% of the caucus voting returns and, although we are unable to conduct exit polls, we are also basing our projection on some creakiness in our joints that also crops up when it's about to rain, we are calling the Maine causes for Barack Obama. We planned to read chicken entrails but that would make the PETA folks go nuts. Barack Obama, according to Arevolutionofone blog, is the winner of the Maine caucuses.

Based on 59% reporting, Obama leads in state delegates 1,305 (57%) to 956 (42%) for Hillary Clinton. Here's a link to results from CNN.

Update:
With 70% reporting Obama leads 1,564 (58%) to 1,122 (41%) for Clinton.

Possible End to Writer's Strike Today

I almost posted some boring MSNBC video about writers considering and voting on the newest proposal to end the strike and that some may be back at work as soon as Monday. In fact I may post it below. Instead I searched Youtube and found something not only more interesting, but that makes their case in the most convincing way that I've seen to date (not that I needed to be convinced).

The video above was posted last fall soon after the strike began, but it demonstrates what pricks the studios are for causing the strike, and for letting it last so long when it was the only fair thing to do. Not to mention the fact that they screwed the writers on their last deal for a share of DVD sales. These are the studios that put out the anti-piracy ads telling us how people are stealing from them when they copy their movies and TV shows. But the studios are not stealing when they don't pay the people who wrote them. They're just being tough minded business negotiators. When you think about how this business has treated artists, those anti-piracy ads should make you laugh. Or if you're a writer, they might make you cry. Now, here's that boring MSNBC video.

Much Ado 'Bout Pimpin'

This would be funny if it wasn't sad and a little bit silly. Ok, sorry, it really is funny.

Update:
Ok, not to dump on Chelsea Clinton, but while we are on the topic; I found this at Crooks and Liars. This really is sad and not at all funny. And not surprisingly, it was said by John McCain back in 1998.

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”

– Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.

I guess the point being made is that this is a lot worse than what David Schuster said. Point taken. The real question might be, why is John McCain so ugly? And we're not just talking about his looks.

Clean Sweep of Saturday's Primaries & Caucuses for Obama

Barack Obama makes a clean sweep of the primaries and caucuses tonight, Saturday February 09, 2008, with wins in Washington state, Nebraska, Louisiana and the Virgin Islands.

Links to Results from CNN:

Louisiana
Nebraska
Washington