"He ventured forth to bring light to the world". This is something you won't see on CNN, or MSNBC. It kind of gets right to the heart of all the Obama worshiping going on. Good job Gerard Bakaker, Fox News, Hannity and Colmes, and there producers who are responsible for this video, in this case it had nothing to do with their News people, it was their opinion show people, and yes there is a difference.

Gerard Baker Zings Barack Obama
'He Ventured Forth to Bring Light to the World' a Satirical Classic
By Mark Whittington, published Jul 25, 2008

Gerard Baker, the American editor and the assistant editor of the Times of London, has answered the question: Can one laugh at Barack Obama? His piece, entitled "He ventured forth to bring light to the world," resoundingly says, "Yes we can!"

"And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness," Gerard Baker writers.

One might as well call the piece, "The Gospel of Barack the Messiah." Forget about depicting the Democratic Presidential candidate as a Muslim Imam or any of that rubbish. Gerard Baker's piece surpasses even the segment in the JibJab video that depicts Obama riding a unicorn down a rainbow in a Disney cartoon universe.

Gerard Baker's piece captures neatly the attitude toward Barack Obama of the mainstream media and Obama's teenaged followers, the ones who faint in the aisles upon Barack Obama's very word.

"From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered "Hosanna" and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet."

Barack Obama has been called "the Messiah" and "Obamessiah" by observers of the political scene who have looked upon Obama and his arrogant megalomania, his promises to lower the oceans and tear down every wall. Gerard Baker has finally put all that into words what a lot of people are thinking when they see Barack Obama make an inane speech and then see people, including the media, slobber over him like besotted teenage girls.

Here the Obama Child brings peace to the Middle East just by showing it the benificence of his countenance. There the Obama Child heals the sick at a distance (even the uninsured) and causes oil to gush forth from the ground without even having to drill. No one can stop him. Not the evil George Bush the Younger (the Ignorant), not "the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites", and not even "the imperial warrior Petraeus."

It is the lot of politicians to be laughed at, from time to time, some gently, some nastily, too many unhumorously. But it is a bad sign for any politician to be laughed at, as Obama is starting to be laughed at, with such zest and incisiveness. When one becomes a joke to too many people, one does not become President.

All that is left is for Obama's electoral defeat in November to be compared to the Crucifixion. A lot of overheated media types who feel tingling going up and down their legs are capable of doing it, of making the whole 2008 Election "The Passion of St. Barack." But by then the story will not be about the man who got beat, but the man who won. And it's looking more and more likely that man will be John McCain. John McCain is a fine man in many ways with fine qualities and, despite having suffered torments that Barack Obama and indeed most people can only imagine, is not a man who is ever compared to Our Lord.

Source: He ventured forth to bring light to the world, Gerard Baker, Times of London, July 25th, 2008




Obama Takes Stump to Europe
Democrat Greets 200,000 in Berlin,
Pledges Closer Ties
By JAY SOLOMON and MIKE ESTERL
July 25, 2008; Page A4

BERLIN -- Barack Obama, seeking to burnish his image as a global statesman ahead of U.S. presidential elections, told an estimated 200,000 Germans here that he will work for rejuvenated U.S.-European ties.

Sen. Obama drew on Washington's historic role in rebuilding post-World War II Berlin to call for an enhanced alliance that would work to combat the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and the spread of nuclear weapons. He sought to help heal the trans-Atlantic rift following President George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq by pledging a more humble and engaged U.S. administration should he be elected in November.

"I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people," Sen. Obama said, generating perhaps the loudest applause during his 25-minute address at the historic downtown Tiergarten, Berlin's version of New York's Central Park.

A spokesman for Sen. McCain called the Berlin speech "a premature victory lap."

Posted at 06:30 AM in Humor, Politics, Video | Permalink

Posted at 06:02 AM | Permalink

Posted at 06:45 AM in Current Affairs, Humor | Permalink

Live:

Posted at 06:29 AM in Music, The Beatles, Video | Permalink

Pop Music

Last Monday, in London, Led Zeppelin played its first full live set since 1980, at the O₂ Arena—formerly the Millennium Dome—which seats twenty-two thousand and was built in 1999, during the early, optimistic days of Tony Blair’s tenure. (The giant spiked dome looks like a satellite that has crashed to earth, been filled with air, and turned into a mall done up with holographic snowflakes and futuristic blue lights.) Twenty million people applied in an online lottery for tickets to the concert and crashed the computer system. Before the show, tickets were going for more than a thousand dollars apiece on eBay. After all, this was a reunion that was not supposed to happen. Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980, following the death of its drummer, John Bonham, and since then the remaining members—the singer, Robert Plant, the guitarist, Jimmy Page, and the bassist, John Paul Jones—have made only three public appearances together, none well received. In a recent interview, Plant cited the low quality of these performances, including one at a Live Aid concert in 1985, as an impetus for reuniting to play “one last great show,” with Bonham’s son, Jason, on drums.

The show was billed as a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records, who signed the band in 1968 and died in 2006, and who came as close to being universally beloved as any music executive could be. Ertegun’s careful nurturing of acts like Ray Charles and Led Zeppelin is often cited as evidence of the kind of patient temperament now lacking at major labels. As eager to score hits as any other record man, he seemed just as determined to let artists muck about. To the chagrin of other Atlantic executives and record-store employees everywhere, Ertegun allowed Led Zeppelin to release its fourth album, “Led Zeppelin IV” (1971), without any words on the jacket. (The album is the band’s biggest seller and the fourth-biggest-selling album of all time.)

My affection for Led Zeppelin is limitless and somewhat irrational. I often say that my respect for the band’s music is mathematical: there are fewer bad songs on its eight studio albums than on anyone else’s. But such shaky calculations mask what is an involuntary response to the music. John Bonham played the drums as if the fate of the universe depended on how hard he could hit them; he could both dissolve a song and send it rocketing forward. Bonham played rope-a-dope with the clock: sometimes his accents arrive a tiny bit behind the beat; at others, they land a split second ahead. (If you can isolate Bonham’s placement of the hi-hat, kick drum, and cowbell on “Good Times, Bad Times”—never mind the tomtom rolls, themselves a prizeworthy achievement—you’ll have heard proof that 4/4 time is limiting only if you believe it is.) Page’s guitar playing was born during an era of British reverence for the American blues, but it went somewhere else entirely, drawing on acoustic English folk guitarists like Bert Jansch and on a battery of studio effects that made his work irreproducible and strange. Listen to Page’s sound on “Custard Pie,” a song from the 1975 album “Physical Graffiti” which was stitched together from a handful of famous blues numbers. Page, like many other rock guitarists, uses a Marshall amplifier, but the result is simultaneously nasty, small, and big, as though a tornado were happening inside a tin can. Jones, officially the band’s bassist, was equally skilled on the keyboards. The sepulchral electric piano chords that open “No Quarter,” from “Houses of the Holy” (1973), could be ambient music, and Jones’s electric-piano part on the heavy and freewheeling “Misty Mountain Hop,” from “Led Zeppelin IV,” makes the song sound like one extended bass line, though it contains no bass.

Plant is the member of the band who is most likely to be mocked. Those tight jeans! That long, unmanly hair! Those open shirts! Those operatic high notes! What a peacock! But his work is unique and unpredictable. His lyrics for Led Zeppelin were oddly eco-friendly—odes to ice, snow, trees, and England’s sylvan beauty (several songs were inspired by “The Lord of the Rings”)—and, in retrospect, his singing, which often sounded distinctly un-Western, seemed to anticipate the globalization of pop. This may be one reason that so many rock critics at first misunderstood Plant; his keening high notes make him sound more like a muezzin than like a blues singer, and his cackles and screeches don’t belong to any particular pop tradition. Since Led Zeppelin disbanded, Plant has remained active. He has released ten albums, including, in October, “Raising Sand,” a calm and gorgeous collection of country and R. & B. covers that he recorded with the singer Alison Krauss.

For Led Zeppelin, whose music is so rhythmic, hard, and loud, the perils of undertaking a reunion in late middle age are greater than they might be for, say, Bob Dylan or Neil Young, who began their careers sounding like old men. Led Zeppelin’s catalogue is in large part a testament to young men and their libidinal drive: lemons squeezed, inches of love delivered. (Plant, as he put it in the song “Hey, Hey, What Can I Do,” attended to women who wanted to “ball all day,” while Dylan sang about going his way while you went yours.) Still, it’s unlikely that you will see another band with a collective age of two hundred and twenty-four that is as ferocious as this one. (Page, the oldest member, is sixty-three; Jason Bonham, the youngest, is forty-one.)

The O₂ Arena is not hospitable to amplified sound, and the audio quality depended largely on where you were sitting. From where I sat, fairly far from the stage, Plant seemed to be singing over a big muddle. Heard from the floor, the group sounded hard and coherent, and close to the stage the sound was fierce. Plant is no longer the priapic castrato (mull that one) that he once was—many of the songs were transposed down a few notes—but his charisma is undiminished. Before playing “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” from 1976, he joked that the band first heard the song performed at a Mississippi church in 1932. During another break, he noted that people from fifty countries had come to the show. “This is the fifty-first,” Plant said, as the band launched into “Kashmir,” from “Physical Graffiti,” the evening’s highlight.

“Kashmir” is as good an example as any of Zeppelin’s weird genius. The lumbering riff pits three guitar beats against two drumbeats, executing a Sisyphean march that cycles over and over without becoming tiresome; on the record, it is the shortest eight-and-a-half-minute song I know. Its minute-long breakdown is like one long drum sample, held together by the motion of John Bonham’s dancing right foot. (P. Diddy and Schoolly D have rapped over “Kashmir.”) The lyrics are allegedly inspired by the Sahara Desert—“the storm that leaves no trace”—and the combination of strings, guitar, and Mellotron keyboard has often been described as Middle Eastern. In concert, though, it became clear that “Middle Eastern” is just one way of capturing an implausibly big and eerie song that wanders through a spooky fog in enormous boots and could just as easily be about settling on the moon or diving to the bottom of the ocean.

Led Zeppelin version 2.0 did a magnificent job with it. Plant’s voice was rich and strong, and the mingling of Page’s guitar with Jones’s keyboards was thrilling. The distorted whine could have been a cue in a summer-blockbuster score, perhaps for the moment when the dragon decides to eat Baltimore. Jason Bonham is a fussier player than his father was, and a bit anxious for my taste, but he provided the necessary weight, in a song that could easily make an average drummer seem desperate.

There were several moments when Page’s complex compositions defeated him as a performer. “Stairway to Heaven” was one of the few numbers that never quite hung together, mostly because of the fast, tricky figures, which Page struggled to nail. (His inaccuracies have long been part of his charm.) On the recorded version, the transitions between the seven sections are metrically subtle and dramatically balanced—the song is famous for more than hedgerows—but at the O₂ Arena the narrative line eluded the band. By contrast, the encore rendition of “Whole Lotta Love” (1969), a song not about making love but about fucking, was gloriously brutal and noisy. During the middle section, which expands into noise before the reprise of the main riff, Page played his guitar with a violin bow, unleashing a blizzard of sound that made the recorded version seem timid.

In November, the English rock band the Cult announced that it planned to tour in 2008 with a band whose name starts with an “l” and has a “z” in it, and rumors have floated that next summer Led Zeppelin is going to play at the Bonnaroo Music Festival, in Tennessee. This might seem like a good idea, but Led Zeppelin is a cover band now, covering its own material. Without John Bonham, the band can only sound like Led Zeppelin; it can’t be Led Zeppelin. The band should turn down the money and let its record stand. The failed gigs of the nineteen-eighties and nineties have been supplanted by a triumph, and the band should be pleased to have done Ertegun proud with such a spirited performance. I look forward to any chance I get to see Plant, Page, or Jones play live. But let the songs remain.

Stairway to Here
Led Zeppelin returns.
by Sasha Frere-Jones
December 24, 2007
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2007/12/24/071224crmu_music_frerejones

Posted at 06:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hysterical:

Posted at 09:00 AM in Humor | Permalink

This is the funniest new site I've come across in a long time . . . .

Take A Report
http://takeareport.com/2008/07/22/we-didnt-start-the-fire-in-larges-colon/

Posted at 12:34 PM in Humor | Permalink

Hysterical:

Don't Judge Too Quickly... We Won't. - video powered by Metacafe

Posted at 07:16 AM in Humor, Television | Permalink

Source:
Ferrari steers its efforts to California
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article4326982.ece

Posted at 07:07 AM in Automobiles | Permalink

Another good Yellow Submarine video:

Posted at 09:21 AM in Music, The Beatles | Permalink

click for Video:

via CNN

Posted at 07:25 AM in Automobiles | Permalink

Identify a Lie with 6 Simple Questions

1. How do you know this?
2. What are the major concerns or risks?
3. Why do you think others might have an opposing view?
4. Can you please explain this in layman’s terms?
5. Do you mind if I sleep on it?
6. How confident am I in this person?

Source:  Marc & Angel Life Hacks

See also:

How to Detect Lies   
http://www.blifaloo.com/info/lies.php

How to detect bullshit   
http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/53-how-to-detect-bullshit/

Posted at 06:47 AM in Philosophy | Permalink

via email

Posted at 06:35 AM in Humor | Permalink

Posted at 06:38 AM in Television, Video | Permalink

Not sure if anyone else is going to get it:

Posted at 07:10 AM in Politics | Permalink

Original song is from Revolver;  Remix of the song on The Beatles "LOVE" Album

Posted at 08:30 AM in Music, The Beatles, Video | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a day like yesterday, I need some Balla!

When the market has you beat,
And you are suffering from the heat,
Don't declare defeat,
Rub some Balla on your meat!

Balla Powder: Scented Scrotum Talc for Men - 3.5oz 

Amazon Description:   

"Balla Powder for Men is the ideal anti-chafing and anti-wetness solution for clammy sacks. Guaranteed to prevent the dreaded "bat wing" syndrome, Balla Powder for Men is lightly scented with a masculine fragrance, for anyone else who plans to work in your close quarters. Can be sprinkled into your fudgies for all-day-long comfort and dryness. A fabulous post-workout treatment, Balla Powder for Men can also be used between your cheeks, as well as on fetid feet and aromatic armpits."

Yes, thats the real name and description from amazon -- tho I imagine its an sloppy translation . . . the reviews are hysterical.

Of all the many things I have applied to my testicles over the years -- and that includes everything from chilled jello to fresh squid (don't ask) -- there is simply nothing finer than Balla Ball Powder.

Its refreshing! It tingles! And guys -- the ladies go wild for the fresh clean scent of Balla!

Accept no substitutes -- the original scrotal powder and the finest in testicle talc . . .

via boingboing

See also:

Posted at 07:17 AM in Humor, Shopping | Permalink

Back in 2005, Michael Levy released a very cool animation, titled Visualizing Jazz, via Coltrane's Giant Steps.

Here's his latest, titled "One," featuring the music of Jason Lindner.

Hi Def version available here: http://michalevy.com/one

Posted at 06:41 AM in Music, Video | Permalink

Posted at 09:54 AM in Food and Drink | Permalink

Posted at 05:03 PM in Humor | Permalink

There is a good discussion of the renewed usage of the tii badging by BMW at Automobile Magazine. Nice set of changes -- if they make it to the actual car.

Sources:
BMW Will Revive tii Badge for 1- and 3-series 
Automobile Magazine, August 2008
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/news/0804_bmw_tii_1_series/index.html

Photos via Motor Authority

Posted at 05:53 AM in Automobiles | Permalink

All of this was from a BBC 1968 documentary called 'Music.'

The song was released as a single, but it was recorded as at the same time as the White Album

"Hey Jude" was nominated for the Grammy Awards of 1969 in the Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal categories, but failed to win any of them. It did win the 1968 Ivor Novello Award for "A-Side With the Highest Sales". In the NME 1968 Readers' Poll, "Hey Jude" was named the best single of the year. In 2001, "Hey Jude" was inducted into the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2004, it was ranked number 8 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It came in third on Channel 4's list of 100 Greatest Singles. Broadcast Music Incorporated ranked "Hey Jude" the 11th-best jukebox single of all time.

Posted at 06:51 AM in Music, The Beatles, Video | Permalink | Comments (0)

Look who is dead this week: Jesse Helms, despoiling an otherwise lovely Fourth of July:

"I've been portrayed as a caveman by some. That's not true. I'm a conservative progressive, and that means I think all men are equal, be they slants, beaners or niggers."
-Jesse Helms, North Carolina Progressive, February 6, 1985, quoted in, "Yes, They Really Said It!"

"There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."
(States News Service, 5/17/88)

"Bill Clinton "better watch out if he comes down here [to North Carolina]. He'd better have a bodyguard." 
-Quote according to Helms (and refuted by military personnel), the military was likely to shoot Clinton if he came to North Carolina.

“We must have a full debate and votes on issues such as China's pitiful human rights record, China's brutal suppression of religious freedom, China's increasingly belligerent stance toward the Democratic Chinese government on Taiwan and China's unbroken record of violated agreements one after another on other matters. You can't trust them.”

University of North Carolina (UNC):  "University of Negroes and Communists".

“Terrorists around the world will realize that America's differences end at the water's edge, and that the United States' political leadership always has, and always will stand united in the face of international terrorism.”

"If God had wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had 10 apostles."

"The destruction of this country can be pinpointed in terms of its beginnings to the time that our political leadership turned to socialism. They didn't call it socialism, of course. It was given deceptive names and adorned with fancy slogans. We heard about New Deals, and Fair Deals and New Frontiers and the Great Society."
— From a Helms editorial at WRAL-TV in Raleigh.

"They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro."
-- In response to Duke University students holding a vigil after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, 1968

When a caller to CNN's Larry King Live show praised guest Jesse Helms for "everything you've done to help keep down the niggers," Helms' response was to salute the camera and say, "Well, thank you, I think."  (Wilmington Star-News, 9/16/95)

"Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has gotten into the wrong hands."
-Senator Jesse Helms

“The Indian government has not shot itself in the foot. Most likely it has shot itself in the head, ... By conducting five nuclear tests India made a major miscalculation not merely about the United States but about India's own capability. The Indian government has deluded itself into the absurd assumption that the possession of nuclear weapons will make India into a superpower at a time when hundreds of millions of India's people are in abject poverty.”

“You were the best qualified for that job, but they had to give it to a minority.”

"Compromise, hell! That's what has happened to us all down the line — and that's the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?"
— Helms writing in 1959 on compromise in politics.

"All Latins are volatile people. Hence, I was not surprised at the volatile reaction." stated by Helms after Mexicans protested his visit to Mexico in 1986 to investigate allegations of political corruption."
-Helms investigation into whether there might be communists in Mexico

"To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing."
— Helms responding in 1956 to criticism that a fictional black character in his newspaper column was offensive.

Posted at 07:13 AM in Philosophy, Politics | Permalink

Pat Oliphant via Yahoo

Posted at 11:58 AM in Finance | Permalink

Way cool

Holographic Google Earth from Nicolas Loeillot on Vimeo.

Posted at 08:35 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink

Interesting to a Lefty like me:

Posted at 07:04 AM in Humor, Science | Permalink

Wicked cool!

Chronotopic Anamorphosis from Marginalia Project on Vimeo.

via kottke

Posted at 06:11 AM in Video, Weblogs | Permalink