Today's music video

Homemade "Common People" by Shatner.

.....and what to make of this?


Jane Austen horror?

SOOOOOO cool!

I've always loved music videos. Visual short stories. Love the format.

Here's a super one.

H/T to Daily Dish

Pick me!

Best. Job. Ever.

update: hah! you just knew that was coming.

Almost there...

President Bush:
"I disagree with this assessment that, you know, that people view America in a dim light," he said. "It may be damaged amongst some of the elite. But people still understand America stands for freedom."

I hope that we have a very different world for the next 4/8 years. I'm amazed by these ongoing political tactics, which I tend to notice more on the Republican side: 1) if a Republican throw the words "the elites" into the sentence, then it doesn't matter what the Republican did or what these mystical, always wrong "elites" think. How did they get to be elite if they are always wrong and they don't matter? So strange. 2) If you say that there is less of something, they deny that there is a change by pointing out that there is still some left. Ummm... this is arithmetic. It's not a binary world. No one is saying that 100% of the world has stopped associating America with freedom. But our reputation *has* been damaged. *Fewer* people associate America with freedom because it's not always clear that our government *will* choose "individual freedom" over "governmental control/power".

I hope the next president can avoid the "bubble", but it has always seemed to me that this president prefers the bubble. I'm not sure he would have been able to act the way he acted over the last 6 or so years without it.



Reality:
Favorable opinions of the U.S. have, in general, dropped steadily from 1999/2000 to 2006 in most of the 15 countries surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

I bash Newsweek a lot...

...for being more a "celebrity magazine" than a "news weekly", but I think this is a pretty clear, fair and succinct summary of the history and possibility of the Israeli - Palestinian region.

We like the mooooooon!

And tomorrow's a good day to look at it.

Amazing Dragon Cake...

...by these folks. H/T to Gamer Travis.

Sarah: do NOT be inspired. For display purposes only. Put down the mixing bowl.

Cafeteria-style religion

From the Daily Dish:

There is something striking about how rigorously theocons apply Vatican teaching to questions of private individuals' sexual and emotional relationships and how loosely they apply it when it comes to tempering right-wing governments from embracing torture, economic inequality, the death penalty and pre-emptive war.

Agreed.

A changing climate is more than an environmental issue

It's also a matter of national and global security.

Man, I hope this is wrong...

The missiles used by Israel in the Gaza invasion were recently delivered to them by the US. They're bunker busters. Daily Dish theorizes that it's a test run for an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Just what we need, a full-on regional war.

Speed limits make the highways safer...

...and give you the ability to bring criminal charges against risk-takers who put themselves and others in danger. I think stock markets should be run the same, well-regulated way.

How India Avoided a Crisis