My collection of rants and raves about technology, my kids and family, social/cultural phenomena, and inconsistencies in the media and politics.
Here at TooMuchBlue, we take great pride in searching the net for only the best and classiest videos for your entertainment. Only the highest quality videos will do.
It is therefore a rare pleasure to recommend this fine video of Red Hot Chilli Pipers, performing a medley including Queen's We Will Rock You and Survivor's Eye of the Tiger. It's definitely not what you'd expect.
[via Dave Barry's blog]
Labels: youtube
A quick post serving three purposes:
I really like the video, though you have to watch quickly as the text changes fast. It took me a more than a few seconds to realize that when the person writes something, then erases it and writes something else, both the before and after messages are meant to be read and absorbed. The soundtrack is nice, but you won't miss anything with the volume down.
This video is highly recommended by the Council on Things You Shouldn't Be Doing When You Have A Train To Catch, Because You Know It Won't Be Waiting Around For You, Don't You Know.
Just in case you aren't one of the 321,413 people who have already seen it at this point, it's a video of someone's dad at a comedy club. Someone's dad with a very distinctive laugh -- more entertaining than the comedian's schtick, in fact.
After insulting all the troops earlier this week, Presidential-hopeful John Kerry has issued what I find to be a very distasteful and half-hearted apology. His statement, at a campaign rally:
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
This drew some very direct and pointed responses from the White House and directly from President Bush. Kerry’s immediate response was scattershot and obviously rushed.
This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.
The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it.
In a press conference later that day:
SENATOR KERRY: Let me make it crystal clear, as crystal clear as I know how: I apologize to no one for my criticism of the president and of his broken policy.If anyone owes our troops in the fields an apology, it is the President and his failed team and a Republican majority in the Congress that has been willing to stamp -- rubber-stamp policies that have done injury to our troops and to their families.
My statement yesterday -- and the White House knows this full well -- was a botched joke about the president and the president's people, not about the troops.
...
QUESTION: Senator, John McCain said that you owe an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered this country's call because they are patriots.
To those people who didn't get your joke, who may have misinterpreted you as saying the undereducated are cannon fodder, what do you say?
KERRY: I never said that, and John McCain knows I've never said that and John McCain knows I wouldn't say that.
And John McCain ought to ask for an apology from Donald Rumsfeld for making the mistakes he's made. John McCain ought to ask for an apology from this administration for not sending in enough troops.
That kind of answer leads me to believe that Kerry doesn’t understand just how offensive his statement was. Taken out of context? Maybe. Flubbed the wording? Definitely. But what he said is what he said, and if your statement was not what you intended, an apology is needed, not a justification, not rationalizations, and certainly not political hay.
The uproar escalated, bringing on board Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. Now, with everyone you can think of (except Howard Dean) calling for an apology, he has apologized. Well, sort of.
As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.
It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops.
I also sincerely hope the voters of this country will not allow their own misunderstanding of my words to distract them from voting for me for President in 2008.
OK, I made up that last sentence. But seriously, why is he apologizing for the reader/listener misunderstanding? An apology is supposed to include some statement of personal culpability for which there is regret. “I apologize for hurting your feelings (but I think it was the right thing to do)” is not an apology, it’s political lip service. And please, how exactly do you “personally apologize” in a press release? He can say he personally apologizes, but he hasn’t, just like he didn’t personally insult the troops but slandered them as a group.
The only reason Kerry apologized is because he had to, politically. This is the same way he makes all his decisions, and exactly why he must never be President.
[via Drudge]
Update: Scrappleface made the same points and a few more.
Sen. Kerry said his poorly-worded apology, however, does reinforce the premise of his original ‘botched joke’ about bad students being sent to war, since he is a combat veteran.
Update 2: The photo above was by the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 34th Infantry Division
Labels: republican, youtube
You’ve got to see this video. It’s created by David Zucker, the producer/director of “Airplane”, “The Naked Gun” and “Scary Movie 4” with the intention of allowing the GOP to use it in campaigns. Zucker, a longtime Democrat, voted Republican in 2004 based on concerns he had about national security.
One GOP strategist said "jaws dropped" when the ad was first viewed. "Nobody could believe Zucker thought any political organization could use this ad. It makes a point, but it's way over the top."
The comedy is polished, and the point it makes is rock solid. It's too bad this is so politically hot that it can't be used, so I'm doing my part to make sure people can see it. Hopefully it will stay up for a while. I’ve created a transcript of the video in case it’s taken down. Please email people to the link below instead of just forwarding this message.
Announcer: In the year 2000, in an effort to stop the North Koreans from building nuclear weapons, President Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright [“Pyongyang - North Korea” Pan in on North Korean state building (?)] gave North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a basketball signed by Michael Jordan. [“October 25, 2000”, MA presenting basketball to KJI, clinking glasses for cameras. “We’re not making this up”]
A: The Democrats’ thoughtful gift had two major results. This first was this. [Rocket launch] And the second was this. [KJI playing basketball]
A: In a post-9/11 world, [U.S. Embassy - Tanzania] making nice to our enemies [U.S.S. Cole - Yemen] will not make them nice to us.
A: On the contrary, to them it is a sign of weakness. [MA serving cookies and singing Kum Ba Yah in the house while terrorists run from the basement. Singing continues to end.]
A: The Democrats have their own ideas on how to stop North Korea from building nuclear weapons. [“North Korean Nuclear Weapons Lab”, MA mowing the lawn]
A: Some people think the terrorists will change their ways if only show our good intentions. No matter what we do, the fact remains there is evil in the world. [“Afghanistan”, cave interior, MA painting cave wall while Osama Bin Laden lookalike holding gun makes a video.]OBL: You missed a spot
A: History has taught us that evil needs to be confronted, not appeased. Evil dictators will be evil dictators, no matter what we do. [MA changes the tire on a Middle Eastern dictator’s limousine.]
Dictator: “Place the bomb in the cargo hold.” [points at watch]
A: Unlike basketball... [KJI coming off the bench at a basketball game]
MA: “Go get 'em you animal”
A: ...the security of the United States is not a game. [MA waving pom poms, fans holding signs reading “go great leader”. KJI comes up from fall with an automatic rifle.]
A: Can we afford a party that treats it like one? [Gunshots, crowd runs, zoom on scared MA staring into camera, fade to black]
[via Drudge]
Labels: democrat, republican, youtube
The New York Times has managed to not only censor themselves about censorship, but to do it in a story about censorship.
The article ironically notes:Many, but not all, newspapers were frightened away from publication of the Muhammad cartoons. But the cartoons, and other images of Muhammad, can be found all over the Internet, as individual users decide for themselves whether or not they will abide by the Islamic restrictions on Muhammad imagery.Yes, many newspapers were frightened to publish the Mohammed cartoons. But the article fails to note that one of the papers “frightened away from publication” was the New York Times the very paper in which the article itself appears. As this FIRE article explained:
On February 7, Times editor Bill Keller told USA Today that publishing the Mohammed cartoons would be “perceived as a particularly deliberate insult” by Muslims, and that, moreover, not publishing them “feels like the right thing to do.”To recap, as Rick Ellensburg might say: it’s an article about appeasing Muslims by censoring ideas in a paper that appeased Muslims by censoring ideas. And, the article censors the fact that it appeased Muslims by censoring ideas.
Censorship isn't enough for these guys, and neither is meta-censorship. They've gotta fall all over themselves to make sure they don't upset any radical islamists by even admitting that they soft-pedaled information that might have upset them. And all this in a story where they click their tongues about how YouTube was cleaning up some politically awkward content.
What bold journalists! Determined to present all the news that’s fit to print (so long as it doesn’t upset people who don’t like us anyway).
I’m repeatedly shocked at how hard some elements of the Lamestream Media seem to be working on behalf of our enemies, when freedom of the press is one of the first things a global Caliphate would take away. (Along with making homosexuality a capital offense, but that’s a different topic.)
[via Patterico]
Labels: youtube
Perhaps you've already heard about Lee Paige, the DEA agent who shot himself in the foot while giving a gun safety presentation to a classroom of children? If not, watch the video, taken by a member of the audience and then handed over to the DEA.
This is wrong on so many levels:
Hopefully, Paige was exaggerating when, in the lawsuit, he claims he was "once regarded as oen of the best undercover agents, if not the best, in the DEA." If he represents the best of the best, it's no wonder the war on drugs has taken so long.
[via Office Pirates]
Labels: youtube
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