Hugh Kretschmer

Stephen Colbert

"The healthcare bill is so complicated I got a headache just thinking about it. And my insurance company said that is a pre-existing condition."

The Colbert Report, Sept. 29, 2009

Where The Wild Things Are write up in NY Times

New York Times Magazine published a detailed and lengthy article that follows the creation of the film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are (out Oct. 16), directed by Spike Jonze. My favorite bit, in regards to Jonze's rapport with children and his tendency to wear skater shoes:

Catherine Keener, who was nominated for an Oscar for her work in Being John Malkovich and who plays a divorced mother in Where the Wild Things Are, told me that her 10-year-old son, Clyde, once asked her why Jonze didn’t live with his parents; apparently Clyde didn’t realize that Jonze was an adult.

I'd also refer you to the music video Jonze produced earlier this year for the UNKLE track "Heaven".

NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman on Van Jones' Resignation

"When everyone has a cell phone, everyone’s a photographer. When everyone has access to YouTube, everyone’s a filmmaker. And when everyone’s a blogger, everyone’s in newspaper. When everyone’s a photographer, a newspaper and a filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure.

"Tell your kids, 'OK, be careful.' Every move they make is now a digital footprint. You are on Candid Camera. And unfortunately, the real message to young people, from all of these incidents (and I’m not here defending anything anyone said) but from all of these incidents, is really keep yourself tight, don’t say anything controversial, don’t think anything, don’t put anything in print. You know, whatever you do, just kind of smooth out all the edges, and maybe you too—you know, when you get nominated to be ambassador to Burkina Faso—you’ll be able to get through the hearing."

Meet The Press, September 6, 2009

Dana Gould wonders: 'Is Obama literally Hitler?'

Dana Gould was on Real Time with Bill Maher last Friday and showed this clip in which he visits some town hall protesters and a Remote Area Medical station in Inglewood, CA. Compare and contrast:



In case that clip gets pulled you can watch it here as well.

There was so much 'Hitler'...And this one guy I was talking to, I said like 'Why Hitler?' and he goes 'Well Hitler also wanted to restrict medical care for people." But was that what he was the most known for though?

Oh and in case you didn't already know, Obama Is Literally Hitler.

Why everything sucks.

1600 x 1135

Auto-tUuUne (shortee!)

I know Auto-Tune in the News has been around the net now for a few months but this one is one of the best. Featuring the climate change bill, Sarah Palin's resignation and Michael Jackson "waking up dead."

Here's Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining how Auto-Tune works, and I'd also highly recommend the excellent music documentary Before The Music Dies featuring a segment on the use of Auto-Tune in pop stardom.

James Dobson, fortune teller extraordinaire!

Check out James Dobson's (of Focus on the Family) "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America" (PDF) which includes premonitions that Obama will somehow fill the Supreme Court with liberals, fund international terrorism, quash conservative radio, let Iran nuke Israel, Russia expand like Nazi Germany, and make it such that "our freedoms have been systematically taken away." Worst of all, dear alarmists, he will help... the gays!

Suddenly, homosexual "marriage" was the law of the land in all 50 states, and no state legislature, no state Supreme Court, no state Constitutional amendment, not even Congress, had any power to change it. ... The Boy Scouts no longer exist as an organization. They chose to disband rather than be forced to obey the Supreme Court decision that they would have to hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys.

That's right, the Supreme Court will soon be forcing gay men into tents with young boys, oh the horror!

Fun With Editing, Part 3

(via ManBabies)

The Great Dictator

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible—Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man"—not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Jon Stewart on "socialized medicine"

"God forbid someone replace the health care plan I had before I was 32 and actually qualified for real health care, I believe it was called Excedrin PM and Colt 45."

"Never Here" by Elastica

How to make a beat!

To burn the most calories you have to exercise as much as possible, period.

In a report recently published in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews exercise scientists conclude that a moderate amount of exercise does not speed up your metabolism in the proceeding 24 hours as previously thought. Even weight training to replace fat with muscle won't do the trick:

While it’s true that a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat — about seven to 10 calories a day versus two calories — most people don’t put on enough muscle to make much of a difference. "Building muscle is very difficult for most individuals because it requires heavy weight workouts and a higher intake of calories," he says. "Average fitness enthusiasts [who are working out to gain muscle] will only add four to five pounds of lean mass," he says, and burn an additional 28 to 50 calories a day.

Well that's disconcerting. In effect the only real and sustained way to burn excess calories and lose weight is during exercise itself. So if you want to lose weight the best thing to do is to work a little bit of physical exertion into your everyday life. Maybe not the 90 minutes the FDA recommends but if you can get your heart beating faster for at least 30 minutes a day you're far better off than being sedentary.