This story from the Onion News Network:

Video of the Moon orbiting Earth as seen from distance of 31 million miles:

Source: NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft.

Surveillance video showing destruction of a bank drive through in Center, Texas (July 2, 2008).  According to the local paper, the Shelby County Today, no one was injured.

In the interest of providing equal time to different viewpoints, here’s a Republican promotional video, courtesy of ImVotingRepublican.com:

H/T: Matt R.

In February, Bush asked a reporter:

“Wait a minute.  What did you just say?  You’re predicting four dollar a gallon gasoline?  I hadn’t heard that.”

Look at him.  He’s incredulous.  He looks like he’s about the accuse the reporter of fear mongering.  Gas prices were close to $4 at the time of this press conference, and today it’s well over $4.50 (at least where I live).

Later on in the press conference when asked a completely different question, Bush dodged it, saying he couldn’t answer because he’s been too focused on other things, like high gas prices.  The same ones he learned about for the first time in that same press conference.

“Cookie” is one of those words that an adult cannot utter without sounding childish.  I don’t care if you’re 98 years old and wearing both a monocle and a top hat.  If you say the word cookie, you don’t sound like an adult.

It’s hard to maintain your dignity as an adult and admit you want to eat a cookie.  At a deli counter recently, I was asked “do you want chips or a cookie with that sandwich?”  Instinctively, I felt the need to lower my voice when I uttered: “I want a cookie.”

Maybe this is one of the things that makes the idea of a “cookie diet” so appealing.  The concept is: “eat cookies, lose weight” as this 6-second clip explains:

I can lose weight by eating cookies? Fun!  It’s like being a child again!  Maybe I can start an exercise regimen using only swing sets and seesaws.  Forget about stairmaster, take a look at my new home gym:

The lawyer in me wants to point out that sure, you can lose weight by eating nothing but cookies, but doesn’t it depend on what your definition of a cookie is?  Can you take a salad, mash it down into a little round circle and call it a cookie?

I think the true test of whether or not something is a cookie is if children want to eat them.  If a cookie diet cookie and a double-stuffed Oreo elicit the same smile on a 7-year-old, then it’s a cookie.  If not, then it’s probably not really a cookie, it’s a smallish, round, food-substitute.

“Eat smallish, round, food-substitutes and lose weight!  It’s that simple!”

Here’s an excerpt of Clinton’s speech, delivered today:

Does anyone else think that these two kids should get married?

If you’re a political junkie, you might find this parody of “The Office” is pretty funny. You can ignore the first 35 seconds:

He’s a populist and a Democrat:

Message to my millions (?) of readers: sorry for taking so long between posts recently… I just started a new job and am a bit distracted.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders had promised to veto a City Council resolution supporting gay marriage. At the eleventh hour, with the resolution on his desk, he changed his mind. In an emotional speech, Mayor Sanders explains why he reversed his position.

With his wife by his side and holding back tears, Mayor Sanders reveals that his daughter Lisa is a lesbian. Speaking of her, and of the gay and lesbian members of his staff, he says:

“In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships — their very lives — were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife, Rana.”

During the Miss Teen USA 2007 competition, contestant Caitlin Upton (Ms. South Carolina) was asked the following question:

“Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Her answer was spectacular:

If you think about it for a minute, Caitlin Upton’s answer does provide valuable insight into some of the root causes of the problem.

For your enjoyment, here’s an attempted transcript:

“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so, because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and I believe that our education like such as South Africa and The Iraq and everywhere like, such as, and I believe that they should — our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. — er — should help South Africa, and should help The Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our ch–.”

“U.S. Americans?” “The Iraq?”

This weekend I went to see a reprint of Metropolis, the famous 1927 Fritz Lang silent film.

The film is so iconic that many scenes looked familiar, and yet there were some scenes that surprised me. I’ve seen the cityscapes before, and of course the well-known the “Machine-Man” robot (an obvious inspiration for Star Wars’ C3PO fifty years later), but I’d never seen the interior design shots before, and some of them were stunning. So were the fabulous art deco futuristic ticker tape machines and the giant underground machines powering the city. I couldn’t find any online pictures that came close to capturing the power of those scenes.

I’ve decided that when I finally have my billions, I’m going to have my office designed to be an exact replica of the one belonging to Joh Fredersen, the ruler (owner? creator? overlord?) of Metropolis. My replica will come complete with vacuum tube powered computing machine on my desk, a staff of identically clad accountants, a “Thin Man” to spy on my workers in their gloomy underground city, and giant analog wall clock keeping metric time.

Even by 2007 standards some of the visuals and special effects are actually pretty impressive. One surprise was that, in contrast to the bold and pathbreaking visuals, the plot was at times, well, a bit cheesy. Overall a great experience.

Here’s a sample of some of the well known Metropolis iconography.

Shift change for the workers of the underground city:

A clock keeping metric time:

On April 15th, 1994, a sane Dick Cheney confidently explains how trying to take over Iraq would lead to a “quagmire,” that wouldn’t be worth the American casualties:

Remember the 1970s, where our greatest fears were gasoline shortages and and swarms of killer bees? What ever happened to killer bees, anyway?

Enjoy this clip from “The Swarm” (1978). It doesn’t get any more campy than this.

h/t to Larry M.

Funny stuff. Max Blumenthal visits a College Republican convention, and after hearing the expected GOP pro-war talking points (”what people don’t understand is if it’s not faught in iraq and we don’t win over there, it’s gonna happen here.”), Blumenthal asks:

“If you support the war, why aren’t you serving in the military?”

The results are hilarious.

Blumenthal doesn’t just cover the war in his visit with the Chickenhawk College Republicans. When he interviews some Republicans about their feelings about gays, at first there’s some old fashioned GOP anti-gay garbage. But it gets really interesting when a member of the College Republicans lets us know that he’s been dealing with some suppressed feelings:

Republican Guy: “Everybody at one time in their life has had the inclination towards the other — uh — towards the same sex. . . . But just because you have the inclination does not mean you’re gay because if you have the inclination because you’re curious and stuff like that. . . . But if you accept it, and then suppress your feelings and you pray about it to god, and know that you’re not — are are so much stronger than some other people.”

Max Blumenthal: “Have you accepted it?”

Republican Guy: “Yes, I have accepted it, I have prayed about it to God, and I know for a fact that I am not gay.”

Not quite convincing… but funny to watch.

Anyway, here’s the video:

I had the privilege of meeting Elizabeth Edwards at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in San Francisco this weekend, and seeing her deliver this moving speech. How can you not love this woman?

When the Iraq war was launched, Bush’s secretary of Defense told us it
“certainly isn’t going to last any longer” than five months.

Years later, we’re told by the President that we’re “making progress.” But he’s said that a lot over the years. Take a look at this 30-second montage (2003-2007):

(this clip is actually a TV spot targeting a specific Senator, but the message is relevant to a wider audience)

Don’t forget what we were told:

I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that.”

-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Nov. 14, 2002.

The joke’s on us, unfortunately.

Chiffon margarine ran a series of popular TV commercials in the 1970s, where Mother Nature is fooled into believing that Chiffon Margarine is actually “sweet, creamy” butter.

No doubt fed up with other attacks on nature that were taking place in the 1970s (e.g., polyester), Mother Nature always loses her temper after she mistakes Chiffon for real butter, stirring up wind and lightning and uttering her famous line: “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

In the version posted below, the scene opens as Mother Nature (apparently taking a break from controlling the seasons and the crop cycle) reads “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to seemingly random mix of animals.

Modern audiences are not impressed by a little wind and flash of lightning. If the commercial were re-made today, CGI graphics would show lightning bolts shooting out of her hands, perhaps even striking and killing the TV announcer to punish him for his trickery.

Hurray for happy, proud elephants and firemen!

Boo for sad, nerdy donkeys with glasses!

Do you like balloons? All good Americans like balloons! So let’s vote for the smiling man with extreme comb-over hairdo!

That’s essentially the message of this 1952 TV advertisement for Dwight Eisenhower:

If you thought American political discourse was on the decline, this video provides some evidence that it’s been bad for a long while. And judging from the color of the faces in this cartoon, another thing that apparently hasn’t changed much is the target racial demographic of the GOP.

By the way, in watching this video, was anyone else reminded of a certain Scandinavian retailer? At least if you’re looking in black and white:

No? Anyone? Maybe it’s just me.

Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson said two weeks ago that it should be legal to fire employees for being gay. Thompson now regrets having said this, but his apologies leave something to be desired.

You see, Tommy Thompson says that it’s not his fault that he gave the answer he did during the debate. He’s a victim! Tommy Thompson’s list of excuses include (this is not a joke):

• a dead hearing aid battery
• an urgent need to use the bathroom
• the flu, bronchitis, and a recent trip to the hospital

Remember the scene in The Blues Brothers when the Carrie Fisher character (having gone homicidally insane after being left at the altar by John Belushi’s character) aims her gun and says “You think you can talk your way out of this? You betrayed me.” The response is a John Belushi classic:

No I didn’t. Honest… I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.

I’ve pasted this movie clip below.

If you’ve seen the movie, you remember laughing when Fisher’s character appears to be convinced by this rambling series of contradictory excuses. But in the real world, no one is going to be convinced by Thompson. From now on, if you hear anyone give multiple, contradictory or irrelevant excuses for why they did something they regret, this is called a “pulling a Tommy Thompson.”

*This entry is part of a continuing series, dedicated to using the phrase “that’s so gay” as a compliment rather than an insult. Eat your heart out, Rebeka Rice!.*

Take yourself back to a time when Liberace was seen as an eccentric heterosexual with a penchant for fur and candelabras.

The video below was produced during the waning days of what I call the Paul Lynde Era — a time when a person could appear on television in full gay flame, and still be considered heterosexual by the most people.

That Era is clearly over. When you watch the video below, try and take yourself back to the mid-1980’s, when it was still widely believed that George Michael was a heterosexual. I don’t think this could happen today.

(Not sufficiently gay? If the opening sequence doesn’t convince you, make sure you check out the shorts and gloves he’s wearing near the middle of the video.)