Just fun...



(from BoingBoing)

Jeremy brought this to my attention.

This clip misses the intro song they chose for her, but I think it bears mentioning that Stevie Wonder said it all: "Isn't she loooooooovely...."!

Terrence Howard Talks Tunes, Family, Science

I've been in love with this man for so long (physically, since Mr. Holland's Opus; emoto-psychically since Hustle & Flow). Somehow I could always tell that he had that inner strength that makes people glow in a way that allows me to remember and understand that it's not what happens to you, it's what you make of it. Our inner combine isn't just a machine, it's magical at times too. This interview with NPR's Scott Simon is magical medicine for the cold, discouraging days.

Ithaca and pod cars!!! How cool would this be?!

Ithaca Takes a Hard Look at Pod Cars
by Michelle York
The New York Times

Thanks to Ora Szekely for posting this to Facebook, where I think the relevant first comment was "Monorail!!!"

This is an article from Ron Paul published in Slate today that articulates the point about inflation and indebtedness that Zeitgeist made me think about. Especially scary is this paragraph:

"The monetary base jumping by such a large margin is an indicator that the Federal Reserve has not learned from its mistakes and is hoping to get out of this economic downturn by creating even more credit out of thin air. With such large increases in the monetary base and with banks legally able to hold zero reserves, the vaunted money multiplier effect could theoretically reach infinity."

I think if the Republicans had had the sense to nominate Ron Paul, this election would've been harder for me to decide. Read the whole thing here:

Sickness Unto Debt

The Treasury bailout will only exacerbate red ink and inflation.

By Ron Paul

Zeitgeist: The Movie

(click through and scroll down)

I've been watching this movie in bits and pieces for a couple of months now, mostly through the good influence of Mark and Chris. I've always been convinced that there was more to 9/11 than we were being told, and this documentary puts it squarely in the "false flag for the sake of profit" category along with the RMS Lusitania, Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin. There is also a very interesting report on the creation of the Federal Reserve that with the current financial crisis makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, especially as the movie I posted yesterday about the massive bank fraud that Sen. McCain tried to immunize in the '80's proves to me that this might very well be the kind of thing happening right under our noses, right now. What are we doing? Infusing those failing banks with huge sums of tax payer dollars. Yay...

Oh yeah, and there's no law on the books that says you have to pay income tax. It's actually unconstitutional as a non-apportioned tax. I'm excited about that. I'd rather hand my money to the NYDOT for the roads and bridges, skip the Fed.

Peter Joseph (the writer and director) also argues that aspects of the Christian narrative are related to or extrapolated from ancient religious myths, which makes a lot of sense even from an academic perspective. But the writers are just a little too quick to say that thus Jesus didn't exist and Christianity is a crock. Like so many science and technology valorizing contingencies these days (I mean you Drs. Dennett and Dawkins, and the lesser Bill Maher), Joseph is way too excited about "debunking religion" to actually look meaningfully into the function of myth and religious narrative in human life and history, so he simply demonstrates that religions come from somewhere, are not "factually true" and thinks he has done with it. Overall, I should say that I disagree with the Zeitgeist Movement's perspective on the amorphous and personified force of "religion" in history, and think their position needs to be refined to specific historical institutions in order to be a genuine critique. That being said, the information presented is intriguing, and makes a lot more sense to me than the explanations for war and financial crises handed down by the current administration.

I'm all about the videos lately. I saw Andrew Bird at the State Theater a couple weeks ago and it was really astounding. I'm all about everything with him now, so here's a bootleg movie of some of that concert and a video from his Myspace page:

I know that in a way this is preaching to the choir, and I don't usually go in for negative political ads. But I think everyone should watch this. It's about McCain's personal support of a corrupt financier, his attempt to use his office to excuse white-collar criminal activity on a grand scale and his involvement in the (now catastrophic) deregulation of the financial systems. What becomes clear is not only that he's not looking out for the American people, but that his motivations are the oldest in history: personal greed and ambition. This isn't just incompetence or poor judgment, it's criminality.

I just came across this video from my friend Colleen et al's project Girls Named Carly. It's super fun and features a bunch of my friends and the coffee shop I used to work at (Gimme! Cayuga). There's a plethora of inside jokes for the barista in you, not to mention all that wonderful dancing!

It's just too funny. Cheers to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler for bringing SNL back on task.

Okay, so I've been gone a little while. I'll catch everyone up on the big changes later, for now, enjoy the hottest s*#$ ever:



Gaylord's got a video!