Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Is America Ready To Laugh or Vote?

Oh, my. One of my new Twitter acquaintances, @Karoli, pointed me to this video on Queen of Spain, that gave me a laugh after quite a hectic day. Only thing is I'm not sure if this is really a laughing matter. But I guffawed. You will too. By the way, I love the the guy setting next to the two stars.

Check out Bang The Drum.

 

Spanking and Newsweek Stupidity

So someone, somewhere commissioned a study on spanking. Their results? It might lead to aggression and possible sexual problems when the spanked grow into adults. Good grief. I can just see the rash of lawsuits and an entire new line of defense for those accused of sexual abuse. Who funds this stuff?

By the way, I'm linking to this on Newsweek, which officially now ranks as one of my Sites That Suck for insisting on running stupid video ads, mostly in a size that couldn't possibly do any good and that you don't see unless you scroll down, and that are just damn annoying. I'm not sure who is more stupid, Newsweek for running the ad, or the advertisers who fall for the pitch in the first place.

A Legend In His Own Mind

Gotta love the delusional. They make the world both dangerous and entertaining at the same time. Iran's chief of bombast, Ahmadinejad now says Iran is the "Number One World Power."

If it was on a stage they'd say it wasn't believable.

The Onion on Premature Election Results

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Funny stuff.

Comcast Comes With a Sleeping Claque

It appears that Comcast brought its own audience to the FCC showdown at Harvard. What's funny is that a number of the paid for "warm bodies" fell asleep during the hearing. What's funnier still is that CNet takes Comcast's answer that some of the folks were employees and compares those dozing to the sleeping Comcast service tech from a while ago. Very funny stuff.

Technorati Tags: Comcast,FCC

NY Philharmonic Plays In North Korea

I'm a big believer when it comes to the arts breaking down barriers. Heck, I'm a big believer in the arts doing lots of things. Here's hoping this is the beginning of something. The NY Philharmonic recently journeyed to North Korea to play a concert. The program highlighted American music. This isn't the first time this has happened, and as someone who journeyed to the (at the time) closed city of Omsk to do American Musical Theatre, I'm happy to see it occur.

It sure beats all of that silly diplomatic posturing.

Via MSNBC

ABC Launches Must Watch Commercials

ABC is launching a new service based on the premise that consumers will understand that to see their favorite shows any time they want they will realize that they must watch commercials. The way it works is like this. First the service keeps you from fast forwarding on your DVR. Next whenever you tune to ABC, someone comes into your home and chains you to your chair, inserts a catheter into your bladder, and stands ready to fetch you any food you might want. This person also will answer any phone calls, or knocks at the door that might occur during the period you are watching the show. And should you get a bit drowsy, the ABC watcher will smack you on the back of the head.

Look for CBS and NBC to follow suit soon.

Shut Her Down or Else

So, Pakistan shuts down YouTube because somebody got offended and now the Taliban is telling mobile companies in Afghanistan that they need to turn off their services at night, so that the US forces can't use them to trace them in all their Taliban-y badness.

So, I'm just going to ask this question. Why are you using the phones in the first place if you know you can be tracked? And next, if the towers are shut off, don't you have a problem communicating as well? My guess is they are just miffed that their unlimited plans are capped at 5GB.

Technorati Tags: Taliban,Cellphones,Afghanistan,Pakistan,YouTube

Today's Thoughts on the Campaigns

Someone stop Hillary Clinton from giving all the credit to Karl Rove. The tactics he used were really sharpened up by Lee Atwater, the perfected by the Clinton Machine. It's a bitch when your own stuff comes back to bite you. (Actually the kind of things she's decrying began long before Rove and Atwater.)

This whole Obama in Somali garb thing is more farce and surreal than anything else. Especially the ridiculous attempt at denying the Clinton camp had anything to do with it as reported here.

Apparently two relatives by marriage got into it over the weekend while arguing over their respective support of Clinton and Obama. One stabbed the other.  Somehow, I think this will be blamed on Obama before all is said and done.

NY Mayor Bloomberg says Ralph Nader is no spoiler and has the right to do what he's doing. I don't know about being a spoiler, but after listening to him on Meet The Press, I'm convinced he's delusional.

Meet Me In Ohio, just doesn't sing the way Meet Me In St. Louis does.

Something I Won't Be Using Twitter For

I have nothing against plants. My wife and I kill a couple every year. But I doubt we'll be using Twitter to send us a signal when they need watering See here's my question. The plant gets thirsty and sends out a  Tweet. We're not home. Who does the watering? Just asking.

Technorati Tags: botanicalls,Twitter