So, this is apparently an actual television ad for Burger King in Russia, which is soooo much better than Burger King in America.
At Burger King in Russia, you ride on unicorn. At Burger King in Capitalist America, unicorn rides you!
via Jezebel.
Category Archives: video
The Sith who Stole Christmas
So, as you emerge from your four-day food coma, I’d like to welcome you back with this piece of awesomeosity, which is a well matched mash-up of Boris Karloff and the Boris Karloff of the Star Wars universe.
Enjoy.
How to fix the Miss America Pageant
So, remember last year’s Miss America Pageant? Let me remind you. We were treated to Alyse Eady, Miss Arkansas, whose talent was singing “I want to be a cowboy’s sweetheart,” including the yodeling, through the use of two ventriloquist dummies. AND SHE DIDN”T WIN!
Ventriloquist yodeling, people. Here’s the video:
Anyway, the fact that she didn’t win obviously points to the deep corruption at the core of our socio-economico-pageanto-political system. However, the fact that she came in second is reason to hope for the future. In the vein of that hope, I humbly suggest that next year’s pageant involve a group talent competition. I furthermore suggest, nay, demand, that one of the groups do an act like the one in the next video.
This video features the Warriors of Goja on an Indian talent show and comes here via Kottke.org. Jason Kottke notes:
I’ve been on the web for 17 years now, I’m a professional link finder, and I have never in my life seen anything like these guys performing on an Indian talent show. They *start off* by biting into fluorescent light bulbs and it just gets more nuts from there.
Note: best viewed with the volume up.
There is no one out there who can honestly say that ten Miss America contestants jumping through columns of fluorescent lightbulbs and hitting each other with sledgehammers would not be the greatest television event in history.
Also, is there someone who can translate what the female judge says to them at the end? Anyone? Tanmoy? Anyone?
Mitt Romney in his own words
So, you may have heard about Mitt Romney’s first paid campaign ad, in which he quotes Obama as saying “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”
Of course, in context, what Obama actually said was this: “Senator McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.'”
Well, here’s an awesome video of Romney quotes whipped up by the folks at Think Progress, noting that this is Romney in his own words, by his own standards:
via The Atlantic Wire.
UC Davis Pepper Spraying and Call for Chancellor’s Resignation
So, I’m posting here the astounding 8-minute video of UC Davis police pepper spraying student protesters, and the crowd reaction afterwards. If you follow the Occupy movement at all, you’ve probably already seen it, but if not, watch the whole thing.
And keep in mind, these students are there protesting the police brutality that occurred at previous protests, where UC students were beaten with batons and hospitalized.
[UPDATE (via Mother Jones): Just FYI, the main pepper sprayer is Lieutenant John A. Pike, who received a salary of $110,243.12 in 2010.]
And here’s a shorter video (with the spraying, but without the crowd reaction) taken from a different angle.
Here are a few of the things that I take away from these videos:
- The police are being used to brutalize and intimidate protesters. Note that the cops went out of their way to spray protesters who were way off to the side, who were not actually blocking the path. This is about physically punishing people for dissent.
- A few of the police (here and elsewhere) seem to take an attitude towards inflicting pain on other people that is at best indifferent, and at worst psychopathic. The vast majority of the police, I think, are not like this, but nor do they seem to be doing anything to stop their colleagues from brutalizing the students.
- Peaceful, non-violent confrontation can work. It seems fairly clear in the first video that the protesters won the day. And they did it by taking the high road, while at the same time not backing down.
This morning, Nathan Brown, an Assistant Professor, posted this open letter calling for the resignation of Chancellor Linda Katehi. In the letter, he details the events captured in the video, as well as incidents of police brutality leading up to this particular protest. Here’s an excerpt describing the police dismantling of the tents on the UC David Quad:
Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.
What happened next?
Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.
The whole letter is well worth reading. And if you have any association with UC (e.g., as faculty, staff, student, or alum), add your voice.
Happy American Censorship Day
So, today is the day that congress begins deliberation on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This is a bill that would impose ridiculous criminal penalties on all sorts of people, from a kid singing a song on YouTube to Tumblr and Facebook. Nominally, the bill seeks to deal with online piracy of copyrighted material, but it makes internet providers and companies accountable for things that their users do. This would effectively require them to police content (like everything you post on your blog, or your Facebook page).
A host of internet companies took out this full-page ad in the New York times opposing the measure:
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| View more readable version on Boing Boing, here. |
The whole bill is a testament to just how wholly owned our government is. The bill was basically written by special interests in Hollywood and Pharma, along with the US Chamber of Commerce. Representatives of each of these interests will be speaking at the hearings. However, last I heard, only one voice opposing the bill (Google) is being allowed to testify. (N.B.: If you want to pass sweeping censorship legislation, the key is first to censor any anti-censorship voices.)
Importantly, but unsurprisingly at this point, no civil rights proponents are being permitted to testify. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a collected many of the arguments as to why this bill is insanely bad. Among them, the bill would:
- impose liabilities on internet companies in a way that will severely discourage innovation and impact job creation.
- damage the ability for free speech.
- effectively hamstring the internet worldwide, not just in the US.
- impose the type of censorship that we routinely condemn in repressive regimes around the world.
On point four, here’s video of Joe Biden explaining why internet censorship laws exactly like this one are really bad, un-American even.
(via Boing Boing.)
You can send e-mail to your Representative and Senators opposing the bill by going here.
You can join the protest by placing a black “STOP CENSORSHIP” bar on your website. Get yours here. (I could not figure out how to do it on Blogger, but I’ve added one on Darwin Eats Cake.)
Cheers / Star Wars Mashup
So, sometimes you just want to go where everybody knows your name, as well as the names of those droids you’re looking for.
via Geekologie.
Best space time-lapse video yet
So, there have been a number of time-lapse videos of earth as viewed from space making the rounds recently. But this new one is extra awesome. Except for the fact that the International Space Station has its thumb in front of the camera for many of the shots. Also, I would have used Deep Purple’s “Space Truckin'” for the soundtrack.
Earth | Time Lapse View from Space | Fly Over | Nasa, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.
via Gawker.
Lao Lai Qiao Gaga
So, if you’re like me, and I know that you are, you love Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” but have always felt that it could be improved. For instance, if it were sung by by a choir of old Chinese people standing in a giant dollhouse, accompanied by young Chinese women playing crystal instruments.
Today, you and I are in luck, because this exists:
via Boing Boing.
Frank O’Hara As Planned
So, here’s a cool video of Frank O’Hara’s poem “As Planned,” set to some Miles Davis. The text goes by a little quickly, so for maximum effect, watch it again after reading the poem a couple of times.
As Planned
After the first glass of vodka
you can accept just about anything
of life even your own mysteriousness
you think it is nice that a box
of matches is purple and brown and is called
La Petite and comes from Sweden
for they are words that you know and that
is all you know words not their feelings
or what they mean and you write because
you know them not because you understand them
because you don’t you are stupid and lazy
and will never be great but you do
what you know because what else is there?