SPECIAL COMMENTARIES
Michael Steele Officially Dumbest Member of the GOP
Well, apparently Michael Steele, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee never got the memo alerting him to the fact that he's now living in the 21st Century and should always assume that he's being recorded, because all it takes to bring a politician down now is a live mic and a really stupid statement -- which in this case Michale Steele provided at an RNC event where, when speaking about the war in Afghanistan, he said:
"Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in -- if [Obama] is such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?"
Well, of course it was President Bush who actually sent troops into Afghanistan since that's where Osama Bin Laden directed the attack against America on 9/11. And the last time I checked, the Republican Party was still strongly endorsing that Land War for reasons obvious to everyone except Michael Steele -- who now finds himself in such hot water that Conservative Columnist and Fox News Favorite, William Krystol has called for him to resign as RNC Chief. Something which I, for one, find very refreshing because this may turn out to be the first time that a high ranking Republican has said something really, really stupid about President Obama and then gone on to actually loose his job over it.
Unless, of course, Rush Limbaugh decides to take Steele's side on this, in which case it may be William Crystal who looses his job.
BP's Crazy Scheme
Starring Marty Shutter as The New BP Oild Guy. Photos of the Alabama shore taken by Marty Shutter who just got back from vacationing in the Gulf and has reported back to me on what a personal tragedy the mess is to him. Places that he has been visiting for over 20 years are now reeking of diesel and the beaches are covered with tar balls and other oil waste.
So, we're at day 76 of the BP Oil Spill, what may be the greatest man-made ecological disaster in history, and we still really haven't heard much about what's going to happen to all that oil crud they've been cleaning up in the Gulf and on the beaches. I find it difficult to believe that BP is going to be able to find enough landfills to take all the hazardous materials they're cleaning up -- so what are they going to do with it all? As a multinational oil company ("oil major") BP is the UK's largest corporation, with its headquarters in St James's, City of Westminster, London. BP America's headquarters is in the Two Westlake Park in the Energy Corridor area of Houston. The company is among the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, and one of the six "supermajors" (vertically integrated private sector oil exploration, natural gas, and petroleum product marketing companies).[5] The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The company has been convicted of two felonies for environmental crimes, including one felony for which BP pleaded guilty in connection with the Texas City refinery explosion in 2005 that caused 15 deaths, injured 180 people, and forced thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered in their homes. On 20 April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded off the Gulf of Mexico,[42] resulting in excess of 200,000 gallons of oil (approx. 5,000 barrels) leaking every single day after a blow-out preventer designed to stop oil from flowing out during an emergency failed to activate. The spill was expected to continue until the blow-out preventer could be activated or another containment method implemented. Though 115 workers were evacuated from the site, eleven missing workers were presumed dead. On 28 April 2010, the US Coast Guard set fire to some sequestered portions of oil which had leaked from the uncapped well located five thousand feet below the Gulf of Mexico. On 29 April 2010, the economic impact from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion on Gulf Coast shrimpers led to a suit naming BP as well as Transocean and Halliburton as co-defendants. Two similar lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Courts in New Orleans and the adjacent Gulf state of Alabama on 28 and 29 April, respectively, accusing the companies of negligence
Crooked Whiskers Syndrome
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George W. Bush's Sassy Gay Friend
The Second City Network has a wonderful series of videos starring a "Sassy Gay Friend" who shows up in the nick of time to save women like Eve, from the Bible, and Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet, from doing stupid things like eating the wrong apple or killing themselves over a worthless guy like Hamlet.
Check out one of the Sassy Gay Friend Videos Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnvgq8STMGM&feature=fvsr
The Dread Pirate YouTube
Turns out that YouTube isn't following the "Don't Be Evil" motto under which Google runs their empire -- unless you think that profiting from other people's piracy is considered Honorable or Ethical.
Read more about it at the NYTimes:
September 2, 2010
YouTube Ads Turn Videos Into Revenue
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
SAN BRUNO, Calif. — Last month, a YouTube user, TomR35, uploaded a clip from the AMC series "Mad Men" in which Don Draper makes a heartfelt speech about the importance of nostalgia in advertising.
Viewers wouldn't notice, but that clip also makes an important point about modern advertising — YouTube is an increasingly fruitful place for advertisers.
In the past, Lions Gate, which owns the rights to the "Mad Men" clip, might have requested that TomR35's version be taken down. But it has decided to leave clips like this up, and in return, YouTube runs ads with the video and splits the revenue with Lions Gate.
Remarkably, more than one-third of the two billion views of YouTube videos with ads each week are like TomR35's "Mad Men" clip — uploaded without the copyright owner's permission but left up by the owner's choice. They are automatically recognized by YouTube, using a system called Content ID that scans videos and compares them to material provided by copyright owners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/technology/03youtube.html?_r=1&hpw
