The Week of November 16th is The Daily Show

Here is this week’s American political and social news filtered through The Daily Show.

Rudy Giuliani from 2006 debates Rudy Giuliani from 2009, which logic on terrorism and how to put terrorists to justice will win the day? I think the former mayor of NYC is being a hypocrite

Vice President Joe Biden interview part1 where he talks very succinctly about the economy until he mentions Recovery.com, when he meant Recovery.gov

Joe Biden interview part2 talks about avoiding a depression after coming into office and then Jon Stewart actually gets the Vice President to concede that Jon’s point of view is correct that the Democratic Party seems less organized than the Republicans do while in power… AMAZING!

MSNBC uses photos of Sarah Palin, in reporting on the story of her new book being released, that had been outed as photoshopped fake photos for almost as long as Palin has been on the national scene and yet it took them days after the story aired to correct their mistake. Then Jon explains WHY he hates Sarah Palin

Lou Dobbs interview part1 where he and Stewart actually have a reasoned and rational conversation and debate about public policy. I was completely taken aback by how interesting this was

Lou Dobbs interview part2, a good continuation of the civics-class-like debate over political ideas about America

Lou Dobbs interview part3, a great debate about the foundations of our America and a debate about the fragility or strength of the USA

I will be back in the USA by this time next month, something I can’t wait for!

Enjoy

Dany

10 Year Old Arkansas Boy Won’t Stand for the American Pledge of Allegience Until Gays have Equal Rights to Marry

A 10 year old Arkansas boy, Will Phillips, has refused to stand for the American Pledge of Allegiance and in the video above from CNN, he states that he refused to conform until everyone in the US had equal rights and in his mind, that means that everyone in the US, gay or straight, should be allowed to marry if they want.

It is always interesting to actually hear the opinion directly from child on national issues, as opposed to how some members of congress represent the views of children, even if his classmates call him a “gay-wad” for his stance… ahh, I remember 5th grade soooooo well now.

On a more serious note though, most interviewers talking about this issue, bring up the fact that in many of the places where gay marriage comes up for a vote in a state election, the people have tended to vote down that right, then it gets stated that the democratic process has spoken in these cases, but one issue that many people forget is that the United States is not a democracy, but a representative democracy. We are supposed to be electing officials democratically and it’s those officials who are supposed to present legislation and vote on such issues themselves and if we don’t like the laws they are creating, we as citizens are supposed to vote them out of office at the next election cycle. Now, based on the timidness of our current core of representatives toward major social changes like this, I don’t know if going back to that process would actually HELP forward the cause of gay rights, but I don’t like voting for issues at the ballot box. I would much prefer to vote for smart people who can contemplate such important and difficult issues, then I can evaluate my elected officials on how I think they handled those debates and issues… I know, I know, it’s way too Mr. Smith Goes to Washington optimistic, but a man can dream, can’t he?

Thanks to Brian for sharing the above video!

Enjoy

Dany

*Update 2009-11-22 – The Daily Show and Mick Foley weigh in on the boy who would not pledge:

This Week in The Daily Show… and Fox News’ Sean Hannity

It’s time for the 2nd week in November’s Daily Show roundup. It turns out to be a political roundup this week with a smattering of commentary on how media covers politics.

The US House of Representatives passes a healthcare bill (read the full bill text or get the pdf), but in the process, we find out how what happens when babies weigh in on the issue… it turns out the House of Representatives is a bizarre organization.

Fox News’ Sean Hannity covers the Republican protest rally on the House of Representatives healthcare bill and in the process, over represents how many people attended and even used video protest footage from September’s Glenn Beck Tea Party rally to distort reality.

The very next night Sean Hannity apologized for mistakenly using footage from a better attended rally in September while covering this November rally

Enjoy

Dany

Neuroscience, the Human Brain Theory and Conscousness Brought to you by TED

I just spent over an hour watching these three TED talks and I’m completely enamored with the human brain right now. It has been an extremely fascinating hour. Seeing these three extremely smart scientists, Jeff Hawkins (talking about creating a brain theory), Dan Dennett (explaining consciousness) and Michael Merzenich (neural plasticity) have some engrossing views on our current state of knowledge, how that knowledge has changed and what we can do to expand and better understand what we already know about our brain and each lecture is smart, funny and entertaining as well!

Thanks to the SGU Neuroscience Society for getting me started with the lecture explaining consciousness!

Enjoy

Dany

Verizon Wireless Hits AT&T Where it Hurts… Their Highspeed Network Coverage

Verizon Wireless has come out with some pretty scathing advertisements recently and now, they have started cranking out a fresh set of new Christmas themed ads… sure it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but the early bird catches the worm, right?

Now I still think the iPhone on AT&T is still going to sell better than gangbusters this holiday season, but now AT&T’s biggest competitor is really taking their ad campaign hard at AT&T’s sparse 3G internet network availability.

Thanks to Engadget for pointing this out!

Enjoy

Dany

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRIqIWxhTIQ&feature=player_embedded

This Week in The Daily Show and Medicine

This week, there did not seem to be that many interesting, funny and entertaining clips from The Daily Show, so I am also including a couple of clips from a recent episode of 60 Minutes.

The Kanzius Cancer Machine, using radio waves and metal injected into tumors to fight cancer

Jon Stewart is flabbergasted to hear that John Kerry is involved in international news

Steven Levitt, the author of Freakonomics has a new book SuperFreakonomics

Fox News releases a statement that 9 of its 24 hours of daily programming is actual news content, Jon Stewart gives his opinion on this as well as on MSNBC

Michael Bloomberg is revealed as a hypocrite for changing his mind on term limits just because he now wants to get re-elected, I still feel he should have the right to run again (I hate term limits), but I still want him to lose

60 Minutes‘ reporting on the H1N1 Swine Flu

The Kanzius Cancer Machine

Uncomfortable Plot Summaries of Famous Films – by Postmodern Barney

I was listening to episode 90 of the screenwriting podcast, On the Page (subscribe here) and they mentioned the very funny page, Uncomfortable Plot Summaries by Postmodern Barney. It’s a very funny interpretation of many famous Hollywood films and it also shows just how important a one line movie summary is to how we perceive movies. Some of these entries are down right hilarious, describing movies you might have grown up with.

Here are a handful of my favorite examples:

BATMAN: Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Peasant girl develops Stockholm Syndrome.
CHINATOWN: Father desires closer relationship with his children.
FRANKENSTEIN: Scientific advancement proves unpopular with general public.
GROUNDHOG DAY: Misanthropic creep exploits space/time anomaly to stalk coworker.
HARRY POTTER: Celebrity Jock thinks rules don’t apply to him, is right.
JUNO: Teen fails to get abortion, ruins lives.
JURASSIC PARK: Theme park’s grand opening pushed back.
PREDATOR: American military-industrial complex ruins first contact with alien life.
SE7EN: Homicide detectives unable to prevent even a single murder by admitted serial killer, killer gives cop head.
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS: Layabout stepdaughter shacks up with seven miners.
STAR WARS – A NEW HOPE: Religious extremist terrorists destroy government installation, killing thousands.
STAR WARS – THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: Boy is abused by midget, kisses sister, attempts patricide.
STAR WARS – RETURN OF THE JEDI: Handicapped mass murderer kills septugenarian, is lauded.

Thanks to Dork Shelf for the above pic.

Enjoy

Dany

Is Optogenetics the Key to Solving Disorders of the Brain and Prosthetics?

I found this story though Engadget, but it’s a story coming from Wired, where it goes through the fledgling history of a relatively new field of neuroscience, Optogenetics. Its is the study of using light and modified genes (inserted using modified viruses) to try and alter the brain to cure disorders like Depression and Parkinson’s! The trials from Stanford haven’t gotten past the animal stages yet, but they have started working on rhesus monkeys (which have very similar brains to humans) and already got Parkinson’s mice literally up and running again. The whole thing is very new, but very cool, especially if we can start using blue light to activate brain cells, yellow light to quiet them and green light to send response signals by activating different forms of rhodopsin (Channelrhodopsin-1, Channelrhodopsin-2 and Halorhodopsin).

Check out the article here to get the details, this could be very cool for diseased brains very soon.

Thanks to Wired for the above pic.

Enjoy

Dany

The Birdmen Come Close to Flying Off Norway’s Fjords

60 Minutes had an interesting segment recently about a group of thrill seeking daredevils that have been named Birdmen and after watching this video, it’s not surprising how they got this moniker. They don wing suits (fully explained here) and have basically been jumping off of Norway’s most famous and beautiful mountains into fjords. You can’t actually call it flying because once they jump, they never gain any air, but they do attain forward speeds of 140 miles per hour before they have to pull their parachute. The video is quite spectacular between the views from the mountains and the cameras set up on the Birdmen themselves.

Enjoy

Dany

President Obama Wishes a Happy Diwali

This week, President Obama sent out this message acknowledging and observing Diwali, the festival of lights. This was a great way for the President to reach out to followers of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism. I didn’t realize it, but former President, George W. Bush was the first President to start acknowledging Diwai, so I say this is much of a change with the new administration, but personally I had never heard of the Diwali holiday, so I then decided to do a bit of research.

Thanks to Nilesh for sending me this video.

Enjoy

Dany