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

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 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, 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

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

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

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

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

In my constant attempt to keep up with the week’s absurd news, it’s time again for my Daily Show roundup for the week of October 12th, 2009:

CNN’s constant lack of actually digging deep into any issues or arguments, but instead, just leaving it there.

A DC protest is only as good as who is actually protesting and apparently none of the major cable news networks (CNN, MSNBC and Fox News) found a gay rights march on Washington, DC worthy of as much airtime as the tea party protests.

John Oliver spends over 10% of The Daily Show’s airtime (over 3 minutes of a 30 minute show) covering the gay rights protest in DC.

Giant baby gets denied health insurance and apparently Senator Olympia Snowe is the savior of Health Care?

When both Republicans and Democrats were outraged at ACORN with their latest 2009 undercover video scandal and passed a bill to defund them, the reaction from 30 Republican Senators to further clean up government contracts with Senator Al Franken’s bill against keeping contracts with companies that squelch lawsuits by victims of rape is the worst show of hypocrisy, but I am glad the bill ultimately passed.

H1N1 Swine Flu, what’s more dangerous this year, getting sick with the flu, getting the flu vaccine, that there might not be enough flu vaccine for everyone this year or should we just FEAR EVERYTHING for fear’s (or cable news’) sake?

As the RNC Chairman, Michael Steele, attempts to revamp the image of his party, he not only inadvertently condescends to the black community, youth and a tech savvy generation, he ends up turning himself into the much maligned Microsoft Clippy and reveals that the RNC has no unified focus or message to build on.

Enjoy

Dany

Well, not only has my alma matter, The George Washington University, remained the MOST EXPENSIVE college/university in the USA, according to CNN Money, but it’s now the #1 Twittering college/university. The coolest part though is the Washington Post article points out that this was a trait noticed by our current Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates during lectures they gave to GWU students! I loved my time at GWU, I miss Washington, DC now.

Thanks to Brian for sending this article, he didn’t even GO to GWU! Also, thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the above pic.

Enjoy

Dany

*Update 10/15/2009 – Here is the official event details that brought both Hilary Clinton and Robert M. Gates to GWU, along with the video:

It’s been another week of The Daily Show, so I’ve rounded up the best segments from the week of October 5th, 2009.

Here is the United States Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus

Apparently the US President Obama is snubbing the Dali Lama and Tibet to appease China, most likely because we want them to side with us against Iran… oh yeah, also because we owe them a TON of money so that we can keep buying their goods

Here is a great story about William Kamkwamba, a boy who created a windmill in his back yard in Malawi, who wrote a book about it, spoke about it at TED and will get to go to college because of this

Enjoy

Dany

Well, color me confused when I found out that Barack Obama was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. I had no idea that the new President of the United States had achieved enough to warrant winning such a prestigious award. After looking up the credentials though, that the prize should be awarded:

“to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.“

Well, President Obama has done quite a bit to strive for the reduction in nuclear weapons and to work to forward efforts of international diplomatic relations of all sorts, I am starting to understand how he was ultimately chosen. This video from The Rachel Maddow Show, also puts some things into perspective.

I must admit, I gave President George W. Bush a hard time for a great many things that he did while he was in office, but I’m pretty sure that I never berated him for winning anything, especially if it included a prize purse of over $1 million. I know President Obama raised more money than any candidate for President in history, but that money didn’t go into his own pocket, this is just the start of a lot of money that he will have to play with after he leaves office.

I hope that this award does not go to waste and the President’s initiatives get off the ground and become successful and bring America into a safer and stronger world… but only time will tell.

Thanks to the lovely and smart Jessica for pointing out this video.

Enjoy

Dany

*Update 10/11/2009 – President Obama announced that he will be donating the Nobel Prize money to charity.*

**Update 10/13/2009 – I can’t believe that I was initially farther to the right of Bill O’Reilly (from 10/9/2009) on this issue (subscribe here to O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo).**

It was been a dirty little secret for years that magazines and advertisers were digitally editing their photos for touching up the finished product, to make the beautiful, ravishing. This is nothing new, for years the movie industry was using trickery like placing Vasoline and stockings over lenses to “soften” the look of their female stars, but it feels like this practice has been placed into overdrive

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, well, this Dove Evolution is 75 second video that is worth millions, putting these dirty little secrets of “the industry” into the bright light of day.

For an even better concrete example, take a look at photos from a 2008 Campari ad campaign with raven haired beauty Jessica Alba (below), the image on the left is before Photoshop, on the right the post-Photoshop version. If the industry thinks this gorgeous celebrity needs all these massive photo touch-ups, what chance do regular girls around the world have to build their self esteem?

Thanks to Skinny vs Curvy for the above pics.

Enjoy

Dany

*Update 10/7/2009* Thanks to the talented Dave, I got another good example of how much goes into the Photoshopping of already beautiful women from the Washington Post:

Aisha Tyler Before:

Aisha Tyler After:

District 9 is the latest Peter Jackson production, directed by Neill Blomkamp. It has gotten mixed reviews and after seeing the film, I can see why. If you have a faint stomach, I would skip this film, there are a lot of bodily functions on screen (vomiting and urinating) along with violently graphic death depicted with lots of goop.

On the other hand, those with fortified stomachs will find the film an interesting look at racism and inhumanity in the form of speciesism. It is interesting to watch the story unfold, especially throughout the beginning, where you’re just trying to figure out where the story is going and at the very end, where they really seemed to hit the right note on how the film should end. I also thought it was quite comical that they decided to include subtitles for a number of South Africans and Nigerians as they were speaking ENGLISH!

The special effects revolving around the “prawn” aliens is seamless throughout the film, but once the film got into more mechanical object related special effects, things seemed to get a bit less realistic. The other problem with the film, I thought was that it was shot in a documentary style, with interview footage, but there were so many scenes that were shot that could not have been caught by any documentarian, I wish that if they were going to film a movie in that way, they would keep a consistent style.

Thanks to A Subtle Knife for the pics.

Enjoy

Dany

It’s time again for the recap of the previous week’s best Daily Show segments.

Coverage of the G20 Summit and Protests

Somebody save the children from being brainwashed?

I wish my anti-government cause was backed by Fox News, nobody remembers history

An interview with Rob Paul as he promotes his new book End the Fed

Here’s how a SUPER majority of Democrats just bend over and cave in

First Kiran Chetry of CNN (formerly from Fox News) reports on cool new weather info you can get on your phone while driving, then the next day, report on how dangerous texting while driving is. Thanks Kiran Chetry!

To Kiran Chetry’s credit, she admitted that Jon Stewart was right.

Enjoy

Dany