Breaking News Osama Bin Laden Dead with This Week in the Daily Show and the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner Week of May 1st, 2011

Tonight there was breaking news that President Obama confirmed around 11:45pm on the night of May 1st: US forces have killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbottaban, Pakistan and those forces now have custody of Bin Laden‘s body.

Here are the remarks from President Obama for the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, I must say, it has one of the best and most unexpected openings I would ever think a President would have, I felt like I was back watching wrestling back in the 1980’s.  Obama also makes fun of himself and his Vice President, Joe Biden, with a funny movie trailer.

Seth Meyers headlines the same dinner and in his 20 minutes he hits on things like a lack of birth certificate jokes, Arianna Huffington, Jon Hamm and Zach Galifianakis.

If polls of Republican and Democratic candidates 18 months prior to the election are so useless at predicting who will actually win the ultimate election, can we stop referring to them now? I guess we could fill all that dead airtime on all the 24 hour news networks with more footage of crazy cat videos.
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It’s interesting to see how the different protests during the local town hall meetings are shaking out, while some prominent Republicans are getting booed, some democrats have to sit through a protest with people who ultimately sing that they love the President… by the way, I am VERY confused by that last one.
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I heard about this interview with Gigi Ibrahim from No Agenda (subscribe here). I can’t believe that the story isn’t getting more press that Ibrahim was taught to do this from the American University in Cairo!
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Here is a nice tirade over the latest news regarding funding 9/11 first responder health treatments. My only comment is that if we are checking 9/11 responders on this, instead of getting mad about it, just check any group the government gives money or aid to against the terrorist watch list, so that we never get any scandals in the news about terrorists receiving aid money from the US government. Shouldn’t THAT be what we are avoiding?
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Elizabeth Warren comes back to explain again why she feels her new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is necessary and what has been happening since the agency was created. Currently, the agency takes effect this summer. You can track what her agency is doing at ConsumerFincance.gov
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William Cohan chronicles the history behind Goldman Sachs and how they are the best financial company to make money by exploiting everything possible that is legal.
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Thanks to the AP for the above photo.

Enjoy

Dany

US State of the Union and the Republican Response 2011

Last night President Obama took to the airways and gave his State of the Union speech in front of Congress to the US. If you missed it, I have posted it below.

After the State of the Union, Rep Paul Ryan gave the Republican Response to the President’s speech, you can see that video below if you did not get a chance to see that as well.

After watching both speeches, it is clear that the two men have different views of what makes America strong, but I have to hope that with all the areas that they agree, in the end, good laws and reforms will come from it. I do not believe that in the end, the entire 2010 health care reform bill will be repealed, but the most egregious sections of it will get changed. Reducing our deficit will not be easy, but cuts to research will only handicap our future and any reform to seriously cut spending will have to deal with both military spending and entitlement spending like Medicare, Medicaid Social Security and other healthcare related programs, since those programs alone already account for over 80% of our federal spending(image below) which come from this federal spending breakdown (image below).

Enjoy

Dany

President Barack Obama’s Speech in Arizona after the Tuscon Shooting

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There is little I can say about the recent tragic shooting in Arizona, other than that I feel for the family and friends of those that died and those who were injured (currently 14 injured and 6 died). Above I posted the speech that President Obama delivered, or you can read the transcript, in case you have not seen it yet, watch it, it is a wonderful speech that is heartfelt and takes the politics out of the story and just tells the story, unlike most of the 24-hour news media has done since the shooting.

Enjoy

Dany

This Week’s Daily Show and Colbert Roundup for October 8th, 2010

The consensus is in, Rahm Emanuel might just be a dick and that’s OK he seems to get things done in the molasses environment that is politics. let us see how he does in running for mayor of Chicago.
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Apparently, in the 1940’s American scientists intentionally gave Guatemalans syphilis to test penicillin in treating this and the NIH funded this! This Guatemala experiment is some of the most despicable research ever conducted on humans and it is very hard to find experiments that are worse than the Tuskegee syphilis studies. You don’t have to watch the 2nd half of that clip, the Jason Jones‘ segment about the military wasn’t very good.
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All I can say is that this is Bruce Willis going on David Letterman this week with a meat hairpiece after the Lady Gaga’s meat dress. I’ve never been a big fan of Dave, but he did partake in a bit of a gnash, which was was cool.
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I do not like the idea of strategic defaults, but it is not a new concept and if any party that signs a financial contract is willing to take that hit to their credit score and walk away from their morgage, let them. When busineses walk away from corporate offices, there’s no reason why homeowners should be shamed into paying into a morgage that no longer makes financial sense either.
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Disney has an interesting policy toward hiring Muslims. Is the silver lining that she did not get fired?
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Leon Botstein seems like an interesting President of Bard College, making it mandatory for incoming freshman to take 3 weeks of intense science. It’s probably a very good idea, understanding scientific discipline is crucial in understanding how to weigh different arguments that may be presented in the future.
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Personal freedom vs health and protection is tough. As a medical student, I know how bad it can be for people to drink raw, unpasteurized milk, so I would prefer that people only drink pasteurized milk. At the same time however, I do believe that Americans have the inherent freedom to do things that may not be in their best interests. I would say that the government just treat foods like raw milk in the same way they treat other dangerous lifestyle choices like smoking. Mandate warning labels be placed on the bottles of milk that inform those that buy the milk of the possible negative side effects of drinking that milk and then let fully informed consumers decide for themselves what they want to put in their own body.
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Fearstock seems to be a great way to keep the scary stock photos flowing for all kinds of political ads across the country.
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Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana is back in the media. I don’t think marijuana is all that good for you, medically it has its uses, but as for recreational use, I say legalize it, tax it and regulate it as we already do for alcohol, tobacco and firearms. If people want to do it in their home and not hurt anyone else, fine by me, just don’t endanger anyone else by, for example, do not drive while high. Treat it the same way we do alcohol and tobacco.
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Lastly, here is the Colbert on Letterman talking about his trip down to testify in front of Congress.
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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 George Washington University, The Top Twittering College… Also THE Most Expensive College (Update: NOT the most expensive anymore!)

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:

*Update 1/11/2010 – I’m happy to announce that The George Washington University is NO LONGER the most expensive college in the USA! Thanks must go to Sarah Lawrence College, Georgetown University and New York University for being $200-4000 dollars more expensive than The George Washington University!… sadly, Washington DC college students leave school with the highest level of debt in the USA! Which is reported by the Project on Student Debt.

Another Week of The Daily Show

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
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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
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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
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Enjoy

Dany

President Obama Speaks at Notre Dame and Arizona State Controversy Ensues – Full Video

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Not without controversy, President Obama has been keeping busy by speaking at a couple of recent commencement ceremonies. He was first scheduled to speak at Arizona State University, but then news came out that they would not be presenting him with an honorary degree, so Jon Stewart‘s The Daily Show did a great piece to suss out this story. Then President Obama was scheduled at the Notre  Dame University commencement, but many Notre Dame faithful were upset that he would be speaking and that he was being presented with an honorary degree. I’m posting the full video from both the Arizona State University and Notre Dame speeches below where you can see that even some people attending the commencements made their objections heard:

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Here is his full speech at Arizona Statea:

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Thanks to the lovely Jessica for finding that Daily Show video!

Enjoy

Dany

Sebastian’s Voodoo – 3D Animation

I love finding interesting short films, especially those made by enthusiasts. This short is called Sebastian’s Voodoo and was created by Joaquin Baldwin and scored by Nick Favola at the UCLA Animation Workshop. I found this video because of Boing Boing TV (subscribe here).

Watch as a brave voodoo doll tries to save its fellow voodoo dolls from harm. If you can, try and check out the high quality version to get a feel for some of the amazing detail work that went into this!

Enjoy a visually stunning 4 minutes created using Maya and After Effects.

Dany

College Musical From The Monkey Box

I know most have heard of High School Musical, but the sketch comedy gang The Monkey Box (subscribe here) created a somewhat darker comedy trailer for the musical College Musical.

Ahh, memories…

Dany