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Colbert Report Full Episodes

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Recap - Week of 6/14/10

www.colbertnation.com

Video embed: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Fox News

Video Embeds: Comedy Central, CNN & MSNBC

In reviewing the politics of the week, a normally trusted media source referred to Kentucky's Rand Paul and Nevada's Republican nominee to face Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sharron Angle, as "winning elections."

I object. Neither has stood in a state wide general election.

Dr. Paul's father, Ron, is a member of Congress from TX. But Rand Paul of KY is a complete political novice.

Likewise, Ms Angle is an ultra-conservative/libertarian former state representative from largely rural northern Nevada... Outside the more urbanized & heavily populated areas of Reno and especially Las Vegas, where the pre-recession influx of population puts the state in line for a fourth, and largely Democratic, Congressional district after 2010 Census redistricting.

Republican pollster Rasmussen conducted a survey among Republican voters on June 8th -- primary day. 41% of Nevada's GOP primary voters said they consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement... Half of them voted for Angle.

Kent Harper, editor of the editorially conservative Ely (NV) News wrote: "... Since the primary, I am receiving a half dozen or so e-mails per day from the national and state Dems, as well as Reid's campaign, accusing Angle of everything short of being the Anti-Christ. But that's how the political establishment rolls. This is going to be a nasty one... Well, it already is."

Beautiful Game (for some)

The debate in the USA over whether soccer is boring or beautiful is not older than the chicken or the egg, but it's certainly close. Beauty is in the eye, and this year the ear, of the beholder... And all sports have their detractors... Somehow Bill Littlefield is willing to brave the deafening drone of the vuvuzelas to enjoy the World Cup.


Audio Embed: WBUR & NPR's Only A Game 6/19/10.

Only 12 Steps Ahead

Via The Next Web

TV Without Cable

Apple introduced a new version of the Mac Mini computer and it features a port for connecting to your television so you can watch Hulu or Netflix or YouTube on your TV screen instead of a computer monitor. The Mini isn’t the only computer to do this, just the latest. Meanwhile on Monday, Microsoft announced a deal that will make live sports programming from ESPN available on the Xbox 360.

With so much entertainment available on the internet, for free in many cases, why shell out all that cash for cable? Then again, with all those different options and hook ups and online menus and everything else, isn’t cable easier despite the costs?

Mark McClusky of Wired Magazine discusses some easy options, both legal and illegal, for getting your on screen entertainment.
Then Frank Rose, author of a forthcoming book on the future of entertainment, says the future of TV may not be won by whoever has the fanciest technology but by who has the simplest.


Audio Embed: APM's Future Tense, Host: John Moe.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Running Mouth On Empty

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

An Energy-Independent Future 6/16/10

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Congress handles symbolic outrage, while Obama gets it done.

Audio Embed:
Dave Ross
KIRO-FM/Seattle
6/17 & 18/10

Wisenheimer

Journalist and author Mark Oppenheimer was a precocious child. He argued a lot and won enough intelligence to annoy parents, peers and elementary school teachers alike. But when he reached middle school, Oppenheimer discovered his verbal facility was an asset, not a drawback, as he became a champion debater, competing all over the world and he writes about those days in a new book, “Wisenheimer, A Childhood Subject to Debate.”


Audio Embed: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now. Host: Robin Young. Book excerpt.

Ad Hominem

Robert Rich

An introduction to the artist and his latest album.


Audio Embed: PRI's Echoes, an ambient music program on public radio with an extensive archive of audio for download via subscription. CD recommendations.

Passing Out In Public

TGIF

Weekends... People Seem To Like 'Em

We already knew it, but now there's scientific proof.


Audio Embed: CBS Radio's Osgood File 6/11/10.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Great Expectations Dashed

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Day 58 - The Strife Aquatic

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Down Payment

Fracked Up

Another Kind of Drill Baby Drill

Two years ago, Pennsylvania opened the door to a natural gas drilling technique that's caused controversy in some Western states. At the time, environmentalists worried that high-volume hydrofracking could contaminate water supplies, but the state and industry insisted that fracking was safe. Now, after a spate of accidents, Pennsylvania regulators are tightening up the rules governing fracking.


Audio Embed: NPR's All Things Considered 6/16/10, Reporter: Ilya Marritz.

Payday Loan Sharks

Journalist Gary Rivlin talks with Kai Ryssdal about his new book
"Broke USA," and the big business of making money off the working poor.

Audio Embed: APM's Marketplace 6/15/10.

Star Wars Toy Stories

Football with grapes is just one of an entire year's worth of storm trooper action figure scenes.

Stormtrooper 365 Photo Set & Slide Show by Flicker user Stéfan.

Caring About Language

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Foster Comets

There's a huge population of comets orbiting at a vast distance from our Sun - what's known as the Oort cloud. But theories vary about why they're there, and where they come from.

Astronomers suspect our solar system formed in a cluster with other newly forming stars, all of which would have thrown out most of its native comets. So they caught some of our comets, and we caught some of theirs. Thus, many of the comets in the Oort cloud may be fosterlings from other systems.


Audio Embed: CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks 6/12/10, Guest Host: Alison Motluk.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Paranoia Runs Deep

Into Your Life It Will Creep

MSNBC documentary debuts Wednesday @ 7p ET

Ixtoc

In 1979, an explosion on the Ixtoc 1 oil platform caused the world's worst accidental oil spill 50 miles off Mexico's Gulf Coast. 140 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf. It took more than nine months to cap the leak. The BBC has launched a series, "Oil and Water" in which they will explore the impacts of an oil-based economy in various locations around the world. As a part of the series, BBC reporter Julian Miglierini from the BBC talks about his trip to the Mexican state of Campeche where he could still see and smell oil more than thirty years after the explosion.

The BP oil gusher has not yet dumped as much oil into the Gulf as the Ixtoc spill did, but the 2010 spill could surpass the Ixtoc if it, too, takes nine months to cap. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer believes the long-term effects from the BP spill could be worse, with the oil originating 5,000 feet below sea level and likely to flow across the Atlantic. Ebbesmeyer is the author of “Flotsametrics and the Floating World,” and he studies flotsam, the material left floating in the ocean after a wreck or disaster. He offers predictions for the future of the BP oil spill.


Audio Embed: PRI & WNYC's program The Takeaway 6/15/10, Hosts John Hockenberry & Celeste Headlee.

Video embed MSNBC

Human Trafficking

Purchased On The Pitch

A darker side to the beautiful game.

Video excerpts from Current TV's Vanguard documentary series.

Crazy For Coco

For Emmy Consideration

Advertising in Hollywood trade publications is a normal way to campaign for showbiz awards. Promoting cancelled shows is also done because it's show producers, not networks, who offer them.

This ad drew attention because of the non-existent award and yet another example of TBS continuing to tweak NBC to promote Conan.

Via AdFreak blog

Bring Us A Shrubbery

The Knights Who Say Ni

Guys Who Watch Bond Movies for Q

Leftover Bush Administration spy vehicle.

Hellfire

Act of God Destroys Statue of Jesus

Tiffani West-May/AP

The largest sculpture of Jesus in America, standing over 60 feet high and weighing in the ballpark of eight tons, known as "Big Butter Jesus," was set ablaze after reportedly being struck by lightning.

No one was injured in the fire at the Solid Rock Church in Monroe OH, though damages are expected to exceed $700,000.

YouTube video from Heywood Banks. Article from USA Today.

From the Wahington Post

In 2008, lightning singed the fingers and eyebrows of Christ the Redeemer, the 130-foot Jesus statue that stands over Rio de Janeiro. In 2007, a bolt blasted the 33-foot Jesus statue at Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado. One of Jesus's arms fell off.

The saints and angels are not safe either. The Notre Dame de Chicago's Virgin Mary burst into flames from her perch atop the church's dome in 1978; the Engineering News Record covered the construction of a new, lightning-resistant statue with the headline: "Burned once, dome reMaryed."

A bolt that struck St. Joan of Arc's statue in New Orleans sliced her brandished staff in half. Statues of the Angel Moroni, which frequently top Mormon churches, have been hit by lightning with such frequency -- Moroni's horn is particularly susceptible -- that the Salt Lake Tribune once fretted over their safety in a front-page story.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

More Money Than God

The Top 25 Hedge Fund Managers Each Make More Than A Billion Dollars A Year

When the financial crisis hit, some people made a mint. Hedge fund traders carrying out complex trades -- largely unregulated -- made sophisticated bets that netted them millions, in some cases billions. Deborah Amos talks to financial writer Sebastian Mallaby about his new book, More Money Than God. It's a history of hedge funds, and explores their role in the U.S. economy.


Audio Embed: NPR's Morning Edition 6/14/10, Host: Deborah Amos.

And Their Tax Rates Could Change

The Senate is considering a bill this week aimed at creating jobs and extending some business and family tax breaks. Lawmakers have decided to pay for those provisions by partially closing a controversial tax loophole that has allowed managers of investment partnerships, from hedge funds to real estate developers, to pay less than half the regular tax rate on much of their income.


Audio Embed: NPR's Morning Edition 6/14/10, Reporter: John Ydstie.

Changing Conferences

Colleges with big time reputations for athletics are changing their affiliations. What started a few years ago with Penn State becoming the 11th team in the Big 10, has continued in recent weeks with Boise State aligning their trademark blue turf with the Mountain West and Colorado joining the PAC 10.

Big 12 powerhouses Texas and Nebraska are up for grabs, too. Seattle Times reporter Bud Withers says it's all about the big bucks the colleges get from TV contracts.


Audio Embed: Puget Sound Public Radio 6/11/10, Interviewer: Derek Wang.

Darwin Deez - Radar Detector

Darwin Deez - Radar Detector from Lucky Number Music... Review.
Music video directed by Ace Norton.

Foam Optional

Tilting Mugs Let You Choose

The Cerve-cero is a beer cup that allows you to serve with or without foam. Designed by Sinapsis diseño.

Love & Theft

Best viewed in Full Screen mode

Video embed: From Andreas Hykade, Film Bilder Animation Studio (2010)

Disease Makers

Depression is certainly more credible than restless leg syndrome, but as Big Pharma makes more medications they're using marketing to make more people sick.

Dr. Gary Greenberg is a psychotherapist and the author of a provocative new book called Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease. In it, he asks whether our prevailing sadness is really a disease that needs to be cured - or just the human condition.


Audio Embed: CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks 6/12/10, Guest Host: Alison Motluk.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Graduation Speech

Ben Stein's heart eventually took him awy from from being a Nixon speechwriter to be a game show host with occasional movie roles.

Critical Listening

Sound Science Study

What determines which music sounds pleasant or unpleasant? According to a recent study from Current Biology, basic neurological and cultural influences are at play. The study's lead researcher, Josh McDermott of NYU, discusses his findings and their implications.

Jeff Beck Shreds

Legendary guitarist, former Yardbirds member, five-time Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Jeff Beck talks about his first album in seven years, Emotion and Commotion.


Audio Embeds: NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday 6/13/10, Host: Liane Hansen.

Spilling Fields

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The Spilling Fields - BP Ad Campaign 6/10/10