Say Cheese!: 07/04/2010

Saturday, July 10, 2010

This Week

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Recap - Week of 7/05/10

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

The Colbert Report

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

Recap - Week of 7/5/10

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

2010 Election

Fox News

Videos: Comedy Central & MSNBC

Anya Kushchenkova does have great cookies... And apparently the Russians have technology to shrink captives for easier concealment.

The spies deported this week were one relic of the Cold War KGB, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is another... And as UK reports emerge that the father of Russian spy "Anna Chapman" worked with a high-ranking Putin ally, in Moscow there were surprising published critiques and calls for Putin's resignation.

Already Scene It, Lindsey

Octo-Psychic

World Cup Climax

Video: MSNBC


Audio Embed: WBUR & NPR's Only A Game 7/10/10, Host: Bill Littlefield.

The Dinosaur Bird

We see birds everyday: flying overhead, eating food scraps in cities, and singing perched in tree branches. But most of us have little relationship with these omnipresent animals.

Naturalist Sy Montgomery attempts to change the way that we think about birds in her book called, “Birdology: Adventures with a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur.” (Breathe!)


Audio Embed: PRI's Living On Earth 5/29/10, Host: Jeff Young.

Tennis Balls

His are fuzzy

Scottish tennis player Andy Murray joins the tradition of athletes doing hard-to-believe tricks with balls in this clip for Head.com

By the end, theirs weren't

J. Walter Thompson in London reportedly whipped up this Kit Kat ad within an hour of the completion of the marathon Wimbledon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut.

Friday, July 9, 2010

It's Miami

The New York Times' Harvey Araton:

Thursday night in front of a national television audience, the country witnessed the birth of an Evil Empire — the Yankees of professional basketball — with that slick-haired hombre, Pat Riley, at the helm.

Just about everyone everywhere else found a reason to complain loudly about something... Including a lack of loyalty, or a lack of courage to solely shoulder the burden of a winning franchise. But in assembling a younger version of the Boston Celtics 2008 championship "Big 3," Miami teams King James with draft classmates Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in a franchise with the Showtime era Lakers coach as team president and all the trendy spots, great weather and lack of state income tax which make Miami a favorite of NBA players.

The franchise completely sold out its season tickets on the rumors he was coming. Now that he has, the Heat is on.

Oil Together Now

Videos: MSNBC

Negotiation

Independence Day Extended Scene

An original from CollegeHumor.

Humans can be such a pain in the thorax.

Nemarca's Porch

The lyrical ambiguity of "Phantom Limb" by the Shins lends itself to many interpretations... But one thing is certain, going off to Nemarca's porch comes from a fan's request that Shins leader, singer/guitarist James Mercer, build her unusual name into a song.

I wondered if I could find a "goat head" tune that would go with the beautiful Shins song that seems to create a wall of sound reminiscent of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson... And found something infinitely interesting.

Incubus
Echo
Morning View (2001)

The Shins
Phantom Limb
Wincing the Night Away (2007)

Toad The Wet Sprocket
Fly From Heaven
Dulcinea (1994)

Heart
Nada One
Dog & Butterfly (1978)

Engineering Problem

How Engineers View Women from The Next Web

Irrefutable Proof

Proper precaution suggested by PonderAbout dot com

Pardon Me, Madam

Oscar-winner Helen Mirren and her husband, director Taylor Hackford, collaborated on Love Ranch. It's inspired by the real-life story of the couple who ran the first legal brothel in Nevada.


Audio Embed: All Things Considered 7/5/10, Host: Michele Norris.

The B-52's from their album Cosmic Thing (1989).

Sugarland also performed Love Shack on the 2009 CMT Music Awards featuring members of the B-52's.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Borderline Personalities

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

"I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally."
-- Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States, conservative icon & patron saint of immigration amnesty (1984).


Audio Embed: All Things Considered 7/4/10, Host: Guy Raz.

Videos: CNN & MSNBC

Total Recall

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Back in Black - Product Recalls

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Obstacle Course

Pascal Rondeau/Getty Images

During the course of the race, Tour de France competitors face all kinds of conditions with their high tech bikes & gear. But on Stage 3 this year some were set back by the road itself, with 8 miles of the course paved with historic, but bone rattling, cobblestones.


Audio Embed: All Things Considered 7/6/10, Host: Melissa Block.

Weird Al" Yankovic (1983)

Racier tastes? Try Queen's original Bicycle Race video.

Swapski?

Video: AP News

Brain Freeze

Video: Agence France Presse 7/1/10

Craft Beers

Sometimes you want more than just urine booster.


Audio Embed: CBS Radio's Osgood File 7/6/10.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Suing Arizona

Videos: CBS & MSNBC

Under The Gun

Twice in two years, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down handgun bans in major American cities... Most recently a handgun ban in Chicago, which quickly changed its law to comply. Debate continues on whether the Windy City will be safer or more at risk.


Audio Embed: Morning Edition 7/5/10, Reporter: David Schaper.

The first ruling, two years ago, overturned a hand gun ban in Washington, D.C., where some residents complain it's still too difficult to get handguns intended for self-defense despite changed regulations.


Audio Embed: Morning Edition 7/5/10, Reporter: Larry Abramson.

2nd Amendment Stimulus

What to do about all those state budgets shot to hell?


Audio Embed: Dave Ross, KIRO-FM/Seattle, 7/6/10.

Steele Crazy

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Steele Crazy After All These Years 7/5/10

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Back To Reality Check

Forward Into The Movies

Making Mr. Fusion

Nailed It

An introduction to images composed entirely of nails, created by Marcus Levine

Updating Istanbul

Ancient City Connects Two Continents

Istanbul, also historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople, projects stunning images from its 8500 year multiple empire spanning existence onto the side of it's iconic Haydarpaşa Train Station in a show called Yekpare (monolithic).

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Take That Katy Perry

Download an mp3 version here.

Un-Natural Beauty

These aren't really nature photos. Model making, imaginative lighting and camera settings to help achieve the miniature scenes Matthew Albanese creates in his home studio.

Beeped!

Video Jimmy Kimmel Live/ABC

Mad (Bomber) Magazine

The Al-Qaeda branch in Yemen reportedly launched an English-language magazine, called Inspire. The group, which has been linked to the failed Christmas airline bombing attempt over Detroit, posted a few pages of the magazine on jihadist websites, including a front cover tease on how to "make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom."

How worried should we be about this?


Audio Embed: PRI & WNYC's program The Takeaway, Host John Hockenberry.

Video: MSNBC

Video: Current TV

See correspondent Christof Putzel's full report on Vanguard.

Not Dead -- Digital

Sam Zell, a multi-billionaire investor who successfully boomed and bailed on radio ownership and commercial real estate, is now stuck in a prolonged bankruptcy for the Tribune Corporation, whose holdings include the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. He sees their future as paperless.

Amazon led the way to a paperless digital revolution in books and newspapers, but we shouldn't think of their Kindle as just hardware. It represents more in terms of marketing, or distribution channel.


Audio Embed: APM's Future Tense 7/2/10, Host: John Moe.

New distribution channels often struggle with their business models, for example Hulu.

After positioning themselves as providing TV anywhere, anytime for free, will people pay for access to more episodes of the material the ABC, Fox, NBC partnership streams over the internet?


Audio Embed: APM's Future Tense 7/1/10, Host: Jeff Horwich.

Note: In the July 2nd edition of NPR's On The Media, host Brooke Gladstone presents an updated rebroadcast of an hour-long show on books, the publishing business and their future.

Take That You (Bleep) NSFW

See more at CollegeHumor.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Drink Up

Guess that whole Stolichnaya vodka "have a drink with yourself" thing from the ad campaign didn't work out so well for Julia Stiles.

Bikinis on the Bus Banned in Brooklyn

Brooklyn's ultra orthodox Jews were apparently offended by the butt shots in the ads cruising through their neighborhoods on the sides of busses. New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority caved to the pressure. The ads were all moved to other boroughs.

A Georgi spokesman explained a company-organized bikini-clad protest as"50 girls pointing their backsides at the MTA... Basically telling them to 'butt' out." No problem in California...

Meanwhile in Mootopia..
A dentist's job is like pulling teeth

You won't see this episode from the "Got Milk?" campaign by the California Milk Processors Board ad on TV, unless you're sitting in a dentist's office already... It was produced for a closed circuit feed to over 150 of them throughout the state.

Researchers claim music helps cows produce more milk, so actors in England decided to see if Shakespeare would work, too. They staged The Merry Wives of Windsor at a local farm.

Workers say the comedy upped the yield.

Gulf Gusher

Videos: NBC News

Video: CNN

Outsourced

CNBC has been conducting a poll on whether we agree with Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko was right when he said "greed is good." On Independence Day, with over 1200 responses, it was dead even... Half thought greed hurt Wall Street and hurts the nation.

It was Henry Ford who revolutionized manufacturing by creating the first automobile assembly lines... But he also believed in paying his workers enough that they could afford to purchase the cars they made. That kind of thinking runs counter to corporate group-think in which greed sought ever lower labor costs by first relocating entire industries within the US and eventually overseas, domestic sub-contracting or mass hiring of undocumented aliens.

In service industries, consumers react with resentment if there are barriers to communication such as multilayered automated phone trees or live people who nominally "speak English" but don't fully understand the caller's situational context or conversational idioms.

But is business ready to rethink outsourcing manufacturing? Not everyone here is suited to wear suits and killing off blue collar jobs ultimately depletes the capacity of American workers as consumers.


Audio Embed: CBS Radio's Osgood File 7/2/10.

Renewal

"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer."
-- American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald... The Great Gatsby (1925)