Category: Video
We Have to Rely on Jon Stewart for Real Financial Journalism?
Here he notes that the big banks made their obscene profits, which justified their obscene bonuses, made their profits by taking their TARP money by lending it back to the government.
They borrowed at an interest rate lower than that of US treasurys, and then bought treasuries, and pocketed the difference.
Why do I have to listen to a comedian to get real financial news.
I love me that Jon Stewart, particularly his comment that, “Our government is the worst loan shark in history,” but I am really pissed off that he is the only one out in cable teevee land who is explaining this in the mass media.
Jon Stewart on Miers/Kagan Comparisons
Jon Stewart nails the Harriet Miers/Elana Kagan comparison, and the whole Republican party, likening them to sleazy New Jersey used car dealers.
Release the Kagan, heh.
Idiocracy Was a Documentary
Idiocracy writ small
Yes, this an actual campaign ad in which a candidate is lambasted for believing in the independently observed fact that is evolution.
It’s actually a little more complex, because it’s an ad for a Republican primary, and intelligence and fact count for very little in that world.
Additionally, it may be the Alabama Education Association, the state branch of the NEA union, that is running the ad.
The AEA has had a number of long running battles with the candidate, Bradley Byrne, most prominently over his attempts to ban community college employees from holding public office.
Whether or not it’s the AEA funding this, the point is that they (probably correctly) see a person who understands the scientific method and proof as being vulnerable if this is exposed to the Republican party base.
It’s probably true, and it’s very sad.
We Have a Sh%$ty Boat
John Stewart asks the right question, why, if these are “perfect storms,” do they happen every few weeks?
I’d Call For Barack Obama to Fire Eric Holder, but
Obama would only replace him with someone even more hostile to the idea of the rule of law in the pursuit of terrorism cases.*
Money quote:
GREGORY: So, let me– let me unpack that a little bit. What you’d like to see happen is that Congress would pass a law that would say to judges, “Hey, look, in this environment, if we extract information that could be valuable intelligence about another terror plot, about who they’re involved in. Whether they’re connected to the Pakistani Taliban. We want to get all that without them lawyering up and still be able to use that against them in a court of law.” And you need more flexibility to do that, you think?
HOLDER: Yeah, we certainly need more flexibility. And we want the public safety exception to be consistent with– the public safety concerns that we now have in the 21st Century, as opposed to the public safety concerns that we had back in the 1980s.
GREGORY: So, that’s news. I mean, that’s an important development. Would you work with Congress to try to get that new law passed?
HOLDER: Yeah, we want to work with Congress to come up with a way in which we make our public safety exception more flexible. And again, more consistent with the threat– that we face. And yes, this is in fact the big news. This is a proposal that– we’re gonna be making and that we want to work– with Congress about.
GREGORY: So, a new priority for the administration.
HOLDER: It is a new priority.
It’s clear that Barack Obama has made a purely political decision to ape the worst aspects of the Bush administration, because he thinks that it will defuse criticism from the right, which it clearly hasn’t anyway.
This is venal, craven, and just plain un-American, as well as being stupid, because it does not work from a political perspective.
Would that we had some Democrats who were not a bunch of cowards.
H/t Crooks and Liars
*But remember, the Cossacks work for the Czar.
Bad Day at the Office
Landing an aircraft with an engine gone is one thing, but with a wing gone?
That’s what IAF pilot Tsvi Nedivi did, and he managed to land it safely.
Note that the live footage seems to be studio tricks, but the pilot’s account is compelling.
Best Baby Announcement Evah!
This is better than when I used Karaoke, and the song, “You’re having my baby,” to announce that Sharon was preggers with Natalie.
The Muppets Go Classical
Ode to Joy
Jon Stewart Makes a Very Good Point
See profiling comment at 4:20
As always.
Actually, he makes a number of them, with the big one being, “What are we going to do in this country when we get attacked by someone who’s not one of the Home Alone burgers?”
But there is the little point that he makes that I find far more trenchant.
He runs an ad put out by a Teabagger candidate running against Alan Grayson, Dan Fanelli, talking about profiling terrorists, and brings out two men, one swarthy and bearded, and one white and old, which asks “Where’s Waldo” which one is the terrorist?
This leads the doyenne of late night news to ask the question himself, “Which one? Doctor Kevorkian on the left, or the cast member from The Jersey Shore on the right?”
Stewart’s answer is that the terrorist who flew his plane into the IRS building in Texas looked an awful lot like Congressman wannabe Fanelli.
When Glenn Beck is More Reasonable than You…
Bummer of a birth mark, little Johnny
It’s game over, dude.
In this case, it’s John McCain, who is suggesting that mirandizing the alleged Times Square bomber is somehow evil and wrong, and Glenn Beck, yes, Glen Beck, who is suggesting that we need not shred the Constitution, and give American citizens their constitutional due.
So John McCain is being called a demagogue, by the tag team by Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck.
Click for full size
This is one big shark that he jumped.
With Frikken
Lasers!Jumping C. Megalodon*
*The largest shark, and likely largest predator fish ever. It died out some 1.5 million years ago. The Genus is still in dispute, between either Carcharodon (Great White) or Carcharocles (broad toothed Mako). But in either case, you are jumping C. Megalodon, you have jumped the biggest shark ever.
PAK-FA/T-50 Video and Photo Pr0n
Click for full size
This shot shows that the fan face is visible.
(Note, full size pic is humongous)
Detail of inlet
A variable geometry radar blocking technology.
Russian with subtitles
A useful PowerPoint from public sources
In terms of the development of the aircraft, it appears that both the Salut and United Engine Corp. (UEC) will work jointly to develop the a 2ndproduction engine for the aircraft, (paid subscription required) in addition to the engine being developed by Saturn, the prototype is flying with a variant of Saturn’s AL-31-F.
This indicates I think that the Russians are placing a lot of importance on the timely service entry of this aircraft, and I think is a far more sensible course of action than the jihad the Pentagon has had against the F136 alternate engine for the JSF, which may lower development costs in the near term, but almost certainly raises costs, and risks in the longer term.
As to stealth, it’s clear from the top two pictures that the engine fan face is clearly visible from a fairly wide (15°+) angle, which implies that some sort of radar blocker must be present. (H/t whoever posted them online)
If you look at the first video (3rd item on right), it looks like they may have a variable geometry radar blocker, which would provide a helical path for air, and signal, under some circumstances, non-maneuvering subsonic CAP, for example, and would provide a straight path when more airflow is desired, such as during a dogfight or supercruise.
Additionally, the bottom video lets drop an interesting manufacturing technology at about 2:25.
The fixtures for composite construction that that they are using have a very different philosophy than those used with US aircraft.
With US aircraft, Invar, which has a low coefficient of expansion, is used, where the Russians are going with tooling that is made from the same composite that is used on the airframe, so it will expand and contract with the underlying structure during the autoclaving process.
I just find this interesting as an engineer.
H/t Bill Sweetman for both vids.
Finally, there is a PowerPoint, h/t Stephen Trimble, which assembles most of the publicly available data on the PAK-FA, and serves to paint a rather more complete picture of the program and its capabilities.
And the Tanker Saga Continues………
It’s official
There was much hemming and hawing, but the Pentagon offered a 60 day extension for EADS to make the the bid, which will will slip the award of the contract to some time next year and French President Nicolas “Bling Bling” Sarkozy leaned on them to make the bid, so EADS moved forward.
They have entered into entered into negotiations with L-3 as a key supplier, which is basically a way for them to put a bit of a US front on the program tanker.
So, EADS has decided to go it alone, without a US partner, and bid for the contract.
I think that a lot of this is really about maintaining a presence, so as to keep lines of communication open with the members of Congress and the Pentagon staff for future bids, but as Stephen Trimble notes, they do seem to be doing their best to play to win, as evidenced by the talking points they are sending out to Congress, which are a harsh slam of Boeing, noting the fact that their plane is flying, and works, while Boeing’s proposal is not flying, and that the 767 tankers sold to the Italians and Japanese still have issues with their hose and drogue systems.
Because the new contract gives very little in the way of credit for exceeding the basic requirements, this means that their best chance to win this is to show that Boeing cannot be expected to fulfill a contract on time and on budget.
Considering Boeing’s record, this is probably true, but considering EADS’ record **cough** A400M **cough**, it is also true for them.
Who Supports the Teabaggers?
These colors don’t run!
Why, the Crayola® company, of course.
Wanker of the Day:
Reliably spouting right wing talking points since 2004
Barack Obama.
For claiming that there were no oil spills from platforms and as a result of Hurricane Katrina:
I don’t agree with the notion that we shouldn’t do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn’t come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore.
The problem here, as the folks at Media Matters so ably note, this is false. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil and distillates were spilled offshore as a consequence of hurricane Katrina.
It’s not true, it’s never been true, and he’s a smart guy, and he knows this.
Rachael Maddow Eviscerates Anti-Immigration Group
I saw this last night, and now the video is out.
I am a hardliner on immigration. I think that the immigration laws should be aggressively enforced, that border controls should be strengthened, and that oft-abused visa programs (H1b, L1) should be fixed.
I also believe that the focus should be on the employers, because if the cost of employing illegals exceeds that of legal hiring, then it will stop. (My proposals are here.)
Unfortunately, most of the political groups out there, aside from labor unions, that want a hard line taken, are populated by racist nativists.
Case in point is Ms. Maddow’s masterful take-down of the crypto-racists at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). She runs down its history, and then interviews its president, Dan Stein.
He is left an oily smudge on the floor.
Just watch it, it is 19 minutes and 33 seconds well spent.
Jon Stewart:12 – Steve Jobs:0
Brutal!
The interesting thing here is that it’s actually pretty clear that Jon Stewart is a big fan huge fanboi of Apple® Computer and its products, and his take-down of Apple’s actions in the Gismodo iPhone prototype case is even more brutal because of it:
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one. But now you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto, while commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes. What the f**k is going on? It is all mixed up. I don’t know which end is up anymore. Black is white. Cats are dogs.
His point is that a large part of the appeal of products from Apple® is that it is, in some manner, sticking it to the man, and that now they are the man.
He also notes that in its corporate paranoia, Apple® ignores the real threats to its products:
I mean, if you wanna break down someone’s door, why don’t you start with AT&T, for God sakes? They make your amazing phone unusable as a phone! I mean, seriously! How do you drop four calls in a one-mile stretch of the West Side Highway! There’re no buildings around! What, does the open space confuse AT&T’s signal?!
Brutal, particularly when he invokes Apple®‘s iconic 1984 ad.
The Meth Lab of Democracy
You know, maybe legislators should engage in a mental exorcise known as a Jon Stewart test
Arizona, of course, Stewart makes the comment about 1 minute in.
As Wyatt Cenac notes, the authorities are just looking for suspicious behavior, like, “Gardening or burping white people’s babies.”
I so want one of his writers as a speech writer if I ever run for office.
Stephen Colbert Answers the Question
The W0rd is: Straight to Video
You see, the teabaggers are accusing of Lindsey Graham of making nice with the Democrats because he is being blackmailed because he’s gay.
Colbert’s solution, Lindsey Graham needs to release a heterosexual sex tape.
It’s a reasonable suggestion, but I’m not sure that making such a tape is even remotely possible.
Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker Assembly Video
Some things are universal, like cheesy music on defense videos
Here is some pretty nice video pr0n.