Seesmic - John Cleese interview

John Cleese (part 2): Obama, Biden & Fox News

Seesmic is an international web video site that asks everyone to become part of the conversation with their own webcams. See their introductory video at the link for details.

John Cleese has created a profile there and voiced his thoughts on the US elections from a European perspective.

Blumenthal documentary on Palin

From Andrew Sullivan's blog: "A chilling video from Wasilla by Max Blumenthal that helps explain more deeply how Palin is a product of some of the most extreme forms of Christianism that exist."

Blogger interrupted: The McCain-Palin Mob

Blogger interrupted brings us this very simple and effective video that simply asks questions of McCain/Palin supporters. At least one of them, the blond lady pictured on the video thumbnail, gets very confrontational without really making much of a case for herself.

And here's part 2:

Clueless

Wow. Just, wow. No wonder McCain wants to postpone the debates.

Part 1:




UPDATE(from Plisko):

This video best sums up what I heard when I saw Palin's explanation about why being able to see Russia gave her foreign policy experience.



The original answer can be found here:

The Bush Doctrine - Who said it first?

I have revised this to include additional information sent to me in email and on my other blog. Go forth and multiply it in email.

=======================================================



All of the conservative pundits are spinning Sarah Palin's Lack of knowledge concerning "The Bush Doctrine" by dismissing it as a term used by the media to describe the policies of George W. Bush, rather than a term the whitehouse used for describing said policies. Because Palin doesn't follow the "liberal media" asking her this was a trick question.

Now it might be true that on June 4, 2001, Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase "Bush Doctrine" in an issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism." It's important to note that The Weekly Standard is a "neoconservative op-ed magazine", so they're preaching from the Bush choir. The magazine was founded by William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the literal godparents of modern neo-conservatism that Bush exudes. The point being, the term was born in the neocon media, not the liberal media, and was quickly adopted by the Bush Whitehouse.

But from whitehouse.gov we can see many uses of the term "Bush Doctrine" in the last 7 years, showing it's not a term used exclusively by the media:

October 23, 2001:

VICE-PRESIDENT CHENEY: Under the Bush Doctrine, a regime that harbors or supports terrorists will be regarded as hostile to the United States of America.

November 9, 2001:

Q: Ari, the President said this morning that he was going to, tomorrow at the United Nations, say that the time for condolences is over, it's a time for action. What action is he not seeing that he would like to see?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, in the speech tomorrow at the United Nations, the President is going to thank the United Nations for its strong support, and he will praise the role played by the Secretary General of the United Nations and he will talk to rally the world on behalf of the cause of freedom. And I think what you can expect tomorrow is a fuller explanation of the Bush Doctrine in which those who harbor terrorists will also be held accountable for their actions, just as guilty as the terrorists.

June 26, 2002:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Under the Bush doctrine I said we'd use all resources, all available resources to fight off terror. And that includes working with our friends and allies to cut off money, to use diplomatic pressure, to convince -- to convince those that think they can traffick in terror that they're going to face a mighty coalition. And sometimes we use military force and sometimes we won't.

=======================================================

These are all references from the whitehouse.gov website, so you can hardly call them biased, they come directly from the source.

But to act like this term existed in a vacuum only in the media, and that the whitehouse never used it or adopted it as a namesake is completely false. Krauthammer simply penned into words a descriptive term to name the policy put into place by Bush, another word for a "policy" is a "doctrine". It's been used numerous times by the oval office and in whtehouse press conferences to describe Bush's foreign policy.

So to all those pundits and their news watching followers who keep harping that this was some sort of a trick question to ask Palin, you can now sit down and move on to the next piece of fiction to get outraged about.

-zen

The Creation Adventure Team

With all the talk surrounding Sarah Palin's former church and their adherence to creationist "young Earth theory" that says "man walked with the dinosaurs" led to me re-watch Jesus Camp again this week.
Surprisingly, the Palin/McCain rally I attended last week was held in Lee's Summit, Mo. At the time I didn't realize that it was the same town where Rev. Becky Fischer ran her Children's Bible School in Jesus Camp.

Scanning through that video, I remembered a children's show/cartoon that a child named Levi is watching which was debunking evolution to kids, albeit with puppets and humor.

Well, some more searching this morning led to me finding that cartoon on YouTube. Sorry for the video quality (not my file), but it's fairly horrifying to think these videos are being produced and marketed to Creationist parents to brainwash their kids into their belief structure. Terrifying stuff.



After you watch the above video come by and see my interview with the two filmmakers in 2006 (Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing) to talk to them about their film.

HeartBeat

Sarah Palin is a heartbeat from the presidency.

I couldn't let plisko have all the fun editing his own political ads, now could I?



This was an interesting project artistically, in that it was the first edit I ever did with video I downloaded as FLV (flash) which was then converted to MPG, then edited.

It gives it an otherworldly look in parts and makes the footage look older than it really is, like it was edited 20 years ago. I also zoom in on some clips, making the faces more pronounced, or granier.

I remember an old technique in the 3/4 and VHS tape days was to make a copy of a copy of your footage over and over, this would degrade the image to the point of it being vaguely recognizable. Fun stuff. I might work on this some more.

Palin: Set... Match... Point

IMHO, McCain made the best VP choice since Ross Perot chose Admiral James Stockdale. Comedically speaking.

The VP debates should be hilarious.