The video to send to John McCain on Nov. 5th

Red State Update

The comedy duo Travis and Jonathan at YouTube has taken the notion of blue state vs. red state politics to a level of comedy heretofore unseen on YT with their show "RED STATE UPDATE". Claimed to be shot in Los Angeles, the two hosts are from Murfreesboro and Huntland, Tennessee, in deep south territory. Their beer drinking, on-screen political antics have been delighting viewers for about a year.

Before you dismiss their show as a fluke, or a neer-do-well Jeff Foxworthy ripoff, I implore you to stay tuned. These two are producing some biting political satire at it's best, and their weekly comedy show has traveled from the Iowa Caucus to the debates, and comments on all things in the political realm have been drawing a large audience.

Here is their latest video, a farewell to Joe Biden & Chris Dodd, as a music video:



And here is a atypical episode of theirs where they discuss Hillary & McCain Winning in New Hampshire:



I like these guys a lot. They spoof red-state politics with sophistication that's just under the radar.

-zen

Comedy: Marcus Bridgstock - Religion

I have no beef with the search for spiritual truth and if someone can happily accomplish that within the confines of an organized religion that is just fine with me. Religious fundamentalism, however, is the enemy of mankind. It is spiritual death bringing physical suffering to the world behind a mask of love and compassion. It is McDonalds religion that fills people up with tasty comfort food and makes them feel good to eat but it is full of fattening, artery clogging crap for the soul.

Marcus Bridgestock is an English comedian who has done one of the most pointed and amusing rants against the fundimentalist, fanatical face of religion, I have ever heard. He points specifically at the 3 religions that come from Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Comedy: Jon Ligon - Ha Ha Ha America

I haven't found much out so far about the creator of this video beyond his name but the video itself has been a viral hit and it has recently been featured in the Sundance film festival. It is an in your face, sarcastic satire that depicts China bragging, quite obnoxiously and with witty translation "errors" about how America is now number 2 next to China as a dominant world power.

An interesting side note: Sundance was hosting the video on their website for a while and nearly every search engine hit for the video links to the Sundance page but now they all lead to a page that has the movie thumbnail, but tells you the festival is over and "come back next year." I'm sure they were coordinating the online part with the real festival and there may be some licensing issues but it just seems counter productive to me on all counts, both for filmmakers and Sundance alike, to shut the online part down when the real festival ends rather than keeping it as an archive of Sundance films. Have these people been paying attention to the YouTube phenomenon at all? What filmmaker wouldn't want his video featured as part of the Sundance archives? What organization wouldn't want people perpetually visiting them from links all over the web and then staying to watch more?

You can also see a higher quality version as one full length video at the Atom Films Page where the producer will get paid if you watch it (because it has a commercial at the start). I would have posted that version here but their embeddable videos are basically just a trailer that forces you to go to their site if you want the whole thing. I would rather leave that decision up to you like everyone else in the web video world does.